1977: Dog dies after close encounter on ranch in Salto, Uruguay

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THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: February 18, 1977

Sighting Time: 4 a.m.

Day/Night: Early Morning

Location: Salto, Uruguay

Urban or Rural: Rural

Hynek Classification: CE-II (Close Encounter II) Observation of an object in close proximity to the witness, where physical traces (impression, burn, medical effect, etc.) are left or (electrical effect, heat) are felt

Duration: about 10 minutes

No. of Object(s): 1

Height & Speed:

Size of Object(s):

Distance to Object(s): 60 feet

Shape of Object(s): Disc – a fiery disc-like two plates placed face to face 

Color of Object(s): original bright orange color to red

Number of Witnesses: 2

Source: APRO, August 1977

Summary/Description: Angel Maria Tonna, a 52-year-old rancher, and his foreman, witnessed a fiery disc-like two plates placed face to face hovering a short distance above the ground behind the barn. The cows “were going crazy” and all the dogs were barking. The object approached, and Tonna felt electric shocks that went all through his body and a very intense heat hit him. Three days after the event, Tonna’s dog, who had been 15 from the object, was found dead. 

Full Report

Angel Maria Tonna is a 52-year-old rancher who owns 3,000 acres of farmland 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Salto, Uruguay, a city of 40,000 people located on the Uruguay River. The ranch is primarily a cattle ranch and Mr. Tonna, 2 sons, 19 and 22 years of age, and 11 farmhands, tend 730 head of cattle and numerous sheep.

The Tonna family led a relatively uneventful life in their rural home until February and March of this year when Tonna, the two sons, Mrs. Tonna, their 15-year-old daughter, and the farmhands began seeing UFOs in the area. They had approximately a dozen sightings during that time.

The most interesting incident took place at about 4 a.m. on February 18 when Tonna and his foreman, Juan Manuel Fernandez, were driving about 80 cows into the barn for milking. When Tonna gets up in the morning, the first thing he does is to turn on the generator, which powers approximately 20 lights in the barnyard area.

On the morning in question, Tonna said, he was bringing the cows in at about 4:10 a.m., when all of the lights went out, whereupon a bright light appeared on the east end of the barn (the end farthest from him) and he was able to make out the shadow of the barn. Tonna originally thought the power outage was a short circuit and he kept hay in that part of the barn so he thought it had somehow caught fire.

Tonna jumped over the fence and ran toward the Source of the light at the end of the barn. His dog Topo (Dunce in Spanish) who was a constant companion during Tonna’s walks around the ranch, was with him. “Then I heard a noise,” he said, and he saw a fiery disc-like two plates placed face to face hovering a short distance above the ground behind the barn. He stood and watched the object until his foreman told him the cows were running away, then he noticed that the cows “were going crazy” and all the dogs were barking.

At this point, the disc began to move in a southerly direction, breaking off the branches of a tree near the barn. The object displayed a rocking motion as it flew, and stopped and hovered over some trees about 100 yards south of the barn at an altitude of about 60 feet. It stayed there only a moment, then moved east another 75 yards or so, and stopped above a concrete bath that the cows were forced to walk through to disinfect them. By then, Tonna and his dog, a 60-pound black and brown police dog, had run back to the west side of the barnyard and climbed back over the fence. The light from the object illuminated the whole barnyard, and Tonna said he felt attracted to it. Tonna and Topo walked a few feet toward the UFO and it made another turn and began moving toward them. It came to a stop about 60 feet from them and Topo ran toward it to attack it and protect Tonna, but stopped and sat on a small mound about 15 feet from the object and looked up at it and howled.

When the object started moving toward Tonna, he noticed six beams of light “like small wings” – three on each side. At that point, Tonna said, he felt electric shocks which went all through his body and a very intense heat hit him. He flung his arm up over his face to shield his eyes. He said he felt attracted to the light and couldn’t move. “I don’t know if I couldn’t move or didn’t want to,” he said.

After several minutes the object began moving away, turning from its original bright orange color to red. It increased its speed as the color changed and when it got to the forest about a half a mile to the south, it was out of sight.

When the object left, the generator started running again but didn’t produce any electricity because the wires were burned out. The whole incident lasted about 10 minutes and Tonna’s 19-year-old son, who is a second-year veterinary student at the University in Salto, witnessed the whole episode from the house. The farmworkers normally rise at 4:30 a.m. and those who were awake at the time saw an only bright light in the barnyard.

Following the incident, the dog would not eat or drink. He moved around normally but stayed in the house all day, which was unusual. On the morning of the third day after the incident, Topo was found dead on the same mound where he had sat and howled at the disc.

An autopsy was performed at the ranch by a veterinarian who teaches at the North University in Salto and he was assisted by Tulio Tonna and three other second-year veterinary students. The Doctor will not discuss the case but he did let Tulio make a copy of the autopsy report which said, in part:

“The hair along the animal’s spine was sticky but completely hard. The fat under the skin was found on the outside. The fat is normally solid, so to get to the outside it had to be melted and come through the pores. Once it was outside it solidified again. The animal was exposed to a very high temperature that can’t be reached naturally by the dog.

“All the blood vessels had been bleeding very much and all the capillaries were broken. The rupture of the blood vessels was caused by an increase in temperature that couldn’t be natural.

“The liver, normally dark and red, was completely yellow, caused by a high fever. All the blood vessels were yellow too.

“With all the blood vessels broken, the animal started bleeding inside and lost so much blood that 48 hours later the amount of blood he had circulating was insufficient and he died of a heart attack.”

“When we took the skin off the dog, we didn’t see any marks. He didn’t have any bruises or anything -nor was the hair burned. The conclusion was that something very hot caused this.”

On the morning after the incident, the underside of Mr. Tonna’s right arm, which he had put up to shield his eyes, began hurting. Several days later, Dr. Bruning Herrera, a friend of the Tonnas, and a physician in Saito paid the Tonnas a personal visit. Tonna confided that he wasn’t feeling well and Herrera examined him. He found that the underside of Tonna’s right arm was very red and, after being told about the UFO incident, decided the irritation was caused by some kind of radiation. He suggested that Tonna go and have a special examination but Tonna would have had to go to Montevideo, 300 miles away, and he didn’t want to take the time. Instead, he treated himself with some home remedies. Eventually, the ailing arm cleared up with no lingering after-effects.