Free What Planet Am I On? by Shaun Ryder Page B

been big with tourists from home and abroad. But a lot of the locals are convinced that there are also visitors coming here from much further afield – other star systems – which is why I’m off to take a look for myself.
    Cajón del Maipo is a bit like the Lake District, but more extreme. Not long after we got out of Santiago the scenery changed and became a lot greener, much greener than I’d expect Chile to be. Then as we start climbing higher it gets rockier. The landscape seems to change everyfifteen minutes. It’s still beautiful though, with ravines, rivers and all sorts. We are in two 4 × 4s with two local drivers, Pancho (who is also one of our cameramen) and Jorge, and they tell me how it’s an amazing place for rock climbing, which they are both bang into. Pancho travels all over the world to do his climbing, and shows us some pictures of some of the crazy cliffs and rocks he’s climbed in Arizona and other places. He even takes part in climbs that take over twenty-four hours, when he has to sleep in one of those tents that you just hang off the side of a cliff. Mad bastard. His mate Jorge also used to work here in Cajón del Maipo, looking after part of the land, so he knows it very well. In my experience a lot of people who are into extreme sports can often be dicks, but Pancho and Jorge are cool dudes, and it’s good to have them on board.
    Shaun’s X-Files
    The Andes is the longest mountain range in the world, stretching 4,300 miles through seven countries. Formed 138 million years ago when the South American and Nazca tectonic plates smashed together, they rise to a height of almost 7,000 metres and are home to scenery as brutal as it is beautiful. Not only that, they play host to some of the clearest skies anywhere on the planet – perfect for spotting any extraterrestrial visitors.
    We are heading to San José de Maipo, a small town high up in the valley, where the production team hasarranged for me to meet ufologist Miguel Jordan. He’s been coming here looking for UFOs since the early nineties and he’s had a few experiences himself, so I am keen to see what he has in store for me. I meet him in the town square and I can tell straightaway that he takes the business of UFOs pretty seriously. He knows the area well and explains to me that more than 40 per cent of the locals in the area have seen UFOs. Which seems pretty high to me. We decide to get chatting to a few of the locals in the town square and find out if many of them have had personal encounters, and then after that drive further up in the mountains to spend the night UFO watching.
    In 2002, the Mayor of San José de Maipo declared it a UFO-tourism zone after he and so many other locals made sightings – although I suppose a cynic might say that’s just a way to build tourism, isn’t it?
    It was a pretty sunny afternoon and there were people sat around the square on benches and people having a bite to eat, so I thought I’d go and test out what Miguel’s been saying about the high number of sightings.
    Miguel is pretty confident but the first family hasn’t seen one, so we move on. The second guy we speak to is an old fella who worked for forty-three years in a hydroelectric power station up in the hills nearby. Forty-three years! You get less for murder. The old dude reckons that UFOs were ‘ always showing up there’. He says his colleagues saw them as well, many times over the years, and he describes them as moving lights, similar towhat I saw when I had my first encounter. I can’t speak Spanish for toffee, but when me and the old guy are explaining our encounters to each other, we almost don’t need Miguel to translate. We’re on the same wavelength.
    Everyone that we speak to in the square seems pretty friendly, even those who are not interested in UFOs or don’t want to be on camera. If I tried the same thing with a camera crew wandering down Deansgate in Manchester, asking people if they had seen a UFO, I’d get