Manises UFO incident

Halfway through the flight, at about 23:00, Pilot Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada and his crew noticed a set of red lights that were fast approaching the aircraft.

The captain requested information about the inexplicable lights, but neither the military radar of Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) nor the flight control center in Barcelona could provide any explanation for this phenomenon.

Since the object was violating all elementary safety rules and an evasive maneuver was deemed impossible by the crew, the captain decided on going off-course and made an emergency landing in Manises' airport.

One of the UFOs passed very close to the airport runway, and emergency lights were lit by the land crew in case the object happened to be an unregistered flight experiencing difficulties.

The pilot, Spanish Air Force captain Fernando Cámara, had to increase his speed to mach 1.4 just to be able to get visual contact with what he perceived to be a truncated cone shape displaying a changing bright color, but despite his initial efforts the object quickly disappeared from sight.

The High Chamber representative Enrique Múgica Herzog publicly asked for an official explanation, but a UFO sighting was dismissed and the incident was attributed to a series of freak optical illusions.