The Río de la Plata Sightings: Two Discs over Buenos Aires and a Cigar at Colonia

July 1965 was a restless month in the southern skies. Earlier that month, Argentine, Chilean and British bases on Deception Island in Antarctica had reported coloured lights for about two hours. Within weeks there would be reports from La Plata, from Perico in Jujuy, and from Salto in Uruguay. The Río de la Plata sightings sit in the middle of that run.

Friday, 16 July 1965. Over the city of Buenos Aires, people looked up and saw two bright discs. They did not move. For ten minutes they stayed stationary in the sky. Then they flew away at high speed.

A United Press photograph captured the scene. It shows two white lights against a dark sky. A wire story spoke of several unidentified flying objects over Buenos Aires. No one recorded a size, a sound or an exact time, and none of the witnesses in the city were named.

The reports kept coming. Because of the large number being received, the Seventh Air Brigade sent three Gloster Meteor jets from Morón Air Base, west of the city, to investigate. The search produced negative results. No written Air Force report or conclusion has ever come to light.

Saturday, 17 July. About 15 hours after the Buenos Aires reports, six people were walking on a deserted beach near Colonia, Uruguay. Out over the water, not far from the beach, something hung in the air. It was cigar-shaped and reddish in color. It sat about 10 meters (32 feet) above the river.

José Luis Álvarez Larrauma, 17, of Colonia, started running toward it. The object moved upward. It left behind a trail of white vapor, similar to that of a jet engine.

He gave his description to the Uruguayan police. The other five backed up his account. UPI carried the story, and on 18 July it ran in the Panama City News-Herald under the headline "'Flying Saucer' Sighted Again".

Nothing physical ties the two sightings together. UPI linked them by time and place, and the pairing stuck.

For the Buenos Aires discs, an explanation was offered much later. Discovery UK's 2026 article "Signal From the South: Argentina UFOs" says later analysis of the photos identified the "disks" as Venus and Mercury. It does not say who carried out that analysis, or when. No hoax claims have been made about either sighting, and no conventional explanation has been published for the reddish cigar at Colonia.

The case survives in lists of Argentine sightings and in the archive of El Litoral, whose 17 July issue indexes "Platos Voladores" on page 2. No books, documentaries or podcasts have taken it up. What remains is a single press photograph of two white lights, a teenager running down a beach toward the river, and three jets that returned with negative results.