Sighting record / 1979
February 6, 1979. Night over the sea east of Formentera. The CEPSA tanker Tamames is bound for Cartagena under a clear sky. Then the deck lookout raises the alarm. Red and yellow lights. Moving quickly. Nothing like the lights of another ship. The crew turn toward them, thinking someone is in distress. No call ever comes over the radio. Instead the radar screen flares white, and strange echoes circle the ship at dizzying speed. Captain José Luis González would tell the military there had been at least 50 of them. Paratroopers, flares, or something else? Forty four years later, the story was told on the floor of the Spanish Congress.
The Tamames was a butane tanker owned by CEPSA. Built in 1965 in Valencia, she was 75.72 metres long, made up to 10 knots and carried about 20 crew. On the evening of Tuesday 6 February 1979 she was at sea east of Formentera, sailing from Alcúdia in Mallorca toward Cartagena. The wind was light, the sky clear and visibility good.