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Hello, Strangers
By Scott Corrales
FATE :: January/February 2002

Even if J. Allen Hynek hadn’t come up with the category, and Steven Spielberg hadn’t made the movie, another name would have surely come about to describe “close encounters of the third kind”—the most compelling, exhilarating and downright terrifying of all the scenarios involving the possibility of contact with intelligent, non-human life and the repercussions it entails. Given the enormity of the possibility, early researchers into the UFO phenomenon were understandably hesitant to acknowledge its existence. Looking into reports of strange aerial objects that defied our military’s best aircraft was controversial enough.

In the 1950s, the public at large found some humorous relief in telling jokes about little green men asking parked cars “take us to your leader.” Contactees amused some and enraged others with colorful accounts of roadside encounters with Venusians, Neptunians and denizens of other planets.  However, a decade later—and certainly two decades later—stories of encounters with unknown quantities were becoming commonplace.

Hynek left his classification system for posterity to employ and develop, and it is nowadays possible to hear about close encounters of the fourth and fifth kind as some experts tried to cover abduction experiences and other UFO-related phenomena. Nevertheless, it is the third leg of the tripod that interests us here: the moment in time when certain individuals among the many billions on earth have looked upon what we term “aliens”—regardless of their provenance. 

On February 16, 2001, forestry technician Ingrid Sperberger, 26, a resident of the city of Angol in northern Chile, managed to meet her cyberpal Patricio Vallejos, 25, a systems analyst from neighboring La Serena. The two had agreed to meet in person after a long friendship over the Internet, and Sperberger offered to show the out-of-towner the sights of her home town.

Vallejo arrived at Angol’s bus terminal at eight thirty in the evening, as sunset crowned the city. At the station were Sperberger and her friend María Cristina Sepúlveda, 42, who had agreed to provide the transportation for the city tour and act as an unofficial chaperone on their meeting.

María Cristina drove the cyberpals around Angol and at one point, the three of them agreed to visit a scenic lookout from where it was possible to see the entire city of Angol brightly lit and standing out against the surrounding darkness.

Arriving at the lookout at 10:15 p.m., they were surprised to find they were the only car at the location, which is variously known as “El Mirador” or “Las Piñas” by the locals. They parked their car some four meters away from an iron gate adorned with cartwheels, which guards the entrance to a field planted with pine and eucalyptus trees. Sperberger and Vallejo got out of the car to enjoy the view while María Cristina remained beside her vehicle.

When the forestry technician and her friend looked back toward the field, they witnessed a white light ascending vertically from a distance estimated at some 400 feet away. Rejoining María Cristina by the car, the trio witnessed a beam of light spreading open, fan-like, orange colored its base and soft violet at its top. According to their account, which appeared in a local newspaper, the beam of light “lit up everything some 40 meters around. Dry grass, depressions, the green of the trees and shrubs could be clearly seen.”

The phenomenon lasted for some three to four minutes, during which a very frightened Ingrid Sperberger excused herself from her companions to get back into the car. A self-confessed skeptic about the UFO phenomenon, Sperberger stated, “I don’t like seeing strange things.”

A few more minutes elapsed before a solicitous María Cristina Sepúlveda went to check on her friend, discovering that the car’s dome light, which had been hitherto working perfectly, did not activate upon opening the door. Puzzled, María Cristina repeated the maneuver a few times to no avail. It was necessary for her turn on the light source manually.

Meanwhile, Patricio Vallejo remained outside the car, taking in the veritable light show. Vallejo, who suffers hearing problems, did not notice the sound of “ringing bells” that the women had been clearly able to distinguish during the event.

The lights and sounds came to an end when the UFO abruptly vanished. Vallejo coaxed his cyberpal out of the car by assuring her that the coast was clear and that all had returned to normal.

He couldn’t have been more wrong ...

Read the rest of this article in the Jan/Feb 2002 issue of FATE

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