What happened
On the evening of July 31, 1995, an Aerolíneas Argentinas Boeing 727, Flight AR 674 from Buenos Aires, was on approach to San Carlos de Bariloche. Captain Jorge Polanco saw a bright light that, as he said, raced toward the aircraft and stopped about a hundred meters away. He described it as a huge “plate” about 30 meters in diameter, with colored lights, flying parallel to the wing. At the same time, a power outage struck the city and the airport, and the runway lights were out for a while. The object was reportedly also seen by gendarmes aboard an Argentine Gendarmerie aircraft flying behind the Boeing and by witnesses on the ground. The case made the front pages of Argentine newspapers, and in 2026 it appeared in UFO documents declassified by the Pentagon.
Witnesses
Captain Jorge Polanco and the crew of Flight AR 674, passengers, gendarmes aboard a National Gendarmerie aircraft, and residents of Bariloche.
Explanations and hypotheses
In 2020 Argentina’s Ministry of Defense declassified an Air Force report that attributed the sighting to a powerful searchlight aimed at the cloud base during the power outage; the control tower did not see the object on radar. Skeptics suggested a bright planet or an optical phenomenon over Lake Nahuel Huapi and regard the coincidence with the power outage as chance. The witnesses’ accounts differ in their details, even as to the time of the event, which makes assessment difficult. Polanco stood by his account for years.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.