Hubert Von Montigny

The first reports famously came from officers Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert Von Montigny, two members of the Belgian Gendarmarie in Eupen.

On November 29, 1989, a large craft with triangular shape flew over the town of Eupen. The gendarmes von Montigny and Nicol found it near the road linking Aix-la-Chapelle and Eupen. It was stationary in the air, above a field which it illuminated with three powerful beams. The beams emanated from large circular surfaces near the triangle's corners. In the center of the dark and flat understructure there was some kind of 'red gyrating beacon.' The object did not make any noise. When it began to move, the gendarmes headed towards a small road in the area over which they expected the object to fly. Instead, it made a half-turn and continued slowly in the direction of Eupen, following the road at low altitude. It was seen by different witnesses as it flew above houses and near City Hall.

At 5:15 p.m., while patrolling the road between Eupen and the German border, the two officers saw a nearby field lit with “such intensity that they could read the newspaper in their car.” (De Brouwer via Kean, 24) Hovering above the field was a large triangular object, about 30 meters long on all sides, with three spotlights beaming down from each respective corner, and one flashing red light emanating from the center. It was completely silent.

For two minutes the object moved slowly toward the German border, before suddenly turning back towards Eupen. The policemen pursued it as it floated over the city for about thirty minutes, where it was witnessed by several other independent witnesses.

The officers then followed the object to Lake Gileppe, where it stopped and hovered in place for about an hour. The object emitted two beams of red light which slowed as they extended downwards, stopped, disappeared—leaving behind two red balls of light, which would then float back up and rejoin “the craft” (General De Brouwer often refers to it this way in his accounts). This sequence of events continued to repeat in a cycle, with each repetition lasting several minutes. Von Montigny said it was “like a diver shooting an arrow from an underwater gun that slows down at the end of its trajectory and is subsequently retrieved by the diver.”

Around 6:45 p.m., the officers saw a second triangular craft suddenly appear from behind the trees of a nearby woodland. The top point of the triangle tilted downwards, exposing the topside of its fuselage: a dome with what appeared to be rectangular windows lit from the inside. This second object departed north, and soon after, at 7:23 p.m., the first object stopped shooting its strange red balls of light and also moved off to the southwest.

Nicoll and Von Montigny were in radio contact with their dispatch the entire time, so were able to continue tracking the object to the village of Henri-Chapelle, where two other officers witnessed it hovering overhead. They did not experience any electromagnetic effects, such as radio interference, during the encounter, which is consistent throughout witness reports.

The other two officers, Dieter Plummans and Peter Nicoll (no relation to Heinrich Nicoll) watched the object, roughly 100 meters away from them, hover at about 80 meters off the ground by a nearby monastery. Initially completely immobile and silent, the object started to make repeated “hissing sounds” that seemed to dim the intensity of the object’s lights each time they were emitted. A red ball of light suddenly dropped directly downwards from the center of the craft, and then turned on off on a directly horizontal path, disappearing behind the trees. Both policemen were terrified. The craft moved directly over their vehicle and headed northeast. They followed it for approximately five miles until they lost sight of it, but Nicoll and Von Montigny were still able to continue to follow its movements from their position south of the highway.

Many civilians also reported strange objects to the Gendarmarie that night. De Brouwer mentions a family of four driving on a highway west of Liège who saw “a rectangular platform above them, made visible by the highway lights. They reported that it slowly passed overhead at a low altitude, with a spotlight in each corner.