by Charles Lear, author of the new book: Crashed Saucers
In our blog headlined “UFOs Over Scottsdale,” posted on April 15, 2024, we looked at a report of a blue, worm-like UFO captured on video over Scottsdale, Arizona. The main sources were two tabloid news agencies, Daily Mail and The US Sun, and their source was video footage posted on Instagram and Twitter/X. The reporters of both agencies failed to provide a date for the incident, properly represent witnesses, or make mention of the fact that Scottsdale is home to a UFO museum/attraction called “The UFO Experience.” We came across another intriguing case this week covered in the Mail and the Sun (U.K. edition), and this time, the reporting is much more thorough and reveals a long-standing belief by locals that there is an underwater alien base in the area.
The Daily Mail article by Stacy Liberatore, posted March 20, 2024, has the comprehensive headline, “Oil rigger spots UFOs ‘hovering for 10 minutes’ above the deck before ‘zooming off in an instant’ on the Mexican coast where locals believe is a submerged alien base.” According to Liberatore, a crew member on a boat near Tampico, Mexico, captured images of two UFOs over an oil rig: a saucer-shaped craft with lights around its base, “and the other with a triangular design and three lights on the bottom.”
Liberatore acknowledges that the only indication of the second craft being triangular is the arrangement of the three lights in the picture.
A “source” is said to have told Daily Mail that the person who took the pictures reported that the UFOs hovered for about ten minutes and then, they “just zoomed off in an instant.”
According to Liberatore, an oil rigger identified as “Pat” got the pictures and the story from a colleague who was stationed at another rig “months before he arrived.” According to Pat, the pictures were taken in October 2023. He is quoted as saying “My contact said the UAPs showed up as they were putting the oil rig’s legs to the seabed.”
The pictures used in the article came from Twitter/X user “covertress” who posted them in March 0f this year. In this case, there appears to be an actual name, Steph Kent, that appears on the feed.
According to Liberatore, covertress told DailyMail.com that “a member of the intelligence community” told her that the triangular UFO was an SR 91 Aurora, a top-secret craft that could reach Mach 11.8 and had been in development since 1989. Liberatore explains that there is no evidence that such a plane actually exists “suggesting the image captured above the oil rig could not be the top-secret warplane.”
According to Liberatore, Pat learned there is a belief among the Tampico locals that there is an alien underwater base they call “Amupac” and that the aliens there are “their protectors.” Pat is quoted as saying “My rig only came here recently. It was after I discovered the local belief being so strong as regards aliens protecting them that I discussed with a guy who works as a liaison between our two rigs. Then he told me about the encounters. He then sent me the images.”
Liberatore explains that the legend of the base began in 1967 with the publication of an article with the headline “Platillos Voladores Sobre Tampico (Flying Saucers Over Tampico) in El Sol de Tampico. The article is said to describe sightings by “thousands of inhabitants” and an air traffic controller who counted nine objects.
The Sun covers the story in an article by Georgie English posted March 21, 2024, with the headline “OUT OF THIS WORLD Chilling moment saucer-shaped UFO hovers over oil rig near where locals believe there is an ‘alien base.’” English starts right off with the legend of Amupac and then goes into a brief description of the photos saying that they were taken in October 2023 by “a crew member onboard the oil rig near Tampico,” and appeared online only recently.
In a sub-article headlined “The Real Threat of UFOs and Aliens,” English argues that the UFO subject has lost its stigma and is being taken seriously by governments around the world but presents examples that might not have been the best choices to bolster the argument.
The first of these is the now-infamous presentation by Jaime Maussan of “alien corpses” before the Mexican Congress. According to English, “Researchers recently verified the legitimacy of a set of three-fingered mummies as potential evidence of “non-human” life forms.”
It has been convincingly argued by Aja Romero in the article “The True Story of Fake Unboxed Aliens is Wilder Than Actual Aliens,” posted September 16, 2023, on the Vox website that the “alien bodies” were cobbled together from pre-Columbian human remains and animal parts held together by plaster.
The other is this: “Top UFO chief Sean Kirkpatrick told the world last year that he is set to step down from his job following his stern warning of [sic] concerning activity ‘in our backyard.’” In actuality, Kirkpatrick set off a wave of outrage among UFO disclosure activists with an article he wrote, headlined “Here’s What I Learned as the U.S. Government’s UFO Hunter,” that was posted January 19, 2024, on the Scientific American website.
Regarding the narrative that there was a secret government program involving crashed saucers being back engineered, Kirkpatrick said this: “During a full-scale, year-long investigation of this story (which has been told and retold by a small group of interconnected believers and others with possibly less than honest intentions—none of whom have firsthand accounts of any of this), AARO discovered a few things, and none were about aliens.”
The rest of the article is devoted to the legend of Amupac and also references the 1967 El Sol de Tampico article. The alien base is said to be the reason that no hurricane had hit Tampico since 1967. According to English, “One of the main theories behind the underwater alien stronghold is the use of magnetic fields. Some people claim a series of meter-long aluminum, iron and copper alloy bars were secretly buried in the seafloor by aliens when they first visited. This has seemingly kept the area protected from disasters.”
At the end of the article, English notes that climate scientist Dr. Rosario Romero of the National Autonomous University of Mexico “called the long-lasting streak of good weather in the area interesting. But she did note it wasn’t unexplainable.”
English links to an article by Nathaniel Janowiz headlined “Inside the Mexican City That Believes It’s Protected by Aliens” posted January 17, 2022, on Vice.com. Janowitz focuses on Miramar Beach in Tampico, which locals refer to as Playa Protegida or Protected Beach. Janowitz’s description makes it seem like a Mexican Roswell by the sea. According to Janowitz, the area is a major draw for tourists interested in aliens and UFOs and has “restaurants named after Martians” and plenty of alien themed souvenir stands.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download