FILIBERTO CARDENAS CASE
Virgilio Sanchez-Ocejo

Synopsis of the Case

From 1979 until 1982, we studied an abduction ease which required a staggering amount of work to complete. After careful review, we were convinced that a UFO contact and abduction had taken place. The case was investigated by a special team of professionals including engineers, doctors, a psychologist, a neurologist and a professional hypnotist. It also received the special attention of the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who maintained contact and advised us at difficult moments when we needed his cooperation.

On the evening of January 3, 1979, Filiberto Cardenas was in his gift shop, in Hialeah, when he received a call from his friend Fernando Marti. Fernando asked Filiberto to accompany him to the outskirts of the city to buy a pig from the local merchants, as he wanted to roast it the following Sunday. In a short time he appeared at Filiberto's business with his wife Mirta and their daughter Isabel, who was 13 years old.

Fernando agreed to drive his friend's station wagon after Filiberto said he was tired. They drove to two farms bud had no luck finding an available pig. They turned off onto a side road, following an arrow that marked the desired direction, and from there they turned onto another rural road in bad condition.

As they came off the dirt road onto the side road, the automobile began to lose power, and the engine died. Fernando, at the wheel, tried to start the engine but there was no response at all. The men looked at each other and they got out of the car. Fernando opened the hood and they both looked in trying to see what could be wrong, to locate the failure. He returned to the seat and tried to crank the engine again. Nothing, not even the lights would function. Filiberto was in front of the car looking under the hood near the battery. He didn't know much about mechanics and tried to see if the cables were loose or grounding, but they seemed to be firmly connected to the battery. Fernando got out of the car again and looked down past the hood near the windshield thinking that the problem could be in the general electrical connection situated near the steering column.

They were like this, Filiberto under the hood in front and Fernando under the hood on the right hand side, lying over the top of the engine so as to see behind it, when suddenly both of them realized that the engine was reflecting red and violet light in sequence. At the same time they heard a strange sound. Fernando later described it as "a swarm of bees". The sound as well as the light that illuminated the engine increased, and the whole car began to shake. Mrs. Marti, who was sitting on the back seat with her daughter Isabel at her side, began to panic. The Marti family came to live in Florida from California because of a bad earthquake. This had left a profound impression on Mrs. Marti, and her first thought, upon hearing the sound and seeing the light, was that they were facing a similar phenomenon. She pulled Isabel down across the seat of the car and covered her with her body as she screamed in panic.

When Filiberto heard the shouts from Mrs. Marti and her daughter, he tried to run to their aid but felt paralyzed. He could see lights and hear sound but could not move. He felt as though something restrained and impeded his movement. Fernando, in fear, tried to crawl further under the hood, seeking protection, when he also found himself immobile with his feet sticking out in the air from under the hood. He could not move.

Filiberto felt as though the force that paralyzed him began to lift him and suspended him in the air. Fernando, from under the hood, could see Filiberto as he began to rise. He could hear Filiberto shout, "Don't take me... Don't take me". Filiberto could see the car as he was lifted off the ground.

The noise and the light ceased and everything seemed to return to normal. Fernando came out from under the hood and looked toward the sky to see "like a bulky object (UFO) that ascended and then moved away". Full of fear, remembering that his wife and daughter were still in the back seat of the car, he shouted, "They have taken Filiberto...Mama, they have taken Filiberto". Then he got into the driver's seat and tried to crank the engine. After several attempts the engine started but it ran very poorly, "as if it were out of gasoline". When he got the car running, he returned to the highway.

Along the way he thought he should advise the police, but he was afraid they would not believe him and would think he had done something to Filiberto. Then he decided he had to run the risk, and near the edge of town he stopped at a service station on upper 29th Street. From there he called the police. He then called Mrs. Iris Cardenas and said that, "A light took Filiberto away";. Fernando got back into the car and he, Mirta and Isabel continued along the road; and as they came to the town of Hialeah, they saw a police car. He stopped and explained to the sergeant in the patrol car what had just happened.

At first, the police presumed that Filiberto would be found lost or unconscious. Fernando, in his confusion, thought that he might be mistaken about what he had seen, and decided to go back and look. Since it was already dark, the police tried to contact the Air Base at Homestead, to send an airplane or a helicopter with lights to the spot where the incident took place.

While all this was taking place, Filiberto first became aware of a sound of tires running on pavement. He was in the middle of a different highway, the Tamiami Trail, later found to be some 16 kilometers south of the place where he had disappeared two hours before.

The first officer to arrive on the scene was Patrolman William Christian, who at first felt he had a drunk, or someone who had been assaulted and left on the highway. A second officer arrived, but they could not communicate with Filiberto because of the language barrier and also the condition that Filiberto was in. Filiberto does not speak English but is fluent in Spanish, having been raised in Cuba. They searched his pockets and found identification. They decided to take him to the police station. On the way Filiberto began to recuperate. From the identification papers found on him, the police radioed ahead to the police dispatcher a general description of what was happening.

Meanwhile, in Hialeah, the police were getting ready to go out and search for the missing man when they received his description over the radio. They suspended their search plans and took Mrs. Cardenas and Fernando and his family to the police station.

According to one official, something very strange and very uncommon happened to Filiberto. On the official report, under Type of Offense, he wrote: CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE THIRD KIND. This may be the first time in the United States that on an official report, the police admitted that an abduction by a UFO had taken place.

THE ABDUCTION
After having been paralyzed by a combination of mysterious light and sound Filiberto woke up in a seat that seemed to hold him in place by some kind of suction which restrained all his movements. He was in a small room. At his side were three strange figures. One of the strange beings approached carrying a special kind of helmet in his hands. He raised it and placed it on Filiberto's head.

This helmet seemed to be full of small needles that came down to the shoulders. The beings tried to communicate with Filiberto, speaking in a language that sounded to Filiberto like German. When they realize that Filiberto did not understand, one of the beings rotated a button on the right side of his chest and then began to speak in English. Filiberto indicated that he did not understand that either. Again the strange being rotated the button and began this time to speak in Spanish. with a Portuguese or Italian accent. Meanwhile they continued making tests on Filiberto's body these test left 108 marks on his body.

The entities made him pass through to another bigger room. There, on a high seat, like a throne, was seated an individual wearing a cape. This person, who seemed to be in charge, perhaps their chief, addressed Filiberto in perfect Spanish while at the same time transmitting ideas telepathically.

The conversation revolved in turn from the subjects of human beings to humanity. On the walls they projected images, something like television pictures, that showed scenes from the past, the present, and also the future.

After this they opened another port and the captive Filiberto was carried to a small room, where he was placed in a seat similar to the first which sucked him down and impeded his movements as before. He was now in a small ship that was discharged from the mother- ship. Nearing the end of this flight, Filiberto could see what looked like a stretch of narrow beach approaching.

The UFOs began to move and plunge into the sea. All was obscured by the incredible velocity at witch the vehicle moved. The ship veered to the right and began to lose speed. In front of them Filiberto could now see a tunnel with walls that seen illuminated, as if they were phosphorescent. The ship went into this tunnel and later came to a stop in a place that was completely dry. It looked like a large cavern but he notice that it did not have any stalactites or stalagmites. It was a very big place. Here was a place made out of rock, where he noticed two symbols. One of them had the form of a serpent. It was of great size, as big as an "electric light pole." The other was similar to the first but smaller. In that place the entities disembarked from the ship with their captive and took him to a rock, where they let him sit down.

They opened an enormous door, and a number of "people" came out. Filiberto felt as if he could not breath, and a pressure on his chest. The sensations and odors were very strange in this place. At this point someone came up to Filiberto and said: "WELCOME."

This individual spoke to him in perfect Spanish with a South American accent. He looked like an Earth person. He informed Filiberto that he was "from Earth and had been for some time working with the entities." He also said that "he should be happy, because he was going to receive some instructions from a human being like us."

After they had taken Filiberto through another door toward a street of what seemed to be a city, they crossed it and entered a small building. In this place Filiberto felt like he was sucked up against a wall. This panel revolved a turn and converted itself into a sort of table. From the walls came mechanical arms full of instruments with which they looked at and tested most of his body. Upon terminating the examination they let him get up and get dressed again. They demonstrated, by means of the televisions, to Filiberto, new and different things that were going to occur.

He was taken to a big room where there was a ship (UFO) in a vertical position "like our big rockets." They went inside of this, and encountered in this spaceship three more entities, who placed him in one of those suction seats as before, and then they set up the controls and manipulated the ship for departure. Filiberto could see nothing of what was happening outside. After a short trip the door of the UFO opened and Filiberto was let out of the ship, in a pasture.

THE SECOND ENCOUNTER

On the night of February 21, 1979, Filiberto and his wife Iris could not sleep and decided to go to the place where Filiberto was abducted. It was around 5:00 AM. when the second encounter with a UFO ship and his occupants took place.

After returning to his house, Filiberto called me and told my wife what had happened. That afternoon I received a call from one of our local group, to inform me that he had received calls that people at Miami International Airport had observed a UFO that morning. One of the older employees at the airport had observed a large mother-ship and various smaller objects flying around it. There were five or six of us there. The object seemed fixed in the sky. It was round and had like three lights, one very white, one yellow, and the other one also white but more opaque than the first one, or you could say that it had one white light that shore brighter than the other, and also a yellow one. At the sides of the ship one could see two other ships a little smaller, of the same form but smaller. They had only one light each. It looked like one object with two more alongside it. The bright white light in the center was fixed but the yellow and the more opaque one pulsate. We watched them for twenty to thirty minutes. We got tired of looking at them."

We were able to localize the mother-ship with the other UFOs directly above the place where Filiberto was picked up, which is the same place where only hours before this observation, the second encounter of Filiberto and Iris had taken place. Iris Cardenas observed: "On the suit, on the right breast, they had an emblem made up of a serpent in the form of an 'S' or maybe more like a 'Z' with rounded corners, with a wide 'X'-shaped cross lying down underneath.

What make rare of this case, in the ufology history, is the second encounter, where a second person, Iris, went voluntarily to the encounter. Also, it is rare that we receive news of the sighting of UFOs at the same time and place, from independent witnesses. Making the Filiberto and Iris second encounter credible.


On December 6, 1985, Filiberto claimed that he was abducted again and carried to the same base under sea. For that motive, on March 30, 1986 we did another hypnotic regression. This time we had a different team, headed by psychologist and hypnotist Mercy de Armas, also present was hypnotist Rodolfo Morales. We took this opportunity to scan, back and forward, the first abduction. And the result was astonishing. It was like renting the same video movie, six years later, and playing it back and forward trying to find a gap.

THE MESSAGES

(Taken from the hypnotic regressions)

"They told me that the leadership of the Catholic Church will be without its head (the Pope) and that later another will come." "The Pope dies, and then shortly after that the second Pope also dies. There is a struggle to designate one who is not a Roman and they told me that it would endure for a little time, but that there is a conspiracy against him. After that will come one who is not born in that place (Italy). He is going to discover the New World. He is going to come to preach to the New World in our own language." (And so it happened)

Here is what they showed to Filiberto, on a thing that looked like a television set in the wall of their ship: "There is a city that is going to be destroyed. The city is called... the capital of Mexico!" ( Around the end of 1985 occurred the disastrous earthquake that destroyed part of Mexico City.)

"All, almost all the great population centers of California, all will go into the sea." (Parts of the coastal lands in California, from Eureka to the border with Mexico, were swallowed by the sea, according to the magazine Newsweek of March 28, 1983, pages 22 and 23.)"Here in the United States we will have an illness." (AIDS?)

"There is an artist who is very famous. In politics her husband could become the president of the United States." (Here, we also have to clarify that this prediction was made before the movie star Ronald Reagan took the Presidency of the United States, and his wife, also a well known artist, was the First Lady Nancy Reagan).

"The first people they showed me (on their television) were wearing loose fitting short pants. They used something like a small cap on the head. I got the impression that they were people from another planet. But later, continuing to watch as if in a movie, I could see that these were Chinese communists. Then they must have contact with the people of Communist China. They are carrying out great experiments there. They told me that Communist China would surprise the world shortly. Soon the world will be shaken by the news that is going to come out of there." "They control them. The thing is that the world will be surprised soon at what the Chinese are going to do. It is good. It is not bad." "They have control of the Chinese. There are going to be certain changes, certain things, provoked by the Chinese because there are some negative people, or would be, and in the changes those people disappear." "They showed me an example of one who was afoot and they said, 'This was their inclination,' then the person reversed his position front to back and they said, ' This is the way China will go.'

On May 4, 1989, some 100,000 pro democracy student activists staged a huge protest march in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China's capital city. The demonstrators erected a 33-foot obelisk entitled "Goddess of Democracy," modeled after the Statue of Liberty in New York. Then armored troops stormed the Square, killing an estimated 3,000-5,000, injuring another 10,000. In the ensuing political crack down, Zhao Ziyang was stripped of his party post, and Jiang Zemin became general secretary. The Eight National People's Congress elected Jiang president of China in March 1993.

"I know what you are trying to do with me, and they know also, and so they are telling me to watch what I am saying. But nevertheless, though I cannot tell you directly, it is possible for you to guess the person. I am going to mention two. One is the ruler of Egypt. The government of Egypt in a short time will lose its leader. It will lose its government and there will be great disasters throughout its territories. It could put this whole planet in peril of being disintegrated by a war of great consequences. This could occur before the end of 1981."

On October 6,1981, the president of Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, was assassinated by religious fanatics within his own army, during a military parade commemorating the Yom Kippur War.

" They want to avoid all this. In this year there is a great conspiracy against the government of Israel. At the same time there is a great conspiracy between the people that control energy, in Kuwait and also in Arabia where they have petroleum energy. All those governments will disappear."

This last message was incredibly exact. Kuwait was lost during a military struggle to Iraq, led by President Saddam Hussein, in August 1990.

Under the command of U.S. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the multinational coalition of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, Egypt, Syria, and France began intensive aerial bombardment of military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. In mid-February, Iraq signaled its willingness to withdraw from Kuwait. A permanent ceasefire was accepted by the allies on April 6, 1991.

We have to remember that all these messages were given to Filiberto during his abduction on January 3, 1979. And they were privately published, before the events happened, in "UFO CONTACT FROM UNDERSEA" by Sanchez-Stevens, in 1982. According to Art Levine of "MIAMI NEW TIMES", the Cardenas incident is "the most famous abduction case in Miami history."