A lost flight

Graham Shepard is a veteran airline pilot. He graduated from the Hamble Flight Academy in Southampton in 1966. He is skilled and experienced in flying a variety of types of aircraft. Hamble College can be called the "West Point Military Academy" in the world of flying, and is known for its high quality, discipline and hard training. In 1966, Graham, who was then a co-pilot at Vic Pioneer Airlines, met Timo Goode, the later famous UFO research expert, on the plane.

　　 Puerto Rico is a UFO haunted place and a place full of alien-related stories, where Goode and Graham did a lot of research. An event that happened there in 1993 was full of mystery and left them wondering. Although nothing extraordinary appeared throughout the process, it did happen to be related to an alien phenomenon.

　　 Let Grahan tell the whole story of the incident himself:

　　 In March 1993, I was employed by British Airways. Before coming to Puerto Rico, I had just completed a regular flight in a B767 to Paris and then back to London. All along, including flying to the Caribbean, I have been in good health. On March 1, I had all my routine pre-flight checks and everything was normal.

　　 At 9:05 local time on March 2, I taxied a Cessna 172 (registration number: N92256) and took off. I planned to fly west along the coast to the town of Arecibo, and then head south past the radio telescope of the same name., fly over it for 10 to 15 minutes to take pictures, and then fly directly to Mayaquis Airport on the west coast for a short stop.

　　 At first, everything went as planned. After a night of rain, the weather was getting better, and there was a little northerly wind at 600 meters, which I remember well. When flying over the radio telescope, the clouds were a little lower than expected, but the light and height were enough for me to shoot well with a Panasonic NVS-7 camera.

　　 After finishing the photography at the allotted time, I climbed to the 660 meters shown on the air pressure altimeter and started flying towards Mayaquis Airport. (This altitude is the result of taking into account the terrain and cloud base, more than 750 meters I had to traverse in the clouds, and I couldn't see the ground, or other aircraft. I had been using a camera at the time, so the critical altitude of 660 meters was recorded.

　　 Mayaquis Airport is 40 kilometers west of Arecibo. To be precise, Mayaquis is at 250 ° in Arecibo. Since all compasses point to the magnetic field lines on the earth, considering that most of the directional instruments installed on the aircraft are E2 compasses, the true direction must be converted into the magnetic direction. The number difference between the true direction and the magnetic direction at any position on the earth's surface is the "magnetic difference", plus east minus west. In this event, the magnetic difference shown on the chart is 11 ° W longitude, which is 261 ° on the true course, a degree that is absolutely guaranteed to fly well from Arecibo to Mayaquis in still air. Considering some northerly winds, I turned the compass to 270 ° and flew into the wind, and the airport should be on my left soon. Because of the error-of-error technique, which is the artificial correction of the wind flow, it is possible to use some obvious landmarks perpendicular to the course as a reference to reach the destination. There's nothing worse than flying to a landmark and you don't know whether to turn left or right!

　　 40 km According to the estimated ground speed of 2.4 km/min, the flight was completed in 17 minutes. Plus I adjusted my course slightly west, I should be able to see Mayaquis Airport in 15 minutes. But that's far from the truth!

　　Lateral displacement

　　 I set the course from the Arecibo radio telescope to Mayaquis, maintained an altitude of 660 meters, and set the compass to 270 °, which is clearly recorded on the camera tape. I'm pretty sure that, given the wind direction, the wind, and the 270 ° direction, I'll be a few kilometers above Mayaquis Airport, and then turn left to land on the runway facing east.

　　 Five or six minutes after leaving the radio telescope, I was happily cruising and photographing, but a sense of unease and confusion spread throughout my body. Especially regarding my bearing, I don't know where I am! All I know is that as long as I maintain a 270 ° heading, the course will continue to fly along the coast; furthermore, I noticed a weakening of the north wind, which gave me a greater margin of error. After all, such a short distance, I don't expect the time to reach my destination to be affected too much.

　　 Seconds passed, and I was still confused about the orientation, but I thought that the coastline feature perpendicular to the route would immediately appear in front of my eyes. Once there, I just turned left to enter the Mayaquis hovering area. However, the feeling of unease lingered.

　　 I was taken aback when I saw the coastline. It's not on my right, it's parallel to me! In other words, I'm heading the wrong way! The route I designed was to fly along the north coast of the island, but it was actually flying along the south coast, past Guanica, you can clearly see the southwest tip of Cavorojo on the island. To make matters worse, I realized that I was about to enter the US Air Force R-7105 restricted area, the tethered balloon radar base! Navigation error is outrageous! How is this possible?

　　 To be honest, there was an incomprehensible lateral displacement. I had no clue but to write heavily in my aviation diary that day: "Arecibo Radio Telescope - Navigation Error, Disaster!"

　　 A few years later, Mr. Timo Goode and I took the same Cessna 172 and reflew the same route twice. Our findings are still disturbing, and there is still no answer.

　　 First reflight

　　 On October 24, 1998, Timo Goode and I left Isla Grande Airport in Puerto Rico at 11:25, flying strictly on the route of March 2, 1993. The weather was fine with a similar north wind.

　　 It took 18 minutes to get from the Arecibo radio telescope to Mayaquis. On such a fine day, we flew 5 minutes away from the radio telescope to get a clear view of the west coast, and a few minutes later to see Mayaquis Airport. It was only a short 40-kilometer flight, and even with some clouds on March 2, 1993, it shouldn't have made much difference. The smoothness of this re-flight made me feel more absurd about the 1993 encounter, and it also highlighted that something unusual did happen, and it was by no means distracting, hallucinating, or intentional. It must also be pointed out: I have absolutely no navigational errors.

　　 So, is it possible for me to fly south to the Guanica area at an altitude of 660 meters without crashing? To answer this question, we waited another 3 months and did a second flight.

　　Second flight

　　 On January 21, 1999, we took off from Isla Grande Airport at 10:40 and flew along the same route. This time, instead of stopping over the radio telescope, we continued to the southwest to the obvious barrier - the Cordillera Central Mountains. On the zoning map of the United States, the location showing the features here is over 1170 meters high. Considering my starting and ending position, there is a contour line that must pass through the route that is also 900 meters. There is no doubt that if the clouds and terrain were clear, if this was the case on that day in 1993, I would fly away from the Central Mountains immediately. But no matter what, I went through all the hardships to fly over the mountains to the south coast, thankfully I didn't hit the mountains.

　　 When we flew to Adhounta Airport, it was about 700 meters high. Obviously, to fly over the Central Mountains, at any point, we had to be higher than 900 meters. Passing a cove on the edge of the town of Castner, the plane was at an altitude of 1,020 meters, with towering peaks on both sides. Immediately reached the southern slopes of the Ponce and Guanica plains. After Mayaquis landed safely, the doubts that had plagued me - that I had deliberately or inadvertently chosen such a dangerous and complex route - disappeared. But this deepened my unease and confusion about the whole incident.

　　Radar factor

　　 Civilian radar can only monitor aircraft within controlled airspace near San Juan and Isla Grande airports. Once beyond this range, you have to call the Radar Advisory Information Center. I usually go to them to find out what planes are nearby. In controlled airspace, you have to use a radar transponder to tell you your altitude, location, and sometimes speed. Out of range, such as in the 1993 incident, about 8 kilometers west of the airport, into the range of the Radar Advisory Information Center. When the altitude is not enough, such as further west in Arecibo, the person monitoring the radar may not pay attention because the radar does not receive feedback. I don't know what's going on with the military radars, maybe they have other functions that will notice my situation. But in theory, someone somewhere would definitely know my displacement, but the chance of me knowing is zero.

　　Weather records

　　 Finally, we also checked the weather records for the day of March 2, 1993 in detail. The only thing that could explain the flight deviation was the unseasonal wind at an altitude of 600 meters. Although there were no bumps caused by the high winds, considering that my deviation had started since leaving the Arecibo radio telescope, I needed to find sufficient evidence that caused me to cross the course, such as a northern storm of at least 130 km/h. To answer this question, I checked the National Weather Center's Asheville, NC weather records for the day. The ground weather conditions 15 minutes before my takeoff were: northerly winds of 9.26 km/h and clouds dispersing at 600 meters. The visibility is 12.8 km and the temperature is about 24.4 °. The ground weather when I arrived at Mayaquis at 10:50 was: northeast wind 18.52 km/h, clouds scattered at 900 meters, visibility 16 km, temperature 27.2 ° C. How could such beautiful weather be disoriented?

　　From the above, the following conclusions can be drawn:

　　 1. An unexplained lateral displacement affects a simple, ordinary flight.

　　 2. Wind and weather conditions are not one of the factors that cause displacement.

　　 3. The terrain made it impossible for me to fly over that route.

　　 4. The camera strip clearly shows the flight parameters, altitude, heading, cloud cover, Arecibo radio telescope and location of arrival on the south coast.

　　 5. All instruments of the aircraft have been normal. The rotating compass and E2 magnetic compass are updated in accordance with the operating procedures and can only be used when needed on the ground.

　　 After flying around the world for 14,000 hours, I have never encountered such a bizarre and frightening flight. But I still remember one thing my colleague said: When he was flying from the Mona Strait in Dominica to Puerto Rico, he noticed that the compass on the spare E2 instrument was spinning uncontrollably!

　　 Goode sent Graham's report to many pilots he knew, but no one could reasonably explain the unexpected displacement. Sir Mark Thomson, a former Royal Navy jet pilot, reacted with shock and confusion: "Without a doubt, this is the most important evidence I have ever seen. A pilot who has been flying all his life, doing such a simple and easy flight in such fine weather. In Puerto Rico, there is so much evidence, and now there is stronger evidence. We simply cannot explain this phenomenon with the existing laws of physics, but it just happened without a doubt. I think they control time, space and distance. But why did they'move 'Graham? "