Mexican 'UFOs' create plenty of believers

4.00pm - By TIM GAYNOR

TIJUANA - The Mexican Air Force has released video footage of unidentified flying objects picked up by an infrared camera as they whizzed around a surveillance plane, in scenes eerily reminiscent of a smash-hit alien invasion movie.

The fuzzy images that have entranced Mexican television viewers since Monday show up to 11 bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly in loose formation across what appears to be a late-evening sky.

Filmed by air force pilots on a routine drug-busting patrol over the eastern coastal state of Campeche in early March, the lights were first picked up the objects on radar, then captured using an infrared camera slung under the aircraft's fuselage.

Mexico's Defence Ministry released the images to a local journalist, Jaime Maussan, a long-time believer in flying saucers. He told a news conference on Tuesday that the objects were real and seemed "intelligent" after they at one point changed direction and surrounded the plane chasing them.

"They were invisible to the eye but they were there, there is no doubt about it. They had mass, they had energy and they were moving about," he said, after showing a 15-minute video.

Widely broadcast on Mexican television news bulletins earlier this week, the clip included excited commentary by the clearly shaken pilots. "We are not alone!" shrieked one over the howl of the aircraft's turbines. "This is so weird."

Interviewed by Maussan on another section of the video, the pilots said they grew nervous when the objects, still invisible, turned back during a chase and surrounded the plane, which was cruising at an altitude of 11,500 feet.

"There was a moment when ... the screens showed they were behind us, to the left and in front of us. It was at that point that I felt a bit tense," said Maj. Magdaleno Castanon.

The latest sighting recalled a scene from the M. Night Shyamalan-directed Hollywood blockbuster Signs, starring Mel Gibson. In the film, a formation of lights hover over Mexico City, in a prelude to a doomsday invasion by green aliens.

While Mexico has a long history of fanciful UFO sightings - most of which are dismissed by scientists as space debris, missiles, weather balloons, natural weather phenomena or hoaxes - the latest recordings have gained more serious attention.

After watching the videos carefully on national television news, retired airline pilot Gustavo Paez said they appeared to be "totally real, despite the fact that some people dismiss sightings such as these as fantasies of the disturbed".

"We have to give this credibility as it was spotted by the air force," Paez, who flew for Mexican airline Taesa during a 22-year career, told the Independent.

"They recorded the velocity and the altitude on radar, and the luminosity of the objects. I think it was entirely real and it should be taken seriously."

- INDEPENDENT