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The Varginha affair:

Read all about the unbelievable story of a UFO crash in the city of Varginha, in Brazil, April 1997, the capture of aliens by the military, the participation of the U.S. Government and more. Despite the black-out on this spetacular event, the news spread all around the world vers fast, only to dissolve in mediatic oblivion. Here his a collection of documents and testimonies about this case.

Drawing of the Varginha EBE

THE VARGINHA TIMELINE:

Around 00:00 January 19-20 1997 NORAD WARNING OF A UFO GOING DOWN:

Around midnight between January 19-20 NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) contacts their Brazilian alike CINDACTA (I Centro INtegrado de Defesa Aerea e Controle de Trafego Aereo or Integrated Center on Air Defense and Air Traffic Control) and warns them of a UFO coming down over southern parts of Minas Gerais state. This is witnessed and leaked by both a Brazilian Air Force man and an employee at the radar facility at Air Force Base VI Comar, who received the information, all this according to John Carpenter and Ricardo Varela Correa.

Around 01:30 January 20 1997 UFO CRASH WITNESSED:

The farmworkers couple Augusta and Eurico Rodrigues were wakened by the roams of the farm cows and sheep. As they looked out the window to see what was up they saw the animals running from one side to the other. As they looked up the sky they saw a silent UFO without lights. John Carpenter gives us an image of the UFO:

"It was a submarine-shaped "mini-bus" that was trembling like a curtain and emitting smoke or fog as it descended to at least 5 meters above the ground. A military witness now admits that it crashed and he was part of the debris retrieval. Material was twisted and lightweight."

The Rodrigues couple's farm is placed in a coffee district located 10 kilometers (6 miles) northwest from the town of Varginha, midway between Varginha and Tres Coracoes. The house sits at the edge of the road. And the UFO is believed to have crashed between 1:30 AM and 5:00 AM that night.

Early morning January 20 1997 UFO REMOVED:

An American civilian was present when the cigar-shaped UFO was loaded aboard a flatbed truck in the early morning of January 20 - a saturday, according to Brazil's UFO Magazine.

Early morning January 20 1997 ALIENS SPOTTED:

Between the alleged crash site and the outskirts of park Jardim Andere where the EBE later on was first spotted and captured, lays a forest. A probable scenario is that a number of EBE's outlived the crash and went by foot through the woods and ended up in the park of Jardim Andere 6 miles southeast. Local people immediately associated this spaceship with the EBE's who appeared 7 hours later.

There has also surfaced statements by a military source that a farmer (not Rodrigues) shot one of the EBE's that crawled out of the crashed cigar-shaped UFO.

08:00 AM January 20 1997 FIRST EBE CAUGHT IN CITY PARK:

According to John Carpenter - this is his description of the park:

"Jardim Andere is a district or suburban neighborhood where some houses are under construction. There is a grassy slope toward some woods between this district and the Santana district nearby".

College student Hildo Lucio Galdino, 20, who lives in the Jardim Andere section of Varginha, has reportedly told UFO investigators Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues and Vitorio Pacaccini that he saw one of the alien survivors shortly after 08:00 AM that morning. Opening his bathroom window, Hildo looked out and saw "a creature with oily dark brown skin crouched in the alleyway." The alien, which Hildo described as having "very small hands with three extremely long fingers, kind of like a starfish", ran away when Hildo cried out. The creature had no hair and no clothing and was 4-5 feet in height.

07:00 to 10:00 AM January 20 1997 ALIEN HUNT BEGINS:

Several calls comes to the fire department (as early as 7:00 AM) about some wild animal on the loose in the northern city-park Jardim Andere, like a jaguar or a peccary. And in a confidential taped interview a sergeant of the fire station confirms that at 9:00 AM the Fire Department of Varginha was required to capture a strange animal in the area. When four firemen arrived in a fire engine, they noticed that it was not a strange animal at all, and they also found the military already on the spot. The man in charge who send the four firemen to Jardim Andere to check the situation was Major Maciel. These firemen, at the moment they arrived there, called the major through radio and asked him to go there too as the situation was more complicated than they thought. The Major arrived aproximately 10:30 AM, but by then the capture of the EBE was already done. It was done with a net for wild animals and they used common gloves, but were afraid of radiation. According to witnesses on spot there were some people, including children who threw some stone towards the EBE, who appeared apathetic to the way he was treated. He only gave away a noise similar to bees buzzing. The address of where the EBE was captured is in front of the house at Rua Suecia 3, Jardim Andere. The EBE was then placed in a wooden box with a white plastic canvas-cover, stretched hard to really make insight impossible, and transported away by an army truck. The military and firemen on the site was:

Truck drivers from the ESA (military school, 25 kilometers from Varginha in the town of Tres Coracoes):

All this is backed by a witness on the inside of the fire department with access to several classified information. Also by civilian witnesses like Henrique Jose da Silva.

Vitorio Pacaccini also says that there is proof of an existing videotape made by the army of one (or more) EBE's. First of all: many witnesses saw the army personal carrying a camcorder in the Jardim Andere park on January 20th 10:30 AM. Two reporters who were in Varginha were also approached by a person who identified himself as the-cousin-of-a-son-of-a-military-man-from-ESA. This person said that he could get access to a film recorded at ESA showing the creatures. He had already shown it to his cousin, who then offered it to SBT (Sistema Brasileiro de Televisao - Brazilian Television System), the second major TV network in Brazil. The boy wanted 70,000 reais ($68,000). He visited the station and discussed the deal with the network director but didn't close the deal and later the boy said that he wasn't able any longer to deliver the video.

Also a daughter of a Military Police-man (16 year schoolgirl) says that she has watched a "horrible film" that showed the captured creatures. As the girl's father realized the situation was dangerous, he vanished with the tape. Pacaccini says that he has many evidences that the film is still located in Varginha.

Morning January 20 1997 THREE SHOTS:

At the same time as the firemen capture the first seen EBE, more witnesses observed strange movements. A lawyer in Varginha and former military witnessed two planes that he recognized as F-5's, at very low altitude. As a former military man he noticed the planes were not in natural formation but in attack formation. He also witnessed army vehicles near the woods (close to where the firemen captured the EBE). He was passing there and saw a truck carrying about seven soldiers in green campaign uniforms (camouflaged) and some of them in plain clothes.

There is even more witnesses to their activity. A friend of this witness was in another position and says that he heard three shots and that the soldiers came back from the woods with two campaign sacks. One motionless and one moving. Another source has come forward and revealed that one of the soldiers shot one EBE three times in the chest and the creature died instantaneously. The gun would be a FAL-type (FAL - Fuzil Automatico Leve, or Light Automatic Rifle). The details around this are still being investigated by researcher Claudeir Covo. The military and fire department operation was held very quiet and smooth and both fire brigade and military did withdraw around 10:30-11:00 AM, along with the second military operation (which fired three shots). The net-caught-EBE is said to have been moved directly to the Escola de Sargento das Armas (ESA) - a military school in the town of Tres Coracoes, 25 kilometers from Varginha. The next following days a summerized number of 6 living EBE's and two dead was locked up at the ESA-base. Some curious civilians combed the park as the military/S-2 personal had left in their trucks, but found nothing. There is also information of a later S-2 (Brazilian Army secret service) operation at aproximately 7:00-8:00 PM on January 20, where an unnumbered of EBE's was caught in the park.

A total sum of 8 EBE's:

01:30 PM January 20 1997 SECRET AGENTS:

The lawyer who made the observation around 10:30 AM above says that he noticed another search team arriving at 1:30 PM stopping at the opposite side of an earthwork shortcut, as he was leaving his office. Another witness speak of a S-2 search-team in civilian clothes (haven't been able to find out how they was identified as S-2 men) around 1:30-2:30 PM in the same area. These two reports are probably of the same operation. They are believed to have found nothing.

15:30 PM January 20 1997 THREE GIRLS STUMBLES ON ANOTHER ALIEN:

Three girls, two sisters - Liliane Fatima Silva (16), Valquiria Fatima Silva (14) and their friend Katia Andrade Xavier (22 which has three kids), was on their way home (lives at Rua Tapajos - Tapajos Street) from their jobs as housemaids. As they are walking in the middle of the pathway in Jardim Andere (2 kilometers from the town center), Liliane Fatima looked over her left side and screamed. A creature with three protuberances on the head and dark greasy skin was about 7 meters away next to a wall of an old garage. The creature was squatting on the ground like it was hurt. This is from the Brazilian magazine "Isto E":

"It was squatting, with the long arms between its legs", recalls the girl. "At first I saw the eyes, enormous and red." Frightened, Liliane turned her back to the creature, while her sister Valquiria and her friend Katia continued to observe. "It was not animal or human, it was a horrible thing", says Katia. "It looked dumb, didn't make any noise", adds Valquiria. The creature, however, appeared to move slightly with the head and the three girls run away.

Forty minutes later, the mother of Liliane and Valquiria, Luiza Helena Silva (38), went to the spot to look for what had frightened her daughters (her husband Jose Lopes da Silva was at work as a bus conductor). She found nothing except a peculiar smell which other witnesses, who heard the rumor and hurried to the spot where the EBE was seen, described as ammoniac. The same smell was later reported independently by personal at the General Hospital where the alien was brought on the evening of January 20th.

Harvard professor and abduction researcher Dr. John Mack went down at the end of May and made a recorded interview with the three girls. To Carpenter, Mack has said:

"He would stake his career and his license on those three girls being truthful."

Afternoon January 20 1997 ALIEN HUNT CONTINUES:

During the afternoon people are watching a number of army trucks on patrol in the city and around 7:00-8:00 PM the military from the Escola de Sargentos, along with officers from the military police secret service (called P-2) once again entered the park (according to John Carpenter it happened at 11:00 PM) and captured an injured EBE (I haven't found any testimonies from witnesses to this capture). This capture was much more discreet that the first (10:30 AM), because the military arrived in plain clothes, using civilian cars. The creature was in the area, near the woods, where the military surrounded it and caught it.

Afternoon January 20 1997 EBE TAKEN TO REGIONAL HOSPITAL:

The EBE was immediately taken to the General Hospital in the town center where the doctor ordered that the creature must be moved on to the bigger and better equipped Humanitas hospital, where it was easier to maintain and hide from curious civilians. The Humanitas hospital is also located 1,5 kilometers from the town center (Varginha has 3 hospitals in all). A few nurses and personnel from Regional General Hospital had confirmed some facts and they were all suppressed. Individuals who had contacts with the second creature were advised to avoid press and UFO researchers and not to talk about it with anyone, not even their families or relations.

Researcher Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues came in contact with one of the nurses who was reluctant at first to talk about the commotion at the Regional Hospital but later revealed that one of the hospital-sections was closed for some hours in order to avoid access of employees, patients and visitors and that physicians came in from another town than Varginha.

According to her testimony, the director said that all that movement should be ignored, because "it was just a training for the doctors and military personal". According to the witness (a nurse) the meeting culminated with the following statement from the director:

"Here in Varginha there are people who like to deal with "cool things", I mean, supernatural, strange... It is probable that these people will look for you, specially that lawyer Ubirajara. TO THESE PEOPLE YOU MUST DENY EVERYTHING. I mean, do deny."

Police and army personal were guarding the closed hospital-section during the hours where the EBE was. But a number of civilians saw the creature closely and the rumor continued.

Another witness, a friend of Ubirajara himself, revealed that she had been in the hospital entrance at 10:30 PM, together with a friend of her. She asked the receptionist if it was true what the rumors said about the "little monster" received at the hospital. The employee confirmed, but also said that the creature had been moved to the Humanitas hospital. This is said to have happened around midnight between January 20, Saturday, and Sunday 21. So the nurse probably didn't know that the creature was still in the hospital waiting to be transported, but in the closed section. The transport was operated by the fire brigade.

Captain Alvarenga of the fire-brigade denies any participation from the fire brigades part to have moved the - now dead - EBE to Humanitas hospital. But right before he denied that Ubirajara had been in contact with the Regional Hospital director Mr. Adilson Usier, who confirmed that the Varginha Fire Department had participated in the corpse transport. Captain Alvarenga then said it was a mistake of Mr. Usier. Later Mr. Usier denies the statement himself to the Brazilian UFO Magazine, saying:

"We couldn't keep an extraterrestrial here, we couldn't deal with it, nothing but humans."

In the hospital the aliens would be treated by doctor Rogerio (an orthopaedist). He said:

"I don't know how you could waste your time with that kind of stuff, it's nonsense. There's no extraterrestrials." On the other hand the same doctor Rogerio said to a reporter from the Varginha news: "I don't know what it is (the ET), could be a freak (human), but I have never seen anything like it."

Evening January 20 1997 DEAD EBE MOVED TO ESA AND THEN TO CAMPINAS:

As all this going on, two Americans is reported to have checked into a motel closeby to the Regional Hospital with strange equipment. They were later observed both at the Humanitas hospital (with the equipment and a camrecorder) and at the restaurant Churrascaria Gaucha, at Avenida Dr. Campos Sales 515 in Campinas, late in the evening of January 21. John Carpenter says:

"Americans were known to have checked into a hotel with fake names who were apparently doctors. I know nothing about any equipment or their presence at the hospital".

All other military personal was forbidden to have their jackets on (!) and to use voice recorders, cameras and camcorders. Fire department and military police vehicles were seen outside the entrance with six men, as well as two men from the Army's secret service and some physicians. The two secret service agents met earlier a Lieutenant from S-2, who arrived in a white brown Volkswagen (Fusca type) and stopped beside the "Paes Mendonca" supermarket, in Varginha. Where from they were sent to the Humanitas hospital and were observed entring the hospital.

Mrs. Thereza Starace de Magalhaes Teixeira of Campinas told researcher Ubirajara that her husband, Adalberto, who was in the Humanitas hospital for an operation, saw the dead alien being wheeled out of the morgue on a gurney.

The dead alien was kept at Humanitas hospital for aproximately 30 hours before it was moved to the Escola de Sargento das Armas (ESA), where the military personal was stationed during the whole incident. The moving of the dead alien from Humanitas hospital took place at 6:00 PM on January 22nd and was witnessed by several witnesses. The hospital is located right by a little peripheral road, which leads directly to the Fernao Dias-highway, which links Belo Horizonte to Sao Paulo, and that made the transportation very discreet. Although, the drivers of the trucks (3 in all) didn't seem to know what they were carrying and was held outside the hospital area until the transportation started.

The same convoy would leave the school in Tres Coracoes at 4:00 o' clock A.M., on Tuesday, January 23rd. Destination: Campinas (a much bigger city upstate Sao Paulo) where the "cargo" would have been delivered to another military unit, probably the Army Cadets Prep. School.

All this operation was coordinated by lieutenant-colonel Olimpio Wanderley Santos", says Mr. Rodrigues. "We have the testimony of an army officer from the Escola de Sargentos in Tres Coracoes who was directly involved in the operation. He describes in detail everything that happened during those days", adds Mr. Pacaccini. In the 42-minute recording, this person says that decomposition had already begun and when the corpse left Hospital Humanitas the smell was pretty bad.

Interviews with some of the military who participated in this new operation, removing the creature from the Humanitas Hospital, declared that three Army trucks were used, each one driven by two different soldiers. It is believed that three trucks were used to remove only one body in order to [prevent] the soldiers from knowing in which truck it would be transported. The drivers and their [escorts] couldn't see the details of the operations, as they were kept outside the hospital area. Military personnel from the Army Internal Intelligence (called "S-2" in Brazil and extremely violent and repressive) were responsible for getting the corpse from the interior of the hospital, placing it in a box and then in one of the trucks."

This was observed by several people as the police had stopped all traffic to ease the route for the three-truck and Jeep convoy.

April 21st 1997 ANOTHER ALIEN SEEN:

On April 21st 1996, at 9:00 PM, Mrs. Therezinha Gallo Clepf (67), a housewife, sighted a similar creature (according to her description) that the girls saw in the park in January.

She was in a party at the zoo restaurant as she went out to smoke a cigarette on the porch. She saw the creature in the porch's parapet, only from the neck upwards. Mrs. Therezinha became very frightened and freezed, staying this way about five minutes, looking all the time at the creature on a 4 meter distance, without making any gesture. The difference between her description and the one made by the two da Silva-sisters and their friend was that now the creature had a helmet-like gear on it's head. It was in gold color. That stopped her from seeing the creature's ears. The rest was the same description: dark brown skin, bright and oily, a rounded face, red eyes, and didn't have any cheeks, nor beard, moustache or nose, and on the lips position there was only a cut.

End April 1997 MYSTERIOUS ANIMAL DEATHS AT THE ZOO:

Some days after Mrs. Therezinha's sighting of the creature outside the zoo-restaurant, five animals were found dead in the place. The zoo biologist, Dr. Leila Cabral, found traces of some toxic substance in one of the animals. The cause of death to the rest is still unknown and unexplained.

June 16 1997 TV SHOW:

The TV show "Programa de Domingo" identified the men involved in the three-truck convoy that transferred the aliens to Campinas, about 200 miles in distance, on January 23 at 4:00 AM. According to the broadcast, Lt. Col. Olimpio Wanderley Santos commanded the convoy, accompanied by two officers, Captain Ramirez and Lieutenant Tiberio, plus Sergeant Pedrosa from S-2, brazilian military intelligence. Corporal Cirilo and Sergeant Pedrosa drove the middle truck with the aliens inside. The other trucks were driven by Private Vassalo and Private De Mello. Also a Jeep (Engesa type) was part of the convoy. And from the Army Cadets Prep. School where the convoy stayed for 9 hours, meanwhile the dead alien was taken to the University of Campinas , where the famous physician Dr. Fortunato Badan Palhares (he was the one who autopsied German Nazi Mengele, about ten years ago) did an autopsy of the dead EBE. Palhares, as well as another authority involved, denies any such operation. But personal from the University has been seen in the Jardim Andere park collecting soil and vegetation samples from where one of the EBEs was reported to have been caught. And researcher Eduardo Mondini came up with this:

"We managed to contact IML (Instituto Medico Legal - Institute of Legal Medicine) and the Army's headquarters in Campinas, but both authorities deny the exhumation. However, we found a military from Campinas who allegedly saw a document over his commander's desk, proving the E.T. had been in Campinas. We got with an employee of IML the information that on January 20-26 there had been military movement inside IML, in the Army's private drawers, in order to get a body in or out there."

There is also information of an autopsy made at the Humanitas hospital in Varginha by the same - Dr. Fortunato Badan Palhares, and Dr. Coradin Nesve. And that the dead alien later was taken to the Amarais Cemetery near the University of Campinas, where it was frozen for shipment. But probably it is the same autopsy made at Campinas University and the body later frozen, also in Campinas.

At 9:00 PM, the 6 living EBEs were driven to Campinas airport where they were put aboard a twin-engined EMB Buffalo owned by the Forca Aerea Brasileira (Brazilian Air Force) and flown to Sao Paulo, where they changed plane to a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane. THE ALIENS WERE THEN MARCHED ABOARD THE C-17. And according to sources in the Sao Paulo tower, the C-17's destination was Albrook Air Force base in Panama. And there the trail disappears... If the two dead aliens were aboard, we don't know. But researcher Claudeir Covo says that he has been given independent statements from several guards that one of the dead aliens is still at the University-lab in Campinas:

"Three military men, one from Campinas, one from Jundiai and another one from Sumare gave us that information. They do not know each other", assures Covo. We are in no doubt about the laboratory real existence. We are now just trying to gain access to it."

According to Covo, the secret laboratory is guarded and occupied by Brazilian military personnel. The equipment resembles that of a Sci-fiction movie. It's being studied by Konradin Nesve II, a German Professor and forensic expert.

Ufologists are puzzled by the finding last week of 25 mutilated corpses of animals in Souza district, Campinas. According to Covo, 13 dogs and 12 cats have had their eyes plucked out, apparently with the aid of instruments of surgical precision. The sexual organs of male animals had also been cut off before being brought to UNICAMP - University of Campinas.

"All these circumstances point out to some type of research carried out by extraterrestrials on some animals", ended Covo. For him, this case could be related to that of Varginha.

DENYING EVERYTHING - Now, what about the military, fire department and police statements to this incident ?

The military denies everything, up to a point of not even have been in the Jardim Andere park despite witnesses. The military has a problem as 17 of their own personal involved has spoken on recorded testimonies and even camcorders. Among them is a 42-minute tape where a military officer in high position gives every detail of their involvement (this according to investigators Rodrigues and Pacaccini). The military leaders has placed the military-school soldiers at ESA under strict orders not to talk to the press or ufologists.

And then there is the hospital-staff that has given testimonys and statements that confirms the story. To that we can add the Regional Hospital director's contradictory statements to the researchers and press.

And finally we have a great number of official and "protected" civilian witnesses to the army's several operations and capture of the EBE in Jardim Andere and convoy-movements.

To that, there is a mystic case where a boy of a high placed local politician was founded dead in a police cell a week after the incident. The military has tried to explain the whole incident to be caused by that boy's death and the transportation to the Humanitas hospital. The military means that everything is a mix-up with that, not yet, cleared incident.

This is from "The Wall Street Journal" interview with Captain Calza:

"Capt. Calza says he can't vouch for what the three women saw in January. But the activity on the base that fateful weekend, he insists, was anything but otherworldly: New inductees to a sergeant's school went on parade and a truck convoy was driven to the repair shop. Concurrently, at the town hospital, trucks delivered new cardiovascular equipment and an ambulance dropped off an exhumed corpse, a human body, officials insist."

But the exhumed boy who was found dead in his cell was found A WEEK after the proclaimed incident in Jardim Andere and the hospital. And a military man at the ESA camp has told Pacaccini (on videotape) that he saw a folder about the EBE on a officer's desk. In the folder was a description and drawing of the EBE's hand. This is from Wall Street Journal: "The print is said to resemble what a human hand would look like with the palm flat, and a space opened up between the ring and pinky fingers and the other three digits."

November 1-4 1997, UFO CONGRESS:

Big International UFOlogy Congress in Londrina, Parana, Brazil. Speakers were A.J.Gevaerd, Pedro Cunha, Jenny Randles, Jerome Clark, Dr. John Mack, Jorge Martin, Kevin Randle, Leah Haley, Marc Davenport, Timothy Good, Vitorio Pacaccini and William Bramley.

1997, WITNESS OFFERED MONEY TO DENY:

One of the most significant developments are the four men that arrived at the home of [Luisa Helena] da Silva, the home of two of the girls who stumbled on the EBE 15:30 PM on January 20. The four men were driving a Navy blue 1994 Lincoln Continental with Distrito Federal (Brasilia) license plates. They all wore white and cream Armani suits. The four men, one Brazilian and three American, offered the mother Luiza Helena Fatima da Silva $20,000 if the girls would go on the TV and say that they made the whole story up. The girls and their mother refused. "They said they would pay cash", "they also said they would come back but we cannot hide the truth", says Mrs. da Silva in UFO Roundup's June issue. And we know that there has been a cover-up at the military school outside Varginha and that all personal has been forbidden to talk to investigators like Rodrigues and Pacaccini. One soldier was arrested as the senior officer thought he was a security-risk. This was confirmed by people inside the base to researchers. And as the incident happened over a weekend and the military school is almost totally empty on weekends, aproximately 98% of the personal is unaware of the details.

LATEST UPDATES:

Details are popped up all the time which has helped to put together the presentation above. According to John Carpenter the researchers involved on location in Brazil, have been getting direct threats over the telephone and problems with the phonelines have continued since that. And UFO's have been observed in almost every city in Minas Gerais, and some of them are photographed and videofilmed.


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This page was last updated on February 6, 2005