A Tangled Web of Abductions

Mirassol, a city of a quarter-million souls near Sao Paulo, Brazil, was the scene of one of the most controversial alien abduction cases ever reported. Chronicled by the late Dr. Walter K. Buhler in his book O Caso de Mirassol, which appeared in 1984, the case centered around the hapless Antonio Ferreira, who had been 21 years old at the time when the events transpired in 1979.

On June 28, 1979, while performing his appointed rounds as a night watchman outside a vast furniture warehouse, accompanied by a fierce police dog, Ferreira noticed a white light descending gradually from the dark skies onto the warehouse's property. Fascinated by the unusual sight, the watchman stared spellbound at the light, which turned out to be a solid vehicle. So entranced was Ferreira by the sight that he was hardly aware that three diminutive creatures -- wearing pressure suits and helmets -- were approaching him, perhaps taking advantage of the unearthly brilliance as cover.

Ferreira's police dog ran toward the intruders, growling and ready to pounce on the small figures. However, the dog was struck down in mid-run by an unseen force which paralyzed it. One of the creatures aimed a beam of light at Ferreira which immobilized him in a similar fashion.

According to Ferreira's story, the mini-men levitated his inert form to their glowing discoidal craft, and was in turn taken to a "mothership" and turned over to another set of creatures, entirely different from his original captors: short, swarthy beings with curly red hair, prominent slanted eyes, large mouths and wide noses.

The terrified watchman was assured telepathically that he would not be harmed and would be returned safe and sound to his home, but not before fulfilling the purpose for which he had been abducted: mating with a humanoid female. Ferreira's account differs radically from the well-known sexual experience of Antonio Villas-Boas in the 1950's, since he described the female alien as "ugly and foul-breathed."

While such interludes are scarce in American ufology, they are recurrent episodes in Brazilian UFO lore. In 1978, few months prior to Ferreira's experience, Jocelino de Mattos, an electrician, had been drawn up into a UFO through a beam of light near his home in Maringá and forced to sustain sexual relations with a talkative "space maiden" who informed the nonplussed human that she was a physician on her home planet. Hospital porter Juan Valerio da Silva went out to a fountain in the backyard of his home in Botucatú (near Sao Paulo) to get a drink of water in November 1982 when he was sucked into a UFO hovering a treetop level. Once inside the vehicle, he was ordered to have sex with a dark-skinned humanoid female, and told that both he and his son Reginaldo were the product of an alien hybridization program.

The Vargihnha (Brazil) Alien Encounters, 1996.

On January 20th, 1996, at 0100 hrs. a farmer outside the prosperous Brazilian city of Varginha was startled to observe a strange vehicle about the size of a small bus, hovering some sixteen feet above the ground. The silent, darkened craft appeared to have sustained damage to its fuselage and spewed smoke as it moved away slowly toward Varginha.

At 08:30 hrs. the Varginha Fire Department received an anonymous phone call regarding the presence of a "bizarre creature" in the Jardim Andere neighborhood. Suspecting a prank, the firemen nonetheless responded to the call and were surprised to find a group of adults and children already hot in pursuit of the "creature," which was hiding in a gully within a small wooded area. The firemen managed to capture the creature by means of a net and dragged it out. The civilian onlookers would later inform investigators that the being offered no resistance to its captors, and was placed into a wooden box which was driven away by a truck belonging to the Brazilian Army.

Apparently there was more than one non-human creature on the loose, and a mop-up operation had been ordered by the military. Residents of Jardim Andere claimed having seen platoons in combat gear scouring the area, punctuating their actions with occasional bursts of automatic fire. Two more beings, unceremoniously dumped into bags, were allegedly taken away by the military.

At 1530 hrs. that same day, the Da Silva sisters, Valquiria and Liliana (ages 14 and 16 respectively) and their friend Katia Xavier, 22, were returning home from work and decided to cut across a field along a street not far from where the Varginha firemen had captured the first creature. As the threesome crossed the field, they suddenly noticed a "man" with bulging blood-red eyes, greasy brown skin and a bald head with noticeable veins and strange osseous protuberances. The strange mannikin was huddled in fear next to a brick wall, its hands between its legs. Astonishment soon gave way to fear, and the young women broke into a mad dash to reach the safety of their homes.

Exactly twenty-four hours after the presumably crippled UFO hovered over a farm on Varginha's outskirts, the Brazilian military was in possession of at least three extraterrestrial biological entities. At 0130 hrs., under cover of darkness, Army trucks moved their prized catch to Humanitas Hospital, apparently until a the fate of the alien creatures had been determined. Ufologists on the scene believe the creatures were subjected to a battery of medical tests, and at least one of them died at the hospital.

On January 22, 1996, the alien bodies were transferred to the refrigerated lab section of the University of Campiñas, where a number of distinguished pathologists would have had access to them. By all accounts, there was a considerable military presence on the campus.

The military's cover-up unraveled when an Army officer was interviewed on Brazilian television, discussing his role in the operations involving the transfer of the putative aliens to the hospital, where the initial tests were conducted.

But the Varginha story continued long after the initial events: On the evening of April 21, 1996, Teresa Clepf had gone out to dinner at a restaurant located within the confines of the Varginha Zoo. Mrs. Clepf had stepped out onto the restaurant's covered porch to smoke a cigarette when she noticed a figure moving in the darkness, lighting its way with blood-red eyes. She then returned into the restaurant to collect her thoughts before going out again: the creature was still there, staring back at her.

According to ufologist Claudeir Covo, a number of zoo animals died shortly after the creature was reported. Veterinarians at the Varginha Zoo diagnosed the strange deaths as "caustic intoxication," and discouraged any speculation that the animals may have been infected by an alien disease borne by the creature.

Earthquakes and UFOs?

From 1968 onward, seismic events were accompanied by the manifestation of immense greenish-blue bolides twice the size of the moon, described by local residents as being as bright as very large automobile headlights. Other descriptions classified them as being conical in shape and blindingly bright, moving silently over buildings or the countryside. Argentinean UFO researcher Roberto Banchs, writing in Las Evidencias del Fenómeno Ovni (Buenos Aires: Cogtal, 1976) notes that the strange lights of Pereiro were at one point seen on a regular basis and landing in the spiky, inaccessible “caatinga” vegetation that surrounds the area.

A reputable eyewitness – a local councilman – was riding his horse at night through the area in July 1968 when he encountered a green light that he first believed to be a truck, only to find it was an object hovering over the treetops. Other reports soon emerged of an enormous solid object accompanied by lesser ones, projecting a beam against the ground “like a giant spotlight”. This prompted representative Ernesto Valente to say: “Many UFOs have appeared over the skies of Ceará in recent months. The government should send observers to conduct an in-depth study to find out if UFOs are indeed related to earthquakes.”

According to Banchs, word was received from Pereiro a month later, stating that the manifestations of these luminous objects indeed precede seismic activity by a matter of hours, causing townspeople to remark that “the objects appeared to know when and where the earthquakes were going to come about.”

The 1996 UFO Wave

UFO activity erupted in Guarabira, a northern Brazilian community in the State of Paraiba, not far from Joao Pessoa on the Atlantic shore. In May 1996, Viviane de Castro, a student at Paraiba State University, had a close encounter with alleged saucer occupants who gave her a message which indicated that they had "returned to Earth to take care of it" after the senseless damage inflicted by humans. This event coincided with numerous sightings of star-like objects which routinely fly over the community at regular times (a characteristic of areas experiencing UFO flaps). Eyewitnesses to these celestial displays range from housewives to seasoned police officers. Oriel Farias, a ufologist who has transmitted his findings over the Internet, has also made mention of rumors concerning human disappearances in the area -- the victims of UFO abduction. One such incident, collected by the authorities, involved an abandoned automobile displaying "strange marks" on its roof. The whereabouts of its driver remain a mystery.

The curious nocturnal lights were not shy of the big city, either: reports of UFOs soon emerged from Joao Pessoa, a city of a quarter million souls. An enormous light was seen flying over the city's beaches by a number of witnesses, including the patrons of a drinking establishment who fled the place in a panic.

In mid-February 1996, after the carnival season was over, groups of observers throughout Paraiba state scanned the heavens with binoculars and photographic gear in hopes of catching a fleeting glimpse of the UFO phenomena.

Guarabira eventually received more than it bargained for. By all accounts, a UFO "invasion" allegedly occurred on March 3, 1996 when a still-unexplained blackout plunged the community into darkness at 6:45 p.m., and 26 UFOs cruised through the skies unmolested. Wellington Santos, director of EPUC (Equipo Pesquisa Ufologica Guarabira), observed that "the UFO situation in Guarabira is one of a kind in Brazil and the whole world, since never have there been so many collective sightings involving people of all ages, sexes and occupations, having repeated sightings over a long period of time."

Massive cigar-shaped craft flew over the region of 23 cities. According to EPUG's report, a farmer went out in the middle of the night to fire a shotgun-blast at one of the smaller discoidal craft which came closer to the ground than their putative "motherships." His hostile gesture was duly reciprocated by the UFO, which aimed a beam of light at the assailant, inflicting third-degree burns. In Mamamguape, fifty-five miles from Joao Pessoa, one of the cigar-shaped objects (known locally as charutos) reportedly fired a gas weapon against a hapless man who was running away from it. On October 14th, three hundred Guarabirans witnessed another UFO invasion, which included a massive craft reportedly as big as a twenty-floor building. "Had this been a southern city," Santos noted ruefully, "journalists would be raining out of the sky."