David Vélez (“El Potro”)
David Vélez, known as “El Potro,” is a Cali, Colombia–based UAP enthusiast and shareholder in Germany Company, a Cali firm that retails metal detectors marketed for “hidden treasure” (gold, silver, jewelry, coins, guacas). He operates the Facebook page “Cazadores de Ovnis Latinoamérica” (Latin America UFO Hunters) and is the cousin of José Arias Restrepo, the named finder of the Buga Sphere.
Role in the Buga Sphere narrative
Per src-buga-sphere-el-pais-cali-maussan-handoff-2025-10:
- Received the sphere from Arias and kept it on a display stand at Germany Company in Cali for ~2 months, reportedly handling it in an electronics-grade lead radiation suit.
- Claims he “measured electromagnetic fields” and “detected certain signals” from the object.
- Source of the unattributed carbon-14 result of 12,560 years (src-buga-sphere-uga-carbon-date-claim-2025-10, src-buga-sphere-carbon-dating-debunk-2026-04).
- Coined the term “drovni” (drone-UFO) to describe the sphere.
- Claims ~170 videos of similar sphere sightings across Colombia (Medellín, Tuluá, Yumbo) and ties them to airport closures in Denmark (Sept 2025) and Manchester (Nov 2024).
- Says an unnamed Bogotá laboratory contacted him claiming the sphere was part of an experiment they had been running since 2011 and asked for its return; he refused, citing no documentation.
- Handed the sphere to jaime-maussan’s team; Maussan exported it from Colombia to Mexico without restriction.
He later appears in the valdias-sphere arc as a co-participant (src-buga-sphere-maussan-tv-valdias-report-2026-05).
Caveats
All claims attributed to Vélez are unverified, single-source. The 12,560-year date he cites has not been published by any named laboratory; the university-of-georgia has not confirmed the result; and the Bogotá-2011-experiment claim is described without documentation.
Naming note
Earlier wiki context and some search results conflated Vélez with “José Luis Velázquez.” El País (Cali) (src-buga-sphere-el-pais-cali-maussan-handoff-2025-10) is the primary investigative source and consistently uses David Vélez “El Potro”; that is the canonical name on this wiki.