by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
In last week’s blog, we looked at the case of José Antônio Da Silva who, in 1969, reported that he was taken aboard a flying saucer by three hairy dwarves, one of whom shot a beam of light that hit him in the legs and paralyzed them. He said this took place in Bebedouro, near the Brazilian town of Pedro Leopoldo, that he was flown through space, that they landed at a place where he saw human bodies, drawings of animals on the walls, and answered questions put to him about Earth. According to him, he was taken back to Earth and left off at Colatina, 350km east of Pedro Leopoldo. His story was reported in the November-December 1971 issue of Flying Saucer Review in an article by Gordon Creighton, who quoted directly from a Brazilian newspaper article and then commented that the creatures had tricked Da Silva into believing he’d been to space. We noted that this fitted in with Creighton’s beliefs based on the ideas of Jacques Vallée, John Keel, and particularly those of anthroposophy. This week, we’ll look at the case as reported by Brazilian investigator Húlvio Brant Aleixo, who formed the very first Brazilian UFO organization in 1954, around the same time as the first United States organizations.
Aleixo presents “a brief account of the interviews and examinations, including data supplied by third parties” in the article “Abduction at Bebedouro” published in the December 1973 issue (page 7 of pdf) of Flying Saucer Review. Creighton is credited with the translation from Portuguese. The report begins with a description of Da Silva’s arrival in his home area of Belo Horizonte on May 10, 1969, after having traveled by train from Colatina.
In the previous account, he is said to have been noticed by a railway policeman, Geraldo Lopes da Silva (no relation), who saw him “standing in a peculiar manner by the track,” and in Alexio’s version, the policeman is said to have been seen him exiting the train with other passengers. It is explained that there had been recent thefts of copper wire from the railway, and that the policeman suspected that a package Da Siva was carrying might have contained some, and this caused him to detain Da Silva. According to the account, he asked Da Silva for his papers, and Da Silva explained that they were taken from him, and he identified himself as “a soldier.”
According to Aleixo, the officer took Da Silva to “one of the booking halls” and went through the contents of his package, which consisted of food, fishing tackle, and clothes. Da Silva explained that he was “the orderly to Major Célio Ferreira, Deputy-Commandant of the Guards Battalion of the Military Police of Minas Gerais,” and to have “said he had a story to tell.” The policeman is described as coming to believe Da Silva’s tale, “after hearing the story through several times,” and then to have called a local radio station which sent a reporter.
According to Aleixo, after the interview, Da Silva was sent to the military police barracks. Major Célio Ferreira (described as sending out a search party for Da Silva just the day before) is said to have been “struck by the extremely poor physical condition of the soldier” and to have sent him home on May 11 for 24 hours so he could recover. Da Silva is described as making his way up the hill to his home “with great difficulty” where he was greeted by his worried family (his being gone so long without telling them was reportedly unusual) who “found him thin, burnt by the sun, bearded, and lame in one leg.”
As noted in last week’s blog, Aleixo’s group, Civil de Objetos Aéreos Não Identitificados (Civil Investigation Center for Unidentified Aerial Objects), was based in Belo Horizonte. According to Aleixo, they managed to interview Da Silva on the night of May 11, and this was followed by others where no “significant variations” in his account or his behavior were observed. He adds that, after a week of interviews, “a reconstitution of the scene was enacted at the actual site of the occurrence at Bebedouro.”
Aleixo’s account differs from the one in the newspaper. In the newspaper account, Da Silva was by a lake fishing at dawn when he was startled by a noise behind him and turned around. He is said to have seen a flying saucer land, from which, three small, yellowish, hairy men descended. In Aleixo’s account, Da Silva was by a lake fishing at 3:00 p.m., when he became aware of figures moving behind him and heard voices. He then heard a deep groan, and this was followed by a “burst of fire” hitting him in the leg that came from where a figure was seen partially hidden by bushes. His leg cramped up and went numb, and he dropped to his knees by the lake. This is similar to the newspaper account except that, in that version, it seems he was shot by the men as they exited the saucer (we erred last week by reporting that he was described as being shot by only one of them).
In the newspaper account, the creatures came over to Da Silva, quickly examined him, placed a helmet that seemed to be made of plastic on his head, and then, speaking in a strange language, made him understand that “they wanted to take him for a trip around the other worlds.” In Aleixo’s version, two creatures grabbed Da Silva under the armpits and dragged him with his legs scraping the ground “through the swampy thickets which they negotiated with ease.” As they went, they passed the creature that shot him.
Aleixo’s description of the creatures is much more detailed and differs from the one in the newspaper, which makes no mention of what the creatures were wearing. He says they were about 1.2m tall and dressed in shiny, light-colored garments “with articulated segments at the elbows and knees.” He describes them wearing masks that were rounded in the back, square and flat in the front, with round 2cm holes for the eyes and a “projection” for the nose. He says the masks were widened at the bottom, unattached to the clothing, and had a tube coming out of the lower part that went under the creatures’ armpits and attached to a “small container” on their backs.
According to Aleixo, Da Silva said he thought he could have taken the creatures but, at that point, he “felt more curiosity than fear.” In this account, it is after they passed the third creature that Da Silva saw the craft.
Whereas the craft was described as being disc shaped in the newspaper account, it is described by Aleixo as a grey vertical cylinder with black lenticular structures on its top and bottom, both of which were wider than the cylinder, with the top one being wider than the bottom. Rods are said to have gone from the top structure at an oblique angle into the base of the cylinder. Da Silva is described as using a tumbler and two saucers, one bigger than the other, to illustrate, and there is a picture identified as a photograph of a colored painting by Alberto Francisco do Carmo based on Da Silva’s description included in the article.
The interior of the craft is also different in Aleixo’s version. In the newspaper account, the inside is described as having a shaft that went from floor to ceiling that had four seats attached to it. In Aleixo’s version, it is described as a grey “quadrangular compartment” with two grey seats, one long one near the wall with the door, and one small one in the middle of the room. The lighting is described as “intense” and “of the mercury vapour type.” According to Aleixo, Da Silva couldn’t see any source for the light. The walls are described as being completely smooth.
According to Aleixo, one creature sat in the smaller seat, while Da Silva sat in the larger one, along with a creature on either side of him. The creatures are said to have put a helmet on Da Silva’s head, fastened his feet and waist with a “dry, rough material” and then to have fastened themselves as well.
Next Week: The journey.
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