Script

UFOs continue to be a worldwide conversation topic, with new footage of UAPs sparking debate about the origin of these images.  And truly, the investigation of unidentified flying objects is a global phenomenon.  Today, we'll investigate some of the most famous incidents from Mexico.

This is My Dark Path.

On the morning of August 12th, 1883, the Mexican astronomer José A. Bonilla reported that he had been preparing his telescope for observations when he noticed objects passing between the earth and the sun.  He had been planning to observe sunspot activity when he saw objects blocking the sun by flying in front of it.  Over the next forty-eight hours, he took 447 wet plate photographs of over 300 objects passing in front of the sun.  He also took copious notes, describing the objects he saw, including descriptions of objects that seemed fuzzy and had long, dark tails.

Bonilla's observations were not made public until 1886 when they were published in the French astronomy magazine L’Astronomie.  Debate immediately followed on what, exactly, Bonilla had photographed.  Bonilla was born in 1853 and died in 1920.  He was a highly respected astronomer and was elected the first director of the Astronomical Observatory in the State of Zacatecas in Ciudad de Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1882.

Some thought Bonilla had photographed insects, birds, or even dirt on the lens.  Others argued the photos could not be explained as natural phenomena.  Then, in October 2011, Mexican astronomy researchers Hector Manterola, Maria Ramos Lara, and Guadalupe Cordero from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City published a paper in which they argued Bonilla had photographed fragments of a comet that had exploded and broken up in space, the pieces traversing the gulf between the sun and the earth. 

Regardless of what the objects on the film were, historians credit Bonilla with being the first person to take a photo of an Unidentified Flying Object.  His observations likely started the perception that Mexico was a UFO hot spot.

Regular listeners of this podcast know we here at My Dark Path love lights in the sky.  From the Val Johnson incident that we discussed all the way back in our fifth episode to the more recent analysis of Betty and Barney Hill's close encounter of the third kind, we are fascinated by alien crafts, alien encounters, and stories of strange lights in the sky

Hi, I'm MF Thomas, and welcome to the My Dark Path podcast.  In every episode, we explore the fringes of history, science and the paranormal.  So, if you geek out over these subjects, you're among friends here at My Dark Path.  See our videos on YouTube, visit mydarkpath.com, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok.  And if you like My Dark Path, Check out our Patreon, where subscribers will have access to exclusive full episodes starting with our special miniseries, a My Dark Path tour of history, science, and the paranormal in Cold War Moscow that we’re calling “Secrets of the Soviets.”  Find us there at patreon.com/mydarkpath

Finally, thank you for listening and choosing to walk the Dark Paths of the world with me.  Let's get started with Episode 51: Gentlemen; We Are Not Alone: UFOs Over Mexico

PART ONE

On January 14th, 2023, one hundred and forty years after Jose Bonilla took photos of alleged UFOs, a strange object hovered in the sky above the Estadio Olimpico Benito Juarez soccer stadium in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, located just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.  Benito Juarez stadium is home to the Juárez Bravos soccer team, who were playing the Tiajuana Xolos that afternoon.  A fan had snapped a photo of the stadium and shared it with the team, as it appeared to show some type of craft hovering in the distance over the soccer stadium.  The team, in turn, jokingly tweeted the photo, adding the caption, "Help, Jaime Maussan!  A fan sent us this photograph he took during the game vs. Xolos, where supposedly a UFO can be seen.  Is it or isn't it (a UFO)?"

Jaime [pronounced HI-mee] Maussan is Mexico's most famous UFOlogist and is well known in Mexico for his analysis of and belief in UFOs and aliens.  He hosts the longtime Mexican TV show Tercer Milenio, which means "Third Millenium," about UFOS and other paranormal topics.  Maussan took the photo tweeted in jest seriously and noted that he had the image analyzed with AI equipment and, “everything indicates that we are facing an unidentified anomalous phenomenon 'UAP', Kiev scientists call these ships 'Ghost' for being dark objects,” he tweeted.  The enhanced photo shows a smooth, dark almond-shaped object.  "Given all of the above, I think it is a ship of nonhuman origin," Maussan stated.

UAP, it should be noted, is an acronym for "unidentified aerial phenomena," which is what the U.S. military now uses instead of the term UFOs (unidentified flying objects).  UAPs have been in the news a lot lately, with pilots, both military and civilian, reporting them.  Maussan's reference to Kyiv refers to Ukrainian astronomers reporting dozens of UAPs over Kyiv since the war began.  Some attribute the increased sightings to the use of drones or additional military aircraft flying around Ukraine.  In contrast, others believe the UAPs may be some kind of alien phenomenon, studying how humans wage war.  There has been a similar rise in reports of UAPs in the United States, with hundreds officially reported to the American government in 2021 alone.

Mexico ranks seventh globally for the number of UFO sightings.  Today on My Dark Path, we will look at several UFO encounters, from José A. Bonilla’s photographs of a century and a half ago to sightings in Mexico from just this year.  In Mexico, a UFO is known as an OVNI [pronounced Ov-nee], an acronym for “Objeto Volador No Identificado” (Spanish for “Unidentified Flying Object”).  The U.S. Southwest and Mexico have long been a hotspot for strange sightings in the sky.  Roswell, Area 51, and all sorts of sightings of strange craft have been reported from the American Southwest.  These sightings do not stop at the border.  Mexico has also been a magnet, with dozens, if not hundreds, of OVNIs spotted every year.

On March 5th, 2004, members of Mexican Air Force Squadron 501 filmed 11 unidentified flying objects in the skies over southern Campeche state but did not make this information public until May of that year.  MAF pilots flying a routine anti-drug surveillance patrol filmed the OVNIs using infrared equipment.  The UFOs appeared to be flying at an altitude of about 11,500 feet.  Only three of the OVNIs showed up on the pilots' radar, but infrared cameras showed eleven objects at first in front of the plane, then trailing it as it turned to head back to base.  The video also recorded the crew conversations as they tracked the OVNIs that appeared to be tracking them.  “It's going along at out altitude," says one crew member, "That can't be possible." Then, after a moment of silence, another voice says, "Gentlemen, we are not alone."

The Mexican military investigated the incident, interviewed the crew repeatedly, and the results were inconclusive.  They could not determine what the objects were.  The Secretary of Defense then handed the video over to Jaime Maussan, who made it public.  The video was shown on Mexican television on Monday, May 10th, and again on Tuesday, May 11th, at a press conference organized by Jaime Maussan.  He claimed the video was yet again proof that OVNIs were in the skies above Mexico, this time as supported by the Mexican government and armed forces.  By Wednesday, May 12th, journalists, skeptics, and UFOlogists the world over were debating the reality of the video, not to mention possible explanations.  On the 12th, the Mexican Air Force also released a statement containing quotations from the crew of the plane.  Radar operator Lt. German Marin was quoted as saying, "Was I afraid?  Yes.  A little afraid because we were facing something that had never happened before.”  The infrared camera operator Lt. Mario Adrian Vazquez added, “I couldn’t say what it was … but I think they’re completely real.” Vazquez insisted that there was no way to alter the recorded images.  Everyone in the crew swore the images and their account were completely accurate, real, and unaltered.  The plane's commander, Maj. Magdaleno Castanon said the military jets chased the lights, "and I believe they could feel we were pursuing them." He added that when the jets stopped following the objects, they disappeared.

Skeptics immediately began to analyze and critique the video and the account.  Michael Shermer, executive director of The Skeptics Society and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, appeared on CNN three times that week, purporting to debunk the video, noting the crew seemingly did not notice the UFOs at the time but only when viewing the infrared footage.  Each version of the story released contained greater details, leading Shermer to quip, “It was like a fisherman’s tale, growing with each retelling.”  While this may be a fair criticism, we would be remiss to note that it is not evidence that there were no objects in the sky, nor does it explain what they actually were.

Others have suggested either ball lightning or a meteorite breaking up in the atmosphere as possible explanations, except ball lightning does not occur at 11,500 feet, and meteorites do not hover in the air as the objects in the video clearly do but fall to the ground.  Still, others have suggested satellite debris, secret military vehicles, electrically ignited gas, and even oil rigs in the gulf burning off flares, although in the case of the last, we might note that oil rigs are also not usually found above eleven thousand feet, and how would even the tallest oil rig flares show up on radar as solid objects?  The Mexican Air Force stands by its report and the testimonies of the pilot and crews of the jets that observed what were literally unidentified flying objects.  This is just one of many instances in which OVNIs were witnessed by multiple people.  And there are those who argue the sightings go back far longer than recorded history.

PART TWO

My first trip to Mexico was as a pre-teen when my parents drove us through Mexico in our green VW camper van.  In retrospect, this first visit to a country other than my own inspired my lifelong appreciation of people and cultures that were different than my own.  The archeological remains of previous civilizations were uniquely inspiring and something I continue to explore as I visit different countries in Central and South America.

Some researchers continue to think about the linkages between these early cultures and the potential presence of ancient aliens.

Erich Von Däniken’s controversial 1968 book Chariots of the Gods makes the argument that aliens visited humanity in the ancient past and were perceived as gods.  From the heads on Easter Island to the description of a flying wheel of fire by the Biblical prophet Ezekiel, Von Däniken sees evidence of aliens everywhere, including pre-Columbian Mexico.

According to Von Däniken, the giant heads carved by the Olmecs, for example, are evidence that aliens had visited Mexico thousands of years ago.  The Olmec were the first major civilization in Mexico.  That's not even their name for themselves, but what the Aztecs called them.  We know little about their culture apart from what they left behind: giant carved heads, thrones, steles, and statues, as well as what the Aztec report about them.  They lived in the tropical lowlands on the Gulf of Mexico in the present-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco from 1200 to 400 BCE.

Similarly, Von Däniken claims aliens interacted with and taught the Mayans, claiming that the Popol Vuh, the foundational sacred narrative of the Mayans, originally passed down through oral tradition and finally written down by the Spanish in 1701, claims the gods knew the entire universe, the four cardinal points of the compass, the round shape of the earth, and the “Feathered Serpent,” who carries the sun across the sky and knows the stars.  Von Däniken argues there was no way for the Mayans to know the earth was round, so they had to learn it from aliens.  However, the Maya were a highly advanced people on their own with profound scientific and mathematical knowledge.  They knew the length of a year on Venus and calculated the actual duration of an Earth year at 365.2420 days (for the record, a solar year is 365.2422 days – the Maya were correct to three decimal places!) .  As I’ve read some of Graham Hancock’s books, it’s impressed me that some ancient cultures may have been much more advanced than we believe.

Ancient aliens even visited the Aztecs, according to Von Däniken.  The so-called Aztec Calendar Stone, or Piedra del Sol, was buried after the Spanish conquest beneath what is now Mexico City's main plaza, or Zócalo.  It was rediscovered in 1790 and mounted on one of the towers of the cathedral in Mexico City, where it remained until 1885.  In that year, it was moved to the Museo Nacional, also in Mexico City.  According to Von Däniken, the Aztec Calendar Stone, which is almost twelve feet in diameter and weighs nearly twenty-five tons, the precision of the stone is as accurate in its calendar as the Mayans.  “Could this knowledge have come from extraterrestrial sources?” Von Däniken asks breathlessly.  Similarly, he sees the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the largest pyramid by volume built on the planet, as having been built with alien help.

On the one hand, it is easy to dismiss Von Däniken as perceiving the achievements of non-European cultures impossible without outside help.  A kind of prejudice against the peoples of Latin America, Africa, and Asia runs through the volume, but one that also extends to Europe, finding Greek, Roman, and Norse examples of ancient aliens as well.  On the other hand, if one believes in aliens, and their presence is felt today, as we have been discussing, is it not also possible that they have visited this planet in the past? 

Nonetheless, Mexico became a strong UFO hotspot in the nineteen seventies, as American UFOlogy was evolving and growing, looking for confirmation of UFO sightings, and cataloging them, to the point where we know, as I mentioned earlier, that Mexico ranks seventh in the world for UFO sightings.

Indeed, Mexico has its own version of Roswell.  Coyame, Mexico, lies just across the Rio Grande from the Texas border town of Presidio.  Coyame is a small town with a population at the time of less than two thousand people.  On August 25th, 1974, the US military was tracking a strange radar signal over the Gulf of Mexico.  US air defenses, then on alert at the height of the cold war, began tracking an object heading towards northern Mexico, traveling at an estimated twenty-five hundred miles per hour at 75,000 feet but descending.  At first, the Americans assumed it must be a meteor, but then it veered sharply left, and instead of entering US airspace, it flew over Chihuahua State.  which then suddenly disappeared off the radar.  Simultaneously, a civilian plane headed from El Paso to Mexico City went off Mexican radar.   Residents of both Coyame and Presidio heard and saw a thunderous explosion in the nighttime summer sky at about 10:15 pm.  Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a midair collision between a small airplane and an OVNI.  The flaming wreckage of both crafts fell down on the Mexican desert.  At Sunup the next morning, the Mexican authorities race through the desert to find the wreckage while American authorities listen in to their radio communications.  There seem to be two crash sites outside Coyame.  One is obviously the wreckage of a small plane.  The other, according to the voices on the radio, is a fairly intact disk-shaped craft sixteen feet in diameter and about five feet thick.  It has no markings, no light, no indicators of origin.  No bodies are found inside or nearby.  It does appear to be dented and damaged, first from the collision with the plane and then from the impact with the ground.

Mexican officials then declared a radio silence.  The American government offered to help in search and recovery efforts, and the Mexican government refused.  The Americans, however, organized and prepped a recovery team to go into Mexico if needed and perhaps intervene even if a request wasn’t forthcoming.  U.S. spy planes high above the desert outside Coyame took photographs that revealed a small circular craft had been loaded on the back of a flatbed truck and moved away from the crash site.  The photos also revealed what appear to be several human bodies still at the crash site.

On August 27th, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, American officials greenlit a rescue team to enter the area and offered assistance.  Four helicopters departed Fort Bliss for the crash site. 

Allegedly when the American scientists and soldiers arrived at the crash site, they found a number of dead Mexican soldiers.  There is no indication of how they died or what killed them.  Again, allegedly the Americans then used chains to attach the saucer to one of the helicopters and take the crashed ship back to the United States, but no one knows where it was taken to or where it is now.  The entire thing, just like Roswell, was covered up…at least so say those who have studied the history of the crash.  Both governments claimed that the Mexican and American military were simply there as the event had merely been the crash of a Cessna involved in drug trafficking.  No UFOs, no OVNIs, no aliens or alien technology.  Just the Mexican military, working with the American government to recover any drugs and continue the fight against the cartels.  In the book Mexico's Roswell: The Chihuahua UFO Crash, however, Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte argue that this is simply a cover story as there are too many unexplained elements for the official story to make sense.

PART THREE

Less than a year after the Coyame crash, another close encounter was reported in the Mexican press. On May 3rd, 1975, private pilot Carlos de los Santos was chartered to fly a group of engineers from Mexico City to the Pacific coast in his Piper PA 24 Comanche, a small, single-engine prop plane.  He dropped them off successfully and then refueled for the flight back to Mexico City.  The plane was flying east at about nine thousand feet, weather clear with good visibility, when de los Santos looked out over the left wing and saw an object hovering directly over the tip of the wing.  It was a saucer-shaped object, about fifteen feet in diameter, with what appeared to be a cockpit in the center.  He then looked over at the right wing and saw another matching craft hovering over that wing.  Not knowing what to do, he attempted to descend, but none of the controls worked.  His instruments were unresponsive.  At that moment, he looked up and saw a third identical craft headed straight towards the nose of the plane, rushing straight for him.  At the last second, this third UFO dropped down, and de los Santos heard and felt it hit something on the belly of the plane.  He then realized the third object now locked him in place – one over each wing and one underneath meant he was effectively trapped.  He radioed air traffic control in Mexico City.  The recording of his emergency call demonstrates a panicked pilot: "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!  This is Alpha Uniform!  I've lost control of the plane!  Three UFOs are surrounding the plane!"  Under the control of the strange craft surrounding him, de Los Santos reported that the plane began to ascend, eventually reaching almost fifteen thousand feet.  While that altitude is not dangerous – the Piper Comanche can safely go up to nineteen thousand feet, imagine what de los Santos was feeling at the moment – three UFOs have surrounded his plane, raising it almost six thousand feet from where it was, and he had no control over the plane.  Finally, after reaching fifteen thousand feet, the three craft suddenly flew off, disappearing as quickly and easily as they appeared.  De los Santos found himself with control over the plane again.  He immediately began descending into Mexico City, terrified the craft may return.

Sightings continued regularly in the following decades, but the next major OVNI event was in 1991.  On July 11th, one of the longest total solar eclipses was set to occur, and the best viewing location was in central Mexico, although people all over Mexico would see some kind of eclipse that afternoon.  People flocked to the pyramids to see the eclipse from the hearts of the Mayan and Aztec cultures.  At about 1:00 pm, just as the eclipse began, the sky began to darken.  Let’s remember that at this point in history, individuals could own high-quality cameras and video cameras, so thousands of people were taking pictures of or filming the eclipse, perhaps more than have recorded an eclipse in history to that point.  Just as José A. Bonilla pointed his telescope at the sun and saw unidentified objects through it, hundreds of individuals saw and photographed several round and cylindrical shaped metallic objects in the sky near the eclipse.  Professional astronomers made the case that what people were seeing and photographing was merely the planet Venus, made visible by the dimming of the sun.  UFO researchers argue that Venus was not in the sky where the videos show the OVNI to be, and furthermore, the UFO moves in a manner that a planet would not.

Regardless of what the eclipse OVNI was, the floodgates had broken, and a national conversation about UFOs over Mexico began.  More individuals began watching the skies with cameras, both still and video.  Publications, radio shows, and television programs dedicated to OVNI sightings began to proliferate, and some UFOlogists began to promulgate the theories of Von Däniken, arguing that the Mayans not only predicted the 1991 eclipse, they predicted a series of UFO sightings.  The Dresden Codex was frequently cited as a Mayan text that shows UFOs and predicts their return.  Almost overnight, sightings leaped a hundredfold throughout the country.

Three years after the eclipse sightings, on July 28th, 1994, another close encounter similar to Carlos de los Santos’s was experienced by Captain Reymundo Cervantes, an AeroMexico DC-9 pilot with four decades of flight experience and tens of thousands of hours in the air.  While flying from Guadalajara to Mexico City, he began his approach to the international airport, and at five thousand feet, the plane collided with…something.  The pilot declares an emergency and asks the tower for help landing safely.  Cervantes was uncertain if there had been any damage to the plane or the landing gear.  He landed the plane successfully.  There had been no other aircraft in the area, and radar confirms that fact.  But the air traffic controller reported an OVNI had been reported in the area of the flight path of Cervantes' plane.  Then, a few days later, on August 8th, 1994, another Aeromexico flight, this time from Acapulco to Mexico City, began its descent into the Mexico City International Airport during an overcast morning, almost striking a large metallic object in the clouds.  Again, an air traffic controller reveals to the crew that they are the fifth flight to see an OVNI during a descent into Mexico City. 

         The idea of a routine and repeated set of sightings presents a unique mystery.  Why do a number of planes flying from different directions, at different times of day, and under different weather conditions all encounter the same phenomenon? 

         Mountains, in particular, seem to draw OVNIs, and often provoke repeated viewings, just as with the sightings outside Mexico City International Airport in 1984.  Beginning on December 31st, 2007, New Year’s Eve, circular lights appeared in the sky over the Pie de Minas Mountain in Mezcala.  They are seen and filmed by multiple groups of unrelated people.  Another mountain that draws OVNIs is in Monterrey, where UFOs have been seen over Cerro de la Silla mountain, once even filmed accidentally during the making of a commercial for Coca-Cola.  No one saw it at the time, but a review of the footage showed an elliptical object moving fast in daylight hours past the mountaintop.

         Similarly, beginning in 2015, a number of different individuals at different times and from different locations have seen a strange series of lights above the Popocatépetl volcano in Atlixco, Mexico.  Most recently, in January 2023, Karla García posted photos of a UFO over Popocatépetl that her boyfriend, Luis Guerra, took.  Guerra had been preparing the backyard for a family breakfast when a blast sound from the Popocatépetl volcano made him look up.  He used his phone to take photos of the moon setting behind the volcano's cone.  When they examined his photos, they saw what appeared to be a giant, saucer-shaped OVNI hovering over the erupting volcano.  Interestingly, their house lies just 1,600 feet from where a UFO monument was erected in 2000 under orders of the then-mayor of Atlixco.  Popocatépetl, as it turns out, is not just an active volcano but another Mexican UFO hotspot, so much so that the previous mayor had a monument to them constructed in the center of town, perhaps to encourage tourism.  Locals claim aliens are studying earth's geothermal activity to have a better understanding of the planet.  It seems if you want to see a UFO, visit a mountain or volcano in Mexico.

PART FOUR

In Tamaulipas state on Mexico's Gulf coast lies Playa Miramar - Miramar Beach - one of the most beautiful beaches on the Gulf of Mexico.  Six miles of golden sand allow for camping, kayaking, scuba diving, windsurfing, and kitesurfing, with gentle but sizable waves and a strikingly beautiful blue ocean.  It is a tourist hotspot, busy year round.  But allegedly, not all the tourists are from this planet. 

Most extraordinarily, the residents of the nearby cities of Madero and Tampico believe they are protected from hurricanes by an alien base called Amupac just off Playa Miramar deep under the water.

Nathaniel Janowitz reported last November that the locals did not fear the approaching Tropical Storm Karl because "The aliens will protect us," and lo and behold, Karl turned and headed south away from Miramar, Madero, and Tampico, making landfall much further down the coast where it caused damage and death.  Locals believe the aliens in Amupac monitor the weather in the area and protect the people of the nearby cities.  In their favor, extreme weather events seem to avoid that area of the coast, almost unnaturally.

For the people around Miramar Beach, the legend of Amupac has become an important part of the local tourist trade.  There are alien-themed restaurants named after Martians; gift shops sell alien stuffies and T-shirts with pictures of UFOs that read “Playa Protegida” — “Protected Beach.”

According to locals, on August 6th, 1967, several slow-moving unidentified flying objects were seen in the skies of Tamaulipas.  The next day, on August 7th, the local paper, El Sol de Tampico, ran the headline “Platillos Voladores Sobre Tampico,” or “Flying Saucers Over Tampico.. The article claimed that thousands of locals witnessed the UFOs and even reported that officials working at the local airport control tower reported nine unidentified objects tracked on radar.  The UFOs had originated inland and flew out over Madero and Tampico, over Playa Miramar, and out over the ocean.  Supposedly from that day forward, no hurricane or tropical storm has touched Playa Miramar or the nearby cities.  The locals believe the alien craft set up a secret underwater UFO base called Amupac.

A local UFO investigation group called OVNI Scientific Investigation Association of Tamaulipas (its Spanish acronym is AICOT) has carried out numerous investigations of UFOs in the Tamaulipas area and of Ampuac.  The found and president of AICOT, Juan Carlos Ramón López, perhaps as well known as Jaime Maussan in the Mexican UFO investigation community, claims that he has been to Amupac as part of a guided meditation on July 19th, 2013, during which he projected his astral body under the gulf and saw the base and the beings who exist there.  Amupac, he said, is “intraterrestrial” and “multidimensional,” seemingly made of crystal and some metals, and inhabited by nearly 10 feet tall, thin and light-skinned beings who had a more evolved “consciousness,” with “energy radiating throughout the place.”

Hard to believe, but reported sightings of OVNIs have increased significantly in the last two decades.  Locals recount frequent OVNI sightings.  Nathaniel Janowitz interviewed local offshore oil platform worker Juan Abraham Soto, who has spent years in the waters off Playa Miramar.  Based on his experiences, having seen many OVNIs over the Gulf through the years, he theorizes why the cities and beaches are protected: “I believe that more than protecting us, it’s also that they are protecting themselves,” said Soto.

Local governments of Madero and Tampico have distanced themselves from the UFO crowd after some local embarrassment when civic officials were mocked on the internet for attending something called El Día del Marciano (Martian Day) in October 2013, a celebration organized by local OVNI enthusiasts.  Madero even erected a statue of a Martian at Miramar Beach in 2013, which local officials disavowed.  Although since then, the director of state tourism for Tamaulipas has embraced OVNI culture as it is a significant draw for the area.  His cynicism is also matched by the skepticism of local scientists who indicate that "the trajectories of these hydrometeorological phenomena are erratic" and Occam's razor would seem to suggest that regular oceanological and meteorological patterns offer a more realistic explanation than an underwater alien base, especially when one considers the water off of Playa Miramar is cooler than the waters to the north and south, which would tend to thus drive storms north or south of Tamaulipas.  These same skeptics also point out that, as a result, there are a number of cities and communities that have not had extreme weather events either, not just Madero and Tampico.  Does this imply that there are more alien bases in the gulf or that the more mundane explanation of water temperature is more likely?

But every hurricane and tropical storm-free year grows the myth of Amupac. One of the hurricanes that was initially headed for Madero and Tampico in 2005 turned north when locals allegedly stood on the beach holding signs asking the aliens to protect them.  That storm, Hurricane Katerina, moved away from Tamaulipas and slammed into the United States gulf coast, profoundly damaging New Orleans and resulting in serious loss of life and property.  Locals point to that as proof the aliens are real and protecting them.

We’ve focused on some of the major locations and incidents in the history of Mexican UFOs, but no one location is considered the hotspot of Mexican UFO activity, as reports have been made in every part of the country.  Hermosillo, the capital of Sonoma state, has seen the number of UFO reports increase, as has the rest of Sonoma.  Durango has had its fair share of OVNI appearances.  A UFO was spotted over Acapulco in 2019, which made a local government official quip that the popular tourist destination was “not only recognized nationally and globally, but also outside of the planet.”

Whether the explosion of interest in UFOs after the 1991 eclipse or the 2004 military sightings, or the embracing of the identity as an alien base in Madero and Tampico, or the decades-long career of Jaime Maussan, Mexican society has welcomed OVNI culture and, much like in the United States, offers a wide variety of responses, from mockery, skepticism and contempt to openly embracing and celebrating the fact that Mexico seems to be popular with aliens and their craft.  We here at My Dark Path make no claims one way or the other about aliens visiting Mexico or any other part of the earth, for that matter.  What we do find fascinating, however, is the widespread embracing of UFOs, of OVNIs, and the culture they create.  UFOs are big business, but they also create a narrative of uniqueness and special status.  Madero and Tampico define themselves as protected cities, watched over by benevolent aliens.  The people who live around Mount Popocatépetl, a loud, active volcano, take comfort in knowing the place they live is studied by beings from another planet.  While pilots who encounter UFOs all report being terrified, most individuals who see lights in the sky are inspired to believe in a larger, more mysterious, and thrilling universe than the mundane one of everyday life.  Those who embrace the idea of the OVNI being more than just unidentified objects but rather evidence of aliens means that, in the end, we are not alone in the cosmos. 

Thank you for listening to My Dark Path.  I'm MF Thomas, creator and host, and I produce the show with our engineer and creative director, Dom Purdie.  This story was prepared for us by Kevin Wetmore.; big thank yous to them and the entire My Dark Path team.

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