The story of this UFO sighting and close encounter of the 3rd kind is retold with many inconsistencies in:
- Reports of how many people claim to have seen two figures inside a strange craft.
- Reports of where the sighting of the strange craft took place.
By far the most viewed YouTube video about this event is
The Basement Office episode 10. (2 June 2020) with more than 1.8 Million views.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR9esLdArkQ&t=1482s
It includes this sentence,
"...inside the orb he (Dr. Francisco Padrón León) sees two figures
and he wasn't alone
a couple from the window of their house
a teacher
a police officer
a farmer
they all see two figures inside this giant orb
and their descriptions of these entities all match up…"
But there is no supporting evidence for this claim. Only the Dr and the Taxi driver describe seeing two figures and a third witness, a woman farmworker, "can't be sure" about what she saw.
The others mentioned in this sentence, the couple, teacher, police officer, and farmer do not say they saw any figures
at all in their witness statements. In fact they were in various locations miles apart on Gran Canaria island at the time.
Location of each witness based on the official report.
There are other reports such as this which suggest up to a dozen witnesses saw two figures inside a craft.
Source: https://youtu.be/EJ3btBNa8Bg
this time with no source mentioned.
This article:
Source:
https://www.infonortedigital.com/po...tres-vivian-entre-agaete-y-tenerife-ovni-1976
says the landing site for the object is here (28.1100221099114, -15.679686820919637)
Here's how it looks on Google maps today. The field is to the left side of the road when driving towards Las Rosas where the Taxi was heading.
Supposed landing at Piso Firme and El Hornillo according to Info Norte Digital.com
However this doesn't line up with the witness statements.
The Dr & Taxi driver say the object containing the two figures was 15 - 20 metres "
in front of them and illuminated by the car headlights". The taxi driver said he thought the object might be resting on the ground. Yet the third person in the car said his view of the "25 metre wide by 20 metre tall"
object was obscured by the hood of the car. (how is this possible?)
Source:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Gui...8e!2m2!1d-15.6723692!2d28.0997627!3e0!5m1!1e4
If we look at the route taken described by the Dr. they drove from the Dr's house in Guia, travelled 6km along the main highway between Las Palmas & Agaete, before turning off left onto a local road that climbs up hill and ends at Las Rosas - I'm assuming that this road hasn't changed much in the 46 years and still looks like it does on Google Maps today since it's the only road to Las Rosas. The direction of travel for the Taxi here is roughly SW with the last 1.9km of their journey in the
exact opposite direction to the lights that are being observed by the other witnesses who are looking North West toward Tenerife.
Also while on the highway before turning off, their view towards Tenerife would have been obscured by mountains.
Google Earth Visualisation of the drive from the Dr's house in Guia to Las Rosas, Gran Canaria:
Source: https://youtu.be/gxlzjXbwb5E
I had thought this might be a problem for explaining the encounter as everyone seeing the same thing because it appears they would be looking in the opposite direction to the other witnesses who are all looking roughly North West, yet they describe seeing an object in
front of them, close to the ground and containing the two figures.
However, when you follow this road off the highway which is climbing up into the mountains there's a very tight right hand turn toward its end (the Dr says in his witness statement that their encounter begins "toward the end of this local road". This sharp turn up an incline of around 3% would have suddenly brought the car facing directly toward Tenerife aligning with most other witnesses point of view.
Google Earth Studio visualisation of the tight right turn toward the end of the road to Las Rosas with an overlay from Annex to the Spanish gov report showing the approximate size of the object seen over Tenerife.
Source: https://youtu.be/Zi_PBNMVKKM
There are many assumptions here but if this is correct I'd argue that of the 13 witnesses who gave statements for the military report 10 are looking in the same direction and at
the same thing, but just 2 of them, the Dr. and his taxi driver, are interpreting it in a wildly different way, as much closer to them (15-20m away) and containing humanoid figures.
Most of the other witnesses describe the light as close to the horizon, estimates range from between 10 and 30 degrees, so if the taxi on on an incline (~3%) at this point in their elevated position looking over Gran Canaria toward Tenerife, I wonder if the object close the the horizon (
behind Tenerife island) was below the line of the car hood, just out of sight to the person sitting a couple of feet behind in the rear of the car. This seems to support the idea that they'd just made a sharp turn, are on an incline, and are now looking toward Tenerife, and not further downhill in Piso Firme looking to the side of the road towards an onion field as is claimed above.
The third passenger only said there was illumination in the sky and didn't see any object, or figures.
I suggest that this sudden change of direction of the observers and their apparent agitation, observed by their third passenger, caused them to misperceive the lights in the sky (believed to be a very distant missile launch).
The Taxi driver said he "
had noticed a big ball a few minutes before" presumably by looking in his
rear view mirror as they drove up the hill toward Las Rosas, this was not a view the Dr, his passenger, would have had.
The taxi driver also says "people were told to come out and see it, many came out
and went home".
There is also a report that the figures they were seeing were "prickly pears" which, coincidentally perhaps, still grow at that exact location.
"the third witness who was travelling in the taxi suggested at first in view of
the phenomenon that it was "the prickly pears, illuminated by the car's headlights"
Source:
https://www.academia.edu/43047669/Los_gigantes_de_Gáldar_y_los_avistamientos_canarios?pop_sutd=false
All quotes above are translations from the original Spanish. Each witness statement from the Spanish Gov report can be read here.
Source:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uNUyMGY6KE1dM1A6xcmejPGuUTa-n6_1WzfzmI2BuAg/edit?usp=sharing
The full report can be found here:
Souce: Spanish Gov report on the June 1976 UFO sighting
https://bibliotecavirtual.defensa.g.../consulta/registro.do?control=BMDB20160069082