Photo allegedly surfaces of 1976 Clovis UFO "incident."

 

Canadian UFOlogist Brian Vike claims to have obtained a photograph, to be sure a fuzzy one, of a tubular-shaped unidentified flying object that allegedly flew over Clovis on Jan. 21, 1976, the Clovis News Journal reported this weekend on its Web site.

Vike told the News Journal that he got the photo from a former journalism student at Eastern New Mexico University whose identity Vike said he wouldn't reveal because the source was "threatened" after going on a radio talk show two years ago to talk about the sighting.

Vike said he plans to post the photo on his Web site -- www.hbccufo.org, a pot-pourri of UFO sightings from around the globe. Vike is described as an independent UFO investigator who lives in northern British Columbia.

Checking out Vike's Web site this morning, we found an e-mailed report of strange, swaying lights seen by a hot-tubbing stargazer in Nogal in south-central New Mexico. A copy of the News Journal story also is on the Web site,  but so far no photo.

We weren't aware of the "Clovis Incident," but there is some documented confirmation of UFO sightings on that January night 30 years ago.

"Two UFOs are reported near the flight line at Cannon AFB, New Mexico," according to a document the News Journal cites from the Pentagon's National Military Command Center.

"Security Police observing them reported the UFOs to be 25 yards in diameter, gold or silver in color with a blue light on top, a hole in the middle, and (a) red light on the bottom," according to the document.

There was even a photo of a lightning-like streak across the sky in the shape of a telephone receiver that appeared in the Jan. 23 edition of the News Journal.

The photo was taken by amateur astronomer Steve Muscato, who last week told the News Journal from his home in Las Vegas, Nev., that he took the photo from the top floor of the old Clovis Hotel.

Muscato told the News Journal that the reported sightings caused a great stir at the time, and that, to this day, he isn't sure of what he saw.

"I honestly thought it was Saturn," Muscato told the paper, but the then-high school senior learned that Saturn wouldn't have been visible at the time.

The News Journal also reported at the time of several strange events occurring after those initial sightings.
One News Journal staff writer reported seeing 23 UFOs sliding in and out of some kind of formation on the following night.

And some days later, the paper reported at the time, an unexplained circle was burned into the ground of a New Mexico ranch and a cylindrical object of unknown origin was found on the ground.

According to stories in the News Journal's archives, teams of UFO investigators descended on the city after the sightings, but most concluded that the celestial events were likely the result of a weather inversion or some other weather phenomenon.