SOBEPS gives this information:
On November 29, 1989 at 7:10 p.m., Mr. N. was driving four children aged 9 to 14 years at a soccer practice in Herbesthal, and he was halfway between Hergenrath and Lontzen when they saw an object flying very slowly and low over a wood with "violent light."
It disappeared from their sight, but the driver and children were puzzled so the children continue to check out the landscape.
The object, which had been seen on the right side of the road in the direction of Kelmis, reappeared behind the car on the other side of the road.
Mr. N. then stopped the car, stopped the engine and radio. They hear only a slight hissing sound.
The object appeared to be 50 meters from the ground and only 100 meters from the witnesses.
They saw three headlights directed downward, so dazzling that they could not distinguish the structure that supports them. But they did see a flashing red light, located more or less in the center of the white lights.
The object slowly departed to the East and disappeared in 4 minutes.
Source:
Another report, in the Flying Saucer Review, indicates for this observation:
At about 1910 hrs., on the road from Hergenrath to Lontzen, Monsieur Charles Nicolae watched, for the space of four minutes, a "triangle of lights" that gave out a faint whistle.
Source:
There is a summary for this observation, published on the web by the Belgian ufologist Godelieve Van Overmeire in her catalog circa 1999, now gone, but much copied by UFO websites and forums. This summary is as follows:
1989, November 29
BELGIUM, between Hergenrath and Lontzen
At approximately 07:10 p.m., Mr. N. drives 4 9 to 14 years old children at a soccer practice. They saw an object flying very slowly and low over a wood, with "violent light." It disappeared from their sight, but the driver and children are intrigued. The children continue to check out the landscape. The object had been sighted on the right side of the road, it reappears behind the car on the left side. The driver stopped the car, cut the engine and radio. They hear a slight hissing sound. The object appears to be at 50 m above the ground and only 100 m from the witnesses. They see three lights directed downward, so dazzling that they are unable to discern the structure that supports them. They see a flashing red light located more or less in the center of the triangle formed by the white lights. The object goes away slowly and disappears in 4 minutes. (VOB 1 - SOBEPS 1991, p. 35)
Source example:
In his chronology for the observations, French ufologist Alain Delmon noted:
3° ~19h10
Mr. Charles Nicolaes, customs officer.
Drives 4 children at a sports training. A first time, they all see on the right side of the road an object flying very low and slow over the trees of a small wood. The violent lights it carries prevent from seeing the contours well. After disappearing for a moment, the object returns to the rear of the car, this time on the left side. The driver stops the vehicle, stops the engine and turns off the radio. After remaining motionless for 4 min., The object that emits a slight hissing sound, resumed its course. ALT: 50 m, DIST: 100 m.
Source:
| 06:50 p.m. | |
| 07:00 p.m. | |
| 07:10 p.m. |
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Above: localization of the sighting.
The green dot is on the center of Hergenrath, the red dot is on the center of Lontzen. We are told the driver is halfway between these locations, so he was certainly on the Bergstrasse.
We are told the first sighting of the phenomenon is above a wood, on their right, in the direction of Kelmis. There is indeed a wood there, visible on the map.
They saw again the phenomenon or a phenomenon behind the car on the other side of the road.
In the end the UFO went to the East, the right side of the map, the direction of the German border.
Eupen is in the south, at about 10 kilometers from Hergenrath. The distance between Hergenrath and Lontzen is about 4.6 kilometers.
The name is "Charles Nicolaes" for Alain Delmon, who says this name is to be checked, but it is "Charles Nicolae" in the FSR article.
"Nicolaes" exists in Dutch but as a first name, equivalent to the French "Nicolas". It does not seem to be a common name in Belgium.
"Nicolae" is both a quite common first name and name in Romania.
Regarding this observation, I cannot resist the idea that it could have a helicopter!
What we have is:
Something with three lights, passing over a wood, seen by an adult and children, at an unknown distance initially, then it is lost of sight, then seen behind the car. Looking at the map, we can imagine a helicopter coming from the north a bit ahead of the car, then hidden by the trees of the forest while the car goes along the forest. It was hidden by the trees to the right of the car. It is seen again behind the car, this makes sense, there are no more trees to hide it there. It flies east towards Germany.
The thing has three white lights, a flashing red light in-between.
No impossible maneuver, nothing strange so far!
But there is nevertheless something a little strange for a helicopter there. We are told the driver stopped the car, cut the engine off, turned off the radio, and only a weak whistling sound is heard.
So, logically, the driver probably wondered whether what was seen was a plane or a helicopter, and it was to get an answer that he tried to listen for a noise.
Presumably, "weak whistling sound" hardly is hardly a good description of an helicopter noise. One might also think that there was no reason for the customs officer to report all this if the weak noise was a helicopter or plane noise, unless the distance was very wrongly estimated. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get a sure idea of that distance. It is given as 100 meters, and if this is correct, it is absurd to believe that an helicopter noise at 100 meters can be described as a "weak whistling sound." Anyone can hear a helicopter 100 meters away, even against the wind, and it hardly sounds as a weak whistling sound, it sounds... like the sound of a helicopter.
But how was this distance of 100 meters evaluated? If there had been a measure of angular size at that time, if it had been published, it could cancel the doubts in one way or the other, but this hypothetical measure is not known to me yet. And goes the same with an elevation angle: unknown. These are crucial data to assess the case. Maybe they are in some investigation report in the SOBEPS file, maybe not. We must remember that not all of these reports have been investigated, some are simply the records of witnesses statements, by telephone for example, about the events of that night.
So for now, considering this observation independently from any of the other sighting reports for that night, I would note that what we have here may be a report of a helicopter or possibly an airplane flight.
Having written the above, I read once again the text published in 2008 by the French "UFO-skeptic" Renaud Leclet. He argued that in the "Belgian flap", including that famous night in Eupen, the helicopters were a "hypothesis" forgotten by ufologists. Note also that for this observation, there is no indication that the witnesses did wonder about a helicopter or plane to later discard the possibility. Anyway, there is nothing about this particular sighting report Renaud Leclet's text. The fact is, that he only mentions a few specific sighting of that evening, although there were about 150 reports.
With such a formulation, one might think that a helicopter can thus be silenced. This is an extraordinary exaggeration, a miracle in itself, it would require huge thermal gradients to achieve this.
But the data show a slight temperature inversion, 1 degree C, and at a height of 500 meters. It would therefore only have slightly attenuated the noise of helicopter flying at such a height. I should add that there was almost no wind that night.
Here, we are told about an altitude of 50 meters and a distance of 100 meters. It must therefore be considered that these 50 meters and 100 meters are totally false. Then the helicopter could have been high enough, and far away enough, so that its noise is weak enough and could be describable as "weak whistling sound."
So I can therefore consider that this was a helicopter or plane, as I contemplated above, without having to invoke almost miraculous effects of temperature inversions...
Coincidentally, just after I wrote this, I went outside on my terrace, and I was flown over, right above head, by the rapid passage of a helicopter.
What I heard was clearly the sound of a helicopter, not at all a "weak whisting sound". It was a classic mid-sized helicopter, a Dauphin perhaps, I could not identify it precisely as I saw only its underside. I saw it only two or three seconds because of the high vegetation.
How far was it? I took immediate ufology action, measuring its angular size. with my outstretched arm, it had exactly the length corresponding to the width of the last joint of my index finger, that is, 2 centimeters. I then measured the distance from my arm outstretched in the same way and the tip of my index finger: 65 centimeters.
Given the approximations, this corresponds to an angular size of 1.7 to 1.9 degrees. Given the type of helicopter, it had to be about a dozen meters in length. With the angular size of the object and the actual size, I calculated the distance and obtained 400 meters.
I did some minimum and maximum calculations (the width to my index finger is quite certain but the coverage of the helicopter is a little less certain, the length of the helicopter is not certain, the arm length could have been a few centimeters more or less. I get a minimum of 300 meters and a maximum of 600 meters.
Again I get what I found many times, having done this test many times - almost every time I see a helicopter over the past decade: impossible not to recognize the sound of a helicopter as such, very weird that it should be called "a weak whistling sound", even from 400 meters away. In other words, if the witnesses of this observation heard a weak whistling and it was a helicopter, it must have been much more distant than 100 meters away and 50 meters high.
| Version: | Created/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | September 10, 2013 | Creation. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | September 10, 2013 | First publication. |
