(Translation by P.H. Andrade)

The Saturday that the ET capture took place, January 20th ‘96, I wasn’t in Varginha. The day after, Jan 21st, I arrived at about 10: 30 a.m. and received a call from a storekeeper who owns a shop in the center of the town, Mr. Milton. He asked if I had knowledge of what happened the day before and told me that “... some girls had seen a weird animal, something like a little monster”. (...)

That same night, as I realized that the rumour was already spreaded throughout the city, I called Milton again to get further details. (...) An employee of his shop would has more information. (...) She knew the people that had seen the strange being. (...) The girls live at Rua Tapajós [ Tapajós Street ] , Varginha, to where I went. (...) I asked a near storekeeper if she knew the girls, she said so, adding that "she had also observed the movement around that area regarding the case". This lady said she was friend of Luisa (the girls’ mother) and that she was told the girls arrived at home scared, that afternoon. They were screaming, crying and shaking. They had seen something very ugly. (...)

Meanwhile, the rumours continue to spread through the city. Some people said the creature was captured and taken to the "Hospital Regional" [Regional Hospital], that it had a big belly, seemed to be pregnant, and made a noise, like if it was crying. (...)

FIRST WEEK OF INVESTIGATIONS - I began to investigate and was helped by a friend (...) , Sergio, director of TV Princesa, a local TV station. We got access to a boy who said he was present at the capture. But his words didn’t make any sense, he was too childish, and very confused. (...) We also got access to a woman, which runned away the moment we approached her. Her husband tried to convince her to give us some info, but she refused. (...)

Finally, we found the girls and took their testimony. They were two sisters whose mother, Mrs.Luisa, received me a little suspicious. I identified myself as an UFO researcher and lawyer, and explained my interest in the situation. (...) I’ve got extremely impressed with what they told me, specially the older girl, Liliane, 16. When she was telling me what happened, she burst into tears. (...) Then, I asked them to introduce me to the third witness : her friend, Katia, 22, that also cried when we met.

I asked them to take me to the place where all had happened. (...) They told that when they were in the middle of that pathway, they saw a strange being squatted in the ground (...). To Valquíria, the younger, “that appeared to be a giant ox heart”. (...) They realized that it was something out-of-this-world, when they returned to the street and went away, running.

(...) After hearing all the story from her daughters, Luísa returned to the place to see if she could find any evidence, but she didn’t. (...) Luísa felt a strange smell, very strong and impossible to be compared to anything else. The following days, I kept on talking to them, and asked them to repeat several times what they had seen.

AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL AT THE HOSPITAL - This procedure is common in researches, because it helps to find contradictions in the testimonies. (...) Meanwhile, the rumours continued to spread, increase, and gained consistency in Varginha. The whole city started to comment on the story.

(...) In Varginha, there are three hospitals, however the rumours converged only to the Regional Hospital (see picture). It wasn’t possible to be sure of anything, specially about which hospital would be involved with the fact. Everything was obscure, until I managed to talk to a nurse of Regional Hospital (which name cannot be revealed, in order to preserve her safety). She was very reluctant to receive and talk to me until, finally, she accepted to be interviewed. She revealed that, on Sunday, January 21st, a strange movement occurred at Hospital Regional . The fact involved physicians coming from out of Varginha, the Military Police and Army vehicles. However, she didn’t speak a word about the Fire Department. (...)

One of the hospital sections , according to our source, was closed for some hours, in order to avoid the access of employees, patients and visitors. She also said that, on Monday, January 22nd, she was called, together with other employees, for a meeting at the director’s room. According to her testimony, the director said that all that movement should be ignored, because "it was just a training for the doctors and military personnel". (...)

According to this witness, the meeting culminated with the following statement from the director : “Here in Varginha there are people who like to deal with “cool” things, I mean, supernatural, strange ... It is probable that these people will look for you, especially that lawyer, Ubirajara. To these people, you must deny everything. I mean , do deny”.

Later on, I spoke to a former pupil of mine, who said she was at the hospital entrance hall that Sunday, by 10: 30 p.m., together with a friend of her. She asked the receptionist if it was true what the rumours said about the “little monster” received at the hospital. The employee confirmed , saying that the being wasn’t there anymore, because it had been removed to another city's hospital, the “Humanitas”. So, the women went there, too. Now, they were attended by a nurse who told them the following : “You cannot go inside to see ‘that’ and, even if you could, I wouldn’t advise you to ... you wouldn’t like to see it”.

The same time, some parallel witnesses, which live in the Humanitas region, said they saw troops movements at the lateral gate. This was everything I knew then. It was necessary to have stronger evidences. So I tried the military area, firstly Commander Mauricio, from the Military Police. When I met him, I identified myself and explained the situation. I asked him if he had knowledge of the rumours that the MP was involved in the capture case. His answer was negative.

He, then, offered to check it out , and verified that there were no records of such occurrence. Even thus, he asked me to contact him again, because perhaps he would find something. The next day, as it was scheduled, I called Commander Mauricio, but he didn’t attend me. I made about 50 phone calls to the quarter, but wasn’t attended. So I began to feel that something was wrong. They were hiding something.

A friend of mine managed to talk to a policewoman that was on duty at Saturday, January 20th, receiving the emergency calls, thru the number 190 [the police number] . She revealed there were some calls : “In fact, some people called saying that they saw such a little monster, but we thought they were kidding and we didn’t give attention to them”. (...)

SEEKING THE FIRE DEPARTMENT (see picture) - Me and Sérgio looked for the local Fire Department and we were received by Captain Alvarenga. (...) The moment we identify ourselves, he got the bulletin of ocurrences for Jan. 20th, in order to ‘prove’ there were no requests for the capture of a strange animal, or something. He simply had a deffensive attitude regarding us.

During the interview, I excused myself and made a brief pause to drink some water, at the end of the corridor. I saw there two firemen talking, speaking loudly and fluently, as if they were making fun of me : “Yeah, it should be a giant frog”, one said. “No, it should be a demon, ha ha ha”, completed the other.

(...) We followed to the Forest Police, where we were received in a very different manner. Their captain was friendly and said he likes Ufology. (...) He stated that the Forest Police weren’t called at that occasion, but put himself on the line to share any further information.

We came back again to the nurse. (...) She spoke with her colleagues in the hospital and, although they hadn’t seen anything, they were all unanimous in stating that there was a strange movement that day. (...)

Meanwhile, the information that a strange being appeared in Varginha had already taken the local media. All the local press, newspapers, radio and TV stations had already covered the case, although I had my doubts about spreading the case in the [brazilian] national media. (...) Nevertheless, due to the difficulties of the investigation and the big cover-up, there was no other choice than calling the national media. Only this way we could pressure the authorities.

The same occasion, I was interviewed live at the request of Globo TV Network (local branch) . Everything was going normal (...). In the middle of the program, however, something we weren’t expecting happened. The reporter took two faxes from over the table and talked : “We just received right now a communication from the Fire Department and another one from the Regional Hospital, denying everything. These two institutions say they weren’t called and have no involvement with it”. Part of the Fire Dept. fax did the following statement : “This corporation communicates the people of Varginha that was NOT called to capture an extraterrestrial”. This was said in the middle of the news.

I said, firstly, that I've never affirmed the captured being was alien. I've said only that it was an unknown and strange being (see picture). I’m very careful with the words. (...) I made use of that chance and said that the UFO cover-up is such a thing that exists all over the world and started a long time ago.

After this interview, I decided to call the national media. (...) I called the ufologist Irene Granchi, in Rio de Janeiro, who contacted the journalism production of Globo TV Network [Note from translator : Globo TV is the major brazilian TV network]. Since then, the case blew wide open in the [brazilian] media. (...)

At the end of the second week of investigations, I called “Revista UFO” [UFO Magazine] and let them know the facts. In the third week, a researcher from Belo Horizonte (up to then member of CICOANI - Centro de Investigação Civil sobre Objetos Aéreos Não Identificados - Unidentified Aerial Objects Civilian Investigation Center) made contact with me. It was Vitorio Pacaccini. Since then we established a partnership in the researches, that now lasts over four months. (...)