by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
This is the third part in a series looking at an early abduction case reported in Brazil. In 1969, José Antônio Da Silva reported that he was taken aboard a craft 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. The case was reported in a Brazilian newspaper that was directly quoted by Gordon Creighton in an article in the November-December 1971 issue of Flying Saucer Review. Last week we looked at the report of the principle investigator, Húlvio Brant Aleixo, who formed the very first Brazilian UFO organization in 1954. His report appears in the article “Abduction at Bebedouro” published in the December 1973 issue (page 7 of pdf) of Flying Saucer Review. We noted some major differences in the accounts and got as far as Da Silva being taken aboard the craft.
The account of the journey taken from the newspaper article is brief, and other than the seating arrangements, matches the account in Aleixo’s report, which is much more detailed. Aleixo describes Da Silva sitting on a long bench near a wall with a creature on each side of him in a room inside a strange craft and a third creature sitting by himself on a small bench in the center.
The creatures were said to have placed a helmet made of plastic-like material on Da Silva’s head that had a tube coming from it that went around to his back. They had been described as wearing similar helmets and Da Silva is said to have been unsure whether they had put a “container” on his back such as the ones they were wearing where their tubes terminated. According to Aleixo, Da Silva “could only see out through two holes in the heavy mask,” which had sharp edges that hurt his shoulders and neck.
The creature sitting by himself is described as moving a lever on the floor to his left and Da Silva is said to have heard a humming noise from above and felt the sensation of taking off. According to the account, the creature then moved a larger lever on the ceiling to his right and Da Silva heard a humming from below and felt as if the craft was accelerating vertically.
According to Aleixo, the creatures started talking “animatedly among themselves” while repeatedly looking over at Da Silva. Their language is described as guttural with the “r” sound predominating at the ends of many words “which were uttered in an arrogant fashion.”
The trip is described as having been long and difficult for Da Silva, who is said to have had trouble breathing to the point of being almost paralyzed by exhaustion. Aleixo says that, at one point well into the journey, the light in the room began pulsating and became so bright that Da Silva had to close his eyes for around an hour until it started to dim. The craft is described as shifting 90° on its horizontal axis as the seats swung to accommodate and then, “after another lengthy period,” returning to its former position until it eventually landed. Da Silva is quoted as saying “I felt the jarring sensation.”
According to Aleixo, as they prepared to exit, the creatures put “a band” over the eye holes in Da Silva’s helmet. They are described as grabbing him under his armpits and dragging him with his knees scraping. Da Silva is said to have heard many voices speaking the same language he heard before, in various pitches from higher to lower, but to have perceived none as being feminine.
At this point in the account, Da Silva is set down on what he perceives is a backless seat and the band is removed from his eyeholes. He sees he is in a “quadrangular room” with each wall being 15-20 meters. His attention is drawn to a creature five meters in front of him described as being taller (1.25m) and more “robustly built” than the others with “his gaze riveted on him.” According to Aleixo, this creature wasn’t wearing a helmet or a spacesuit, and the creatures who’d brought Da Silva removed theirs at this point and began “talking animatedly with this new one whom José Antônio took to be their chief.”
The “chief” is described as being “like the others . . . extremely hairy” with thick eyebrows, hair down to his waist, and a beard down to his stomach. His eyes, ears and nose are said to be larger than ours, with the eyes being green and the nose pointed. Da Silva is quoted describing the mouths of the creatures: “They looked like fishes’ mouths. I didn’t see a tooth in any one of them.”
A quote from Da Silva describes him starting to pray when he saw the chief because he thought he wouldn’t be coming back. He said he became less fearful as the creature, in Aleixo’s words, “seemed extremely happy and gesticulated with his hands as he talked.” According to Da Silva, the creature “seemed to be nice.”
Aleixo says Da Silva saw other identical creatures coming in from behind him until there were 10 to 12 of them, but his vision was limited by his helmet so he could only see three walls in front of him and didn’t see them enter through any sort of door he assumed was in the fourth wall.
The four bodies Da Silva was reported to have seen in the newspaper article are described in detail in this report and Da Silva is said to have been “astonished and terrified” when he caught sight of them. According to Aleixo, they resembled us and were lying naked, face up, on a “low shelf.” He describes there being one dark-skinned, one light brown, and two lighter and thinner bodies, one of which had blond hair, “like a foreigner.” He says the “little men paid no heed to the corpses” and that Da Silva became pessimistic and concerned that he might not get home, though he didn’t think the creatures had killed them. Da Silva is quoted as saying “Perhaps they couldn’t stand up to the experience, or perhaps they pulled their helmets off.”
The description of the room is similar to that in the newspaper account though it is, again, much more detailed. The walls and floor are described as seemingly made of stone due to their grey color, and the lighting is described as being “of the mercury vapour type” with no discernable source. In addition to the pictures of the animals, “such as the jaguar, the monkey, the elephant, the giraffe,” pictures of other things said to be familiar to Da Silva are described, such as a small town full of houses, trees, forests, the sea, trucks, cars (an Alfa-Romeo FNM is specifically mentioned), and a two-engine, propeller-driven airplane are described as being “separately arranged” on the wall to Da Silva’s left. The wall in front of him and the wall to his right are said to have been bare.
According to Aleixo, on the floor to Da Silva’s right, was something that looked to him like a racing car, but instead of wheels, there were four round structures that reminded him of turbines. A cube on which the chief occasionally sat is said to have been five meters in from of him with a three-meter-long slab to its right, which would later be used as a slate for sketches.
Due to the excitement of the little men, Da Silva is said to have “concluded that his presence was a source of great satisfaction for them.” The creatures are described as being very much alike “despite variations in size, features, skin colouring, length of beard, and colour of eyes.”
Next week: Communication, demonstrations, a proposal, and an apparition.