The Varginha Incident
Three young women reported a crouched, red-eyed creature in a vacant lot; rumours of a crash and a military capture followed. The army says the women saw a disabled man. Brazil's most famous case remains open.
- Date
- 13–20 January 1996
- Place
- Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil
- Witnesses
- Liliane and Valquíria Fátima Silva, Kátia Andrade Xavier, and others
- Status
- Disputed
What happened
Farmers reported a damaged, smoking object over the region on the night of 13 January. On the afternoon of 20 January, the three women, walking home through the Jardim Andere neighbourhood, saw a creature crouched against a wall, and ran. Over the following days, residents reported soldiers and fire crews capturing one or more creatures, a transfer to a university hospital, and heavy military presence. A young military policeman, Marco Eli Chereze, who was said to have handled a creature bare-handed, died of a sudden infection in February.
The being
About the size of a child, with brown, oily, hairless skin, a large head with three ridges, huge red eyes, thin limbs and large feet, trembling and apparently injured. Descriptions from the alleged hospital sightings match closely, which supporters cite and sceptics attribute to the story's spread through the city.
Aftermath
The Brazilian army's 1996 report concluded the women saw a local man with dwarfism and mental disability, known in the neighbourhood, crouched in the rain. A congressional hearing in 2010 examined the case; the 2022 documentary Moment of Contact brought new witnesses forward, including a former soldier. Varginha built a saucer-shaped water tower and calls itself the ET capital of Brazil.
Explanations
The official account has a named candidate for the creature and the man's family's confirmation. Against it are the number of independent witnesses to military activity, Chereze's death, and the consistency of the descriptions. XenoAtlas lists the case as disputed.
