From: Scott Corrales <lornis1.nul>
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 07:52:38 -0400
Fwd Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 11:10:28 -0400
Subject: Ball lightining Not Saucers Say Mexican Scientists



Source: La Jornada
Date: May 13, 2004

Ball Lightining, Not Saucers, Say Scientists

SEDENA hindered the access of experts to the material furnished
to Televisa

The alleged UFOs videotaped from the Mexican Air Force's Merlin
C aircraft could be something of greater inmportance to science
than the "mystical" presence of ETs. All appears to indicate
that the cameras aboard the Mexican aircraft picked up one of
the strangest and therefore most fascinating atmospheric
phenomena: ball lightning.

Known since antiquity by sailors and scholars as "the lights
that dance in the sky" and consdiered by popular belief to be
proof positive of the existence of "witches", ball lightning has
not been very well studied and there is little information about
them. It was for that reason that scientists of the Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) marvelled at the images shown
on television.

They immediately contacted the Secretariat of Defense (SEDENA)
to request information on radar frequency, the height and
velocity of the military aircraft and data regarding the speed
at which the luminous spheres were moving. They only received
one reply: "the information you have requested is classified."

It wasn't classified for Televisa journalist Jaime Mauss=E1n, to
whom the video was given by Clemente Vega Garcia, the head of
the government ministry. The general explained in a radio
interview with Carlos Loret de Mola that he did not see the
usefulness of that material being kept in concealment, adn
therefore made the decision to give it to people who had been
working all of their lives with this and put it to good use.
"That why I gave it to Maussan."

The scientific community is upset, Loret insisted. Vega Garcia
replied: "We didn't know who they were (the scientists). We do
not know them," adding: "I hae no problem if they (the
scientists) wish to see this material. It's available if they
want to analyze it."

Of course they wish to analyze it, as professors Rafael Navarra
Gonzales--the only Mexican specialists participating in NASA's
Mars exploration project--and Julio Herrera Velazquez, a
reseacher of the Nuclear Science Institute of UNAM, told La
Jornada enthusiastically.

Their interest lies in that "never before had ball lightning
been seen under such conditions." They said that the phenomenon
has received little study by scientists  and described them as
"electrical, self-contained discharges within an ionized gas
known as plasma, which may circulate constantly and comes about
when the atmosphere is electrified. That's how spheres in which
the energy circulates are created."

There is very little documentation and scientific proof on ball
lightning, they insisted, and unlokcing the phenomenon would
represent a fundamental  leap in the construction of nuclear
power generators, among other applications.

The importance of the images obtained in the skies over Campeche
on March 5, 2004 -- to experts in lightning chemistry, plasma
physics and nuclear fusion -- in that ball lightning events
recorded to date have occurred at low altituded and for very
brief periods: microseconds. In this case, they lasted longer
than usual, perhaps due to the fact that they did not collide
with any obstacle that dissipated their energy. They stated that
their research will enrich scientific knowledge in an invaluable
measure.

News agencies have circulated all over the world the information
of this alleged intrusion of 11 UFOs into Mexican airspace,
which has been cause for jeers, in many cases. In this regard,
Navarro and Herrera maintained that no serious scientist
dismisses the possibility of intelligent life somewhere in the
universe, but the Campeche events do not suggest this. In any
event, it dozens of very consistent studies would be necessary
to sustain such a belief. [...]


Translation (c) 2004 Scott Corrales
Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU)
Special thanks to Chrisitan Quintero - PlanetaUFO.