UFOs and Creatures Reported in Varginha, Brazil

by Charles Lear

Brazil has a unique place in UFO history, not only for the abundance of high-strangeness UFO reports that come from that region, but also for the fact that people have been reportedly injured and have even died as a result of their alleged encounters. One such case comes from the Brazilian city of Varginha. In this case, not only is there a report of a witness dying, there are also reports that one, and maybe more, extraterrestrials ended their days here on Earth.

Bob Pratt, a UFO researcher who manned the National Enquirer’s UFO desk for a period and covered South American UFO reports extensively, presented a narrative summary of the case in his 1996 book, UFO Danger Zone: Terror and Death in Brazil – Where Next? He was in Brazil shortly after the events and his summary is based on witness accounts and reports from the primary investigators. Read more

A UFO and Creature Report From Kofu, Japan: Part 2

by Charles Lear

Landing Site

In last week’s blog, we took a look at a case from Kofu, Japan, that involved two seven-year-old boys, Masato Kono and Katushiro Yamahata, who reported seeing a saucer-shaped UFO and its occupants in a vineyard in 1975. The creatures were described as having brown heads with pinky-sized, horizontal wrinkles where a face would be; three silver, metallic, two-inch fang-like features where a mouth would be; and two rabbit-like ears with a hole in the middle of each one. One of the creatures confronted the boys and emitted a noise like a sped-up tape recorder in what seemed to be an attempt to communicate. They ran away to Kono’s home where their parents were having dinner and they excitedly told their story. Kono’s mother thought they had made it up as an excuse for being late, but the boys insisted it was true and pleaded with their mothers to go with them and see for themselves. The boys would soon be forgiven for being late and would become the center of attention for many interested parties.

Masako Kono and Hanae Yamahata followed their boys out to a road on the west side of the Hinode Complex where the Konos lived. With them were Hanae’s one-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. From there, they had a view of the vineyard where the boys said they’d seen the saucer and the creatures. Read more

A UFO and Creature Encounter Report From Kofu, Japan

by Charles Lear

In 1975, two seven-year-old boys in Kofu, Japan, reported an encounter with a flying saucer and its occupants. They were taken seriously, and an investigation revealed not only other witnesses, but also physical evidence to back up their story. The case was re-examined almost 40 years later by investigators from the Space Phenomena Observatory Center, and in their opinion, still holds up. A report was given to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and the Center for UFO Studies by Matsushito Hayashi of the Japan Space Phenomena Association. Both organizations provided summaries (APRO here on page 5; and CUFOS here on page 13) in their publications. A two-part article using extensive Japanese sources was written by Otakupapa. It is titled Kofu Incident: A Creepy Alien Got Off a UFO and Tapped a Japanese Boy on the Shoulder and is posted on otakupapa.net.

According to the article, on Sunday, February 23, 1975, Masato Kono and Katushiro Yamahata were roller-skating on a concrete slab in a vacant lot at around 6:30 p.m. Looking up, they saw two lights moving towards them from the east. According to the version of events in one of Otakupapa’s sources (Kubota, Hachiro UFO to Uchu (UFOs & Space) June 1975, NO.12, 8-17, Universe Publishing Co.), the lights were seen by the boys to be orange objects as they got closer. At this point the boys could see that the objects were circular with three spinning structures on the bottom. The boys’ descriptions of the objects are very much like the “classic” Adamski-type saucer. According to writer Hiroshi Minamiyama (Otakupapa’s other source for this moment in the story) only one object came over to the boys while the other one flew off.

Read more

A UFO Abduction in Cergy-Pontoise?

by Charles Lear

On November 26, 1979, police in the French agglomeration community of Cergy-Pontoise received a strange missing person report from two distressed young men. According to Jean-Pierre Prévost and Salomon N’Diaye, their friend, Franck Fontaine, disappeared after a ball of light that was accompanied by three or four luminous spheres engulfed the car he was in. This resulted in not only an investigation by the police but also GEPAN (Groupe d’Études des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-identifiés), the unit of CNES (Centre National D’études Spatiales) tasked with dealing with UFO reports.

According to an article on the case titled L’Affaire de Cergy-Pontoise, posted on rrO.org, Fontaine, 18, Prévost and N’Diaye, both 25, were loading a Ford station wagon with jeans they were going to try and sell at Gisors market. They saw a light heading towards the ground at a “not too fast speed.” Fontaine drove towards where he thought it might have made impact after telling the other two to meet him there. Prévost and N’Diaye went back to their nearby apartments, N’Diaye to get a camera and Prévost to get another load of jeans. Read more

PART II: A Multiple Witness UFO Abduction

by Charles Lear

Filiberto Cárdenas

In last week’s blog, we wrote about an incident involving Filiberto Cárdenas, a Cuban exile living in Hialeah, Florida. Cárdenas was reportedly seen by his friend and his friend’s wife and daughter to float up in a beam of light into some sort of craft that then flew off. Two hours later, he was found 16 miles away on his hands and knees in the middle of the road. He was taken to a hospital and tested for radiation. The tests came up negative, but he experienced mysterious symptoms including an excessive thirst, shaking hands, and a sulfurous body odor. While this case might have been held up as an argument for the reality of the alien abduction phenomenon, it is rarely discussed and is overshadowed by more famous cases such as that involving Travis Walton. A possible reason for this is that Cárdenas, and then his wife, reported experiences that were similar to those of contactees, who have often been discounted by many in the UFO research community. Read more

A multiple witness UFO Abduction

by Charles Lear

Travis Walton

UFO abduction cases have been controversial ever since the very first cases were reported. The main factor working against them is that most of them are single witness reports. There are exceptions, of course, the most famous being the 1975 Travis Walton case. In this incident, six of Walton’s co-workers (they were working in Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona on an NFS Timber Stand Improvement contract) reported seeing Walton knocked back by a beam of light from a UFO and then lifted up by the beam. Walton was missing for five days and the Navajo County Sheriff suspected his co-workers of murder. They were subjected to lie-detector tests at the Navajo County Courthouse in Holbrook, Arizona, and all six of them passed. This case is still discussed and held up in support of abduction claims, but another abduction case with multiple witnesses that also seems worthy of consideration is nowhere near as well known.

Read more

UPDATE on Irma Rick (Woman Transported By UFO?)

We’ve written two blogs following the story of Irma Rick, a woman from the Pampas region of Argentina. She went missing and was found the next day in a town around 65 km from where she was last seen. She reported being in her yard in Jacinto Aráuz, seeing a light, and then suddenly finding herself sitting on a road in the town of Guatraché with no memory of how she got there. A local prosecutor opened an investigation into the case. Rick was interviewed by a researcher and a reporter, who both approached her case as if it was a possible alien abduction. Rick, notably, avoided that conclusion saying she didn’t know what had happened to her. Now she’s come forward saying she might be pregnant with an alien baby.

Rick was interviewed on Bahía Hoy, a program broadcast by La Brújula 24. According to an article on the La Brújula 24 website, at the beginning of the interview, Rick asked the interviewer to “throw a peso at me” because she was “a poor old woman working in the field.” She further explained:

I am doing studies because I can have an alien pregnancy. I don’t ask for much, I have to do a lot of things, I ask for a little help. Tomorrow I have to do ultrasounds and stuff. Supposedly I got pregnant when they took me away. I don’t have a belly yet, I feel discomfort, things that happen to me. I have to consult the prosecutor because she doesn’t want me to talk much yet.

We’ll be sure to keep the reader updated if there are any further developments.

Taken aboard a UFO and Turned Into a Mutant?

By Charles Lear

With UFO reports, there are common elements that give one a sense of the nature of the phenomenon. However, there are some reports that contain elements that are unique to the point that a researcher might be inclined to dismiss them. The case of Herbirito Garza is one of these.

Garza’s case was written about by Scott Corrales in his article “Abductions: The Crucible of Nightmares,” published in the May 2000 issue of Fate magazine (See page 5).  According to Corrales, the case was investigated in 1972 by Jorge Reichert, Salvador Freixedo, and Ian Norris. Garza, a Mexican ceramics technician who lived in the city of Puebla, claimed to have been visited by an alien from the planet Auko and taken aboard a spaceship. According to him, he had just gotten into bed when he heard a noise in the living room. Thinking someone had broken in, he went to investigate. He came upon a “man” that was over two meters tall with a distinguished, almost-feminine-looking face. Read more

Cars lifted up and transported by UFOs

by Charles Lear

In the 1950s, the first reports of cars shutting down in the proximity of UFOs started hitting the news, most memorably those from Levelland, Texas, in 1957. Then, in the 1960’s, there were reports of UFOs chasing cars, sometimes hitting them, and in fair turnabout, reports of cars chasing UFOs. Things didn’t escalate until 1978, when the first reports came out of UFOs lifting cars up in the air, carrying them for various distances and periods of time, and then returning them to the ground.

In 1978 alone, there were four reports that this writer was able to find. The first of these occurred in July of that year and is described on the website of the Missouri Investigators Group.

According to the report, there was a UFO flap in Ellsberry, Mo., at the time. On July 27, Mrs. Clora Winscher, was driving towards her home in Arnold, Mo., after visiting her brother in Beaufort. At around 12:30 a.m., she was coming out of Union, Mo., when she saw what she thought was a tractor trailer coming straight at her. As she braced for impact, her car filled up with white light.

Read more

UFOs and Strange Creatures in Harrah, Washington

by Charles Lear

When a nine-year-old boy in Harrah, Washington, approximately 12 miles west of the city of Toppenish, told his mother a story about seeing strange creatures and their vehicles on the morning of a school day, she heard him out, and then sent him to school. His story would likely have gone no further, had it not been for a teacher’s aide who went with him back to his house during recess after hearing his story and believing him. This lead to the discovery of physical traces that backed up his story and an investigation by members of the Center for UFO Studies and a reporter from a local paper.

According to the article “Harrah Youth Reports UFOs With ‘Greenish Creatures,’” written by Frances Story and published in the January 26, 1977 Toppenish Review, nine-year-old Jose Cantu woke his mother up at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 19, wanting her to explain a “little man” he’d seen outside. His mother, Martha, had had a rough night with her baby and sent him away so she could get some more sleep. Jose then went out to investigate on his own.

Jose came back in and told his mother what he’d seen. According to him, there were two greenish creatures in the yard that were about three feet tall, and instead of having feet, they rotated on round bases. He said he saw two “steely” craft, one sitting in the yard and one on a flat section of the roof, and that there was a creature in each one. He said he observed all this while hiding behind a washing machine outside next to a shed.

As he watched, the two creatures in the yard returned to the vehicles. He said they had “straight stairs” leading to doors that opened “in two parts, like a cross,” and that there were two chairs with tall bases inside. The vehicles then rose up and disappeared into some sort of vaporous cloud. Read more

Blog: UFOs and High Strangeness in Argentina

By Charles Lear

In mid December of last year, we wrote about a woman, Irma Rick, in the province of La Pampa in Argentina, who, after seeing a bright light outside her house, suddenly found herself the next morning almost 65 km (40 miles) away sitting on the side of the road in the town of Guatraché with no memory of how she got there. Most of us here in the United States got the news from INEXPLICATA-The Journal of Hispanic UFOlogy. A recent post on the site on February 6 tells of another report out of La Pampa that is just as strange.

The sources are listed as Luis Burgos and the online La Pampa news publication InfoHuella. InfoHuella posted an article and a follow-up covering the story. On February 4, a couple and their adult son were travelling by truck on their way home to the town of Victoria. They were crossing the border between La Pampa province and San Luis province to the east. As they passed under the border arch they saw “many lights.” According to one of the witnesses, “When we saw the lights, the first thing we wondered was if it had to do with Victorica Agricultural School being lit up. We then realized this could not be the case, as we were far away.” Before they could make sense of what they were seeing, they found themselves entering the town of Victorica, 26 kilometers from where they were a moment ago. Their GPS still indicated that they were in their former position but then “zeroed out” within a few blocks.

Read more

A 1976 UFO Encounter in Kentucky-THE EVIDENCE

by Charles Lear

As mentioned last week, in part three of this four-part series, investigators from the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, the Mutual UFO Network, and the Center for UFO Studies travelled to Liberty, Kentucky, to interview three women there who’d reported an unusual UFO encounter. According to the women, Louise Smith, Mona Stafford, and Elaine Thomas, they suffered physical effects after the encounter including one-inch-by-three-inch rectangular burn-like marks on the backs of their necks, a burning sensation on certain areas of skin when in contact with water, and red irritated eyes. They also seemed to have lost around 80 minutes. This was on January 6, 1976, so it was an early abduction case before the narrative of a “typical” abduction by beings that came to be known as “greys” became prominent.

Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO were told about the case by APRO Field Investigator Bill Terry. He told them that abduction might have been involved, and they arranged for APRO Psychiatric Consultant Dr. Leo Sprinkle to travel to liberty and interview the women at APRO’s expense. He was a specialist in hypnotic regression and APRO was hoping that the women would agree to undergo the procedure.

Read more