Indian villagers blame UFO for attacks, but police blame insects

indiamike

By PRAJNAN BHATTACHARYA
The Associated Press
8/12/02 2:35 PM


SHANWA, India (AP) -- It comes in the night, a flying sphere emitting red and blue lights that attacks villagers in this poor region, extensively burning those victims it does not kill.

At least that's what panic-stricken villagers say. At least seven people have died of unexplained injuries in the past week in Uttar Pradesh state.

"A mysterious flying object attacked him in the night," Raghuraj Pal said of his neighbor, Ramji Pal, who died recently in Shanwa. "His stomach was ripped open. He died two days later."

Many others have suffered scratches and surface wounds, which they say were inflicted while they slept. In the village of Darra, 53-year-old Kalawati said she was attacked last week and displayed blisters on her blackened forearms.

"It was like a big soccer ball with sparkling lights," said Kalawati, who uses only one name. "It burned my skin."

"I can't sleep because of pain," she said.

Doctors dismiss the stories as mass hysteria.

"More often than not the victims have unconsciously inflicted the symptoms themselves," said Narrotam Lal, a doctor at King George's Medical College in Lucknow, the state capital.

The police have another explanation: bugs.

"It is a three-and-a-half-inch-long winged insect" that leaves rashes and superficial wounds, Kavindra P. Singh, a superintendent of police, told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Police drew this conclusion after residents of one village found insects they had never seen before.

Villagers are unconvinced. In the most affected area, the Mirzapur district, 440 miles southeast of New Delhi, people have stopped sleeping outdoors despite the sweltering heat and frequent power outages.

Villagers also have formed protection squads that patrol Shanwa, beating drums and shouting slogans such as, "Everyone alert. Attackers beware."

Some accuse district officials of inaction and failing to capture the "aliens." One person died Thursday in nearby Sitapur when police fired shots to disperse a 10,000-strong crowd demanding that authorities capture the mysterious attackers.

"People just block the roads and attack the police for inaction each time there's a death or injury," said Amrit Abhijat, Mirzapur's district magistrate, who claims he has captured the UFO on film.

Alan D

Glad to see that the UP police are doing their job. Some poor villager had his stomach ripped open and they conclude it was done by a" three and a half inch long winged insect". Any sane person can see it was those muderous aliens again.

Alan D

Extra-terrestrials invade UP, says IB


PERVEZ IQBAL SIDDIQUI

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2002 11:16:30 PM ]

LUCKNOW: With five visuals of what is feared as the muhnochwa `trapped' on video tapes -- three of which were recorded by the team of intelligence sleuths in the state -- the scare does not seem to be unfounded. The sleuths who had worked on muhnochwa do not rule out the possibility of the presence of an extra-terrestrial body (ETB) with electro-magnetic (EM) effect in at least three per cent of the cases. While the Indian agencies were yet to admit the presence of ETB, foreign research agencies, intelligence reports said, have already been to the affected areas, met the victims and collected necessary data.


Sources said that after going through the video tape provided by the wife of a lawyer in Mirzapur and another frame recorded by a resident in Sitapur, which had a flash of light speeding through one end of the lens to another within a second, an intelligence team reached Sitapur on August 7 and set up a an indigenously-designed observatory.


A base of a mixer grinder was fitted with lights of the colours that the victims had narrated before the team varying from orange, yellow, green to the most common red and blue combination. The apparatus was put at a height in total darkness. The idea behind the exercise was that the extra-terrestrial body may take note of something resembling it and might come near it. And it did. At 1:05 am a flash of light neared the apparatus. "It was like the photocopier top plate with that sharp light while taking impressions," revealed a member of the team while drawing a parallel.


The team, comprising forensic experts, serologists, medico-legal experts, electronic engineers and physicists equipped with night vision devices, zero light video cameras and telescopes apart from other gadgetry, was witness to the "light" which was seen thrice. It descended close to the handmade muhnochwa and then disappeared. The video clipping has a flash of light running across the screen but nothing more.


The team of experts also conducted a study by filling up a questionnaire on the basis of the experience of the victims from Mirzapur, Bhadohi, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Sitapur, Hardoi, Bara Banki, Rae Bareli, Lucknow and Sitapur. Out of a sample study of 100 injured victims, 10 were found to be victims of an insect bite or scratch. Another 10 suffered the injuries indirectly (like bruises while running after a scare in the night). The remaining had one or more of the following four common factors: Experiencing electric shock, seeing sharp light, feeling hard oval object.


Out of 80 people, 65 were found to have suffered physical injuries and there were three who tried to overpower the ETB. "All the three had suffered hundreds of scars, as if caused by a blade, on the palm and it was inexplicable by any team member," said an expert who examined the injuries adding that this was what raised possibilities of an ETB being out there. But there is still a long way to go before these experts could come up with anything conclusive on the muhnochwa scare.


However, Dr NK Mehrotra, professor, department of physics at Lucknow University, said that such possibilities were remote. Similar views were aired by his colleague Professor Chaman Mehrotra. "It may be out of atmospheric changes that such things might have occured and then someone might have added a dimension of mischief to it by putting up a man-made thing in the air," he said. Managar ISTRAC, a unit of ISRO, CD Sharma too expressed his doubts over possibilities of an ETB. "I do not knwo what type of a study has been conducted and what were the findings but with what I have gathered from the media reports, the ETB theory remains unconvincing," he said talking to Times News Network.

indiamike

Okay if I have this right after reading a bunch of different reports on this. There is a big insect possessed by Aliens going around injuring people.

I understand it all to clearly now

Mike

Alan D

Sounds like you've figured it all out, Mike. I would say you are definitely IB material. Hope they don't come head-hunting you. What would we all do then?

indiamike

Pretty sure after reading the article below that I am the right track in my post above




'Face-clawing monster' terrifies Indian state
By Sharat Pradhan

Lucknow, India - Reports of a flashing space creature, or maybe a mutant bug that glows at both ends, have created panic in India's most populous state, triggering riots and lynchings that have killed more than a dozen people.

Victims report being scratched by something flashing blue, red or green that strikes only at faces and only at night. The creature has been dubbed "Muhnochwa", or "face-clawing monster".

Some police in Uttar Pradesh state have declared that Muhnochwa is an extra terrestrial being. Others say it is a "technologically developed special insect" that glows red from the front and blue from its rear, let loose by foreign "anti-national elements" - a euphemism for Pakistani agents.

And scientists say they have found no evidence that it exists at all.

Police have said that at least two people have died and scores have been injured in Muhnochwa attacks that began a month ago at the start of the monsoon. Details of the reported deaths, such as the injuries found on the bodies, were not available.

Terrified villagers have killed people suspected of being a Muhnochwa and one person died on Sunday when police fired on a crowd storming their village post 70km from the state capital, Lucknow.

The crowd accused police of not doing enough to protect them.

"At least a dozen persons have been lynched by irate mobs of villagers who mistook them for Muhnochwa over the past month since the queer incident was first reported," state home secretary Dipti Vilas told Reuters.

In some areas, public gatherings of more than five people have been banned. Some villages are virtual ghost towns at night.

The attacks began in isolated villages but have spread to Lucknow, a bustling cultural centre of two million people.

"I was sleeping on my terrace when around 02h45 on Tuesday I woke up with a start to find a bright red blinking object attacking my face and trying to pull me away," said Asma, who lives in Lucknow's old quarter.

"I screamed, but no sooner than my husband got up, it vanished into the thin air, leaving a couple of scratches on my face."

Witnesses describe the Muhnochwa variously as a creature or an object, shaped like a football, or a tortoise.

The attacks come a year after parts of neighbouring Bihar state reported attacks by a mysterious "monkey-man", black and ape-like with large claws and, some witnesses said, sparkling red and blue lights.

Those attacks in turn came exactly a year after a similar creature terrorised New Delhi.

The Uttar Pradesh government has called in a team of scientific experts to investigate. But the Press Trust of India quoted the Indian Institute of Technology team saying it had found no evidence of the Muhnochwa's existence.

Instead, team member Professor Ravindra Arora said he believed the most likely explanation in the drought-stricken state was lightning balls, common during prolonged dry spells.

indiamike

However, this article below tries to cover it all up by claiming it is Ball Lightning....yeah right!!!


India - Ball Lightning Blamed For
Claw Marks On Villagers' Faces
By Sharat Pradhan
Indo-Asian News Service
8-14-2

LUCKNOW (IANS) - Balls of lightning and not any mysterious flying object left claw marks on the faces of villagers in Uttar Pradesh during the past month, a scientist has said after studying the phenomenon.

Such balls of lightning, as distinct from the bolts of lightning that strike during the monsoons, often fall to earth during prolonged dry spells, professor Ravindra Arora of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, said. The balls are as bright as a 100-watt bulb.

Large parts of Uttar Pradesh are currently facing a drought.

"Dry spells increase soil resistance while decreasing its conductivity and attract lightning balls that emit different colours, mostly blue, green, yellow or red," Arora, a specialist in high voltage electricity, told IANS.

"I have sufficient reason to believe that the burn injuries on the faces of victims were caused by these lighting balls, which range in size from a tennis ball to a football."

They cause burn injuries if they come into contact with human skin but otherwise fall harmlessly to the ground, he contended.

Arora came to the conclusion after viewing an image of the object that had been copied on to a CD and sent to him for examination.

The phenomenon had created panic in many parts of Uttar Pradesh as scores of people reported they were attacked by a strange and brightly lit flying object that left scratch marks on their faces.

For lack of a better word to describe it, the unidentified flying object was referred to as 'muhnochwa', or something that claws the face.

Reports of encounters at night with the 'muhnochwa' first came in from rural areas, but incidents had occurred in towns and cities too, including the state capital Lucknow.

Initially the authorities dismissed the reports as products of wild imagination. Later, they were worried enough to double power supply to the worst hit districts so villagers wouldn't spend long hours in the dark.

"The injury marks on the faces of victims were nothing but burns caused by these lighting balls," Arora held.

According to him, "the phenomena of lightning balls is older than life on earth. There is evidence of these balls over the ages. Reports about these have been received from different parts of Europe and the U.S. The highest frequency has been reported from New Zealand.

"In all cases, people can see a ball-like object travelling sideways in the air and emitting red, blue, yellow or green lights."

Arora attributed much of the panic to superstition and the belief in myths that is prevalent among the vast rural population in Uttar Pradesh. At the same time, he was confident that the phenomenon would disappear once the monsoon set in.

Alan D

Muhnochwa is a man-made insect: DIG


TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2002 12:38:34 AM ]

BARA BANKI: The mysterious flying object muhnochwa, which has created terror in the state, is a ‘technologically developed special insect’. It is brought in the country by anti-national elements.

This was stated by Deputy Inspector General of Police, Faizabad range, KND Dwivedi while addressing mediapesons here on Sunday. He said that the insect, measuring about six-inch, had been brought from outside the country.

Some anti-national elements were releasing these insects in villages and cities in the night just to create terror, he said claiming that the insect had been developed through a special technology.

The DIG said that the police had launched a drive to nab these miscreants and the night patrolling had been intensified. The police had recently claimed that an insect, emitting red light from its eyes and blue from its rear, was killed here.

They also claimed that the killed insect was ‘muhnochwa’. At least two persons died after being allegedly attacked by the mysterious object and several others injured

indiamike

From the Indiamike.com Mailbag I received this letter...thought I would post it....

byronic

Don't ask me how I found this thread, that died back in Aug of 2002. But I thought it was worth bumping back up to the top.

I have received transmissions telling me that the UFOs are returning to Uttar Pradesh this summer So keep a look out...

__________________
http://www.flickr.com/photos/byronic501/

Nick-H

Should I get innoculations against these alien insects before going to India?

Damn: I'm here already! Too late

__________________

.
SOS: Missing Person...

Please look at this thread, even if you are not in India.: Have you seen Jonathan Spollen?

He could be anywhere now: You might have met him, be able to help, or give information.

Paagla Dashu

There was a recent report of "Infected Visitors" roaming the streets in Chennai.....

On a less serious note, do you think there is a possibility that some of those Aliens might have settled down in India since 2002?

Digital Drifter

Will Smith has taken care of that....courtesy MIB-I,II. Don't worry he's a cop.

Paagla Dashu

Oh, its alright then.....


But,........but do the Aliens know that?