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UFOs: MORE ENGINE EFFECTS
by James McCampbell
| MADAR Update: Sept 9, 2018: An incident in 1973 indicates the presence of a UFO stopped a train near Evansville (Mt. Vernon) Indiana by causing a diesel unit to overheat. I investigated that case.. 731020mtvernon_dir.htm - Fran Ridge |
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Original article from the MUJ
article, March 1985
http://www.nicap.org/articles/EM_effects_MUJ_Mar1985.pdf which also lists the detailed 14 references on the last page. DIESELS, TOO? UFO interference with automotive engines is well
recognized and thoroughly documented. Catalogs of such
events have been compiled in Australia, England,
Germany, and the United States. In 1981, the Center
for UFO Studies released summaries and statistical
analyses of 441 cases including 268 in which engines
not only ran roughly and lost power but completely
stalled. 1 Only one case in that catalog pertained to
the failure of a diesel engine that coincided with
loss of headlights along with many other details that
will be reviewed later. 2
Although not intended to be comprehensive, a rather
extensive search of the literature for the present
study uncovered only four additional cases that
occurred after the CUFOS publication or whose original
documentation may have been unavailable. A review of
eight known events may shed some light upon this
perplexing and apparently neglected subject.
A very famous case in Forli, Italy on November 14,
1954, (Case 1). Two tractors were being driven
side-by-side down a road when a UFO was
encountered. One of them, operating on gasoline
with electrical ignition, failed but the other one, a
diesel-powered machine, did not. 3
ELECTRICAL INTERFERENCE
As many hundreds of UFO sightings have involved
electrical interferences of wide variety, it was
natural and probably correct for most people to
attribute the failure of gasoline engines to some sort
of electromagnetic phenomenon. However, that
conclusion may have spawned a subtle and pervasive
notion that diesels are immune to interference by
UFOs.
Another highly publicized example that demonstrates
the resistance of diesels took place in the-early
morning hours of November 6,1967, in England (Case 2).
While driving a diesel truck, the witness saw a
strange, egg-shaped object above some trees about 1/4
mile away. The lights and radio went out but the
engine continued to run as the object landed on the
road only 15 yards away. A flexible tube came from the
bottom of the UFO with-a box on the end. Connected to
the box were four short hoses that sucked up grass,
gravel, and leaves from both shoulders of the road.
Then a Jaguar that drove up to the landed UFO on the
opposite side lost both its headlights and engine.
4 So again under comparable circumstances, a
diesel engine continued to run while a presumably,
spark-ignited engine failed.
That diesel engines can be disrupted was probably
first observed on a fishing boat plying Hawk Inlet,
Alaska on December 16,1958 (Case 3). The UFO had
been seen the previous day floating on the water
about 1/4 mile away. When it appeared about 70 ft,
above the mast, the fisherman radioed-the Coast
Guard. About 5 minutes later, .the "boat's power"
failed and the radio went dead. An auxiliary diesel
generator was barely running but it came back to
normal as the UFO flew away. 5
The description of this case is less than
explicit but the language would ordinarily be taken
to mean that the boat's propulsion system failed. It
would be rare, indeed, for a boat with a diesel
generator to be powered by other than a diesel
engine thereby requiring the storage of two
different kinds of fuel. Nevertheless, it is quite
clear that the diesel generator malfunctioned, a
detail that will be seen in other cases.
Robert Gomez was driving a "vacuum" truck west of
Alice, Texas in the early afternoon of June 12, 1981
when he encountered a hovering disc-shaped, and
brightly-glowing object (Case 4). As his truck
slowed down, he depressed the accelerator to
maintain speed and reported that the exhaust stacks
were blowing smoke. The truck seemed to be about 1
ft. above the road. His AM radio failed but he was
able to report to his dispatcher on a CB. The AM
came back on when the UFO disappeared into some
clouds. 6
Gomez was carrying 165 galleons of water under no
pressure at the time of the sighting but the tank
was later found to be pressurized to 55 psi. Upon
attempting to drain the tank, no water came out.
Only steam. From thermodynamic relations it can be
established that the temperature of the water and
vapor in the tank had been increased to about 303
degrees F. Upon opening the drain, he reduced the
pressure at the exit to 14.7 psi, one atmosphere. As
the vapor pressure of the hot water was 69.7 psi
absolute, it would suddenly flash to steam and that
process would continue until the tank was empty.
Further information in this case is being sought so
that a detailed, quantitative analysis can be done.
On March 21, 1974, 21-year-old Maximiliano
Iglesias Sanchez had two remarkable and complex
encounters with several UFOs and their occupants
(Case 5). While driving a diesel truck at 2:30 a.m.,
he approached to within 200 meters of a UFO standing
on the highway and spanning the breadth of the
pavement. His lights and engine failed.
Another UFO was seen nearby and two, tall human-like
creatures. At 11:15 p.m. the same day, he saw three
UFOs at the same location with one sitting on the
road. Again, the engine failed. He panicked as four
"beings" approached him and then hid in a ditch 2
kilometers away to escape their pursuit.
Later, upon driving away and yielding to curiosity,
he returned to the site on foot and observed four
beings working on an embankment with strange tools.
TRAIN STALLS
A diesel train of 14 cars was stalled on March 10,
1983, by a huge UFO near Ventilla, Bolivia, (Case 6).
First seen as an enormous, blinding cloud of light
over the city, it then flew toward the train changing
color from bright white to glowing orange. Seventy
passengers on board were awakened and screamed in
terror. A yellow ray of light struck the locomotive
and stalled the engine. Engineer Sixto Churaz said
that "I tried to start up the engine, but it was dead.
Fifteen minutes later the engine suddenly came to life
again as the object began to move away from
the-train." The locomotive had just been through an
overhaul and was found to be in perfect condition.
Experts from the University of Qruro, railroad
officials, and local police confirmed that a UFO had
paralyzed the train and that it was not a mechanical
breakdown. On three previous nights, nearby villagers
being harassed by UFOs tried to frighten them off with
gunfire. 8 This episode introduces the extreme
challenging element of the engine starting by itself
as the UFO departed, a circumstance that has been
reported on 27 other occasions for spark-ignited
engines."
A truly impassive event took place in Nha Trang,
Vietnam at 9:45 p.m. on June 19, 1966 (Case 7). A
bright slowing UFO was seen flying at an estimated
altitude of 25,000 ft, over a large, U.S. military
base. It dropped down to hover at 300 to 500 feet
above an outdoor movie, appearing to be about 50 feet
in diameter and illuminating the whole area as bright
as day, The diesel generator for the new projector was
knocked out. Just outside the base, eight huge
bulldozers (D9s) were working in the dark on missile
sites. All their lights went out and their engines
failed. At an airfield about 1/2 mile away, six
independently-operating, diesel generators failed.
Also, two Skyraider fighter planes were revving
engines on the runway that failed. They were
single-seat, combat aircraft with powerful,
reciprocating, radial engines that burned aviation
gasoline. Finally, a Shell Oil Company tanker that was
anchored offshore experienced a complete blackout. 10
Eight UFOs were sighted between November 9 and December 14,1978, in the vicinity of an oil-gathering center near Kuwait City, Kuwait {Case 3). The government appointed a committee of experts from the Kuwait Institute For Scientific Research to investigate. An Institute representative, Ratib Abu Id, told U.S. embassy officials that they had rejected the idea of espionage devices and did not know enough about the subject to rule out spaceships. In addition to the events above, a senior official of the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) reported to the embassy that the UFO "...which first appeared over the northern oil fields seemingly did strange things to KOC's automatic pumping equipment. This equipment is designed to shut itself down when there is some failure which may seriously damage the petroleum gathering and transmission system and it can only be restarted manually. At the time of the UFO's appearance the pumping station automatically shut itself down and when the UFO vanished the system started itself up again. 15 It would be helpful to learn exactly what kind of engine failed and self-started. So a letter of inquiry and a package of information were sent to Mr. Id via the State Department and the Kuwait Embassy. After a two month delay and a follow-up letter, no response has been received. Similarly, the Kuwait Oil Company remains silent .regarding details about the event and the subject engine. Isolated instances of strange effects from UFOs
can be easily set aside. The information is not
consciously rejected but its acceptance as fact
would force an uncomfortable effort to fit it
somewhere into one's mental construct or
perception of the UFO phenomenon. So it is
with.diesel interference. Only when sufficient
evidence is assembled does it become compelling to
try to understand what is happening.
The above cases suggest that diesels are,
indeed subject to disruption by UFOs, They include
the various patterns so typical of spark-ignited
engines, namely, a) a rough running and
power loss, b} stalling, c) failure to restart,
and d) self-starting. Cases where both types of
engines indicate that diesels are more resistant
than spark-ignited engines and that a different
mechanism is responsible.
Four basic factors are required by an
operating engine, namely,
1) mechanical structure and parts (timing),
2) suitable fuel,
3) oxygen, and
4) ignition (spark or compression). All
previous efforts to analyze interference with
automotive engines have b«en focused upon the
electrical ignition system. But failure of
ordinary diesel engines cannot be attributed
to a system that is not present. Rarely, if
ever, is mechanical damage reported that would
necessarily persist, after a UFO event.
Neither does it appear that changes take place
in the fuel supply making it unsuitable. One
is left with a strong suspicion that diesel
interference must somehow be related to the
oxygen supply. While that notion may appear to
be unreasonable, there is scientific
justification to examine the possibility, a
task beyond the scope of this paper.
Self-starting of the Kuwait pumping station is a real puzzler! The analysis of 27 known cases: of spark-ignited engines that started by themselves showed that they all occurred as the UFO flew away. 12 That pattern was faithfully repeated in Kuwait. But the only proposed rnechanisms for self-starting is based upon a sustained arc discharge across the breaker :points while the UFO is present. It's collapse upon departure of the UFO would ignite a cylinder with a fresh charge that had come to rest past top-dead-center. Engine cranking would be vigorous. But large, fixed engines are usually diesels and there is the rub. DIESELS The notably higher efficiency of diesel engines over gasoline engines is achieved by using a higher compression ration. The compression ratio in gasoline engines is limited to about 10 to 1 to avoid explosive pre-ignition of the fuel-air mixture. Ratios of 14 to 1, however, are possible with diesels because they compress only air. A metered amount of fuel under high pressure is sprayed into the cylinder at the critical time. With the air temperature in the cylinder at about 500 degrees F, the fuel is immediately ignited so spark plugs are not required. When reliable supplies of natural gas are
available, such as in petroleum fields and
along gas pipelines, it can be used as a
fuel in stationary engines, Older types of
these engines compressed a mixture of gas
and air but were limited to low compression
ratios typical of gasoline, engines. This
problem was circumvented by designs that
utilized very lean mixtures of gas and air,
yielding compression ratios that were
comparable to diesels. Ignition in them was
produced by a pilot injection of fuel oil
supplying only about 5% of the BTUs. Even
that small amount of refined oil can
represent a significant logistics problem
and expense, so in later developments,
manufacturers introduced models that
replaced the diesel oil injectors with spark
plugs! These engines, known as
"high-compression, spark-ignited engines"
are produced in great variety by several
manufacturers in the range of about 1500 to
4500 horsepower, They are "....the
ideal choice for compression stations on gas
pipelines.
Because of the higher pressure of gases in the spark gap, these engines require much more powerful electrical systems in accordance with Paschen's Law. Secondary circuits operate at about 25,000 volts. So they would be uniquely sensitive to interference by any source of ionization in the atmosphere that would reduce the breakdown potential and permit shorting the high-voltage surges to ground rather than allowing delivery to the spark plugs. While there are many variation in design of the electrical systems, they have breaker points. 14 Consequently, collapse of an arc across
the points could cause this type of diesel
to self-start in complete analogy to
automobile engines. It is hoped that
complete descriptions may eventually become
available for both the engine in the
Bolivian train (Case 6) and the one in the
Kuwait pumping station (Case 8).
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