By Charles Lear
In mid December of last year, we wrote about a woman, Irma Rick, in the province of La Pampa in Argentina, who, after seeing a bright light outside her house, suddenly found herself the next morning almost 65 km (40 miles) away sitting on the side of the road in the town of Guatraché with no memory of how she got there. Most of us here in the United States got the news from INEXPLICATA-The Journal of Hispanic UFOlogy. A recent post on the site on February 6 tells of another report out of La Pampa that is just as strange.
The sources are listed as Luis Burgos and the online La Pampa news publication InfoHuella. InfoHuella posted an article and a follow-up covering the story. On February 4, a couple and their adult son were travelling by truck on their way home to the town of Victoria. They were crossing the border between La Pampa province and San Luis province to the east. As they passed under the border arch they saw “many lights.” According to one of the witnesses, “When we saw the lights, the first thing we wondered was if it had to do with Victorica Agricultural School being lit up. We then realized this could not be the case, as we were far away.” Before they could make sense of what they were seeing, they found themselves entering the town of Victorica, 26 kilometers from where they were a moment ago. Their GPS still indicated that they were in their former position but then “zeroed out” within a few blocks.
They didn’t discuss what had just happened to them until the next day. One of them explained, “It was only on the following day that we began to wonder and recall what had happened to us. It was then that we realized how confusing everything was. But we don’t know what it was, or what took place.”
La Pampa has a history of strange goings-on. A case well known in Argentina is the reported 1983 abduction of Julio Platner. His story starts with him leaving the ranch of Antonio Fischer at 7:30 p.m. on August 9 after a day’s work. He got out of his pickup truck to open the gate, and he was hit by a blinding light. He then found himself in a spherical room and sitting in what reminded him of a dentist chair that seemed to be floating. The walls were not smooth and seemed to be covered with a beige fabric.
There were four creatures around him; a male and female in front of him and a male on either side of him. He wasn’t sure if they were wearing uniforms or if it was their skin he was looking at, but they were the same color as the walls. He could, however, clearly make out that they were wearing boots. He described them as being about 1.67 meters tall (5.47 feet) and that they had five-fingered hands. He said he estimated their height based on the height of a friend of his. He was struck by their protruding eyes, which he described as being large, opaque and black.
They drew blood from the crook of his arm, and when he tried to touch the creatures, he was blocked by an invisible force. He was then told to stand up and was able to do so. He went to walk and suddenly found himself in his truck. He turned on the headlights and recognized that he was in an area 19 km away from the gate. Concerned that he’d left the gate open, he felt obligated to drive back and close it. Before leaving, however, he noted that there was a scab on the crook of his arm. As he drove off, he wondered whether he’d had some sort of dream, hallucination, or if what he’d seemed to have experienced had actually happened. When he got to the gate, he saw that he had indeed left it open, and he closed it.
Another case from La pampa was posted on Inexplicata on March 8, 2006. This case involved the disappearance of General Pico Police Corporal Sergio Pucheta overnight from Thursday, March 2, to Friday, March 3, 2006. After a search by his fellow officers, he was found in a fetal position 20 kilometers from his motorcycle. His walkie-talkie, phone, and weapon were found on the ground next to his motorcycle. He was taken to a local hospital and put under psychiatric care.
On Monday, he spoke with the local press: “I was driving a motorcycle, and when I reached the wilderness area we call ‘Las Cañas,’ I saw a red light similar to that of a car.” He said that when he got closer, the light disappeared. “Then I got off my motorcycle to see if could hear any noises. When I got back on the motorcycle and was about to put on my helmet, the red light appeared in front of me, against my face and very strong.”
According to him, he was paralyzed except for his hands. The light rose up and he experienced a significant ache in his head and eyes. He tried to escape by running through the fields. He then found himself being pursued by two entities that were smaller than him with large heads and red eyes. He said he couldn’t recall whether he was walking or running at that point and that he remembered his entire life in a few seconds.
He said that the creatures seemed to be giving him “life tests.” He described one of the “tests”: “For example, I reached a cornfield, and at a distance of some 10 meters saw a large figure that appeared to be chewing the corn cobs and was breaking something. I felt very scared and stood there staring at it. It was getting closer and closer and that’s when I felt them tell me ‘either you go forward or backward.’ Then I stood thinking and walked right past the figure, and the fear sort of left me at that moment.”
It seems the experience left a lasting impression on Pucheta. In a May 14, 2014 follow-up posting on Inexplicata, the writer reports that Pucheta was put into mandatory retirement due to his inability to return to work because he was traumatized by the event.
With the recent reports, La Pampa’s history of high strangeness continues. Thanks to Inexplicata and the Institute of Hispanic UFOlogy for their investigation and coverage of the strangeness.
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