Belgian UFO on Unsolved Mysteries

We come to yet another UFO case in this series focused on the TV show, 'Unsolved Mysteries'. Episodes of which are all available free on YouTube. This one comes from a country not well known for UFO sightings, Belgium. Yet in late 1989 there was a major UFO flap that continued into the following year.

YouTube Segment : www.youtube.com...

First Aired : November 20, 1991

Unsolved Mysteries Show Notes

Since 1989, thousands of people have reported mysterious lights and shapes in the skies over Brussels, Belgium. Almost all the witnesses describe the same object:

“Basically, what we saw was this big triangle object with three bright white lightings in the corners.”

“In the middle was a flashing red light. It passed by, approaching the roofs, since it was flying so low”.

“You could see three white lights which formed an equilateral triangle.”.

The mystery of the Belgian UFOs began on November 29, 1989, near the small town of Eupen, less than seven miles from the German border. Gendarmes Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert Von Montigny were on a routine patrol. Heinrich described what he and his partner witnessed that night:

“As we approached the crossroads at Nuevos Road, our attention was drawn to an unusual sight. We saw a field near the road that was all lit up. It was like lights on a huge football field. We thought it was strange, and we wanted to know what was causing those lights. There was a huge triangular platform, and underneath it were strong headlights. And in the middle was this blinking, pulsating orange light. The whole thing was floating in the air.”

The gendarmes immediately called Albert Creutz, their dispatcher in Eupen:

“Suddenly, they told me they were seeing a strange object in the sky. It made no noise. We joked about it and said it might be Santa Claus trying to land.”

Creutz noted the unusual report in his log, but was skeptical. According to Heinrich, he and his partner followed the object as it flew across the Belgian countryside toward Eupen:

“We could see it clearly because the headlights were very strong. We could also see the flickering orange ball underneath. We were driving very slowly because it seemed like there was someone in that object and that somebody was trying to observe what was happening on Earth.”

Then a strange light flashed across the window of Albert Creutz’s office:

“Off in the distance, I could see something bright, but I didn’t know what it was. Suddenly, I saw something that looked like a laser beam shoot out of the light and then come back to the light.”

Heinrich and his partner followed the silent object:

“We continued to observe the object as it circled over the city of Eupen. It appeared to be heading toward the forest. On each side of the object there was a kind of laser beam and a ball that was leaving the object and coming back as if the ball were to measure something, so it was easy for us to keep track of it in the sky.”

Creutz contacted four local airports. Each reported no unusual activity. For at least 30 minutes, the gendarmes watched as the object hovered in the distance. And then, according to Heinrich:

“All of a sudden it came out of nowhere, another spacecraft. We were a little frightened. The one we had been following was still over there, and now a second one was rising up into the sky. At a given moment, it tilted slightly. We could see again the shape of a triangle with bright headlights. We could see some kind of dome on the top of two or three small windows, and there was a light inside the object. By the time we realized what it was, the object flew away.”

Moments later, Albert Creutz became a believer himself:

“Through the open window, I saw a strange machine floating about 500 feet away from me. It looked like a large ship floating in the air. It drifted in front of me for a few seconds, then flew away in the direction of La Calamine. It was a beautiful thing to see.”

Within minutes, two other gendarmes reported a similar object over the village of La Calamine, eight miles to the north. One of them, Deiter Plumanns, had no doubts about what he saw:

“We had heard our colleagues talking about this flying object. In the beginning, we thought it was some sort of joke, but then we saw something. It wasn’t funny any more. Both of us had a strange feeling. It was impossible to explain what the object was. We thought it was an American aeroplane or something. We had no other explanation for what it might be, but it was real, and it was above us.”

All four of the sightings occurred in one hour, within 20 miles of each other. That same day, 11 other gendarmes and more than 100 private citizens came forward with similar reports of UFOs over Belgium.


Then, in April 1990, an amazing photograph was taken. It showed the same array of lights described by the eyewitnesses. By using a computer to enhance the film’s contrast, the triangular shape was clearly visible. This amazing image was the first photographic evidence that UFOs had invaded the skies above Belgium.

Overwhelmed by the number of sightings, Belgian authorities brought in an organization called SOBEPS to coordinate reports and set up procedures for dealing with future close encounters. They didn’t have to wait very long.

According to Captain Jacques Pinson of the Gendarmerie, he was called to a home outside of Brussels when dinner guests reported seeing strange lights in the sky:

“These points of light were very different from the other stars. They were much bigger and much brighter and not the colour of stars. The main colour were reddish or yellow, and the others were green. Later, they began to travel short distances in an erratic manner.”

At the same time, radar at a NATO tracking station detected an unknown object at that exact location. Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Billen reported that the object showed up as a small circle with a tail in the lower-left quadrant of the radar screen:

“We phoned to other civilian and military radar sites like Semozag, Virton, Saint-Hubert, and they had precisely the same echo at the same place. We were unable to identify this echo as being either enemy or friendly. It was not very clear for us that there was an aircraft.”

With confirmations from four radar stations, two F-16s from the Belgian Air Force were immediately deployed. Their mission was to locate and identify the object. The pilots soon locked onto it with their on-board radar. But after just five seconds, the object bolted out of range at an incredible rate of speed. Belgian Air Force Major General W.J.L. De Brouwer was at a loss to explain the encounter:

“We measured some exceptional accelerations which cannot be related to conventional aircraft. That is clear.”

For the next hour, the object seemed to play a high-tech game of cat and mouse. According to Lieutenant Colonel Billen, each time pilots achieved lock-on, the object darted out of range:

“The pilots confirmed that it was impossible for them to accelerate as quick as the target”

When the jets’ on-board radar footage from that night was analysed, the UFO could be seen climbing from 7,000 feet to 10,000 feet in a matter of seconds. Then, incredibly, the object plummeted to just 500 feet in only five seconds and accelerated to more than 1,000 miles per hour; that’s one and a half times the speed of sound. This extraordinary combination of acceleration and descent would be fatal to a human pilot.

And another peculiar fact: even though the craft exceeded the speed of sound, no one on the ground reported hearing a sonic boom. According to Major General De Brouwer, no known aircraft was capable of such acrobatics:

“The data, then, on all these performances which were registered during the lock-on of the radar, it was totally outside of the normal performance envelope of any airplane.”

The Belgium UFOs have been observed by thousands of eyewitnesses. They have been recorded on military radar. And one unknown object evaded sophisticated fighter jets. Yet sceptics dismissed the sightings as nothing more than UFO hysteria. They believe that the radar reports are the result of false echoes or changes in atmospheric conditions. But Gendarme Heinrich Nicoll said he knows what he witnessed:

“Some people don’t believe us and the things we have seen. Well, they’re afraid to believe us. It doesn’t matter to me. But I have seen something, and what else can I say? It was not some invention of my mind. I saw it, and it was very real, and it happened just as I have said.”

Based on the radar data, Major General De Brouwer concluded that conventional aircraft were no match for the advanced technology his jet fighters encountered:

“I think it’s our job to try to find out if there is really something in the air, where it comes from, what the origin is, and what the intentions are. Indeed, there is something going on in Belgium which is beyond our control.”

Despite thousands of sightings in Belgium, there have been just a few reports in the neighbouring countries of France, Germany, and the Netherlands. For sceptics, this is more proof that the sightings are the result of overactive imaginations.

Some people, however, speculate that UFOs may be attracted to Belgium’s highway system. It is so brightly lit at night that it was visible even to the astronauts on the moon.

Beyond Unsolved Mysteries

In 1991 the local Belgian UFO organization SOBEPS published their book called Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique, (The Belgian UFO Wave). Authored by Auguste Meessen it has been a valuable resource for researchers.

The book concluded that

“The only reasonable hypothesis is that of unidentified flying objects... of extraterrestrial origin."

Other analysis produced a different view:

It seems that many of the events that took place in Belgium in 1989-1990 were simply misperceptions of ordinary objects. One can not conclusively state that no alien spaceships were seen during this period, but a vast majority of the sightings can be explained....

We discover that American Ufologists have firmly engraved the Belgian wave into UFO history... The admittance of a classic UFO case as being explained is almost unthinkable... For them, to remove the Belgian wave from the UFO history would be the equivalent of proclaiming a priceless religious artifact a hoax.

Tim Printy – Astronomy Website

Also notably, there were no reports from Flemish speaking part of Belgium. The flap appeared concentrated over the French speaking area of Belgium. Neighbouring countries had very few UFO reports during the Belgian flap. Or if they did, they largely went unnoticed.

However, when the Belgian wave hit another peak on March 30th/31st 1990 and F-16s were launched to intercept, an object was tracked across the English Channel towards Britain. Yet the Royal Air Force, decided no response was required, and no threat was posed (as per released FOI documents. DEFE 24 1970.)



By the time parliamentary questions were asked of the Ministry of Defence’s response (or lack of), the radar evidence had been wiped. Whether the the Calvine UFO which was allegedly snapped in British airspace in August of 1990 is related is unknown.

In April 1990, a photo of a triangular object with three lights visible at each corner was released by an anonymous photographer.Dubbed the Petit Rechain picture. The authenticity of the image was in some doubt but Société Belge d'étude des phénomènes spatiaux (SOBEPS) claimed that this picture was genuine.


The Petit Rechain photo

However, on July 26, 2011, the news that the famous Petit Rechain picture was a fake was broadcast on Belgian TV, Patrick Maréchal came forward, claiming that he had hoaxed one of the few photographs of the Belgium UFOs.

While damaging, especially to champions of the photo as a genuine UFO, the case itself has remained unsolved for over 30 years.

a reply to: mirageman

Am I mistaken or, if you look at the last picture in the post, of the triangular object, ...

Focusing on the bright "light" in the twelve o'clock position, it appears that there are two cylindrical structures extending from the light, and connecting with two additional lights, forming what appear to be the vertices of a triangle.

I say cylindrical due to the way the ambient light delineates a line of demarcation between the light at the 12 o'clock position and the two other lights.


I've seen similarly shaped lighter than air vehicles, including one developed about the same time as this, under development by the USAF.

Wondering....

a reply to: Mantiss2021

While I am not saying your own observations aren't interesting that photo was a hoax. Admitted by Patrick Maréchal in 2011.

When it comes to FBT's there are remarkably separate, similar, global accounts (some in Belgium) going back years.

See David Marler presentation:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The lights beneath things aren’t actually lights though, they are the field generator points I am told. Our tech derived from efforts to back engineer alien tech, but nowhere near as successful. The alien craft we hold have a single field generation point that envelopes the whole craft and effectively places it outside of local physics. All very weird and beyond my puny brain.

I guess the flair and military jet folks don’t have much to say on this one.

Kudos to the Belgium government, who, UNLIKE others, were above board and honest to the people, and no swamp gas and swans flying in formation nonsense.

originally posted by: peaceinoutz

I guess the flair and military jet folks don’t have much to say on this one.

Kudos to the Belgium government, who, UNLIKE others, were above board and honest to the people, and no swamp gas and swans flying in formation nonsense.

You meant to spell it "Flare".

a reply to: mirageman

Again a fantastic thread.

To be fair, the Belgian UFO wave is not really a popular subject over here, so it's a surprise to see this pop up again.

Most people also don't know that there was a smaller wave around 1997, but it isn't really documented, probably cause it was less spectacular.

One thing I would like to add is that Michael Kuzmek, an artist experimenting with helium balloons, claimed he was responsible for the UFO wave. But he withdrew his statements later on cause of the possible consequences of flying helium balloons at night without permission. Nobody could reach him afterwards, so make of it what you want.

For those who can use dutch or speak Google Translate there's also a publication on ufomeldpunt.be...

Oh, one more thing: the objects where also seen in the Flemish part of the country, though way less.. I remember it making the news back then including witness interviews. Some saw the triangle like discribed (sometimes with a blue light in stead of a red one), others saw floating rectangular platforms following the E40. It's been a long while though, so some of my recollections may be a bit off. But yeah, the Wallonian reports are the most famous and officially documented.

a reply to: mirageman

Hi Mirageman and fellow UFO enthusiasts,

I'm leaning toward the 1989 sighting being a "Sneaky Pete" or something like it black ops craft.

yf-23.webs.com...

It is subsonic (no sonic boom), has 3 windows, dates align, could have been a U.K./U.S. joint secret project, and the speeds and distances (eyed?) mentioned are vague.

a reply to: StratosFear

I saw that and tried to change it, but it was too late. I have a ( flair)flare for misspelling--homonyms--As the gubmit has a flair for lying.

This is an impressive ufo flap with few or no explanations other than otherworldly phenomena with the testimony of the speed of the crafts.

a reply to: zeroPointOneQ

I've exported just over 50 report from the U* UFO Database into a Google Map. All sourced UFO reports (although the original source may be difficult to find now).

This is the link to the Belgian UFO Map

If you click on the map icons it will bring up brief details of the specific sighting. It also confirms there were some reports from Flemish speaking Belgium.

a reply to: quintessentone

Whatever it was some reports have the 'object' hovering and travelling as slow as 25-40 kph. Others of something travelling much faster.

It's possible, likely even, that people did not all see the same thing over the space of more than a year. I think there's even a Dutch Air Force document that noted the UK/US were up to something between Germany and the UK. It might have also had some form of radar signature spoofing.

But I don't have any links and can't remember the specific details

originally posted by: StratosFear

originally posted by: peaceinoutz

I guess the flair and military jet folks don’t have much to say on this one.

Kudos to the Belgium government, who, UNLIKE others, were above board and honest to the people, and no swamp gas and swans flying in formation nonsense.

You meant to spell it "Flare".

Awwww leave 'im alone - the alternative is far more entertaining.




"It was Flair Gas, mannnnn."

a reply to: mirageman

I’m impressed! That map puts the whole case in a different perspective. I had no idea there was that much of a correlation.

My first thought, but it’s a bit of a stretch, is that a lot of reports seem to be situated near (the south side of) the language border. More peculiar is there seems to be a concentration of reports situated around the German speaking part (Eastern Cantons) of the country. I don’t want to speculate too much (there are other possible things to notice), but I wonder if this was deliberate.

An interesting question is do these craft(s) have a similar look to the Phoenix Lights flap and the Hudson Valley ufos?

They do seem to have a similar general appearance based on the triangle version of ufos…

Timeline
Hudson Valley early 80s to 89
Belgium late started in 1989-90
Phoenix Lights 1997

And were these one craft or a fleet?

the belgian waves are much more complex than that...

here is a map for the wave 1989-1994

source cobeps data and personal research .. anakin_nEo belgium 2022 using google earth for visualisation, educational purpose

ibb.co...

this map counts thousands of cases

example of a partial zoom

ibb.co...

and another one for eupen malmedy etc german speaking region

belgium has 3 linguistics regions, german one 'small one), flemish one on north, france one on south and brussel bilingual

ibb.co...

a reply to: josuavalley

Yes there were thousands of reports according to the Unsolved Mysteries segment. I had only mapped reports from 1989-1991 (when the show first aired) because I extracted them from the U* UFO Database. Some reports included multiple witnesses [up to 200] in certain parts of Belgium.

There doesn't seem to be many reports from neighbouring Germany or the Netherlands in that time period. The sightings in France tended to be reports of 'saucers' not triangles.

originally posted by: peaceinoutz
An interesting question is do these craft(s) have a similar look to the Phoenix Lights flap and the Hudson Valley ufos?

They do seem to have a similar general appearance based on the triangle version of ufos…

Timeline
Hudson Valley early 80s to 89
Belgium late started in 1989-90
Phoenix Lights 1997

And were these one craft or a fleet?

I should expect that there's a lot of 'noise' in the reports. People mistaking natural and man made things in the sky for UFOs. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff. In Spring 1997 there was also a Triangular UFO Wave over the UK. In the most well known case two sonic booms were detected over the Peak District/Yorkshire area. But despite parliamentary questions, it was all shrugged off until it was forgotten about.