El Dean, Arg being encounter — January 25, 1979

The original UFO PRESS account places ten-year-old Marta Isabel Carabajal with a three-year-old playmate in a corral at El Déan, Santiago del Estero, on Thursday 25 January 1979, between 2 and 4 p.m. A metallic rectangular object reportedly descended into a tree’s shade and hovered centimetres above the ground. Two proportionately built figures around one metre tall emerged, followed by five smaller forms. Their shiny black garments included boots, bracelets with bright beadlike spheres and elongated caps covering the head and face. Cylindrical bundles were carried on their backs. A leader invited Marta closer in Spanish; she refused. She said a red light from a body-mounted device blinded her and she lost awareness. Her next memory was of the two larger figures entering while a metallic arm lifted the smaller ones aboard. The object departed silently. She ran to her grandparents and reportedly complained of sore, watering eyes. Francisco Checchi published the account in April 1979. It corrects the imported age of six and noon timing; later summaries also vary her surname. The original does not describe Marta boarding the object or establish independent observation by her playmate. Hypnotic regression was proposed by the author, not documented as having occurred.