Years of Mystery

Years of Mystery

Date: September 10, 1990

Location: Alfena, Portugal

The UFO phenomenon has always been a theme of passions due to its mystery that in a more comprehensive way creates a seduction by the theme around it.

Portugal since its beginnings has inexplicable occurrences for which science is a little distant or even with a rational explanation for something inexplicable.

An example of what happened on October 15, 1755, Lisbon was overflown by several unidentified flying sparkling spheres, which seemed to announce the terrible earthquake that had occurred a few days later, more precisely on November 1 of that same year.

Portugal has a large number of anomalous observations, some with a plausible explanation of a natural scientific character, others remain unexplained.

The most studied and documented phenomenon ever, occurred on September 10, 1990 in the municipality of Valongo belonging to the parish of São Vicente de Alfena district of Porto Norte de Portugal.

This case became famous as the Alfena UFO.

The phenomenon occurred on a Monday, around 8:30 a.m., when a group of children who were having fun playing at the marble, were surprised to observe a strange object hovering in the sky at low altitude with a spherical appearance with 4 appendages and a very slow movement with the wind.

It was the children who gave the warning to people close to them who were in the cafe and others who were working in the area who were watching carefully, subduing themselves with astonishment, which would be referred to as an object, which, according to some people, they approached as a concrete mixer, flying kite or vat, where you could see what looked like windows around this object that was about 12' in diameter

With this alarmism, many people witnessed all that happened.

The object moved slowly towards the soccer field, causing fear to Mr. David Silva, guard of the soccer field at the time, who would have been alerted by a neighbor who had witnessed the whole event.

Some people chose to walk away for fear of a strange unknown figure. The children alerted Mr. Manuel Moura, an amateur photographer to observe the strange object, who promptly moves around the house to pick up his camera.

On the way back, Mr. Manuel Moura, still manages to obtain a sequence of 4 photos.

The most intriguing one tells Mr. Manuel that, when he visualized the object, it was going down the landing gear shoes where he made the first photo.

Many witnesses say that the object seemed to be trying to land, but that due to the alarmism and curiosity of the children, adults and the throwing of stones, the object moved away towards Santo Tirso, Passos de Ferreira, being no longer possible for Mr. Manuel, take more than 4 photos due to the speed taken and distance.

In total, the object will have traveled about 1500', with a total duration of 50 minutes.

It was more than 100 witnesses who observed this unidentified flying object, adding people from other nearby locations who accurately reported the observation of the same object.

It immediately became a case of extreme importance by the press that also brought the team of the, CTEC, Transdisciplinary Center for Consciousness Studies at the Fernando Pessoa University, managed by Professor Joaquim Fernandes and Mário Neves, Researcher at the, PUFOI, Portuguese UFO Investigation.

Both investigators questioned and collected the most testimonies from the witnesses who spoke about the phenomenon in a fascinating way for what they would have witnessed.

The photos of Mr. Manuel Moura, were sent to Richar Haines, NASA consultant in order to identify the existing object where he concluded as unknown before the existing artifacts of NASA knowledge.

The photographs of Mr. Manuel Moura, were sent to kodak as well as to Lisbon, Porto, France, Germany and the United States where the results of an exhaustive analysis show how authentic and without any kind of manipulation.

The Institute of Meteorology and Geophysics discards the possibility of being a meteorological balloon, used at the time or earlier, it did not have the same characteristics, due to its appearance or its displacement behavior.

Many entities were interested in this case where the CIA and NORAD themselves were involved in order to cooperate and identify the object according to the CNIFO National Commission for the Investigation of the UFO phenomenon.

In this way, it becomes the best studied and documented UFO case in Portugal and one of the most true worldwide, where the photos in scientific question are considered the best existing on the UFO phenomenon.

It is considered as an authentic UFO, based on the large number of witnesses and photographic evidence.

According to CTEC's analysis, the object in question seems to have a change in its physiognomy, where in the photos it is possible to observe the spherical object that in another image seems to take an ovoid shape when it moves away towards Passos de Ferreira.

The same or similar object would have been observed years before 1954 France, 1973 Mexico 1989 Germany.

After the Alfena incident, other very similar observations occurred, 1992 Brazil, 2004 again in Mexico.

Since 1990, questioning and looking for answers to something that marked the people of Alfena, as well as Portugal, continues for this fantastic observation for which science has never found an explanation and the researchers involved in the various analyzes concluded the object as UFO, which was in 2009, strengthened by Carlos Oliveira, professor of Astrobiology at the North American University in Austin, TX, also concluding this case as a UFO due to never having been able to prove the origin of this object as well as the many witnesses of Alfena and nearby locations report the same object with the same descriptions, people who did not know each other which led to further strengthening as the observation of this UFO is real.

Different version of this story:

This event remains as one of Europe’s unsolved UFO cases. It began at about 8:30 a.m. September 10, 1990, when the first sighting of a spherical, metallic object with legs was made. The object was either moving very slowly, or hovering in the sky at a low altitude.

A group of school children heading to class saw the object first. The youngsters probably imagined they were seeing a strange sort of balloon. Soon, other local residents also spotted the unusual flying object. Some early observers could only liken the object to a turtle with legs.

The object was reflecting the early morning sun, which caused on lookers to surmise the object was made of some type of metal. In a short period of time, as many as 25 witnesses were observing the UFO.

Local residents were surprised and even frightened by the sight of the UFO. Some even tried throwing rocks at the object, in an attempt to shoo it away. Soon 4 pictures would be taken, forever documenting the event for posterity and further study by UFO students.

Manuel Gomes, sitting at a local diner, was soon told of the sightings. He was a photojournalist and worked with the Morning Journal News. He quickly gathered his camera and rushed to the location of the latest reported sighting.

He managed to take 4 photographs of the object. He was unable to identify the object as anything he had seen before. He turned over his report and photographic negatives to the CNIFO research group, who began an investigation into the events of the day.

After about an hour, the unidentified object finally flew away into the horizon, leaving many questions as to its origin and purpose. As researchers began to discuss the sightings, various theories were offered.

The photographs taken by Gomes were examined and found not to have been tampered with. What was seen in the Alfena skies was exactly what was on his photographs. The big mystery was, what was the object?

Of the many theories offered, the most plausible was that the object was some type of observation device, possibly launched by the military. However, the military claimed to have nothing in the air at that time and location.

The case of the Alena, Portugal craft remains unsolved to this day.

| Home | About Us | Directory of Directories | Recent Additions | Top 10 Pages | Stories |