The Manises Incident
The account
Red lights surrounded a passenger plane and forced it to make an emergency landing in Valencia.
What investigators found
Documents released by the Spanish Air Force and independent researchers point to ordinary light sources, such as refinery flares and bright stars and planets.
The story
On the night of November 11, 1979, a TAE Super Caravelle carrying tourists to Tenerife reported red lights that seemed to follow it over the Mediterranean. The captain decided to divert and land at Manises airport in Valencia. The Spanish Air Force sent a Mirage F1 fighter to investigate, and its pilot also reported lights he could not catch.
The case became the most famous in Spanish ufology and was even debated in Parliament. In the 1990s, the Air Force released the investigation documents. Researchers who studied the files proposed that the lights seen from the airliner were the flares of a coastal refinery and that the fighter had chased bright stars and planets. Supporters of the case say this explanation does not cover every report.