Conil de la Frontera
The story takes place
in the coastal town of Conil
de la Frontera –Conil for short- on the night of September 29th, 1989. Although
to be precise, our story began weeks earlier, with 2 couples of local
youngsters: Loli Bermúdez and Pedro Sánchez, Isabel Sánchez and Pedro González
(relationship between the members is not entirely clear) who were taking a
placid stroll along the ‘playa de los Bateles’ or ‘Bateles beach’ (“Batel” is a
traditional local term for a small, oar-propelled boat). The age of the kids
varied between 17 and 23 years old, and just when they were enjoying the cool
breeze from the sea and each other’s company, at around 8:30 or 9:00 pm, they
suddenly noticed something odd: A glowing, round, reddish-orange object, as big
as the full moon, which appeared to be standing still, some 200 meters directly
above the Roche cape, approximately 5 kilometers away from their viewing position.
The amazed group
contemplated the ‘light’ for around half an hour, until it silently moved
toward the horizon and was out of sight. Driven by curiosity, the young
witnesses decided to return the next night at the same hour, equipped with a
pair of 7×50 binoculars, to see if by any chance the object would return; sure
enough, the ‘red moon’ was punctual to the meeting, and performed exactly the
same as the night before. The binoculars allowed the adolescents to discern 4
white dots in a square formation at the center of the glowing circle, like the
flamboyant button missing from a god’s jacket.
The ‘button‘ would emit
a random flash from time to time, and then it was lost out of sight towards the
western horizon, after completing it’s indecipherable ‘mission’. The same
bizarre operation was repeated for 14 or 15 consecutive nights, always leaving
around 9:30; the kids would always remain up until 10, in hope the light would
make a second come-back; it never did.
The Encounter
By that time, the
witnesses’ families and others in their inner circle were aware of what the
youngsters had been witnessing for a whole fortnight –whether they all gave
credence to their testimony or not is clear. What we do know is that on the
night of September 29th, a 5th member had joined the group of intrepid UFO
hunters: Lázaro, the brother of Isabel, and the youngest member of the party.
As it was by now their
routine, they all sat on the beach at 8:30, directly in front of the Los
Corales bar. The sea was calm and the coast was practically empty, with no boat
in sight (we’ll get back to this on part 2). Their approximate distance from
their position to the bar was around 300 meters. And they waited.
They didn’t have to
wait long. Aside from their old friend, the “red moon,” which had faithfully
appeared in its accustomed position, for the first time the witnesses also saw
a new development: What looked like a bright white ‘semicircle’ coming from the
sea; with the help of their binoculars they could observe, at the center of it,
a group of ‘red lights’ forming a sort of triangle. This new UFO silently flew
past above their heads, moving toward the town, leaving the group amazed, and
excitedly commenting the impressions of the event among themselves.
But then a third,
blaring light appeared right over them, seemingly so high or bright they
couldn’t discern any sort of shape. The witnesses noticed that when the UFO
above them made three consecutive flashes, the red UFO at Roche cape would
respond with two, and so on and so forth. A sort of ‘communication’ between
these two objects seemed to be taking place, which lasted for around half an
hour.
While they were
fascinatingly observing this luminous ‘exchange’, something else caught the
attention of our young witnesses: At around 9 pm, they noticed two strange
figures standing by the beach’s shoreline; their presence raised the alarms of
the UFO hunters, not only because of the literally ‘alien’ appearance of the
entities –identical in appearance, almost 7 feet tall, covered with white flowing
‘cloaks’ whose ends reached all the way down to the water, and with round,
featureless white heads with no hair– but because their arrival had not been
detected by the youngsters; almost as if they had suddenly appeared out of
nowhere.
One of the girls of the
group, understandably unnerved by this observation, proposed to the rest of
them to leave. Pedro González urged his companions to remain calm, suggesting
the two ‘cloaked’ individuals could be some ‘pranksters’; perhaps two of their
town neighbors had decided to play a joke on them by –rather lamely– dressing
themselves as ‘ghosts’ with white sheets? The idea, however improbable –if
nothing else because the tunics of the two beings were so bright they almost
looked as if glowing– momentarily swayed the fears of the witnesses, who
decided to stay.
But suddenly, the two
entities started to move out of the water, towards them. Their gait was awkward
and laborious, as if they were unable to bend their knees, and while they
walked they kept their arms firmly on each side of their torso. Their long
clothes covered their feet, as well as their hands.
The approaching figures
finally managed to trigger the fight-or-flight response in all the members of
the group. Panicked, they started to run away –in all honesty, could ANYONE
blame them?
The group broke down
their escape, though, once they realized the beings were not in pursuit of
them. Instead, they had stopped and turned on their axis to face the sea,
apparently looking in the direction of the ‘red moon’, which had faithfully
remained on its fixed position the whole time. The group of witnesses
miraculously controlled their nerves, and decided to remain observing the
amazing sight from a cautionary distance (approximately some 30 meters or 100
feet away from the figures).
The unfolding of
otherworldly events on this fateful night were far from over…
The Transformation
While the two cloaked
visitors kept their attention toward the glowing red object in the distance,
the young UFO hunters observed something akin to a ‘shooting star’ on the night
sky: a small, white-blue light the size of a tennis ball falling toward the beach,
yet vanishing or ‘turning off’ just 2 feet or so before crashing over the heads
of the entities. As if on cue by the disappearance of the orb, the two
humanoids proceeded to seat on the beach, with their backs kept stiffly
straight, while at the same time swiftly digging into the sand to build a sort
of u-shaped wall surrounding them; once completed, they presently lied on their
backs of this makeshift fortress.
In-situ reconstruction
of the ‘trench’ built by the beings, in which they laid down
If the purpose of the
sand ‘trench’ was to obstruct the sight of the humanoids from uninvited
interlopers, it was only partially successful; let’s not forget our original
witnesses were still at the scene and quite capable to observe the prostate
figures, although with more difficulty. Pedro González was once again forced to
calm the nerves of the more jitterish among them, while the rest kept passing
on the binoculars to better watch the bizarre spectacle, which proceeded to yet
another unexpected act.
Soon after the beings
lied down on their backs, they proceeded to pass around them a bright, small
sphere of a cyan-blue color –perhaps, we could speculate, the same orb which
had fallen down moments before– although this time it seemed as small as a
ping-pong ball in the eyes of our young witnesses, who observed this strange
‘ball game’ performed among the humanoids around a half-dozen times or so,
until Pedro González –the one who had bravely convinced the rest of the friends
to stick around– without any warning tossed the binoculars to the ground and
started to flee the scene. The other Pedro (Sánchez) quickly intercepted him to
know what was going on, and that’s when the terrified young man informed his
friend he had observed a third figure at the scene, at the foot of the other
two entities. This new humanoid was considerably taller (around ten foot,
according to their testimony), clad on a dark, tight-fitting suit and
displaying an enormous pear-shaped head. The two young men decided not to tell
the rest about the ‘giant’ and returned to their friends, but when Pedro
González took the binoculars, he could not longer find the enormous humanoid
near the two others, who still remained lying on their backs and passing the
little blue sphere back and forth between each other.
The strangest act in
this alien stage play the young men and women had been observing, was about to
commence.
Suddenly the little
blue light disappeared, and a few seconds later the two beings got up from the
sand. To the amazement of our witnesses, though, they no longer retained their
original appearance: The white, cloaked figures had somehow changed into what
looked like a human couple! The male was tall (around 7 feet, which was the
original height of the white beings) had long blond hair and was wearing dark
jeans and a checkered shirt; the woman was slightly shorter than the man, her
hair was also long but dark in color, and wore a thin blouse and long skirt.
Without saying any
word, they turned and started walking toward the town, one in front of the
other, without even bothering to ever once look at the startled group of
youngsters who had bore witness to their entire transformation; a
transformation, it should be pointed out, that for some reason wasn’t 100%
perfect: The witnesses later revealed to the researchers who went to Conil to
investigate the case, that although the features of the ‘female changeling’
were very beautiful and perfectly ordinary, the forehead of his male companion
on the other hand was abnormally prominent. How could someone looking like an
extra in a cheesy sci-fi flick could go around unnoticed in a tourist town?
The Giant
Just when they were
about to reach one of the Conil’s dark alleys, the witnesses’ attention was
shifted once again toward the beach, where they could see above the water a
small, white cloud coming from the coast toward them at great speed. When the
compact ‘cloud’ reached the shore it stopped and rapidly evaporated, and at
that moment is when Loli –who was using the binoculars– alerted her friends
about the presence of a dark figure near the water. Pedro González snatched the
field glasses out of the girl’s hand, and confirmed it was indeed the same
enormous being he had seen before.
The black giant with
the pear-shaped head stood motionless in front of the young, baffled witnesses,
until it quickly moved rapidly away toward the west. As if this wasn’t already
strange enough, the humanoid –according to the witnesses– wasn’t even
‘touching’ the ground! Rather, its feet hovered some 8 inches above the sand,
and as it floated away its arms were kept firmly on each side of its torso.
The being’s departure
elicited a strange response among the members of the UFO party: The oldest and
the youngest in the group –Pedro G. and Lázaro– suddenly started to run in
pursuit of the giant. Asked later why they reacted in such a way, they couldn’t
give a proper explanation; their chase turned out fruitless though, since no
matter how hard they ran, the giant moved (or ‘floated’) even faster. When the
two were about 50 or 60 meters away from the being, they finally heeded the
desperate shouts of their companions pleading them to stop, which they did.
Sketch of the
black-suited ‘giant’ observed by the witnesse
Above: J J Benitez
It was at that moment
when the giant also stopped moving and turned its head toward Pedro and Lázaro.
Its black eyes, huge as hen eggs, robbed the two of whatever courage they still
possessed, and even though the being’s attitude was not menacing, it somehow
gave the impression to the young men that it was warning them not to follow any
further. At last they returned to their frantic friends and let the giant lose
itself in the night.
With the couple nowhere
to be seen, and the giant gone –was its purpose just to deviate the witnesses’
attention and prevent them not to chase the other beings?– the incredible
events of the night were apparently over… or so they seemed.
The Aftermath
Graphic explaining the
location of the sand trench in relation to the witnesses’ viewing position. It
also shows the distance between the beach shore and the town
As the group of young
men and women remained at the beach, excitedly commenting among themselves on
what had just transpired at that humble location of the Cádiz province, they
were able to witness one last unknown phenomenon around 10 pm: By the coast and
heading from west to east, a small white light followed a silent, zigzagging
trajectory, like a bouncing ball in one of those old sing-along children TV
shows. A rather unimpressive finale, judging by the sort of spectacle preceding
it.
Shortly after, an
additional witness appeared on the beach and joined the group. Juan Bermúdez
was an adult town resident –possibly related to Loli, one of the girls–
correspondent for a local radio station as well as a painter; he had heard of
his young neighbors’ nightly escapades at the Bateles beach, and as he had done
on previous occasions decided to go there and see if anything interesting
occurred –in a later interrogation with UFO investigator Bruno Cardeñosa,
Bermúdez confessed he himself had actually had the chance to observe the giant
humanoid on 3 previous separate occasions, during the first hour of dawn; if
true, that would mean the Bateles beach had been the scene of extreme high
strangeness even before the night of September 29th.
When the boys and girls
told him what had happened, Bermúdez helped them investigate the area where the
two cloaked humanoids had accomplished their incredible transformation. The
group noticed the ‘trench’ the beings had built –which was approximately 2 meters
wide by 1 meter long– showed discernible ‘scratch marks’ on the sand, as if it
had been done by long and slender fingers.
Reconstruction of the
footprints left by the couple, compared with the size of an ordinary foot
But was even more
interesting were the ‘footprints’ the beings had left on the beach as they made
their escape toward the town. They were enormous: 18 inches long and 6 inches
in their widest part, with a very prominent arc as well as a huge toe
impression that seemed to go deeper than the rest of the foot. Which raises the
question: When the young witnesses saw the ‘transmogrified’ alien couple walk
out of the beach, why didn’t they notice such abnormal feet?
…Unless the image of
the human couple wearing ordinary clothes was just an elaborate illusion, one
that was nevertheless unable to conceal their actual imprints left in the sand?
This might serve to explain why both set of footprints had exactly the same
size, despite the fact the female walk-in was not as tall as her 7-foot companion.
Adding to the confusion
was the fact the group also found many more footprints than they expected.
Aside from the ones going from the ‘sand trench’ to the Conil, an action
observed by the witnesses, 20 paces away from the trench there were imprints of
the same size and characteristics, but going in several different directions
and covering an area of approximately 10 feet in diameter. What’s confusing
about this is the fact the 4 boys and girls NEVER observed the couple deviate
from their straight line toward the town alley, so they couldn’t had the time
to leave all those additional prints.
But if they didn’t do
it, then who did?
Local newspaper running
an article about the Conil encounter (October 5th, 1989)
The fantastic Conil
encounter with what seemed to be shape-shifting humanoids took little time to
garner attention from the local media. First through the radio station Juan
Bermúdez worked for, and then via an article published by El Diario de Cádiz on
October the 5th. On the second part on my retelling of this wonderful episode,
we will explore what else transpired after debunkers attempted to shoot down
the case. But far more interestingly, we will discover what happened after the
enigmatic couple of alien infiltrators returned to the ‘scene of the crime’.
The Debunking
As we briefly mentioned
by the end of part 1, it only took a few days until the incidents occurring on
the night of September 29th, 1989 became a matter of public knowledge. After El
Diario de Cádiz ran a story about the case on October 5th, members of the
Spanish Group of UFO Investigations (GEIFO in the Spanish acronym), a
skeptically-oriented organization, visited Conil de la Frontera to conduct a
field research and interview the witnesses; they asked the same local newspaper
to publish their findings, which it did on October 16th.
Cover of El Diario de
Cádiz from October 16th, 1989, running the debunking explanation by the GEIFO
group
The conclusion by
GEIFO’s researchers? The whole episode had been nothing but a big
misidentification caused by over-excited imagination. The red UFO observed by
the group of local boys and girls for the past couple of weeks —“as big as the
moon” according to their testimony– had actually been a British ship in charge
of laying down underwater cable for the Telefónica phone company in that area,
which was near the coast of Conil during the night in question according to
their findings, and used ‘light signals’ to coordinate the work with ground
personnel. The ‘aliens’, according to the skeptics, were two crew members of
said vessel wearing scuba-diving equipment and covering themselves with
blankets or towels, and the ‘white cloud’ they had observed coming down from
the sea, was nothing but the wake left by a Zodiac boat they divers had used to
reach the beach. Case closed, Scooby Doo!
“But wait!” you may be
asking, “what about the trench the ‘divers’ dug out in the sand? What about the
blue light they passed around each other while they were lying down on it? What
about the TEN-FOOT-TALL GIANT which appeared after the couple walked to the
town (leaving their ‘towels’ AND all their equipment behind?)?”
GEIFO’s answers to all
these questions –and the way they left other questions unanswered– seem to be
more incredible than the testimony of the witnesses itself: The trench was
built by the divers because they wanted to ‘remove their gear in privacy’ –you
know, instead of doing it much more easily onboard the British ship or the
Zodiac?– or maybe because after a hard night’s work laying out cable, they
wanted to spend a few hours under the Cádiz’s fair weather doing *ahem* ‘other
things’ *wink wink*. The ‘orb’ they had on their hands was a mere torchlight,
and the black-suited giant was another diver, possibly in charge to pilot the
Zodiac boat (!)
So, in the eyes of the
‘scientifically-oriented’ investigators –the ones who think any sort of
explanation, no matter how tenuous or downright improbable, is always better
than entertaining the possibility of a truly anomalous event– the 5 Conil
witnesses rather than being UFO hoaxers seeking publicity, were just a bunch of
gullible idiots. I’ll leave you Coppertops to decide which is more insulting…
The Counter-Debunking
5 months after GEIFO’s
report had ‘satisfactorily’ solved the case –and quite possibly subjected the 5
witnesses to all sorts of ridicule in the process– investigator Juan José
Benítez visited Conil to make a research of his own. Benítez is one of the most
famous UFO hunters in Spain
and has been instrumental in coaxing his government to declassify a good number
of cases which were investigated by the Spanish Air Force. He has also traveled
thousands of miles all across the globe to conduct field investigations and
interview hundreds of witnesses, most of them humble townsfolk living in remote
villages, who had never shared their testimony outside their circle of friends
and family. He is a bestselling author not only in his home country but in all
of Latin America, and it was in 1990 when he
described his involvement on the Conil case in his book La Quinta Columna.
Benítez’s approach to
put GEIFO’s theory to the test was simple and straightforward: The skeptics’
main argument was that the UFO observed by the witnesses had been one of two
British vessels laying down underwater cable –this despite the boys’ insistence
that during the night in question there was NO ship or boat on sight.
Benítez did corroborate
the existence of two oceanographic ships, the British Enterprise Two and the
C.S. Monarch, which had been hired by a Spanish subcontractor to conduct work
for the Telefónica phone company. According to GEIFO, the Monarch had been the
one near the coast on the night of September 29th; yet their first mistake was
in stating the ship was laying down the cable, whereas in fact they were
conducting preliminary prospecting of the littoral.
It took some hard work,
but in the end Benítez managed to uncover 3 important pieces of the puzzle:
• When the Monarch started working in
the area (September 18) its position was 60 miles away from the coast, which
was too far to have been able to be spotted from the beach (not to mention the
witnesses started to observe the red UFO on the night of September 14th).
• On the night of September 29th the
meteorological report indicated the weather conditions were inadequate for any
medium-to-large ship to even approach the coast, due to the strong winds winds
mixed with the low tide and the littoral currents.
• But the coup’ de grace came when
Benítez was able to contact captain, J. A. B. Simkins –Chairman and Chief
Executive of BT Marine, the oceanographic fleet which owned the Monarch– who on
July of 1990 wrote him a letter stating the approximate position of their
vessel during the night in question (36º 23′ N, 06º 44′ W), placing it 30 miles
away from the Bateles beach. Consider how during the best viewing conditions,
the horizon line on the sea only extends 8 miles.
And if that is not
enough, here’s a link to Benítez’s own web page describing the Conil case,
where if you scroll down you can find a scanned copy of Simkins’ letter. In it
one can read the final nail in GEIFO’s coffin:
“[During our operation]
(W)e would not have employed frogmen.”
Check. And mate.
As an aside note,
Benítez also managed to discover (according to an article written by Bruno
Cardeñosa published by the magazine Año Cero in 1996) that around the time of
the incidents two individuals bearing the characteristics of the ‘changeling’
couple were lodging on a small guest house in Conil around the days of the
encounter; these ‘tourists’ registered themselves using the passports of German
citizens who, supposedly, hadn’t abandoned their country in those days
–unfortunately, La Quinta Columna doesn’t mention this detail, nor can further
information be found in Benítez’s website.
But wait, there’s more!
Benítez also uncovered another interesting part to this mystery: On the nights
from Sept 27th to Sept 30th, the military radar station located in Algeciras
(Cádiz) suffered an inexplicable malfunction, which rendered the whole Conil
area ‘dark’ during the period in which the alleged UFO activity and close
encounter took place. Coincidence, or did someone (or something) was trying to
avoid detection?
Benítez’s detective job
showed GEIFO’s main argument failed to convincingly explain the events that
took place at Conil. But although it proved the UFO was not a British
oceanographic ship, and the humanoids were not British scuba divers, it can’t
unfortunately substantiate the testimony of the witnesses and what they claimed
they saw.
Corroboration to their
fantastic story did take place, though; albeit indirectly and in the typical
inconclusive manner in which the phenomenon tends to conduct itself…
The Return
How many UFO hunters, I
wonder, feel as if they are doomed to always remain 2 steps behind their
‘prey’? Always trying to document cases, interview witnesses and collect
whatever evidence remains AFTER the objects and their occupants take off or
leave the area; but never having the chance, just for once, of actually be able
to witness the high strangeness with their own eyes.
Well, for local UFO
hunter Jesús Borrego López that was about to change when he decided to travel
to Conil in search for more answers on October 15th. A police officer of 44
years old assigned to the Security and Control office of the Cádiz town hall,
Borrego López easily managed to locate four of the witnesses (Loli, Isabel and
the two Pedros) who politely accepted to answer his questions.
Once they finished
talking at one of the witnesses’ home, the researcher asked them to accompany
him to the Bateles beach, which they accepted even though it was already late
at night. Once Borrego López was satisfied with his field survey, he invited
the group of boys and girls to a local bar for a refreshment, where they
remained lively discussing the incident.
It was around 10:35 pm
when the group instantly fell silent, because they had all taken notice of a
strange couple crossing in front of them toward the sea. Borrego López was the
first to say “have you noticed the forehead of that man?”
The youngsters said
nothing and kept looking at the odd individual and each other in total
amazement. Borrego López insisted: “look at his height! He measures 2 meters
tall, easily!”
The boys finally dared
to open their mouth, confirming that was indeed the same ‘man’ and ‘woman’ they
had observed leaving the Bateles beach after their ‘transformation’ inside the
‘sand trench’.
The male with the
prominent cranium was walking 2 steps ahead of his female partner. Like the
witnesses had described in their original testimony, he had long blond hair
reaching up to his shoulders, and was wearing a denim attire which looked
somewhat worn out and tightly fit. The woman was way above regular height (1.90
meters) and wore similar clothes as her less-conspicuous companion.
Borrego López and Pedro
Sánchez quickly got up the table and left two of the witnesses behind, with the
clear intention of intersecting the couple who were ahead of them by at least
150 meters.
“Visibility was
perfect,” Borrego López reported later to Benítez, “despite the fact the
streetlights at the marine promenade were turned off (according to town hall’s regulations). But
the night was very clear. There was a full moon and also low clouds reflecting
the town’s illumination and lunar light over the sea.”
La Quinta Columna (The
Fifth Column). The book where Benítez narrates (among many other encounter
reports) the events surrounding the Conil case
Yet despite these
optimal viewing conditions, and the fact the two UFO hunter and his young
sidekick were keeping pace with the odd couple, the individuals suddenly
vanished in front of Borrego López and Pedro’s very eyes. Bewildered, the two
chasers looked in all directions, but their pursuants were nowhere to be found.
The unexpected
disappearance raised goosebumps on both Pedro and the seasoned researcher, who
had now become another witness of this incredible case. But the surprises were
not over: When they both looked toward the east they noticed what looked like a
‘black dot’ the size of a soccer ball approaching rapidly from the sea shore.
Meanwhile the two other
kids they had left at the bar joined them in time to observe the dark ‘ball’
which kept moving toward them at a preternatural speed. As it got nearer, the
witnesses saw how its shape started to change; its trajectory became more
erratic, at times looking as if it was floating above the ground, and at others
as if it was being ‘yanked’ or ‘dragged’ by an invisible force.
The group continued to
observe the mesmerizing vision, until they finally realized the incoming dark
mass was actually a human figure; though its legs were moving so fast they were
a mere blur.
When the ‘sprinter’ was
just 60 meters away from the witnesses, it stopped. It was a woman! She was
standing in front of the group very close to the water age, and without any
warning she removed the upper portion of her clothes to reveal her female
curves, and started walking toward the Roche cape, faraway in the west. And
when she had put some distance between herself and the astonished group, these
observed yet another figure who joined her and watched the two individuals lose
themselves in the night.
According to their
later calculations given the apparent size of the figure from their position,
the strange female had managed to traverse a distance of 4 kilometers in around
45 seconds; something impossible to achieve even with a land vehicle. Not to
mention the woman didn’t raise a tremendous wake of sand while racing through
the beach, nor even make any discernible noise.
Had that been the same
man and woman Borrego López and Pedro had tried to pursue? Or were they an
additional element to this absurd stage play, intended to distract the witnesses
the same way the ten-foot-tall giant had done on the night of September 29th,
when it showed itself floating inches above the ground while the couple of
changelings were making their move toward the anonymity of the Conil streets?
Whatever the case, the
only thing Borrego López could do was analyze the footprints left by the
(original) couple before they vanished. While the tracks made by the woman were
very light and faintly discernible, the man’s were very profound; so much so
that Borrego López estimated the individual had to weigh more than 100
kilograms. The size and shape were consistent with the ones found by the
youngsters on the night of the 29th, not only in their unusual shape and
monstrous size, but also due to the fact the researcher found tracks hinting
how whomever made them, had been apparently making strange swirls as if going
in circles –movements unobserved by neither Borrego López nor Pedro, the same
way the original witnesses had watched the couple walk straight toward the
town, yet they later found a great number of large footprints going in
different directions.
After the ‘circles´,
only one set of footprints was detectable… and it went straight into the water.
It was close to
midnight when Borrego López confirmed there were no more tracks to be found in
a 100-meter radius, and with that he was ready to call it a night. While he was
advising his young acquaintances not to reveal to anyone what had transpired
that night, Pedro suddenly yelled “here they come!”. Sure enough, the enigmatic
couple was making yet another uncalled-for appearance right in front of the
witnesses. One of the boys was (finally!) carrying a super-8 film camera and
began recording the seemingly hurried movements of the couple as they passed
by.
The man looked straight
into Borrego López’s with cold, unfriendly eyes. His face was very pale. The
woman on the other hand was stunningly beautiful, and she seemed to have
somewhat oriental features, with her eyes slanted slightly at the edges and
glimpsing at the gathering of witnesses with an expression of animosity or
nervousness. The seasoned UFO hunter noticed both their clothes were completely
dry, which ran counter to the evidence of the tracks heading into the sea.
The witnesses never
dared to address the couple. They just kept staring at them until, for the
second time, they reached the streets of Conil and were lost out of sight. They
didn’t return that night, nor any other subsequent night.
When they revealed the
Super-8 film, nothing appeared on screen. ‘Convenient’ would say the hardcore
skeptic; ‘customary’ would reply the experienced Fortean, who knows fully well
these sort of things happen all the time.
The Epilogue
Our tale has basically
come to an end, which doesn’t mean the UFO activity in the area fully ceased;
Benítez reveals other interesting incidents near Conil during that time of 1989
in his book La Quinta Columna –including the observation of another giant being
by a local artisan on the morning on September 22nd. Further confirming the
supposition made by few people in the UFO field –including yours truly– that
high strangeness events almost never happen in isolation; rather, it seems the
‘energy’ conducing to these
manifestations slowly increases, until a final dramatic ‘crisis’
unfolds.
