Thursday, November 20, 2008

Argentina: Further Details on the Chicoana Agriglyphs












[This is a long-awaited report: Mercedes Casas is one of Inexplicata’s most respected contributors and is known to our long-time readers for her reports on the cattle mutilation wave of 2002 and other high-strangeness situations that have transpired in Argentina’s northwestern corner. Read on! – SC]

Argentina: Further Details on the Chicoana Agriglyphs
By Mercedes Casas

Residents of the town of Metán also witnessed strange lights with zigzagging movements at low altitude late into the night. These lights disappear into the fields, and occurred at the same time as the Chicoana events. What is remarkable is that the predominant direction of movement is toward the NW, which dovetails with the statements made by the people of Chicoana, who see the movements predominantly toward the SE. In both cases, the trajectory suggests the Cabra Corral Resevoir, an immense body of water.

The reason that I’m highlighting this fact is because the disappearance of large quantities of water is often associated with this phenomenon.

With regard to the wheat fields: the first one, nearest the town, was visited by hundreds of curiosity-seekers that trampled down the wheat, so the possibility of seeing the marks no longer exists. The field was plowed, but the flattened wheat stalks that formed the mark were allowed to remain. The soil’s depth is no different from that of the rest of the field. The depth of the marks was due to the field’s height prior to plowing. The wheat stalks were no different from the remainder of the mature wheat stalks: neither burns nor color-changes are noticeable.

I visited a tobacco plantation to the north of Chicoana, where three workers witnessed flying object manifestations. They are probably the best-qualified witnesses to the phenomenon, as they had to work nights in the field the week that the marks occurred and the following week as well. This is a summary of my conversation with them: They are well aware of the stars and planets at various times of year by virtue of having to work at night. The lights they saw could not be mistaken for stars, planets, shooting stars, airplanes or satellites, which are also visible at night.

The lights they saw at night were several. They lit up the fields in the darkness with such intensity that it was possible to see the crops; a powerful beam of light [issued from them], casting light in the same way as fishermen’s’ flashlights. They compared the size of the object to that of the Sun at that time of day (4 p.m.) and they also gyrated.

The employees tried to record the lights on their cellphones and were unable to do so. All three have cellphones and not one of these devices worked at the time. The symbols appeared on the wheat fields after the first evening that these sightings took place. The place where the first object was seen is over a mountain located to the west of the plantation. They saw two small lights breaking away from the larger one, progressing along the sky in a parallel formation.

At a given moment, when the larger object remained motionless over the mountain, they saw something like “lightning rays”, blue in color, and emerge from the mountain toward the object.

When the lights moved toward them, they estimated that they were some 100 meters overhead. They did not notice any reactions in the local animals, as there were none nearby.

Another object was also seen toward the southeast, in the distance, over the mountains of Sierra Metán, behind which the city of the same name is located. They had the impression that these objects were in communication, as the lights would rise and descend in unison (the Cabra Corral Reservoir is located between Chicoana and Metán, separated from Metán by the Sierra Metán).

The three workers assured me that they didn’t believe in “flying saucers” and had never warmed to the subject. But ever since their sighting, the think that what they saw was neither a natural phenomenon nor anything known to them up to that point.

On the third night of the sightings, given that the plantation’s owner did not believe them, one of the workers ran over to wake him up and bring him to the fields. The owner remained incredulous, arguing that the lights could be stars, but moments later the light began to move and headed toward them, causing a commotion. Speaking to the plantation’s owner, he echoed the words of his employees. He had never believed in such “tales” but what he saw was new to him.

Finally, I was in the field of the Arroyo Tillán mountain stream, facing the Villa Fanny shelter school. No wheat had been harvested there and the marks were present. This is the field that was photographed from a height, as displayed in the press. I wasn’t lucky enough to see the photos from above, but here are the images I took. This photo was taken with a view toward the East-Southeast, from the Villa Fanny School, with the Sierra Metán Mountains in the background.

The wheat stands approximately 1.30 meters tall. Soil is normal, the stalks that form the agriglyph are flattened, some are bent and others broken; this could be due to the fact that the wheat stems are very fragile this time of year, when they are ready to be harvested. Furthermore, there has been no rain, which has contributed to very dry conditions these days, and a 30º C heat. The flattened wheat stalks are not aimed toward any particular point, rather in a spiral, as though following the direction of the object that caused them.

This, then, is a summary of what I saw in Chicoana. I have more photographs, with higher definition, and I have a panoramic shot of the wheat field, which is far too large to include [in this report]. Regards – Mercedes Casas.

(Translation (c) 2008, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez and Mercedes Casas)