Document · 19 November 1976
Spanish Air Force file 761119: the luminous phenomenon over the Canary Islands, 19 November 1976
The Spanish Air Force file on the luminous halo seen over the Canary Islands on the evening of 19 November 1976. Witnesses included the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, an Air Force T-12 transport, an airliner crew and people on Gran Canaria. It contains the report of the investigating judge, Informe 02/76, with 14 witness statements and sketches. It also contains the personal assessment of the general commanding the Canary Islands Air Zone, who saw the phenomenon himself and called it an unidentified optical phenomenon, and the 1994 declassification summary. Published in the Biblioteca Virtual de Defensa under CC BY 4.0.
Sources: Ejército del Aire, expediente 761119
Facts and claims
- documented The file summarises that at 19:15Z on 19 November 1976 the crew of the Spanish Navy training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, on passage from Cádiz to Las Palmas, saw a luminous point that spiralled about four turns and then grew to two or three times the size of the lunar disc. It formed a perfect semicircle resting on the horizon, with the luminous sphere at its centre, and faded as it expanded; its active phase lasted more than 20 minutes and it took about two hours to die out completely. Source: doc-ea-expediente-761119-canarias.pdf
- documented At the same hour, the crew of an Air Force T-12 of 461 Squadron flying from Lanzarote to Gando saw the phenomenon already expanding, with green squares at its centre, for 12 minutes. The crew of Spantax BX-322 confirmed it by radio with the T-12, and many witnesses at Guía (Gran Canaria) watched a brilliant disc grow for 25 minutes. That evening the captains of three airliners near Málaga reported a very bright dome east of the airport at about 30,000 ft that was not detected by radar. Source: doc-ea-expediente-761119-canarias.pdf
- documented The investigating judge took statements from 14 witnesses, six of them military or civil pilots. He ruled out a sounding balloon, a weather phenomenon and jet exhaust, and left open an experiment in the ionosphere. He concluded that the witnesses' seriousness was beyond doubt, that the phenomenon really occurred as described, and that its nature was unknown, with no radar contact. Source: doc-ea-expediente-761119-canarias.pdf
- documented The General commanding the Canary Islands Air Zone, who had seen it himself, wrote on 13 December 1976 that it repeated the phenomenon reported on 21 July 1976, "sin que se haya observado ningún objeto volador, sino unicamente un fenómeno optico". He wrote that it was "Indiscutiblemente" an "Fenómeno Optico No Identificado", and suggested that specialists, possibly from the United States, be told, as such events "muy bien pudieran ser motivados por experiencias de determinadas potencias". Source: doc-ea-expediente-761119-canarias.pdf
- documented The file was declassified by the Air Operations Command in 1994 (JEMA 814); its 91 pages include the judge's report 02/76, the witness statements, sketches and the Málaga airport correspondence. Source: doc-ea-expediente-761119-canarias.pdf
Connected files
Incidents
Videos
- En familia: OVNIs (RTVE, 1989), with Lt. Gen. Carlos Dolz de Espejo and Iberia captain Juan Ignacio Lorenzo (discussed in)
- Cita con la Vida (Antena 3, 1996): the declassified Canary Islands files, with Lt. Gen. Carlos Dolz de Espejo (discussed in)
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- Italian Air Force OVNI archive, 1972–1990 (summary table of 208 reports)
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