Another case that year took place in the town of Guara, Province of La Habana, where a saucer-shaped object was seen for over twenty minutes as it made irregular movements. There were numerous witnesses to this case, including [personnel] at a basic secondary school in Guines, where two instructors claimed having seen a light with irregular motion that bore no relation to anything known.

However, the most controversial cases involve the abduction or kidnapping of citizens by non-terrestrial visitors. An example of this is the story told by a man in the Pasaje a lo Desconocido television program. He claimed that he was captured at his dwelling place in the center of the island; adding that after a few minutes aboard a spacecraft, he was abandoned in the City of Havana, unhurt. Without any means of attesting to the veracity of her story, a woman said that in the summer of 1990 she became aware of a strange light in her backyard. Running toward her home in fear, she found a “ring of light” that approached her to a distance of 5 meters. She allegedly lost all notion of time and subsequently awoke to find no intruders at all in her surroundings. When subjected to hypnotic regression, she revealed that she was surrounded by equipment “similar to radios” that touched her arms, and felt needles piercing her hands.

But perhaps the most unique case reported in Cuba occurred on Sunday, October 15, 1995 at 9:00 a.m. near the town of Torriente, Province of Matanzas. A 74-year-old farmer named Adolfo Zarate witnessed the descent of an object no larger than a small car, with a cabin, on the premises of his farm. The object remained on the ground for several minutes, and a being of humanoid appearance, dressed in an outfit similar to camouflage and wearing a facemask, emerged from the device, took soil or grass samples, and after an explosion “like air”, took off and headed south, leaving a wake of blue fire. Police confirmed the flattening of grass at the location, suggesting a descent. Members of the Ministry of the Interior investigated the case, but no conclusion was issued after a while.

Two further events add to the shroud of expectation that surrounds this case: a cousin of this farmer vanished without a trace two years earlier, and at the same time and very close to the place where this incident occurred. The case remained unexplained. Furthermore, a strange fog covered the town on the night that the vessel and its occupant made their appearance.

Moviemaker Oscar Cortazar, recently deceased, made a documentary on the UFO phenomenon in Cuba in which the landing site is recorded and note is made of the stunted growth of the local vegetation after the date of the incident.

Up to what point do the imagination, unknown physical laws and bizarre phenomena confabulate to prompt the residents of this planet to dwell on our questionable exclusivity in this galaxy? If we live in a turbulent and unsafe world, what might these alleged, outlandish prowlers think about earthlings?

For the moment, I subscribe to the brilliant wit of U.S. author Isaac Asimov, who said: “The greatest proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life is that it has not wanted to contact us.”

(Translation (c) 2008, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU). Special thanks to Guillermo D. Gimenez, Planeta UFO)