Kaifeng City: China’s Roswell

(32°24’8.53″N 114°33’22.93″E)
Here’s a curiosity straight off Google Maps, using satellite view. Three craft are heading due north but one’s exhibiting peculiar properties. Two appear to be commercial jets, but might the craft leading the vanguard be something else? This shot was taken on April 11th, 2013 over Zhumadian City.
This isn’t the first UFO sighting in Henan Province, China. One afternoon, the day before the 43rd anniversary Kenneth Arnold’s saucer sighting, something artificial exploded that afternoon over Kaifeng. Whether it was man-made, or of extraterrestrial origin, remains undetermined.

​Hundreds, if not thousands, of eyewitnesses reported seeing slow-moving fireballs heading northeast from the southwest over Zhumadian City, Luoyang, Xuchang City, Jiaozuo, Zhengzhou, Pingdingshan, and Kaifeng for about five minutes, around 3:00 in the afternoon. For a sense of scale, Luoyang and Kaifeng are the most distant locations on the east-west axis, separated by 120 miles / 194 kilometers. Along the north-south axis, Zhumadian and Jiaozuo are 190 miles / 305 km apart.

​About 200 people near the Zhumadian train station watched something flame across the sky towards Shaopian. Other accounts described several objects flying in formation, resembling a ‘big tadpole tailed by many small tadpoles’. The object was moving very fast, covering nearly 600 kilometers in a few minutes, but people on the ground remarked the object was moving slowly from their perspective.
Everyone and their ancestors were outside seeking shade and a cool breeze from the oppressive June heat. Even the police sought relief sleeping on their station’s roof. Out of the blue, the cops’s walkie talkies began hissing and crackling loudly, accompanied a sound described as a ‘purring aircraft propeller’. Stirred from their mid-afternoon nap, Kaifeng’s finest watched a fiery red contrail streaking through the sky, followed by a powerful explosion.
Kinda sounds like a meteoric airburst, like the one that rattled Chelyabinsk last year, right? Whatever detonated that afternoon showered the area with metallic debris. There are no reports of strange falls following the Chelyabinsk incident, artificial or manmade.

(It’s about 50cm long, 8-11cm wide, with a 23 ‘backbone’ running along its length.)
This piece crashed in a nearby courtyard, falling through trees, breaking branches, then denting a bicycle’s handlebars.

(The red lines appear to be pointing out the large fragment.)
One of the first investigators on the scene was Zhang Weimin, vice president of the local UFO research association. Once he got his hands on the large fragment, he brought it to the Research Institute of Luoyang City. Experts in the chemistry department ascertained the material was non-radioactive, composed of 89.03% aluminum, 6.84% magnesium, 3.83% silicon, .30% zinc, along with traces of iron, and other elements, in addition to determining the piece had a melting point of 3000° Celsius.
Zhang’s next stop was the Kaifeng Air Force Base, seeking any clues regarding the debris’s origin. Wang Fuyu, a mechanic, didn’t believe it came from a conventional craft since it was better than anything he’s seen used for airplanes. Others who spoke with Zhang said they heard no news of a plane crash or similar incident in that time frame.

(Zhang Weimin and the fragment.)
Nuts and bolts evidence aside, there’s an important participant in this event. His name is Zhixiang Xian, and he was enjoying wine with his brother Zhijun in the courtyard when his bike got banged up. Not knowing any better, they set about collecting the bits and pieces of debris which were cool to the touch despite having been, according to speculation, nearly 6,000° Celsius a few moments before.
Their toon tree, which bore the brunt of the fragment’s impact, never recovered. According to the brothers their tree never sprouted new leaves after winter, despite showing no sign of illness or infestation. It just withered and died.
As for a tenuous E.T. connection, in November 1991, Zhixiang suffered a stroke at work. He wound up in a coma, on life support, at the local hospital. While unconscious, he claims to have been visited by two tall, gray-skinned humanoids in bright white clothes. Zhixiang woke up not too long after his encounter. From all accounts, Zhixiang made a full recovery but passed away at the age of 60 in 2005.