by UFO Author, Charles Lear
The history of civilian UFO/flying saucer research in Brazil goes back as far as that of the United States. The first organization to be formed there was Civil de Objetos Aéreos Nao Identitificados (Civil Investigation Center for Unidentified Aerial Objects) founded by Húlvio Brant Aleixo in Belo Horizonte in 1954. Aleixo was a professor of psychology at the Catholic University of Minas Gerais and was an active investigator for much of his life. He was one of the people Bob Pratt worked with when he did his investigations for his 1996 book UFO Danger Zone, and according to his biography in a memorial (he seems to have passed away on World UFOlogy Day, June 24, 2005) posted January 9, 2006, on the UFO Magazine website, he was a consultant on UFOs for the Brazilian Air Force. Documents describing a case he reported to the Brazilian Ministerio Da Aeronautica in 1974 can be found online. He was the principal investigator of a reported abduction said to have occurred over a period of approximately four and a half days (109 hours) from May 4, 1969, to May 9, 1969, in Bebedouro, (not the municipality of São Paulo) an area over 100 miles north of Belo Horizonte, and that is the case we’ll be looking at in this blog.
The case of José Antônio da Silva is examined in three issues of Flying Saucer Review: November-December 1971, November-December 1973, and November 1975. The first article, “Forty-Eight Hours in a Flying Saucer” by Gordon Creighton gives an account that, according to him, was taken from a press clipping that came from the May 16, 1969, edition of either the Rio de Janeiro Diário de Noticias or the São Paulo Diário da Noite. Creighton quotes the report straight from the clipping, so this is an early account close to the time of the event.
Abduction 2 picDa Silva is said to have reported that he was picked up by a flying saucer near the town of Pedro Leopoldo and then set down in Colatina, which is 350km away. He then took a train back to Belo Horizonte where he was picked up by a railway policeman who saw him “standing in a peculiar manner beside the track.” He reportedly told his story to the policeman and then told it again to a “group of curious listeners” at the (police?) station.
Da Silva is described as being a soldier in the Brazilian Guards Battalion and “of little education.” According to the report, he was fishing at a lake near Pedro Leopoldo, when a noise behind him caused him to turn around. He is said to have seen a disc-shaped craft come down and land on a tripod that came out of the bottom. A bright yellow light that came from it changed to red and then faded out until he was able to see the shape of the craft.
A hatch that had a staircase on its inside is described as opening and coming down, and three small yellowish, hairy men with high cheekbones are said to have descended. According to the article, they all carried a weapon, and one of them shot a beam of light out of the one he had that struck Da Silva’s legs and paralyzed them.
The men are described as coming over to Da Silva and examining him quickly. They are said to have then put a helmet on his head that seemed to be made of plastic. According to the report, they spoke to him in a language he couldn’t understand, but he gathered that they “wanted to take him for a trip around the other worlds.”
The little men are said to have taken Da Silva into the saucer and the inside is described as having a shaft that went from floor to ceiling that had four seats attached to it, into which they all sat and then secured themselves with seat belts. According to the article, the saucer rose up and turned upside down, but Da Silva “did not feel he was in this position.”
Da Silva is said to have produced the policeman, Geraldo Lopes da Silva (no relation), and the assistant to the station-master, Emilio da Silva (again, no relation), as witnesses who said they believed his story and to have claimed that the watchman at the Colatina railway station had seen the saucer land. Abduction pic
More details are included that reportedly come from Da Silva telling his story at the station. He said he took the train from Colatina where the little men had left him and that they told him “We’ll return in three years from now to look for you again.” According to him, even though he spent 48 hours in the saucer, he wasn’t hungry or tired.
He said they passed, in the reporter’s words, “an extremely powerful source of light” that he thought might have been the Sun and that they eventually landed somewhere. From the article: “When the door descended, he saw that he was in a bright ashen-colored – ? – (Text defective – G.C.).” He is said to have seen “bodies of Earth beings” and “drawings of animals on the walls” and to have been given “a bitter greenish sort of water to drink.”
According to the article, he was asked questions about Earth, and he answered them. Then the saucer is described as returning to Earth “at great speed” and then landing at Colatina where Da Silva was dropped off. Da Silva is said to have been “quite stunned” during his train ride to Belo Horizonte and to have had injuries to his back. His legs are described as having been “asleep.”
The article describes Da Silva being taken to the Guards Brigade barracks where a “great multitude gathered around the gate.” The reporter says it was “understood” that he was taken to a military hospital for mental evaluation but explains “nobody will confirm this.”
After the quoted newspaper account, Creighton gives his thoughts. He starts off by noting that, in Da Silva’s story, “there is not a shred of evidence in it to point to outer space.” Considering that the craft is referred to in the article as a flying saucer, and it is said to have flown through space, this is a curious statement. He goes further after comparing Da Silva’s story to that of George Adamski, Antonio Villas Boas, and Felipe Martinez (who claimed to have contacts with small men in helmets in Argentina who tried to put one on him) by saying:
It is the little gents themselves who fed this idea into him, as they manipulated and brainwashed his mind. Throughout the centuries these creatures have always been noted for their penchant for humbug. And this time, as so often in the past, they picked a simple sort of fellow with whom to play their tricks and to whom to give their current line in cock-and-bull stories, which is “Space Travel.”
Creighton was one of the earliest people to have accepted the ideas of John Keel and Jacques Vallée that we might be dealing with interdimensional, ultraterrestrial, fae folk type tricksters, but he had his own ideas at the time he wrote this that put it into context.
According to Håkan Blomqvist in his January 3, 2014, posting on his site at blogspot.com headlined “Gordon Creighton and the FSR Archives,” “Gordon Creighton derived much of his basic ideas on UFOs from Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophical movement. According to anthroposophists, UFOs are manifestations of the demonic Ahriman.” Blomqvist explains that from 1965-1974, the assistant editor of FSR was Dan Lloyd and that he “and his wife Eileen were leading anthroposophists in Britain.”
Next Week: Da Silva’s story as reported by Húlvio Brant Aleixo.