BRAZIL

The Amazing Case of

António Villas Boas

GORDON CREIGHTON

The remarkable claims of A.V.B. were first published in English by Flying Saucer Review; at almost the identical time in January, 1965, the Brazilian magazine O Cruzeiro brought the story of the Brazilian farmer to the attention of the Spanish speaking world (odd as it may seem, the story didn’t appear in the Portuguese edition) and revealed that the initials A.V.B. stood for Antonio Villas Boas.

As our 1965 version was drawn largely from a report sent to us in 1962 by Dr Walter Buhler of Rio de Janeiro, who had interviewed the claimant in 1961—more than three years after the alleged incident—I was interested to see whether or not the O Cruzeiro account included any new details. I had just completed my translation when I received, once more from Dr Buhler, a complete thirteen-page photostat of a remarkable document in Portuguese. This consisted of full typewritten transcripts of the original declaration made by Antonio Villas Boas before Dr Olavo Fontes, M.D., and Senhor Joao Martins, and of Dr Fontes’ official signed report on his medical examination of Antonio.

These two documents are dated February 22, 1958, that is to say only a few weeks after Antonio’s alleged encounter with the strange people who kidnapped him one night, and carried him aboard their craft for an extraordinary purpose—an act of pro­creation between beings of different worlds. I saw at once that the articles in O Cruzeiro had proved to contain extracts from the same documents, and we can therefore disregard them.

Next, to my great surprise, I received a letter dated April 25, 1966, from Dr Fontes himself, and enclosed with it was a translation of the whole of the Declaration, and of the Medical Report, made by Mrs Irene Granchi.

Although Mrs Granchi’s translation is excellent in many respects, one or two passages are omitted, probably for the sake of modesty. However, the translation which I have prepared from the documents sent to me by Dr Buhler is complete, and I offer no apologies to anybody for giving a translation of every word of Antonio’s story and of Dr Olavo’s report, for if this ‘most amazing case’ is true then it is of the utmost importance and must be set down in full for all who want to know the facts.

The declaration and medical report are preceded by Dr Olavo Fontes’ covering letter of April 25 to me:

‘Dear Mr Creighton,

‘In a recent trip to the U.S.A. I had the opportunity to see a number of the Flying Saucer Review, with your article ‘The Most Amazing Case of All—Part 1’.

‘I was very interested, because I am one of the three persons in Brazil possessing the complete report on that incident. In fact I made a personal investigation of the whole affair, together with the newspaperman Joao Martins, who was the man first contacted by the witness, Antonio Villas Boas.

‘Antonio Villas Boas wrote two letters to Joao Martins shortly after the incident had occurred, and we finally decided to send him the money for the trip to Rio de Janeiro.

‘He arrived here about four months after the happenings, with everything still fresh in his memory. He was subjected to an exhaustive cross-examination and interrogation and also to a medical examination including psychological tests.

‘We decided not to publish the results of our investigation because the case was too ‘wild’, and also because of the possibility of another similar case occurring which could be compared with this one—a comparison that would have been most interesting if the first case were not generally known.

‘But no second case appeared: and now, eight years later, you have finally published the results of the investigation made by the Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Sobre Discos Voadores.

‘Unfortunately, their report is not complete—not because of any failure in their investigation, but due simply to the fact that their interview with Villas Boss took place nearly four years after the incident. Obviously his recollection of the events wasn’t as good as it was when we first interviewed him. There was a loss of detail, and he didn’t remember many things that could be important for the evaluation of his experience.

‘To correct this situation, I enclose herewith the complete report about his amazing experience. I would like to see it published in the Review, together with any comments or conclusions you would like to make on the whole case.

‘Concerning his medical history, the symptoms described suggest radiation-poisoning or exposure to radiation, but unfortunately he came to me too late for the blood examinations that could have confirmed such a possibility beyond any doubt. I was then without the additional evidence necessary for making such a diagnosis, and decided not to talk about it.

Sincerely yours,

Olavo T. Fontes, M.D.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 25, 1966

As I hope I have made clear long ago, Antonio Villas Boas is no sophisticated urban type. A handsome brown-skinned man, to judge by the photographs of him which I have, he is evidently a Caboclo (a man of partly Portuguese and partly Amerindian ancestry). He has had very little education, as the medical report confirms, and is quite a typical small farmer of the vast Brazilian interior. That Dr Fontes and Senhor Martins should have found him so highly intelligent does not surprise me, for I have had plenty of contact with such farmers in my own travels in Brazil, and I know that everything in the account of this man sounds authentic, insofar as his own background is concerned.

That there should be some variations (but remarkably few and certainly not important) in two tellings of this story separated by an interval of more than 3.5 years is surely no ground for surprise. In fact they are just the sort of discrepancies which we could expect to creep in if Antonio’s experiences were genuine. What would have looked highly suspicious would have been the discovery that there were no discrepancies at all!

And now, to cap it all, comes the fact that as Dr Fontes says in his covering letter to me, the symptoms of the illness suffered by Antonio after his cosmic dallyings very strongly suggest radiation-sickness.

It seems therefore that the lady in the case was ‘hot-stuff’—-and in more than one sense of the term. So, if anybody still wants to prove that Antonio invented the whole story, it looks as though they are going to have to show us precisely how this simple half-breed farmer from the great Brazilian out-back managed to get himself radioactive.

There is also another item of interest that I can include here. In his declaration, it will be seen that Antonio says he had endeavoured to memorise something of the appearance of the strange writing which stood in vivid red light over one of the doors inside the visitors’ craft, and that he had already sent Senhor Joao Martins his sketched attempt to show what the writing looked like, but that now, on February 22, 1958, he no longer recalled it very well. There is consequently no portrayal of this inscription in the declaration now received, but here again we are most fortunate in the multiplicity of our contacts, for it so happens that last year Dr Buhler sent me a copy of the writing and I therefore append it at the end of Antonio’s declaration. We do not yet know how Dr Buhler got this sketch; and whether it is a reproduction of the original one given by Antonio to Joao Martins, or based on a rendering given on some other occasion, but no doubt we shall learn these details in due course.

DEPOSITION BY ANTONIO VILLAS BOAS. This deposition was given in Dr Fontes’ consulting room on the afternoon of February 22, 1958, in the presence of a witness, the journalist Joao Martins.

‘My name is Antonio Villas Boss. I am 23 years old and a farmer by profession. I live with my family on a farm which we own, near the town of Francisco de Sales, in the state of Minas Gerais, close to the border with the state of Sao Paulo.

‘I have two brothers and three sisters, all of whom live in the same neighbourhood (there were two more, but they have died). I am the youngest son but one. We men all work on the farm, where we have many fields and plantations under cultivation; we also own a petrol-driven tractor (“International”) for ploughing. When the time comes round for cultivation we work the tractor in two shifts; during the day the work is done by two labourers whom we hire for the job. At night it is usually I who do it, working alone (so then I sleep during the day), or at times I work with one of my brothers. I am single, and in good health.

‘I work hard, and I am also taking a correspondence course, studying whenever I can. It was a sacrifice for me to come to Rio, for I should not have left the farm where I am badly needed. But I felt it was my duty to come here and relate the strange happenings in which I have been involved, and l am ready to comply with

[A note on the translation] A man to whom I recently read out part of my translation of Antonio’s story remarked that it sounded altogether too ‘literary’ and too technical for a statement by a Brazilian farmer of the Interior. On analysing his objections, it dawned on me that this was not at all due to my translation, which is a very close one, but simply to the fact that Portuguese is a Latin language. It is a fact that quite frequently in English we have a Saxon word and a Latin word for the same concept, and that of the two the Latin one is more ‘literary’. This is natural, given the Germanic basis of our language. Seen from this angle, it often happens that the languages of the Latin family strike Anglo-Saxon hearers as unnaturally ‘literary’. But In fact the vocabulary of Antonio is entirely right and in keeping with what one would expect in a man in his position in life, although he has only had primary school education. Antonio belongs entirely to the white, European civilization of Brazil. From his photograph it is obvious that he is a ‘Caboclo’ and has some Indian blood in his veins, like so many Brazilians. But his pattern of thinking and cultural background are totally European.[End of Note]

whatever you gentlemen may deem best, including making a declaration before the civil or military authorities. I would however like to return home as speedily as possible, for I am very worried about the situation in which I left the farm.

‘It all began on the night of October 5, 1957. There had been a party there at our house and we had gone to bed later than usual, at 11 o’clock. I was in my room with my brother Joao Villas Boas. Because of the heat, I decided to open the shutters of the window, which looked out on to the yard of the farm, Then I saw, right in the middle of the yard, a silvery fluorescent reflection, brighter than moonlight, lighting up the whole ground. It was a very white light, and I don’t know where it came from. It was as though it came from high up above, like the light of a car head-lamp shining downwards spreading its light all around. But in the sky there was nothing to be seen from which the light could be coming. I decided to call my brother, and showed it to him, but he is a very unbelieving person, and said it was better that we go to sleep. Then I closed the shutters, and we both lay down to sleep. But some time later, being unable to overcome my curiosity, I opened the shutters again. The light was still there, in the same place. I continued to watch. Then, suddenly, it started to move slowly towards my window. Quickly I closed the shutters—so quickly indeed that it made a loud noise and awoke my brother who was already asleep. Together in the darkness of our room we watched the light penetrating through the little slats of the shutters and then moving towards the roof and shining down between the tiles! There it finally went out, and did not return.

‘The second episode occurred on the night of October 14. It must have been between 9.30 and 10 p.m., though I cannot guarantee this as I had no watch on me. I was working the tractor, ploughing a field, along with nay other brother. Suddenly wesaw a very bright light—so bright that it hurt the eyes—stationary at the northern end of the field. When we saw it, it was already there and was big and round, approximately the size of a cart wheel. It seemed to be at a height of about 100 metres and was of a light red colour, illuminating a large area of the ground. There must have been some object inside the light, but I cannot positively affirm this, since the light was much too strong for me to be able to see anything else. I called to my brother to go over there with me and see what it was. He did not want to, so I went alone. When I got near the thing, it suddenly moved and, with enormous speed, shifted to the southern end of the field, where it stopped again. I went after it again, and the same manoeuvre was repeated; this time it went back to where it had been at the start. I went on trying, and the same manoeuvre was repeated twenty times. By then I was tired, so I stopped following it and went back and joined my brother. The light remained stationary in the distance for a few minutes longer. From time to time it seemed to give out rays in all directions, with flashes like the setting sun. Then the light suddenly vanished, just as though it had been turned out. I am not certain if this is what actually happened, for I cannot recall whether I kept looking in that direction all the time. I may have looked away in another direc­tion for a few moments, and it may have climbed rapidly and disappeared before I looked over there again.

‘On the following day, which was October 15, I was alone, ploughing with the tractor at the same place. It was a cold night and the sky very clear, with many stars. At precisely 1 o’clock a.m., I suddenly saw a red star in the sky. It really looked like one of those big, brightly shining stars. But it wasn’t, as I soon discovered, for it rapidly began to grow larger, as though com­ing in my direction. In a few moments it had grown into a very luminous, egg-shaped object, flying towards me at a terrific speed. It was moving so fast that it was above the tractor before I hadtime to think what I should do. There this object then suddenly halted and it descended till it was perhaps 50 metres or so above my head, lighting up the tractor and all the ground around, as though it were daylight, with a pale red glare so powerful that my tractor lights, which were on, were completely swamped by it.

‘I was terrified, for I had no idea what it was. I thought of making my escape on the tractor but I saw that with the low speed it could develop, my chances of success would be slight, given the high speed shown by the object which meanwhile was still stationary there in the air. I also thought of jumping down and escaping on foot. But the soft earth, turned up by the plough-blades, would have been a difficult obstacle in the dark. It would have been difficult for me to run with my legs sinking knee-deep into that treacherous soil, and if I put a foot in a hole I might even break a leg. For perhaps about two minutes I remained in this agonised state, not knowing what to do. But then the lumi­nous object moved forward, and stopped again at a distance of some 10 or 15 metres in front of the tractor. Then it began to drop towards the ground very slowly. It came nearer and nearer, and I was able now to see for the first time that it was a strange machine, rather rounded in shape, and surrounded by little purplish lights, and with an enormous red headlight in front from which all the light had been coming that I had seen when it was higher up in the sky, and, that had prevented me from making out any other details.

‘I could see the shape of the machine clearly, which was like a large elongated egg with three metal spurs in front (one in the middle and one on each side). They were three metal shafts, thick at the bases and pointed at the tips. I could not distinguish their colour, for they were enveloped by a powerful reddish phosphorescence (or fluorescent light, like that of a luminous sign) of the same shade as the front headlight. On the upper part of the machine there was something which was revolving at great speed and also giving off a powerful fluorescent reddish light. At the moment when the machine reduced speed to land, this light changed to a greenish colour, which corresponded— such was my impression-—to a diminution in the speed of rota­tion of that revolving part, which at this point seemed to be taking on the shape of a round dish or a flattened cupola. (The shape of it could not be made out before.) I cannot say whether this was the actual shape of that revolving part on top of the machine, or whether this was simply the impression given by its movement, for at no moment did it ever stop moving, not even later, when the craft was on the ground.

‘Naturally the majority of the details that I am describing now were only observed by me later. In that first moment, I was too nervous and agitated to see much. So much so, that, when I saw three metal supports (forming a tripod) emerge beneath the machine when it was at only a few metres from the ground, I totally lost the little self-control that I had left. Those metal legs were obviously meant to take the weight of the craft when it touched the ground on landing. I did not manage to see this actually happen, for I started up the tractor (its engine had still been running all this time) and shifted it round to one side, trying to open out a route of escape. But I had only travelled a few metres when the engine suddenly died and, simultaneously, the tractor lights went out. I am unable to explain how this happened, for the starting-key was in and the lights were on. I tried to get the engine to start again, but the starter was isolated and gave no sign of life. Then I opened the tractor door on the opposite side from where the machine was, and jumped down to the ground and started to run. But it seems I had lost precious time trying to get the tractor started, for I had only run a few steps when somebody grabbed one of my arms.

‘My pursuer was a short individual (reaching to my shoulder) and dressed in strange clothing. In my desperation I swung round sharply and gave him a hefty push which threw him off balance. This forced him to let go of me and he fell on his back to the ground about 2 metres away from me. I tried to use the advantage gained to continue my flight, but I was promptly attacked simultaneously by three other individuals from the sides and the rear. They grabbed me by the arms and legs and lifted me off the ground, thus robbing me of any possibility of defence. I could only struggle and twist, but their grip on me was firm and they did not let go. I started to yell loudly for help, and to curse them, demanding to be released. I noticed that as they were dragging me towards the machine my speech seemed to arouse their surprise or curiosity, for they stopped and peered attentively at my face every time I spoke, though without loosening their firm grip on me. This relieved me a little as to their intentions, but I still did not stop struggling.

‘In this manner they carried me towards their machine, which was standing at a height of about 2 metres above the ground, on the three metal supports which I have already mentioned. There was an open door in the rear half of the craft. This door opened out from top to bottom, forming as it were a bridge, at the end of which a metal ladder was fixed, made of the same silvery metal that was on the walls of the machine. This ladder was un­rolled to the ground. I was hoisted up on to it, a job that was not easy for them. The ladder was narrow, hardly giving enough room for two persons side by side. Furthermore, it was moveable and flexible, swinging from side to side with my efforts to free myself. There was also a round metal rail on each side of the ladder, of perhaps the thickness of a broomstick, for aid in mounting. I grabbed on to it several times, trying to stop them from hauling me up, and this made them keep stopping in order to unclasp my hands. This rail was flexible too (I had the im­pression later, when coming down the ladder, that the rail was not of one piece but made of small pieces of metal linked to­gether).

‘Once inside the machine, I saw that we had entered a small square room. Its polished metal walls glittered with the reflections of the fluorescent light coming from the metal ceiling and given off by lots of small square lamps set in the metal of the ceiling and running all round the edge of it, near the tops of the walls. I could not count how many of these lamps there were, for they now lowered my feet to the floor, and the outer door came up and closed, with the ladder rolled up and fastened to it. The lighting was so good that it seemed like daylight. But, even in that fluorescent white light, it was impossible to make out any longer where the outer door had been, for in closing, it seemed to have turned into part of the wall. I could only tell where it had been because of the metal ladder attached to the wall. I was unable to observe further details because one of the men—they were five in all—signed to me with his hand to go towards another room that could be glimpsed through an open door on the side opposite to the outer entrance. I do not know whether this second door was already open when I entered the craft, for I had not looked in that direction till then. I decided to obey him, for the men were still holding me tightly and I was now shut in there with them and had no other choice.

‘We left the little room, in which I saw no furniture or instruments, and entered a much larger one, semi-oval in shape, and in the same manner as the other compartment and with the same silvery polished metal walls. I believe that this room was in the centre of the machine for, in the middle of the room, there was a metal column running from ceiling to floor, wide at the top and bottom and quite a bit narrower in the middle. It was round and seemed solid. I do not believe it was there only for decoration; it must have served to support the weight of the ceiling. The only furniture that I could see was a strangely shaped table that stood on one side of the room, surrounded by several backless swivel-chairs (like the round stools used in bars). They were all made of the same white metal. The table and also the stools all tapered off, down below, into one single leg which—in the case of the table—was fixed to the floor, or linked to a moveable ring held fast by three supports that stuck out on each side and were set into the floor (this latter was the case with the stools, permitting those who sat on them to turn in any direction).

‘For what seemed an interminable period I remained standing in that room, still gripped by the arms (by two men), while those strange people watched me and talked about me. I say “talked” only as a way of putting it, for in truth what I was hearing bore no resemblance whatever to human speech. It was a series of barks, slightly resembling the sounds made by a dog. This resemblance was very slight, but it is the only one I can give in an attempt to describe those sounds which were so totally different from anything that I have ever heard till now. They were slow barks and yelps, neither very clear nor very hoarse, some longer, some shorter, at times containing several different sounds all at once, and at other times ending in a quaver. But they were simply sounds, animal barks, and nothing could be distinguished that could be taken as the sound of a syllable or a word in a foreign language. Not a thing! To me it all sounded alike, so that I am unable to retain a word of it. I can’t explain how it is that those folk could understand each other in that way. I still shudder when I think of those sounds. I can’t reproduce them for you gentlemen to hear. . . my voice just isn’t made for that.

‘When the barking stopped, it seemed that they had settled everything, for they grabbed me again—the five of them—and started forcibly undressing me. Again we struggled. I resisting and trying to make it as hard as possible for them. I protested and yelled and swore. They obviously could not understand me, but stopped and looked at me as though trying to make me understand that they were polite people. Besides, although using force, they never at any moment hurt me badly, and they did not even tear my clothes—except perhaps my shirt (which was already torn before), so that I cannot be certain on that point.

‘Finally, they had me totally naked, and I was again worried to death, not knowing what would happen next. Then one of the men approached me with something in his hand. It seemed to be a sort of wet sponge, and with it he began to spread a liquid all over my skin. It could not have been one of those rubber sponges, for it was far softer. The liquid was as clear as water, but quite thick, and without smell. I thought it was some sort of oil, but was wrong, for my skin did not become greasy or oily. They spread this liquid all over my body. I was cold, for the night temperature (outside) was already cold, and it was markedly colder still inside those two rooms in the machine. When they undressed me I began to shiver, and now there was this liquid to make matters worse. But it seems that it dried quickly, and in the end I did not feel much difference.

‘I was then led by three of the men towards a closed door that was on the ‘side opposite to where we had come in. Making signs with their hands that I should accompany them, and barking to each other from time to time, they moved in that direction with me in the middle. The man in front pushed something in the middle of the door (I couldn’t see what it was, maybe a handle or a button which made it open inwards, in two halves, like a bar­room door). When closed, this door ran from the ceiling to the floor, and, on the top part of it, it bore a sort of luminous inscription—or something similar—traced out in red symbols which, owing to an effect of the light, seemed to stand out about 2 inches in front of the metal of the door. This inscription was the only thing of its kind that I saw in the machine. The signs were scrawls completely different from what we know as lettering. I tried to memorise their shapes, and that was what I sketched down in the letter that I sent to Senhor Joao Martins. At the present time I no longer remember how they looked.

‘But, returning to the events, the door in question led into a smaller room, squarish, and lit in the same way as the others. After we had entered (I and two of the men) the door closed again behind us. I glanced back then, and saw something that I don’t know how to explain. There was no door at all there anymore. All that could be seen was a wall like the other walls. I do not know how that was done. Unless, when the door closed, some sort of screen came down that hid it from view. I could not understand it. What is certain is that shortly afterwards the wall opened, and it was a door again; I saw no screen.

‘This time two more men came in, carrying in their hands two pretty thick red rubber tubes each over a metre long. I cannot say whether there was anything inside them, but I do know that they were hollow. One of these tubes was fixed at one of its ends to a chalice-shaped glass flask. The other end of the tube had a nozzle, shaped like a cupping-glass which was applied to the skin of my chin, here, where you can see this dark mark which has remained as a scar. Before that, however, the man who was doing the job squeezed the tube with his hands, as though driving the air out of it. I felt no pain or prickling at the time—merely the sensation that my skin was being sucked in or drawn in. But later the spot began to burn and itch (and subsequently I discovered that the skin had been torn and grazed). The rubber tube having been applied to me, I saw my blood slowly entering the chalice, till it was half full. Then the thing was stopped and the tube withdrawn, and replaced by the other tube which was in reserve. Then I was bled once again on the chin, from this other side, here where you gentlemen can see this other dark mark like the first one. This time the chalice was filled to the brim and then the cupping-glass was withdrawn. The skin was grazed at this place too, burning and itching just as on the other side. Then the men went out, the door closed behind them, and I was left alone.

‘I was left there for a long time, perhaps over half an hour. The room was empty, except only for a large couch in the middle of it—a sort of bed maybe, but without headboard or rim, and a bit uncomfortable for lying on, being very high in the middle, where there was quite a hump. But it was soft, as though made of foam rubber, and was covered with a thick grey material, also soft.

‘I sat down on it, as I was tired after such a struggle and so much emotion. It was then that I noticed a strange smell and began to feel sick. It was as though I was breathing a thick smoke that was suffocating me, and it gave the effect of painted cloth burning. Perhaps that is what it really was, for examining the walls, I now noticed for the first time the existence of a number of small metallic tubes sticking out on a level with my head, with closed ends but pricked full of holes (as in a shower-bath), from which was coming a grey smoke that dissolved in the air. This smoke was the cause of the smell. I cannot say whether the ‘smoke’ was already coming out when the men were taking the blood from me in the other room, as I had not noticed it before. Perhaps, with the door being opened and closed, the air had been circulating better in there and so gave me no reason to notice anything. But now, at any rate, I did not feel well and the nausea increased so much that I ended up by vomiting. When the desire to do so came upon me, I ran over to a corner of the room, where I was violently sick and brought up everything. After that, the difficulty in breathing left me, but I was still rather nauseated from the smell of that smoke. After that I was very dispirited, waiting there for something to happen.

‘I must explain that, up to this time I still had not the slightest idea of the physical appearance or the features of those strange men. All five were dressed in very tight-fitting overalls made of a thick but soft cloth, grey in colour, with black bands here and there. This garment went right up to the neck, where it joined a sort of helmet made of a material (I don’t know what it was) of the same colour, which seemed stiffer and was reinforced at the back and in front by strips of thin metal, one of them being triangular and on a level with the nose. These helmets hid every­thing, leaving visible only the eyes of the people—through two round windows similar to the lenses used in spectacles. Through these windows the men gazed at me with their eyes, which appeared quite a bit smaller than ours—but I think this was an effect produced by the windows. They all had light-coloured eyes, which appeared to me to be blue, but I cannot guarantee this. Above the eyes, the height of their helmets must have corresponded to double the size of a normal head. It is probable that there was something else as well in the helmets, on top of the heads, but nothing could be seen from the outside. But on the top, from the centre of the head, three round silvery tubes emerged (I cannot say whether they were made of rubber or were metallic) which were a little thinner than a garden hose-pipe. These tubes, one in the centre and one on each side, were smooth and they ran backwards and downwards, curving in towards the ribs. There they entered the clothing, into which they were fitted in a way that I don’t know how to explain. The one in the centre entered on the line of the spine. The other two were fixed in, one on each side, below the shoulders, at a point about 4 inches below the armpits—almost at the sides, ‘where the ribs start. I noticed nothing, no protuberance or lump that would indicate that these tubes were connected to some box or instrument hidden under the clothing.

‘The sleeves of the overalls were long and tight-fitting, running as far as the wrists, where they were continued by thick gloves of the same colour, with five fingers, which must have hindered somewhat their hand-movements, I observed in this connection that the men could not bend the fingers completely to the extent of touching their palms with the tips of their fingers. This diffi­culty however did not prevent them from gripping me firmly, nor from deftly handling the rubber tubes for extracting my blood.

‘The clothing must have been a sort of uniform, for all the members of the crew wore, at breast level, a sort of round red shield of the size of a slice of pineapple, which from time to time gave off luminous reflections. There were no lights from the shields themselves, but reflections like those of the pieces of red glass that are above the rear-lights of automobiles, which reflect the headlights of another car just as though they contained lights themselves. From this shield on the centre of the breast came a strip of silvery cloth (or laminated metal) which joined on to a broad tight fitting claspless belt, the colour of which I do not remember. No pockets were visible on any of theoveralls, nor did I see any buttons.

‘The trousers were also tight-fitting over the seat, thighs, and legs, without any visible wrinkle or crease in the cloth. There was no clear separation at the ankle, between trousers and shoes, which were a continuation of each other, being part of one whole.’ The soles of the feet however had a detail different from ours. They were very thick, 2 or 3 inches thick, and quite turned up (or arched up) in front—so that the ends of the shoes, which looked like tennis-shoes, were quite curved up in front—but without ending in a point like the shoes in the history books of olden times. From what I saw afterwards, those shoes must have been a lot bigger than the feet inside them. Despite this, the men’s gait was quite free and easy and they were quite nimble in their movements. Nevertheless that completely closed overall no doubt did perhaps interfere somewhat in their movements for they were always a bit stiff in their walk.

‘They were all of the same height as myself (perhaps a bit shorter in view of the helmets)—except for just one of them, namely the one who had first caught hold of me outside. This one didn’t come up to my chin. They all seemed to be strong, but not so strong that I should have been afraid of being beaten by them had I fought them one at a time. I think that in the open I could have faced any one of them on equal terms.

‘But this had no bearing on the situation in which I now found myself...

‘After an immense interval, a noise at the door made me jump up with a start. I turned in that direction and had a tremendous surprise. The door was open and a woman was entering, walking in my direction. She came slowly, unhurriedly, perhaps amused at the surprise that must have been written on my face. I was flabbergasted, and not without good reason. The woman was stark naked, as naked as I was, and barefoot too.

‘Moreover she was beautiful, though of a different type from the women I had known. Her hair was fair, almost white (like hair bleached with peroxide), smooth, not very abundant, reaching to half way down her neck and with the ends curling inwards; and parted in the centre. Her eyes were large and blue, more elongated than round, being slanted outwards (like the slit eyes of those girls who make themselves up fancifully to look like Arabian princesses; that is how they were, with the difference that here the thing was natural for there was no make-up what­ever). Her nose was straight, without being pointed, nor turned up, nor too big. What was different was the contour of her face, for the cheekbones were very high, making the face very ‘wide (much wider than in the South American Indian women). But then, immediately below, the face narrowed very sharply, terminating in a pointed chin. This feature gave the-lower half of her face a quite triangular shape. Her lips were ‘very thin, hardly visible. Her ears (which I saw later) were small and appeared no different from those of the women I know. The high cheeks gave the impression that there was a projecting bone underneath, but, as I saw later, they were soft and fleshy to the touch, and there was no sensation of bone.

‘Her body was much more beautiful than that of any woman I have ever known before. It was slim, with high and well-separated breasts, thin waist and small stomach, wide hips and large thighs. Her feet were small, her hands long and narrow, and her fingers and nails were normal. She was quite a lot shorter than I, her bead reaching up to my shoulder.

‘This woman came towards me silently, looking at me with the expression of someone wanting something, and she embraced me suddenly and began to rub her head from side to side against my face. At the same time I felt her body all glued to mine and also making movements. Her skin was white (like that of the blonde women here) and, on the arms, was covered with freckles. I smelt no perfume on her skin or her hair, apart from the feminine odour.

‘The door was closed again. Alone there, with that woman embracing me and giving me clearly to understand what she wanted, I began to get excited. . . . This seems incredible in the situation in which I found myself. I think that the liquid that they had rubbed on to my skin was the cause of this. They must have done it purposely. All I know is that I became uncontrollably excited, sexually, a thing that had never happened to me before. I ended up by forgetting everything, and I caught hold of the woman, responded to her caresses with other and greater caresses . . . It was a normal act, and she behaved just as any woman would, as she did yet again, after more caresses. Finally,she was tired and breathing rapidly. I was still keen, but she was now refusing, trying to escape, to avoid me, to finish with it all. ‘When I noticed this, I cooled off too. That was what they wanted of me—a good stallion to improve their own stock. In the final count that was all it was. I was angry, but then I resolved to pay no importance to it. For anyway, I had spent some agreeable moments. Obviously I would not exchange our women for her. I like a woman with whom you can talk and converse and make yourself understood, which wasn’t the case here. Furthermore, some of the grunts that I heard coming from that woman’s mouth at certain moments nearly spoilt everything, giving the disagreeable impression that I was with an animal.

‘One thing that I noticed was that she never kissed me even once. At a certain moment I recall that she opened her mouth as though she were going to do so, but it ended up with a gentle bite on my chin, which shows that it was not a kiss.

‘Another thing that I noted was that her hair in the armpits and in another place was very red, almost the colour of blood. Shortly after we had separated, the door opened. One of the men appeared on the threshold and called the woman. Then she went out. But, before going out, she turned to me, pointed, at her belly and then pointed towards me and with a smile (or something like it), she finally pointed towards the sky—I think it was in the direction of the south. Then she went out… I interpreted this gesture as a warning that she was going to return to take me away with her to wherever she lived. Because of this, I am still frightened even today. If they come back to catch me again, then I’m lost. I don’t want to be parted from my own folk and my land, not on any account,

‘Then the man entered, with my clothes over his arm. He gestured to me to get dressed, and I obeyed in silence. All my things were there in my pockets except for the one item that was missing—my “Homero” brand lighter. I don’t know whether it was taken by them or fell out during the struggle when I was captured. For that reason, I didn’t even try to protest.

‘We then went out and returned to the other room. Three of the crew of the machine were sitting there in those swivel-chairs, conversing (or, rather, grunting) among themselves. The one who was with me went over to join them, leaving me in the middle of the room near the table of which I spoke earlier.

‘I was now completely calm, as I knew that they would not do me any harm. While they settled their affairs, I tried to pass the time in observing and fixing in my memory all details of everything that I could see (walls, furniture, uniforms, etc.). At a given moment I noticed that, on the table, near the men, there was a square box with a glass lid on it, protecting a dial like the dial of an alarm clock. There was a hand there on it, and a black mark at the place corresponding to six o’clock. There were similar marks at the points corresponding to nine o’clock and three o’clock. At the place corresponding to twelve o’clock it was different; there were four little black marks there in a row, side by side. I don’t know how to explain their meaning, but that’s how they were there.

‘At first I thought the instrument was a kind of clock, because one of the men glanced at it from time to time. But I don’t think it was, for I kept my eye on it for quite a long while, and at no time did I see the hand moving. If it had been a clock this would have had to happen, as time was passing.

‘Then I got the idea to grab that thing. I remembered that I need to take something with me to prove my adventure. If I could get that box the problem would be solved. It might be that, seeing my interest in it, the men would decide to make me a present of it.

‘I slowly got nearer and nearer to it, the men were not paying attention, and suddenly I grabbed the instrument with both hands and pulled it off the table. It was heavy, weighing perhaps more than 2 kilos. . . . But I didn’t even have the time to examine it. As quick as lightning one of the men jumped up and, pushing me aside, snatched it from me angrily, and went and put it back in its place. I drew away until I could feel my back against the nearest wall. I stayed there quietly, though I was not frightened. I am not afraid of any man. But it was better to remain still, for it had been proved that they only showed me consideration when I behaved properly. Why attempt anything that would have no results? The only thing I did was to scratch the wall with my nails, trying to see whether I could detach a sliver of that metal. But my nails glanced off the polished wall without finding any purchase. Moreover the metal was hard and I couldn’t get any of it. So I just stayed there, waiting.

‘I never saw the woman again (either dressed, or naked) after she went out of the other room. But I found out where she was. On the forward part of that big room there was another door through which I had not been. It was now slightly ajar, and from time to time I heard noises coming from there, as though caused by someone moving about. It could only be the woman, for all the others were in the same room with me, in their strange uniforms and helmets; I imagine that that front compartment must have corresponded to the room where the pilot would be who was in charge of the navigation of the machine. But I was not able to verify this.

‘At last, one of the men rose and gestured to me that I should accompany him.

‘The others remained seated, without looking at rue. We walked towards the small ante-room and as far as the outer door, which was open again, with the ladder already rolled down. However, we did not go down it, for the man made a sign to me to accompany him towards a platform which was there, on either side of the door, This platform went around the machine and, although narrow, permitted one to go along it in either direction,

‘To begin with we went along towards the front. The first thing I noticed was a sort of metal projection, square inshape and firmly fixed into the side of the machine, and sticking out (there was a similar thing on the other side). Had these two parts not been so small I would have judged that they were wings for aiding the thing to fly. From their appearance I think that their purpose was perhaps to move up or down, controlling the rise or the descent of the machine. I admit however that at no moment, even when the craft took off, did I notice any movement of them. And so I cannot explain what purpose they served, ‘Further on towards the front, the man pointed out to me the three metal shafts that I have already mentioned, solidly set (the two outer ones) in the sides of the machine and (the middle one) right in the front, as though they were three metal spurs. They were all of the same shape and length, very thick at the base and tapering off to a fine point at the tip. The position of all three was horizontal. I don’t know whether they were of the same metal as the craft, because they were giving off a slight reddish phosphorescence, as though they were red-hot. However, I felt no heat.

‘A little bit above the bases of them, where they were attached to the craft, there were reddish lights set in it. The two side lights were smaller and round. The front one was enormous, also round, and was the “front headlight” of the machine, which I have already described. All around the hull of the craft and slightly above the platform, on which they cast a reddish light, were countless small square lamps similar in appearance to those used for the interior lighting of the machine.

‘In front, the platform did not go the whole way round, but ended near a large semi-projecting thick sheet of glass elongated towards the sides and stoutly embedded in the metalwork. Perhaps it served for seeing through, for there were no windows anywhere at all. I think however that that would be difficult for, seen from the outside, the glass seemed very blurred. Seen from inside I don’t know how it would be, but I don’t believe it could be any more transparent.

‘I think that those front spurs released the energy that drove the machine forward, because, when it took off, its luminosity increased extraordinarily, merging completely with the lights of the headlamps.

‘Having seen the front part of the machine, we returned to the rear (the back part bulged out much more than the front part). But, before that, we stopped for a few moments and the man pointed upwards to where the enormous dish-shaped cupola was rotating. It was turning slowly, completely lit up by a greenish fluorescent light coming from I don’t know where. Even with that slow movement, you could hear a noise like the sound of air being drawn in by a vacuum-cleaner, a sort of whistle (like the sound of air in movement when it is being sucked through lots of little holes; I did not see any holes, however. That is just by way of comparison).

‘Later, when the machine began to rise from the ground, the revolving dish increased its speed to such a point that it became invisible, and then only the light could be ‘seen, the brightness of ‘which also increased quite a lot, and it changed colour, turning to a vivid red. At that moment the sound also increased (showing that there was a connection with the speed of rotation of the round dish revolving on, the top of the craft) and turned into a veritable hum or loud whine. I didn’t understand the reasons for these changes, and I don’t understand what would be the purpose of the luminous revolving dish, which never stopped turning for a single moment. But it must have had, some use, since it was there.

‘There seemed to be a small reddish light in the centre of that revolving cupola or dish, but the movement prevented me from verifying this with certainty.

‘Returning now to the back part of the machine, we again passed in front of the door and walked on, following the rearward curve. Right at the back, in the place where the tail of an aircraft would project, there was a rectangular piece of metal set in a vertical’ position’ and running from front to back across the plat­form. But it was quite low,’ no higher than my knee, and I was able to step over it easily to go to the other’ side, and come back again.

‘As I was doing so I noticed, on the floor of the platform, one on either side of the plate, two inset reddish lights in the shape of thick bulging cuts. They resembled aircraft lights, though they were not flashing.

‘I think however that the piece of metal in question was a sort of rudder for changing the machine’s direction. At any rate I saw this piece of metal move towards one side at the moment when the machine—then stationary in the air at a certain height after taking off—abruptly changed direction before starting to move off at a fantastic speed.

‘Having also seen the rear part of the machine, we returned to the door. My guide now pointed to the metal ladder and signed to me to go down it. I obeyed. When I was down on the groundI looked up. He was still there. Then he pointed to himself, and then pointed to the ground, and finally to the sky towards the south. Then he made a sign to me to step back, and he disappeared into the machine.

‘The metal ladder now began to get shorter, the steps arranging themselves one above the other, like a stack of boards. When the ladder reached the top the door (which, when open, was the floor) began, in its turn, to rise until it fitted into the wall, of the craft and became invisible.

‘The lights of the metal spurs and of the headlamps and of the revolving dish all became brighter, while the dish was spinning faster and faster. Slowly the craft began to rise, vertically. At that moment, the three shafts of the tripod on which it had been standing rose towards the sides, the lower part of each leg (narrower, rounded, and ending in an enlarged foot) began to enter the upper part (which was much thicker and square), and when that was finished, the top parts began to enter the base of the machine. Finally there was no longer anything to be seen there; the base was smooth and polished as though that tripod had never existed. I did not manage to make out any marks indicating the places where the shafts had fitted in. Those people certainly did a good job of it.

‘The craft continued to rise slowly into the air until it had reached a height of some 30 to 50 metres. There it had stopped for a few seconds, and at the same time its luminosity began to get still greater. The whirring noise of the air being displaced became much more intense and the revolving dish began to turn at a fearful speed, while its light changed through various colours till it was a vivid red. At that moment, the machine suddenly changed direction, with an abrupt movement, making a louder noise, a sort of “beat” (this was when I saw the part that I have called the “rudder” move to one side).

‘Then, listing slightly to one side, that strange machine shot off like a bullet towards the south, at such a speed that it was gone from sight in a few seconds.

‘Then I went back to my tractor, I left the craft at roughly 5.30 in the morning, having entered it at 1.15 in the early hours. So I had been in there for four hours and fifteen minutes. A very long time indeed.

When I tried to startup the engine of the tractor, I found that’ it still was not working. I looked to see if there was some defect, and discovered that one of the battery leads had been disconnected and was out of place. Somebody had done that, for a well­ secured battery lead doesn’t come undone by itself (I had checked them when I left home). It must have been done by one of the men after the tractor had stopped, ‘with its engine dead, probably ‘while they were capturing me. It could have been done to prevent me from escaping again should I manage to free myself from their hold. They were pretty sharp-witted people; there was nothing that they hadn’t foreseen.

‘Apart from my mother, I haven’t told my story to anybody till now. She said I should never get mixed up with those people again. I had not the courage to tell my father, for I had already told him about the light that had appeared in the paddock of the farm and he had not believed me for he said I “had been seeing things”.

‘Later, I decided to write to Senhor Joao Martins, after reading one of his articles in O Cruzeiro, in November, in which he appealed to readers to report to him all cases to do with the flying saucers. Had I possessed enough money, I would have come earlier. But as I didn’t, I had to wait until he said he would help me with the cost of the journey.

‘I am at your disposal, gentlemen. If you think I should return home, I will go home tomorrow. But if you wish me to stay longer, I shall agree to do so. That is why I came.’

That concludes A. V. Boas’ deposition and I feel we should now see what Dr Fontes had to say about the interview. When he sent me Mrs Granchi’s translation, he wrote:

‘The deposition transcribed above was made spontaneously by Senhor Antonio Villas Boas in my consulting-rooms. For about four hours we listened to the narration of his story and we subjected him to a minute interrogation. We endeavoured to clarify certain details, trying to catch him out in contradictions, and trying to call his attention to certain inexplicable points in his story, in order to see whether he was disconcerted by this or had recourse to his imagination.

‘Right from the outset it was obvious that he presented no psychopathic traits. Calm, talking freely, revealing no nervous tics or signs of emotional instability, all his reactions to the questions put to him were perfectly normal, At no moment did he ever falter or lose control of his narrative. His hesitancies corresponded precisely to what could be predicted in an individual who, in a strange situation, could find no explanation for certain facts. At such moments, even though he knew that the doubts expressed by him on certain questions might lead us to disbelieve him, he answered quite simply: “I don’t know about that”, or: “I can’t explain that”.

‘Various examples can be given of features in his narrative that, to him, are totally inexplicable, such as . . . (a) the beam of light that lit up the farm paddock but which came from he knew not where; (b) what it was that caused the tractor engine to stop and his lights to go out; (c) the reason for the presence of that rotating dish, turning incessantly, on the top of the craft; (d) their motive for taking his blood; (e) the door that closed and became part of the wall; (f) the strange sounds that issued from the throats of the personages in his story; (g) the symptoms (described below) presented by him during the days following his adventure, etc.

‘And then, on the other hand, in one of his letters to Joao Martins he had declared that he could not put certain details in writing, because he felt ashamed. This was the part concerning the “woman” and the “sexual relations”. No description of any of these details was given spontaneously by him. When we interrogated him about it, he displayed shame and embarrassment, and only by dint of much insistence did we succeed in extracting from him the details given above. He was also bashful when admitting that the shirt he had on at the time was torn, in reply to my question as to whether they had torn his clothing.

‘These emotional reactions are in keeping with what one would expect from a psychologically normal individual of his education and background.

‘We noted in him no tendency towards superstition or mysticism. He did not think the crew of the machine were angels, or supermen, or demons. He considers that they were men like us, but from other regions, on some other planet. He declared that he believed this because the member of the crew who accompanied him out of the craft pointed to himself and then at the ground and then at some place in the sky—a gesture that, in his opinion, could have only that meaning. Furthermore, the fact that the members of the crew remained the whole time with their uniforms fastened up and their helmets on indicates, in his opinion, that the air that they breathe is not the same as ours. Taking this statement as an indication that ‘he considered the woman—the only one to appear without helmet and uniform— as being of a different race from the others (possibly of terrestrial origin, bred and adapted to the conditions of another planet) I put this question to him.

‘He firmly refused to accept this possibility, arguing that she was physically just the same as the others when she was wearing her helmet and uniform, being different from them only in the matter of her height. Furthermore, when speaking, she made the same sounds as the others; she had also taken part in his capture; at no moment had she appeared to be under any constraint by the others, being just as free as any of them.

‘I then asked whether the helmet could not have been a sort of disguise, inasmuch as the woman was able to breathe our air. He replied that he did not think so, for he believed that she had only been able to bear our atmosphere by reason of the smoke coming out of the small tubes set in the wall of the little room where the “meeting” took place. This was the smoke which had caused him to feel so unwell. This fact, plus the observation that the “smoke” did not exist in any of the other rooms (where he did not see any of the crew members remove their helmets), had led him to conclude that the smoke was some gas necessary for her to be able to breathe, and put there precisely in order that she could appear without protection of the helmet.

‘As can be seen from this example, Senhor Antonio Villas Boas is very intelligent. His reasoning is surprisingly logical for a man from the interior who scarcely knows how to read and write (primary education only). The same can be said with regard to his ‘suspicion’ concerning the possible aphrodisiac effects of the liquid that they rubbed over his body, although here this explanation may perhaps have served more to satisfy his own “ego” —if he was telling the truth—since his sexual excitement could well have been perfectly spontaneous. His unconscious revulsion could have been due to the fact that it was painful for him to admit that he had been dominated by purely animal impulses.

‘On the other hand, the liquid could have been simply an anti­septic, disinfectant; or deodorant, to clean him and rid him of genus that might have been harmful to his lady companion.

‘We asked him if he considered that any of his actions had been performed under mental domination or telepathic sugges­tion from his captors. His reply was in the negative. He said he had been master of his actions and thoughts throughout the whole adventure. At no moment did he feel himself dominated by any extraneous idea or influence, “All that they managed to get from me was ‘by the fist” was his comment. He denied having received any telepathic idea or message from any one of them. “If they thought themselves capable of such things”, he con­cluded, “then I must have disappointed them quite badly.”

‘At the close of the interrogation, Joao Martins told him that unfortunately he would not be able to publish the story in O Cruzeiro because, in. the absence of more conclusive proofs in support of it, it would be difficult for it to be taken seriously, unless a similar story were to appear somewhere else.

‘Villas Boas was visibly discouraged at this (either because he wanted to see his name in O Cruzeiro, or because he could see from Joao Martins’ expression that he did not believe him). He was quite upset, but did not protest, nor did he attempt to discuss the matter. He simply said: “In that case, if you don’t need me any more, I’ll go back home tomorrow morning. If you should want to make a trip out there one of these days I shall be very glad to receive you. If you need anything else from me, you only have to write…”

‘To console him in his disappointment, I told him that, if he was set on seeing his adventure in print, he had only to go to the newspapers—’which would certainly print it at this time, just when the subject was back in the headlines because of the photographs of the Trinidade Island “saucer”. But, citing as an example this case of the photographer Bartona, I warned him that for many people he would be merely a madman or a hoaxer. His reply ran as follows: “I would challenge those accusing me of being a madman or a liar to come out to my home district, and make an investigation of me. They would see whether the folk there do not consider me to be a normal and honourable man.

If, after all that, they still continued to doubt me, then so much the worse for them...”

‘All the foregoing remarks confirm the impression of sincerity that Senhor Villas Boas’ manner of relating it lent to his story. On the other hand, they make it very clear that we are not dealing with a psychopath, a mystic, or a visionary. But, despite it all, the very content of his story is itself the biggest argument against its veracity. Certain details are too fantastic to be believed— unfortunately for him. In these circumstances we are left with the hypothesis that he is an extremely clever liar, a hoaxer endowed with an amazing imagination and of a rare intelligence—capable ‘of telling an entirely original story, completely different in its genre from everything that has appeared up to now, His memory must also be phenomenal; for example, the detailed description that he gave us of the strange machine tallies precisely with a carved wooden model which he sent to Joao Martins in November. Be it noted, moreover, that the craft is entirely different from the flying saucers described up till now (as if he were determined to be’ original even in this).

‘This agreement between the wooden model made months before and his oral description (plus a sketch) given to us today, indicates that this man must be endowed with an excellent visual memory.

‘Another experiment which we did was to show him various photographs of blonde Brazilian women, to see if he found that any of them resembled, either in features or hair, the blonde female member of the machine’s crew. The result was negative. Last of all, we showed him a photo published in O Cruzeiro (in 1954) of a painted reproduction of Adamski’s “Venusian”, done in accordance with Adamski’s own instructions. Villas Boas recognised no similarity, pointing out that the face of the person whom he had met was much thinner, and was triangular in its lower half; that the eyes of the woman were larger and more slanting; and that her hair was much shorter (coming only to half way down the neck) and arranged in a different style. Neither did he recognise any similarity in-the clothing.

The sketch of the machine

‘This sketch was made by Villas Boas himself in my consulting rooms in order to help us to understand the details about the craft as furnished in his deposition. This sketch must be interpreted in terms of the description given by Villas Boas, which is quite detailed. (Figure 11.)

Length: 35 feet. Width at rear: 23 feet 4 inches.

‘On the following day (October 17) Villas Boas returned to the place where the strange craft had landed and he measured the distances between the three marks that were there in the ground, corresponding to the feet of the tripod on which the machine stood. These measurements give an approximate idea of the actual dimensions of the craft.

We have now given in translation almost the whole of this most important text, the photostatic copy of the report of the interrogation of Antonio Villas Boas, and there now remains only that section of it which contains what is indubitably the most significant part of all, namely Dr Olavo Fontes’ medical report on A.V.B., and this will be found in Appendix B to this chapter.

As for Dr Olavo Fontes’ own comments, given above, we see clearly that the doctor was in a real quandary. He and Joao Martins were obliged, as honest men, to admit that A.V.B. is no psychopath or visionary, but they were then forced by the logic of their position to go on to explain to us that not only is he extremely intelligent but that he is endowed with a power of original imagination and a phenomenal memory that take him out of the category of ordinary folk altogether. All of which, as you may admit, is not bad for a farmer from the great Brazilian hinterland (where such educational facilities as do exist in the countryside are pretty poor, so that the primary education that A.V.B. received there is most unlikely to have been anywhere near to the standards prevailing in the advanced urban areas of Brazil or in other countries).

But why is it that they felt obliged to portray A.V.B. as a mental superman who had succeeded in creating a totally new kind of story and of retaining all the minute details of it in his memory for months, indeed for years, with almost no alteration?

It is purely and simply, because, as we have just read in the foregoing section, ‘the very content of the story is the biggest argument against its veracity.’

In other words, A.V.B. had to be a liar and a hoaxer because the story couldn’t be true.

(Let us remember how Captain Ruppelt of the U.S. Air Force told us, in his book, that all reports of UFO landings and of contacts with UFO entities in the U.S.A. in the early years after 1947 went automatically into the ‘C.P.F.’—the crackpot file. Which probably means that no records of many valuable cases now remain.)

But do we have to accept the statement that Dr Olavo Fontes and Senhor Joao Martins really did believe that their man was romancing?

Without going so far as to reveal all that we know about this, I may say here and now that there are excellent grounds for thinking quite otherwise. The eminent doctor and the eminent journalist knew very well indeed that A.V.B. was not lying or making it up.

Their failure to divulge the A.V.B. story had an altogether different reason, and I have the best of grounds (though I do not propose to reveal them) for asserting that there was a pact or, agreement between them that they would not publish it.

Brazil in 1958 was very close, politically, to the United States, which possesses today no more loyal or more efficient ally in the South American Continent. Indeed for this fact all true lovers of peace—in contradistinction to those others who jabber so much about peace while harbouring very different intentions——have every reason for satisfaction. We may be sure then, that as loyal Brazilians, the eminent doctor and the eminent journalist will have been in touch with the Security and Intelligence Services of their own country. Are we very far off the mark, then, if we enquire whether the suppression of the A.V.B. case took place on the express instructions of the Brazilian Intelligence and their close friends and allies, the Intelligence authorities of the U.S.A.? I have said enough and will leave it at that.

Finally, if the doctor and the journalist considered A.V.B. to have been lying in 1958, did they think so in 1966? If so, why did Dr Olavo Fontes send a full translation (which we did not use) of this document to Flying Saucer Review? Is this not clear proof that they know the story is true? Since the Review had received the main skeleton of the story long ago from Dr Buhler and published it in 1965, would It not be reasonable to assume that Dr Fontes thought we might as well now have the whole account, in all its details to round off the picture?

Had the story not been brought out into the open by Dr Buhler and Flying Saucer Review, it is legitimate to think that the non-publication pact might still have been in force today. And, in­deed, I am informed that Joao Martins still resolutely refuses to show the original—or photos—of the wooden model of the strange craft sent to him by A.V.B.

The sketches of the machine

For the benefit of readers who did not see the first account of the A.V.B. story in Flying Saucer Review, Numbers 1, 2, and 4, of 1965, I consider it useful to reproduce again the two sketches of the machine which A.V.B. made for Drs Buhler and MarioPrudente Aquino when they visited him, in his home district, in July 1961, that is to say about 3.5 years after the date when he made his first sketch in Dr Olavo Fontes’ consulting rooms in Rio de Janeiro. The source for these sketches is SBEDV Bulletin No. 26/27, April/July 1962, edited by Dr Buhler. (Figure 12.)

‘Concerning A.V.B.’s description of the writing seen by him over a door, the specimen reproduced in ‘the Flying Saucer Review is not an accurate reproduction of the original. In fact, Dr Mario Prudente Aquino appeared one day in my office and asked me about it.

I told him that I could give him a copy of the original any time he wanted, but that, at that moment, I could only try to reproduce the writing, which I had memorised. He asked me to do it, and left with the copy which was later sent to you. I never imagined that he wanted it for publication, because he never came back to ask for the copy I had promised him. As you see, he made a mistake, because my memory is not so good, so that the specimen you have reproduced is somehow different from the original inscription sent to Joao Martins by Antonio. This original is reproduced below.’ (Figure 13.)

APPENDIX A

 This description of the first moments after the appearance of the craft above the tractor is different from the one given by Villas Boas in one of his letters to Joao Martins last November. In that letter, he said that on seeing the ‘object’ stationary above the tractor, and being unable to escape on the tractor owing to its low speed or on foot because of the danger and the handicap presented by the freshly turned soil, he had decided to turn off the engine and wait and see what happened. He had then seen the object land, a short distance from him, on its metal tripod,and had seen its door open, a ladder come down, and two men in strange clothing appear. One of them had begun to descend the ladder, while the other one had signed to Villas Boas inviting him to come nearer and to enter the machine. It was only then that panic had seized him, and he had tried to start up the tractor. Not succeeding in this, the starter being isolated (there is no reference made to his lights), and seeing one of the men already down on the ground and the other man halfway clown the ladder, he had quickly abandoned the tractor via the door on the other side, and had been seized, after a few steps, by the first of his pursuers. From here on, the two versions agree.

This contradiction was the only one that we were able to dis­cover during our interrogation of Villas Boas. We do not demand an explanation for it and merely note it for future evaluation. The existence of this contradiction was one of the reasons for Joao Martins’ unbelief regarding the case.

 APPENDIX B

Clinical remarks and medical examination by Dr Olavo Fontes

 SUBJECT: Antonio Villas Boas, aged 23, white, single, farmer, residing in Sao Francisco de Sales in the state of Minas Gerais.

 History of the illness

 As is recorded- in his deposition, he left the machine at 5.30 a.m. on October 16, 1957. He was feeling quite weak, having eaten nothing since 9 o’clock the previous evening and having vomited a good deal while in the machine. He arrived home exhausted and slept almost the whole day through. He awoke at 4.30 p.m., feeling well, and ate a normal dinner. But already that night, as well as-the following night, he was unable to sleep. He was nervous and very excited; he managed several times to get off to sleep, but at once began to dream, of the happenings of the night before, just as if it were occurring all over again. Then he would wake up with a start, shouting, and feeling himself seized once more by his strange captors.

After experiencing this several times, he gave up trying to sleep, and attempted to pass the night in studying. But he could not do that either, for he was completely unable to concentrate on what he was reading; his thoughts were always reverting to the events of the previous night. The dawn found him disturbed, walking up and down and smoking one cigarette after another. He was tired and his body hurt all over. Then he drank a cup of coffee, without eating, as was his wont. Straight away however he felt nauseated. This nausea lasted throughout the whole day. A very severe headache also set in, in his temples, which pounded, and this also remained with him all day. He noticed that he had entirely lost his appetite, and for about two days he was quite unable to eat anything.

He spent the second night also without being able to sleep, in the same state as the night before. During this second night, he began to feel a troublesome burning sensation in his eyes, but the headache had gone, and did not return.

During the second day he remained nauseated and totally without appetite. He did not vomit however at any time, perhaps because he had not forced himself to eat. The burning sensation in the eyes increased and now began to be accompanied by continual watering. However he noticed no congestion of the conjunctivae, nor any other signs of irritation of the eyes. He noticed no diminution in his vision.

On the third night, sleep returned, and he slept normally. But from now onwards, for approximately one month, he was overcome by an excessive sleepiness. Even during the day, he kept on nodding off and falling asleep at any moment, even when talking to other people, and wherever he might-be. It sufficed only for him to remain still for a little while, and he would drop off to sleep. During all this period of somnolescence, the burn­ing in his eyes also continued, as well as the excessive watering. The nausea however disappeared on the third day, when too his appetite returned and he began to eat normally. He noted that the visual symptoms were aggravated in the sunlight, so that he was obliged to avoid much light.

On the eighth day, while working, he got a small bruise on his forearm, with a little local bleeding. Next day, he noticed that the lesion had turned into a small infected wound, with a little head of pus and very itchy. When this wound healed, there remained a purplish patch around it. Between four and ten days later, he had similar wounds appear on his forearms and legs. These however came spontaneously, without any prior traumatism, all of them starting with a small lump with a hole in the middle, very itchy, and each of them lasting from ten to twenty days. He mentions that they all remained ‘purple - all round when they dried up’, the scars being still visible now.

At no time did he notice any cutaneous eruption or any burn­ing sensation, and he likewise denies having seen any haemorrhagic spots on his skin (petechiae) or bruises on any lesser wounds (haemorrhagic patches); if there were any such, they had passed unnoticed by him, He mentions however that on the fifteenth day two yellowish patches appeared on his face, one on each side of the nose, and more or less symmetrical. They were ‘sort of semi-pallidspots, as though there was little blood there’, which disappeared spontaneously after some ten to twenty days.

At the present time he still has two small unhealed wounds on his arms, besides the scars of the various other wounds that kept on appearing sporadically during the last few months. None of the other symptoms described have reappeared up to the present time. He feels well at present and. considers himself to be in good health.

He denies having had fever, diarrhea, hemorrhagic symptoms, or jaundice, either during the acute phase of his illness or subsequently. On the other hand, he noticed no area of depi­lation on his body or face, nor did he observe any excessive loss of hair, at any time, between October and now. During the period of sleepiness he displayed no apparent diminution in his capacity for physical labour. He likewise observed no diminution in his libido or potency, or any change in the sharpness of his eyesight. He noticed no anaemia, and he had no ulcerated lesions in the mouth.

 Previous Illnesses

 He mentions only eruptive illnesses proper to childhood (measles, chickenpox), with no complications. No chronic venereal disease. Has suffered for some years past from ‘chronic colitis’, which is giving him no trouble at the moment.

 Physical examination

 The subject is of male sex, white, smooth black hair, dark eyes, apparently suffering from no acute or chronic illness. Biotype: long-limbed aesthenic. Facies: atypical. Is of medium height (1 metre 64 centimetres in shoes), lean but strong, with well developed musculature. Is well nourished, presenting no signs of vitamin deficiency. No physical deformities or anomalies in physical development. Body hair of normal appearance and distribution for his sex. Conjunctival mucosae slightly discoloured. Teeth in good state of preservation. Superficial ganglia impalpable.

 Dermatological examination

 The following changes are to be noted:

(1) Two small hyperchromic patches, one on each side of the chin were observed, of small size and more or less round in shape, one of them is of the diameter of a Brazilian 10-centavo piece and the other one a little larger and more irregular in appearance; the skin on these regions looks smoother and thinner, as though it had been renewed recently, or as if it were somewhat atrophied. There is no element permitting one to make any evalu­ation as to the nature and the age of these two marks: it can only be said that they are scars of some superficial lesion with associated subcutaneous haemorrhage, which have been in existence at least a month and at the most twelve months. These marks are seemingly not permanent and will probably disappear after a few months. No other similar patch or mark was noted.

(2) Several scars from recent (a few months at the most) cutaneous lesions on the backs of the hands, on the forearms, and on the legs. All present the same appearance, which recalls that of small cicatrized boils or wounds, with areas of desquamation around them, showing that they are relatively recent. There are still two which have not yet healed, one on each arm, and their appearance is that of small reddish nodules or lumps, harder than thesurrounding skin and standing out from it, painful whenpressed, and having a small central orifice discharging a yellowish serous fluid. The skin around these wounds is changed and irritated, indicating that the lesions are prurient, since there are marks made by the patient’s fingernails when scratching them. The most interesting aspect of all these cutaneous lesions and scars is the presence of a violet-coloured hyperchromic area around all of them—a feature with which we are totally un­acquainted. We do not know whether or not these areas may possess any special significance. Our experience in Dermatology is insufficient for us to be able to interpret them correctly, since that is not our speciality. We consequently confine ourselves to a description of the changes, which have also been photo­graphed.

 Examination of the nervous system

 Good orientation in time and space. Feelings and affections within the normal limits. Spontaneous and stimulated attention both normal. Tests of perception, thought-association, and reasoning powers indicate apparently normal mental mechanisms. Long-term and short-term memory in good shape. Excellent visual memory, with facility for reproducing in drawings or sketches the details he has described verbally. Absence of any sign or any indirect evidence of perturbation of the mental faculties.

NOTE: These results, while accurate, need to be completed— if possible—by a more specialised psychiatric examination, per­formed by a specialist. Examination of motility, reflexes, and surface sensitivity: revealed nothing abnormal. Examination of other organs and systems: revealed nothing abnormal.

Signed: OLAVO FONTES, M.D.,

- Rio de Janeiro, February 22, 1958.

Postscript

It is with the deepest regret that we record herein that Dr Olavo T. Fontes died on May 9, 1968.

2. Villa Santini Case | Contents | 4. Humanoids in Latin America (64 cases) Part 1