UFO ROUNDUP

Volume 1, Number 19                                            June 23, 1996
Editor: Masinaigan                                                 FREE

Things are really heating up south of the equator, readers.

VARGINHA CASE BLOWS WIDE OPEN

     The reported capture of aliens at Varginha, in the state of Minas
Gerais, on Saturday, January 20, 1996 continues to make headlines
in Brazil.
     The July 1996 issue of UFO Magazine, published in the capital
city of Brasilia, contains more detailed information on the saucer
crash and subsequent capture of its alien occupants.
     According to ufologist Pedro Cunha, witnesses in Varginha now
claim that up to seven occupants were captured.  The group included
one dead alien, two badly injured and five more flushed out of hiding
in the neighborhood of the Jardim Andere, a park on the north side
of the city.  The dead alien was first taken to the Regional Hospital
in Varginha on January 20 before being shipped on to the Hospital
Humanitas in Campinas in Sao Paulo state for an autopsy.
     The magazine article published more detailed descriptions of the
UFO occupants by the three girls who encountered an injured one
in the Jardim Andere at 3:30 p.m. on January 20.  The girls were
Liliane Fatima Silva, 16, her younger sister, Valquiria Fatima Silva,
14, and their friend, Katia Andrade Xavier, 22, all of Varginha.  The
girls were walking home from their jobs as housemaids when Liliane
spotted an alien crouched about 25 feet away.
     In this week's article, the girls described the alien as "being dark
brown, with a small body of 4 to 5 feet in height, no hair at all, big
brown head, small neck.  It also seemed to have some greasy dark
oil on its skin.  The head of the creature had two big red eyes, no
pupils, very small mouth and nose and three protuberances on the
head.  The girls described such protuberances as horns."
     On Sunday, June 16, the show "Programma de Domingo"
aired a Varginha story on Brazilian TV.  According to this story, many
witnesses saw Brazilian Army trucks heading for the Jardim Andere at
around 10:30 a.m. on January 20.  The show also revealed that the
Varginha Fire Department received its first call just after 9:30 a.m.
Someone complained of "a wild animal" loose in the park.  Figuring that
they were after a jaguar or a peccary, the firefighters arrived with nets
and cages.  When they encountered their first injured alien, the crew
chief immediately put a call through to the nearest Army base, the
Escola Sargentos de Armas in Tres Coracoes.  He reportedly spoke
to the school's commandant, Gen. Sergio Coelho Lima, who ordered
troops into Varginha to seal off the park.
     "Programma de Domingo" also identified the men involved in the
three-truck convoy that transferred the aliens to Campinas on January
22.  According to the broadcast, Lt. Col. Olimpio Wanderly Santos
commanded the convoy, accompanied by two officers, Captain Ramirez
and Lieutenant Tide, plus a Sergeant Pedrosa from S-2, Brazilian
military intelligence.  Corporal Cirilo and Sergeant Pedrosa drove the
middle truck with the aliens inside.  The other trucks were driven by
Private Vassalo and Private de Mello.
     Gen. Coelho Lima is reportedly cracking down on leaks in his
command.  Soldiers have been warned not to talk to ufologists like
A.J. Gevaerd, Pedro Cunha and Vitorio Pacaccini.  Personnel returning
to Tres Coracoes from leave have been confined to barracks and, at
last report, at least one talkative sergeant is in the guardhouse.
(Note: Tres Coracoes is also the birthplace and childhood home of
Brazilian soccer star Pele.)

AGENTS TAGGED IN UFO HUSH MONEY PAYOFF

     Rumors of American involvement in the Varginha saucer retrieval
and alien roundup of January 20 - 22 continue to surface.  According
to Brazil's UFO Magazine, an American civilian was present when the
wrecked cigar-shaped UFO was loaded aboard a flatbed truck the
morning of January 20.
     The crash site is said to be "north of Varginha."  Wherever it is, it
had to be within easy walking distance for the two injured aliens, as
they reached the jungle-covered Jardim Andere before daybreak, i.e.
before 5 a.m.  The most likely sites are the coffee-growing country
northwest of Varginha, between the village of Tres Pontes and the
reservoir, and the forested serra, or ridges east of Tres Pontes.  Both
areas are within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of Varginha.
     The UFO was first seen at 1 a.m. by Eurico and Oralina Rodrigues
at their farm midway between Varginha and Tres Coracoes.  The cigar-
shaped UFO was flying slowly and enveloped in white smoke.  The
crash must have happened between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
     Brazil's UFO Magazine claims that the North American Air Defense
Command (NORAD) tracked the UFO late Friday night, January 19,
and alerted Brazil's CINDACTA that it was coming down somewhere
in southern Minas Gerais.
     Luiza Helena Fatima de Silva, mother of two of the girls who saw the
alien in the Jardim Andere on January 20, says she "noticed a peculiar
smell" when she went to the park at 4 p.m.  Senhora de Silva also
claims that she was visited by four men last February.  The unidentified
men, who were not Brazilian, wore white and cream Armani suits and
offered Senhora de Silva "a large sum of cash" if she would come
forward and tell the media that her daughters had made up the story
about the alien.
     Senhora de Silva said the men showed up at her house while her
husband, Jose Lopes de Silva, a bus driver, was at work.  "They said
they would pay cash," she said.  "They also said they would come back
but we cannot hide the truth."
     (Persistent rumors that cannot be substantiated - Senhora de Silva's
callers drove a navy-blue 1994 Lincoln Continental with Distrito Federal
(Brasilia) license plates.  The presence of a USAF transport plane,
either a C-5 or a C-17, at Sao Paulo International Airport on January 20
and at Campinas airport on January 22.  The presence of several
unidentified American men at the restaurant Churrascaria Gaucha,
Avenida Dr. Campos Sales 515 in Campinas late in the evening of
January 21.)

AMERICAN AND BRITISH UFOLOGISTS AT VARGINHA CONFERENCE

     A large contingent of American and British UFO researchers were on
hand at the big conference in Curitiba, Parana state, Brazil from June 5
to June 9.  The conference was sponsored by A.J. Gevaerd and several
Brazilian UFO research groups.
     During the conference, John Carpenter and Stanton Friedman of the
USA and Britain's Graham Birdsall interviewed Vitorio Pacaccini, 31, an
engineer from Belo Horizonte.  Pacaccini briefed the trio on the Varginha
case for over two hours.
     Arriving back in the USA on June 13, Carpenter said of Varginha,
"In short, it's a darn good case.  I'd say it may be equal to Roswell."

UFOs BUZZ AUSTRALIA'S THREE LARGEST CITIES

     Australia just finished the third week of a UFO flap that shows no
signs of dying down.  On Wednesday, June 19, the Australian national
television network, TEN TV, aired video footage of the bright orange
UFO that cavorted over the city of Adelaide four days earlier.
     The flap hit high gear last weekend when orange UFOs appeared
suddenly over Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.  (See "UFOs Trouble
Hotline" in the Melbourne Sunday Sun-Herald for June 16, 1996).
     According to Ross Dowe of Australia's National UFO Hotline, his
staff received "about a dozen calls" on Friday night, June 14, with
excited callers describing "strange bright orange lights" over their
neighborhoods.
     On Saturday night, June 15, the lights were seen again in
downtown Adelaide, in the Sydney suburbs of Sutherland and
Parramatta, and at Kew near Melbourne.  In Kew, residents saw
"five orange illuminations going straight up into the sky."
     On Sunday, June 16, more lights were seen in Melbourne, and a
single glowing UFO was videotaped in Adelaide.
     Outlying regions of Australia were not spared, either.  Orange
UFOs were reported at Mudgeeraba in Queensland, at Campbelltown
in South Australia and over the nation's capital, Canberra.
     "We normally receive calls just in one area," Ross Dowe told the
Sun-Herald.  "But if this is a hoax, it's a hoax that's been done on
the national scale over the past six weeks."
     On Monday, June 17, radio listeners in Melbourne heard the
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) announce the formation of a
commission to study "mysterious lights in the sky."  However,
other correspondents in Australia dispute this report.
     On Tuesday, June 18, Melbourne saw yet another overflight of
orange lights.  This was described as a group of 10 orange UFOs
arrayed in triangular formation, flying northeast of the city.  Several
people watched the aerial procession fly over Preston on its way
to Eltham.

MORE WEIRD UFOs VISIT CENTRAL CALIFORNIA

     On June 16, while heading east on Highway 108, a Sonora man
picked up a hitchhiker, a 34-year-old woman who lives in a trailer park
in Calaveras County.  As they drove along, she told him about an a pair
of recent odd UFO sightings.
     According to the woman, on Saturday afternoon, June 15, she saw
"a type of UFO that looked like a huge bubble" near Twain Harte,
a small town east of Sonora, just across the Stanislaus River.  She
described the "bubble" as looking like "a gelatinous mass that is
covering a large area," transparent but "sort of an opaque gray color."
Within the bubble she could make out a number of occupants.  The
occupants appeared only in silhouette and left no features that she
could identify.
     She also told our informant of an earlier sighting "a month ago," about
one mile northwest of Tuolomne City.  This town, located in the
Stanislaus National Forest, is 8 miles west of Twain Harte and closer
to Sonora.   No exact date was available, but hikers reportedly saw a
disc-shaped UFO descend slowly to the forest floor, and then "it just
vanished instantly."
     Curiously enough, a few minutes later, a helicopter with the white
letters UN on its side hovered over the forest meadow.  The helicopter
flew back and forth for several moments, as if "searching for something"
and then turned about and flew away to the west.
(Note:  This is the fourth UFO report from central California in just
over a month.  Earlier 1996 sightings were near Modesto, near
Nikolaus and in Sacramento)

CLUB NEWS - Looking for the right UFO club?  Well, come to the
Nites.  If you would like more info, contact the Nites at
Niteloyal@aol.com.

And that's it for this week.  If you have a recently-sighted UFO to report,
email us at Masinaigan@aol.com.  Have a great week!