By Sokratis Aikaterinidis
The case of village Potamos in Corfu, Greece, is one of the most important UFO sightings in Greece, which is substantiated not only by eponymous testimonies of tens of people but also from the damage inflicted by the UFO passage over the village, at 5 to midnight on the day of Orthodox Easter. That night, Kostas and Maria Perouli, a married couple, were heading home, which is located on the outskirts of the aforementioned village. The weather was relatively good, although it was dead calm and there was some mild rain: nothing indicated the imminent UFO charge or the events that were set to follow. As they were nearing their house, they heard a loud hum that sounded like a jet engine. They thought it might be a storm that would soon hit the area, so they sped up and soon found themselves in their front yard. They were surprised to see their cat make sudden and jerky moves and then flee the yard in panic, despite the fact she had recently given birth. That was their first indication that something abnormal was going on, given on, given pets affection towards their young and their obsession to stay close to them.
This event was the first live testimony to UFO presence. The air was so ionized and the Peroulis couple so agitated that they couldn’t insert the key into the lock so as to open their door. That is when they observed four red spherical objects, that flying over the area, originally at an altitude of about 200 meters, which gradually became 150 metres and then returned to 200 metres, to finally fly away at great speed. However, their passage over the village of Potamos inflicted serious damage, especially when they descended to 150 metres, which, otherwise, could only have been caused by a storm. Branches were torn from several tress, trees were rooted out, house roofs were destroyed. It’ s noteworthy that local Mas Media dealt with this phenomenon, which proves its seriousness, given that Greek Mass Media rarely deal with such phenomena. For the record, I will refer to the article that appeared in the newspaper “Kerkyraiko Vima”, by the local researcher I. Dimitratos, who investigated the incident right away and took several pictures of the damage inflicted by the UFOs, many of which are published today, in this article.
The local TV station “Corfu Channel” also dealt with this phenomenon in a special informative show, where eyewitness testimonies were also presented. The following testimony of the Diavatis family, whose house was hit by the “evil”, as they called it, is typical: “At the time a demoniac noise “was trying” to devour everything, a bright light filled the interior of our house that had view of the area in question. Which, of course, is something that wouldn’t happen in the case of a storm or an earthquake. When we tried to open the door and go out, fearing that the house might collapse on us, a shock wave pushed us back into the room”. At this point, we must stress that there was the opinion, in an effort to logically this phenomenon, that it was just a sudden and extremely fierce tempest. However, in this case, we come to wonder: since when are tempests equipped with intelligence allowing them to destroy house roofs, water tanks, rip out and break electric power gauges, root out olive and oak trees, but at the same time inflict no damage whatsoever on crops, beanstalks and peas, a mere metre lower. People also said, in an effort t oexplain the existence of the 4 lights, that it was 4 aero planes flying in formation that, together with the sudden storm, created the impression of UFOs.
This opinion doesn’t hold any more water that the previous one, given that Mr. Th. Pournaropoulos, researcher and student of ancient astronautics and former employee of Civil Aviation, conducted a research, coming to the result that nothing relevant was reported from Corfu Airport, that –bear in mind- is not equipped with a radar… Public Power Corporation (DEH) officials, on one hand confirm destruction of their gauges but on the other hand reply that will have to thoroughly study the facts so as to determine the cause of their damage, after consulting their logs. The personal estimate of the person in charge of equipment failure, was that it must have been a … squall. However, it couldn’t possibly have been a squall or a “roufoylas” (tornado) as they call it in Corfu. It’s remarkable that another similar incident took place on 10/16/1989 on another island, Rhodes, in the village of Lardos, witnesses to which were most of the villagers, including Savvas Papadimitriou, preacher and teacher of the village. According to the aforementioned witness testimony, at about 7.30 two sixteen-year old students saw overhead, behind the village school at the side of the cemetery, a large saucer emitting a bright orange light and a deafening noise. The children, scared, ran to the teacher’s house to notify him of what they had seen, but he was already outside the house, having heard the noise, observing the bright object which he initially had mistaken for an airplane, but soon realized that it was something completely different. Near him, also observing the object, rushed his wife, the dentist Nikos Karamaritis and several villagers.
In the end, the unknown object, with its orange spotlights sweeping the sky, left the village. Bear in mind that, on that night, Yiannis Klonaris, company executive, residing in the village of Archangelos, just before Lardos, observed an object in the sky, the description of which accurately fits the descriptions of the inhabitants of Lardos, and which must undoubtedly be the same. The incident was reported to the island authorities, receiving no attention whatsoever. Note that the aforementioned incident was for quite some time the epicenter of village talk. The departure of this unknown object was linked to yet another unexpected incident, having caused a local storm, resulting in crop damage, landslides and floods. However, except from the mentions above, there are other reports, such as the one that follows, of UFO interference with TV and telephone sets.
In respect to the incident, he has said:
“My latest UFO encounter was in 1990, or maybe in 1989. At the time I was working at a night club and I returned home, to Holargos, really late, I sat with my wife by the fireplace and talked while the children were sleeping. At about 3.30, the TV set turned itself on and then right back off! My wife was scared, but I didn’t pay much attention, given that I had previous experience of similar incidents, and thought that something was about to happen. Ten minutes later, the TV started going on and off by itself. As I recall, it had snowed that night, there was a thick layer of snow on the ground and the sky was clouded. So, I went out on my apartment balcony, located on the third floor of the building with view of the Army Headquarters and saw flashes inside the clouds, right above the Army HQ. I estimated them to be about 150 metres in diameter. These flashes were constantly shifting colours and were maintaining their position. All this time, my TV was going on and off and suddenly, all lights in the area went off. After that, the flashes became more intense and then started to fade. Soon the same thing happened again and my wife and I were excited from what we were witnessing and tried to figure out what was inside the clouds. However, the cold was so intense we nearly froze and so we went back in and a while later we went to bed, but the phenomenon was still there”.
The next testimony is about a sighting that took place in December of 1989 in the village of Maliades of Iraklion, Crete. According to eyewitnesses, on 7 September, at about 7p.m., there was a large object in the sky going up and down, giving the impression that it was trying to land. Michalis Tervas, one of the eyewitnesses, said: “I was headed for the gas station to fill my car up, when I saw it. At first I thought it was a bright star. When it got closer, I was afraid it was an airplane falling. It started going up and down really slow and in the end it disappeared behind the mountains at a great speed”. On 12 December 1989, the I nhabitants of Agios Myronas, Kroussonas and Aghia Varvara of Iraklion, Crete, witnesses from 5.30 to 6.30 another huge, bright-white, round-shaped UFO, that was emitting eight bright green rays and was flying at a low altitude for about an hour, after which it disappeared at high speed. On the same night, it was perhaps the same UFO that was sighted over the village of Silla in Rethymno at about 9 o’clock at night. The villagers, notified of the UFO “visit” by Mr. Koyrmoulis, the Community President, were astounded to watch it fly slowly over the village, make sudden and unexpected man oeuvres and then suddenly fly away at great speed. This sighting added a new element that was not present in previous sightings. As people reported, telephones didn’t give the normal tone, but emitted a sound resembling that of video games. More important was the effect the UFO had on TV sets, in an area of several kilometres, were either dead or had strong interference for the duration of the approximately 15 minutes the UFO presence in the area. After the UFO left, phone and TV operation returned to normal.
