Form: FI-4
Page 147 ABOVE TOP SECRET (Timothy Good)
On the night of 4 September 1957 a flight of four US-built F-84
Thunderjets took off from Ota Air Base, Portugal, on a routine practice
navigation mission. It was a clear night with an almost full moon, and
the air to ground visibility reported in flight was well over fifty
statute miles. The pilots were Captain Jose Lemos Ferreira, the flight
commander, Sergeant Alberto Gomes Covas, Sergeant Manuel Neves
Marcelino and Sergeant Salvador Alberto Oliveira. Captain Ferreira
takes up the story.
After we reached Granada, at 2006 hours, and started a port turn to
change course to Portalegre I noticed on my left and above the horizon
a very unusual source of light . . . after three or four minutes I
decided to report it to the other pilots. At that time the pilot flying
on my right wing told me he had already noticed it. The other two
pilots flying on my left wing had not yet seen it. Together we started
exchanging comments over the radio about our discovery and we tried
several solutions but none seemed to be a reasonable explanation for
the thing we were observing at the moment. The thing looked like a very
bright star unusually big and scintillating, with a colored nucleus
which changed color constantly, going from deep green to blue to
passing through yellowish and reddish colorations.
148 ABOVE TOP SECRET
The pilots dismissed the possibility that the object could have been
either Venus or another planet or star, or a balloon or aircraft.
Captain Ferreira continued:
All of a sudden the thing grew very rapidly, assuming five or six times
its initial volume, becoming quite a spectacle to see . . . [then] fast
as it had grown, [it] decided to shrink, almost disappearing on the
horizon, becoming a just visible, small, yellow point. These expansions
and contractions happened several times, but without becoming periodic
and always having a pause, longer or shorter, before modifying volume.
The relative position between us and the thing was still the same, that
is about 40° on our left, and we could not determine if the
changing dimensions were due to very fast approaches and retreats on
the same vector or if the modifying took place stationary. . . . After
about seven or eight minutes of this the thing had been gradually
getting down below the horizon and dislocated itself for a position
about 90° to our left. ... At 2038 hours I decided to abandon the
mission and to make a port turn in the general direction of Coruche
since nobody was paying any attention to the exercise. We turned about
50° to port but still the thing maintained its position of 90°
to our left which could not be possible with a stationary object.
By now the phenomenon was well below our level of 25,000 feet and
apparently quite near, presenting a bright red and looking like a
curved shell of beans at an arm's length. After several minutes on our
new course we discovered a small circle of yellow light apparently
coming out of the thing and before our surprise elapsed we detected
three other identical circles on the right of the thing. The whole was
moving with their relative positions changing constantly and sometimes
very rapidly. Still we could not estimate the distance between us and
them, although they were below us and apparently very near. In any case
the big "thing" looked ten to fifteen times greater than the yellow
circles and apparently was the director of operations since the others
were moving around it.
As we were near Coruche the "big thing" suddenly and very rapidly made
what looked like a dive, followed up by a climb in our direction. Then
everybody went wild and almost broke formation in the process of
crossing over and ahead of the UFO. We were all very excited and I had
a hard time to calm things down. As soon as we crossed over everything
disappeared in a few seconds and later we landed without further
incident. Since the first moment we detected the UFO to the final show
a registered time of forty minutes had elapsed, and during it we had
ample opportunity to verify every possible explanation for the
phenomenon. We got no conclusions, except that after this do not give
us the old routine of Venus, balloons, aircraft and the like which has
been given as a general panacea for almost every case of UFOs.
[Emphasis added]
At the same time that the pilots had their encounter, the Coimbra
Meteorological Observatory registered extraordinary localized
variations in the earth's magnetic field, as proven by charts at that
establishment. 29*
* Ferreira, Captain Jose Lemos, FSR, Vol. 4, No.3, 1958, pp.2-3)