Case file · Close encounter
Huella del Pajarillo, Capilla del Monte
A burned circular mark appeared on Mount Pajarillo near Cerro Uritorco after a boy reported a landing.
1986 CE · -30.86, -64.53 · status: claim
The account
On 9 January 1986 eleven-year-old Gabriel Gómez reported a UFO landing; the next day a large circular burn, the 'Pajarillo footprint', was found. The area around Uritorco has since become a centre of UFO tourism.
The sceptical view
No published laboratory study links the mark to a craft; a ground fire leaves similar burns.
The researched reading
A burned circle in the grass that became a tourist draw. Natural burning or deliberate staging explains it more simply than a landing.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A known natural phenomenon | 32% | Circular scorched patches in dry grass form from lightning strikes, small fires burning outward in calm air, or fungal fairy rings; the mark faded within months, as burned grass does. |
| Undetermined | 22% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 15% | The mark became the town’s main tourist attraction, a strong motive for staging or exaggerating it; no scientific soil analysis was published. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 10% | An 11-year-old boy’s report in a region already steeped in UFO lore is easily shaped by expectation. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 10% | The mark appeared after a reported landing, but nothing about it was shown to be unusual. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 7% | Cerro Uritorco has many light reports, perhaps including unusual electrical phenomena, but none was measured. |
| Something known, misidentified | 3% | A light on the mountain could have been a fire or vehicle seen at night. |
| Secret human technology | 1% | Nothing fits. |
Official position: No official investigation.