C'est un programme de Canal D. C'est une chaîne qui a pour habitude de faire des émissions très correctes et des reconstitutions en général assez réalistes.
Bien sûr, je ne fais que spéculer sur l'enseigne (hyper-)lumineuse comme origine possible du phénomène mais, la reconstitution si elle est fidèle pousse en ce sens. Le présentateur dit clairement (à la 0:50) que le phénomène s'est déplacé de la tour de la Bourse (la tour noire) vers l'hôtel. La tour se trouve entre l'hôtel et la minoterie.
Selon la reconstitution, les témoins qui se trouvent au bord de la piscine se déplacent vers le coin sud de ls terrasse
Dans cette reconstitution, tous les témoins regardent vers le haut et vers le sud (de l'île)
. De plus, personne n'a eu la présence d'esprit d'éteindre les lumières de la piscine...Tout ceci exclut apparemment la piscine comme étant la source.
Un autre élément qui pourrait exclure la piscine comme la source (ainsi que l'enseigne de la minoterie d'ailleurs), c'est Bernard Guénette lui-même (du Mufon) qui indique avoir vu le phénomène entre les bâtiments de la rue de Saint-Sulpice juste au coin de la Place d'Armes (ceux qui ont été à Montréal connaissent ce coin touristique à coup sûr...) (voir ton lien sur la CBC à la 4:38). L'orientation de la rue ne le permet tout simplement pas (Google Earth peut aider à comprendre mon point)
Et moi qui ai toujours pensé qu'on avait eu affaire cette nuit-là à un simple phénomène magnétique (ce n'est pas le cas car pas d'activité solaire ce jour-là)...
J'ai retrouvé l'analyse de Bernard Guénette et de Richard Haines. Elle cite aussi clairement d'autres phénomènes qui auraient eu lieu cette nuit-là...
Haines, Richard, Dr.
A well-known research scientist, Dr Richard Haines has three
degrees in psychology from the Pacific Lutheran College, Tacoma,
Washington and Michigan State University, and further education
in Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, as
well as an FAA Pilot Ground School Certificate. Recently
retired, his past employment includes posts with the National
Research Council, Boeing Airplane CO. and at NASA's Ames
Research Centre, where he served as Chief of the Space Human
Factors Office and as a research scientist, Life Sciences
Division, as well as for the Research Institute for Advanced
Computer Science.
Dr Haines directed 'focused human vision research' for the
manned space programme, spacecraft window design for the Space
Station Freedom programme, and 'visual cue extraction from the
real world' during landing by pilots of commercial aircraft. In
1989 he was appointed Project Manager for NASA's Remote Coaching
Facility, which he helped design and develop. This facility is
engaged in defining teleoperational concepts, transmission
bandwidth requirements, and other telescience needs for carrying
out future operations on the Space Station Freedom.
Dr Haine's four US patents include designs for a visiual
examination apparatus for glaucoma and a simulator scene display
evaluation device. He is the author of numerous articles in
scientific journals and has produced three NASA technical films.
He has edited 'UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist'
(1979)1 and is the author of 'Observing UFOs' (1980)2,
'Melbourne Episode: Case Study of a Missing Pilot' (1987)3; and
'Advance Aerial Devices Reported During the Korean War (1990)4
(available from LDA Press at PO Box 880, Los Altos, California
94023-0880).
Dr Haines has made several scientific research trips to the
former Soviet Union in order to discuss UFOs, and a report on
his meetings with scientists (including those from the USSR
Academy of Sciences) appears in 'The UFO Report 1992' by Timothy
Good.5
In 1991, together with Russian colleagues, he founded the Joint
USA-CIS Aerial Anomaly Federation.
Guenette, Bernard
Bernard Guenette is a professional computer graphics expert and
author, who lives in Montreal. A member of MUFON, he has been
interested in UFOs for many years, and was fortunate to witness
the object over Montreal on the night of November 7, 1990.
---
A Large Stationary Object Above Montreal by Dr. Richard Haines
and Bernard Guenette
This article describes the background and analysis of two colour
photographs and numerous eye-witness descriptions of an
angularly large stationaryl aerial object seen on November 7,
1990 between about 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. EST, as it hovered
over the downtown area of Montreal, Canada.
Although the huge object was seen by between forty and
seventy-five people (including policemen) standing on the
rooftop of the International Hilton Bonaventure Hotel, and at
ground-level within a large area, and was photographed by a
newspaper journalist on the hotel's rooftop, there was no
official follow-up nor very much interest shown in the event by
government officials.
The orginal 35mm colour negatives and positive colour negatives
and positive colour prints were subjected to microscopic
examination and to computer-based enhancements of various kinds.
They were also related to the drawings and narrative
descriptions of the object made by many eye-witnesses.
The Initial Sighting Over Montreal on Wednesday, 7 November
1990, the sun set at 4:28 p.m. local (EST) time. (All times
cited are p.m. Eastern Standard Time, unless noted otherwise.)
The air was clear and cold. But a high relative humidity near
the ground of approximately 95 per cent gradually turned into a
thin haze extending from the ground to an altitude of several
thousand feet. There were only a few scattered clouds present at
between 5,000 and 8,000 feet.
At 7:30, co-author Bernard Guenette and a Mr. P. Lachapelle were
in Old Montreal walking near the corner of Sainst-Sulpice Street
and Rue de Bresolles, about ten city blocks east-south-east from
the Hilton. They noticed many fire-trucks, police cars and other
emergencyl vehicles, and a commotion nearby which blocked the
road; a practice fire alert was underway. Bernard happened to
glance directly upward and saw a small greenish Aurora
Borealis-like phenomenon with long streamers extending out from
it, which did not move during the thirty to sixty seconds they
looked at it. Both men felt that the phenomenon was at a very
high altitude.
All of the other orginal eye-witnesses to the object were
located on the seventeenth-floor rooftop of the International
Hilton Bonaventure Hotel (hereafter referred to simply as the
Hilton) in central downtown Montreal, which boasts an outdoor
heated swimming pool and other facilities. An American woman
tourist was swimming in the pool, and she was the first to sight
the strange lighted object, directly overhead in the night sky,
at about 7:15. Later, she described it as having an oval shape
with a yellowish colour. She then notified Mrs. L.S.P., the
hotel's pool lifeguard, who alerted the hotel's security
officer, Albert Sterling, at about 7:30. He arrived at about
7:35 and also looked up at the large object hovering in the
'almost cloudless sky', and soon (7:38) telephoned the Montreal
Urban Community Police Station No. 25 for assistance. His first
impression was that it was 'fallen debris from the sky, a
satellite or other space object'. He also tried to call the
Montreal Dorval International Airport to ask what the object
could be, but the line was busy.
Meanwhile, between 7.30 and 7.35, Mrs. L.S.P. called La Presse
newspaper office and also urged other guests to come outside to
look at the apparition. Mr Sterling said that the object ws
situated over the south-east corner of the pool and that there
were about twelve people present at that time. There were about
twelve people present at that time. There were as many as
seventy-five people present during the entire period the object
was visible, according to Mrs. L.S.P. At 7.55, after the object
became brighter, Mr Sterling telephoned the Police Station a
second time.
At 8.00, Marcel Laroche, the first of three journalists to be
involved, arrived from the newpaper La Presse.
Officer F. Lipp=82 of the MUCP was dispatched at 8.07 and arrived
at about 8.11. He spoke with Mr Sterling and looked at the
object himself. Later (in MUCP file #25-901107-059), he
described what he saw as three yellowish lights, from each of
which a single beam of light emanated. The object itself was
luminous and round and did not appear to move.
Officer Lipp=82 Mr Laroche and Mrs L.S.P. all saw a small
('Cessna-type') private aircraft fly directly beneath the clouds
and much farther below the object. Officer Lipp=82 felt that the
object was '...much higher than the plane' and Laroche estimated
that the aircraft was at an altitude of 1,200 feet above ground
level (AGL). Mrs L.S.P. and Mr Laroche referred to the aircraft
as 'miniscule' in relation to the aerial object. (non-scheduled
private aircraft must maintain a vertical clearance of at tleast
1,000 feet above the highest obstruction within a lateral radius
of 2,000 feet. Mount Royal, with an altitude of 1,199 feet, is
the highest point near downtown Montreal and is located 1.3
miles north-west of the Hilton. It has radio and tv antennas on
its top so that the minimum legal flight altitude is 1,200 feet
AGL. In addition, private aircraft may not fly above 2,000 feet
altitude unless the plane is 'instrument flight rules' (IFR)
equiped and the pilot is rated to fly in 'instrument
meteorological conditions (IMC), due to potential interference
with air traffic to and from Dorval Airport. Most private pilots
between 1,500 and 1,800 feet.)
Jules Beliveau, another La Presse journalist, received a letter
(dated 8 November 1990) from a Fran=87ois Chevrefils who said that
his friend (Mr Jean --) witnessed the object sometime between
7.30 and 8.00 from his small plane. Although he completed a
MUFON sighting form, he declined any further interviews, and may
not have been the pilot of the small aircraft that was seen.
At 8.15, a mother and her daughter drisving on Champlain
Boulevard in south-west Montreal, near the Douglas Hospital,
reported seeing two large white spots of light in the sky along
with a number of smaller lights which did not appear to move and
were silent. This sighting location is about 4.2 miles
west-south-west from the Hilton.
Officer Lipp=82 telephoned Sgt Masson at 8.20 for back-up and at
8.30, Masson arrived on the Hilton rooftop. Overwhelmed by the
appearance of the object, Masson Called the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) at 8.44. Inspector Minkoff of the RCMP
said that Inspector Morin would be assigned to handle the case.
Meanwhile, Officer Lipp=82 telephoned the MUCP's District
Director, Denis Pare, who immediately telephoned the RCMP for
'in situ assistance'. Lipp=82 also called the control tower at
Dorval International Airport.
He was informed (at 8.52) that he was not the first to call
about the strange objecst and that nothing was seen on the
airport radar. Almost simultaneously, Sgt Letendre, telephone
operator at the RCMP Operations Centre, also called the Dorval
airport and was reffered to the Flight Path (Plans de Vol)
Department.
Mr Laroche returned to his car for his personal 35 mm camera
between 8.30 and 8.45 and returned to the rooftop of the Hilton.
At 9.00, Mr B=82liveau and Robert Mailloux, both La Presse
journalists, arrived at the Hilton. Late, Mr B=82liveau described
seeing what is sketched in Figure 4. Because of the earlier
telephone call by Sgt Masson for more assistancem Denis Pare
arrived at 9.00. Investigator Morin of the RCMP was also
dispatched to the scene. However, before leaving his home, he
called Major Thompson (commander of military operations of
Canada's Department of National Defence - St. Hubert base) to
discover whether or not military operations were being held in
the area. He was told they were not.
The Photographs It was between 9.00 and 9.05 when Mr Laroche
took the first of several photos with his camera. When he
realised that the conditions were so dark that the photograph
might not come out, he called a photographer at La Presse, using
his cellular telephone, for advice, and was told to stabilise
the camera on a bench near by and to use a 30-second manual
exposure. The second exposure was taken about two or three
minutes later. Co-author Bernard Gu=82nette contacted Mr Laroche
on 8 Aprile 1991 in order to inspect the photographs and
negatives. Mr Laroched said, 'I have received no communications
from any officials - Defence Department, RCMP or Montreal UCP -
about any aspects of this event.' Mr Laroche was employed by La
Presse as a journalist and not as a photographer and, therefore,
owns all rights to the photographs he took. Nevertheless, he has
not tried to capitalise on this fact to date. Mr Laroche mailed
Dr Haines frames containg the two UFO photos, as well as some
additional (unrelated) frames from the same roll of film.
One of the two photographs was published with an article in an
edition of La Presse, which stated: 'Mr Sterling described some
clouds in the sky. The lighted object had six lights on the
perimeter of a large circle with a ray of light emmitted from
each one. Most witnesses described the rays as white, while some
also claimed they saw blue, yellow and red lights. 6
Further Developments Having been called at his home, RCMP
Faction Officer, Inspector Luc Morin (General Inquiries
Department, RCMP), arrived at the Hilton at 9.30 and also saw
the object; his description is very similar to that shown in
Figure XX. At about this time, all three journalists left for
their offices at La Presse to write the articel which appeared
on 8 November. Personnel from the Quebec Provincial Police (QPP)
and the Canadian Security Service (CSIS) may also have been
present along with the RCMP and MUCP, according to a witness who
was qualified to make this observation.
Also present on the rooftop at 9.40 was another Hilton Hotel
guest, an Air Canada Pilot. He remarked that he estimated the
altitude of the object was between 8,000 and 10,000 feet,
although the cloud ceiling was at about 3,500 feet at the time.
Thoughtfully, Officer Lipp=82 contacted the superintendent of a
forty-five-story commercial building being built across the
street to the west of the Hilton (at 1000 de la Gaucheti=8Are) to
turn off all the intense lights which were located on the top of
a construction crane. As was expected no inluence was noticed on
the appearance of the object when these lights were extinguised.
There is no possibility that the object was a direct or indirect
result of these construction lights shining upward on to the
bottomof clouds due to the very great difference in cloud base
height above the top of the building. Likewise, the calculated
angle (from vertical) from the top of the Hilton to the top of
the forty-five-story commercial building was about 60 degrees,
which is much lower than the object.
As Officer Lipp=82 was telephoning Lt Proulx of the MUCP's Survey
(monitoring) Department at 9.45 for a video camera to be brought
to the Hilton, Officer O'Connor arrived from the MUCP's Judicial
Identity Department in order to take photographs with his 35mm
photographic camera. (Officer Michel Cote of the MUCP Survey
Department arrived at the hotel at 10.20 with a camcorder but
the object was no longer visible, so he left again). No
photographs were taken, however, because 'the clouds were too
thick', even though the object was still faintly visible to the
eye. He did not try to obtain a low-contrast image using a very
long exposure (as the journalist had successfully managed to
do).
Investigator Morin telephoned the Montreal Headquarters of the
RCMP at 9.58, some twenty-eight minutes after he first saw the
object, to request more assistance in order to 'solve this
mystery'. Morin stated that the object disappeared from sight at
about 10.10, due to increasingly dense cloud cover. If true,
this suggests that the object remained at a constant altitude
while the cloud base became lower and lower, but this is
impossible to verify. The cloud base was about 3,600 feet above
ground level (AGL), very opaque, and from 4,000 to 5,000 feet
thick, when the object was last seen. Mr Sterling later
estimated that by about 10.00, the object had moved to a
position above the north-west corner of the pool. Inspector
Morin left the Hilton at 10.10; the MUCP policeman left at
10.30.
Mr Sterling's estimate of the visual (angular) size of the
object's body (see fig XXX) is inconsistent with his statement
that the object moved from the south-east to the north-west
corner of the pool during the course of the entire sighting
period. If the object was at an altitude of even 3,000 feet and
subtended an angle of 20 degrees, it would be 1,058 feet across.
A horizontal movement of such a large object of only 65 feet,
the diagonal dimension of the swimming pool, is only 6 per cent
of the objects width. This very small movement, extended evenly
over two-and-a-half-hour period, very likely would be
perceptually invisible. It is more likely that his estimate of
the objects position was in error and influenced by where he was
standing when he made these judgments.
A Mr Pierre Caumartin said that while he was driving home from
work between 10.30 and 11.00, he saw some 'very odd lights, a
strange luminous object in a boomerang shape low in the sky at
about the level of the clouds'. Its lights wwere 'very big and
strong'. He thought that it might have illuminated the interior
of his car. Upon arriving near his home in the eastern section
of Montreal, not far from the Longue-Pointe Military Base, he
watched the object hover near the Hydro-Quebec Longue-Pointe
power station, which receives 12,000 volts of electricity. When
he got out of his car, he heard a 'purring' sound, and thought
the object was a dirigible with only a gondola visible below the
cloud base. His total sighting lasted from ten to fifteen
minutes.
The Longue-Pointe Military base is the largest military base of
the Montreal Canadian Forces Garrison, with forty-eight regular
units and detachments, of about 1,900 persons, twenty-five
reserve units with 3,000 persons and ninety-seven cadet corps
with 7,500 persons. It also supports three military schools. No
one at the base could be found who saw the aerial object on
November 7.
A power failure (hors tension) was experienced between 11.08 and
11.50 at the Longue-Pointe Military Base. The base is recieves a
12,000 volt feed from the Hydro-Quebec Longue-Pointe power
station. It is the only one which broke down on November 7 1990
between 11.08 and 11.50. A check of the operating records of
telecommunications networks, amateur radio operators and
telephone circuits during the evening of November 7 1990 did not
uncover any unusual malfunctions.
In summary, all of the professionally trained eye-witnesses
inspected the luminous, stationary object for between one and
two-and-a-half hours; yet no one was able to obtain any
photographic, magnetic, radio frequency, microwave radiation or
other 'hard' evidence of the aerial object, or even request that
an aircraft be sent up to investigate. One has to ask how long
an unusual aerial phenomenon must remain stationary and in plain
sight in order to evoke an adequate scientific and/or technical
analysis response. This is yet another reason why traditional
science has not become involved in UFO studies.
Accueil
