On the 28th of July 1989, luminous flying objects interconnected with a beam of light, were seen over Keratea, Attica, not far away from Athens. The witnesses told the reporters that the incident lasted for two hours.
But sometimes these spectral nocturnal lights are some kind of omens...
Five days later, a small commercial plane, a Shorts 330- 200 (number SX-BGE) crashes on Kerketeas mountain, on Samos island, killing all the 34 passangers and crew members. The plane disappeared at 16:45 on the 3rd of August. It debris were found some hours later on the summit of Kerketeas (4500 ft), by the rescue surveys. It was announced that the accident was caused by the thick fog covering the area and because of human error; the pilot P. Moujoureas wanted to reach Samos airport earlier. The name of the plane was "Island of Melos".
The accident was the first plane crash in Greece, after thirteen years. The previous accident was the crash of a YS-11A, (23 November 1976) at Cozani, Northern Greece with 50 casualties. Again the name of the plane was "Island of Melos"... Again the plane crashed near the summit of a mountain, flying into a thick fog...
Melos is a small island, in Cyclades, nearly at the center of Aegean Sea.On the 4th of November 1989, two strange took place near the island of Melos. The engines of Greek Navy warship "Lindos" suddenly stopped when the vessel was 10 miles south of the little island of Saint George, very near Melos, being on planned patrol. Finally "Lindos" was tugged to the Melos harbor, by ships that came for help.
The same day, captain John Galaris of the cargoship "LOP II" that was in the same area with "Lindos", reported at the port authorities of Melos, that he saw a "plane" crashing into the sea, south of Saint George island. It was later confirmed that there wasn't any plane crash in the area. So what was it?
Shades of Samos?!
Melos seems to be some kind of locus for such phenomena. At 10:08 am of 29 May 1980, five little "Chessna A 188B", airplanes for cultivation sprinkling, belonging to Greek Wings LTD, took off from Marathon airport, some dozens of kilometers north of Athens. The planes were heading for Cairo, Egypt. But some of them never reached their destination.
Forty-five miles south of Melos, three of them faced unexplained problems with their engines. They lost height, made an emergency splashdown and sank. Fortunately there were no casualties. The passing liner «Jason» rescued the pilots. Until today, the incident remains unexplained.
Nearly a week later, at 10:30 p.m. of 6 June, a Greek Air Force aircraft of undisclosed type, fell into the sea, near Melos. The body of the pilot, second-lieutenant Miltiadis Bisbiyannis, was never found.
In the early eighties, we formed a small UFO-researching organization, called "Sirius". Sirius broke up a few years later, but we managed to concentrate a great deal of anomalistic material from all over Greece. One story comes from Melos. Mrs G.A. (she prefers to remain anonymous) told us about a possible UFO landing on the island. In June 1979, while walking in an area a couple of kms west of the harbour, she discovered a strange pattern of "burned circles". The whole pattern was a great circle with a diameter of 10m (30 ft), with smaller burned circles 0,5 m (1,5 ft) in groups of three, on its perimeter. The burned circles appeared in six groups of three (totally eighteen). The ground inside them was somehow pressed. Unfortunately, the witness informed us two years after the incident, so it was quite late for a research of any kind.
The Greek name-game is a very complicated case. Me and colleague Makis Nodaros, at Lechena, Peloponnese, have unearthed a great deal of name and number strange correspondences, connected with the whole story of Greek Forteana and anomalism. I will finish this report with another piece of the puzzle.
On 26 July 1987, a Greek Air Force Augusta-Bell helicopter, carrying six passengers and a crew of three officers, crashed on the small island of Anthropofagos. The crew were major Manolis Vassilakis, captain Petros Panagiotakos and warrant officer, Evangelos Vallaris. The passengers were Mr and Mrs Mosk (Danish), along with their six year old son, Calvin who suffered by a serious dehydration and had to be transported to Athens immediately, Antonios and Nicoletta Psakkis (the woman was injured in the arm) and doctor Lambros Tsardis.
Island of Anthropoffagos is very close to Samos. And Anthropofagos literally means, Man Eater!
credit: Eleftherotypia newspaper, 28 & 29.7.1989, 6.10.1989; Patris Pyrgou newspaper 5.10.1989; Kathimerini newspaper 1 & 8.6.1980; Apogevmatini newspaper 30.5.1980; Ptisi magazine, September 1989