The Belgian UFO Wave

The Belgian UFO Wave

(Photo of possible triangular craft, taken by J.S. Henrardi, June 15, 1990.)


The sightings originally began near Eupen, Belgium, in the month of October, 1989. The sightings started to increase over time, towards the west near Namur, Belgium, then to Wavre, Mons, and then close to France, so the UFO wave covered a large swath of area. The majority of the sightings were at night, and a small minority were during the day. People who had seen the UFOs during the Belgian UFO wave were in a variety of fields: Military, physics, police, civilian aircraft pilots, and even meteorology. Many described the objects as being black, and triangular, with lights on each of the vertices, as well as a flashing, red light located in the center of the triangular craft. Some also report that the crafts had strings of lights on the sides.

A few people also claimed that the craft were "as big as a football field". Some reported that from the side-view, the crafts were "very high", and had large "windows." Another person reported that "while the object was flying slowly directly overhead, one could not see the front part and the end at the same time because it was too big."

The crafts did not move fast, they would usually move at a very slow speed, and would many times simply hover, rather than move. Though, at some times, the crafts would move at a very high speed, moving from one point of the horizon, to another point directly opposite in a matter of seconds. The crafts were mostly noiseless, however, some did emit a low humming noise. The crafts also exhibited a tendency to make very slow turns, as well as sometimes making a complete 180 degree turn.
In three of the sightings, there were reports that the underside of the craft had "heavy metal parts, crisscross effects, diamond-shape work, tubular things here and there."
Others report that one of the triangle crafts constructing itself into a different shape, a circle to be particular, with a circular light, which then let out a large amount of relatively small, red objects, spreading out in nearly every direction, with the circular craft then turning back into a triangular shaped craft.



Some people claimed that, when they signaled the triangular craft with their car headlights, the craft would reply with a light pattern that was similar to the pattern of the car lights, or would sometimes move as soon as the people would signal the craft.


Another sighting occurred when two policemen, who were part of the Wavre gendarmerie, had seen a very bright light, that had lit up their entire car, which they had seen was originating from a black triangular craft, that had three lights on each of the vertices, and a flashing, red light in the center. There was a very low humming sound being emitted from the craft. The craft was very large, and it was at a height of more than 600, to possibly 900 feet. One of the police officers stated that the lights being emitted were so bright, "that we could read a newspaper under it." After this, the craft started slowly moving towards the Gileppe Dam, were it then sat stationary for 45 minutes, before moving towards Spa, a city in Belgium, and again sat stationary for 30 minutes, which then the triangular craft disappeared.

Another officer, who was located on the third floor of the Eupen station saw a bright, rectangular craft, roughly 65 feet in length, that was between him, and the rear wall of the station, which was approximately 650 feet away.


After watching it move away, and eventually disappear, the officer notified two police officers who were in the area the rectangular craft was moving towards. After approximately seven minutes, the craft was sighted by the officers, and the policemen were able to see the underside of the craft. The policemen notified SOPEBS, or Société belge d'étude des phénomènes spatiaux (Belgian society for the study of space phenomena) about the craft, claiming that it was a triangularly shaped craft, and that while the craft was moving, they noticed a "balancing movement", as well a dome on the top surface of the craft. One of the two policemen also apparently stated that the craft was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

F-16 jets attempt to intercept triangular crafts

The main case started on March 30, 1990, at 23:00, when the supervisor of the Control Reporting Center in a small town of Belgium received reports of a triangular UFO in the sky flying towards the southeast of Brussels. The three lights of the triangular craft were varying in colors; at times being red, yellow, or green. After a short amount of time, the Control Reporting Center requested for the Wavre gendarmerie to send patrolmen to investigate the sighting of triangle UFO.
After roughly 10 minutes, another triangular craft had been spotted flying towards the original craft. Then, at close to 23:30, the gendarmerie of Wavre had established the authenticity of the sightings, and the fact that the crafts were detected by the CRF's radar had only added to the authenticity of the sightings, as well as confirming it.

After being detected by radar, the three lights had moved in closer to each other, thus forming a smaller triangle. Then, after receiving a second confirmation of the objects by radar, from the Traffic Center Control located in Semmerzake, Belgium, the Control Reporting Center gave the directive for two F-16 jets to be scrambled from the Beauvechain Air Base in a short time after 24:00. All while the crafts are still being seen, and have already been seen for more than an hour. The lights were described as, relative to each other, not changing position at all, while moving at a slow speed. Two other lights, albeit dimmer than the two other formation of lights, were spotted near Éghezée, a small town of Belgium.
After the F-16s were scrambled, the pilots made nine attempts to intercept the objects. In three of the attempts, the objects were locked on by radar, however, only for a short amount of time, as the objects managed to evade the radar lock on by accelerating to great speeds, and in some cases, faster than the speed of sound.


When the first craft was locked on by radar, the object accelerated approximately 950 mph, from roughly 149 mph, to about 1099 mph. The object also descended nearly 3937 feet in less than two seconds, descending from more than 8858 feet, to nearly 4921 feet, then ascended nearly 11,000 feet, before descending again to near surface height.

Continued in next page.

Even with such great speeds, no sonic boom was heard, despite the fact that the craft accelerated to faster-than-sound speeds in a matter of seconds.

Descriptions of one of crafts, which was a relatively small triangular craft, given by people who were watching the UFOs, are in agreement with what was shown on radar. People watching the craft report that the smaller triangle disappeared (possibly dimmed out) for a short amount of time, and while this was occurring, a larger triangular craft swiftly ascended while the F-16s were moving next to it, possibly while the jets were attempting to intercept the craft.


At 00:40, radar locked on to one of the crafts, only for the craft to once again evade the radar lock on by accelerating more than 596 mph. The F-16s, Traffic Center Control, and Control Reporting Center, all lost radar detection of the object after this. Soon after, the F-16s flew back to the Beauvechain Air Base a little time after 01:00.

Another description of the crafts was given by the patrolmen sent to investigate the sighting. The description they gave, was that the craft had rearranged itself into a square, as well the individual lights making random movements. Then, moving away from one another, and slowly dimming, before disappearing.

There were more sightings of triangular crafts after this, however, sightings became less frequent, and would go back to the normal, one or two triangular UFOs sightings.

Thank you for reading.

Additional info here

2nd

reply to post by IMSAM


And also HERE

reply to post by IMSAM


Thanks for the link.

reply to post by Telos


Thank you for the link as well.

Telos goddamn those Belgians must be stupid.

Sending jets to hunt a hoax wow

Did the hoaxer also hoax the radar hits?Or was is a series of unfortunate events that led to a big ufo case?

reply to post by extraterrestrialentity


Just to say, whilst the Belgian UFO wave was real imo and black triangles genuinely observed, I'm quite sure the photos are a hoax

Conclusive evidence of pics being a hoax?

any belgian able to help?

reply to post by IMSAM


This is not a thread regarding the photos, if you would like, you can go ahead and post in the thread you linked.

Another thread on this?I thought it was against the rules.This case stands out head and shoulders from many others.Wonder if anything new turned up after 23 years

reply to post by KABOURIS72


Thank you for trolling my thread.

It is an interesting case regardless of the faked picture , the fact is there were objects in the sky over a prolonged period the question is what were they .
Here's a video that shows the Belgium Air force's radar images of the object and an interview with the pilots .


Here's a video of witnesses including police officers describing what they saw .

reply to post by gortex


Thank you for that, it is an interesting video/documentary.

reply to post by KABOURIS72


It is most certainly not against the rules to post one or two threads on a subject. And please, link at least two or three threads on this, that are as comprehensive as this thread.

A thread with a link in it, and a couple of external texts is different than a thread created by a member that took a great amount of time to research and create.

The Belgian sightings and reports remain interesting and haven't been resolved. By 'resolved,' I mean there are questions that haven't had answers and, despite the 'trophy photograph' being dubious, a puzzle remains.

A couple of years ago, I dug out Mark Cashman's analysis of the radar data (from his 'Temporal Doorway' site) and posted it here. The extracts that follow are from this paper:

The UFO was not observed visually by the F-16s at any time. An analysis by the author, based on distance data, indicates that the object would have had to have been exceptionally large or well illuminated to have been observed visually under the conditions that evening.

1-4: level flight 150 knots; UFO apparently detects interceptor

5: descends 1000 feet

6: resumes level flight, accelerating to 570 mph, 70 degree heading change

7-8: continues level flight, small speed changes

9: continues level flight, slowing, may be losing energy in the entry to the ascent

10: ascends 1000 feet, continues slowing, may be losing energy post ascent entry

11: ascends 2000 feet, regains some speed, turn -60 degrees

12: ascends 1000 feet, regains some speed to highest pre-ascent speed

13: ascends 1000 feet, loses some speed; top of a nearly ballistic trajectory

14: descends 1000 feet, regains speed to amount in (12)

15: descends 3000 feet, turns 60 degrees, increases speed by 200 knots

16: descends 1000 feet

17: levels off, increases speed slightly

18: descends 1000 feet

19: descends 1000 feet, turns 30 degrees, increases speed by 200 knots

20-23: continues descent at 1000 fps with shallow turn and gradual speed decreases

Bear in mind, this is purely from the radar data and no sighting was made by the pilots. If it was an aircraft or 'exotic' aircraft, it would still be held to account by gravity, forces of inertia and structural integrity. Cashman goes on to point out how the 'aircraft' defied conventional expectations about how a technological object would be expected to perform:

[...] due to aerodynamic considerations, high-G turns (and these are extremely high-G turns), are generally avoided, since they use up the available energy budget for the pursued aircraft more quickly. Yet the UFO made three high-G turns in a span of less than half a minute - and during those turns provided no sign of losing energy (i.e. rapid loss of forward speed). This suggests an extremely high performance vehicle with an unconventional aerodynamic profile

It's a constructive analysis of the data and is well worth a read; there aren't many guys like Cashman around these days. Brad Sparks has left the scene too and I guess Martin Shough is the sole heir to their thrones.

However, what Sparks and Cashman didn't know about in 1990 was the state of Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) and the reported abilities of the CIA's Project Palladium. I can't find a link to the paper right now, but it was an article written by a CIA historian, for a CIA in-house magazine, describing radar spoofing from the very early 1960s. They could project moving objects onto the radar arrays of foreign nations that would generate defensive air-force responses and could potentially cause an enemy to send their pilots on wild goose chases...

It's only an opinion; I think it's a plausible explanation for that incident that *possibly* the US (and/or the UK) tested their cutting-edge radar spoofing (ECM) on the national security of Belgium.

Continued in next post with no 'debunking'

Another report puts that explanation on thin ice and leaves more questions still - ENERNAGE 1989: The Facts and their Analysis. Where we had the most famous case being a radar-only incident, in this one we have an actual sighting of some unusual craft by a 'Lt Col André
AMOND and his wife Chantal on December 11, 1989 at ERNAGE near GEMBLOUX in Belgium'


The abstract:

A remarkable UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon1) has been observed by Lt Col André AMOND and his wife Chantal on December 11, 1989 at ERNAGE near GEMBLOUX in Belgium. We provide first-hand data about all phases of this event and describe the behaviour of the observed lights. These belonged to an object that was invisible to the witnesses and flying very slowly, at low altitude without making any noise. It surprised the witnesses, since it approached closely, turned very sharply and departed at high velocity. During the new inquiry, we found a related observation made by another witness, also in ERNAGE. The facts are analyzed in a rational way and the hypothesis that it could have been a helicopter or any other conventional aircraft is carefully checked, but refuted. Two other cases that so-called sceptics attributed to helicopters are also studied.

The actual report is poorly written in the sense it should have been objective and instead contains personal commentary that makes any good sceptic twitch. I've read a lot of academic papers and this is the only one where 'flabbergasted' is part of the text. However if we ignore the personal opinions in there, what's left is a statement by the witness that he saw something physical and unusual.

1. “The slowness of the movements of the flying object, in contrast to its final rapid motion.”
When I was driving, I had to wait until it caught up, but at the end, it displayed a tremendous
acceleration and flew off at very high velocity.

2. “The mass, which should necessarily have carried the lights, did not reflect the moonlight and
was not visible.” The full moon was positioned, behind the witness. Could its rays have been
deviated towards the rear-side of the object?

3. “The lack of engine noise.” No sound was heard, not even when the car engine was shut off on
the country road, at that time, devoid of traffic. Slightly later, it was possible to hear there the
noise made by a train that was passing much farther away.

4. “For me, it is clear: it was neither an AWACS, ULM or helicopter, nor a hologram”. The Colo-
nel discards thus any conventional explanation, but he insists that “some kind of intelligence was
involved”, since the flying object deviated from its course with a specific purpose. He doesn‟t
know whether this “visit” did result from curiosity or aggressiveness, but it was not accidental.
The motions of the group of lights were always coherent and attributable to a flying object, al-
though the manoeuvre was amazingly slow. The approaching light was very intense, but had a
sharply defined boundary and didn‟t illuminate the ground.

By 1989 the Cold War was over. Psychological warfare with the Eastern Bloc could be at the heart of the Belgian Wave and yet it seems poorly timed. Why go to that effort when the war was over? Why use Belgium as a theatrical stage when Eastern European nations had weaker technology and were closer to the Russian Kremlin?

This is why I consider the Belgian Wave as 'unresolved,' radar evidence and witnesses support the contention that *something* physical was in their airspace at that time. Whether it was the elaborate political posturings of our own technology, or something from elsewhere, there's not enough information to answer all the questions.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Thank you for the information, it is very detailed, and it adds to the thread.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Hey Kandinsky good to see you here mate
You provide food for thought in regard the Project Palladium information and if I'm not mistaken isn't that or something similar thought to be behind the Milton Torres 1957 UFO Encounter over East Anglia ?

The testimony of the witnesses regarding the large slow moving triangle object has always struck me as reminiscent of the Illinois UFO Sighting which I suspect was / is a military blimp , perhaps they were testing one back in the nineties over Belgium .

Originally posted by extraterrestrialentity

The Belgian UFO Wave

(Photo of possible triangular craft, taken by J.S. Henrardi, June 15, 1990.)

Beware of the above photo as:
1- there's absolutely no proof that this is really a photo. Could be a computer generated picture to illustrate the events.
2- the original source remains unknown.
3- "J.S. Henrardi" never came forward about these alleged photos. (yes, there are in fact two "photos" that are reproduced below)
4- the most complete and best resolution have English captions, while the case occurred in a French-speaking country.

I have done recently a short analysis on these two "photos" for Patrick Ferryn. (COBEPS president)

Here are the pictures:

The well-known "Petit-Rechain" photo that is known now to have been faked (in original version):



The two "Henrardi photos":





My notes:

1- Size and ratio of the pictures:

PR ("Petit-Rechain") photo was taken with a 125 film 24x36 mm, with a 1.5 ratio.
Both Henrardi photos, at the highest resolution found on the Internet, have a ratio of 1.36.

- The two ratios are different, which means, if all the photo came from the same camera, that those of "Henrardi" were cropped. This could have been done either by changing the original length (660 instead of 600, for example) or by cropping the two dimensions, width and height.
- The 1.36 ratio does not match any film format, the closest being 1.37 in the 90s' for the format "Iwersphere" produced by IWERK but corresponding to a 65 mm film format and not to the classic 125 mm.

2 - Presence of unwanted reflections:

Unwanted reflections ("lens flares") may well be present on a photograph taken with a Praktica BX20. (the camera that was used for the "Petit-Rechain" photo):





These flares are due to the presence of bright light sources in the field of view and can be easily detected as they are mirror ghost of the original bright objects, with generally the image center serving as a point of symmetry (or point reflection).

All dimensions are perfectly preserved, suggesting that the reflections on flat surfaces are responsible. Otherwise (reflections on concave or convex surfaces), it may be possible to have some differences in geometric measurements; the optical center does not coincide then with the geometrical center, but the number of reflections is always the same as those of the original light sources.

What akin to such reflections are visible on both Henrardi photos but have abnormalities:
- Number: there are five light sources of comparable intensity but only two reflections are visible; nothing justifies here the partial presence of lens flares.
- Position: the positions of flares have no apparent direct correlation with any of the light sources (in accordance with the central reflection [symmetrical] point), and this is true in each of the two photos, both taken separately and comparatively.



3 - Size and perspective of the object

When comparing the lengths of the sides of the object on each of the two photos, one realizes that, if we consider the object as a trapezoid, the two smaller sides "increase" in length the same time as one of the two longer sides "decrease" in an important way and as the other relatively keep the same length.

This is physically impossible, except if the object has changed its shape and / or dimensions between the two pictures.

On the other hand, measures of length of separation of the three "corner lights" on a composition of two photographs showing what looks like at first glance a simple rotation of the object between the two shots, show that they are in fact unequal.



4 - Centering:

The object in the two photos is remarkably centered at the exact same place i-e on the central "spot", compared to the framing of these two photos.

It is highly unlikely that a photographer can catch two UFO photos so perfectly centered without any preparation.

In conclusion, and in light of the four points above, I would say that:

- The two "Henrardi" photos have nothing in common with that of "Petit-Rechain", it seems highly unlikely that they could be taken with a Praktica bx2.
- The general impression that emerges before and after examination of the two "Henrardi" photos is that of a fabricated, artificial (entirely generated by computer) or "semi-artificial" (suspended model + modifications by computer).