An Extraordinary Sighting
On November 3, 1973 at 04:45 P.M., a banker, his wife, their child and the nurse who takes care of the child were driving in the family’s car towards Mexico City, and were on the road between Cocoyoc and Caxtepec. The weather was clear, with some light flocculent clouds strewing the sky.
The wife of the banker saw an object in the sky, at an altitude which they estimated to be of approximately less than 100 meters above ground-level. She told thereafter that the object was of rather round shape, that she drew the attention of her husband to the presence of the object, and that while the distance between them and the object decreased they could realize that it was not what they had initially thought: it was not a plane, neither a helicopter, nor even a competition balloon, which they had considered for a moment…
The banker stopped the car on the side of the road and the passengers went out to get a better look at the object. The banker thought about his camera, took it, and made a first photograph at this time, with the objective set to an aperture of 50 mm and the exposure time set to 1/250.
After the banker took this first photograph, the object suddenly seemed to move away, and the banker then quickly set up the aperture of his camera objective to 135 mm and took a second shot.
The object started to go down towards the ground as for a landing and a third photograph was taken at this time there, with the aperture also of 135 mm.
The object indeed landed, at about 200 to 250 meters away from the witnesses according to their estimate.
During this approach followed by a landing, the witnesses noted that the object was not completely round but rather like a sphere prolonged by a protuberance below it who made it appear a little bit pear shaped. At the level of its broadest circumference, it had appendices slightly tilted to the bottom at the moment of its progression in flight, the witnesses using the word “tentacles” to describe these appendices. This designation came to their minds when these appendices all simultaneously tilted to the bottom at the time the object started its descent to finally land in the grassy ground.
At this time, the couple noticed that beyond the landed object and not far from him, two children were also looking at it. One of them started to run towards the UFO, which threw the wife of the banker and then the nurse in a panic crisis. The banker tried to calm the two women but finally surrendered to their demand to leave the place immediately. Busy trying to calming down the women, and not particularly shocked by the sighting, he did not take photographs of the object on the ground, everyone went up in the car and they took the road of Mexico City at high speed.
During the entire observation, the object had not emitted the least sound, nor the least smoke, contrail, exhaust, or odor, as if it was completely deprived of any known propulsion system.
The witnesses estimated that the height of the object was about 12 meters and its circumference of about 8 meters. It did not have any inscription or identification marks, no porthole or opening nor visible nacelle or engines. Its color was of a rather dark blue-green.
After the Sighting
As of the following, whereas they had returned to Mexico City, the banker finished the film roll by taking some family photographs then brought it to develop to the nearest drugstore. The pictures were ready in the evening of the same day, and the family looked at them and discussed it, noting the strangeness of the object again, but nothing else was done, the pictures were stored in a drawer and forgotten. The banker explained later that UFOS were not something in which he was interested.
At the beginning of 1977, a friend of the family which had seen the photographs informed the MUFON representative for Mexico, Fernando Tellez, about the existence of these photographs. Tellez contacted the witnesses and received both the pictures and the negatives of the entire film roll. Tellez handed them to Roberto Pavilla, then director of the Kodak Technical Services in Mexico City who carried out the analysis reproduced below.
Fernando Tellez informed the MUFON headquarters and the APRO about the case and thus it was known in the United States by an article in the APRO Bulletin, vol. 25, N. 11, of May 1977. The Argentinian ufologist Carlos Roncoroni, director of the S.I.U in Buenos Aires and editor of UFOPRESS magazine also checked the authenticity of the case.
The couple always wished to continue to preserve its anonymity and its good reputation, they never asked for or received the least benefit of the photographs, and never made any publicity about their sighting. The case became known by mere chance.
Hynek rating: CE2: Close Encounters of the Second Kind
Vallee rating: CE2: A CE1 that leaves landing traces or injuries to the witness.[ref]photos and witness reports via Patrick Gross/Ufologie and UFO DNA[/ref]