Near the end of the 20th century, human abducting, cattle mutilating, Grey aliens flying sport-model saucers dominated the popular UFO narrative. However, there are reports that differ greatly from such accounts that offer insight into what might be an even stranger phenomenon. In the September 12, 1999, edition of the Trenque Lauquen paper, La Opinión, there is an article (page 16 of the pdf) headlined “Extraterrestrial Encounter?” It tells the tale, mostly in the words of the witness, Carlos Colón, a resident of Trenque Lauquen, who said he had a strange encounter on August 25th. During a follow-up investigation by a Spanish UFOlogist almost 20 years later, Colón shared details of the aftereffects of his encounter which he had formerly chosen not to share with the press and other investigators.
According to the article, Colón was “a well-known mechanic of agricultural machinery” and often travelled on the roads around Trenque Lauquen in his pickup truck. He had originally wanted to keep his story to himself and was still concerned that he wouldn’t be taken seriously.
According to Colón, he was on National Route 5 at 4:30 p.m. returning from the ranch of a friend. He was listening to music on the radio and it started making a humming noise that he thought might be due to the failure of his alternator. As he was checking his radio, some movement on the shoulder of the road caught his attention, and he looked up and saw “five figures that looked like people.”
He realized there was something strange about them, and he described them this way: “When I take a better look I see they were all white but as if they were inside a screen, like a projection…” They came closer and closer until they were about 20 meters away. They then came together, moved “something like hands,” and “the screen becomes smaller in the shape of a cone that lifts up…” He said, “I saw no feet since they moved in a sliding motion.” He explained that he couldn’t give a better description “because I was so scared, it’s difficult for me to retain the image.”
According to him, something “like a big light” came down and he found himself looking up at “the figures as if they were behind a frosty window.” He heard music and realized it was coming from his truck, which was on the road, while he was standing next to a fence with no idea how he got there. He went back to the truck and noted that the humming noise was gone.
He continued home, but stopped to get his blood pressure checked, as he had had trouble with it “some years ago.” He said it was fine, “but a bad sensation remained in my body like uneasiness and anguish because I can’t know what happened, and you think you’re crazy.”
Colón described the beings as looking like very tall humans (almost 2 meters) with heads that “looked like an elongated inverted water drop with a very big neck.” He couldn’t make out facial features but noted that there was a black spot in the middle of their heads. He said “they were no more than 20 cm wide, an intense matte white color.”
According to the article, other area residents had reported seeing UFOs and lights and encounters with “presumably non-human beings.” “Several” reports are said to have come from close to where Colón stopped his truck.
Colón went back to the site on his motorcycle the day after his encounter. He told the paper that he found a ticket from the Chevalier company and some coins he had in his pocket and was convinced he had actually been there and hadn’t hallucinated. He said he believed the encounter had lasted between two and seven minutes but that he had had a loss of consciousness from which he recovered when he heard the music from the truck.
In 2018, Spanish UFOlogist Josep Guijarro discovered the case while researching lost time events on National Route 5 involving reports of drivers travelling long distances instantly without any loss of fuel. After contacting Colón, he went to see him in January, 2018, and wrote an article about their meeting headlined “The Humanoids of the National,” posted August 14, 2018, (updated August 23, 2018) on the espaciomisterioso website.
According to Guijarro, he arrived in the city with “social psychologist Miguel Ángel Pumilla, theoretical physicist Marcela Jaroszewicz, and mythology specialist Mario Luis Martín.” In a taxi on the way from the bus station, they asked the driver about Colón and “he had only good things to say.”
They met Colón, then 70, at his company and went to his spacious office where they set up filming equipment. Colón addressed them loudly saying. “The only thing I ask is that you stick to the letter of what I’m going to say; don’t change anything to make it more engaging. This is it.”
Colón then told his story, which was the same as that in La Opinión but with some additional details. He said that as he was looking at the beings, he heard a sound described by Guijarro as “a piercing buzzing sound.” He described the “screen” as transforming into the shape of a bell as the beings “grabbed each other’s shoulders;” turning opaque, dark grey and surrounded by fog; and then dematerializing as he heard a sound like that of a cathode-ray television being turned off. He then realized he was somehow 350 meters away from his truck.
Colón said he ran towards the truck, jumped a fence, and fell into a puddle. Once inside the truck, he began to “feel scared.” He said, “I saw the cars and trucks passing by me, but they were very small, as if they were toys.” It was this that prompted him to get his blood pressure checked as he feared he might have a heart attack at any moment. He added that he was missing some documents and everything he had had in his pockets, which is what he recovered the next day.
After telling his story, Colón broke into tears. He said, “When I got home, I hugged my wife and told her, ‘Old lady, I’m not crazy.’” He then complained about the fact that the beings didn’t bother to help his disabled daughter saying, “If they’re capable of doing things like appearing out of nowhere and dematerializing, they could have also helped her have a normal life.”
Then, Colón shared details of what seem to be aftereffects of the encounter, which he had never done with any previous investigators or the press. He said a friend’s watch stopped working when he touched it, and after experimenting, he found he could stop other timepieces at will. He also found that radios and televisions would shut down when he walked by them.
As he was adjusting to this, he found out from his wife that he had been getting out of bed at 3:00 a.m., seemingly still asleep, walking to the patio, and then standing there. He said, “My wife was crying and wouldn’t tell me what was happening, but in the end she told me that, in addition to remaining motionless in the darkness, she could see a luminescence around my body.”
According to Guijarro, Colón went to get some tests at the Alexander Fleming Institute in Buenos Aires, and it was found that he had developed “an infallible photographic memory.” A doctor there recommended that he not use his new-found abilities “unless it’s a matter of life and death,” and after three years, they disappeared. The article ends with this bit of advice from Colón, “My recommendation is that when someone is traveling in their car and encounters a phenomenon like the one I experienced, it’s best not to get out of the vehicle.”