Manises UFO Incident: What Really Happened?

The first UFO incident that forced a commercial flight to make an emergency landing

Name	Manises UFO Incident
Occurred on	November 11 and 12, 1979
Seen by	Commercial pilot Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada and crew
Investigated by	Ejército del Aire y del Espacio

It’s been 46 years (at the time of writing) since the TAE flight crew made an emergency landing due to an alleged encounter with an unidentified object, yet the now-called “Manises UFO incident” remains the most popular and well-documented UFO case in Spain. 

Let’s discuss the events surrounding this encounter and the investigations that followed, even decades later.

What Happened on That Night in 1979?

On November 11, 1979, a TAE Flight JK-297 destined for Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain took off from Salzburg, Austria at 10:47 PM and made a brief fuel stop at Palma de Mallorca. 

Aboard the plane were 109 German and Austrian passengers and 7 crew members. Manning the plane were Capt. Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada, co-pilot José Ramón Zuazu Nagore, and flight mechanic Francisco Javier Rodríguez.

At 11:05 PM, as they were flying at 23,000 feet over Ibiza, Rodríguez noticed two parallel red lights on their left, miles away, and alerted the rest of the crew. The unidentified objects were said to be flying in the same direction and at the same altitude as theirs.

According to Capt. de Tejada’s account, at the time, they were “climbing from 23,000 to 33,000 feet” when they saw these red lights. The lights were “so strong” they couldn’t see the other side’s ships. They were also flying at incredible speeds, getting closer and closer to their plane, to the point of possible collision.

This prompted them to contact Barcelona’s air traffic control for information about the lights, who replied that, other than their plane, nothing else was detected on radar.

For 10 minutes, the unidentified objects seemingly played with them, and Capt. de Tejada had to rely on his 15 years of flying experience to evade them. 

When the lights “appeared to start a second collision course,” the captain decided to radio the nearest airport—the Manesis Airport in Valencia—for an emergency landing.

The moment they landed at the airport, he immediately filed an incident report to the civil aviation officials, with the crew backing his account.

The airport ground crew also corroborated the crew’s statements, having seen the red lights and mistaking them for another plane about to make an emergency landing.

What’s interesting, however, was that except for noting the crew’s tension, none of the passengers saw a single red light that the crew was concerned about.

Did the Spanish Military Take Action Following This Incident?

As soon as the Ejército del Aire y del Espacio (Spanish Air Force) became aware of this activity, they immediately sent a fighter jet—a Mirage F-1—from the Los Llanos Air Force Base at 12:40 AM on November 12, 1979. Piloting it was Capt. Fernando Cámara, and he was tasked with searching and identifying the strange lights.

According to his account, he found them hovering in place over Manises Airport. The red lights “appeared to be part of a truncated cone shape.” It then became erratic, flying in front of him and matching his speed, when it detected his approach. 

He pushed the Mirage F-1’s speed to Mach 1.4 to get closer to it, but it was too fast. He eventually lost visual contact with it. From its trajectory, it seemed to be heading toward the coast of Africa.

Capt. Cámara’s encounter with this unidentified object lasted for 90 minutes. During that time, he reportedly experienced anomalies with the flight controls, “including radar lock interference and temporary system disruptions.” It was only when it sped off into the distance that the Mirage F-1’s controls came back online.

He wanted to continue the pursuit but had to give up due to this system interference and the diminishing fuel reserve. He returned to base at 2:07 AM.

What Explanations Have Been Proposed Over the Years?

There had been many theories surrounding the Manises UFO incident. We’ll feature two explanations today: the military’s official report and the analysis of an invested UFO researcher.

Spanish Military’s Official Statement 

The public finally got a copy of the military’s declassified investigation report of the Manises UFO incident in August 1994.

In the report, it stated:

• The TAE Flight JK-297 crew fell victim to optical illusions. The “red lights” they saw could be the combustion flares of a major petroleum refinery at Escombreras. These might also be nothing more than a meteorological phenomenon. Capt. de Tejada and crew rejected this due to the inexplicable speeds the lights exhibited that no aircraft at the time could do.
• The Mirage F-1’s control system failure was due to the electronic warfare equipment the U.S. Sixth Fleet was using. Capt. Cámara rejected this, as the fleet was far from his location at the time, and the systems jammed when he tried to fire a missile at the object.

The report ended with the military’s acknowledgement that it was an unidentified aerial phenomenon. But this didn’t mean they endorsed it as an object of extraterrestrial origin.

Peris’s Research Results

Juan Antonio Fernández Peris is an agricultural engineer and UFO enthusiast who dedicated 20 years to understanding the Manises UFO incident. The declassification of its case file helped immensely in completing his study.

In his book, The Manises UFO File, he stated that the events in this case were true and somehow related, yet they’re also independent from one another. He claimed that the combination of these “rare circumstances” was what led to this UFO incident. 

Here were the things he found:

• Upon studying and calculating the immediate area of the incident, he confirmed that the distance between the two red lights matched the distance between the two groups of refinery flares on the ground. He also found that the apparent size of the flames matched the expected power and size of those flares. This suggested that the red lights could be explained by known structures rather than an unknown object.
• The sky was filled with stars during that time, and it was easy to mistake them, especially Sirius, for “unknown bright objects.” 
• The “lights” the plane’s crew and Capt. Cámara saw were unrelated.
• Capt. de Tejada apparently had psychological issues, and his vulnerable state forced him to call for an emergency landing, not the object itself.
• The meteorological conditions at the time resulted in a “strong temperature inversion that created a superior mirage” that distorted the combustion flames’ image in the crew’s eyes.
• The unexpected electronic interference Capt. Cámara experienced appeared to be a deliberate electronic warfare on the U.S. 6th Fleet’s side, which was on high alert at the time due to the hostage crisis in Iran.
• The plane’s crew and Capt. Cámara were probably influenced by Spain’s inclination to UFOs, where anything that’s strange in the skies was considered extraterrestrial aircraft.

Why Is the Manises UFO Incident Still Discussed Today?

The Manises UFO incident still matters today because it wasn’t just a rumor or a single sighting. Credible eyewitnesses all saw the same strange red lights flying at speeds faster than Mach 1.4. 

What’s more, the new generation of UFO enthusiasts and skeptics’ insightful approach to using empirical data rather than relying on eyewitness testimony alone keeps the discussion alive.

But the real takeaway is that it pushed the Spanish military and government to emphasize radar verification on UFO cases.  Such data is instrumental in determining the authenticity of the case, as it will:

• Separate the real from the hoaxed and falsified reports
• Become a more reliable proof that an unusual phenomenon happened
• Improve the current UFO investigation methods

There are other UFO cases like this one that made a significant impact on ufology. Feel free to browse our library today to know more about them.

FAQ

Were the two parallel red lights truly a UFO?

There’s no concrete evidence that it was a UFO. What’s true was that it was a “devilishly fast thing, with a terrifying capacity for maneuver.”

Why is the Manises UFO incident considered one of the strongest UFO cases in Europe?

It’s because the Manises UFO incident is one case where you couldn’t question the credibility of the witnesses and their corroborated statements, and, despite the alleged suppression of information, the military’s response to thoroughly investigate the case.

Why are UFO enthusiasts not satisfied with the explanations from official investigations? 

The official statements only explained one part of the event, leaving them with further unanswered questions. There also appears to be missing data due to an alleged cover-up, which has been making the results inconsistent.

References