What happened
On the evening of July 3, 1965, in the middle of the Antarctic winter, personnel at the research bases on Deception Island saw a glowing object in the sky. According to a statement from the Argentine Navy, Lieutenant Daniel Perissé, commander of the Argentine naval detachment on the island, described it as lens-shaped, maneuvering, and moving at high speed; he stated that it was neither a balloon, nor a star, nor an aircraft. The commander of the Chilean base, Mario Jahn Barrera, spoke of colors changing from reddish-yellow through green to orange. According to later accounts, the object was tracked with a theodolite and photographed, and magnetic instruments reportedly recorded disturbances at the time. The statement was carried by news agencies, including the Associated Press, and appeared in newspapers around the world.
Witnesses
Personnel at the Argentine, Chilean, and British stations on Deception Island, including commanders Daniel Perissé and Mario Jahn Barrera.
Explanations and hypotheses
No official explanation was announced. Skeptics point out that during the polar night bright planets, auroras, and atmospheric refraction can easily create the illusion of moving, colored objects, and that press reports from this period often conflated different phenomena. The photographs mentioned were never widely published. The case is one of the few sightings from Antarctica involving military personnel from several countries.
Unexplained There is no convincing explanation.