Jorge Eduardo Catoja
We are indebted to the Editorial Committee of our French companion-journal Lumières Dans La Nuit, from No. 198 of which (October 1980) we have translated the curious item. Though many will find the report hard to swallow we think it worth recording, because it seems to smack very strongly - as so many "UFO stories" do - of the classical poltergeist phenomena familiar to us from the annals of psychical research.
It is admittedly difficult to recall any good "poltergeist case" in which the witnesses actually claimed to have Seen the causative agency. Consequently, most parapsychological investigators nowadays tend to veer away from the idea that any external intelligent factor (i.e. other than the human subject or subjects present in the case) can be involved with poltergeists, and they prefer to seek other less bizarre explanations. Note, however, that in the present case the two causative entities allegedly vanished temporarily from sight a feature that sounds extremely "poltergeistic."
The author, Argentinian ufologist Jorge Eduardo Catoja, states that he visited the scene of the phenomena and personally interrogated the witnesses.
EDITOR
At approximately 4.40 p.m. on Sunday, September 10, 1978, in Las Salinas, a small town near San Miguel de Tucuman in northern Argentina, Miguel Angel Carbajal, aged 18, and his friend Miguel Ledesma, aged 23, were sitting in the home of the first-named, watching television, when the picture on the screen began to shrink, so they switched off the television set.
They then put a record on the record-player and switched on, but found the disc turning very slowly as though at 16 r.p.m. From this they perceived that there was clearly a marked drop in the mains electricity current. 1
Finally, they tried to use a portable transistor radio to listen to a local game of football, but were obliged to abandon this too, owing to interference.
The parents of Miguel Carbajal, absent from the house at the time, having gone to spend the afternoon with relatives in San Miguel de Tucuman, are the owners of a shop, and the shop adjoins the house. Both the young men are employed in the shop. Miguel Carbajal has had three years of primary school education, and one year of secondary. The extent of his daily reading does not go beyond the local newspaper, La Gaceta, and he is not a UFO buff or an addict of Science-Fiction. As for his companion, Miguel Ledesma, the latter is quite illiterate. There was nobody else in the house apart from one disabled member of the family.
Just as the two young men were abandoning their attempt to get the portable radio to work, they heard noises coming from the adjoining shop. Thinking that thieves had broken info the premises, the boys first got the disabled relative out of the house, and then they opened the connecting door which led directly into the shop, where the first things to come to view were a smashed bottle of wine and some broken jars of mayonnaise strewn about on the floor.
Proceeding a little further into the shop, they came upon a pair of scales thrown down onto the floor, with the glass smashed, and they noted that the electronic till had been shifted some distance from its normal position.
Encounter with Entities
At this point they became aware of the presence in the shop, standing at a distance of about six metres from them, of two beings resembling humans in their general appearance.
In the words of Miguel Carbajal, as reproduced in the article published in the Buenos Aires newspaper La Razon (Sept. 12, 1978): "I was thoroughly scared... for I suddenly saw them. I was unable to speak... I thought they must be Martians, because I had read in La Gaceta that there had been UFO sightings in the district."
The two entities were about one metre in height, and 'dressed in bright blue one-piece suits like frogmen wear'. On their heads they had dark blue helmets. Their faces were brown, and the complexion freckled. The eyes of the entities were straight and level. Their noses, though the two witnesses could not describe these quite precisely, seemed to be 'flattish'. Their hands, arms, and legs all seemed 'normal' by human standards. As regards their sex, the witnesses were unable to judge for sure.
The clothing of the entities (see sketch) was, as already described, a one-piece garment, close-fitting, and a helmet. On their feet they had what seemed to be high-boots, bright blue in colour. On their arms they had shiny black gauntlets up to above the elbow.
One of the entities was holding a weapon of some sort, which he was pointing at them threateningly, and which Carbajal said was like a hair-drier.
Entities Communicate
"Do, not shout, or we will take you to the saucer!"
This warning, heard by both the witnesses, seemed to come from the entities, though they saw no movement of the lips of either of the two beings, so that the message was probably given telepathically.
Carbajal's account goes on to say that at this point one of the beings raised a hand and put the index finger to his nose, whereupon they both promptly vanished from sight (The outer doors of the shop were locked).
Miguel Carbajal dashed over to the till to get out the keys to the doors of the shop, and as he did so the entities reappeared, in precisely the same position as before. Ledesma grabbed a knife and an iron bar and he and Carbajal, the latter with the store keys in his hand, made for the door.
Violent Contact
Again the entities vanished, Ledesma told the reporters: "I stepped over lightly to the store-room and there they were again, in there. And they threw a crate of cigarettes at me. It missed, passing in front of me. At once I made a dash for the exit, which Carbajal in the meantime had managed to open."
The two men were asked by reporters whether they had heard any sort of sound when the entities were materializing and dematerializing. "Yes", said Carbajal. "There was a sort of sound like TIN ...TIN ...TIN .." but only when they were vanishing."
Once out of the shop, they secured the door with padlock and chain and dashed off into Tucuman in the firm's van to find Manuel Carbajal Senior and tell him that thieves had broken into the shop. Then all three returned to the shop and reported the affair to the local police station, at El Timbo. Police Commissioner Miranda at once proceeded with them to the shop, but when they got there, the entities were not to be seen. They checked the contents of the till, and found that no money seemed to be missing. The witnesses estimated that the episode had lasted about 5-10 minutes.
UFO Investigator's Visit
Argentine investigator Jorge Eduardo Catoja, who prepared this report after making a personal inspection of the scene and after interviewing the two witnesses, made a number of interesting discoveries when questioning people living in the neighbourhood.
For example, he found that, two weeks previously, two strange lights had been seen over a near-by salt mine (the only local industry.) And the occupants of a house near there told him that they had recently been the victims of a mysterious plague of stone-throwing.' Other people whom the investigator questioned re-called that three years ago there had been UFO landings at a place known as Ramadeda de Abajo, lying to the east of Las Salinas.
Notes
1. The 'shrinkage' of the TV picture would also have been a typical result of such a drop in the current - G.C.
2. And here we have the most characteristic and typical of all the features found in cases of pollergeistic infestations - namely "stones throwing!" - G.C.
- HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports", compiled by David Webb and Ted Bloecher, circa 1979.
- Deux Humanoïdes à Las Salinas", Jorge Eduardo Catoja, Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #198, pp 28-30, October 1980.
- "Entities Reported Inside a Shop in Argentina", Jorge Eduardo Catoja, Flying Saucer Review (FSR), U-K., volume 28, #4, March 1983.
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