Belgian UFO wave 1989-1992 – Part 3

The 30-31 March 1990 UFO chase

One of the most publicized aspects of the Belgian UFO wave was the 30-31 March 1990 F-16 chase of an unknown radar return. This event constituted an important part of the Belgian wave, as it provided an array of good quality data from multiple credible sources about what was going on in the sky. Furthermore, this led to further cooperation between the Belgian military and the SOBEPS civilian UFO organization. Also, the personal involvement of the military in charge, the then Colonel De Brouwer (who became Major General a few years later) continued through a friendly collaboration with the SOBEPS for a number years afterward. But most importantly, it was further confirmation that whatever was happening, it could not be explained away, and thus re-confirmed the anomalistic nature of the phenomenon.

To understand better the context of that night of March 1990, a general overview of the UFO chase is presented. It is followed by a first assessment of the Belgian UFO wave based on the available data, including the observation spikes previously presented. But first, here is the general chronology of events from the SOBEPS book, in the chapter written by Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991 (with page numbers in parentheses):

On 30 March, around 2300, the Belgian police was called by an off-duty police officer, who observed with his wife and another couple UFOs in formation seen in the night sky in the area general area of Wavre. It was, once again, the “unplanely” appearance and behavior that caught their attention. The objects were described as moving in an unpredictable way, with lights appearing and disappearing, and changing color to include white, blue, red, and green. The witness then called the Beauvechain military base and at that point the lights became slower, and maybe stationary, and turned into a red color. The witness was told to contact Glons NATO radar station instead, as Beauvechain was on minimum manning because it was the weekend, which he did (p. 180). Wavre is about midway between Brussels and Namur, while Glons is about 15 km north of Liege (see map).

At 2305, the Belgian military, in turn, called the police to get confirmation that the call received from the witness was indeed corroborated by the police itself (p. 226). This procedure was established in the weeks prior to the events, given the costs involved in sending airplanes investigating any unknown.

At around 2315, two police officers arrived and met the witnesses. These officers were not only able to confirm the first observation by seeing the lights in the sky, but they also saw two more UFOs with white lights disposed in a triangular formation. Then, an aircraft passed above the UFOs and its lights moved away from each other and turned red. Once the aircraft passed, the lights took back their original formation and color (p. 181). Around the same time, the Glons NATO radar station had a first return with an unknown (p. 226).

At 2325, the police asked other units by radio if they could confirm the observations too, and two other teams (with two and three officers, respectively) corroborated the first observations by visual observations (p. 182-184). The military was then informed by the police that they had more than one visual confirmations, with a total of eight police officers (one off-duty) and three civilians from three different locations.

At 2349, a second ground radar station further west had also a return from an unknown, at Semmerzake (p. 226). Semmerzake is just south of Ghent (please see map).

At 2356, the Belgian military decides that it had enough evidence to warrant further investigation, and two F-16 fighter jets were ordered to scramble and identify the unknown (p. 226). At 0005 (31 March), the two F-16 fighter jets took off (p. 226).

 

From 0007 to 0054, 9 interceptions in total were attempted by the F-16. There were three brief combat radar locks-on from the F-16, which in each case caused a swift change of behavior from the UFO. No visual contact was ever made by the pilots (p. 226). The police on the ground, however, was in constant communication with the Glons radar station to provide them with visual descriptions of what they were seeing during the chase.

• At 0013, the first combat radar lock-on occurred, but in 3 seconds the object went from 150 to 970 knots (280 km/h to 1890 km/h) and dropped from 9000 to 5000 feet. A few seconds later it returned to 11000 feet and quickly to down to ground level (p. 227).

• At 0030, there is the second lock-on for 6 seconds; the combat radar system very briefly showed a jamming signal on the in-flight screen (p. 227). At the same time, police officers and witnesses on the ground saw the lights of the F-16 turning around in the sky, while most of the UFO lights went off (p. 227).

• At 0037, the last lock-on happened, lasting only a few seconds (p. 227).

• Between 0045 and 0100, the fighter jets still tried several interceptions again, but to no avail (pp. 227-228).

• At 0102, the F-16 fighter jets returned to their base (p. 228).

• At 0106, the police informed the military that a similar observation was made at Joidoigne (p. 228). Joidoigne is about 20 km east of Wavre (see map).

• At 0130, witnesses (including police officers) reported that the last lights in the sky were gone (p. 186).

• Beyond the police officers and the civilian witnesses already noted, at least 7 other reports confirmed the observations of the night (pp. 197-190).

After these events, the Belgian military launched an investigation to understand what happened. This led to the drafting of the Lambrechts Report (from the name of the author, a Major in the Belgian military), and an English version is available here. The Belgian military could not find an explanation to what happened. In June of the same year, the Report was publically released and the Belgian military made all their data available for further analysis by SOBEPS and whoever is interested in studying them.[1]

Human and human-made sensing

The Belgian UFO wave, like any such wave, was made of many events that bring a wide array of data that are baffling. The reports from the observation spike days brought a multitude of data that cannot be easily collated into a coherent picture. There were many different shapes observed, different light arrangements and colors, sometime with noise other times without, etc. The UFO chase ended up raising more questions than producing answers. So, is there any pattern that emerged from these strange events?

One pattern emerging from all this is that what the human senses were able to capture and what the human-made sensors recorded is divergent. The Lambrechts Report underlined two particularly interesting aspects of the UFO chase. One is that “Though speeds greater than the sound barrier have been measured several times, not any bang has been noticed. Here also, no explanation can be given”[2], and “Though the different ground witnesses have effectively pointed out eight points in the sky, the radars have registered only one contact at the same time. The points have been seen at a distance one from another sufficient for them to be distinguished by the radars also. No plausible explanation can be put forward”[3].

On the 30-31 March UFO chase, the SOBEPS did some analysis of its own, and a few interesting points emerged there too. The Glons radar station had an unidentified between about 2315 and 0020, and it was moving from East to West in a relatively straight line at an average speed of 41 km/h, between Brussels and Mons. The Semmerzake radar station confirmed these tracking from Glons (Meessen, 1991b: 364-365). The Belgian military officer in charge of the UFO investigation, De Brouwer, wrote in the SOBEPS book that in spite of having a lock-on on their combat radars, the F-16 avionics did not provide a location for what the radars were sensing, as it should normally do, raising the question as whether the jets were chasing electromagnetic perturbations. Yet, in light of the numerous eye witnesses’ reports, it appeared to him that the F-16s were indeed chasing something real (De Brouwer, 1991: 489). 

Hence, we had a situation where:

1.       The ground witnesses and fighter pilots were dealing with several objects with fast and unpredictable behaviors, while ground radars had a return from something moving slow and in relatively straight line.

2.       The fighter pilots did not see anything visually, and their on board equipment were showing something that produced a return (which guided their pursuit) and yet without identifying any actual physical location for it.

3.       The witnesses noted that the phenomenon continued after the jets were gone around Joidoigne, which is further east of the UFO chase events while the UFO was tracked as moving west towards the French border.

4.       The discrepancy between the ground radar stations and the human witnesses actually happened before. On 21 December 1989, the Belgian Ministry of Defense released a public statement that the visual observations reported to the police did not correlate with radar tracking, and F-16 patrolled the areas in question and had no contact with unknown objects, (the Ministry of Defense confirmed that there were no AWACS, US stealth aircrafts, or military drone in the areas where reporting was coming from (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 126)).

The photographic evidence was overall quite similar in terms of what the human eye could see and what was captured by cameras. Many witnesses thought they had a good shot at what they were seeing, and yet the picture never turned out with anything more than vague lights in the sky. Here are some of the comments from the various witnesses who took pictures: the picture taken were incorrectly developed afterward (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 94); the Camcorder inexplicably did not filmed while the witness thought he was filming (Ibid, 98); the pictures taken showed nothing that could be seen after being developed (Ibid., 99); the film showed an indistinct white light, like a distress flare (Ibid., 98); an imprecise picture was taken, but one could see anything he wanted into it (Ibid., 106).

One of the most interesting photographic events of the wave happened at Trooz, near Liege, on 11 December 1989 (second spike of observations) to a family (three adults and the two teenage kids) who saw a white and powerful but strange light at around 1745. After watching it for several minutes, two of the adults decided to drive to get a closer look. They watched it for another 15 minutes from a high point. Then, they decided to go back home. But the lights came back, and they could see a powerful “search light” in front of an object with two with lights at the extremities showing a triangular shaped object, with a row of red lights at the back. The object was by then right above the house, at an estimated altitude of 50 meters. One of the adults took three pictures of the object before it quickly moved away.  And yet, once the film was developed it was showing only a white vapor on one picture, a trace of something on the second one, and nothing on the third one (Ibid., 84-85)!

These numerous discrepancies between what the human senses could capture and what human-made devices could record, led many pseudo-sceptics quickly to conclude that all this was simply mass delusion, and wishful thinking. And as usual, the pseudo-sceptics did not bother trying to explain how several minutes of up close observations from many witnesses, from different locations, oftentimes not knowing each other could have produced a “mass delusion” (let alone detailed military investigations on the UFO chase). Once more, the anomaly remains an anomal

 

Yet, these events remain a full-fledge anomaly, however, only if one key implicit assumption is maintained, namely that reality exists only in one unified strata. Science has long proven that this assumption is actually wrong. For instance, the human eye can only see the visible spectrum of light but this does not prevent other forms of light to exist in the ultra-violent and infrared spectrum, each requiring its own specialized piece of equipment to detect. At the more complex level, one can think of the completely different stratum of molecular biology, bio-chemistry, physiology, living being behaviors, and ecology as representing as many different layers of a same reality that cannot be reduced to one another. Multiple layers of reality co-exist and they require their own sensing and analysis to detect and understand.

 

 

Based on the large amount of evidence collected through the Belgian UFO wave, it is reasonable to say that “something” happened. Yet, that “something” had both a physical dimension that could be recorded by cameras and radars, and another dimension that could be captured by the human mind. The recordings from cameras and radars were analyzed extensively by the SOBEPS, the Belgian military and others, and the main conclusions are that it was something real but ephemeral, elusive, and possibly not even physically “hard” (De Brouwer, 1991: 489). Yet, what the human mind captured during the Belgian wave was described at length but it remains relatively under-studied. It is where an analysis from the perspective of parapsychology and parasociology might actually shed some light on what happened.

Notes

[1] Interestingly, the SOBEPS leadership visited the Glons radar station at the invitation of the Belgian military on 22 January 1990 (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 143).

[2] From the English translation of the report found at http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc408.htm

[3] Idem.

 

References

Bougard, Michel and Lucien Clerebaut. (1991). "Chronique d'une vague". In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS, pp. 51-296.

De Brouwer, Wilfried. (1991). " Postface".  In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS., pp. 483-492.

Meessen, Auguste. (1991b). "La détection radar". In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS., pp. 351-396.

Belgian UFO wave 1989-1992 – Part 2

This post is looking into the three other spikes of observations linked to the Belgian UFO wave of 1989-1992, namely the nights of 11-12 December 1989, 12-13 March 1991, and 26 July 1992.

11-12 December 1989: second spike of observations

In their 1991 book on the Belgian UFO wave, the SOBEPS investigated 26 sightings that occurred on the night of 11-12 December 1989. This time the observations could be grouped into three particular geographical areas: around Liège, around Namur, and near Mons on an axis parallel to the Sambre and Meuse rivers (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  82). It was, generally speaking, on the same general east-west axis as during the 29 November 1989 peak of sightings, but shifted further west. The observations occurred between 1735 (5:35pm) and about 0300 (3am). The first three observations were around Liege (between 1735 and 1800 – 5:35pm and 6pm), then it was in the vicinity of Mons that the next five sightings occurred (between 1800 and 1900 – 6pm to 7pm), and then 7 observations around Namur (between 1845 and 1910, 6:45pm and 7:10pm). The remaining 9 observations that occurred after 1900 (7pm) were in the general area of Liege, except one near Mons, one in the Netherlands (near Maastricht), and one in Luxemburg.

The observations were deemed credible and without obvious explanations by the SOBEPS, with the exception of two cases. About half of them occurred while the witnesses were driving, while most of the other ones happened when the witnesses were at home. The shape of what was observed was described in different fashions. In six cases, the object was described as either a cupola or a helmet. In three cases, it was perceived as a triangular object with rounded edges at each corner of the triangle, while for two observations the witnesses talked about an elongated triangle. In one case, it seen as having a rectangular shape, while in another one it was egg-shaped. In nine cases, the witnesses could not see a particular shape in the night sky, however they reported seeing three bright white lights positioned in a triangular shape, and among those five had also a red light in the middle of the white lights positioned in a triangular position. However, this pattern of white lights in a triangular position has been perceived in four other cases where the shape could be perceived. Combined together, the triangular shape and triangular light position are accounting for 14 of the 24 observations for the night. This is a significant pattern, but there are still significant variations. In a few other cases, green, yellow, and multi-color lights were noticed.

In terms of noise, in six cases the description mentions that the object was noiseless, while in two cases a little vibration noise was noted. The object was observed at low altitude in 11 cases at least, but the most interesting feature is the slowness or stationary behavior of the object in at least 13 cases. This type of behavior made several witnesses rejecting on their own the possibility that it was a plane, and at least four witnesses who had a very good look at what they were seeing rejected that it could be a helicopter. Several witnesses described the object as being very large, as big as a jetliner (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  82-113).

This second night of multiple observations had similar characteristics to the first night of 29 November 1989, namely bright white lights, a triangular shape, slow or stationary object, making little or no noise. However, like the first night there were still valid variations to the pattern.

Probably the most interesting case of this night was the one reported by the Lieutenant-Colonel André Amond, of the Belgian Army. Around 1845 (6:45pm), he was driving with his wife to the Gembloux rail station, in the vicinity of Namur. He saw what he called “panels” in the sky with white lights, with at the centre a red rotating light. He estimated that the panels were at 200 to 300 meters up in the sky. He stopped at a high point and looked at the object moving slowly, for 2 to 4 minutes. Then the object turned and only one light was visible and came towards them. His wife became nervous and asked to leave. He also found that the object was a bit “aggressive”, but it was noiseless. As he started the engine the bright light disappear and it was replaced by three light, not as bright as the first one”, in a triangular position, with a red light in the middle. He estimated the distance between the lights at being around 10 meters. Also, he noted that in spite of the full moon, he could not distinguish a particular shape. The object made sharp but very slow turns. The white lights disappeared, and only the red one remained until it faded away into the night sky. The total observation was between 5 to 8 minutes. He noted that the complete silence, the large size and slowness of the object were very unusual, and he rejected the possibility that it could be a plane or a helicopter. He wrote a report on his experience and sent it to the Belgian Ministry of Defense (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  90-92).

Among the cases investigated, it is also important to note that some were most likely explainable by human-made helicopters. Among them is the case of the night observation at Jupille-sur-Meuse near Liege. The SOBEPS presents in details this case in their book (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  101-111), and an English description can be found here. In a report produced by the late RenaudLeclet, a convincing case is made that it was probably a Belgian or German (NATO) Sea King helicopter.

12-13 March 1991: third spike of observations

There were 27 cases investigated for that day by the SOBEPS (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  259-282). This time the quasi totality of the observations occurred near Bierset (suburb west of Liège) near the then military airport, which has been handed over to civilian authorities later during the 1990s.

The observations occurred between 2000 (8pm) and 2300 (11pm). Approximately half of them happened while the witnesses were driving, and the other half from their residence. Similar descriptions to previous reports were provided by the witnesses. However, there were a division between the cases were a strong noise was heard (8), and others with little or no noise (13 cases). The strong noise was assimilated to plane about crash or to take off, or to the noise made by an AWACS. Given that the witnesses were living near a military airport, they were quite cognisant about the noise made by AWACS. Yet, in spite of the noise, what they saw did not had the shape or the behavior of a plane (something, again, they are used to observe given their proximity to the airport). There were no plane crash, and the Belgian Ministry of Defence confirmed that all AWACS were away in Turkey at the time, as part of a NATO mission to defend that country during the Gulf War (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  280).

Among the “unplanely” behaviors of those noisy objects was the capacity to make sharp turns without changing their flat horizontal alignment with the ground. In some cases, the object was stationary and/or moving very slowly, and in most cases it had powerful white lights illuminating the ground. The shape was at time triangular and flat, circular, or triangular with a cupola on top.

The silent objects were almost all described as either stationary or very slow, and at low altitude. Powerful white light with a weaker red light was also a very common observation. The shape was not always visible, but oftentimes the white lights were in a triangular or “V” formation. When the shape could be seen it was mostly triangular, but in some cases it was rectangular, ovoid, or circular. It was oftentimes described as large as a jetliner. The object was seen near or over the nuclear power plant of Tihange by a number of witnesses, which is about 10 km away from the Bierset airport. A number of witnesses also reported that they felt as if they were observed by the object.

One of the interesting cases of this observation spike occurred in the small locality of Clavier. At around 2145 (9:45pm), a woman and her daughter saw a red-orange light ball slowly pulsating in the night sky. It was just above tree heights and at about 10 meters from them. It moved very slowly, without making any noise, towards the Tihange nuclear power plant. In a few minutes, it reached the power plant and turned left and disappeared in the night. Five minutes later, they saw a large, noiseless, slow, dark, triangular object with flashing light all along its contour taking the exact same path as the light ball they saw just before. The following night, the same event repeated itself (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991:  278).

26 July 1992: The last spike of observations

In their second book on the UFO wave, the SOBEPS presents the synopsis of 27 observations (involving 72 witnesses) that occurred on 26 July 1992, between 2200 (10pm) and midnight (Clerebaut, 1994: 53-77). The reports were coming from the general area of Malmedy to Waremme, with a number of them in and around Liege. The Belgian military confirmed that there were no military aircraft in the area where observations took place at time (Idem, p. 53).

Out of those 27 reports, one could be confirmed as being an aircraft, and two were night lights, offering limited information to analyze. The most striking feature of this last set of observations is the object’s shape. In 14 of the remaining 24 sightings, the witnesses reported seeing something in the shape of a lozenge or square oftentimes with four lights at each corner, while the triangular object and/or lights in a triangular formation accounted only for 6 cases. Rectangular shape was also noted in a few cases. The objet was at times perceived as being flat, while at other times it seemed to have a pyramid shape extension on the upper side. Some witness mentioned that the corners of the lozenge were curled up.

Another interesting feature was that in many observations, there was a flashing or gyrating light but it was a white light, not a red one as often noted since the beginning of the wave.  Once more, it was the “unplanely” behavior at the beginning of the sightings that attracted the attention of the witnesses. A number of them noted one or two unusually bright white lights in the sky that became four lights and a lozenge shape could be seen. The object was very often described as either stationary or very slow, at low altitude, large, and in a few cases the object was seen as making sharp turns that an aircraft cannot do. In about half of the observations, the object was described as noiseless, while in other ones a low pitch vibration noise was noted.

One of the most interesting cases involved a triangular shape object. At around 2220 (10:20pm), an off-duty military radar operator was watching at home the summer Olympics on television. It was in Fléron, an eastern suburb of Liege. He heard the dogs from the neighborhood barking in an unusual manner. He went to the balcony of his sixth floor apartment and saw two powerful white lights in the sky at about  1,000 feet above the ground, at a distance evaluated between one and two kilometers. The lights appeared to be stationary. He observed this scene for three to four minutes with his wife. The dogs continued to bark actively. He decided to go outside to have a closer look, and met neighbors in the street also wondering what was going on. Then he noticed that object was moving, and estimated it at about 60 km/h. He heard a light vibration noise that he compared to a washing machine noise. Then the object made a turn and he could see three white lights with one flashing in the middle. He could discern a large object shaped as an elongated triangle. The object disappears in the night sky (Clerebaut, 1994: 65).

Discussion

After the intense night of 29 November 1989, the observations of UFO continued although it declined in intensity afterward. There are a number of issues about the reporting that need to be pointed out. Given the intensity of the press coverage that started in December 1989, the increase in the number of observations is likely to be in part linked to people paying more attention to what is going on in the sky.

Another issues was that the majority of observations were coming from the French-speaking part of Belgium. The SOBEPS was clearly more French-speaking than Flemish (Dutch-speaking), but it still had Flemish people among its ranks. It is reasonable to think that the tense cultural and linguistic Belgian divide had an impact on reporting. Given the intensity of the international press coverage, one should have expected more observations from northern Belgium (Flemish community). The SOBEPS had reports from the Flemish part of Belgium for the period, but very few on the spike days noted before. Hence, the linguistic divide may have produced an incomplete picture of the UFO wave, but it appears reasonable to think that the geographic concentration of sightings during the spikes days represent a relatively sound reporting context.

When it comes to individual observations, it is impossible to assess them all. Yet, it is reasonable to think that a number of them were probably the fact of human-made objects (planes, helicopters, ultra-light planes, etc.). Nevertheless, there are many cases that are quite difficult to explain away. Furthermore, the SOBEPS received the unconditional help of the Belgian military so that more exotic airframes could be excluded as part of the potential explanation.

 

Of course, it is always possible to speculate that American classified flights were the explanation, and that the Belgian military did not know, or could not speak about it. Given that such speculations are improvable by definition (if one has access to classified material, one can’t speak publically about it no matter what is the content), then using logic is the only alternative. In view of the wide press coverage about UFOs then, that Belgium is a NATO ally, that truly exotic military planes are very expansive, that any accident in highly populated area like Belgium would cause a serious international scandal (and excuses for the Congress to cut military budgets), and that by doing so it might give information to the Soviet Union about those planes, one can only conclude that such speculations are, at best, completely ludicrous.

A better and more methodologically sound assessment would be, instead, to look into the witnesses themselves. The SOBEPS was very careful in assessing if they were dealing with genuine witnesses. It is of course impossible to have a perfect score in removing hoaxes, but the array of witnesses is quite impressive. They were coming from all walks of life, including people who were in position of authority (police officers, senior civil servants, doctors, military personnel) and who had an obvious incentive to be seen as upstanding citizens. From a sociological perspective, the witness population is consistent with the general demography, and the “credibility” factor is not an issue.

Another important point is the general practical knowledge of the witnesses regarding aircrafts. Many of them lived near military airbases, and were quite used to see military aircrafts in the sky such AWACS and jet fighters. As well, by 1989 the general knowledge about commercial jetliners and helicopters is much higher that it was just two decades before, simply because they are much more common than before. Hence, a key reporting issue is that most witnesses reported because they observed activities in the sky that would not match “normal aircraft” appearances and behavior. In other words, we know about those cases because something was considered being “off”, and that could not be explained away by the witnesses.

In old ufology, there is a tendency to regard witnesses as sincere, but ignorant. The tune is no different among the pseudo-sceptics (and thus implying that ufologists and pseudo-sceptics know better). Such view may have been somewhat true from the 1940s to the 1960s, but afterward this seems a very erroneous perspective, not to say a condescending one. Witnesses can be fooled by special weather, sound effects or elaborated hoaxes, but since the 1980s their average knowledge of aircraft behavior should not be questioned unless there is a good reason to do so. This, in view of the large amount of observations collected by the SOBEPS, should be enough to accept that what happened over the sky of Belgium was a genuine anomaly.

References

Bougard, Michel and Lucien Clerebaut. (1991). "Chronique d'une vague". In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS, pp. 51-296.

Clerebaut, Lucien. (1994). "Chronique d’une vague". In SOBEPS, Vague d’OVNI sur la Belgique 2: Une énigme non résolue. Brussels : SOBEPS, pp. 13-118.

Belgian UFO wave 1989-1992 – Part 1

Nearly 25 years ago, Belgium was under an unprecedented wave of UFO observations and, like in all cases of significant UFO wave, no truly satisfying explanation could be given. This series of posts will re-visit these events under the light of parasociology, in an attempt to provide a different perspective and a potential explanation.

This case is probably the best documented UFO cases out there, and it is infinitely better than the all the speculative books combined together on the Roswell incidents of 1947. Most of the material gathered on this case is based on the work of Belgian UFO research organization called SOBEPS (Société belge d'étude des phénomènes spatiaux), who enjoyed the substantive collaboration of the Belgian police, and especially, the Belgian military. The SOBEPS produced two volumes of about 500 pages each on what happened and provided various analyses on different aspects of the events. The empirical evidence used to write the two books was the sum of about 300 audio cassettes (60 and 90 min) of witness interviews, 650 investigation reports, and 700 questionnaires filled by the witnesses. (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 51).

Although the members of the SOBEPS are for the most part seeking to demonstrate the validity of the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), their work was very sober and rational, and built on a healthy dose of scepticism. The Belgian military also produced and made publically available a report on the UFO chase of March 1990, known as the Lamprecht Report. The report concludes that something real happened but it could not be explained. This combination of sober UFO research and open support from the authorities makes it an exceptionally interesting case.

To investigate this case, a general overview of the available evidence will be provided, followed by a more detailed look at some of the key events of the Belgian wave. Afterward, other elements will be incorporated in the analysis, timing of the events in particular, as well as other features from the wider social and symbolic context. The SOBEPS material and the additional elements will be analyzed using the five parasociological indicators developed in previous posts (and published in parapsychological literature) to study Socially Relevant Anomalies (SRA). Finally, and once more, the events will be also analyzed in light of Walter von Lucadou’s Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI), and some interesting comparisons with the 1952 UFO over Washington D.C. will be suggested before concluding on this UFO case.

Overview

The “official” starting date of the Belgian UFO wave was 29 November 1989, when Belgian police officers (gendarmes) and civilians observed and reported on seeing a strange object in the night sky, near the German border. That night, there were 143 well documented observations (125 when the SOBEPS published its first book in 1991) in the region of Liège. From that point on, numerous observations were made over time until a last spike of 27 sightings on 26 July 1992. Other key moments of this wave were: 11 December 1989 with another spike of observations with 24 sightings (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 82); the night of 30-31 March 1990 when two Belgian Air Force F-16 jet fighters unsuccessfully chased UFOs in the sky; and a 3rd spike of observations on 12 March 1991 with 27 sightings presented by SOPEPS (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 260-279). The main sighting period, overall, is between late November 1989 and late April 1990.

Source: http://www.cobeps.org/fr/vague_belge.html

Many sightings were involving a dark triangular shaped object with three very bright white lights in each corner and a red light in the middle of the triangle. The size of the object was often described as large as a jetliner. It is to be noted that there were only a few closer encounters of the first type (CE1) from the Hynek classification, and they were deemed not credible by the SOBEPS investigators (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 150). Similarly, only a handful of physical marks were found (CE2), associated with the observations, and they too were considered at best as inconclusively related to the UFO observations by the SOBEPS (Boitte, 2012). The bulk of the observations were either close looks at the object (CE1) or night lights (NL) and day disc (object) (DD) seen at a distance. The SOBEPS eventually build up an inventory of over 1200 cases in all for that period (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 78).

The photographic and video evidence was disappointing in general, as it was essentially faded lights in the night sky that revealed very little useful information (Ferryn, 1991: 397). There was one notable exception, a picture that became quite famous and was the object of many analyses, and controversies. It was the picture known as “Petit-Rechain”, named after the locality where it was allegedly taken on 4 April 1990. But on 26 July 2011, the author of this hoax (Patrick M.) confessed and explained how he created the picture on the French-speaking Belgian television (RTL). Ironically, when the SOBEPS investigators were contacted in 1990 to look at the picture, their first gut reaction was that it is “too good to be true” (Ferryn, 1991: 414). Lastly, there was as many UFO buffs know one night of high quality radar tracking by NATO and the Belgian military, and we will come back to it later.

The first day: 29 November 1989

The first reported observations of the wave was around the town of Eupen, in the German-speaking part of Belgium. Here is a synopsis of what is reported in the SOBEPS book.

Eupen and surrounding area

1030: A military officer (Major D.), while participating to a marching exercise saw a strange object at about 2000 meters of altitudes. He first thought it was a plane, but it was very flat, 3 to 4 times bigger than a normal plan, making no noise, and there was no condensation trail. He did not know what to make of it. (Meessen, 1991a: 25).

Afternoon: 8 observations, with variations. Cigar shape; ovoid shape; banana shape; triangle with rectangular portholes; blue lights. In most cases, it was slow or stationary not very high above the ground, and in all cases it was noiseless. (Meessen, 1991a: 25-27).

1700 to 1730: 1 police officer near the German border, at Eynatten, saw at 500 meters an object with powerful lights flying low, moving slowly between 60 and 70 km/h. The officer was surprised that it was moving so slow (Meessen, 1991a: 16).

1713: A Eupen municipal government official while being with a friend saw a flying triangular object with 3 powerful lights and moving slowly. It had also a flashing red light. They are surprised by the slow movement of the object (thinking it was a helicopter). The object was making no noise. They saw the object a second time around 1745. (Meessen, 1991a: 18-19).

1720: 2 police officers on the road between Eupen and Eynatten, (east of Liege), saw an area of 30 metres of diameter lighten with intensity. Then they saw an object looking like a platform, an elongated triangle, with 3 large lights placed in a triangular position. The dimensions were about 30 to 35 meters for the base, 25 meters for the length, and 2 meters thick. The object was at about 120 meters in the air. It was silent. There was a red rotating light in the middle of the white lights. The police officers are stunned by what they saw. They called dispatch and they tried to get closer with their car. The object stops, and leaves abruptly in the opposite direction back towards the east. The police officers continue driving for a while and can follow "discretely" the object. (Meessen: 1991a, 16-18).

Later: the same officers went back to their station and asked dispatch to contact the military authorities about possible AWACS planes in the area. They meet scepticism from their colleagues at first. The military confirmed that there were no AWACS in the area. They returned in their vehicle and saw the object again. They followed it and it stop and remained in stationary position over a small lake in the area. Red search lights were seen, and mystified the officers. When search light went dim, a red ball of light was “left” where the search lights were aiming. The red balls went back to the flying object. This happened several times. The officers compared this to a harpoon, thrown away and brought back to its point of origin. The object eventually left at 1923. They also saw a second triangular object coming out of the first one at very high speed, with rectangular portholes lighten from inside, but with a cupola on top of the triangular shape. The second object was seen by another police officer at the Eupen station. (Meessen, 1991a: 23-24).

1715-1730: 2 other similar observations of a triangular object with powerful lights in the same area, including one witness having a repeat from a 3 November 1989 observation. (Meessen, 1991a: 20).

1730-1800: 2 witnesses noted additional smaller white lights on a in a triangular shape object with a cupola on the top. (Meessen, 1991a: 22).

1720-1800: 7 observations from witnesses who were north of Eupen. The descriptions were more varied: banana shape with portholes, and 3 lights; large stationary triangle just above a house, with 3 lights and a red light and noiseless. In 2 cases, the object was directly above the witnesses. (Meessen, 1991a: 27-29).

1830-1915: 22 observations. Some of the main features were: light noise, as a deep vibration. Elongated triangle, equilateral triangle, and cupola observations. Slow or stationary and low above the ground (100 meters). Moving at very high speed. 3 lights were very common in this set of observations. It was describe as being the size of a Boeing 727. In other cases it was round in shape, with 4 white lights, or multiple of lights. Many thought it could be an AWAC, but rejected the idea as it did not behave like an airplane. A number of witnesses had a second encounter with the object during that night. (Meessen, 1991a: 29-38).

Liege and surrounding area

1715-1915: There were 17 recorded observations (east and over the city of Liege). Some observations described 2 objects, triangular, with white lights and a red one in the middle, showing rectangular portholes, a making a light sound. In other cases 3 objects were seen, with 2 leaving the area very fast. In some cases, the object had an ovoid or a cupola shape, hovering low above ground (30 meters), with a slow movement. Simultaneously, west of the city of Liege an additional 17 observations were made. There were common descriptions of a huge triangular object with 3 powerful lights, making a light but low pitch noise. Many witnesses first thought it was an AWAC, but all rejected the idea as it was not behaving like a plane. Other witnesses mentioned seeing 4 objects moving abnormally slow, with two different witnesses, again, having a second encounter with the object on the same evening. In some cases, the object was reported as having a rectangular or lozenge shape. (Meessen, 1991a: 38-45).

Further west of Liege

1715-2130: 5 observations are reported. Some witnesses noted lights of many different colors: green, red, orange. It was at time described as moving very slow, and then very fast. It had the apparent size of a big plane. Yet, the triangular shaped object, with bright with lights, making no noise is also reported by some. (Meessen, 1991a: 45-47).

General comments

There are a number of interesting elements in the events of the 29 November 1989 night. The first is that pretty much all the observations started concurrently at around 1715, or 5:15pm, in Eupen, east of Liege, west of Liege, and further west of Liege. And with the exception of the area further west of Liege, they all ended around 1930, or 7:30pm. This is pointing towards more than one objects appearing about the same time, and disappearing also about the same time. Then, the shape and appearance of the object varied quite a bit across the witnesses’ reports, although the “classical” dark, thin, and triangular shape with bright lights in each corner and a pulsating red light in the middle is also found in a number observation.

One striking feature is that people in position of authority (military officers, police officers, and municipal government officials) are among the very first to witness a strange object in the sky. As well, during the very first night a contact is made between the police and the military to verify if there is anything unusual in the airspace at the time.

Another key element was that the two police officers of the Eupen detachment who had a long engagement with the object were interviewed on the Belgian television about their experience and it was aired on the next day (30 November 1989). The following day (1 December 1989), most of the French-language Belgian newspapers took up the story as well (Bougard & Clerebaut, 1991: 69). By then, the UFO wave of observations became a publically known event, and fits the basic criteria to be considered as a Socially Relevant Anomaly (SRA).

References

Boitte, Franck. (2012). Belgian Ufology: What Future Developments Are To Be Expected After The Petit-Rechain Fiasco? Report available at www.cobeps.org/pdf/belgian_wave_130310.pdf

Bougard, Michel and Lucien Clerebaut. (1991). "Chronique d'une vague". In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS., pp. 51-296.
 

Ferryn, Patrick. (1991). "Vidéofilms et photographies". In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS., pp. 397-422.
 

Meessen, Auguste. (1991a). "Les observations décisives du 29 novembre 1989". In SOBEPS, Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique: Un dossier exceptionnel. Bruxelles: SOBEPS., pp. 1-50.

 

The Zeitoun events from the perspective of the MPI (part 6)

This post is the last one of the Zeitoun series. The next posts will look into the 1989-1990 UFO wave over Belgium.

The Zeitoun events from the perspective of the MPI (part 6)

After reviewing the evidence available on the apparitions at Zeitoun in previous posts, this text is proposing an analysis based on the Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI) developed by the parapsychologist Walter von Lucadou [1]. The MPI has been used on this blog at numerous occasions to analyze other large scale paranormal events (or socially relevant anomalies (SRA)), such as the 1952 UFO wave over Washington D.C. Because of these previous presentations of the MPI, only a brief recapitulation of the model will be provided here. For more details, please refer to this particular post and this one.

 

Introduction: Back to the MPI

 

The MPI has been originally developed to study poltergeists, better-known as Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) in parapsychology. Von Lucadou, based on his extensive empirical research on RSPK, noted over time that RSPKs tend to unfold according to a general pattern, and therefore it is possible to predict how a RSPK would start, peak and disappear.

 

Most scientific parapsychologists consider that poltergeists are actually uncontrollable psychokinetic (PK) forces (or energy) produced by someone in a family, or a small and close knit group, who has deep but unexpressed psychological challenges. It is oftentimes a teenager, but not always, and the reasons for such over-representation of teenagers are not well understood at this time [2]. The extension of the MPI to large scale events (such as the Zeitoun apparitions) is based on the assumption that collective psychokinetic is the fundamental element behind the anomaly.

 

According to the MPI, a RSPK evolves in 4 phases: (1) Surprise, slow start when only a few notice something really strange and unusual; (2) Displacement, ramping up and peaking when many start to notice but start to believe that the phenomenon is caused some sort of non-human entity; (3) Decline, when sceptical observers arrive, as they do not believe in the non-human entity explanation and have a more rigorous look at paranormal events; and (4) Cover-up and Disappearance, when official authorities get involved and declare the phenomenon to be a hoax or a fraud.

 

In each phase, there is a particular set of people who seem to play a more preponderant role. In the surprise phase, there are a few people who experience something completely unexpected with strong emotions, which are called the “focus person and his/her immediate environment”; (2) during the displacement phase, other people (who are called the “naïve observers”); joined the first experiencers but these new people tend to displace the meaning of what is occurring by fixing the explanation on the activities of some powerful non-human entity; (3) then during the decline, people called the “sceptical observers”, usually made of professionals and well-educated people, enter the fray and challenge directly the supernatural explanation provided by the naïve observers; finally in the cover-up, society through the “authorities” steps in to quell the public disturbance caused by the events.

 

From the point of view of the MPI, the people around the phenomenon and what they believe to be true are key parts of the RSPK process. It is why the naïve observers are very important in reinforcing the belief in the supernatural origin of the phenomenon, so are the sceptical observers and the authorities in making it disappear.

 

Phase 1: The very short ambiguous start

The events of Zeitoun started with the surprise of a few non-Christians (the public transit workers) and Christians (women walking in the street at the same moment). These people were afraid that someone would commit suicide, and they were quite worried, enough to call the police. On the other hand, some Christian women were completely excited and rejoiced to see what the construed as the Virgin Mary. In spite of the diverging explanations, for all these people there was no doubt in their mind that there was indeed someone on the Church’s roof. During the surprise phase, like in a typical RSPK, the first few experiencers already hypothesized a supernatural explanation for what was seen without being fully certain about it. Notably, the Church priests were not present to confirm what was seen at the time of the first apparition.

 

The gathering of people at the Zeitoun site took a few days to become major public event. The word of mouth process brought an increasing number of people from the neighborhood, not too sure what to think. As well, the first witnesses did not report all the other strange phenomena noted later, such as the “birds”, the smoke, the scent, etc. From that point of view, this fits generally well the description proposed by the MPI of an RSPK, where the phenomenon grows in intensity and diversifies itself in the later displacement phase.

 

As noted before, the focus person in the case of SRA is difficult to find. In a typical family RSPK, the individual who has unexpressed psychological challenges can be identified fairly easily, as the disturbances, usually, only occur in his or her presence. In the case of a collective PK, who might be the focus person is much less clear.

 

However, there are a few clues available. The MPI proposes that the use of psi effect (PK) is to convey a message (hence the notion of “Pragmatic Information”), which in the case of a typical RSPK would be about the psychological distress of the focus person. Such messages tend be symbolic, comparable to night dream symbolism produce by the unconscious part of the mind.

 

At this point in the analysis, let’s take note that the very first people who saw the phenomenon were Muslim people, part of the Egyptian broader public service, who were all thinking that they observed someone “near the abyss”. There is an implicit possible symbolic message here; more on this below. Furthermore, in the case of Zeitoun, like in most typical RSPK events, the symbolic message seemed to have been missed completely by the people in the surrounding environment, namely the Muslim workers and Christian women. 

 

Phase 2: Rise and peak through displacement

In the days that followed the first apparition, the crowd started to gather in greater numbers around the Church. In the MPI language, the naïve observers arrived in mass to the site. If there was any doubt about the Marian nature of the phenomenon, they were quickly set aside by the intense religious fervour and the growing intensity of the apparitions. New phenomena started to be seen such as the “birds”, miraculous healing, smoke, scent, and movements of the apparition beyond the roof. During the first few first weeks, the interpretation was fully displaced towards a supernatural explanation. Even some of the original public transit workers were absorbed into the naïve observer crowd after experiencing what they construed as miraculous healings.

 

According to the MPI, such “slippage”, from a symbolic message to the belief of having a non-human entity in action is actually a requirement for the phenomenon to continue and grow. As long as the message is not understood, as long as the emotional-symbolic system is not closely observed for what it is, the level of indeterminacy in the psi-related system remains high, and therefore a key condition for non-local (or non-causal) effect (psi) to occur is maintained. 

 

Phase 3: No immediate decline…?

It is here that the Zeitoun case is particularly interesting from the point of view of the MPI, as it did not follow the usual pattern of a RSPK: the phenomenon continued for a number of months before starting to experience serious decline. What happened?

The decline phase, according to the MPI, is directly linked to the arrival of sceptical observers on the scene, shattering the beliefs that the naïve observers were upholding. What happened at Zeitoun is something rarely seen in a typical RSPK: the authorities stepping in quickly with a sympathetic approach to the phenomenon! Not only they did not try to quell the supernatural events and its explanation, but actually they did everything to institutionalize its supernatural meaning.

When the Coptic Church sent priests to investigate, they quickly agreed about the “genuine nature” of the Marian apparition. The alleged visitation of President Nasser, if true, would have just reinforced the social and emotional dynamic favorable to the Marian explanation created by the swift action of the Coptic Church. Furthermore, by creating a professional medical committee to investigate the miraculous healings, the Church essentially “enlisted” many people who would normally be considered “sceptical observer” to further reinforce the supernatural explanation. This had for effect of neutralizing, at least in Egypt, dissident voices from potential sceptical observers. This approach from the Coptic Church is perfectly understandable and very much to be expected from a religious institution that canonically accepts the notion of miraculous apparitions. By comparison, such sympathy for poltergeist entities does not exist in modern police and health authorities

 

Phase 4: No cover-up just growing indifference

The disappearance of the phenomenon appears to be in conjunction with the shrinking size of the crowd, which of course had a feedback and self-reinforcing effect of creating a phenomenon less interesting to attend to. In the case of Zeitoun, given that the authorities were fully on side with the supernatural explanation, the quelling effect of formally branding the phenomenon as a fraud or a hoax simply did not happened. Hence, from the MPI perspective it was rather growing indifference that slowly “killed” the phenomenon. In other words, the anomaly ceased to be socially relevant but without the “slandering” interventions of powerful social actors (i.e., the authorities).

 

 

Who were the focus persons?

As discussed in a previous post, and in this post, people, symbolism, geography and dates can help us identifying possible candidates for a focus person. As stated above, the first to see the anomaly were Muslim public workers and Christian women. From this point of view, the message, or pragmatic information, might have been directed towards the Muslim people who were closer to the government of the time (socialist, nationalist and not particularly religious), and to the Christian minority of Egypt. The symbolism of being “near the abyss” seems to be a serious warning that people were close to getting into a very serious problem. The location, Cairo, is the seat of Egyptian government, but it is also the largest city in the country, so geography is information more equivocal as to where the focus persons could be.

  

However, the dates seem to be particularly relevant. The events in Zeitoun started on 2 April 1968. What happened in Egypt, at the same time, that might cause a serious collective upset but that could not be fully expressed by other normal means? This is of course open to interpretation, but later in April 1968 the Egyptian government liberated over one thousand jailed radical Islamists, members of the Muslim Brotherhood [3], including Ayman al-Zawahiri who will become later on the no.2 and now no. 1 leader of Al-Queda [4]. The Brotherhood eventually organized the assassination of Egyptian president Anwer El-Sadat in 1980. More recently, they stole away the original spirit of the Arab Spring of 2010. They got one of them elected as president (Morsi). They are suspected of orchestrating, or at least informally encouraging, repression against the Coptic Christian minority. And they got the Egyptian military worried enough about the future of their country to organize a coup to remove the Islamist president Morsi, and redraft the new constitution against the Islamists.

 

Could the knowledge, or precognition, about the liberation of over 1,000 members of the Brotherhood in 1968 created a strong collective feeling of throwing Egypt into the abyss? Certainly the notion that these people were dangerous already existed in Egypt in the 1960s. Could there be some people in the Egyptian national security apparatus in 1968, who were aware and extremely anxious of the government’s plan to provide an amnesty to members of the Brotherhood, but unable to speak up? This seems probable. Could they be the focus persons? Impossible to tell for sure, but they seem to be likely candidates. 

 

Conclusion

There is little doubt that geophysical activities in Egypt in 1968 contributed to create the enabling conditions for very unusual events to be perceived. Many of the phenomena described by the witnesses can be explained through various theories and models found in geology, even if some models remain incomplete, such as the tectonic strain theory. Yet, on its own geological explanations of all the events once they are taken together and looked at from a more granular perspective cannot reasonably account for what happened. To stick to a purely geological explanation, one would need to invoke a long list of geological coincidences never seen before and dismiss condescendingly all the witnesses as unreliable. This is an unreasonable perspective that is based on a belief that a purely naturalistic explanation somehow exists but cannot be proven. The religious explanation is no different from the geological one, as it is based on a theological corpus from which a belief in Marian apparitions can be supported but not proven. It is a matter of belief.

 

From a parasociological standpoint, the events in Zeitoun were socially relevant anomalies. Some of such anomalies resist naturalistic explanations, and yet there were certain geophysical enabling conditions at play, as well as pre-existing beliefs in Marian apparitions, which contributed to perceiving anomalies. Such context points towards the possibility that collective psi effects occurred in Egypt in 1968 and later on, where geology and religion played an important support role.  

 

The events in Zeitoun, if there were psi effects involved, could be described as psychokinesis. The selection of the MPI to study the events as a collective form of RSPK was justified. The analysis of the Zeitoun apparitions using the MPI provided a different interpretation to what happened. This explanation is neither religious nor naturalistic, and yet does not require a belief system. The final explanation, or at least an explanation that would satisfy almost everyone, is likely to be never found. But clearly, the choice is wider that just geology or religion.

 

From a parasociological and parapsychological perspective, the fact that the events did not unfold as a typical RSPK is not an invalidation of the MPI. What happened is rather that the institutional conditions (Church authorities versus regular police or health authorities) were different in the Zeitoun, and can be explained easily in terms sociological differences between different societies. Incorporating such different institutional contexts into the analysis shows in fact that the MPI’s capacity to predict RSPK is preserved and even enhanced. If the authorities jump early in support of a supernatural explanation, this is not without consequences.

 

One can just wonder if the American military authorities had supported the extra-terrestrial hypothesis (ETH) in the 1940s and 1950s how the UFO phenomenon would have evolved over time. In fact, it might have died earlier because this would have de-energized the combative naïve observers (ETH ufologists), as they would have had no conspiracy to uncover. The naturally occurring growth of indifference, over time, would have done the rest in making the phenomenon disappear.

 

Notes

[1] For more on von Lucadou and the MPI, please see this brief biography, and this paper on the MPI.

[2] Once more, and to be clear, the concept of RSPK excludes any notion that the disturbances popularly known as poltergeists are caused by non-human entities of some sort (although the belief in the existence of non-human entities is critical for the phenomenon is continue for a while).

[3] Hiro, Dilip. (1989). Holy Wars: The rise of Islamist fundamentalism. New York: Routledge, p. 69.

[4] Erickson, Marc. (2002). “Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 4)”. Asian Times, 5 December, available online at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DL05Ak01.html.