Case · C-095
Merchant ship San Matías I: lights rising from the sea near the Valdés Peninsula
Atlantic Ocean, off the Valdés Peninsula (Chubut) · Argentina · Aug 2023
Between air and water Civilian witnesses
Unexplained
- What happened
- On a night in late August 2023, the officers of the merchant ship San Matías I, sailing a short distance from the Valdés Peninsula, reported to the Prefectura Naval Argentina about eight orange or red lights rising from the sea and moving in straight lines and zigzags, vanishing and reappearing for about half an hour; the captain of another vessel also said he had seen them. The Prefectura recorded the mariners' statements as a sighting of lights during navigation; the file was obtained about a year later by the UFO association CEFORA with an access request to the Ministry of Security and made public by the press in September 2024. No photos were taken or videos shot, the file is not published online and the sources do not agree on the day (August 19 or 29, 2023).
- Proposed explanation
- No official explanation. The ship's officers compared the lights to parachute signal flares; on the skeptical forum Metabunk some users suggested Starlink satellites, a hypothesis that cannot be verified in the absence of photos or video.
- Official investigation
- Prefectura Naval Argentina
Sources
- T13, the account of the mariners who saw lights in Patagonia (September 9, 2024) (press)
- Mendoza Post, “Investigan "extrañas luces" que salieron del mar en Península Valdés” (September 9, 2024) (press)
- LM Neuquén, the official file on the Puerto Madryn sighting (September 2024) (press)
- Metabunk, discussion on the Argentine merchant ship (September 2023) (analysis, skeptical)
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