The Pilot Who Fired on a UFO at La Joya
The account
A Peruvian Air Force fighter jet supposedly opened fire on an object hovering over La Joya air base, without bringing it down.
What investigators found
The pilot is real and stood by his account for decades; skeptics suggest a high-altitude balloon, but no official document ever closed the case.
The story
On the morning of April 11, 1980, personnel at La Joya air base in Arequipa saw an object hanging motionless in the sky near the runway. Pilot Óscar Santa María Huertas of the Peruvian Air Force took off in a Sukhoi fighter to intercept it and, by his account, fired 64 cannon rounds at the target, which was unharmed and climbed away quickly, escaping the pursuit.
Santa María told the story in interviews and documentaries for decades, and the episode became the most famous case in Peruvian ufology. Some researchers say the case appears in military reports from the time, but their contents were never released in full. Skeptics point out that research or spy balloons can seem to hover and can survive rounds that pass close by.