Varginha UFO incident

Varginha UFO incident

Type	Case (alleged creature sighting and capture)
Also known as	"ET de Varginha"; "Brazil's Roswell"
Date	About 3–3:30 p.m., 20 January 1996 (related claims from about 13 January)
Place	Vacant lot on Rua Dr. Benevenuto Braz Vieira, between Jardim Andere and Santana, Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Witnesses	Kátia Andrade Xavier (22) and sisters Liliane (16) and Valquíria (14) Fátima Silva
Main ufologists	Ubirajara Rodrigues; Vitório Pacaccini
Official findings	EsSA inquiry (1996); Military Police Inquiry (IPM, 1997, 357 pages): a local man, "Mudinho", and routine military activity

The Varginha UFO incident, known in Brazil as the "ET de Varginha", refers to reports in January 1996 that a strange creature was seen in the town of Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and that one or more such beings were captured by the military. On 20 January three young women said they saw a brown creature with red eyes crouching by a wall. Ufologists later linked their sighting to claims of a crashed craft, captures by firefighters and soldiers, beings taken to hospitals, a policeman's death and animal deaths at the town zoo. Sometimes called "Brazil's Roswell", it became the most famous UFO case in Brazil. Official military inquiries concluded that the women had seen a local man and that the military movements were routine.^[1][2][4][7]

Background

Varginha, a town of about 100,000 people in southern Minas Gerais, lies in Brazil's coffee region, and much of the country's coffee passes through it. The Army's Escola de Sargentos das Armas (EsSA), a school for sergeants, is in the neighbouring town of Três Corações.^[2][4]

Earlier reports

According to ufologists, the first signs of something strange were around 13 January 1996. Oralina and Eurico de Freitas, who looked after a farm beside the BR-491 highway, said that at about 1 a.m. one night their cattle stampeded. They watched a large grey object, the size of a bus, with no lights, making no noise and trailing a pale smoke. It flew low for about 40 minutes and disappeared towards the Fernão Dias highway. They were not sure of the date, and their account surfaced weeks later, after which it was tied to the dates of the main events. In October 1996 a São Paulo pilot, Carlos de Souza, said that on the morning of 13 January he saw a similar object apparently falling between Varginha and Três Corações. He said he found the Army and military police already guarding grey, metal-like debris, and was roughly told by a soldier to leave and say nothing.^[4][7]

The sighting

On the morning of 20 January, according to ufologists' witnesses, the fire brigade received calls about a strange "animal" prowling the woods between Jardim Andere and Santana. Firefighters and an EsSA truck were said to have been seen there. One civilian and one army reservist told ufologists that soldiers went into the trees, two rifle shots were heard, and two soldiers came out carrying large sacks, one still and one moving.^[4]

At about 3 to 3:30 p.m., during a blustery rainstorm, Kátia Andrade Xavier, 22, and the sisters Liliane, 16, and Valquíria, 14, were taking a shortcut home across a vacant lot where a new housing development was being laid out. Passing a wall next to a workshop, the sisters heard Kátia scream and saw a creature crouching there. It turned its head and stared at them for a few seconds. "It was brown. It was short. It was crouching," Kátia said in 2006. She said it seemed very soft, as if it would burst, with smooth skin and red eyes, and was neither human nor animal. The sisters described spots like veins on its skin and three bumps on its head. Its hands were between its legs and its arms were very thin, and "the eyes were two red balls", Valquíria said. It seemed wobbly, as if injured or ill.^[1][2][4]

The three ran to the sisters' home. "Mum, I saw the devil," Liliane told her mother. Within 25 minutes the mother went back with Kátia. They found nothing but a mark on the ground, a horrible smell they could not describe and a dog sniffing the spot. According to Dunning, the mother noticed only a smell of ammonia, which ufologists attributed to the creature despite the strong wind. A builder working nearby supposedly said the firefighters had already taken "that strange creature" away. Late that afternoon a severe storm struck the town.^[2][3][4][7]

Further claims

The ufologist and lawyer Ubirajara Rodrigues, the case's main investigator, contacted the women the next day. Rumours spread through the town, and the story was first broadcast nationally on the TV programme Fantástico. It was soon covered worldwide, including by The Wall Street Journal. Rodrigues and Vitório Pacaccini collected a string of further claims. According to their books, at about 8 p.m. that night two plain-clothes military police intelligence officers driving along the same street braked for something crossing the road. One of them, Marco Eli Chereze, caught it with his bare hands. It was said to have been taken to a health post, which refused it, and then to the Varginha Regional Hospital, where a wing was supposedly sealed off. Over the following days residents and staff said they saw Army, fire brigade and police vehicles at the Regional and Humanitas hospitals. They said a creature had been moved between them, and that a body bag and mechanical equipment were delivered. Ufologists believe at least two beings were captured and later taken to the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), which never confirmed it.^[1][2][4][7]

An audio account attributed to an anonymous soldier, played on Fantástico, said a creature had been collected by firefighters and taken to the EsSA. The fire brigade denied it. The EsSA commander, General Lima, read a statement denying it at a press conference. Colonel Olímpio Vanderlei, whom a soldier had named as the leader of the capture, told reporters by telephone that a former soldier had invented the story.^[7]

The death of Marco Chereze

Chereze died on 15 February 1996, aged 23. According to Rodrigues's book, soon after the supposed capture he had surgery by a military doctor to remove a small abscess under his arm. He then developed a fever and pains, passed through two hospitals and died in intensive care of generalised sepsis. Cesário Lincoln Furtado, one of his doctors, said every test was done and the best antibiotics available had no effect, "like giving sugar water". The final report gave pneumonia and generalised infection, with common, relatively benign bacteria. Another test found immune deficiency, though an HIV test was negative. Furtado said he had seen such a case perhaps once or twice in his career. Ufologists said investigators wanted to exhume the body but a judge refused. Skeptics note that the cyst had been scheduled for removal before the incident. They also note that the IPM found Chereze had not been involved in any events on 20 January.^[2][4]

The zoo

Leila Cabral, a biologist at the Varginha Zoo, said that after the storm on 20 January the gatekeeper, Nelson, told her the fire brigade had come with "a very strange creature" that they would hand over only to her. They did not return. Between February and April about five animals died at the zoo, including a tapir, an ocelot and grey brocket deer. Necropsies found blackening of the stomach and intestinal lining, and a laboratory in Belo Horizonte detected an unidentified toxic-caustic substance. Poisoning was considered but ruled out, and no bacteria were found. The vet, Marcos Mina, later the zoo's director, said the animals were of different species, ate differently and lived in different places. He said he had never linked the deaths to the ET.^[1][4]

Official inquiries

In May 1996 the EsSA commander ordered an inquiry, led by Colonel Rene Jairo Fagundes, into press reports involving the school's soldiers. It found that the unusual movement of military vehicles in Varginha was maintenance at a dealership on 25 and 26 January, not on 22–24 January as claimed. It found that the soldiers named had carried no cargo of any kind and that the media had publicised untrue facts.^[7]

On 29 January 1997 the EsSA commander opened a Military Police Inquiry (IPM) into the claims in Pacaccini and Maxs Portes's 1996 book Incidente em Varginha. Its 357-page report, led by Lieutenant Colonel Lúcio Carlos Pereira, was made public in October 2010. It concluded that the most likely explanation was Luiz Antônio de Paula, a local man of about 30 with an intellectual disability. He was nonverbal and known as "Mudinho" ("little mute"), and lived at the spot with his family, often crouching to study cigarette butts and sticks. The commander of the 24th Military Police Battalion provided photographs, saying he "probably has some mental disability" and that his physical characteristics matched the description. "The more probable hypothesis," the report said, "is that this citizen, probably dirty due to the rains and crouching next to a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls for a 'space creature'."^[1][2][5][7]

The IPM found that the presence of firefighters in Jardim Andere was due to calls caused by the heavy rains, none involving a strange animal. The Army trucks were parked near a dealership for periodic maintenance, and EsSA vehicles were leaving the area. These real facts were "incorrectly interpreted" as a capture and transport of a creature to Campinas. According to skeptics, the hospital deliveries were new cardiovascular equipment. The ambulance carried a corpse exhumed for a criminal investigation, and the "small aliens" at the hospital were a couple of little people having a baby. The IPM called Pacaccini and Portes's book fiction based on pseudoscientific research and testimony of doubtful credibility, but found no crime. In 2016 the Army told G1 that the matter was closed and that it holds no documents on ufology.^[1][2][4][7]

The witnesses' later accounts

The three women deny any resemblance to Mudinho. In later interviews they said they knew him and had given him cigarettes, so could not have mistaken him. The skeptic Brian Dunning notes that in 1996 they said they did not know him. They have never claimed the creature was an extraterrestrial, saying they do not know what they saw, but they have never retracted the story. They said that about four months after the incident, five men came to the sisters' home at about 10 p.m. and offered them enough money to leave Brazil if they would deny the story on camera. They said the men then pressed them with phone calls and followed the sisters' mother, until the women spoke on television and the harassment stopped. The publicity was hard on them. Liliane had to leave school and stopped going out. Kátia, who was pregnant, became depressed when some ufologists suggested she might be carrying the creature's child, and later separated from her husband.^[2][4][7]

Assessment

Even sympathetic ufologists have noted the lack of evidence, since the whole case rests on testimony. Kevin Randle said there was no physical evidence and "in fact, we were not able to verify anything". Rodrigues himself said there was "no proof that an extraterrestrial being was captured". Others, such as Marco Antônio Petit, say they have testimony from several sources confirming the presence of beings and a crash, covered up by the authorities. The ufologist Claudeir Covo claimed it was not raining when the women saw the creature. Dunning argued that the story grew enormously over the years as witnesses added details, new "witnesses" came forward and authors embellished it. "It is the most compelling example of a case where literally nothing at all happened that was remotely unusual, and was magnified into a case considered unassailable proof of alien visitation by many," he wrote.^[1][2][7]

Legacy

Varginha has embraced its alien. Grey alien dolls in football kits are sold in the town, and the alien has featured in municipal advertising campaigns. Bus shelters were built in the shape of spaceships, and a 20-metre (66 ft) water tower with a saucer-shaped tank, the "Nave Espacial de Varginha", stands in the town centre. The town hall has a lift evoking an abduction, with a spaceship at the top, and part of the airport is shaped like a spaceship. The ET Memorial, with a planetarium and a history of the case, opened in November 2022 and had more than 100,000 visitors by January 2026. In 2023 the town registered "The Case of the ET and the Varginha Identity" as intangible cultural heritage. In 2024 it created an "ET Route" of markers at places the creature supposedly passed, and in September 2025 it unveiled a four-metre ET statue by the artist Renato Criaturas.^[1][6][7]

Books on the case include Pacaccini and Portes's Incidente em Varginha (1996), Rodrigues's O Caso Varginha (2001), Roger Leir's UFO Crash in Brazil (2005), Petit's Varginha, Toda a Verdade Revelada (2015) and Edison Boaventura Jr.'s ETs de Varginha: Montando o Quebra-Cabeça (2022). There is also a 2009 French comic, O.V.N.I L'affaire Varginha, and a 2016 Brazilian comic, Ginho – o ET de Varginha. It has been the subject of TV episodes in Beyond the Truth (1998), UFO Files (2011) and Chasing UFOs (2012), and of a 1998 video game. Films include Rodrigo Brandão's 2020 horror short 1996, James Fox's documentary Moment of Contact (2022), and the Globo documentary O Mistério de Varginha (2025–26).^[1][7]

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Varginha UFO incident”, “Incidente de Varginha (in Portuguese)”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.