We promised to follow-up the story on the unprecedented lights in the sky during the Aug. 15 earthquake in Peru (1.). A lengthy, in-depth report by Peruvian researcher Alex Sender is now complete (2.), and we hasten to bring you some of the highlights.

Amongst those who saw them, no amount of scientific explanations seemed enough to quell the uproar over the lights in the sky during the August 15 earthquake in Peru. Also, no matter which of the theories carried the most weight, none would do away with reports of UFO sightings before and during the earthquake, nor with intimations about their being related, in some or many ways, to the seismic events.

Alex Sender readied his recorder and set out for the province of Pisco, more exactly for a fishing village in the Península de Paracas shoreline (3.), a National Reserve now making headlines as one of the hardest hit areas (together with Sender's neighboring home province of Ica). He had let several friends know what he sought from this field trip and, soon enough, reports started to pour in about UFO sightings in Ica, the first one witnessed right over the city at 10 pm on August 14, one day before "the big one".

The following day, August 15, a sighting was reported to occur half an hour before the first big shock was registered at 06:40:57 PM. The photo shown above was taken at Santiago de Chocorvos (Huancavelica), 55 km from Ica, where the unidentified object glided over Sierra de Ica slowly towards the west, for more than half an hour.

Everybody remembered the May 20 UFO fleet over Lima, filmed by a TV crew, and seen world-wide via You Tube. Then there were the great flashes witnessed during the earthquake, the blue, plus red, and green, and white lights reported by many, as well as shooting stars, and stars that collided in the sky, in the fireworks that made the night of August 15 seem like the end of the world.

Some saw a green luminous object dive into the sea between the Paracas peninsula and Sangayan Island, exactly before the quake, while others saw a huge white light emerge from the ocean after a thunderous explosion was heard.

Sender interviewed dozens of witnesses, too many to quote in this abridged report, including those that were out at sea that night, the fishermen from Pisco. Those from the fishing boat Aymara Hayle saw what looked "like a volcano exploding beneath the sea, an orange flare near Chincha Island, northwest of Pisco".

Joseph Valenzuela, a 50-year old fisherman, said the sky turned red, then red, white and yellowish lights emerged from the ocean. After the explosion, many lights emerged, like stars, a lot of them."

Juan Herrera, a guard at Caleta de Chaco (Paracas), was all by himself in a boat at sea when the quake began. "What you could see was like lightning, like stars colliding and throwing off sparks, and the noise, like the sound of boards". In what direction did you see that?, Sender wanted to know. "In any direction," Herrera said, "anywhere you looked in the sky you saw the stars start speeding, and colliding, and throwing off sparks, like electric short circuits..."

William Medina, 30 years old, was heading for the shore when the quake started. He moved fast towards a nearby hill from which he saw "an immense red, round, light that covered the city for a few seconds".

A young worker from the port of San Andrés said you could see "many shooting stars, heading south, about half an hour after the quake".

In his report, Sender ponders over the various possibilities that have been considered to explain these phenomenal events and the even greater catastrophe that was expected, but did not happen.

It's hard to dismiss some facts. Right after the quake the U.S. Geological Survey issued tsunami advisories affecting Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras and Hawaii.

The U.S. National Weather Service said, in a statement on its website, that an earthquake of this magnitude has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami "that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours.''

Sender continues to investigate, but the notion that extraterrestrial aircraft and technologies intervened - and that the lights were the result of a massive hazard mitigation operative - holds on.

Sandra Rodríguez-Beauchamp