The Manises UFO Incident

Sunday, November 11, 1979. TAE flight JK-297, a Sud Aviation SE-210 Super Caravelle, was flying from Salzburg to the Canary Islands, with a refuelling stop in Palma de Mallorca. It carried 109 passengers. In the cockpit sat Captain Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada, first officer Ramón Zuazu and flight engineer Francisco Javier Rodríguez.

About 23:05. The Caravelle was some 15 minutes out of Palma, over the sea near Ibiza. Then the lights appeared, red and fast approaching the aircraft. By one account, Rodríguez spotted them first.

They closed to about half a mile. And there they stayed. When the Caravelle changed altitude, the lights followed. Evasive manoeuvres proved impossible. According to a line in the radio transcript, the traffic climbed much faster than the airliner. Barcelona control saw no traffic that could explain it. The captain judged the separation unsafe. He diverted to Manises Airport, Valencia, and landed at 23:45. Just before the landing, the lights broke away.

The night was not over. Airport director Miguel Morlán saw lights with "strong red and green flashing". Three luminous objects were reportedly seen around Manises. Three unidentified radar returns were logged, each estimated at about 200 m across.

About 00:40 on November 12. A Dassault Mirage F1 of Ala 14 took off from Los Llanos Air Base, Albacete. At the controls was Captain Fernando Cámara. Near Valencia he found a light. "Vi la luz, aunque mi radar no detectaba nada," he later said. He saw the light, though his radar detected nothing. The light had been stationary. Now it flew ahead of him at the same speed. He described a truncated cone, like an inverted cup without its base, displaying a bright changing colour.

Near Sagunto the object accelerated and disappeared. The Mirage's avionics were scrambled. Its warning system went off as though the jet were being locked on by a missile radar. A third contact followed. Then the object left, heading toward Africa. After about an hour and a half, low on fuel, Cámara turned back. He was back at base at about 02:07.

September 1980. Socialist deputy Enrique Múgica asked the government for an explanation in the Congreso de los Diputados. The reply dismissed a UFO. It spoke of "freak optical illusions". The Air Force case file, later declassified, reached a different conclusion. The origin of the lights could not be established, it said, and they confirmed uncontrolled traffic of unknown origin in the area.

The best known answer came from agricultural engineer Juan Antonio Fernández Peris, whose study won a Fundación Anomalía prize. In his account, the airliner's lights were flares from two combustion towers at the Escombreras refinery near Cartagena. A strong temperature inversion and exceptional visibility made them look close. Stars and planets explained the later sightings. Others pointed to electronic warfare by the US Sixth Fleet, or to the NATO exercise CRISEX-79.

Cámara rejected them all. "Conozco muy bien Escombreras, he visto cientos de veces sus llamas desde el aire," he said. That light, he added, was heading towards Zaragoza, not Escombreras. The fleet was too far away, and the jamming struck just as he tried to lock his infrared missile onto the object. Researcher Miguel Ángel Ruiz argued that ridges would have hidden the towers. He concluded that the case is unsolved.

J. J. Benítez published Incidente en Manises in 1980. In 2009, El Mundo called it "the most famous UFO case in Spain". For the 40th anniversary, Cuarto Milenio brought Cámara back to tell the story again. A Mallorcan miniseries is now in development. Decades on, people still argue over what those red lights were.