- Part 1 - Part 2 -
The Dutch ran away from this plateau to their last camp, no one pursued them, at least they did not notice this pursuit. Frightened, they tried to confuse the tracks, spent a lot of time moving along the slopes of the mountains in wide circles, and when they found themselves in the camp, it was already dark. No one followed them, but this did not mean at all that the aliens had lost interest in them and let people go just like that. In any case, the geologists had to spend the night in the camp, but no one slept for fear that the aliens would catch them sleepy. By radio, Martens contacted his agent in Jayapura, the capital of West Irian. He demanded a helicopter to evacuate the expedition, citing extraordinary circumstances.
At night, a strong radiance was again observed on the plateau, but there was no more roar. The radiance lasted for several minutes, covered half the sky, but quickly stopped, and the Dutch saw a bright point swept into the zenith. After that there was a tropical silence, and Martens realized that the aliens, most likely, flew away.
The helicopter arrived in the morning and took the geologists along with all their belongings. In Jayapura, Martens drew up a report on the incident for the police, which was signed by all members of the expedition. The military governor also got acquainted with this report, he ordered to send an aircraft to the area where the event took place for aerial reconnaissance. The plane flew over the area, its pilot flew several times over the former lake, but the observer with him saw nothing special. Yes, instead of a lake there was a deep pit, from which water flowed out, but he did not notice any burning on the rocks and red sand, carefully examining everything through powerful binoculars. True, the reason for the leakage of huge masses of water from the lake has not been clarified, but it was decided that it went underground as a result of an earthquake.
All this time Martens was waiting for the development of his film with a film that he made in the pit. Imagine his disappointment when the developed film turned out to be exposed - there was nothing on it, as if it had been subjected to strong radiation. Thus, there was no convincing evidence left, and this greatly complicated the matter. Martens contacted his leadership in the Netherlands and reported on the situation, describing in detail everything that happened to the expedition. The leadership consulted all day, and in the end ordered the expedition to curtail the expedition and return to Holland.
This is where the story ends, since no one believed in it at all, and only on the basis of the testimony of five participants, without photo or film documents of the expedition, it could not receive an official continuation. Even local residents who saw the lights and heard explosions in the area of the lake were not interviewed, since, according to the local police, their testimonies were generally of zero value. The report of Martens with the testimonies of the other members of the expedition remained in Jayapura, it was sent to the archive, and there it lay for many years.
In the late 60s, West Irian became part of Indonesia, and this story was completely forgotten in the whirlwind of political and military events. However, some of the archives of the Jayapur police were preserved intact, of course, the Dutch took most of it to the metropolis, but all unnecessary, in their opinion, documents were not destroyed, and fell into the hands of Indonesian officials safe and sound. The document, drawn up in 1960 by Martens, was lucky many times, given the fact that local officials did not usually stand on ceremony with foreign, that is, colonial documents.
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In the end, Martens' report ended up in the hands of one of the Indonesian ufologists (yes, there were some in Indonesia!), Who handed it over to the American KUFOS (UFO Research Center). As one of the leaders of this Center recalls, the Americans tried several times to send a research expedition to West Irian. However, they all the time received refusals from the Indonesian authorities - after the annexation of Dutch New Guinea, the Indonesians turned it into one large protected area, into which foreigners have very limited access. As is known, they themselves did not carry out any research on the "dried up lake" in the Maoke Mountains, otherwise Martens' report would not have been lying in the dust and completely forgotten in the archives. Martens himself did not survive to this day - he died corny of old age, the traces of other members of the expedition were lost,De Beers does not give any comments on this case.
But there is still hope to obtain permission for the expedition to travel to West Irian, find this lake and try to find out what happened to it on March 8, 1960, at least try to find the remains of that red sand, from which the strange aliens so diligently cleansed the area, and do some other research. True, today KUFOS is not as rich as it was before, and there is no need to rely on sponsors' help. But times change, and at some point, interest in the "secrets of UFOs" will rise again, and, as a rule, nothing goes away without a trace. Surely there will be traces that can clarify our history …