In SUNlite 2-6, I wrote an addendum to Jean-Michel Abrassart’s article about the Belgium UFO wave, with the title, “The November 29, 1989 UFO over Eupen explained?” It presented potential explanations that have been offered in the past regarding this pivotal UFO event that signified the beginning of the Belgian UFO wave. In his rebuttal argument against Jean-Michel Abrassart and Roger Paquay, Auguste Meessen mentioned this addendum.

He seemed to have problems with it and my use of the term “plausible”. I consider anything is plausible as long as it has the potential for being a reasonable explanation. I certainly will consider earthly explanations far more plausible than ones that require alien spaceships or other exotic theories. Mr. Meessen also missed the question mark I put at the end of the title indicating

I was asking if this was the answer. I was not stating it was the answer. Another concern raised by him was that I did not include any references to his arguments.

I am not sure why that was necessary since the ET interpretation of this sighting is presented in many places on the internet while very few places mention these potential explanations. My goal was to point people towards those resources so they can see all the information.

In Mr. Meessen’s article he gives links to his analysis of these events and why they are not valid explanations.

The impression I got from Mr. Meessen’s writings is that he considers these two witnesses 100% reliable simply because of their profession (Police officers) and could not possibly be mistaken. In his UFO Handbook, Allan Hendry points out that being police officers does not mean they are reliable observers. Many of his policemen often mistook stars for UFOs. Elizabeth Loftus mentioned in her article, “Eyewitnesses: Essential but unreliable” (Psychology Today February 1984), that research shows that police officers are no more reliable or accurate than the average person. Suggesting that their testimony alone rules out any potential explanation fails to be compelling based on what we know about eyewitness reliability.

In discussing the helicopter explanation for the first part of this sighting, Meessen states that there were no helicopters in the area. This is based on what has been stated by General de Brouwer, who has publicly stated that a check was made for helicopter activity in the area and there was none. I am not sure how thorough their investigation was because no documentation is presented. I think it is important

to point out that there have been several UFO cases (most recently the Stephenville event), where the response by the USAF was they had no aircraft in the area. However, further checking revealed that their initial statement was in error and there were aircraft present. This is why a demonstration on how thorough this check for helicopter activity is important in any attempt to falsify the helicopter explanation. Could it have been a helicopter? It seems unlikely if General de Brouwer is accurate but shouldn’t the possibility be pursued to the point that all helicopters can be proven to not have been in the area?

The second half of the event observed by the police officers has been argued extensively over the years. The police officers observed a bright object for almost an hour over Lake Gileppe (between 1830-1923). Many have argued that they simply saw Venus. Auguste Meessen has argued against this by stating that Venus was not in the location of the sky described by the police officers and that their description of the UFO is not the kind of description one would expect from Venus. As a result, he has considered the Venus explanation is wrong and they saw a “real” UFO.

When Mr. Meessen states that Venus was in the wrong location of the sky, he is not stating that it was far away but is stating Venus was not precisely where the police officers said the UFO was located. They stated their UFO was directly over the Lake Gileppe tower. From their reported location this would be an azimuth of 205 degrees. Venus was at an azimuth of 215-225 degrees during the sighting (see image at above showing the position of Venus in relation to the tower at 1830).

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This azimuth argument seems to be weak since it is only a 10-20 degree difference. Wim Van Utrecht told me that when asked, the witnesses did not even mention seeing the bright planet Venus nearby, which was only two weeks from maximum brilliancy and an obvious object in the sky. Their observations of the UFO in reference to the tower has the potential for observational error that seems to have been dismissed by Mr. Meessen. It is also interesting to note that the UFO disappeared about the same time the planet Venus set!

The argument that the shape was different than the planet Venus or that beams were seen emanating from the sides of the UFO, ignores what we know about how people report Venus as a UFO. Such observations do not require any temperature inversion for an observer to perceive things that are not there. Venus was a bright point source against a dark sky and was very low in the sky. Look at case #37 in the Condon report. Police officers in that event state Venus was “football shaped” or in the shape of a “four leaf clover”. During this same sighting, the planet Jupiter was described as being the shape of flat tin foil with a slight bend in it! Remember, these were observations made by different police officers, who, if you believe the arguments about them being reliable observers, could not have been mistaken.

Based on all of this information, it seems that the arguments that it could not be Venus are not convincing enough to eliminate it as a source of the sighting. Venus continues to remain a plausible explanation for what these officers saw over Lake Gileppe.

Quelle: SUNlite 3/2011