Case · UFO Afrinews No 12, July 1995
Unusual Occurrence at Sea
1979 · ss Sanko Stresa at 27°06' North, 16°50' West, About 100 km south of Tenerife, Canary Islands; roughly 370 km west of the Western Sahara coast, At sea (Atlantic Ocean, south of the Canary Islands)
Outside the region. Hind reprinted this case from elsewhere; it has a file here but no place on the map.
What was reported
Chief Engineer R.J. Harrop of the ss Sanko Stresa wrote up a display seen from the ship at 27°06'N 16°50'W on the evening of 5 March 1979. At 1930 GMT, some twenty minutes after sunset, the watch officer called the officers and two wives to see a white zigzag trail lying motionless in the western sky beneath a double halo of mauve, green, yellow and red. At 2010 the relief watch officer reported more: a brilliant, narrow white beam shone downward from a single point of light at about 45 degrees, then faded. The star-like source drifted slowly with a comet-like tail, leaving three or four ball-like puffs of light behind it, stopped, moved off at roughly a right angle and merged into a receding glow. By 2020 the sky was normal. Copies went to Patrick Moore, the Ministry of Defence and others; Hind invites comments.
What Hind made of it
Hind invites readers' comments and notes that none of the bodies sent the report have published any comment, to her knowledge
Explanation offered
Harrop notes the source with its tail could be mistaken for a comet; no other explanation printed
In their words
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A white trail, not unlike an aircraft vapour trail shaped like a zigzag lay stationary against the dark night sky
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three or four times a ball-like puff of light appeared in its wake
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Your comments on the phenomenon would be welcome.
Cross references
- Patrick Moore, astronomer
- Nautical Magazine
- Maritime Defence International
- Ministry of Defence
- The New Scientist
- Figure 6 sketch with bearings 250° and 290° True
- The Sceptic (poem printed after the report)