Fire Saucer of Port Klang

Unsurprisingly, the Malaysian government doesn’t take the issue of flying saucers very seriously. Indeed, almost no governments on the surface of the earth do. However, Malaysia may well have a good reason to be especially wary of the potential threat of UFO activity if a report that appeared in the *New Straits Times* on the 13th of June 1980 is to be believed.

## Infernal Forces

Explosions rang out across the town of Port Klang in the small hours of the morning of the 5th of June, 1980. A fire had started in a nearby warehouse, and the flames were already busy ripping through the South Port (now named Southpoint) region. Although the recently-awoken residents of the town had no idea – what had stirred them from their sleep would go on to be a historic fire, which would also claim the lives of eight victims before it was finally doused. The port would be crippled for months due to the sheer extent of the devastation. Only three days after these catastrophic fires had started and laid waste to South Port, another report of a massive blaze filtered into the presumably unwelcoming ears of the local fire service. This time, two houses and a sundry shop in Kampung Berembang had caught light at 2:30AM that morning – just 20ft away from a Felda and Caltex oil installations terminal. Panic immediately ensued, with thousands of locals fleeing the scene out of fear of another devastating explosion.

However, what wasn’t reported at the time of the Kampung Berembang fire was the potential involvement of otherworldly influences in setting the blaze. On Thursday, the 12th of June 1980, three people talked to the *New Straits Times* to tell a fantastical story. They had apparently seen a UFO starting the fire. They had been driving from Port Klang town out to Kampung Berembang towards a house just three houses away from the oil tanks – and were only ‘*about 100 yards*’ away from their destination when they caught sight of something hovering roughly 30ft above the tanks. The object was about the size of a large beach ball, and was ‘*bluish-red*’ in colour. It appeared to be spinning. Strangely, they decided to keep driving despite what they had just seen – reaching their destination with ease. Perhaps they would’ve been able to put what they had seen out of their minds were it not for what happened next.

The object had now moved, and was hovering 100ft above the house closest to the tanks. This was a house which was mostly unused except for by squatters – but it wasn’t any less shocking when the object suddenly seemed to emit a blue ‘*laser beam*’ to strike the building as soon as the witnesses stopped their car. Once the flames started licking from the windows of the besieged building, the trio fled out of fear that the nearby oil tanks would soon explode. They would later go to Selangor CPO Datuk P. Alagendra to report what they had seen, and he would – in turn – later tell the *New Straits Times* on Monday the following week that the fire in the Kampung Berembang house may well have been caused by a mosquito coil. No mention of UFOs was forthcoming. One of the witnesses was the wife of a man who  worked at the Subang International Airport, and she would later tell her fellow witnesses that the UFO they had seen had been detected by the control centre of the aforementioned airport. The *New Straits Times* could not reach the airport for comment.

## Sources

'Zap - and UFO Laser Sets All Afire' in *The New Straits Times* for the 13th of June 1980

*1980 in Malaysia* on Wikipedia

*Port Klang* on Wikipedia

*Klang in History* on Facebook