UNUSUAL PHENOMENON OBSERVED WITH RADAR DEVICE IN ROMANIA

 Ion Lazeanu

I was working, as senior meteorologist, at the RADAR laboratory (physics of the atmosphere) at the National Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Bucharest (Romania), since 1967. In the same year an English Plessey radar was installed in our Institute, the training of users being made by English and American specialists. In 1971 the Plessey device was replaced by a new installation: MRL-2, made in the former Soviet Union, the training being performed by an engineer from the manufacturer company. The radar had a range of 300 kilometers and a narrow angular opening, typical for meteorological radar devices.

The meteorological observations are performed each hour, 24 hours per day, working in shifts. During one of the routine observations, with this radar, in a night of August 1986, at 2.00 a.m., on the screen appeared a sharp horizontal line, one cm. long. The position of the target remained stationary. By specific radar techniques, I determined that the distance to the object was 275-280 km Southwest from our station, that is above the city of Sofia (Bulgaria), at an altitude of 30000 meters. Through manual operations, I stopped, for about 4-5 minutes, the radar beam on the “object”, which remained motionless all this time. Afterwards, almost instantly, it disappeared. I found it immediately, on the same vertical, some 5000 meters lower down. I fixed the radar in the new position, continuing the observation, but after a short while it disappeared once again, this time rising in its initial position. I have a good experience in observing flying objects and I have also two licenses as airplane pilot, but this object and its movements resembled nothing I knew before.

In this period of time I was on duty by night, each four days. I had the opportunity to observe this strange “object” almost each time, during three-four weeks, in the same place. The length of the observations was varying between 3 and 20 minutes. I discovered the same object (or another, identical), above the city of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), located at some 300 kilometers Northwest from Bucharest. Afterwards the object disappeared and it was impossible for me to find it, despite my efforts.

The object reappeared in February 1988, again in the area of Sofia, and again by night, between 2.00 and 4.00 a.m., My observations were made several times, the whether being good and the sky cloudless. Once again the “object” made its vertical movements. After one month, a change occurred; during one of my observations, the object disappeared suddenly, but this time horizontally; I found it more than 200 km eastward, in the area of the city of Varna (Bulgaria), after a search of one minute, but it seems that the distance was covered in a much shorter time. In the next observations I found it in this new location. When I fixed the radar beam on it, the object performed the same quick movements upward or downward. In one night, after repeating this operation several times, when I fixed once again the beam on it, all the radar installation was disconnected spontaneously, with a muffled thud. I started it again only for the next hourly observation. After the usual operations, everything was functioning without any problem. But the “object” was no more visible. After this incident, I stopped to study the strange object. I saw it several times for a short glimpse, but I avoided stopping the device on it. I have to mention that the morning after the incident I called the electronic technician. After checking all the components, he told me that he did not found any explanation for the spontaneous stopping of the radar. As a matter of fact, the radar was working in the next period of time without any failure.

The dimensions of the object could be estimated by analogy. A big ship (e.g. 200 meters long), at a distance of 35-40 kilometers offshore, appears on the screen of a similar radar, installed on the coast of the Black Sea, as a horizontal one centimeter line. Taking into consideration the distance of 275-280 kilometers, the “object” could have a length of at least 1500 meters. It has to be remarked also its tremendous speed, both horizontally and vertically, as well as the property to reflect the radar beam.

 (Previously published in EJUFOAS, The European Journal of UFO and Abduction Studies, March 2000)

NOTE  - Following some comments which contest the possibility to stop the radar device on the target, the author states that there are several types of radars and some differences between military and meteorological radars, as follows:

- The military radars transmit radio waves, with a great angular opening, to detect small targets. There are often two antennas moving horizontally and vertically. Only when they are moving they can "see" the target .

- The meteorological radars, as the MRL-2, have a small angular opening. Their purpose is to detect targets with large size and low speed (as the cloud systems). They act emitting two microsecond pulses of radio waves. When they "catch" a target, the echo of the pulses is received by the same antenna, in the same position. Unlike military radars, the meteorological ones can observe a target being stopped on it.