bot313 / MANISES
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MANISES

Illustration The dim cockpit of an empty airliner at night, instruments glowing. Illustration.

The dim cockpit of an empty airliner at night, instruments glowing.
Illustration, not a period photograph.

Folder
UFOs
Status
PARTLY EXPLAINED Evidence 7/9
Where
39°29'00 N 000°28'00 W

Archive / UFO / UAP / BOT313-0326

UFO-197911 NOV 1979UFO / UAPDISPUTED

THE AIRLINER THAT DIVERTED FOR A UFO

Coords 39°29'00 N 000°28'00 W Witnesses 3Instruments 1Paper 3Evidence 7/9 STRONG

Fig. 01 The dim cockpit of an empty airliner at night, instruments glowing. Illustration, not a period photograph.

Opening

At about 11 p.m. on 11 November 1979, TAE flight JK-297, a Super Caravelle carrying 109 passengers from Salzburg to Las Palmas after a refuelling stop in Palma de Mallorca, was over the sea near Ibiza when the crew saw a set of red lights coming fast toward them on a collision course.

Captain Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada turned and changed altitude. The lights, he said, matched every move, holding about half a kilometre away. He diverted to Manises Airport at Valencia, the first Spanish airliner known to make an emergency landing because of a UFO. The Spanish Air Force then sent a Mirage F1 fighter after the lights.

Timeline

11 November 1979, about 11 p.mNear Ibiza, the crew sees the red lights approaching. Lerdo de Tejada asks air traffic control what they are. Control has no known traffic to match.

Minutes laterThe lights stay with the airliner through turns and altitude changes. Lerdo de Tejada decides to land at Valencia.

Later that nightJK-297 lands at Manises. Airport staff and the airport director are later reported to have seen lights near the field.

After midnightA Mirage F1 from Los Llanos Air Base near Albacete, flown by Captain Fernando Cámara, is sent to investigate. Cámara later says he chased a light shaped like a truncated cone, changing colour, at up to Mach 1.4, that his instruments were disrupted, and that his warning system indicated he had been locked on by a radar. The light pulled away.

1996The Spanish Air Force declassifies its file on the case.

Key figures

Captain Francisco Javier Lerdo de Tejada made the diversion and has always said he made the right call for his passengers.

Captain Fernando Cámara flew the Mirage and gave the most dramatic account of the night.

Juan Antonio Fernández Peris, a Valencian agricultural engineer and researcher, proposed the main natural explanation. Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Spain's leading researcher of its declassified military files, supports it.

Physical and documentary trail

What exists: air traffic control records, the airliner's diversion, the Air Force's operational file declassified in 1996, Cámara's later accounts, and decades of Spanish press coverage.

The radar record is disputed. Some accounts say radar detected three signals each estimated at about 200 metres across. Others say neither Barcelona nor Madrid had any matching contact. No single reconciled radar log has been published.

Things you might not know

  • The flight started in Austria. JK-297 was flying from Salzburg to the Canary Islands, with a stop in Mallorca.
  • The fighter went supersonic. Cámara said he reached Mach 1.4 trying to catch the light.
  • The refinery is about 100 miles away. The leading explanation points to flares at an industrial complex near Cartagena, far down the coast.
  • It's Spain's most famous UFO case. Spanish writers routinely call it that, and it is the case most Spanish readers know by name.

Competing explanations

Industrial lights and stars. Fernández Peris argued the crew saw flashes from flare stacks at the Escombreras industrial complex near Cartagena, about 100 miles away, combined with atmospheric effects. Ballester Olmos says the explanation has been discussed without much rigour but has not been refuted. The witnesses have rejected it.

A cascade of alarm. One ambiguous sighting led to an emergency diversion, runway lights, and a fighter scramble, each step making the next seem more serious.

An unknown object. An airline captain who felt threatened enough to divert, a fighter pilot who reported a chase and a radar lock, and possible radar returns.

Later life of the case

Manises is the benchmark case in Spanish ufology, revisited on anniversaries and in documentaries. Its best-documented researcher is also one of its leading sceptics.

Finding

A commercial captain diverted 109 passengers because of lights he could not identify, and the Air Force took it seriously enough to send a fighter. The refinery explanation fits the geography reasonably well and has not been disproved, but it hasn't satisfied the crew or the fighter pilot either.

What still will not resolve: what the radar did or didn't show that night, and what Captain Cámara was chasing.

Evidence signature

7/9 Strong

Witnesses
trained, independent witnesses
Instruments
photo, film or physical traces
Paper
formal investigation, court or declassified file

How well documented the case is, not whether it's true. A strong record can still have an ordinary answer, and a thin one can still be real.

You decide · MANISES

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Next file

VAL JOHNSON Val Johnson. Two clocks missed the same hour. Val Johnson. Two clocks missed the same hour.

See also

CANARY ISLANDS 1976 Canary Islands, 22 June 1976. The halo has an explanation. The sphere at Las Rosas does not. Canary Islands, 22 June 1976. The halo has an explanation. The sphere at Las Rosas does not. JAL 1986 17 November 1986: JAL Flight 1628 is paced by lights over Alaska. Captain Terauchi's walnut, the radar, the FAA's verdict and John Callahan's CIA story. 17 November 1986: JAL Flight 1628 is paced by lights over Alaska. Captain Terauchi's walnut, the radar, the FAA's verdict and John Callahan's CIA story. RED BLUFF Red Bluff. They wrote it like a judge might hear it. Red Bluff. They wrote it like a judge might hear it.

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