- There is something strange in the skies of Pernambuco.
Unexplained lights, cigar shaped luminous objects, small points crossing
space at prodigious speed have been seen along the coast, particularly
in the municipality of Brejo da Madre de Deus, locate 219 kilometers from
the capital. Make-believe? Meteorological phenomena? Some swear that Unidentified
Flying Objects or UFOs are involved. In other words, flying saucers. Visitors
from space? ETs? Borrowing the slogan from the "X Files" TV series,
could it be that the truth is out there?
-
- To Sao Paulo based ufologist Edison Boaventura, the answer
is yes. President of the Grupo Ufologico de Guarujá (GUG), Boaventura
is also a respected analyst for the Bank of Brazil. He took advantage of
a provisional four month transfer to Recife and spent his free hours collecting
reports from persons claiming to have seen UFOs flying over the state.
-
- "In the Northeast, Pernambuco and Paraiba stand
out for the number of cases. Sightings are particualrly intense in places
near the beaches," says Boaventura, showing an album with hundreds
of UFO photos from all over the world. Edison avoids making comparisons,
and stressing that the navy blue suit he wore during the interviews may
have obvious associations wioth the Fox Mulder character from X Files--the
ficticious american agent who spends his life proving that "they"
exist and are indeed here.
-
- One of the witnesses interviewed by the ufologist was
attorney Wilson Andrade Souza, a resident of Boa Viagem, who claims having
seen UFOs on repeated occasions and speaks delightedly about his experiences.
"My wife and I were standing on the porch to our house when we saw
an object in the sky, resembling a cigar, surrounded by 20 smaller disc-shaped
objects, flying in disarray. It was a beautiful sight," he states.
Souza has also seen UFOs over the Guararapes Airport in the municipality
of Cupira, 168 kilometers north of Recife. "Some employees on a ranch
belonging to a friend of mine saw one land and disgorge little men who
helped themselves to the guava trees."
Edison Boaventura's investigations also encluded a complete sweep of Brejo
da Madre de Deus. This location is famous for being one of the most important
archaeological sites of the Northeast, and will probably wind up being
known as a UFO hotspot nationwide. The oldest residents of the rural area
tell tales of fireballs moving over the skies of the city. Showing them
his album, the majority of them pointed to an image of a UFO taken in Jalisco
(Mexico) as being very similar to the phenomenon being seen in the region.
-
- Dulce de Souza Pinto, director fo the city's museum,
lived in the Barriguda sector when she used to see the "torches"
-- local name given by some to the fireballs. "At night, people would
sit on their porches to see them appear. They were blue and red torches,
round, emerging from the top of the mountain range and darting quickly
from one side to another. After that, they would come close and plunge
suddenly," she recalls. Dulce would rather not state if they were
flying saucers. "That's what people say nowadays...in those days,
people said they were the spirits of deceased godmothers moving around
the skies."
There are those who claim having witnessed UFO landings, such as farmer
Jose Antonio dos Santos. He told Dulce and the ufologist that he saw one
resembling a plate descend on a boulder in the Serra da Rosa mountains.
He saw "some legs" protruding from the thing (Boaventura explains
they were landing gear) and afterward saw a porthole open. He fired a shot
with his rifle and the "disk" took off. "The guy knew what
a flying saucer was," says Dulce.
Merchant Zenaldo Manuel de Souza, who lives in the downtown districts,
neither saw nor believes in the torches. "The problem is that people
who imagine these things end up believing that they saw them," he
claims.
-
- Já o comerciante Zenaldo Manoel de Souza, morador
do centro, nem viu e nem acredita nas tochas. "Acho que o pessoal
imagina tanto essas coisas que acaba mesmo acreditando que viu", declarou.
Ufology also pays attention to the petroglyphs found on 13 rock walls around
the city. The surface of the place known as Pedra da Lua ("moonstone")
shows a figure resembling a man with open, slightly curved arms, as though
floating. Edison believes that this figures was either rising or descending
in the air," explains Dulce. In other words, he believes that a good
part of these petroglyphs depict spaceships and aliens who visited our
forebears. ____
Translation (C) 2002 Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology Special
thanks to Alberto Francisco do Carmo
|
