The Paihuano UFO crash: the "Chilean Roswell" on Cerro Las Mollacas

Paihuano is a village of about 2,500 people in Chile's Elqui Valley, in the Coquimbo Region. Behind it rises Cerro Las Mollacas. From its slopes, the whole town can be seen.

A Wednesday. The earliest written account, by Raúl Núñez, puts the start at 15:45. A metallic object, some 15 meters across, "remained motionless over the Las Mollacas hill, from which the entire town could be seen. The object began to rise and abruptly made a sudden turn that split it in two before the awestruck witnesses." One piece fell on the hilltop and the other landed behind it.

Raúl Flores lived at the foot of the hill. To him it looked like a metal disc, throwing a metallic glint in the sun. "I had never seen anything so strange in my life." Marcos Gallardo, head of public relations for the Municipalidad de Paihuano, watched through powerful binoculars. He saw a circular, silver object with a pinkish underside.

Lina Aguirre Michea, of the Escuela Municipal Cielo Claro, saw an orange sphere fall onto the hill. A local woman remembered a very loud noise. In her words, the saucer shot out of the ravine like an arrow. Where it hit, it broke apart like a mirror.

Núñez wrote that the whole town watched, mayor Lorenzo Torres included. Reports followed of earthquakes, blackouts and disrupted radio and TV in Paihuano, Pisco Elqui and Montegrande.

The next morning, Carabineros said they saw two silver objects glinting in the sun. On 9 October, locals and officers from the Paihuano station climbed for about six hours and found only dirt and rocks. On 10 October they went back with reinforcements from La Serena. A horse called Calambrito died of the effort. A Canal 13 helicopter flew over the site and saw no wreckage.

Two days after the event, journalist Cristian Riffo of Ovnivisión Chile was interviewing witnesses. One resident's words have lasted: "I've lived here all my life; I wake up and the first thing I see is the hill, and that thing wasn't there."

According to Núñez, the Carabineros were replaced by military personnel who cordoned off the hill. "Soldiers and members of the Carabineros kept us from going up the hill," one resident said. Unmarked helicopters, people said, lifted the object out at night. Later retellings added a caller in poor Spanish claiming to be from NASA, asking for a press conference to be cancelled, and a taxi driver who saw a curved grey object on a ramp, partly under a tarp. None of it is documented, and nothing has surfaced from CEFAA, the army or Chile's civil aviation authority.

The Carabineros closed the case as sunlight reflecting off white stones in the Las Mollacas ravine. Witnesses replied that no such stone had ever been there. Arturo Gómez, an astrophotographer at the Cerro Tololo observatory, said everything suggested a bolide. The October Orionid meteor shower has been offered as a link. Investigator Juan Castillo blamed crashed military drones from Operación Unitas, but Jaime Tamayo of Ovnivisión countered that Unitas had ended 11 days earlier.

In October 2023, more than 100 people marked the 25th anniversary in Montegrande, with speakers including Juan Andrés Salfate. In September 2024, mayor Hernán Ahumada opened the first UFO viewpoint in the Elqui Valley, facing the hill. Ufologists still call the case an enigma.