Military Encounter with a UFO
By: Galán Vázquez
Tags: Extraterrestrial Life, Aliens, UFO, Ufology, Alien Life

I was surprised when he said two aircraft, and I asked, “Are you serious?” And he replied, “Yeah”.

I thought a moment then said, “Midair collision?” But, much to my astonishment, he said, “No” .

I then asked, “What do you mean, no midair collision? How, then, could they lose two airplanes the same day?”

I noticed that he didn’t seem to want to go into detail for some strange reason. This was not normal for him. Normally, this man, a dedicated sailor and skilled technician, would have been eager to tell me anything he could about an aircraft mishap including his own speculations. But, not this time.

The navy would lose a plane somewhere ever so often and we would usually get word of it very quickly through unofficial channels in the naval aviation community-and personnel were usually eager to pass on what news they could. I knew my shipmate had friends in that squadron from previous visits he had made to Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station or, “N.A.S. Rosy Roads”, as we always called it. But, it was unusual to hear of two planes being lost in one day and even more unusual for it not to be due to a midair collision. And, as if that wasn’t enough, it was becoming even more unusual because he was being reluctant to talk about it. I pressed him.

“Well, what happened?” “Oh, I can’t really talk about it” , he said. “There’s an investigation still ongoing…”

That had never stopped any of us before from spreading news of an aircraft mishap. Suddenly, I got the impression that he had been told not to talk.

But, I asked, “Well, can you tell me anything else”?

He basically added only that the two planes were lost at apparently the same time-definitely on the same day, for sure. And that it was-for some strange reason-very “hush-hush”. This didn’t make sense to me. We aviation maintenance guys had a “grapevine” that was fleet-wide. Anything significant to know about would be spread pretty quickly. Usually, whenever one of our navy aircraft squadrons would lose a plane, we would find out about it quickly then wait for details to come in later. And, usually, the information was pretty reliable. But, apparently nothing was coming out regarding this incident. I had hoped that maybe I would hear something, later. But, after considerable effort to find follow-up information over the next few weeks, I realized that the investigation had indeed been handled as top secret.

This was unusual. I often wondered what must have happened. And, although, in the next few years, I found myself visiting the base at Puerto Rico for a few weeks at a time on a number of occasions, I never thought to ask anyone on the base or in that particular squadron what had happened to those two aircraft on that fateful day. With all the distractions of navy life, I simply did not think about it very much over the following years.

Alan at Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station Puerto Rico

In 1992, I was discharged from the US Navy and went back into civilian life after 10 years of service total. In the following years, I had my first recognizable UFO sighting and by 1999 had decided to become a UFO investigator. Around 2007, I was skimming through a UFO book and happened to notice a UFO case involving two US Navy F14 fighter planes. I didn’t even make a connection at first, but then, I suddenly remembered the incident back at Cecil Field where my shipmate had told me of a squadron losing two F-14s at the same time but not due to a midair collision. Was the incident in 1988 really a UFO incident? I read on. I saw in the book the exact date and location of the incident and realized that this had to be one and the same.

The author stated in his book that on December 28, 1988, at approximately 7:45 pm, a large triangle craft roughly the size of a baseball field was seen moving steadily along in the region near the naval air station in Puerto Rico, according to many witnesses (over a hundred). Three F-14s intercepted the moving UFO and apparently tried to force it to change its course. As the navy fighter planes engaged the large craft, it slowed down its forward speed almost to a standstill. One plane, in particular, stayed mostly to the right of the UFO and another stayed behind the UFO making close approaches at times. The third plane apparently stayed a bit farther out. The F-14 in the rear came close to the object, but as it flew either over or under the object, it was not seen again. Small red lights were also seen at times flying outside the large craft and may have served to protect the craft. It was as if the fighter plane had somehow been drawn into the large craft. The second aircraft made a sweep closer to the large object and was seen by one ground witness-using binoculars-to suddenly disappear-possibly being taken in by the UFO. The third F-14 reportedly high-tailed it out of the area on afterburner with glowing red lights chasing after it apparently in pursuit, according to ground witnesses.