extraordinary%20encounters

analysis determined it to be a weather-resistant
plastic developed for military and aerospace
use. It was, in other words, of earthly
origin.) Then a man identifying himself as
Pardo phoned Lleget and spoke with him at
length. Lleget never asked for his address, and
Pardo did not provide it, to the later frustration
of Ribera and Rafael Farriols. The two
ufologists called every Antonio Pardo (Anthony
Brown in English) in Madrid’s phone
book without ever finding anyone who would
own up to being Lleget’s informant.
A related development, investigators would
soon learn, had occurred on May 20, when
the Spanish newspaper Informaciones published
a peculiar announcement: that soon a
flying saucer would land near Madrid to return
earthbound extraterrestrials to their
home planet, Ummo. On the evening of the
thirtieth, three persons reportedly watched a
UFO land near a restaurant in Santa Monica,
another Madrid suburb. The next day, according
to one of the witnesses, impressions, burn
marks, and small amounts of a metallic substance
attested to the UFO’s presence. These
alleged events seemed to confirm a prediction
made by contactee Fernando Sesma, president
of the Society of the Friends of Space, on May
31. In a speech to a small group, he revealed
that since 1965 he and two associates had
been recipients of phone messages and written
communications from Ummites. They had
informed him of a sighting to occur on June
1. They provided the exact geographical coordinates.
The Santa Monica incident seemed to
confirm the Ummites’ statement.
The written messages soon started to arrive
in the mail of Spanish UFO enthusiasts, then
to some of their French colleagues. Postmarks
indicated that they were sent from all over the
world, from cities in Europe to others in New
Zealand and Canada. On each page the
Ummo symbol appeared. It was the same one
Jordan Pena and other witnesses had reportedly
seen and the anonymous young man had
photographed. The messages typically consisted
of many pages of discourse on Ummite
Ummo 251
life, society, science, technology, language,
and politics. Besides the monographs, there
were phone calls from purported Ummites,
always speaking with great precision in a
monotone voice. Untraceable or unsigned letters
came from human beings who had dealt
with Ummites face to face (they were described
as tall, blond, and Scandinavian in appearance)
and witnessed marvelous technology.
The quantity of such material was
astounding. By 1983, according to an estimate
by one knowledgeable student of the
episode, some sixty-seven hundred Ummorelated
communications were in the hands of
a variety of recipients. Most were written in
Spanish, a small minority in stilted French
that seemed to have been translated from
Spanish.
In one document, the Ummites said they
had arrived on Earth in March 1950. The following
April 24, they revealed in another document
that they had stolen a number of items
from a family in an isolated house in the
French Alps. By this time, the French government
had become interested, and at last it had
an investigatable claim. But official inquiries
turned up nothing: no police records, no evidence
of the cave in which the Ummites asserted
they had been living between their
landing and the break-in. In the 1970s, the
San Jose de Valderas “UFO” fell victim to
photoanalysis that established that the object
was an eight-inch plate, the symbol drawn in
ink. Still, the communications continued, and
an Ummo cult grew up around them. A number
of books, mostly in Spanish and French,
would examine or celebrate Ummo.
Though no evidence supports the existence
of Ummo and Ummites, the identity of the
perpetrators of the hoax is still unknown.
French-American ufologist Jacques Vallee,
trained in astrophysics and computer sciences,
characterizes the contents of the documents as
“clever and occasionally stimulating. . . . A
science journalist, a government engineer
working on advanced projects, or a frustrated
writer could match the psychological profile