By Scott Corrales
Inexplicata-The Journal of Hispanic Ufology
UFO Digest Latin America Correspondent
Source: El Tribuno (www.eltribuno.info/salta/87887)
Date: October 23, 2011
Argentina: Once again, the skies and fields of Chicoana were in the news for the third year in a row due to the manifestation of the “crop circles”. In 2008, 2010 and now, in 2011, this phenomenon repeated itself, accompanied as always by aerial lights. This time we have hundreds of witnesses and images. Are these pictograms related with fantastic or alien events? Or is it a more terrestrial event, involving certain anomalies of the earth’s surface?
The first “crop circles” were recorded on October 19, 2008 in this community 47 kilometers distant from Salta. They spread out the to the fields of Las Mesitas, Pulares and Villa Fanny, points of a triangle that included the mountain ranges near the town, prompting the still-unexplained crashes of three aircraft, resulting in eleven deaths. On the second occasion, also in October, but 2010 this time, the strange phenomena reappeared, covering hundreds of hectares in the area.
While this anomaly has repeated for over 20 years all over the world, similar events had never been seen in Salta. Chicoana is 47 kilometers from Salta and can be reached by National Route 68 to El Carril and then along Provincial Route 33 toward Cachi. Chicoana is a quiet place that is home to some 10,000 people, surrounded by pleasant hills covered almost year-round in the foliage of the Saltan “yungas”. Livestock and farming are the area’s two traditional activities, with tobacco and grains being produced. Chicoana’s wheat provided flour to other neighboring communities, and its fields surround the town.
For this reason – involving a grain whose wheat was going to be sold by local businesses – the authorities considered that a study of the area was advisable. In 2008, the local intendancy and the provincial civil defense requested a scientific report on the possible existence of some time of hazardous activity from the National Atomic Area Commission. The study was eventually carried out by Jorge Anesi of the CNEA’s Geological Prospecting and Radiometry Department. The technician reported that radiometric readings were taken with a scintillometer, a device sensitive to radioactive particles. “Records were kept constant in all areas checked,” said Anesi. To the CNEA expert, the designs are the manifestations of phenomena to which “people ascribe meaning, because they would appear to have one, in the way it manifests. But from what I could see, I believe that it is a phenomenon related to the wind, and not to alien presences. There are several universities interested in unraveling this enigma. What I found were a series of “impactites” or rocks expelled after a meteorite collision,” Anesi disclosed.
As to the likelihood that the marks may have been caused by pranksters, Leonardo Pellegrini, architect and precursor of “land-art” in the region, says: “it is impossible for these signs to have been created in three different locations and in the dark. In a single night, and trying not to draw attention to the large group of people who follow a plan to replicate giant designs in absolute secrecy. If they are man-made, they are unquestionably the work of organizations that involve many artists with very high standards. Furthermore, upon looking at the photos, something startling can be seen: whatever technique was employed, or the phenomenon that passed over the area, it had to have been done from top to bottom,” says Pellegrini.
His opinion dovetails with that of Jose Serrudo, the draftsman and sculptor who visited the pictograms in 2010. To this illustrator, these are “extraordinary designs, finely wrought.” However, he doesn’t think it could be done by humans. “The distances are immense and an army of people would be required to achieve them,” he said.
Despite claims of responsibility from artist-pranksters Bower and Chorley in the U.K., human manufacture of pictograms was never proven.
There were three aviation accidents with a total of 11 deaths near Chicoana. No conclusion was reached about these disasters in the end. At least three meteor strikes have been reported in nearby ranges, but none has been recovered to date.
A commission from the National University of Salta, led by geologist Ricardo Alonso, described the impact site, although nothing was found amid the dense vegetation. Local residents reported explosions, lights and objects falling in the night to the local police. Even earlier this decade, El Tribuno organized a search for an object that reportedly fell from the sky in flames. Provincial police was able to find the object employing satellites from the 911 system, but the Gendarmerie advised that it was best to withdraw from the search due to a hazardous change in the weather. “We only saw ice,” they claim.
Please visit Scott’s website: http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/
(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)