At 7:21 pm on September 4, 1957, a squadron of four fighter bombers took off from Ota Air Base, in Portugal. The squadron was under the command of Captain José Lemos Ferreira and the pilots of the other planes were Sergeants Alberto Gomes Covas, Salvador Alberto Oliveira and Manuel Neves Marcelino.
It was a routine mission to practice night flying at 25,000 feet between Ota Air Base, the Spanish city of Granada, the Portuguese city of Portalegre and, finally, the Portuguese city of Coruche. The night was clear and the moon was almost full. The first leg of the flight to Granada was made according to the itinerary. Then they turned to port, to change course, towards Portalegre.
It was then that Captain Ferreira noticed an unusual light over the horizon. After observing her for 3 or 4 minutes, he warned the other pilots about what he had seen. The pilot on the right side of his plane had already seen her. A debate then ensued about the observed light.
The object appeared to be a very bright star of unusual size. It sparkled with a colorful core that constantly changed color, going from dark green to blue and then all the yellowish and reddish colors of the spectrum.
Suddenly, the object increased in size, assuming, according to Captain Ferreira, five or six times its initial size. Before the pilots had time to appreciate the spectacle, the object shrank in size, becoming a small yellow dot, almost invisible.
These expansions and contractions were repeated several times. The relative position between the planes and the object was still the same, that is, about forty degrees to the left. Captain Ferreira stated that he could not say whether the changes in dimension were due to very rapid approaches and departures along the same vector, or whether these changes took place when the object was stationary.
After about seven or eight minutes, the object gradually diminished, lowering itself on the horizon. It was now 90 degrees to the left.
Shortly before reaching the city of Portalegre at 10:30 pm, Captain Ferreira decided to give up his mission and make a turn to port, in the general direction of the city of Coruche. Either way, no one was really paying any attention to the exercise anymore.
They turned about 50 degrees to port, but the object continued in its position of 90 degrees to their left, Captain Ferreira saying that an object could not do this while being stationary. By this time the UFO had turned bright red and was well below 25,000 feet in altitude. After several minutes on their new course, the airmen spotted a small circle of yellow light coming from the large object. Before they could recover from their surprise, the pilots noticed three other similar objects on the right side of the main UFO.
This UFO and its smaller companions moved with their relative positions changing constantly and sometimes very quickly. Captain Ferreira stated that he still could not calculate how far away the UFOs were, although he realized that they were below him and very close.
Whatever the case, the large object appeared to be 10 to 15 times larger than the smaller yellow ones and was apparently the leader of the operations as the others moved around it.
The devices were approaching Coruche. Suddenly, the larger object took a quick dive and then rose quickly, heading toward the aviators. Then they all became agitated and almost broke formation as they passed in front of the rising UFO.
Captain Ferreira had a lot of work to calm his pilots after this excitement. As soon as they passed the rising UFO, the smaller objects began to disappear.
The squadron landed without further incident, after the most exciting routine flight they had ever made. In total, this event lasted forty minutes, enough time for them to reach some well-defined conclusions.
Everyone agreed that there was no rational explanation based on usual phenomena. Captain Ferreira declared: “after that, don’t give me any more of that story about Venus, balloons, planes or things like that, which have been given as general explanations for almost all UFO cases”.
Captain Ferreira gave an interview at Ota Air Base to the Flying Saucer Review Magazine correspondent in Lisbon, during which he signed a statement confirming the facts.
