Chicanonautica: J. J. Benítez and His Cuadernos de Campo

by Ernest Hogan

J.J.Benítez is one of the most popular and prolific authors writing in Spanish. That makes him one of the most popular writers on the planet. Still, English translations of his books seem to only exist as rumors.

Benítez has been a journalist for over fifty years, and is mostly known as a UFO (en español: OVNI--Objecto Volador No Idenificado) researcher, and in recent decades has branched out into the paranormal--ghosts, angels, afterlife manifestations, other dimensions, apocalyptic visions, etc.

I first encountered him about thirty years ago. I was reading UFO literature in Spanish from the Phoenix Public Library. OVNI lit tends to be sexier, with pulp-fictiony violence, and more bizarre than Anglophone UFO lit. Benítez stood out in this genre; he can actually write.

I checked out a thick volume, the title of which escapes me. (Looking over Benítez’s massive catalog is no help.) It read like a novel, X-Files-ish, with a touch of gonzo journalism. Benítez traveled around the world (having particular trouble getting in and out of the United States) investigating UFOs.  Something seemed to be going on . . . 

Then at the end, he came to an abrupt halt, apologizing for not tying it all together, but promising that maybe he would be able to do it in the next book . . .

If it hadn't been a library book, I would have thrown it at the nearest wall, breaking its spine.

Fans of UFO/paranormal lit are a helluvalot more patient than I am.

Like the X-Files, Benítez tended to be vague. A photo that stuck in my mind was a typical tourist shot of his bikini-clad girlfriend at a Mediterranean beach. The caption said that there was a UFO in the sky. To me it looked like speck of dust on the negative.

I had to admire him for pulling off such a scam, but how long could it last? Surely, his readers would catch on and stop buying his books.

No.

For decades, I kept seeing new books by Benítez. He’s a regular fixture in libraries here in Aztlán. When I went to work for Borders, I found myself shelving shiny new copies his latest, fat volumes.

He dropped the first person narrative, and took to reporting incidents, sometimes interviewing the witnesses, other times retelling accounts reported elsewhere--like Fidel Castro’s UFO sighting in Sólo Para Tus Ojos: Cuarenta y Cuatro Años de Investigación Ovni.

He has an easy-to-read style (I recommend his books for those who need to practice their Spanish). He keeps the reports short, and often doesn’t bother to put them in chronological order. They are also illustrated with photos, maps, and diagram-like drawings from Benítez’s “cuadernos de campo” which give the impression that he’s running all over the planet doing research rather than answering email from people who’ve seen or experienced strange things. 

He provides lots of data, but no real proof.

His audience doesn’t seem to care. When people want to believe, they don’t need to be convinced.

People used to say, “No one will believe that, this is the twentieth century.” In the twenty-first century, the Information Age, people will believe anything.

Is it just me, or is that scary?

Ernest Hogan once saw a UFO over the Superstition Mountains, but remains a skeptical science fiction writer. His novel Smoking Mirror Blues is available in a new edition.

Chicanonautica: Strange Rumblings in the Global Barrio

by Ernest Hogan

It didn’t take long for the year to go stark, raving sci-fi, did it? The Pope called it quits, a meteor buzzed and boomed Russia, and an asteroid came by for a visit. Keep watching the sky, there’s weirdness raining down.

Then, in Mexico, another UFO -- or OVNI, if you prefer -- was photographed near the volcano Popocatepetl. This new one moves horizontally, and looks like it could be either a digital flaw or mischief. It’s amazing how many UFOs move at a perfect right angle to the camera. Also, note how blurry it is compared to the crystal-clear dash cam footage of the meteor over Russia.

Getting more down to Earth, I’m sorry to report the death of Ángel Arango, a Cuban science fiction writer. He was one of the writers I discovered in anthologies I picked up in Mexico. His first book, a story collection, was ¿A Dónde Van Los Cefalomos? in 1964. His novel La Columna Bífida is available at Amazon. In recent years, I got to know him on Facebook, where we shared our love of Hispanic culture and bullfighting. 

Another writer in those anthologies was Angélica Gorodischer from Argentina. Her masterwork Kalpa Imperial is available in an English translation by Ursula K. Le Guin. My cyberpunk generation cohort, Paul Di Filippo just reviewed her latest work to be translated into English (by Amalia Gladhart), Trafalgar, that should help to breakdown the barriers of the Tortilla Curtain, that sadly, still disrupt the global development of science fiction.

But, fortunately, a new generation isn’t intimidated by such barriers, bringing the dream of the Global Barrio closer to reality. One of these writers is Nas Hedron. He divides his time between Canada and Brazil, expresses the need for a Star Trek-like universal translator, and has written and published Luck and Death at the Edge of the World, a novel that takes place in a world where the U.S./Mexico border is thing of the past. Its hero, Nat Burroughs, shuttles from L.A. to Mexico City in a world where the barriers between life and death, as well as government and organized crime, are dissolving. A resurrected Alan Turning even shows up. It’s state-of-the-art, cutting edge speculative fiction.

Makes an old vato like me feel I need to take some notes, do some updating.

I was not just impressed by the novel, but also by the way he’s presented it in ebook form, providing connection to his other work, and his blogs, where he provided details on the background and world building. He even provides a suggested music playlist. It’s science fiction breaking free of the restraints of the printed word, plugging into the new media, and causing those changes in perception that allow you to survive in this mutating world.

It makes me feel a little old, but then the kids don’t get the thrill of realizing how futuristic it all is.

Ernest Hogan's novel Smoking Mirror Blues in now available on Smashwords as well as Kindle for only $0.99.

Chicanonautica: OVNIs Over Aztlán and Other Phenomena

by Ernest Hogan

Different cultures create different kinds of “aliens.” The “other” depends of who you are and where you’re from. It’s the same in UFO mythology

The OVNI literature of the Latino world is different from the UFO books of Anglolandia. You don’t find extraterrestrials without genitalia that seem to be a Puritan vision of a more advanced species -- instead, aliens are sexy, and hot for humans.

Ever since Brazilian farmer Antonio Villas Boas reported having sex with female alien in 1975 reports have come in. I’ve read about them in English and Spanish. They range from a Mexico City woman claiming to have been impregnated by a man who explained that he had to return to his home planet, to a book by a man who not only had sex with, but painted cheesy portraits of several beautiful alien women, and reverse-engineered flying saucers with Aristotle Onassis. 

I wish I could remember the authors and titles of those books . . . Meanwhile, others show up . . .

 The flying saucer and the White House on the cover of Proyecto Elevación by Enrique Barrios  attracted my attention. It has a hero on an adventure/romance with Iara, a bald, beautiful alien woman after her spaceship crashes in Arizona. “La CIA” and mysterious helicopters chase them as they race to tell the president about the conspiracy in the U.S. and British governments to stop an interplanetary project to bring advanced technology and evolution to the Earth. 

Then I looked up Enrique Barrios’ webiste. He was born in Chile and grew up in Venezuela. He has retired from “actividades públicas.” His books include a children’s book similar to Proyecto Elevacion. There is also El Oráculo del Siglo XXI that delivers I Ching-like interactions.

His attitude about a sinister Anglo-American conspiracy reminded me of the works of J.J. Benitez. I read one of his books back before he switched to writing about Jesus Christ rather than UFOs. It read like a novel, as he ran around the world chasing a mystery that never quite solidified. He had photos of his girlfriend in front of the Sphinx and in the Mediterranean with circles around what looks like dust specks in the sky. Crossing the border into America was described as a Kafkaesque nightmare. He ended the book promising that he’d reveal whatthehell it’s all about in the next book . . . maybe.

Benitez’ latest book, Caballo de Troya 9: Caná is as thick as a brick, in the Spanish Language Fiction section of the library.

Whoever runs the MilMascarasvideo2’s channel on YouTube also has a taste for UFOlogy. There you can now see the incredible movie Misterio en Las Bermudas, which has similar political themes to the works of Barrios and Benitez.

Featuring Santo and Blue Demon along with Mil, it’s a kind of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink example of the luchador/sci-fi genre: No UFOs here; instead futuristic periscopes come out of the Caribbean and alter the weather -- USOs, Unidentified Submerged Objects! Santo’s mask is found in the seaweed before the flashbacks. A wrestling tour of Europe has to be canceled because the “political situation” is getting too dangerous. An Iranian princess/martial artist needs luchador protection. There’s an underwater utopian city where people wear silver jumpsuits and headbands. The music has a lot of wah-wah.

The most bizarre thing is the ending. First, the princess is rescued, the luchadores and some babes in bikinis, all go off in a boat, like in a happy ending . . . Then we go back to the fishermen who found Santo’s mask. One of them explains that the boat disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle and declares that the prophecies of the Book of Revelation are coming true -- and we are treated to some stock footage of a nuclear explosion!

Yeah, it’s paranoid as well as sexy -- and while I wrote this, a helicopter circled over my neighborhood . . .

Ernest Hogan will have stories in the upcoming anthologies We See a Different Frontier and Super Stories of Heroes and Villains.