Incident · 19 November 1976 · Canary Islands, Spain
Canary Islands luminous halo seen by Navy, Air Force and airline crews (Spain, 1976)
Also known as Canarias 1976, 19 November 1976 Canary Islands
Partly explained. Eastern Test Range launch records list two Poseidon C-3 submarine-launched missiles fired from USS Alexander Hamilton (SSBN-617) in the Eastern Test Range at 19:08 and 19:09 GMT. The phenomenon was reported between 19:00 and 20:00 GMT, most often at 19:15. The Spanish Air Force had classed it as an unidentified optical phenomenon. (source)
On the evening of 19 November 1976 a huge, slowly expanding halo of light appeared over the Atlantic near the Canary Islands. It was watched from the Spanish Navy's training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, from an Air Force T-12 (apparently with the general commanding the Canary Islands Air Zone aboard), from a Spantax airliner and by crowds on Gran Canaria. The Air Force's investigating judge took 14 statements, ruled out balloons, weather and jet exhaust, and concluded that the phenomenon was real and its nature unknown. The general wrote that no flying object had been seen, only an unidentified optical phenomenon, perhaps the work of a foreign power. The released file blanks his name, but Lt. Gen. Carlos Dolz de Espejo described the sighting from his own cockpit on Antena 3 in 1996.
His guess was close. Eastern Test Range launch records, compiled by Jonathan McDowell and checked by V.-J. Ballester Olmos and Ricardo Campo, list Poseidon missiles fired from a US submarine at 19:08 and 19:09 GMT that evening, minutes before the halo was seen. The same authors match the Canary Islands "OVNIs" of November 1974, June 1976, March 1977 and March 1979 to Poseidon launches. A missile's exhaust cloud, lit by the sun high above the darkened sea, produces just such an expanding halo.
Sources: Ejército del Aire, expediente 761119; Ballester Olmos & Campo, Revista de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica 701 (2001)
Facts and claims
- documented The crew of the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, an Air Force T-12 crew, a Spantax airliner crew and many people on Gran Canaria watched a luminous point spiral and swell into a vast semicircular halo on the horizon at about 19:15Z; airline captains near Málaga reported a bright dome at the same time. Source: Spanish Air Force file 761119: the luminous phenomenon over the Canary Islands, 19 November 1976
- documented The General commanding the Canary Islands Air Zone, himself a witness, judged that no flying object was seen and that it was "Indiscutiblemente" an unidentified optical phenomenon, possibly caused by "experiencias de determinadas potencias". Source: Spanish Air Force file 761119: the luminous phenomenon over the Canary Islands, 19 November 1976
- unverified Researchers V.-J. Ballester Olmos and Ricardo Campo, writing in the Spanish Air Force's Revista de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica (2001), matched the sighting to four Poseidon launches that day by USS Alexander Hamilton. Two were at 17:07 GMT, and two at 19:08 and 19:09 GMT, which they call a perfect correlation with the 19:15 reports. Source: academia.edu (archived)
Connected files
Documents
- Spanish Air Force file 761119: the luminous phenomenon over the Canary Islands, 19 November 1976 (documented in)
People
- Carlos Dolz de Espejo (witnesses)
Videos
- En familia: OVNIs (RTVE, 1989), with Lt. Gen. Carlos Dolz de Espejo and Iberia captain Juan Ignacio Lorenzo (subject of)
- Cita con la Vida (Antena 3, 1996): the declassified Canary Islands files, with Lt. Gen. Carlos Dolz de Espejo (subject of)
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