Pilot flies within 40 meters of Giant Pyramid UFO - Daylight sighting 1996

This case has been mentioned as part of several threads but it is such a strange encounter I think it deserves its own, a thread of which I was not able to find. The main witness, Haraldo Westendorf, has produced the drawings you will see in this thread as visual representations of his encounter. He says they have been drawn to approximate scale. The quoted text in this thread is from the following website, which is also listed in the sources: www.rense.com...

Westendorf is 40 years old, a father of three children and a successful businessman. He is also an avid private pilot rated for acrobatic flying. The following account is based directly on his one-hour presentation at the Brazilian UFO conference, which included several detailed illustrations.

Above: Haraldo Westendorf

It was about 10:30 a.m. on November 5, 1996. Westendorf had been flying for 12 minutes over Pelotas, Brazil and had climbed to an altitude of 5000 feet. He saw a strange object in the distance. He radioed to the control tower to see if they could confirm his sighting, which they did. Pelotas air tower requested that he fly closer to the object to identify it. At this point, Westendorf, who at the time did not believe in UFOs, decided that he would try to get as close to the object as he could.

When he got close to the object, he realized that in his twenty years of piloting experience he had never seen or heard of anything like it. Since he had done stunt training in the United States and had also flown in France, he had become acquainted with some very advanced and exotic aircraft. But he knew that this was not an airplane.

He describes the object as a faceted cone, flat on the bottom with a rounded point on top. On each of the eight or ten sloping side panels were three large bulges, like triangle-shaped bay windows on the side of a house -- but they did not look like windows. The entire surface was brown in color. The structure was about 70 meters (225 feet) high and about 100 meters (325 feet) in diameter, big enough to fill nearly an entire soccer field if landed. His own plane, less than 6 meters wide, was tiny by comparison.

Westendorf spent almost 15 minutes flying in close proximity to the craft. At one point, he says his wingtip came within an approximate 40 meters of the strange pyramid shaped UFO. When all was said and done, he claims to have circled the UFO three times. While this was occurring, the object was slowly rotating and moving steadily at a speed of 60 miles per hour. After the plane had circled for the third time, Westendorf noted that the very top of the object seemed to retract, apparently leaving a hole leading down into the center of the craft. Not long after, a classic “flying saucer” type UFO emerged, ascending vertically until it was clear of the “mothership”. At this point the saucer turned until it was horizontal to the ground before flying away at what Westendorf would estimate to be “Mach 10”.

Westendorf decided to fly over in order to get a view down inside the hole. Media articles exaggerated his intentions, reporting he was planning on flying into the object, but Westendorf denies this.

To get more altitude, he flew his plane several hundred meters away from the object, turned around and began a steep climb. He noticed that the object was now rotating much faster. Then he saw brilliant beams of red light shoot from the top of the object toward the sky. He quickly abandoned his plan to fly over the top.

Then, to his amazement, the object rose straight up at tremendous speed. For the first time, Westendorf was scared, because he believed the object's rapid acceleration might produce a shock wave of turbulence that could overwhelm his own plane. As a trained pilot, he knew that air traffic controllers recommend staying at least three minutes behind a large aircraft to avoid such turbulence. He estimated that the unidentified object probably weighed at least three times as much as a 747 jumbo jet, so its shock wave should be huge -- and he was only a few hundred meters away.

He quickly began emergency procedures in case his plane went into a spin or a stall. But to his surprise, he did not encounter any turbulence.

The Pelotas air tower did not possess radar and Curitiba airport’s radar operators about 450 miles away claimed they did not record any unusual activity. Westendorf believes they were lying.

The air traffic controlers at Pelotas air tower did see the whole encounter, reportedly as well as sunbathers at the nearby beach.

He... decided to return to Pelotas airport. But when he landed, he discovered that press and TV people were already on hand, waiting for him.
Speaking with the head air traffic controller and two others on duty at that time, he asked them if they would back up his story to the press. He said that if they refused to back him up, he would deny the whole thing. So the head traffic controller called his boss, an Air Force colonel in the city of Porto Alegre, to ask permission to talk about the UFO. The colonel told the traffic controller to decide for himself -- so the controller told Westendorf that he and his assistants would back up the story. All of them agreed to have their pictures and stories printed in one of Brazil's leading news magazines, and from that point on the case became a national sensation. Westendorf himself was featured on the cover of that magazine (he carries a copy with him to prove it).

This portugese (I think?) documentary on the case features Haraldo Westendorf and shows several newspapers apparently from the time of the sighting. I haven’t been able to find them online. The headline at 2:39 translates (in “google translate”) to: The year Pelotas looked at the sky. At 3:41: Airman says he has seen a UFO.

If anybody can understand the video, please let me in on what the hell they are saying!


Assuming the case is not hoaxed, which in my opinion it doesn’t appear to be, what did Westendorf fly around? Clearly it was some sort of craft or machine. It seemed intelligent: opening a hole in the “mothership” for a smaller craft to exit. The technology involved—if the sighting was reported accurately—must be incredible. What kind of flying machine can go from virtually motionless to incredible speed in the blink of an eye?

What are our options?

In my opinion:

-E.T./non-human craft
-Hoax

What do you think?

Sources:
www.youtube.com...
www.rense.com...
www.amazon.com...=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00FBBA896&linkCode=as2&tag=celebritycoll-20 p. 381-384
www.ufocasebook.com...
www.ufoevidence.org...

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


I wonder what he would have reported if he saw this:


or this:


All in all, I suspect he may have seen something more similar to these:



Whatever the case, if I'm not mistaken, regardless what this pilot saw or didn't see, what do we have other than just another story, just another eye-witness report?

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


While I appreciate the input, the pictures you showed don't really look like what the pilot reported, or what his illustrations depicted.

Even if he was somehow mistaken in his description, how would you explain the following:

1) the movement of the UFO (shooting straight upwards at tremendous speed)
2) the smaller disc shaped UFO emerging from the larger one
3) the alleged beam of light emanating from the top of the object

It should also be noted that the observation was in broad daylight, and took place over an estimated 12-14 minutes.

Whatever the case, if I'm not mistaken, regardless what this pilot saw or didn't see, what do we have other than just another story, just another eye-witness report?

Nothing. It is an eye-witness report. It's far from proof, but if you believe the witnesses, it presents—in my mind—some intriguing evidence.

Thanks for the post

Quite a fantastical tale. Not saying its made up and fake, the pilot certainly had nothing to gain from concocting the story.
South America has definitely seen it's fair share of unexplainable phenomena in relation to UFOs.

The pilot should consider himself blessed to be exposed to such a sight

Brazil has been a UFO hot spot for some time....
There are some VERY interesting and very DOCUMENTED cases from there in the recent past.....
I have no doubts the pilot saw what the others saw him see...whatever that was....................
strange int it?

reply to post by ThinkingCap

thesearchfortruth.... this is a good thread. Well done to you and also ThinkingCap for your astute observations.

Great case OP.

Red about it a year back. Very interesting sighting. Man appeared to get very close.

Too bad no real pics are available...it comes down to..believe it or not...

I think I cautiously do....

reply to post by AliceBleachWhite


He probably would have reported a hot air balloon, as that is clearly what those photos show. It's easy to dismiss any UFO report, Alice, provided you are willing to ignore any details that make the report anomalous in the first place.

reply to post by thesearchfortruth




Prolly an ancient Viamana...they were apparently in use around 6000 - 8000 years ago...I guess there's still a few working

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


still nothing to actually go on..... might have been an encounter might not.... file away as unsolved like all the other reports without anything to substantiate their story..... pity but same can be said for so many other accounts.... when will someone get hold of one of these so called other life forms from other worlds and bring them in front of us, to leave no doubt of their existence...... I wish....... thanks for sharing.....

A guy who was a stunt pilot would presumably be familiar with hot air balloons.

Just to add: Anyone who pilots aircraft (Like myself) are complete nerds when it comes to other aircraft. I don't know another pilot who couldn't tell me Power, thrust, weight, shape, blah blah blah about other aircraft? Let alone balloons. I think "ANY" pilot who has a medical every year/ 2 years could tell the difference between a bird, plane or balloon. After all it's sharing the same airspace as you and could potentially collide with you or cause you all kinds of problems.

Now, just to add a disclaimer here after thinking about it a little more: I'm not saying "EVERY" pilot on Gods earth would know the stats on every other aircraft, but he/she would have knowledge that it was another aircraft......not a figment of the imagination, balloon, bird, mist, cloud, flying paper bag etc.

We are not that stupid, that is why we fly the aircraft and you don't.

Pfft.....Balloon indeed.

conundrummer
A guy who was a stunt pilot would presumably be familiar with hot air balloons.

Or any human- being from the age of 4 and above that is.

Another disclaimer (Disclaimer city today!)

I'm in no way implying that you are stupid if you don't fly aircraft!....sorry, I didn't mean it like that...


You get what I mean....

Cheers all,

Chocks away!

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


Without pictures or physical evidence no way to tell what he saw. Assuming hes not lying my first guess would be he saw a mountain. theres an atmospheric phenomenon that can occur called a temperature inversion called the Fata Morgana where objects on the horizon or even beyond the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or icebergs, appear elongated and elevated and can look like there floating in the air. This is a common source of UFOs near the ocean where people see something on the horizon in the air its actually a ship.If he was flying through mountains i could easily see the image of one of them looking like its floating where its not supposed to be.Even a trained pilot wouldn't know what he was seeing because after all it looks like its there.


en.wikipedia.org...(mirage)

reply to post by dragonridr

my first guess would be he saw a mountain.

Do the tops of these mountains release flying saucers from inside, shoot bright red light beams upwards, and then fly away?

the Fata Morgana where objects on the horizon or even beyond the horizon, such as islands, cliffs, ships or icebergs, appear elongated and elevated and can look like there floating in the air.

On the horizon? You do realize that he physically took his plane and flew around the UFO 3 times, right?

I don't mean to sound rude, but did you actually read my post?

reply to post by dragonridr


AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!! Omg-(wheeze) a mountain.. really!? lmao thats even better than the balloon theory - apologies, but rofl here.
I think most pilots would already be familiar with mirage effects. Not to mention he flew around it for several minutes.

edited to add: search for truth beat me to it