Post by Joanna on May 14, 2014 23:05:24 GMT -5
Kaifeng City: China’s Roswell?
Here’s a curiosity straight off Google Maps, using satellite view. Three craft are heading due north but one’s exhibiting peculiar properties. Two appear to be commercial jets, but might the craft leading the vanguard be something else? This shot was taken April 11, 2013, over Zhumadian City.
This isn’t the first UFO sighting in Henan Province, China. On the afternoon of June 23, 1990 – the day before the 43rd anniversary of Kenneth Arnold’s flying saucer sighting – something artificial exploded over Kaifeng. Whether it was manmade, or of extraterrestrial origin, remains undetermined.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of eyewitnesses reported seeing slow-moving fireballs heading northeast from the southwest over Zhumadian City, Luoyang, Xuchang City, Jiaozuo, Zhengzhou, Pingdingshan, and Kaifeng for about five minutes, around 3:00 p.m. For a sense of scale, Luoyang and Kaifeng are the most distant locations on the east-west axis, separated by 120 miles. Along the north-south axis, Zhumadian and Jiaozuo are 190 miles apart.
About 200 people near the Zhumadian train station watched something flame across the sky toward Shaopian. Other accounts described several objects flying in formation, resembling a “big tadpole tailed by many small tadpoles.” The object was moving very fast, covering nearly 375 miles in a few minutes, but people on the ground remarked the object was moving slowly from their perspective.
Many people were outside seeking shade and a cool breeze from the oppressive June heat. Even the police sought relief and were resting on the top of their headquarters building. Out of the blue, the officers’ walkie talkies began hissing and crackling loudly, accompanied by a sound described as a ‘purring aircraft propeller.” Stirred from their mid-afternoon nap, Kaifeng’s finest watched a fiery red contrail streaking through the sky, followed by a powerful explosion.
This sounds like a meteoric airburst, like the one that rattled Chelyabinsk last year. But whatever detonated that afternoon showered the area with metallic debris. There were no reports of strange falls following the Chelyabinsk incident.
The piece above, measuring 19.5 inches long and approximately 4 inches wide with a “backbone” running along its length, crashed in a courtyard, falling through trees, breaking branches, then denting a bicycle’s handlebars.
One of the first investigators on the scene was Zhang Weimin, vice president of the local UFO research association. Once he got his hands on the large fragment, he took it to the Research Institute of Luoyang City, where experts in the chemistry department ascertained the material was non-radioactive, composed of 89.03% aluminum, 6.84% magnesium, 3.83% silicon, and .30% zinc, along with traces of iron, and other elements. The also determined the piece had a melting point of in addition to determining the piece had a melting point of 5432° Fahrenheit.
Zhang’s next stop was the Kaifeng Air Force Base, seeking any clues regarding the debris’s origin. Wang Fuyu, a mechanic, didn’t believe it came from a conventional craft since it was better than anything he’s seen used for airplanes. Others who spoke with Zhang said they heard no news of a plane crash or similar incident in that time-frame.
Nuts and bolts evidence aside, there is an important participant in this event. His name is Zhixiang Xian and he was drinking wine with his brother Zhijun in the courtyard when his bike got banged up. Not knowing any better, the two set about collecting the bits and pieces of debris which were cool to the touch despite having been – according to speculation – at a temperature of almost nearly 10,800° F. moments before.
Their toon tree, which bore the brunt of the fragment’s impact, never recovered. According to the brothers, their tree never sprouted new leaves after winter, despite showing no sign of illness or infestation. It just withered and died.
As for a tenuous extraterrestrial connection, in November 1991, Zhixiang suffered a stroke at work, went into a coma and was placed on life support. While unconscious, he claims to have been visited by two tall, grey-skinned humanoids wearing bright white clothing. Zhixiang awakened not long after his encounter. From all accounts, Zhixiang made a full recovery but died in 2005 at the age of 60.
Source: Chris Savia, AnomalistNews, May 6, 2014.