by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear

Brazilian UFO cases have aspects to them that, while not unheard of in other countries, come up over and over again giving them a commonality that is unique to Brazil. Lost time, traveling long distances in trucks and cars in far less time and using far less fuel than it should take, humanoid encounters, and injuries are a few of these. A case from 1980 has all of these aspects except injury, and it is described in the cover story of the March 1982 APRO Bulletin.

According to the article headlined “1980 Brazilian Abduction,” the case came to light “during the question and answer period following a UFO lecture by APRO’s Brazilian Representative, Mrs. Irene Granchi.” Granchi later interviewed the people involved, Elias Seixas de Matos, 38; Guaraci Fernandes de Sousa, 47; and Alberto Seixas Vierra, 26. Granchi later wrote about the case in an article (link to original article broken at this time) published in the April 1995 issue of UFO Magazine. There, she says she was lecturing about the work of Rio de Janeiro-based “hypnologist,” Dr. Silvio Lago. According to her, the three men were introduced to her, and it was explained that they wanted to meet Lago as they all seemed to have experienced partial amnesia and couldn’t recall long stretches of time during a delivery run in a truck.

At this point, de Sousa and Vierra saw a quick flash of blue light come down from the sky which hit the hood of the truck. De Matos stopped the truck, and the three got out. As they did, they saw what looked like a bonfire ahead of them about a mile away. It’s described as having been “fiery red,” to have emitted a white flash every second, and to have been smokeless. The men estimated that it was about one meter high, six meters long, and cigar shaped.

During “later questioning,” Granchi learned that de Matos and de Sousa “had always wanted to see a UFO,” and that de Sousa was “well informed on the subject.” Vierra was worried about taking any sort of risks and begged the other two not to go any farther. In spite of this, they went another 20 yards and de Matos shot some film footage of the object with the new Super-8 camera he’d brought along. Granchi reportedly viewed the eight seconds worth of footage which showed “a fiery circle and four white flashes against the dark night background.”

De Sousa attempted “mental contact” and nothing happened, and Vierra became panicked at the possibility that they might be abducted and not see their families again. They went back to the truck and continued on.

As they were travelling, de Sousa’s hat flew out of the truck from where it had been “wedged between his back and the seat.” They stopped so he could get it, whereupon de Matos suddenly felt drowsy and asked de Sousa to drive. From this point until their next stop at Guarai, de Matos remembered nothing.

They rested, and then, when de Matos went to fill the fuel tank, he was amazed to find that they had used up only one liter on a 143 km trip. They set off for the 1200 km trip to Brazilia, which was uneventful, and then headed home to Rio, which should have taken 20 hours, but they made it in 12, and de Matos noted that they had used only 270 cruzeiros worth of diesel, whereas they normally would have used 3,000 cruzeiros.

They pulled up to de Sousa’s house, and the lights of the car in his driveway started blinking on and off. De Sousa’s wife thought it was their son playing with the car, but saw that he was standing on the truck and that the car was empty. Then, when de Matos got home, got out of the truck and walked in front of it, the hood, which formerly had been difficult to open as it often stuck, lifted up about 20 cm and banged down twice. He also noted that a cyst that had been on the back of his hand for a long time was gone.

It was arranged that both de Sousa and de Matos would be hypnotized on October 9th. De Sousa’s session revealed no more information, but during de Matos’s session, an abduction story came out. He described finding himself floating upside down in an egg-shaped object, becoming stuck to one of its walls, and then sliding down it to the floor.

He said walked down some steps to a large, white, circular room and saw a “man” crouching in front of a table that had levers of various colors which he was manipulating. The man was wearing a tight-fitting, rubber-like, yellow one-piece suit with a head covering and a belt that had a circular buckle-like shape in the front that had lights that were the same colors as the levers.

De Matos said his arms were limp and that he felt like there was some sort of wall between him and the man and that he was unable to get closer. He described the man’s face as pale, his eyes as lilac and having no pupils, his mouth as large with no lips, and said his arms and hands were exceptionally long. He said the man was tall as well and stood about 2 meters.

The man pointed out a window and de Matos could see “something very large and balls or spheres of several colors crossing the space beyond the window” and “stars moving across a blue background.”

Granchi’s article has a transcript of a second session, and the story there includes a trip to what seems to be the creature’s planet, and de Matos describes being on what seems to be a city street. He says, “I’m standing under the awning of a tall building” and mentions a “closed store.”

He then describes being taken back to Earth in another ship with a pilot who was “a nice guy,” who talked to him in Portuguese without moving his lips, “joking around to lighten the trip.” He said that when they got back, the pilot told him to “open the door and jump out.” He said he was told that they would meet again when he least expected it. During further questioning by Granchi and another researcher, he added that the creature placed a small chrome-colored object about the thickness of a finger on his chest that stuck there. When asked what the purpose of this was, he answered that it was “so he could locate me, so he could contact me.” Granchi explains that “we later learned it was an implant” and proceeds to put this early abduction story into the context of the narrative that developed after Budd Hopkins’s 1981 book, Missing Time.

According to Granchi, de Matos was abducted again and had “sperm extracted in a painful operation that left him impotent for weeks.” She adds that he then developed “healing powers and all the paranormal abilities that are the corollary of abductions.”

After the article, Granchi is described by whom we assume is an editor as “practically a living legend” at 83 years of age and “a true matriarch” of the Brazilian UFO community who had been active for almost five decades.