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At
10:30 am on Saturday, May 2, Carlos Antonio de los Santos
Montiel a young 23 years old pilot was flying his 58' Piper
PA-24 Comanche marked as XB-XAU from the city of Zihuatanejo.
That morning was cloudy with considerable smog, mist and
very poor visibility. Carlos took off, nevertheless, at
10:30, without having his breakfast. He climbed his little
plane to 13,500 feet but conditions were still bad so he
climbed to 14,500 where he found a clear blue sky and continued
on his return trip to Mexico City. At about 12:30 pm, After
establishing a set course, he wanted to visually find the
Lagoon of Tequesquitengo, when he couldn’t find it,
he re-checked his instruments and continued flying. Shortly
he became aware of something on his right and looked in
that direction and was shocked to see an object with the
appearance of two plates joined together at the rim with
a dome which had what seemed to be some sort of windshield.
It
was positioned 20 centimetres above the surface of the wing
and about 1 1/2 meters from the Piper’s cabin. Four
or five seconds later, he observed a second flying object
settling itself about nine inches over the left wing. At
that moment, he began to feel extremely nervous and stuttered
a bit while talking to himself trying to calm down; he couldn’t
believe what he was seeing. Suddenly, he discovered a third
object moving rapidly almost impossible to see, losing altitude
and placing itself in front of the plane’s cockpit.
For a moment, he thought that it was going to crash into
him, but it plunged to the underside of his Piper at a 45
degree angle and hitting the lower part of his craft as
he felt a loud bang coming from the bottom of the airplane.
Carlos
then noted that his airspeed had decreased from 140 nautical
miles per hour to 120. He tried to bank to the left, in
an attempt to “bump” the object away from his
plane but the controls were frozen and would not move. He
then tried to let down the landing gear, hoping to get rid
of the object under him, but with no results. The plane
kept its original course, but it was gaining altitude, and
Carlos feared that if it went any higher he would die because
his cabin was not pressurized. Scared even more, which caused
him to cry and he was badly shaking. He communicated with
the Air Traffic Control Center and told them what was happening.
Mexico Center did not answer him and the silence increased
his fear. He thought that perhaps they didn’t believe
him and most likely they didn’t even want to answer
him.
Since
he was certain that the third object was attached under
the plane’s fuselage, he decided to lower the landing
gear in the hopes of detaching the object from the plane
if possible or to find out if the landing gear was damaged.
In effect, the landing gear did not come down, there were
no light indications on the dashboard and the emergency
lever did not work either, which meant that the object prevented
the landing gear from lowering. He tried communicating again
with Mexico Center and he informed them that unknown forces
were controlling his aircraft and had lost control over
it. Again, no response was received. He thought that perhaps
his radio did not work or those objects were preventing
it from working. After some time Mexico Center responded:”Take
note extra alfa union, give me your position and your situation.
We are contacting competent authorities and…”
(Carlos interrupted again) Carlos: “The aircraft is
out of control”.
Mexico
Center called also for any aircraft that was flying in the
vicinities of Carlos’ position. They received a response
form another small plane tagged as XC-SAG[Extra Coca-Sierra
Alfa Golfo] at that time belonging to the Agriculture and
Livestock Department. This air craft was flown by a pilot
with the nickname of “El Charro”. He was asked
if he had visual contact with Carlos’ plane in order
to confirm and validate Carlos’ story. After a long
silence “El Charro” confirmed that indeed there
were three objects attached to Extra Alfa Union[XAU], then
Mexico Center ask if he can aid Carlos’ airplane.
Shortly
after that and after Carlos’ airplane being escorted
for 18 minutes for this unknown craft, while arriving at
the Ajusco mountain range and nearly flying over the town
of Tlalpan, These objects suddenly left Carlos heading towards
the location of the Popocatépetl volcano at a speed
greater than 900 km/hour. Carlos did not see them again
and regained control of his aircraft, but he was still very
frightened. As the objects departed, two radars at Benito
Juarez International Airport captured the three departing
UFOs around his craft making 270-degree turns in a very
tight radius of action of just 3-4 miles.
After
gaining control of his Piper, Carlos made the operators
know that his landing gear remained retracted, due to the
impact with the third object. At this point, Mexico City
International Airport closed its runways to traffic and
prepared for the expected emergency landing. He was forced
to circle over the airport 11 times. He then opened a tool
box he kept inside an used a large screwdriver as a makeshift
lever to force the gear down. He finally after 40 minutes
successfully landed the plane in a grass filed between two
landing strip. He immediately was taken inside the airport
clinic for a checkup and was given some sedatives to calm
his nerves. After long tests and deliberation the physician
confirmed his good health and gave him permission to continue
flying. No ilegal substance was found on Carlos body that
indicated an altered perception or hallucination of the
events.
Carlos
de los Santos, like his brother and two cousins, was a student
of astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
With this background, one could hardly confuse a balloon
or the planet Venus with anything else. He described the
objects as follows: “They were oval disc-shaped with
a dome, about three to four meters in length without antennas,
had a dull grey fuselage like the colour of a rat’s
fur and a sort of windshield that seems polarized because
he was unable to see inside the craft. The outer shell was
all without rivets and completely smooth, the material were
not as reflective as a regular polished metal considering
that there was a strong illumination coming from the sun
at the time”. Several UFO investigators from Mexico
and the U.S., who had the task of investigating Carlos de
los Santos’ incident, have concluded that he was “a
perfectly normal young man who was obviously frightened
by something extraordinary that had arisen in flight.”
Note:
We
were not able to contact Carlos Antonio De los Santos directly
to get his feedback of the illustrations for a more accurate
depiction of the craft. We made our reconstruction of this
sightinh based on the description provided by Carlos, his
drawings and specially the scale model shown later on by
him of the UFO. We know that this is not identical to the
craft, but it is a very close approximate representation
that we feel the craft looked like. Then agian, only Carlos
Antonio De los Santos Montiel can be the judge of that.
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