In Sunday 18 August 1968, the technician Emil Barnea (45 years), wanting to spend a beautiful summer day, along with three friends, in Baciu forest (located just west of Cluj-Napoca). The weather was excellent, 36 centigrade, without any wind. At around 13:00 he stood to collect sticks for a small fire that was to be done in a clearing. A girlfriend called him, shouting that she sees "something in the sky". When he joined, he saw a large, round, flattened, silvery metallic object, shining in the sky, at low height, above the treetops. It was moving slowly towards South West.After the first moments of surprise, Barnea rushed to the camera that he had on the blanket on the grass and exposed in hurry a first image. How the object does not move quickly, he had free time looking at him and then exposed the second image, well centred in the viewfinder. Meanwhile, the strange air device begun to glow intensely and tipping over, as its flight position would have been indifferent. Obviously, it looked as a reversed "plate", but back then Emil Barnea knew very little about the UFOs.
Suddenly, the object accelerated toward the heights, on a diagonal direction. Following it through the viewfinder, Emil Barnea managed to shoot three more photos. In the last two images, the object appears, but only as a point that is lost in the immensity of the sky heights.
Returning home, Emil Barnea, uninformed about UFOs, has not rushed to take out the film from the camera. Only after a while, after he exposed the remaining frames, he developed the film, and made copies of the strange images.
The pictures obtained by Emil Barnea were taken by the Romanian news agency "Agerpres" and, after checking the film and then the witness statements, they were shown on the national television and in newspapers across the country. Then the case became known abroad, and was featured in many magazines and books from different countries. In comments to the set of pictures from Cluj Napoca, it has been recognized as one of the most successful series of UFO pictures around the world, and one of the most important ones, because of the outstanding scientific issues raised by some relevant details.
The image analysis offered several unusual issues for which we have not explanations, even today:
- In the first image, the "flying saucer" appears as an object with a metal enclosure whose contours are defined by natural sunlight; in the second image some changes appeared: the shadow on the brim is illogical, reported to the direct sunlight (it is at the top), being not the shadow of the dome, while the centre became confused. A careful checking of the model, by specialists from the Faculty of Architecture in Cluj-Napoca, led to the following conclusion: the light of the shining object itself became brighter than sunlight, and the illogical shadow on the brim had an unknown physical cause, being produced by the position of the object relative to the sun! The conclusions correspond with the details exposed by Emil Barnea, separately.
- The magnification of the third image confirms the findings above, raising some other, as difficult, scientific problems. This reveals another inexplicable detail: while the dome is dark, the brim continues to shine. Obviously, the glow is not produced thru an electrostatic process, but how is it possible to achieve, technically, the brilliance of only a part of the carcass of the flying object?
The photos realized on 18 August 1968 Emil Barnea, in Baciu forest, near Cluj-Napoca, aroused a particular interest, not only because of the quality of the images, and by the details obtained, but also by the series of images that showed clues on how UFOs flight. As a result, these photos were subject of various analyses carried out in several countries, which finally confirmed the document's authenticity and its scientific value.
Thus, for example, specialized French magazine "Lumieres dans la nuit", before publishing the photos, submitted them, for some very demanding examinations, to the Belgian LAET laboratories (Brussels). In the bulletin of 12 March 1970, specialist G. Delcorps stated: "The absence of detectable evidence of a possible fake and conclusions of previous experts, makes me conclude that the two photos which are at me shows the major elements of authenticity".
Then, F. Lagarde, known French ufologist, sent the photos and the bulletin, to another scientific expert. On 28 October 1970, he confirmed in its turn by the following: "With the photos in Romania, I came to the same conclusion as Mr. Delcorps. I must also join him – and it is not for the first time – the shadows have absolutely nothing to do with sunlight ".
In this context, it was an entirely normal fact - revealed by Colman S. VonKeviczky, then director of ICUFON – that the photos of Cluj-Napoca - much enlarged and displayed in the lobby meeting room - have impressed the participants at the First International UFO Congress held in Acapulco, in April 1977.
Maybe it is not a coincidence that the encounter in Cluj-Napoca was preceded, a day earlier, by another, known, UFO sighting, made by the crew of a Romanian Il-18 airliner, in the same region.