[meteorite-list] UFO Sighting Alerts Portuguese Air Force

[Ron Baalke]

http://tlc.discovery.com/news/afp/20040531/ufo.html

UFO Sighting Alerts Portuguese Air Force
AFP
June 3, 2004

The Portuguese airforce has been on alert since late
Tuesday, when several authorities and witnesses reported 
seeing a luminous unidentified flying object, the 
national press reported.

"Military radar surveillance has been increased and F16 
planes are ready for take-off," tabloid daily Correio da 
Manha reported Thursday.

It said the Portuguese civil protection service had
received scores of calls from people who reported
briefly seeing a silent, luminous object in the sky on
Tuesday night, giving off white smoke. 

Air force spokesman Colonel Carlos Barbosa
confirmed to Lusa news agency that military radars
had detected "a target ... that was not identified as a
plane" for two or three minutes.

The national air traffic control authority, Navegacao
Aerea de Portugal (NAV), also confirmed a UFO had been 
spotted in the north and south of the country just before 
midnight on Tuesday.

"The control tower in Oporto (north) detected a flying 
object which had been observed 25 minutes earlier in 
Montijo and Beja (south)," NAV spokesman Paulo Lagarto 
said. 

The authorities were unable to say what the mysterious 
object was.

But Jose Fernando Monteiro, a geology researcher at 
Lisbon's science university, said he had consulted U.S. 
air defense officials and the UFO could not have been a 
meteorite.

If it had been a meteorite it would have travelled much 
faster and made a lot of noise, Monteiro told Correio da 
Manha and Lusa.

The European Space Agency said the UFO was not a falling 
satellite either and the Portuguese weather service said 
there was no meteorological explanation for the phenomenon.

The only person to come up with a possible explanation was 
astronomer Jose Matos, who said the UFO might have been an 
Iridium telecommunications satellite.

"These satellites orbit at a height of about 780 kilometers 
(490 miles). They each have three antennae, which are 
polished like mirrors and reflect the light of the sun," he 
told the media.