The Varginha case is unique in many ways. First of all it's an once-in-a-lifetime shot for UFO-researchers to have a really "hard" case in their hands. UFOlogists that has great insight from their studies of previous cases from the 40's and up to date. UFOlogists as Stanton T. Friedman and John Carpenter, who to many represents the "famous elite". But also well renowned men like the local investigators Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues and Vitorio Pacaccini (who was the first two to investigate and blew the case right open), AJ Gevaerd (MUFON's representive in Brazil). Men like Stanton T. Friedman is an expert in the legedary Roswell-incident and knows how the secrecy-machine works, an insight that will be vital when it comes to finding out what has happened to the EBE's (Extraterrestrial Biological Entity) that is supposed to have been transfered alive to Albrook Airforce Base in Panama. Click on the picture for enlarged version.

By Jorgen Westman
Illustrations by Thomas Feiner.

My intention with this article is to try to make a thorougly presentation of the case with all vital information available from researchers in USA and Brazil to this date. To my help I have two of the researchers that went down to Brazil and Varginha to get first hand information from local researchers - Stanton T. Friedman and John Carpenter. And then I have all the reports from a number of Brazilian investigators, along with articles in UFO magazines and daily news media. I also like to thank Paulo H Andrade and Ricardo Varrela Correa for doublechecking my information. As I hope you understand - I can't personally speak for the veracity of all this information as I have only gathered what the local researchers has presented. But as Bob Marley sang "time will tell".
As the investigation still is ongoing the names of "delicate" witnesses is withheld to protect their familys and most of all themself. To this category I place military and hospital staff, and some authority-personal. I'm sure they will be presented in the near future. I must mark that the witnesses names is NOT withheld by ME, but by the local researchers.

Varginha, is a city of 120,000 people is located in Brazils Minas Gerais state and the main incident happened in the northern part of the city between January 20-22, 1996. But let's not get ahead. There is an incident prior to the main event.

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 Intergrated Center on Air Defense and Air Traffic Control ) and warnes them of a UFO coming down over southern parts of Minas Gerais state. This is witnessed and leaked by both an Brazilian Air Force man and an employee at the rdara facility at Air Force Base VI Comar, who recived the information, all this according to John Carpenter and Ricardo Varela Correa.
On January 20, after midninght, at aprox. 1:30 AM the farmworkers-couple Augusta and Eurico Rodrigues were wakened by the roams of the farm-cows and sheeps. 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 the 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. (source: AJ Gevaerd in my video)"

The Rodrigues couples farm is placed in a coffe 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 belived to have crashed between 1:30 AM and 5:00 AM that night.. An American civilian was present when the cigarrshaped UFO was loaded aboard a flatbed truck in the early morning of January 20 - a saturday, according to Brazil's UFO Magazine. Between the alleged crashsite 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 immediatly 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 cigarr-shaped UFO.

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."

8:00 AM 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 8 a.m. 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.
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 firestation 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 fireengine, they noticed that it was not a strange animal at all, and they also found the miltary 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 thru radio and asked him to go there too as the situation was more complicated than they thought. The Major arrived aprox. 10:30 AM, but by then the capture of the EBE was allready 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 throwed some stones towards the EBE, who appeared apathic to the way he was treated. He only gave away a noise similar to bees buzzing. The adress 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 a army truck. The miltary and firemen on the site was:

Lieutenant Colonel Olimpio Wanderley (Chief of operations)
Lieutenant Tiberio
Captain Ramirez
Sargeant Pedrosa (Brazilian Army secret service S-2)

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

Corporal Cirilo
Soldier Vassalo
Soldier De Mello

And also the chief of the first operation of capture - MAJOR MACIEL.

At the same time as the firemen capture the first seen EBE, more witnesses observed strange movements. A lawyer in Varginha and former miltary witnessed two planes that he recognized as F-5's (see picture), 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 de Artilharia Leve, or Light Artillery Rifle). The details around this is still being investigated by researcher Claudeir Covo. The military and fire department operation was held very quiet and smooth and both firebrigade 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 (EAS) - 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 aprox. 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 :
1 dead
2 injured (1 later dead)
5 unhurt and living.

(Click on the picture for an enlerged version)

Around 15:30 PM on the same sunny Saturday afternoon three girls, two sisters - Lilliane Fatima Silva (16) , Valquiria fatime 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) Lilliane 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."

"He would stake his carrer and his license on those three girls being truthful" (see picture).

During the afternoon people are watching a number of armytrucks 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 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 testimonys 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.

"Here in Varginha there is people who likes 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."

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

"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".

As all this going on, two Americans is repported 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 equippment and a camrecorder) and at the restaurant Churrascaria Gaucha, 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."

"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. "

"We managed to contact IML (instituto Médico Legal - Institute of Legal medicine) and the Armys headquarters in Campinas, but both authorities deny the exhumation. However, we found a military from Campinas who allegedly saw a document over his commanders desk, proving the E.T. had been in Campinas. We got with an emplyee of IML the information that on January 20-26 there had been military movement inside IML, in the Armys private drawers, in order to get a body in or out of there."

"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".

"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.

"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 sergeants' training 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."

"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."

Update

(Picture of UFO over Brazil)

So, this was in January and now it's August/September. What has happened?
Well, details are popping up all the time which has helped me to put together the presentation above for you. 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.
But one of the most significant developments are the four men that arrived at the home of da Silva, the home of two of the girls who stumbled on the EBE 15:30 PM on january 20. The four men was 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 Rodriguez 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, aprox. 98% of the personal is unaware of the details.

Another issue is the continuing sightings of EBE's in the area.

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 a party at the zoo restaurant as she went out to smoke a cigarrette 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 goldcolor. That stopped her from seeing the creatures 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, mustasch or nose, and on the lips position there were only a cut.
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.

(Piture of a UFO over Brazil in 1976)

Vitrio Pacaccini also says that there is proof of an existing viodeofilm 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 (first capture). Two reporters were in Varginha were also aproached 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 accrss to a film recorded at ESA showing the creatures. he had already shown it to his cousin, who then offered it to SBT (Sistema Brasiliero de Televisio=Brazilian Television System), the second major TV Network in Brazil. The boy wanted 70,000 Reais ($68,000). The 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 saus that he has many evidence that the film is still located in Virginha.

On May 4th, Lelis Silva, 46 years old, trader, filmed a round object at a party at his motherinlaw's house on the outskirt of Divinopolis, Ipiranga state. The camera was a Panasonic camcorder, model NVA-A1BR. Mr Silva filmed the full moon as a present to his motherinlaw and as he looked at the filmed later he saw, on aprox. 200 meters distance, 25-30 degrees with reference to his own position, a round object which has a lot of rings and a whole in the middle. The object was strongly lit, changed its shape and colour, beyond moving itself. The film is now within UFO-researchers in the area.

The image on Mr Lelis video looks like some ancient paintings which were found at the rocks of the National Park of Sete Cidades, north of the state of Piaui. These paintings are 12,000 years old. UFO researcher Simao Neves says that a good example is a grotoo in Montalvania, norteast of Minas Gerais, where paintings were found that match perfectly with a flying saucer. The painting was found 20 years ago but hasn't been preserved. Something for Von Däniken?

The latest news is about a filmed UFO over Lago Sul (transl: South lake) on August 22. It was filmed by military police Corporal Jose Raimundo Galdino. The object filmed during 8 minutes and 56 seconds is a bright lit point passing over the sky (they've been very common since 1991). That isn't especially interesting. But the fact that when they took the video to the University of Brasilia's (UnB) and studied it, they (anthropologist Wilson Gearldo de Oliveira and Corporal Galdino) saw the nose part of a Brazilian Air Force (AFB) plane in something that looked like a pursuit as the object turn vertical, uppwards. Eduardo Dorneles barcelos, director of AEB (Brazilian Space Agency) says that the images is far for proving an extraterristrial apparation and points at routine metereological phenomena.
And the people seem to have straighten their backs against the violent Brazilian army that made thousands of civilians to "disapear" during the 60's and 70's. Recently a TV reporter got into a shouting match with a top Brazilian general during a Victory Day broadcast (commemorating Brazil's contribution to Allied victory in World War II) when the reporter kept asking questions about the Varginha incident instead of listening politely to the patriotic speeches.

As always when people catch the smell of money they go for it. The three girls that encountered the EBE in the Jardim Andere park on January 20, 15:30 PM, now charges $200 for each interview (accordint to Wall Street Journals article), and other witnesses are doing the same. And the leaders of Varginha are thinking of promoting their city by building a proper park to the unknown creature's honor, but it will not be called "El Roswello" like someone stated... And one thing that has been pounding my brain the whole time is: how could 7-8 EBE's fit into a mini-van buss, traveling throughout the galaxy???

Anyway, if you happen to be in the neighberhood do attend the big International UFOlogy Congress in Londrina, Parana, Brazil, on November 1-4. Speakers will be 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.

Credits must also be given to these researchers, associations and magazines:

Claudeir Corvo
- Instituto Nacional de Investigacao de Fenomenos Aeroespaciais

Edson Boaventura Jr. and Jamil Vilanova
- Grupo Ufologico do Guaruja - Sao Paulo

Oswaldo and Eduardo Mondini
- Centro de Pesquisas Exologicas - Sumare - Sao Paulo

Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas de Discos Voadores e revista UFO 0 Campo Grande
- Mato Grosso

Marco Antonio Petit de Castro
- Associacao Fluminense de Estudos Ufologicos - Itaipava - Rio de Janeiro

Rafael Cury
- Associacao Nacional dos Ufologos do Brasil - Curitiba - Parana

Irene Granchi
- Centro de Investigacao sobre a natureza dos Extraterrestres - Rio de Janeiro

Marco Antonio Rodrigues Silva
- Grupo de Estudos de Objetos nao Identificados - Sao Paulo

Sociedade de Estudos Extreterrestres (SEE)
- Florianopolis

Uniao Brasileira para Pesquisa de DiscosVoadores (UBPDV)
- Rio de Janeiro

Centro de Pesquisas Exologicas (CPE)
- Rio de Janeiro

Grupo de Pesquisas Aereo-spaciais Zenite (GPAZ)
- Salvador

Associao de Pesquisas Ufologicas do Campo (APUC)
- Manaus

Grupo Espirita de Pesquisa Ufologica (GEPU)
- Nova Iguacu.

Michael Lindemann- ISCNI

Paulo H Andrade

Ricardo Varella Correa

Pedro Cunha
<br> Alves Elesbão Anderson

Hugo Peter Steiner

Eduardo Mondini (Sumare)
- Sao Paulo

Rogério Porto Breier

Brazilian UFO Magazine team

Marco Antonio Petit

For questions or contact with the two headresearchers:

Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues (INFA)
Rua Belo Horizonte 131, Jardim Andere.
37006-370, Varginha, MG

Vitorio Pacaccini (CICOANI)
Rua Tupis 265/804, Centro
30190-060, Belo Horizonte, MG

Source : http://www.ufo.se/ufofiles/english/issue_3/varginha.htm