Ep 18 Filiberto Cardenas

Cuban exile Filiberto Cardenas is abducted by aliens and taken to an underwater base where he is shown images of the future.  Later, his wife goes with him and meets the aliens herself.

Transcript

Ep 18 Filiberto Cardenas

Hello and welcome back to the UFO and Aliens Podcast. I’m your host Rick Black and I’m glad you’re listening.  Today I am going to tell you about the abduction of Filiberto Cardenas. When this happened in Miami in 1979, it was all over the news papers and on the radio… This story is very well known in the UFO community.  I had never heard of this case, even though I’m from Florida and was living here at that time. 

Filiberto was a Cuban exile and was living in Hialeah, which is a mostly Hispanic suburb of Miami, Florida.  He was in his gift shop when he got a call from his friend Fernando Marti. Fernando was calling to get Filiberto to go with him out to the country to buy a pig from the local merchants.  He wanted to roast it the following Sunday. Now this area has been overrun with urban sprawl.  But back in 1979 and even into the 80’s, it was all pastures and farms.  I don’t know why Fernando needed Filiberto’s help, maybe Filiberto had done business with these farmers before, or maybe Filiberto knew how to pick out a good pig for roasting.  I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.  Anyway it wasn’t long before Fernando showed up at Filiberto’s shop with his wife Mirta and their thirteen year old daughter Isabel.

Now this is important because they will become witnesses to the events that happen later.  I have conflicting information about who was driving, but one source said that Fernando agreed to drive Filiberto’s station wagon because Filiberto said he was tired, so I’ll go with that.  Again, this little detail doesn’t really matter. They drove to two farms but couldn’t find a pig for sale. So, they keep searching.  They turned onto a side road, following an arrow that lead to where they wanted to go, and from there they turned onto another rural road that was in pretty bad condition.  This is back in 1979.  There was not GPS, there were no cell phones.  If you weren’t familiar with the area, you had to use a map and you really had to pay attention to the road signs. Maybe that’s why Fernando asked Filiberto to go.  Because he was more familiar with the area. That would be a good reason. But, they aren’t having any luck finding a pig.

So now they’re on this old country road and the station wagon starts sputtering and eventually dies.  If you don’t know what a station wagon is.  Just picture one of those old boats of a car, but with the roof extending all the way to the back of the car and an extra row of seats.  Facing backwards.  My aunt had one of those and I remember sitting in the back seat facing the cars that were behind us.  That was awkward.  Station wagons were the precursors to the mini-van.  Now most families are driving around in SUVs.  Much cooler than station wagons AND mini-vans.

So the car has broken down.  Fernando tries to restart the engine, but has no luck.  It doesn’t even click.  No response at all. The two men look at each other and get out of the car. Fernando pops the hood and they both have a look to see if they can spot the problem. Back then, cars were much more simple.  Sometimes, you could spot the problem and figure out how to fix it.  Or at least get it running long enough to get it to a mechanic.  Fernando gets behind the wheel and tries to crank it again.  Again, nothing. Not even the lights are working.  Filiberto was in front of the car looking under the hood near the battery.  If the lights weren’t even coming on, it could be a problem with the battery.  He checked the cables, they were firmly connected. He really didn’t know much about cars, so Fernando gets out of the car again and looks under the hood again.  He is now looking closer to the steering column thinking that maybe there is a problem with the electrical connection.  

Filiberto was under the hood near the front bumper and Fernando was under the hood on the driver’s side, lying over the top of the engine so he could see behind it when they both realized that the engine was reflecting red and violet light in sequence. At the same time, they heard a humming sound. Fernando later described it as sounding like a ”swarm of bees”.  The sound started getting louder and the lights were getting brighter and then the car began to shake. 

Meanwhile, remember Mrs. Marti and her daughter Isabel? Well, they’re sitting in the back seat this whole time and getting a little freaked out.  The Marti Family actually moved to Florida from California because of a bad earthquake. So, you can imagine what they’re thinking with this light and shaking and noise.  Mrs. Marti pulls Isabel down across the seat of the car and covers her with her body and screams in panic.

Filiberto hears her screaming so he tries to run over to help, but he couldn’t move. He could see lights and hear sound be he was paralyzed. He felt that something was keeping him from moving. Now Fernando tried to crawl further under the hood looking for protection.  His feet were sticking out in the air from under the hood and HE couldn’t move. 

Filiberto is totally engulfed in the light and can’t move. He starts to slowly rise up in the air. Fernando watches from under the hood as Filiberto’s shoes go past the opening of the hood and he hears Filiberto shouting. “Don’t take me… Don’t take me”.

Filiberto looked down and he could see the car below him as he was lifted off the ground.

Then, the light was gone, and the noise stopped.  Everything had gone back to normal. Fernando crawled out from under the hood and looked up into the sky and saw what he referred to as “a bulky object that ascended and then moved away”.  He’s standing there watching this thing thinking about his friend Filiberto and completely forgetting that his family is still in the back seat. He snaps back and looks at them back there and he says, “They have taken Filiberto…Mama, they have taken Filiberto”. He climbs back in the car behind the wheel and tries to crank the engine.  He tried a few times and it started.  It’s a miracle! It started, but it was sputtering, like it was out of gas.  He nursed it a little and got it running well enough to drive it back out the highway. 

Now, these people just saw their friend beamed up into a UFO and they immediately got in the car. The one that just died. Had no life at all, not even the headlights would turn on.  Crank it up and drive away. I’ve never been in a situation like that, so I can’t say what I would do if I were, but it sounds weird to me that they would take off like that.  The UFO is gone. Fernando watched it move away.  I don’t know, it just feels weird.

As they’re driving, they think maybe they should report this to the police.  Hey, police, we were out here in the middle of nowhere with our friend and a spaceship came and sucked him up and left. The police would be like “okay what did you do with him?” “and where did you bury him?” 

But they DID go to the police. Well, they called the police. They stopped at a gas station on upper 29th Street.  I don’t know if they used a pay phone outside the gas station or if they went inside and used the phone behind the counter, but they called the police from there. They also called Filiberto’s wife Iris and told her that “a light took Filiberto away”.  I don’t know if I could make that call. Maybe I would wait a little while.  Maybe tell her face to face.  I wouldn’t want to do that either. How do you tell someone that their husband was abducted by aliens?  I guess you say “a light took Filiberto away.” Click.  You know there are going to be follow up questions. Anyway Mrs. Cardinas immediately left the house and went out to find the Marti’s.

Fernando got back in the car and the three of them drive down the road. As they approach the town of Hialeah, the see a police car. Fernando flags him down and explained what had just happened. 

After the explanation, the police sergeant thinks that Filiberto would be found lost or unconscious. Fernando starts to second guess himself and thinks that maybe in his confusion, that he might be mistaken about what he had seen and he decided to go back to the scene and take a look. At this point it’s dark outside and the police try to contact the Air Base at Homestead to send an airplane or a helicopter with lights to spot where the incident took place.

There’s a lot going on, Fernando and his family are probably in some sort of shock.  At the very least, they are extremely stressed.  The police are now involved and are trying to get the local airbase to help. 

Meanwhile, about ten miles away in a pasture near  Tamiami Trail (Or as the locals call it, Alligator Alley). Filiberto’s first memory is that of the sound of tires running on pavement. 

Patrolman William Christian is driving down Tamiami Trail and spots Filiberto and his first thought was that he was drunk, or someone had assaulted him and left him next to the highway. A second officer arrived, but they couldn’t communicate with Filiberto because of the language barrier and also because of Filiberto’s condition. I mentioned before that Filiberto is a Cuban exile, he doesn’t speak English but is fluent in Spanish. The police searched his pockets and found his identification and they decide to take him to the police station. They radioed ahead to the police dispatcher Filiberto’s information, his general description and what was happening. On the way to the police station, Filiberto started to get his faculties back.

Meanwhile, in Hialeah, the police were getting ready to go out and search for the missing man when they received his description over the radio. They put the kibosh on their search plans and took Mrs. Cardenas and the Marti’s to the police station.

According to one official, something very strange and very uncommon happened to Filiberto. On the official report, under Type of Offense, he wrote: CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE THIRD KIND. This may be the first time in the United States that on an official report, the police admitted that an abduction by a UFO had taken place.

So what happened to Filiberto? After he was paralyzed by a combination of mysterious light and sound Filiberto woke up in a small room. He was being held in a seat by what seemed to him to be some kind of suction that restricted all of his movement.  There were three strange beings beside him and one of the beings approached him carrying a special kind of helmet.  He raised it and placed it on Filiberto’s head.

The helmet came down to his shoulders and seemed to be full of small needles. The beings tried to communicate with Filiberto, speaking in a language that sounded to Filiberto a lot like German. Whey they realized that Filiberto didn’t understand, one of the beings rotated a button on the right side of his chest and then began to speak in English. Filiberto indicated that he did not understand that either. Again the strange being rotated the button and began this time to speak in Spanish, with a Portuguese or Italian accent. Meanwhile they continued examining Filiberto’s body. Later, after Filiberto was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital and examined, they found 108 needle marks on his body. 

The entities had Filiberto pass right through a wall into another larger room. There, on a high seat, like a throne, was seated an individual wearing a cape. This person, who seemed to be in charge, maybe he was their leader, addressed Filiberto in perfect Spanish while at the same time transmitting ideas telepathically.

They talked about humans and humanity and on the walls they projected images, something like television pictures, that showed scenes from the past present and also the future. 

Afterward, they took Filiberto into another small room and he was placed in a seat similar to the first one he was in with the suction.  Just as before, he was unable to move any parts of his body while he was in this seat.  The small room turned out to be a small craft that was discharged from the mother-ship. Filiberto remembers seeing a stretch of narrow beach entering his vision. The UFO moved right to the water and dove beneath the surface.  Visibility was obscured because of the incredible velocity at which the vehicle moved. The ship veered right and slowed down. Ahead, Filiberto could see a tunnel with walls that seem illuminated, as if they were phosphorescent. The ship went into this tunnel and later came to a stop in a place that was completely dry.  It looked like a large cavern but he noticed that it didn’t have any stalactites or stalagmites. It was a very big place. Here was a place made out of rock, where he noticed two symbols. One of them had the form of a serpent. It was very large, as big as an “Electric light pole”.  The other was similar to the first but smaller. In that place the entities exited the craft with Filiberto and took him to a rock, where they let him sit down. 

They opened a very large door and a number of people came out. Filiberto felt as if he couldn’t breathe, and he felt a pressure on his chest. He was overwhelmed by the sensations and odors of this very strange place. At this point someone came up to Filiberto and said “WELCOME.” Or they more likely said “BIENVINEDOS”. 

This individual spoke to him in perfect Spanish with a South American accent. He looked like an Earth person. He told Filiberto that he was “from Earth and had been for some time working with the entities.” He also said that “he should be happy, because he was going to receive some instructions from a human being like us.”

They were in and underground or underwater city with streets and buildings. They took Filiberto through another door toward a street, across the street and into a small building. In this place Filiberto felt like he was sucked up against a wall.  This panel revolved a turn and converted itself into a sort of table. From the walls came mechanical arms full of instruments with which they looked at and tested most of his body. After the examination they let him get up and get dressed. They showed Filiberto, on large monitors, new and different things that were going to happen.

He was taken to a big room where there was a ship (UFO) that looked like it was going to take off, it was in a vertical position.  They went inside it and ran into three more entities. They put him in one of those suction seats like earlier, and then they messed with the controls to get the ship ready for departure. Filiberto couldn’t see anything outside. He didn’t know if they were still under water or where they were. After a short trip the door of the UFO opened and Filiberto was let out into a pasture.

But the story doesn’t end there. About a month and a half later, Filiberto and his wife Iris were at home and they couldn’t sleep.  They decided to go to the place where Filiberto was abducted. It was around 5:00 A.M. and incredibly, the UFO returns and take both Filiberto and Iris. 

That same morning there was a UFO sighting at Miami International Airport. On of the older employees at the airport saw a large mother-ship and various smaller objects flying around it. There were five or six people there. The object seemed fixed in the sky. It was round and had three lights, one very white, one yellow and the one was also white but more opaque than the first one, or you could say that it had one white light that shone brighter than the other, and also the yellow one.  On either side of the ship you could see two other ships a little smaller, they were the same form only smaller. The bright light in the center was fixed, but the other lights pulsated. The six people watched the lights for twenty or thirty minutes.  They actually got tired of looking at them.

They we able to get a fix on the location of the lights and determined that they were directly above where Filiberto was originally abducted, and although they didn’t know it at the time, the place where Filiberto and his wife had a second encounter.

Iris described the symbol that she saw on the uniform of the entities. She said “on the suit, on the right breast, they had an emblem made up of a serpent in the form of an ‘S’ maybe more like a ‘Z’ with rounded corners, with a wide’X’-shaped cross lying down underneath.

What makes this case unique is the second encounter where the victim of abduction introduces his abductors to his wife. It is also rare to have a sighting of UFOs at the same time and place, from independent witnesses. Which makes, according to some, the second encounter credible.

On December 6, 1985, Filiberto claimed that he was abducted again and taken to the same under water base. Filiberto went through regressive hypnosis on March 30th 1986 headed by psychologist and hypnotist Mercy de Armas, also present was hypnotist Rodolfo Morales. The message they received through the session was very interesting. It was the same message that he dictated in previous sessions.

Under hypnosis, Filiberto claims that he was shown on a large monitor aboard their ship. Future events that were supposed to happen.  The leadership of the Catholic Church will be without its head (the Pope) and that later another will come. The Pope dies, and then shortly after that the second Pope also dies. There is a struggle to designate one who is not a Roman and they told him that it would endure for a little time, but that there is a conspiracy against him. After that will come on who is not born in that place (Italy). He is going to discover the New World. He is going to come to preach to the New World in our own language. (And so it happened)

 “There is a city that is going to be destroyed. The city is called….the capital of Mexico!” (Around the end of 1985 there was an earthquake that destroyed part of Mexico City.) “There is an artist who is very famous. In politics her husband could become the president of the United States.” (they think he is referring to Ronald Reagan and his Wife Nancy, but I didn’t think she was an artist especially not a very famous one.) 

He was shown people wearing loose fitting short pants. They had a small cap on their heads. He first thought they were people from another planet, but realized they were Chinese communists. He was told of the killing of 3,000-5,000 pro-democracy student activists in Tiananmen Square in Bejing. He was told that the government of Egypt would lose its leader and its government and there would be great disasters throughout its territories. It could put this whole planet in peril of being disintegrated by a war of great consequences. This could occur before the end of 1981. On October 6th,1981 the president of Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, was assassinated by religious fanatics within its own army, during a military parade commemorating the Yom Kippur war. He was also told that there is a great conspiracy between the people that control energy, in Kuwait and also in Arabia where they have petroleum energy. All those governments will disappear. Kuwait was lost during a military struggle to Iraq, led by President Saddam Hussein, in August 1990. 

All of these messages were given to Filiberto during his abduction on January 3rd, 1979 and they were privately published before the events happened in “UFO CONTACT FROM UNDERSEA” by Sanchez-Stevens, in 1982.

So, Filiberto Cardenas is abducted by aliens in front of his friend Fernando and his family.  Who by the way were in the back seat the whole time, so who knows what they actually witnessed. Gets abducted again with his wife. So he introduced his wife to the aliens.  And, he is told about future events. Under regressive hypnosis, he recalls all of these messages.  

What do you think? I think that the messages were a bit of a stretch. But interesting. There was really only one witness, Fernando. His wife and daughter were in the backseat. I think its an interesting case, but I’m not convinced that any of this happened.  There’s no evidence that this was a hoax either. So, I’ll leave this one up to you.  You can take from it what you want. Either way it was interesting.

Believe none of what  you hear and half of what you read. 

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Do you have a UFO story that you’d like to share? Is there a UFO story that you’d like for me to look into? Just send me an e-mail at ufoandalienpodcast@gmail.com  I’m Rick Black and I’ll talk to you next time.