Strange Encounters : Alor & Pantar islands, Indonesia, 1959

For most people, the lesser Sunda islands in eastern Indonesia is probably better known for its two tourist magnets - Bali and Lombok. Few if any might know about the Alor archipelago, which is comprised of Alor and Pantar islands, at the easternmost end of the lesser Sunda cluster. Fewer still would probably know about the strange close encounter phenomenon that occurred in those islands, way back in 1959.

Location of Alor Island, Indonesia

It took about 17 long years before the story itself was retold by the then retired Alor islands regional police chief – Alwi Alnadad, to Indonesia’s pioneering ufologist – R.J. Salatun. It has since then been documented in Salatun’s seminal book 'UFO,Salah Satu Masalah Dunia Masa Kini' from which most of the following information is based upon.

Strangers In Blue

Somewhere in early July 1959, residents of Alor and Pantar islands begun their shocking discovery of a group of strange looking visitors on the islands. They were reportedly humanoid-looking beings, with an average height of 1,80 meters, who had reddish skin hue and silvery-white wavy hair. The visitors were also reported to be wearing a ‘peculiar’ attire that consisted of dark blue uniforms, with long sleeves and high collars, and black boots. They were also seen carrying grey metallic cylinders which were tugged in on their belts.

Artist's rendition of the beings

With such uncanny appearance, it was obvious that the strangers would attract attention and curiosity from the simple islanders. Unfortunately, the interaction that henceforth ensued between them were quite fearful (if not even violent) rather than just strange or bewildering…
In one event, one of the strange visitor was seen investigating something which prompted suspicious islanders to surround and attacked the entity with arrows. It turned out that the arrows couldn’t injure the visitor at all, who then escaped without a trace simply by jumping high over the heads of the surrounding islanders.

The strange visitors were also seen in the neighboring island of Pantar, west of Alor. Here, a whole village was practically terrorized by a small group of the blue uniformed strangers. It all begun when six of the strangers came prowling around into the village after sunset, seemingly in search of something. One of them, a bearded figure, went so far as to open one of the villagers’ house window, just to observe the situation inside. Their presence caused so much fear among the villagers that none dared leave their houses all through the night.




[edit on 23-11-2008 by KembaraLangit]
Edits for links...

[edit on 23-11-2008 by KembaraLangit]

Up Close and Personal

Erstwhile in the eastern part of Alor, a few islanders reported a much more up close interaction with the blue strangers. One such case was recounted by a villager, living to the east of the island’s capital, Kalabahi, who had an intriguing personal encounter with the visitors. The unsuspecting man found himself surrounded by a group of blue uniformed strangers, right after he had climbed an Enau tree. They were talking among themselves in a language unknown to the man, and had paralyzed him with one of the metallic cylinder that they carried on their belts. One of them later stepped forward and showed the man a clock-like gadget that amazed him, since it was able to show a scenery that was not only far from where they were but also blocked-off by dense forest and towering hills.

Elsewhere in the east of Kalabahi, a 6 years old child gave his account of an abduction, after he went missing for 24 hours. The child was first found in a confused state, in the middle of a field, before being able to tell the story. He later said that he was taken to the forest by a group of the strange blue-uniformed visitors. He also claimed to have undergone medical examinations while he was in the woods with the strangers and that they had, at one point, offered him to have any kind of food he wanted.

Shooting Thin Air

Reports and stories of the strange visitors finally caught the attention of Regional Police Chief – Alwi Alnadad. Taking a group of policemen armed with Garrand riffles and Thompson machine guns, he then set out to investigate the site, east of Kalabahi, where the strangers supposedly appeared. There, Alwi and his men prepared an ambush.
Alas, at around midnight, the strangers did appear and Alwi men’s fired their shots from a distance of about 13 meters. Strangely enough, they later found no traces of blood let alone a corpse on the scene. All that was left were bullet ridden trees and footprints that vanished after trailing for 5 meters

Following the shooting incident, many residents on both Alor and Pantar Island witnessed what could possibly be the blue strangers ‘farewell’ flight. It was a strange white glimmering egg-shaped object that was seen flying across the sea, from West to East. Ever since that sighting the stranger in blue were never seen again in the vicinity of both islands…

Artist's rendition of the sighting

A Note On Sources

The strange EBE/UFO encounter and sighting in the Alor archipelago, as fascinating as it is, was never an easy ‘story’ to corroborate independently. Other than just the time factor, there is also the problem of supporting documents. To put it plain and simple, other than the account given personally and orally by Alwi Alnadad to R.J. Salatun, no police document/report was ever found. Nevertheless, there are some things that lend some credibility to the story.




R.J. Salatun

First and foremost is the credibility of R.J. Salatun himself. The man is a historical figure in the Indonesian aviation as well as Air Force history. He has joined the ‘embryonic’ national air force since its conception in 1946, before ending his military career as a Vice Air-Marshall (Major General) of the Indonesian National Air Force (TNI-AU). He was also once a minister in the Indonesian 2nd Dwikora-cabinet (March-July 1966) and founder of the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) in 1963. He was also the first person to wrote a serious book concerning UFO phenomena in Indonesia – “Menjingkap Rahasia piring terbang” (Revealing the Secret of Flying Saucer) back in 1960, when he was still an Air Force Colonel. A book that also received a special mention in the NICAP document, published in 1964.

Secondly is the sad yet historical fact that Indonesia has never been very keen in keeping a good measure of its historical documents preserved. Most of the best historical documentations about this country are available elsewhere, in Europe, Australia or even North America (such as the Ohio University’s archives). Other than that, Alor & Pantar Islands were also quite remote back in the 1950’s (if not even up till now). In those days, proper government/military agencies documentation is already ‘rare’ in the less remote areas, such as in Java Island, let alone in the Alor Archipelago. Which would also account for the lengthy span of time before the story was finally revealed by Alwi Alnadad to Salatun.

Another point to note is that Salatun’s book that was printed in 1982 (it’s out of print now) would’ve otherwise been lost in oblivion if it weren’t for the keen & diligent effort to preserve it online, by a group of Indonesian UFO enthusiasts & researchers called BETA- UFO. In fact, the first online account of the Alor case in Wikipedia, was made by the group’s own Director - Nur Agustinus, who have also helped provide most of the documentary materials used in this writing. As brief as it was the Wiki account itself has managed to made its way into various UFO forums. Including here on ATS, courtesy of FSME Internos keen eyes, back in 02/09/08.

Ref:
Salatun's pdf-Book Archive
TNI-AU
Dwikora Cabinet
Indonesian Aviation Pioneers
LAPAN
The NICAP report
BETA-UFO website
Nur Agustinus’ Wiki entry
Internos’ ATS post


[edit on 23-11-2008 by KembaraLangit]

[edit on 23-11-2008 by KembaraLangit]

reply to post by KembaraLangit


Thank you for sharing such a well researched and layed out work, KembaraLangit. The first time i came accross this story i was impressed and i've found it very sad that there was such a lack of informations regarding it: i think that your OP is the best document regarding this incident now available in english, thanks to your efforts and your dedication. As you already mentioned, while there seems to be (so far) some lack of corroborating official documents), in the other hand we have R.J. Salatun, who seems a very reliable source, as well as the way to give (or better, to don't give) importance to presenving the official documents by the local autorities may explain many facets of the lack of documentation. Hopefully, this great thread will bring us to find out more. I hope that others wil enjoy it as i did. Thank you again

reply to post by internos


Thank you very much to yourself Internos...

This thread is actually made as my personal honour for your works here in ATS aswell as the other well-thought threads in the Alien & UFO forum that kept me coming back here to ATS

I also hope more people could come and help me find more documentation on strange UFO cases here in my country, after reading this thread.

Good story...too bad it's main witnesses were uneducated in technology. I say this because they could have been witnessing earth bound military practises and since they most likely would not have seen technology like the military was using before, they just could only say what they knew in the story...ie...metal tube in waistband...gun...etc. Not saying that is what it was...just saying it is one possibilty.

I am also impressed by the research done by the OP here, and the very good presentation of this case. These old UFO/alien encounter cases are truly fascinating!

I have seen these strange sightings mentioned on different UFO sites, but only very briefly, in a few short sentences. Thank you so much for your good work!

reply to post by KembaraLangit


thanks for the great post !

very interesting story , i have heard of this case before and was intrigued by the descriptions of the visitors. even though the people there may have been behind on the awareness of the most modern technology of that time , i find it hard to believe that they wouldn't know the difference between Alien visitors and some military personal.

also i found the part about the visitors being shot at very strange because the visitors just disappeared.

star and flag

Very interesting

And important, because many UFOlogists focus too much on the U.S. and Europe for Encounter-Reports, but there really is so much more.

Cool story! Things like that fascinate me as well. If we were to take the story at face value just for the sake of pondering the possibilities, you have a very wild situation on your hands.

Aliens walking down the street and vanishing as soon as they are ambushed. That would lead me to believe that you would have to have someone monitoring their activity on the planet from above. When shots are fired someone says "Beam me up, Scottie."

Cool stuff. The ability to jump over everybody's head is pretty cool too.

I am giving this thread a bump. A good read for everyone who is interested in these amazing old cases of UFO/alien encounters.

A star and a flag for the first well-researched and genuinely thought-provoking EBE-related thread I have seen in a long, long time.

Well done, OP; well done. I hope to see more on this topic in the future.

Great thread, KembaraLangit!

If we can get more of this type of cases, who knows, maybe we can find some similarities between some of them.

PS: It looks like this type of well researched and presented thread is becoming more frequent, we don't have to wait for Internos to make them.

PPS: Thanks to ziggystar60 for the bump, I hadn't noticed this thread before.

The original popped collar douchebags? I can't take this story seriously when these supposed beings look like something out of Star Trek. Why would their footprints vanish? Doesn't make much sense; they probably thought it would be good to embellish and carry on the nonsense to attract tourists.

Sightings of dinosaurs have also been seen on these islands, i'll see if i can find the article but it was around 2000,2001 that it was seen. I believe one was the Teradactyl.

Awesome! We do need to look outside Europe and North America, it's true. I wouldn't even have guessed.

Star and flag. Threads like these are why I came to ATS in the first place. I only wish the rest of them were as well written too.

My opinion on the validity of the story is, the Indonesian peoples during the 50s were nowhere near as "connected" to the rest of the world, as the rest of the world was. For this reason, it is fair to say that they probably just weren't "playing along", and really DID see something.

[edit on 11/23/2008 by prototism]

reply to post by crimson ghost



I don't know if you are aware of this, but it is in fact possible to use small letters when writing a post. You might want to try it sometime. Many people have done it before you with great success. There you go, just unlock the cap lock. Don't be afraid, it is not dangerous.


And I liked this thread.

Maybe they have a sense of style. Maybe they were like most of the other teeny-boppers of the time crooning over Elvis Presley. Maybe that's what the visitors were searching for. The next Elvis concert.