by Charles Lear, author of “The Flying Saucer Investigators.”
While browsing through the archives of the UFO Newsclipping Service, we came across a headline that a co-worker commented would make a great T-shirt. We searched for other possible mentions of the story in periodicals of the time, and came across another headline that the reader might agree is also T-shirt worthy.
In the September 1988 UFO Newsclipping Service, there is an article on page 14 from the July 20, 1988 Eastbourne, England Gazette headlined, “UFO Kidnaps 26 Elephants.” According to the article, an African safari park in Lugo, Spain, lost 26 adult elephants.
A witness, Mrs. Imelda Gil Cesares, is quoted as saying that she was driving through the park with her children when they saw a 250-foot upside-down-bowl-shaped UFO, that had purple lights, hover over a herd of elephants. She said her children were laughing and screaming and she was left speechless as an orange light washed over the herd, and they were drawn up into the craft. She said: “I thought it was some kind of stage-managed stunt at first when I saw the spaceship. But when all those elephants went up in the air into the UFO, I became frightened.”
The article closes by putting the event into a larger context with the report from Madrid UFO researcher, Jose Diaz-Salazar, that over the previous six months, aliens had taken over 200 animals from zoos and safari parks all over the world as part of an apparent study of Earth and its creatures. He added that governments were aware of the activity.
In our effort to find any other mention of this story, we found an article in the July 26, 1988 Weekly World News written by Henry Weber headlined “Elephants snatched by UFO.” Weber’s article contains a quote from Police Major Oscar Merino: “We don’t know what to make of it. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. But 40 people say they witnessed the abduction. And the fact remains, 26 full-grown elephants are missing.” Besides the additional testimony, Weber’s article includes an illustration that the reader might want on their T-shirt as well.
The next story is utterly unique in the UFO literature. Found on page 5 of the August 1988 UFO News, published by the Aerial Phenomenon Clipping Information Center, it comes from the June 12, 1988 London Sunday Sport. The story, written by Jack Cant, is headlined, “Space Aliens Turned Our Son Into an Olive.”
According to Cant, Dansio and Marcia Fanchez of Rio Bueno, Chile, were taken into custody and charged with the murder of their missing son, Pepe. The family had a different explanation for the boy’s disappearance. According to Pepe’s 58-year-old uncle, Juan, “The child’s parents were on the varanda having a drink, when a bright object whirled over the horizon. It hovered outside before sending down a beam of energy. The power seemed to pick Pepe up and, suddenly, he was gone.”
According to Juan, what was left was a small green object the size of an olive, like the ones the family was using in their Martinis. He said, “And when we looked for it, his father picked the olive out of his Martini glass. The poor man had drowned his own son in his Martini.”
According to Cant, Rio Bueno is a “remote part of South America.” Cant describes sightings by others in the area, including farmers who “saw the spaceship’s glow on the horizon” from up to hundreds of miles away. He adds that the neighbors who were closest described it as being shaped like a bottle, silver, with twinkling lights underneath, and that it had “jet-like propellers that thrust power into the clouds above.”
According to Cant, the police chief didn’t believe the family’s story, but he may have given them an alibi as “he ate the body, it is alleged.”
Both the Gazette and the Sport are British tabloids akin to The Weekly World News. The Sport has particularly outlandish headlines such as the one on cover of the March 16, 2014 edition, “Missing Plane Found on the Moon.”
We feel it is safe to assume that both of the stories we looked at were made up. This sort of thing, known as “yellow journalism” has a long history, and these kinds of stories continue to pop up in the annals of UFOlogy, such as the story of a UFO that crashed in Aurora, Texas in 1897, or the one about the asparagus-like creatures encountered inside a UFO in 1953.
Thanks to Illya Vette for the inspiration.