The Carrasco Affair

It was 2:30 am on Wednesday, January 28th of 1976 - and a terrified man was hammering on the door of his family house, begging to be let into the safety of his home. His name was Miguel Fernández Carrasco, and he was an unmarried 26 (or perhaps 24 according to Gordon Creighton) year old farmer from the town of Benacazón in the Sevilla Province. He was a hardworking man who wasn't prone to flights of fancy, and had apparently garnered an '*excellent reputation*' among his neighbours - which only made it more shocking for his brothers when they opened the door and found their sibling ranting about '*the men from the star*' and how he desperately needed to get away from them.

## Space Invaders in Sevilla

Roughly two hours earlier - at half past midnight on that same night - Miguel Fernández Carrasco had just been to see his fiancée in the nearby village of Sanlúcar la Mayor, and was now quietly walking home on the narrow road which led to his home town of Benacazón, which was approximately four kilometers away. He had often made this long journey, guided by the metaphorical North Star of his love for the girl of his dreams. There had apparently been many previous sightings of UFOs around this area, with the mysterious craft allegedly both landing and flying overhead repeatedly.

Carrasco so nearly got back to his home town without incident. Alas, it was seemingly not to be. He was just a little over one kilometre away from entering the town when he heard a strange noise that he would later describe to members of the Civil Guard as being '*like the sound of a jet aircraft*'. His curiosity piqued, the young farmer turned around and was confronted with a dazzling light in the sky. It was not very high off the ground, and started to approach him. Frightened, he took into a run - and as he was doing this the light caught up with him, coming close before suddenly moving away. It would repeat this odd movement several times before eventually coming in to land on three feet as the terrified farmer sprinted along the deserted road. The '*star*' was now sat at the side of the road, not over six metres away from Carrasco's current position. Its landing site was on level ground and surrounded by lemon and olive plantations. There was a powerline nearby, and apparently the road was particularly empty on the night in question.

The object was rectangular in shape, and was described as being '*taller than a telephone booth*' with a very bright skylight (or claraboya) on the top from which red and white flashes issued. It had no noticeable markings on it, and also lacked windows. It was roughly 2 metres wide and three-and-a-half metres high. On the upper parts of it, it had semicircular structures resembling wings or ailerons. It was metallic and solid. He had barely come to terms with this reality-shattering observation when it got even stranger. A rectangular ramp emerged from the craft as the craft's hinged door came open, and two humanoid entities emerged from the craft. He described them as being '*maybe two metres or more*' in height. They were wearing dark clothing which fit their bodies closely and was described as looking like it was made of rubber or plastic. There were belts around their waists with buckles like pilot lights that rhythmically emitted dazzling pulses of red and white light. Carrasco failed to see their heads, hands or feet - presumably due to a combination of the blinding light and the darkness that was shrouding the scene. He noticed that they were talking to each other in human voices but using a language he couldn't comprehend, and without ever turning to face each other.

Instinctively covering his face against the overwhelming light - the entities approached him, coming roughly four or five metres towards him. Total panic suddenly seized him, and he attempted to run for his life away from the approaching aliens - but he found himself paralysed by a potent mix of incomprehensible fear and some nebulous effect of the odd light. The entities moved quietly towards him, and he promptly blacked out.

The next thing he knew, it was 2:30am and he was stood outside the door his house in Benacazón. According to measurements taken by the Civil Guard (to whom the incident was reported shortly after it happened), he had somehow travelled a distance of one full kilometre. Miguel's brothers and relatives found him stood there, screaming in terror and begging them to close the door behind them after he was taken into the house so that the '*men from the star*' wouldn't come back for him. Worried for Miguel's health, his family decided to take him to the local doctor - Dr. Francisco Calero - who examined him and announced that he should be taken to Sevilla's Hospital de san Lazaro for further treatment in Ward 28.

The doctors discovered that Carrasco had unexplained black marks on his right cheek, his right hand, his shoulders and on the palms of both his hands. JJ Benitez speculated in *Flying Saucer Review* that it was possible that the weird marks had been caused by the dazzling lights which had apparently produced an uncomfortable sensation of heat when they struck him - but Dr. Mauricio Geara at the hospital confirmed that the marks were '*definitely not*' burns. There were no lesions of any kind on his skin, and according to Geara the medical staff were unable to examine the black marks because they had started to disappear after a period of seven or eight hours. The hospital staff seemed to be mystified.

## A Conflicting Account

Within the same *Flying Saucer Review* issue, Joaquin M. Nogales offered a second version of the story in the form of a postscript. He claims that the suits the entities were wearing were luminous and that their belts emitted soft flashes of light as opposed to dazzling pulses, and provided extra detail as to how the craft landed - apparently it '*came down vertically*'. He describes a much more plausible causation for the black marks on the witness's face. Apparently, the object took off from the field at an oblique angle, emitting a flash like that of a camera and spraying a smoke-like vapour which apparently singed the right side of Miguel's face and his right hand, as well as the hairs of his beard and moustache. The nurse who attended Miguel at the hospital, as well as Miguel's sister apparently received the smudge on their hands after having touched him - showing that it was likely some kind of particulate material. According to Nogales, a specimen of the substance had been taken to Madrid for analysis, but no more information was provided. Some more details from Nogales's report on the incident have been peppered through the main body of my above article, but all of the details which seem to conflict with the main narrative have been listed here.

## Sources

*Flying Saucer Review* - Volume 22 Issue 1 (1976)

El Caso Miguel Fernández Carrasco on *ricardopistola.blogspot.com*