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UFOs During The Falklands War

SimonBurchell

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I'm currently reading Defendámonos de los Dioses (Defend Ourselves Against the Gods) by former Spanish Jesuit Salvador Freixedo, an interesting book with a Vallée-esquean approach, somewhat rambling and paranoid, when I came upon a very brief reference near the end (p242):

"Los habituales avistamientos de ovnis en las grandes catástrofes (...) y en las guerras (en la de las Malvinas hubo una inusitada actividad ovni (...)"

"The habitual sightings of UFOs during great catastrophes (...) and during wars (during that of the Falklands there was unusual UFO activity (...)"

Has anyone come across Falklands War UFO reports? Given that Freixedo writes in Spanish, I assumed these were Argentinian reports, and found the following article, which is quite interesting (sorry, it's in Spanish):

https://www.ellitoral.com.ar/corrientes/2018-4-14-4-0-0-ovnis-durante-la-guerra-de-malvinas
 
Here is my quick, unpolished translation of the above-linked article.

UFOS during the Falklands War

In the majority of armed conflicts in the world, unidentified strange luminous objects have been seen in the skies of battlefields. This happened is the Second World War, in Iraq, in Vietnam, the Gulf War and also during the Falklands War. Very close to there, Río Gallegos was the scene of little-known strange events that really happened.

During the Second World War, strange luminous objects were observed following combat aircraft, especially during the Battle of Britain, closing for moments, as if they wanted to see what was happening close up, they were not-very-big spheres that, on occasion, crossed the cockpits of the planes. They were called Foo Fighters (ghost fighters) and the Allies thought that they were secret German weapons, and they in turn, thought the same, that they belonged to the enemy. But they did not belong to either side, this was proven when the conflict ended and that is how things were was left. The same happened in other wars at a worldwide level, they were there, observing what was happening from afar.

The Falkland Islands were no exception, during the armed conflict with the English in 1982, in the first days of combat, strange flying objects were seen, that moved slowly, flying not very high, by the islands, over the sea. This news was published by the newspaper Crónica in a box of a few lines, without giving it much importance.

But the most striking was the testimony of a soldier, taken in an exclusive by the Entre Ríos investigator Silvia Pérez Simondini, in around March 2006, concealing the true name of the soldier, for security reasons. She called him simply “Román” and being face to face with him, his authentic emotion when recalling the events, left no doubt about the truth of his striking account. “Between the 4th and 10th of April of 1982”, related the soldier, “We were undertaking a survey and providing security on the El Cóndor estate, in Río Gallegos, whose owner is Benetton, of the famous brand of pullovers, on Route 3 and measuring about four hectares more or less, and we were on alert because of the Falklands conflict.

At roughly 3 in the morning, we were sleeping on the watch, when we felt loud banging on the door, from the soldier outside on sentry duty, banging desperately, as if he had seen a monster or something. When we opened the door, a very strong light practically blinded us, like the lights of a football stadium, very strong and white. There was a lot of wind and it was snowing, but in the circle made by that light, there was no snow and the weather was apparently mild, in complete silence.

The other two soldiers that were outside, were engrossed looking at the sky, where there was a gigantic ship, with lights, it was oval and the lights came from the sides. Those (soldiers) inside went running out and we all stood looking at it for about 15 minutes. It did not frighten us, we felt a kind of peace and calm. At a certain moment, it made a very gentle movement and disappeared between the hills at great velocity in a few seconds, the wind and the snow returned. That was surprising to us. We stood looking at each other, as if frightened, but we kept quiet about what we had experienced.”

A Spectacular Event

“The following morning”, continues the account, “an army helicopter appeared with military personnel and they did not appear Argentinian, I thought they were Americans, they gathered us all together and then they took us to a room of the Mechanised Infantry Regiment 24, where they took away all our weapons and equipment that we had, leaving us only with T-shirts, work trousers and boots without laces. After an hour and a half they took us to another room, to one side, a little bit bigger and they started to tell to us that what we had seen could have been a new British weapon or something like that. That did not agree with what we thought, we believed that it was something unnatural, that was not from Earth, but they prohibited us from talking about it. Afterwards they took us to a bigger place, like a shed, where we met a larger group of NCOs and soldiers.

Among them was a sergeant that I had met previously, I recognised him by sight and had had a few short conversations with him. He was a very energetic and tough man, mature in his decision-making. When I saw him, he was completely broken, as if lost, I went up to him and asked him what had happened to them. It turned out that when we saw the ship flying over the hills, it followed Route 3, they saw the light come over them and blind them, in a second they closed their eyes and when they opened them they were 3km away, all the soldiers scattered on the ground, as if they had been violently shaken. Imagine, everyone in an army lorry, sat in the back and suddenly they appear, after seeing the light, thrown in the middle of a field. The soldiers disappeared for a few seconds.

There were two lorries and one YPF (oil company) lorry, that also appeared 3km away, with its driver in a state of shock. They had gone through a different experience from ours, much more shocking. They were also told not to say anything. After that, the Army Command divided us into different places during the Falklands Conflict. Those of us who witnessed this incredible experience never saw each other again. We do not know who survived and who died. I am telling this on 14th January 2006, because I decided to talk about it to investigators, people who know about the subject and it will help me to share this, which was a real event. There are things that happen in the world that are concealed, because of fear or ignorance. It is time to relate them, not carry on hiding them because of who knows what dark interests. Many thanks.”

This is the tremendous testimony of a Falklands soldier, who not only survived the calamity of war, but also the fact that he could not even relate the incredible experience that these Argentinian soldiers lived through and that they had to bear and not speak of it, but that today, thanks to the courage of this ex-combatant, we can share, as was his wish.
 
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It occurs to me that war zone sightings of UFOs might be an opportunity to learn something about the cultural aspect of these kinds of weird phenomena - the way entity/craft descriptions seem to reflect pop culture expectations, and the prevalence of chupacabra encounters among Spanish-speaking cultures, for examples. You may have people from very different cultures - who may have had no prior contact with the culture of their enemy - witnessing the same event.

It'd be interesting to hear if, say, a US serviceman and a member of the Taliban or Vietcong give the same description of something in the sky both had seen. Or if one side reported seeing nothing when they should have been in a position to witness something the other side did see.

I can't imagine there are many reports that have accounts corroborated by the opposing side like this though.
 
One of the rarer non-extraterrestrial hypotheses regarding such battlefield (or conflict/watershed-related) context sightings has always whispered its potential veracity to me, the proposition that these are somehow the semi-tangible traces emitted by remote viewers (or physical visitors) from our own future.

Setting aside the circular distractions of time paradoxes and timeline alterations, there is a deep persuasive sense in such an insider interpretation possibly being true.

I shan't derail or monopolise this thread expounding further with my metasacreligeous heresy, but shall search the forum in the colder light of day for a more-appropriate pre-extant place for me to paint my postulation (I'm not really myself just now...due to various IRL slings&arrows, but: I was keen to evince-up this lodestone before I forgot it atwixt my own storms)
 
I went hunting the mentioned box in the Crónica newspaper and found this:

https://www.cronica.com.ar/suplemen...na-que-te-van-a-sorprender-20181223-0008.html

Of interest here is number 10:

10) LA OJEADA DE 1982 (MALVINAS)
En el Archivo Nacional del Reino Unido se puede encontrar un expediente titulado: “Newly released files go behind the scenes of the 'UFO Desk'” del 12 de julio de 2012, dedicada a documentos sobre política en materia OVNI, preguntas parlamentarias, correspondencia pública e informes de avistamiento, cuyos originales fueron liberados por los Archivos Nacionales en julio de 2012. En esa página bajo el título “Further highlights” (otros puntos destacados) se puede encontrar un memo de 1982 en el que se señala una pico en el número de avistamientos de OVNIs desde el comienzo de la Guerra de las Malvinas. "Un gran número de OVNIs han sido vistos en las proximidades de la Fuerza de Tarea”.
10) The 1982 Wave (Falkland Islands)

In the National Archive of the United Kingdom can be found a record titled: "Newly released files go behind the scenes of the 'UFO Desk'" from 12 July 2012, dedicated to documents on policy in UFO material, parliamentary questions, public correspondence and sighting reports, whose originals were released from the National Archives in July 2012. On that page under the title "Further highlights" can be found a memo from 1982 that indicated a peak in the number of UFO sightings since the beginning of the Falklands War. "A great number of UFOs have been seen in the proximity of the Taskforce".


Not much, but something...
 
...the Falklands War. "A great number of UFOs have been seen in the proximity of the Taskforce".

Oddly, my copy of:

s-l300.jpg


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Falklands-...r&qid=1615389558&sprefix=falkl,aps,164&sr=8-4

... seems to omit any mention of UFOs.

l must have bought the censored edition.

maximus otter
 
A bit more about UFOs seen off the Falklands during the war, in an article dating from 31/03/2019:

Casos sobrenaturales en la guerra de Malvinas

Only one paragraph is relevant, the rest being a bunch of fortuitous events attributed to the Virgin Mary:

Casos sobrenaturales en la guerra de Malvinas

Por Francisco Villagrán

Especial para El Litoral

Poco antes del inicio de las acciones bélicas en Malvinas, unos extraños objetos luminosos de regulares dimensiones, dos para ser más precisos, fueron vistos desde la costa hacia mar adentro, a una altitud estimada en mil metros, fueron considerados como aviones espías de los ingleses, pero no eran eso. Ante el asombro de muchos de los soldados y oficiales, los aparatos se detuvieron y quedaron quietos, suspendidos en el aire, como observando el panorama, unos dos minutos más o menos, luego de lo cual se elevaron verticalmente y a gran velocidad desaparecieron en el cielo. Esto fue comentado en un pequeño recuadro por el diario “Crónica” en su momento, como una cosa curiosa, que no tenía explicación, un hecho sorprendente, que quedó en el olvido como una simple anécdota. También los soldados que estaban en el continente tuvieron raras experiencias, contactos y abducciones momentáneas, que luego fueron censuradas por las propias autoridades militares que prácticamente prohibieron a los soldados hablar de estos temas.

Shortly before the start of hostilities in the Falklands, some strange luminous objects of regular proportions, two to be more precise, were seen out to sea from the shore, at an altitude of a thousand metres, they were considered to be British spy planes, but they were not. To the surprise of soldiers and officers, the machines stopped and kept still, suspended in the air, as if they were observing the view, for two minutes, more or less, after which they climbed vertically at a great speed and disappeared in the sky. This was related in a small box in the Crónica newspaper at the time, as a curiosity that had no explanation, a surprising event that was forgotten as a simple anecdote. Also, soldiers that were on the mainland had strange experiences, contacts and momentary abductions, that were then censored by the military authorities that practically prohibited that the soldiers talk about these subjects.

The mainland experiences alluded to at the end of the paragraph are most likely the accounts I translated above.
 
Another snippet, it doesn't really add anything new, but may be where the BBC story originated:

National Archives (see page 2)

A 1982 memo notes a fall in numbers of UFO sightings since the beginning of the Falklands War but notes “large numbers of UFOs have been seen in the vicinity of the Task Force – presumably Little Green Men in ponchos.”
 
A bit more about UFOs seen off the Falklands during the war, in an article dating from 31/03/2019:

Casos sobrenaturales en la guerra de Malvinas

Only one paragraph is relevant, the rest being a bunch of fortuitous events attributed to the Virgin Mary:



Shortly before the start of hostilities in the Falklands, some strange luminous objects of regular proportions, two to be more precise, were seen out to sea from the shore, at an altitude of a thousand metres, they were considered to be British spy planes, but they were not. To the surprise of soldiers and officers, the machines stopped and kept still, suspended in the air, as if they were observing the view, for two minutes, more or less, after which they climbed vertically at a great speed and disappeared in the sky. This was related in a small box in the Crónica newspaper at the time, as a curiosity that had no explanation, a surprising event that was forgotten as a simple anecdote. Also, soldiers that were on the mainland had strange experiences, contacts and momentary abductions, that were then censored by the military authorities that practically prohibited that the soldiers talk about these subjects.

The mainland experiences alluded to at the end of the paragraph are most likely the accounts I translated above.
So what led the observers to believe that these were NOT British spy planes? Apart from the fact that they didn't look like any spy planes of which the Argentinians had knowledge. they behave as spy planes may have been expected to, by hovering and 'observing the view'. Are there any articles that consider that this may have been technology of earthly origin?
 
So what led the observers to believe that these were NOT British spy planes? Apart from the fact that they didn't look like any spy planes of which the Argentinians had knowledge. they behave as spy planes may have been expected to, by hovering and 'observing the view'. Are there any articles that consider that this may have been technology of earthly origin?
There's not an awful lot of information I've been able to scrape together, in any language. As I find more, I'll post here with translations (I can translate Spanish and Portuguese, anything else will have to be a machine translation).
 
Yes - but I don't trust machine translations - they can be wildly wrong!
Google Translate is showing me a pretty good translation that seems grammatically correct.
 
So what led the observers to believe that these were NOT British spy planes? Apart from the fact that they didn't look like any spy planes of which the Argentinians had knowledge. they behave as spy planes may have been expected to, by hovering and 'observing the view'. Are there any articles that consider that this may have been technology of earthly origin?
Although the US remained diplomatically neutral during the Falklands they were not neutral in terms of intelligence sharing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

...and were even prepared to help militarily if required:

https://news.usni.org/2012/06/27/reagan-readied-us-warship-82-falklands-war-0

If they were of earthly origin. my money is on US spy technology
 
This is somewhat off thread but in his novel Los Pichiciegos (published in English as Malvinas Requiem) the gloriously named Rodolfo Fogwill mentions Argentinian conscripts during the Falklands conflict being terrified by stories of ghostly flying nuns (yup).

Fogwill started writing the novel before the conflict had finished, and the flying nuns are more than likely a product of the heroic levels of alcohol and cocaine that supposedly sustained the six day writing binge that resulted in its creation - but I'm kind of fascinated by the relationship between armed conflict and stories of the paranormal, and have often wondered if he might have been referencing tales and rumours that had made their way back to him from the islands.

Fogwill didn't serve, although being an argumentative writer with left-wing credentials life was probably not far off as lethal for him during all the years of the Junta as it would be for a conscript during the relatively short period of the war.

An interesting character, with quite an interesting life - he worked for a time in advertising and was once jailed by the Junta for (allegedly) sending subliminal messages to left wing groups via a TV advert he had produced.

Edit: Actually, I suppose a flying nun would qualify as a UFO - until you got close enough to see that it was a nun.

 
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This is somewhat off thread but in his novel Los Pichiciegos (published in English as Malvinas Requiem) the gloriously name Rodolfo Fogwill mentions Argentinian conscripts during the Falklands conflict being terrified by stories of ghostly flying nuns…


l seem to remember a tale from the Vietnam War, of US soldiers seeing a winged woman in black/black woman flying over their position one night.

Perhaps there’s something about the stress of combat that induces such visions in men?

maximus otter

Page 14 here, courtesy of @EnolaGaia

m.o.
 
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The paranormal researcher and wrier Nick Redfern believes the UK military possessed a battlefield hologram capability at the time of the 1980 Rendlesham affair:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rendlesham-Forest-UFO-Conspiracy-Government/dp/1945962283

Perhaps the Special Forces we know the UK had operating on the ground during the Argentine occupation of the islands were able to project an image that would terrify the Catholic soldiers...?
 
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