THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP|ENTITY ENCOUNTER REPORT

1959: Alor Islands, Indonesia UFO Encounter | Six Beings Case Archive

In July 1959, villagers on the remote Indonesian islands of Alor and Pantar reported six tall, reddish-skinned humanoid figures with wavy silver hair, moving through their settlements in dark blue, high-collared uniforms, small gray cylinders at their belts. One was attacked with arrows and spears and simply leapt over the crowd, unharmed, and vanished. A six-year-old boy went missing for a full day and returned in a daze, describing a medical exam and an offer of food from the strangers. When police chief Alwi Alnadad’s armed men finally opened fire on a group of the beings from close range, the bullets found nothing — no blood, no bodies, only felled trees and footprints that simply stopped after a few meters. Soon after, residents of both islands watched a glowing, egg-shaped object streak out over the sea, and the strangers were never seen again.

It’s one of ufology’s most-repeated Indonesian cases, carrying real institutional weight — Alnadad told his story to Raden Jacob Salatun, an Indonesian Vice Air Marshal and the founder of the country’s national aeronautics and space institute. But that weight is worth examining carefully: the entire case rests on one man’s oral account, given some seventeen to twenty years after the fact, with no contemporaneous police record ever located. This entry keeps that limitation front and center.

Date: July 1959 (exact date not given in source)

Sighting Time: Night, across multiple encounters over an extended period

Day/Night: Night

Location: Alor Island and Pantar Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Urban or Rural: Rural

No. of Entity(‘s): Six reported in total across the broader incident; individual described encounters sometimes involved only one or a subset of the six at a time

Entity Type: Humanoid

Entity Description: Approximately 1.80 meters (about 5’11”) tall, per independently corroborating secondary sources; reddish skin tone; long arms; wavy, silver/platinum-colored hair, some with beards; wore dark blue, high-collared, close-fitting uniforms with a small gray cylindrical device at the belt; black military-style boots

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) — retained as the closest available category, though the entities and the reported craft were not observed together or in direct spatial connection; see Researcher’s Notes

Duration: Undocumented as a single figure — the incident unfolded over an extended, multi-day period across two islands, not one discrete event

No. of Object(s): 1 (a craft reported separately, after the entity encounters had concluded)

Description of the Object(s): A bright, white-glowing, oval or egg-shaped object seen flying fast over the sea, west to east, interpreted by residents as the visitors’ departure

Shape of Object(s): Oval/egg-shaped

Size of Object(s): Undocumented

Color of Object(s): White-glowing

Distance to Object(s): Approximately 13 meters at the moment police fired on a group of the beings (described elsewhere in the source material as “a few meters”)

Height & Speed: Craft reported flying fast over the sea; no altitude given

Number of Witnesses: Multiple, across two islands, including regional police chief Alwi Alnadad and his officers, villagers in geographically separated communities, and a young child

Special Features/Characteristics: A 6-year-old child went missing for 24 hours and, upon being found, described being taken into the woods, given a medical examination, offered food, and shown a “clock-like gadget” producing a holographic image of a distant landscape; villagers in one location attacked one of the beings with arrows and spears without effect, and it reportedly leapt over the crowd and vanished; police under Alwi Alnadad separately fired on a group of the beings at close range, finding no blood or bodies afterward, only felled trees and footprints ending abruptly after about five meters; the beings were never reported again after the departing craft was seen

Case Status: Insufficient Data — see Researcher’s Notes for rationale

Source: Salatun, J. (1982). UFO: Salah Satu Masalah Dunia Masa Kini (UFO: One of World Problem in Present Day). Jakarta, Yayasan Idayu (Idayu Foundation), pages 49–51

Summary/Description: In July 1959, six reddish-skinned, silver-haired humanoid beings in blue uniforms were reported across Alor and Pantar Islands, Indonesia, including an attack by villagers with arrows and spears that had no effect, and a later police shooting at close range that found no blood or bodies. A six-year-old child reported being taken and examined by the beings before being returned. Residents of both islands subsequently saw a white-glowing, oval object depart over the sea, and the beings were not seen again. The account traces to a single source: former police chief Alwi Alnadad’s oral history, given to researcher R.J. Salatun roughly two decades later.

Related Cases: Undocumented — source does not reference other cases

Detailed Report

The case reaches this archive through a single, well-credentialed but distant source: Raden Jacob Salatun, an Indonesian Air Commander, Vice Air Marshal, and founder of the country’s National Institute of Aeronautics and Space, who published the account in his 1982 book on UFOs. Salatun’s own source was Alwi Alnadad, the retired regional police chief of the Alor Islands, who recounted the events to Salatun in the late 1970s — roughly seventeen to twenty years after they reportedly occurred in July 1959.

By Alnadad’s account, residents of Alor Island, in the remote East Nusa Tenggara province, began reporting strange, humanlike figures moving through outlying areas of the island: tall, with reddish skin, long arms, and wavy silver hair, some bearded, dressed in dark blue, high-collared uniforms with a small gray cylindrical device at the belt and black military-style boots. In one encounter, a group of villagers surrounded one of the beings and attacked it with arrows and spears; the weapons appeared to have no effect at all, and the being reportedly leapt clear over the crowd and disappeared without a trace.

Near the capital, Kalabahi, a six-year-old child went missing for a full day. After a frantic search, the family found him in a remote field, confused and disoriented. He later described being taken into the woods by the blue-uniformed strangers, who performed what he understood to be a medical examination, offered him any food he wanted, and showed him a “clock-like gadget” that produced a hologram or image of a distant landscape — mountains, forests, and hills unlike anything in the area. Around the same time, similar figures were reported on the neighboring island of Pantar, moving through villages after dark and appearing to search homes, opening doors and windows.

As the reports mounted, Alnadad organized an armed group of officers to investigate. According to his account, they encountered a group of the beings at close range — about 13 meters, described elsewhere as simply “a few meters” — and opened fire. The bullets, by all accounts, missed or had no effect: no blood and no bodies were found at the scene, only trees knocked down by gunfire and a trail of footprints that abruptly ended after about five meters. Following this encounter, the beings were not reported troubling the islands again. Residents of both Alor and Pantar subsequently reported seeing a bright, white-glowing, egg-shaped object flying fast across the sea from west to east — understood by many at the time as the visitors’ final departure.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

The Alor Islands Visitors — Indonesia 1959 and a Story Told Only Once

• Source Chain Assessment — A Single Account, Decades Later: Despite the case’s prominence in Indonesian ufology, its entire documentary foundation rests on one source: former Alor regional police chief Alwi Alnadad’s oral account, given to researcher R.J. Salatun roughly seventeen to twenty years after the events, and published in Salatun’s 1982 book. No contemporaneous police report or other independent document from 1959 has ever been located by researchers who have looked for one. Salatun’s own considerable credentials lend the story institutional weight, but do not substitute for independent, contemporaneous documentation, which does not appear to exist.
• Two Distinct Violent Encounters: The source material describes two separate incidents that are sometimes conflated: villagers first attacked one of the beings with arrows and spears, with no effect, after which it reportedly leapt over the crowd and vanished; separately, police under Alwi Alnadad later fired guns at a group of the beings at close range, finding no blood or bodies afterward. This entry keeps both incidents distinct rather than merging them into a single event.
• Classification Nuance: CE-III is retained as the best available category, but strictly speaking, the entities and the reported craft were not observed together or in direct spatial connection. The craft was seen only after the entity encounters had already concluded, and the link between them rests on witness interpretation — understanding the craft’s appearance as a “farewell flight” — rather than a direct, simultaneous observation of beings in connection with an object.
• Additional Corroborated Detail: The entities’ reported height, approximately 1.80 meters, and reddish skin tone are consistently reported across independent secondary sources drawing on the same underlying Salatun account, even though neither detail appears in the shorter summary drawn from this page’s own source material. Both are included here as well-corroborated additions.
• Extraordinary Secondary Claims, Noted But Not Adopted: Some specialized Indonesian-language treatments of this case, including a book-length 2019 retrospective by the Indonesia UFO Network, describe additional claims not found in Salatun’s original account as excerpted here — including that the beings were reportedly bulletproof, could float, leap with great agility, and become invisible. These claims are noted for completeness but are not part of the core account sourced to this page and should be weighed with additional caution.
• Case Status Rationale: Filed as Insufficient Data given the single, multi-decade-delayed oral source underlying the entire case, the absence of any located contemporaneous documentation, and the internal inconsistencies between different summarized versions of the same underlying account.

The Alor Islands case has traveled a long way on the strength of one credentialed man’s decision to take a retired police chief’s story seriously — and that’s exactly what makes it worth handling carefully. Salatun’s own standing lent the account real reach, but reach isn’t the same as documentation, and none of the underlying 1959 record has ever surfaced. It remains filed as Insufficient Data, a vivid and long-remembered story resting, in the end, on a single telling.

“We must study the UFO problem seriously.”