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videotaped by local residents while being simultaneously tracked on radar by nearby airports. On March 4, 1992, air traffic controllers in Mexico City recorded a group of UFOs on their radar screens. The blips stayed for 40 minutes. "... Mexico has in place and operational a highly sophisticated radar system, the TDX 2000. This air traffic management system has tracked and recorded unidentified objects simultaneous to the eyewitness reports of OVNIs [the Spanish term for UFOs] both from the ground and from pilots." Commercial pilots and air traffic controllers have asked the Mexican government to investigate the problem due to a number of perceived "near misses." However, when officials of the Mexican government held a press conference—during which they acknowledged the sightings—they said the UFOs posed no significant danger to the an be public. The UFO activity has even engendered the attention of Mexico's news magazine 60 Minutos (the Mexican counterpart of 60 Minutes). The chief investigative reporter and editor of 60 Minutos, Jaime Maussan, has directed extensive research on the Mexico UFO flap and reported his results on Mexican television on numerous occasions. In 1995 Maussan stated, "Thanks to the video camcorder, Mexico has become the site of the most documented UFO flap in history.’ Since 1991, sightings of UFOs have continued almost unabated in the skies over Mexico, especially over Mexico City. UFOs have been extensively sighted and videotaped by hundreds of ordinary citizens, commercial pilots, and Mexican governmental authorities. Although the sightings have been thoroughly covered in the Mexican press, according to researchers, the majority of the populace has become desensitized to their presence and have come to view the sightings as "routine." While opinions vary, many of the witnesses believe that the Mexico flap represents the fulfillment of ancient Mayan or Biblical prophesies. Starting in 1996, the borders of Israel became host to one of the most extraordinary UFO flaps in history. At 2:00 A.M. on Tuesday, September 17, 1996, traffic on High Road in the Ramat Aviv section of Tel Aviv, Israel, came to a standstill when astonished motorists emerged from their automobiles to watch a UFO hovering near the city. Tel Aviv police received dozens of calls about a lighted object doing aerial acrobatics over the northern end of the city that were considered impossible for any conventional flying plane or helicopter. According to a report in Mai‘ariv, one of Israel's two largest daily newspapers, the event was witnessed by police along with hundreds of motorists at the scene. Since the Israeli flap began, David Ronen, a reporter and editor for Mai'ariv newspaper has received hundreds of reports of UFO sightings as well as accounts of alleged contact with aliens by Israeli citizens. In his column Ronen noted that the sightings, which were previously restricted to relatively deserted areas, have started to occur in the more heavily 11 UFO researcher Brit Elders discussed the radar tracking of UFOs over Mexico: ISRAEL: "THE BIG INVASION"