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 BBS: The Matrix BBS
Date: 04-03-98 (15:43)             Number: 195
From: JACK SARGEANT                Refer#: NONE
  To: ALL                           Recvd: NO
Subj: 3                     3/4      Conf: (195) UFO
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traffic in the area" at the time.
     MUFON investigator John Thompson contacted
NORAD and spoke to "Scott Johnson, a public relations
officer for NORAD, about" Panama, and Johnson "said
a careful check was made of the area around Santiago"
that night "but NORAD found no 'space junk' reentering"
Earth's atmosphere at that location.  (See Filer's Files
#12 for 1998.  Many thanks to George A. Filer and
John Thompson for this report.)
(Editor's Note:  Santiago is 200 miles (320 kilometers)
east of Golfito and Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica, where
disc-shaped UFOs appeared during the last week of
December 1997.)
SILVER SPHERE UFOs SEEN IN
CANNONVILLE, GEORGIA
     After a few quiet months, the tiny town of
Cannonville, Georgia (population 400) is again the
focus of UFO activity.
     Cannonville is on Highway 29 just east of
West Point Lake, about 75 miles (120 kilometers)
southwest of Atlanta.
     On Saturday, February 21, at 10 p.m., a few
Cannonville residents spotted "a UFO with three
lights on it...flashing and blinking in the Hogg
Mountain area.  Witnesses were close enough to
have heard any sound, but there was none."
     On Sunday, March 22, 1998, at 4 p.m., a 57-year-
old Cannonville woman "was driving east on Long Cane
Road and saw two bright 'silver balls' hanging in the
air, just west of Hogg Mountain.  The silver balls were
about one mile (1.6 kilometers) away from her on the
horizon at approximately 60 degrees height.  The
silver balls each had an apparent size several times
bigger than Venus and a real size larger than a four-room
house.  The southern-most UFO 'disappeared' straight-up
in a streaking fashion.  The second UFO did the same a
few seconds later."
     When she arrived in Cannonville, the woman rushed
into her house and told her family what she had just seen.
"Her sister went outside to look up and saw a yellow
prop (propellor-engine) plane."  She then spotted a
hovering "silver ball" and "yelled for everyone to come
outside.  As the family ran out, the UFO disappeared."
(See Filer's Files #12 for 1998.  Many thanks To George
A. Filer and John Thompson of MUFON for this report.)
ANOMALOUS PAINTING FOUND
BENEATH ROMAN RUINS
     An unusual wall painting discovered in Rome by
Italian archeologists has raised eyebrows in the
Fortean community.  The fresco shows an ancient
Italian city...from the air!
     According to the Reuters report, "An Italian
archeologist has stumbled on a richly colored wall
fresco, thought to be about 2,000 years old,
showing a detailed cityscape that experts say
could be a bird's-eye view of ancient Rome."
     "The depiction of a walled city measuring about
12 feet wide by eight feet wide, was discovered
during an excavation of a dank passageway at the
Trajan Baths near Rome's Colosseum."
     "A pale bridge resembling Florence's Ponte
Vecchio arches over an azure river in one corner of
the fresco.  Elsewhere is a bright red theater with
a white roof and a cluster of houses."
     "On the painting's right flank is a large city
square of tomato-red buildings, built around a set of
ocher daubs that archeologists said represented
bronze statues."
     "The city wall is broken at one point by a gateway
topped with cream bell-like towers."
     "'It's impressionistic,' said Rita Volpe, Rome
City Council archeologist.  'The period is certainly
the second half of the first century after Christ."
     "Nero, emperor from A.D. 54 to 68, committed
suicide shortly after his sumptuous palace was
finished.  A later emperor, Vespasian, tore it down
and built the Colosseum on one of its lakes."
     "Trajan,who ruled Rome from 98 to 117, later
built the baths on top of the rest of the (Nero's)
complex.  Archeologists said the fresco almost
certainly predated Trajan, because when his baths
were constructed, the walls were bricked up, covering
the painting."
     "Volpe said it was unclear whether the artist had
depicted Rome or whether the cityscape was
imaginary."
     "'It's certainly a city, but I can't say which city
it is.  It could be an ideal city,' she said."  (See the
New York Daily News for March 8, 1998, page 52.)
(Editor's Comment:  I think the fresco is 1,200 years
older than Nero's palace.  Here's why:
     (1) Roman civilization lasted only 800 years.
Not long enough to produce "impressionist" art.
Roman painting and sculpture, like the Etruscans
before them, was painstakingly realistic.
     (2) Ponte Vecchio-type bridges and "cream
bell-like towers" are not features of Roman architecture.
     (3) "Bright red" multi-story buildings are not
mentioned in either Roman or Etruscan literature.
     (4) Rome was built on the ruins of an earlier
city, Saturnia, just as today's Mexico City was built
on the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
     (5) Saturnia was overrun by northern barbarians,
the Rasenna, who later became the Etruscans, about
the time of the Trojan War in 1,200 B.C.  Just as the
Vandals overran and sacked Rome itself in 410 A.D.
     My theory:  The fresco is a remnant of that lost
Italian civilization of Saturnia.  Remember the strange
"Cicero's Daughter" case, that weird catacomb found
under Rome's Capitoline Hill back in the Middle Ages?)
ROUNDUP CORRIGENDA:
     In a recent story on the UFO sightings in Toms
River, New Jersey, your editor cited Ellis Smith's
sighting as taking place at 4:30 p.m. on February 19,
1998.  In actuality, the Smith family's sighting took
place five days earlier, on Saturday, February 14, 1998.
     Ellis Smith writes, "I can also readily ascertain the
day it took place, and I believe the event actually began
when my family and I were in the theater watching the
first showing" of the movie Sphere "which began at
12:30 p.m., Saturday, February 14."
     "At 4:30 p.m. (that day), my son age 9, my
daughter age 5 and myself were driving home from the
theater in Toms River when I noticed about 20 miles
to the southwest, 40 to 45 degrees up from the horizon,
what appeared to be an 'instant' contrail descending
from a very bright white object."
     "I informed Starfriends and IUFO almost immediately
upon arriving home from where the sighting took place,"
he added, "and so have the original submissions
complete with time stamp."
     Mr. Smith has made the original emails and time
stamps available to your editor for review.  I am
satisfied that his family's sighting took place on
Saturday, February 14, 1998.  UFO ROUNDUP
regrets the error.  Thank you, Mr. Smith, for helping
to set the record straight.
     In a story on the 1965 Everglades UFO case,
your editor mistakenly identified an airboat as a
"swamp buggy."  Florida reader Courtland Lewis
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 * SLMR 2.1a * The floggings will continue until morale improves!
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