UFO. Lebanon

“UFO Over Lebanon”

Mr. Walter Hamady, a professor of art, was one of several witnesses to the presence of an unidentified flying object over Baakline, Shuf Province, Lebanon, early in the evening of August 4, 1972. Mr. Hamady is a resident of the United States, but we will not pinpoint his location. At the time of his sighting he was visiting at his Uncle’s summer home at Chemlan which overlooks the Beirut airport. At about dusk Mr. Hamady, his wife Mary and Mr. Hamady’s aunt went to Baakline and as they pulled into the driveway of the house Hamady’s cousins were very excited, exclaiming they had just seen a “flying saucer”. The small company made their way onto the terrace and saw a bright red light moving “straight off into space”. Two pairs of binoculars were on hand— a Bushnell 7×35 and a Trinovid 8 x 32.

The first sighting, which occurred prior to Mr. and Mrs. Hamady’s arrival, is described by the cousin as follows (in Mr. Hamady’s words):

He and his wife and brother were sitting out on the terrace enjoying the early evening when the power failed. They looked around, noting that the power at their uncle’s home was still on, as was that of the village. Power outages are not unusual in Lebanon so there was no alarm felt. After a bit Mr. Hamady’s cousin’s wife exclaimed, “Look at that beautiful red star, it must be Mars!” They all looked directly overhead and observed a very bright red star. As they were admiring it it emitted a big puff of black smoke and began to move off into the southwest. They ran and got their binoculars and shortly after, Mr. Hamady and his wife and aunt arrived.

After the object moved off the power returned but Mr. Hamady did not keep track of the time so he does not know how soon after the object left. The group continued to sit on the terrace enjoying the cool evening and the usual mountain breeze.

The night was clear, no clouds and no wind other than the slight breeze.

Mr. Hamady, his wife, aunt, and two cousins walked across the yard to the railing and were admiring the town of Deir El Quamar where a celebration was taking place and the entire village was very brightly lit. Someone asked about the location of the Big Dipper and Mrs. Hamady located the constellation and was surprised to see a bright red light moving in it. She brought it to the attention of the others and they trained their binoculars on it. Mr. and Mrs. Hamady passed their binoculars around and one of the cousins yelled for his wife to join the group and bring their binoculars.

Hamady described the object seen through, the binoculars as two saucers placed on top of each other with a perpendicular plane of windows that went all the way around the craft. There was a light inside that was not strange, simply looking like house lights at night, warm and yellow in appearance. On top of the craft, he said, was a dome also lit up in the same way as the windows. In back of it or in the lee of the direction it was moving were two lights. Hamady can no longer recall what color these lights were but his wife recalls that one was red and the other was green. There was no exhaust, noise or visible means of propulsion, and the movement was steady. The object proceeded steadily into the southeast, at about the speed of a propeller driven aircraft, and disappeared from view. See line drawing of the Lebanon object by artist Brian James.