UFO photo puts Indian scientists in fix
Wednesday, 06 October 2004, 19:30 IST
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AHMEDABAD: It has all the ingredients of a Harry Potter whodunit - was it a UFO or a spy device? A group of Indian scientists here are pouring over a bunch of photographs they took in the northern Himalayas depicting a mystery object that could be either of the two but are nowhere near cracking the mystery. "The object was about four feet in height with a red balloon and many white ones. It hovered around for about 45 minutes some 200 metres from us. We were curious to know more and took photographs," said Anil Kulkarni, a marine and water resources scientist with the city-based Space Application Centre (SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He was part of the team that spotted and photographed the object during a just-concluded study trip to the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, bordering China. While camping in the Samudra Tapu glacier region, 14,500 feet above sea level, near Chandratal, Kulkarni saw the curious object at 7.00 a.m. Sep 27. "There were balloons attached to this unusual object. It had 'legs' but we could not see the 'hands'. It was moving closer to the hilltop. The object started moving in our direction when we started walking towards it. But when our porters made a noise, it moved away towards the hilltop," he said. The object remained stationary for about five minutes after reaching the hilltop, then moved away in another direction before it disappeared, he added. "Interestingly when it was exposed to the sun, it turned black and in the shadow of the hill, it became white," the scientist said. In all probability, he opined, it was not a balloon as it was moving against the wind. It could also have been a spy device, a possibility that cannot be ruled out in a border region. "It is too early to say whether it was an espionage device. The photographs have been submitted to ISRO and only a detailed analysis by experts can tell us what it was," Kulkarni felt.
Source: IANS
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