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The Captain and the first and second officers of the Trident 2 aircraft were interviewed. The skipper, Captain D.W., who has been flying for British Airways for 20 years and has more than 10,000 hours of flying to his credit describes the incident:

"We were about 40 miles south of Lisbon when Lisbon Control (Air Traffic) called up a Tristar that was above us and said: 'We have reports of a UFO. Could you confirm the sighting?'  We looked up and there, sure enough at 90 degrees, was this very bright light; I drew a sketch as we flew along. The time was 2000 GMT, nine o'clock local time. It was still light, the sun had just set, there was no cloud, and we could still see the ground. The crescent moon could be seen but it was daylight to all intends and purposes at 29,000 feet.

"As we looked up, there was this brilliantly white, incredibly bright object. Relative to us, it was at 90 degrees and looked about 30 degrees in elevation. It was an incredible thing to see just sitting there, so I said (to his crew), I think we will tell the passengers, so I made a cabin address and said: 'If you look on the starboard side, you will see what we believe to be a UFO.'

"Then as we were looking, a long cigar-shaped, or sausage-shaped brown affair appeared below  it and to the starboard side of it. It just materialized, just appeared there, and then another one appeared next to it. Certainly, I saw this very bright light which Lisbon had ask me to confirm and the TriStar had already said: 'Yes, we have this UFO in sight.' I confirmed that (to Control) and I said: ''There is no way this is a star or planet.' This is all on tape.

"We saw the bright one for eight minutes, but (as for) the other two, I think the first one appeared two minutes later and the third at the same time. It was then that I thought I was looking at something  very unreal. I think the bright light was fascinating, but the other things were also extraordinary, and something  that I cannot possibly explain. It certainly was not natural. If natural is what I have been accustomed to for the past 20 years, then this was not natural and the other members of the crew agreed with me. (Source: ENCOUNTER CASES FROM FLYING SAUCER REVIEW, pages 4-5, edited by Charles Bowen)