In a letter printed on December 18, 1886, an issue of Scientific American, the U.S. consul of Venezuela, named Warner Cowgill mentioned a strange UFO sighting and some weird phenomena linked to this event that was occurred in Maracaibo in October 1886.
In the letter, Cowgill described such a convincing experience and bizarre incident that forced people to believe in the UFO encounters. According to the Maracaibo citizens, what they witnessed that night was indeed something beyond this world. And they became the terrible victims of the event. In his statement, Cowgill said:
During the night of October 24, 1886, which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine members were sleeping in a calm hut some leagues from Maracaibo. But they woke up when a noisy humming sound and a vibrant, dazzling light had come out from the dark of the sky. Which brilliantly illuminated the indoors of their huts.
They were absolutely terror afflicted and initially believed that the end of this world had come; so, throwing themselves on the knees they started out to pray in hope. However, their devotions were almost immediately interrupted by violent vomitings, and widespread swellings of their upper body parts, especially face and lips.
It was far to be noted that the super light becomes no longer followed with the aid of a sensation of warmth even though the alleged area was surrounded by smoke and an unusual smell.
The following morning the swellings had subsided, leaving upon the face and body large black blotches. Not a little pain was felt until the ninth day when the skin peeled off, and those blotches were transformed into virulent raw sores.
The hair of the head fell off upon the side which occurred to be underneath whilst the phenomenon occurred, and in the all 9 cases, the same side of their bodies was severely injured.
The noticeable part of the incident was that the house was uninjured, all doors and windows being closed at that time. No trace of lightning could afterwards be observed in any part of the building, and all of the sufferers unitedly said that there was no detonation or such kind of any sound except the loud humming already mentioned.
The most astonishing circumstance was that the trees and bushes across the house showed no symptoms of injury until the 9th day when they suddenly withered, almost simultaneously with the development of the sores upon the bodies of the occupants of the residence.
This was possibly an insignificant twist of fate, but it was miles extraordinary that the equal susceptibility to electrical effects, with the identical lapse of time, should be located in both animal and vegetable organisms.
Cowgill himself had visited the sufferers, who were admitted to a local hospitals in the city, and their appearance was truly horrible, he said.
To this day, no one has been able to properly explain the strange phenomena that once happened in Maracaibo. Was this a real UFO encounter? Or Mr. Cowgill Just fantasized the story? What’s your opinion?
