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speed it would take for it to move from a stationary position to this second point. This needed very, very high-level technology. Also, it was able to shut down my missile and instruments somehow. Where it came from, I don't know. And I can't doubt what happened. It wasn't only me. The pilot in my backseat, the two pilots in the first aircraft, the men in the tower, people from headquarters, General Yousefi who was on duty in the Air Force command post—they all saw it. Many people were concerned about us on the ground. And we also captured it on radar from our cockpit. Nobody can say I imagined it. The radar was locked on the object and could determine its size, because we practice refueling 707 tankers, and the return of the UFO on radar indicated they were about the same size. I have two regrets: One is that we did not have a camera in the plane to get a picture of the UFO; second, that because I was excited and sometimes frightened, I didn't think to try and call them on the radio, and ask, "Who are you? Please communicate with us!" Later on I wished I had 41 1 1 1 ona 1 1 done this. In any case, I hope someday we develop that technology here so we can travel easily to other planets and poke around, too. CHAPTER 10 Force On April 11, 1980, [1] at 7:15 a.m., a Friday morning, I was stationed at the La Joya Air Force Base in the Arequipa region of Peru. It was like any other day. There were approximately 1800 military personnel and civilians at the base, and we were beginning to get ready for our daily exercises. Even though I was only a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant, I already had eight years of military flying experience. I was quite precocious as a military pilot. By nineteen I was flying combat missions, and at twenty I was selected to test-fly Peru's newest supersonic Sukhoi jet. Having won quite a few trophies as a pilot, I was also known as a top aerial marksman with great skill at shooting from the air. Little did I know that this expertise would lead to my being selected 6 aeo4a4 for a highly unusual and unexpected mission on that routine morning. Along with my air squadron, I was ready at that moment for instant takeoff, as we always are. A chief of service arrived in a van and got out to tell us there was an object that looked like some kind of balloon suspended in the air toward the end of the runway. We stepped outside to see it, and then we knew what we had to do. Four of us pilots stood outside observing the object. The second commander of the unit, Commander FAP Carlos Vasquez Zegarra, ordered that one of the members of the air squad take off and bring the object down. Our chief turned to me and said, "Oscar, you be CLOSE COMBAT WITH A UFO by Comandante Oscar Santa Maria Huertas (Ret.), Peruvian Air