Ancillary Mercy полностью

Other remarkable water-related sightings were reported off the South American coast. On July 20, 1967, an underwater “UFO” was reported by the Naviero, a ship with the Argentine Shipping Lines Company. The crew saw a shining, self-luminous object in the sea that paced the ship at an extremely close range—no more than fifty feet away starboard. It was cigar-shaped and estimated at 105 to 110 feet in length, emitted a powerful blue and white glow, was completely silent, and did not disturb the water. Was it a submarine, or perhaps a whale? The captain and chief officer decided no, it “could not possibly have been either of these things.” They saw no sign of a periscope, railing, tower, superstructure, or other protruding part. After pacing the ship for fifteen minutes at 15 to 20 knots, the craft suddenly dived and passed beneath the ship and vanished into the depths “at great speed.” Deep beneath the water, it continued to glow brightly. The captain told the Argentine press that he had never seen the like of it.⁵⁵

About three weeks later, on August 8, just after dark, off the Venezuelan coast near Salina, a pastor noticed the water changing to various colors and becoming brighter. A glowing, orange, disc-shaped object then emerged from the sea and hovered at about 1,500 feet for several seconds. The pastor heard a buzzing sound and saw the object disappear quickly. Yet another water-related UFO case occurred in Venezuela on August 25. At 5 P.M. at Catia la Mar, Ruben Norato noticed a disturbance in the sea, then saw three large discs emerge and zoom out of sight.⁵⁶

Reports such as these prompted the Lorenzens to see for themselves what was happening, and on August 11, they left for several destinations in South America. Upon arriving, they discovered, in their words,

more than one government-sponsored agency engaged in an effort to solve the secret of UFO propulsion. Such endeavors, which proceed on the assumption that “flying saucers are real,” could hardly have come into being without a certain amount of preliminary intelligence gathering.⁵⁷

Throughout South America, hundreds of UFO sightings were reported, with many high strangeness cases. In late August and early September, several seemingly reliable witnesses, including a police officer, claimed to see short humanoid creatures who sought to take them to “their world.” All individuals claimed to have successfully refused the offer. Meanwhile, landing and humanoid sightings were being reported worldwide, including the United States and especially the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Soviet Union experienced a major UFO wave during 1967, featuring many cases similar to those being reported in South America, although this fact went unknown for many years. It certainly throws cold water over the notion that these sightings are most easily explained by classified aircraft, an explanation that would be difficult to offer even without the Soviet dimension.⁵⁸

PROBLEMS IN COLORADO

The South American wave was ignored by the American media and the Colorado Project. For the last ten days of August 1967, Robert Low was in Prague at the International Astronomical Union even though a bona fide project astronomer, Frank Roach, was there (Hynek also attended). What was Low doing in Europe? Certainly nothing relating to UFOs. He wasted an opportunity to visit Charles Bowen, the editor of Flying Saucer Review, and Aimé Michel (who received a visit from Bowen at that time). Instead, Low visited Loch Ness, because neither the Loch Ness monster nor UFOs existed, he explained privately. Upon his return to Boulder, Low gave an informal twenty-minute summary about his trip, including almost nothing about the conference itself.⁵⁹

As the new academic year was about to begin, the project obtained a thirdhand report of a UFO sighting at Edwards AFB, said to have occurred on September 1. The route was certainly indirect: a civilian employee at the base saw the report, then mentioned it to a relative, who discussed it with a scientist voluntarily cooperating with the project. According to the story, six UFOs followed an X-15 while it landed. When project members called the base, they “really got the runaround.” After two weeks of phone calls, they learned that no X-15 flew that day. No one, however, would deny a UFO sighting had taken place. Instead, base personnel sidestepped all pertinent questions and stated they had no such report in their files. The case went nowhere.⁶⁰