During the Winter Solstice of the new millenium (Dec. 21st 2000) this picture was the main headline of the newspapers Milenio and Extramex. Popocatepetl is the Volcano seen here erupting. The image was taken by Alfonso Reyes on Tuesday the 19th 2001 at 6:10 AM while reporting on the eruption. The image was taken with a 20 second exposure time and a 24 mm angular lens according to Reyes. The actual image was not visible in real-time but only became visible after developing the film. The air space had been cleared due to the eruption of Mt. Popocatepetl ( which is Aztec for smoking mountain). Clearly this was not a meteorite as the trajectory seen is not ballistic ( parabolic or falling naturally). Also, due to the clearing of the airspace the object is unidentified and clearly has intelligent control. Mt. Popocatepetl is located near, and towers above, Mexico city. It is also North America's second highest volcano.View Larger Map
Some quick stats on Popocatepetl from the USGS:
- Popocatepetl Volcano
Location: Mexico
Latitude: 19.023 N
Longitude: 98.622 W
Height: 5,465 Meters
Type: Stratovolcano
This was not the first or last time a UFO had been seen around the volcano. In fact UFO's seem to frequent the mountain quite often, as can be seen in this youtube post of a webcam run by CENAPRED.
CENAPRED is a group from UNAM, a Mexican research university known for its quality research. UNAM is also where Dr. Miguel Alcubierri wrote his famous paper on the Warp Drive metric within General Relaitivy; showing that warp drive is possible with Einsteins equations.
According to CENAPRED Mt. Popocatepetl is currently sending plumes of ash and as a result the area has heightened its level of security to match. It might be possible that another eyecatching photograph could be taken.
The original report on the alert level can be found here:
http://www.cenapred.unam.mx/es/Instrumentacion/InstVolcanica/MVolcan/Semaforo/.
A report in English can be found here:
http://www.cenapred.unam.mx/cgi-bin/popo/reportes/ultrepi2.cgi
This area is not near the zone of silence (zone de silencio),however, it is aligned with it. Currently, I have no clear link to bridge the two together.
