1981: UFO over Tepoztlan, Ships of Light: The Carlos Diaz Experience

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THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: March 23, 1981

Sighting Time: early hours

Day/Night: nighttime

Location: Ajusco National Forest, Tepoztlán, Mexico

Urban or Rural: Rural

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) Close observation with animate beings associated with the object.

Duration:

No. of Object(s):  1

Size of Object(s):

Distance to Object(s):

Shape of Object(s): disc

Color of Object(s): yellow-orange

Number of Witnesses: 1

Source: Michael Hesemann

Summary/Description: In the early hours of March 23, 1981 Carlos Diaz, a young photographer from Mexico City, drove into the Ajusco National Forest in the “zona vulcanica” south of the capital. A magazine had commissioned him to take pictures of a sunrise in the mountains, and for this he has chosen a well-known vantage point. He parked his car, waited for the sun to dawn. Suddenly he saw an orange light shining up from the slope in front of him. First he thought it was a fire, but then he recognized a yellow-orange dome. It was a UFO! Immediately he grabbed his camera, shot a first photo, when the disc was just facing him. In this moment, the engine of his car went off. Diaz shot his second picture before he jumped out of the car, just to see and photograph how the disc was shooting off with high speed.

Full Report

 One of the photos by Carlos Diaz of a glowing, orange UFO.

One morning in January 1981, Mexican photographer Carlos Diaz pulled into a deserted car park at Ajusco Park near Mexico City. He was on an assignment for a magazine, and had arranged to meet a journalist who was yet to arrive. Diaz sat in his car, preparing his camera for the job ahead. Although it was early in the morning, the air was thick with humidity which made even sitting still uncomfortable. Impatiently, Diaz began to look at his watch. Suddenly, his attention was caught by a strange yellow glow coming from the valley below him. At first he thought it was a forest fire, but, an instant later, the source of light revealed itself to be a large, orange, oval-shaped UFO, slowly hovering about 30 metres from his car.

Unable to believe his eyes, Diaz quickly grabbed his camera. With it resting on his steering wheel, he began frantically firing off shots. Then, without warning, the whole car began to shake violently. Diaz got out of the vehicle and took two more photographs before the craft sped up vertically into the sky, leaving Diaz in a state of shock. This encounter marked the beginning of what was to develop into one of he most fascinating and long-running contactee cases in the history of UFOlogy. Today, the case remains among a small minority of alleged extraterrestrial encounters to be supported by verified film documentation that has stood up to the scrutiny of a range of experts.

KEY ENCOUNTER

Indeed, the apparent credibility of Diaz’s claims has attracted the attention of some of the world’s top UFO researchers, including German author Michael Hesemann and abduction researcher Dr John Mack. Both concluded that Diaz’s story is completely credible. Hesemann echoes the views of most researchers when he states: ‘The Carlos Diaz case is the most important case of documented alien-human contact to have emerged in modern times.’ Certainly, at the time of his initial encounter, Diaz little suspected what was to come. The transition from a run-of-the-mill UFO sighting in an area now acknowledged as a UFO hot-spot, to one of the key cases of recent years did not occur until weeks later. In the days that followed this January sighting, Diaz remained preoccupied by his experience. Unable to forget what he had seen, he repeatedly returned to the Ajusco Park location, hoping to secure more pictures. After a succession of fruitless visits, Diaz began to think that he was wasting his time. But then, on 23rd of March, his patience was rewarded.

RETURN TRIP

While roaming the greenery, Diaz was again alerted to the presence of a UFO by an orange glow, which he could see only dimly through the fog and rain that had saturated the forest in Ajusco Park. As he climbed up the walls of the valley, he managed to position himself within 45 metres of the object. Diaz watched the ‘craft’ hovering above him, emitting a bright orange light. It was, he said, dome-shaped with a smooth ring in its centre. This, claimed Diaz, was covered with a number of half spheres, each around one metre in diameter. Crouching behind some rocks, Diaz thought his actions had gone unnoticed, but, as he continued to watch the craft, he felt someone grab his shoulder from behind. Diaz immediately fainted, and, when he awoke, it was dark and the UFO was gone. He was shocked to discover that, despite heavy rain, his clothes were completely dry. At that point, he knew something strange had happened to him. When he returned to his car, Diaz noticed another car parked in front of him. At this point, Diaz claimed, a humanoid entity with fair hair approached him and told him that if he wanted to know more about what he had just experienced, he should return to the same spot at noon the following day. Apparently, when Diaz returned the next day, he discovered the same entity sitting on the grass. Diaz claimed that the being then turned to him and explained that it was he who grabbed his shoulder the previous day. Before leaving, the being also told Diaz that he had come from inside the craft and that Diaz would gradually recover his memory of what had happened while he was unconscious. Sure enough, over the next few months, Diaz’s memory returned, piece by piece.

According to his account, he recalled the craft hovered directly over his head. As he attempted to touch the craft, his hand seemed to pass through the yellow light and he seemed to merge with it. The next thing he recalled was seeing the craft parked on a platform inside a giant cave. Diaz was filled with awe when he remembered what he had seen inside: ‘It was full of stalagmites, some of which were carved into what appeared to be Mayan sculptures,’ he stated. ‘I saw many people in the cave, some of whom waved to me and, in a state of shock, I waved back.’ Apparently the being Diaz had encountered in the park then led him to a smaller cave which contained seven glowing, egg-shaped orbs, one of which Diaz was invited to step into. On entering, Diaz could at first only see yellow light.

But then he found himself surrounded by the image of a forest. ‘I could see all the details of the forest as if I was walking through it,’ said Diaz. ‘I couldn’t touch anything, but I could feel the temperature and moisture. I could see and experience everything, yet I wasn’t physically there.’ His guide then told him that the orbs were also a system for storing information and that certain data had been imparted to him. Diaz was then returned to the ship and, in time, to the park.

CONTINUING CONTACT

According to Diaz, this was only the first of a series of contacts with the same beings, which continue to this day. Since 1981, Diaz has stated that his experience inside the orbs has enabled him to ‘travel’ to different regions of the Earth’s ecosystem – forest, desert, jungle, shoreline, even Arctic areas – with his ET contact. Through this contact, Diaz claims to have been imbued with an awareness of the interconnectedness of all life and the need to preserve our environment. To many UFOlogists, especially those who have had their ‘fingers burnt’ by alleged contactees before, these claims may appear far-fetched. However, Diaz is seen by many researchers as a highly reliable source, not least because of the strong body of photographic evidence he has amassed to support his claims.

INDISPUTABLE PROOF?

Mexican TV journalist and UFOlogist Jaime Maussan, who has been at the centre of UFO investigations in Mexico since the wave began in 1991, believes that Diaz’s UFO photographs are among the most impressive he has seen. Maussan took Diaz’s photographs to Jim Dilettoso, an image processing expert at Village Labs, in Tucson, Arizona, who concluded they were genuine. After satisfying himself he was not dealing with a hoaxer, Maussan visited Diaz at his home in Tepoztlan, Mexico. There, he spoke to a number of other witnesses who claimed to have seen exactly the same type of UFO. The apparent credibility of the Diaz case has also attracted UFO researchers from further afield, who have attempted to glean insights into the alien agenda from Diaz’s contactee claims. German author Michael Hesemann, who first interviewed Diaz in June 1994, is convinced of the credibility of Diaz’s story. ‘Not only is he contacting these beings through encounters on the ships,’ says Hesemann, ‘but he claims to be meeting these beings socially, since he believes some of them are living among us.’ However Hesemann explains that, according to Diaz, the beings are reluctant to fully disclose their origins. ‘Apparently,’ says Hesemann, ‘they did, however, explain that they have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, and are particularly interested in our evolution which, compared to their own, has happened at a much faster rate. They are trying to learn why.’

Another UFO researcher intrigued by Diaz’s case is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, John Mack. Mack has a long history of dealing with abductees and contactees and believes that the Diaz case is among the most convincing he has come across. in his book Passport to the Cosmos, he states: ‘Out of all the experiencers I have worked with, it is Carlos Diaz who seems to have developed the richest understanding of the interconnected web of nature. Diaz’s experience of connecting with living creatures is so intense that he seems literally to become the thing he is describing.’ Diaz’s experience, Mack claims constitutes an ‘awakening’, a process which, he says, is common in abductees. Diaz told Mack that his contact with the ETs had instilled in him a need to preserve the environment and the ability to ‘enjoy a beautiful planet’. Whether or not an extraterrestrial influence was involved, Diaz’s new-found concern for the environment has certainly become a driving force in his life. he has repeatedly and passionately conveyed this environmental warning publicly, most notably at a UFO conference in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1995. Diaz has revealed that he had been informed through his contacts that the civilization of the visiting extraterrestrial, like ours, had been threatened by its own history of destruction, but had somehow managed to survive. He remains convinced that his contacts’ disturbing prediction for our future is only too real – a prediction that states with near certainty that humanity, on its current course, is headed for total extinction.

ALIEN MESSENGER

This outspokenness, coupled with the public nature of his experience, has le Diaz to assume visionary status in both his home town of Tepoztlan and UFO circles. however, Diaz has been quick to dispute this, claiming that he is not a unique visionary, but merely ‘a messenger’. The real nature of Diaz’s current incarnation aside, for many UFOlogists, the Diaz case remains among the most convincing on record. Indeed, few UFO reports exist that boast such impressive and abundant photographic evidence. And fewer still have emerged that have stood up to the scrutiny applied to Diaz’s images.

PERFECT PICTURES

Expert analysis of Carlos Diaz’s UFO pictures has been extremely thorough. Mexican UFOlogist Jaime Maussan gave the original transparencies to Professor Victor Quesada at the Polytechnical Institute of the University of Mexico for examination. Quesada stated: ‘We were shocked to discover that the spectrum of light from the object was unlike anything we have ever seen, it broke all previous parameters and didn’t match anything in our data banks. The light was extraordinarily intense. There was no evidence of superimposition or a hoax. We estimated the object to be around 30 to 50 metres in diameter.’ Interestingly, the photographs were also analysed by Dr Robert Nathan at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Nathan, a notorious UFO sceptic, stated that he could find no evidence of a fake.

Certainly, for many who have examined the three images, the first shot is the most impressive. In it, the orange glowing craft can be seen through the windshield of the car, and light from the object is reflected
both off the car’s bonnet and off the metal guard rail by the side of the road. These, in particular, are details that experts claim are extremely difficult to fake.

VIDEO EVIDENCE

Mexican UFOlogist Jaime maussan was so intrigued by Carlos Diaz’s account of his experiences that he provided him with a video camera and asked him to see if he could record the UFO on tape when it next appeared. A few weeks later, Diaz awoke at 5 a.m. and grabbed his camera. he walked out and waited. Apparently, within minutes, the craft appeared and hovered over the house, where Diaz filmed it. When Maussan saw the remarkable footage, he asked Diaz if he could get even closer to the craft while filming. Two months later, Diaz was once again able to film the craft, which this time hovered directly above him, without moving.

However it is Diaz’s third attempt to capture the craft on video that is the most spectacular. In this footage, Diaz having mounted his camera on a tripod, walks to the bottom of a field waving a flash light. Responding to this, the craft suddenly materializes directly above Diaz’s head and sends beams of light down towards him. Then, the unidentified object remains motionless for 30 seconds, before blinking out. It is universally recognized that this video contains some of the best UFO footage ever taken.

This article originally appeared in issue 89 of The X Factor.