One Strange Day in ’76 – A Bizarre 24 Hours Of UFO And Alien Encounters

September 3^rd, 1976, is largely remembered as the day the NASA Viking 2 touched down on the Martian surface, ready to explore our cosmic neighbor. It was also a day of high strangeness on Earth, with several bizarre UFO and alien encounters taking place within that 24-hour period. These encounters were at different locations around the planet and all featured an oval or disc-shaped object that was on or near the ground. Moreover, these encounters featured sightings and even interactions with the apparent occupants of these otherworldly craft, all of which, makes it arguably one of the strangest 24-hour periods in UFO history.

Whether or not there is a connection between these remarkable UFO encounters here on Earth and the Viking 2 mission on the red planet is a point very much up for debate, as is whether the sightings in question are connected to each other. Could it really be, for example, that while humanity was exploring one planet, an alien race was exploring our own?

The Bethel UFO Encounter

Perhaps the best place to start would be with an encounter that unfolded in the early hours of September 3^rd, 1976, in Bethel, Alaska, a location that boasts several strange otherworldly encounters. ^[1] According to the account, an anonymous local woman was strolling along the Alaskan frozen tundra when she suddenly became aware of a “very high-pitched whine” coming from overhead. She looked skyward and saw an object that she later described as looking like a “white beach ball!” This bizarre aerial vehicle was relatively low to the ground and moved with a strange, captivating smoothness.

As she watched, the object suddenly changed its position, now tilting slightly, allowing her to see that the object was, in fact, disc-shaped. Moreover, it appeared to have a rotating middle section and an exterior like shiny platinum. She continued to watch the curious craft, noticing that it now appeared to begin on an arced trajectory before heading toward the ground, as if it was about to crash land. The witness braced herself for an expected impact but, bizarrely, the object simply disappeared, almost as if the ground itself had opened and swallowed the object whole.

The witness noted that at the same time, as soon as the object had vanished, the high-pitched whining sound suddenly stopped. The witness took a moment to gather her thoughts before heading toward where the object had seemingly disappeared into thin air. However, much to her confusion, there was no sign whatsoever anywhere on the ground that object had even been there. The witness returned home, confused and a little unsettled. What’s more, it wouldn’t be the end of the strange events.

For several weeks following the sighting, the witness suffered from bizarre, intense dreams unlike any she had experienced before. Even more remarkable, she claimed that these dreams were so intense that they often resulted in her having out-of-body experiences. She elaborated that during this astral projection-type events she often found herself roaming through large corridors while “large objects” hovered over her, as if “suspended in space!”

The Ravenna Humanoid Encounter

Several hours later, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in Ravenna, Italy, Lorenza Jole was at home when she heard a sudden noise outside. She immediately went to the front window of the property and peered outside. She was more than shocked to see an oval-shaped object on the ground in between the two houses opposite hers. This strange craft appeared to be pink in color, and was approximately ten feet high and seven feet wide. Moreover, in and around the object’s vicinity, several bright white spheres or orbs floated around.

She remained where she was, scanning the scene in order to take in as much detail as she could. It was as she was doing so that her focus settled on the strange, menacing humanoid figure standing close to the craft wearing something akin to “battle-like armor,” including a metallic helmet. She stepped back from the window, uncertain if the strange figure had noticed her. She then made her way to another window at the other side of the property to get a better look. However, by the time she arrived there, the figure was gone. Moreover, the object was rising high into the sky, vanishing a moment later with great speed.

Whether or not this encounter shares any kind of connections to the incident that unfolded in Bethel shortly before remains open to debate. What is certain, though, is that in the next several hours, two more interesting and thought-provoking encounters took place – both of them thousands of miles from the first two encounters we have explored, and from each other. And it is to those encounters that we will turn our attention to next.

The Santa Catarina Landing Encounter

At around 7 pm at Serra do Mouro, Santa Catarina in Brazil, an unnamed 19-year-old farmworker was returning home from work for the evening when he suddenly noticed something strange moving across the sky overhead. Of more concern, whatever this object was, it appeared to be heading straight for him.

He later stated that the object, which measured around ten feet across, was a grey, metallic color and appeared to be made from two distinct parts or sections. The bottom section, he recalled, looked like a “deep bowl” that appeared to rotate or move in some way, while the upper section was flat with a bright light on the top, which appeared to change color depending on how fast or slow the object was moving, ranging from red, orange, white, yellow, and green.  The object passed directly over the top of him before it came to a sudden stop, hovering around 20 feet from the ground.

Then, as the witness looked on in shock, a red beam suddenly emerged from the underside of the craft and projected straight down toward the ground. Even stranger, when the witness looked into this beam of light, he could see three, three-feet high humanoid figures, each one descending to the ground as if the beam was some kind of bizarre slide. A moment later, all three of them were standing directly in front of him.

At this point, genuinely fearful for his safety, the witness reached for a knife they were carrying and launched it toward the creatures in an attempt to frighten them off. However, the weapon bounced away from them, as if they were protected by some kind of invisible forcefield or shield. Moments later, perhaps in retaliation, one of the creatures pointed a rod-like device toward the witness. A blue beam emerged from the device and stuck him, causing him to become immediately paralyzed. Several moments later, the witness lost consciousness. He awoke inside his home where a neighbor informed him he had discovered him outside.

It is interesting to note the detail of the rod-like device, the beam of light from it, and the paralysis this beam of light caused – all details that can be found in multiple other close encounter cases.

The County Durham UFO Incident

At around 9 pm in the small mining village of Fencehouses in County Durham, England, a 63-year-old woman and an 18-year-old woman, with the skies now beginning to darken, were walking home after spending the evening at a friend’s home. As they did so, they noticed a strange object seemingly landed on the ground near an old mine shaft on wasteland.

After watching the object for several moments, the two women, intrigued decided to head towards it. They could see that it was an oval shape, and appeared to be resting on three legs or runners. The exterior appeared to be “glass-like,” with a glowing orange section at the top, with the craft being around three feet in height and five feet across. When the two women reached the bizarre craft, events turned even stranger. Suddenly, the traffic noise and general sounds of the village had stopped, as it they had stepped inside an invisible bubble-like room. Undeterred, one of the women – the older lady – reached out to touch the futuristic vehicle and immediately noticed how it had a strange warmth to it.

As they stood, fascinated with this curious object, two strange creatures suddenly appeared inside it. Each was around the size of a doll, with large eyes and claw-like hands. Each also sported an untidy shock of thick white hair and appeared far from friendly. Suddenly, both women began to panic, and both of them turned to run as fast as they could. As soon as they did so, the object rose into the air, slowly at first before shooting high into the sky and disappearing within seconds, a strange “humming sound” accompanying it as it did so. Just what the object or the strange doll-like occupants might have been remains a complete mystery.

Many Resonating Details

If we stay with the County Durham case for a moment, we can highlight several interesting details that resonate very nicely with many other close encounter UFO cases. Both of the women, for example, later realized that their wristwatches had both stopped working at the same time, pretty much around the time they had approached the craft, and, we might suspect, at the same time the traffic noise and village sounds suddenly stopped. Even more interesting, after they had turned to run and the object had shot up into the air, both of their watches began working again, although they were now 10 minutes slow. This would suggest they were up close to the UFO for longer than a few moments (likely the ten minutes where, essentially, time stopped).

The older witness also experienced bizarre events the day after the encounter – and we might recall, it was this lady who had reached out and touched the object. As she went about her chores the following day, she went to plug in her vacuum cleaner. However, when she went to put the plug into the wall socket, a “strange force” prevented her from doing so, as if someone – or something – was physically forcing her hand away. When she asked her daughter to plug the appliance in, she managed to do so with no such problems. It is well documented that people who have had such close contact encounters, or even suffered incidents of alien abduction, have such affects on electrical appliances. Was this the case here? Did the older witness undergo some kind of “transfer of energy” from the otherworldly object directly into her body?

Of course, whether or not there is some kind of obscure connection between these bizarre encounters on Earth taking place while a robot made on Earth was beginning its long mission on the red planet is perhaps still to be determined. There are, though, further interesting and thought-provoking details to examine.

Another Aspect Of A Much Bigger Picture?

We will quickly turn our attention back to the incident in Brazil, largely due to the rod-like device, the use of laser beams or “solid light”, and, ultimately, the subsequent temporary paralysis suffered by the witness upon the beam of light making contact with him. As bizarre as such a notion might be of paralysis-inducing futuristic laser beams might be, there are multiple cases with just such a detail on record – and these cases come from all around the world and have happened across the decades. This perhaps suggests to us that not only is some kind of advanced and very real technology being utilized to achieve this, but the intelligence behind these encounters – whether they are extraterrestrial or not – are likely the same, suggesting a consistent presence here in Earth.

Even cases that don’t feature paralysis feature details of laser beams of “solid light.” And while such things as laser beams (in terms of weapons or advanced technology) belong only in science-fiction for many, the fact is, there are many more documented cases featuring solid light devices than many might think.

We have already explored how these laser beams can cause temporary paralysis, but they are also used for many other purposes. There are multiple accounts on record, for example, that features apparent occupants using this solid light to navigate from their respective crafts to the ground. Could this be some kind of vacuum-creating or anti-gravity technology that allows these occupants to float or glide to the Earth’s surface? Or could people who have seen this have witnessed some kind of teleportation technology? As usual, there are many questions than answers.

The short video below explores the Viking missions – the second of which, remember, took place while the mystifying incidents we have examined here were taking place on Earth.