Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, January 2021
Those Devilish Dwarfs
by: Brent Raynes
Zelia Edgar, the voice, face and creative force behind YouTube’s “Just Another Tin Foil Hat,” reviews bewildering high-strangeness cases of every imaginable variety and is unafraid to veer from mainstream orientations and entertain alternative possibilities.
Make no mistake about it. This young Wisconsin researcher uses critical and objective thinking as she sifts through the anomalous data she presents. I give her high marks for paying serious attention to the writings and contributions of such pioneer researchers as John Keel and Jacques Vallee as she presents her reviews on alien abductions, orbs, Bigfoot, MIB, hauntings, and such classic mysteries as the Dover Demon, the Flatwoods Monster, the Kelly-Hopkinsville goblins, Mothman, and most recently (December 16, 2020) a YouTube on “The Cussac UFO/Devil Encounter.” That presentation transported me way, way back in my memories, inspiring me to rifle through stacks of magazines and newsletters to locate The A.P.R.O. Bulletin from July-August 1968, from back in the days when I was a 16-year-old card-carrying APRO (Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization) member. I was instantly reminded of the discussions that I and my friend Jim Carey had over this unique and fascinating case.
At the time we were, I am quite sure, as Zelia states in her video, puzzling over this strange case from the extraterrestrial “occupant” perspective of the mainstream. Back at that time, I was just gradually coming around to the alternative possibilities that Keel and Vallee have become so recognized for.
Artistic reconstructions of what the Cussac children described
The story begins that at approximately 10:30 a.m., on August 29, 1967, on the plateau of Cantal, at Cussac, France, Francois Depleuch, age 13 ½ and his sister Anne Marie, age 9, with their dog Medor, were responsible for watching over a herd of cows when something very strange happened. It was as the cows were getting ready to jump over a low wall that Francois climbed up on a pile of stones nearby and observed, an estimated 150 feet beyond, what he initially took to be four children. Oddly though they appeared to be completely attired in black clothing. In addition, the small dark figures were standing near a very brilliant silvery sphere that was hard to look at because of its brightness. One of the figures was bending over and seemed busy with something on the ground while another was holding something that seemingly reflected sunlight, making Francois think it was a mirror, while the same being was also waving his hands about and seemed to be making gestures to the other beings.
Due to the brightness of the sphere the children weren’t able to note many details about it, though they did note how it was perfectly spherical and estimated its diameter as about 6 ½ feet. The child-sized figures themselves were estimated as being around 3 ½ to 4 feet tall, though they weren’t all the exact same height. The first one on the left and the next one to it were described as the smallest and the fourth one, last to the right, was seen as the largest. Though the figures were black in color, the children weren’t certain whether they were looking at skin or clothing. They were unable to see a visible border line distinguishing the head from a possible garment below it. Their arms were a little long and slender with no hands visible, with short and slender legs. Both children agreed the beings were bearded, the beard visible on both sides of the head, with a little tuft of hair under the chin, though no eyes or mouth could be discerned. Their heads were described as pointed, with pronounced chins. Anne Marie described how the fourth being had a pointed nose.
Soon after first noticing the beings Francois yelled out, “Are you coming to play with us?” It was at that point that the beings seemed to become alerted to the children’s presence and soon one of the small figures on the left side [see drawing number 3 that was posted in A.P.R.O. Bulletin] “flew up” vertically into the air and then dove headfirst into the top of the sphere. This was followed by a second being executing the same maneuver [listed in illustration as 2] and then a third [as 3]. The fourth one levitated into the air as did the other three, but then when it reached the top instead of diving in headfirst it descended back to the ground, seemingly retrieving something there, and then returned to the air again. By that time, however, the glowing sphere had begun to rise into the air as well, making small circles in the air as it rose upward, and upon reaching an estimated height of 50 feet this being also dove headlong into the sphere as did the other beings before it. Anne Marie observed that when the fourth being caught up with the airborne sphere that she noticed its feet looked webbed.
As the sphere was rising into the air the children noticed a sulphur smell and also observed the cows bellowing and acting disturbed, while their dog barked and seemed interested in going towards the sphere. Due to the behavior of the cows, the children decided to bring the cows in about a half hour earlier than usual.
It should be added that neither child saw an attachment on the beings, like a jetpack for example, to account for the ability of the beings to fly through the air. During its ascent skyward the sphere made a low hissing sound that was mingled with a sound described as similar to a breeze type noise, even though neither child felt a breeze at the time. Soon the sphere disappeared to the northwest at high speed.
The A.P.R.O. Bulletin noted: “This incident was investigated and written for ‘Phenomena Spatiaux’ by Joel Mesnard and Claude Pavy who pointed out that minute differences were found in the testimony of the children, but which could be accounted for by lack of attention, etc., of one or the other. Their attempts to confuse the children and thereby cause them to contradict one another were of no use – both seemed very sure of what they had witnessed.”
The A.P.R.O. Bulletin noted that this was “one of the most detailed and carefully investigated occupant cases we have had the pleasure to examine.” The witnesses also happened to be the children of the mayor of Cussac. The police conducted an investigation. This report was taken quite seriously.
In her YouTube on this case, Zelia remarked on the smell of sulfur in this case, something that has been reported in many other UFO accounts over the years, seemed to cause this account to fall back on the old “fire and brimstone of demonic fame” context, perhaps because of this sulfur association.
“It makes you wonder kind of if it hadn’t been there would they have simply been called imps or even simply UFO occupants or aliens,” Zelia continued. “But no, this was really branded as the UFO encounter with devils.”
Zelia also commented on yet another earlier cultural artifact that can play into how we perceive such reports today as opposed to how they would have been seen in earlier times. “There’s a very ET belief that they’re taking soil samples back to their home planet. Now the thing is several centuries earlier if we would have seen some sort of bizarre humanoid type entity messing around with soil we would have simply considered ‘Oh, that’s natural because the fairies are intrinsically connected to earth, nature, and farming. There’s a lot of beliefs about how fairies could influence farming and agriculture, for better or for worse.”
Zelia also added: “This is a truly fantastic case that kind of exists at a crossroads of belief systems. At the time, it was handled by ufologists in a very ufological manner though the entities themselves – I mean, consider it – they were still branded as devils. You can almost see the transition out of the fairy faith and more occult type belief systems of yesteryear into the extraterrestrial hypothesis.” She cited an article on this case published in England’s Flying Saucer Review entitled “Encounter with Devils.”
Educated Christian missionaries around the world come across such reports in their work in the mission field, interpreting such incidents as genuine Satanic events. Kurt Kock, a German theologian, minister, and evangelist described in his book Satan’s Devices (1978) a time he was giving a series of lectures at a Bible school in Pucallpa, Peru. During his visit missionaries took him to visit various tribes in the area.
“A Christian believer among the Piro Indians told me, through an interpreter, of his encounter with a tiny dwarf who was only about two feet tall,” Koch wrote. “This believer was hunting at the time, and was just about to kill a wild boar, when this tiny man stepped forward. He thought at first that it might be a pigmy, like those in South Africa. There are many such dwarfs in the Amazon area. This little fellow stopped him from shooting the boar. The hunter pushed him out of the way. The little fellow then showed an incredible strength and threw the hunter to the ground, where he lay unconscious for three days. Men from his village came out to search for him, and found him after three days. Experiences like this have led the Piros to believe that these little things are a kind of goblin.”
In Koch’s travels elsewhere, like Africa and Scandinavia for example, he came across many other stories of similar beings, noting: “I have observed furthermore that the elves, goblins, and all these little people appear especially to people who have a psychic disposition.” [Isn’t this what Keel and Vallee have noted about the alien contact experiencers?] In the early days of ufology, APRO and the Flying Saucer Review [FSR] magazine of England, collected a lot of bewildering “occupant” reports that should give us pause to reflect on these dwarfish ufonaut encounters and their glaring similarities to the accounts like the Cussac incident where, as Zelia pointed out, there almost seems like a crossroads here where various folkloric and archetypal elements and belief systems of yesteryear and today are on a collision course.
Here’s some examples edited by former FSR editor Charles Bowen in a book entitled The Humanoids [1969]. For example, Caracas, Venezuela, 2 a.m., November 28, 1954, two men in a van encounter a glowing sphere about 8-10 in diameter hovering some six feet over the road ahead. One of the men, a Gustavo Gonzales, gets out to investigate, at which time he is confronted by a hairy dwarf-like creature with glowing eyes that with a mere push sent Gonzalez an estimated 15 feet. The man pulled out a knife as the creature continued to attack him, but the blade of the knife simply glanced off the creature’s body as though it were made of steel. Next another creature disembarked from the sphere and blinded Gonzalez with a beam of bright light from a small tube. The other man, Jose Ponce, noticed two other beings, with their arms full of what looked like rocks, effortlessly seem to leap up into the hovering sphere. All of these dwarfs had like loin cloths on.
The two men made their way to a nearby police station. At first police thought they were drunk, but Gonzales had a long deep red scratch that needed attention. They appeared exhausted and frightened, and ended up being placed under medical observation for several days. It turned out that one of their doctors had been driving back from a night call at the time of the strange encounter and confirmed that he had witnessed the fracas.
Interestingly, according to an APRO representative in Caracas, the doctor later visited Washington, D.C. to talk about this incident with American authorities.
Another example reportedly happened between Chico and Cerro de las Tres Torres, in Venezuela, where on the night of December 10, 1954, two young hunters, Lorenzo Flores and Jesus Gomez, near the Trans-Andean Highway, came upon a luminous craft hovering about two feet over the ground. About 9-10 feet in diameter, it was described as “like one huge washbowl placed upside down on top of another,” with flames shooting out from beneath it. Suddenly four hairy men only about three feet tall emerged from the craft and attempted to force both youths into it. Flores described how with his unloaded shotgun he struck one of them, saying it “felt like striking rock,” and the gun broke into two pieces. The creatures were described as immensely strong.
These two young men also managed to get away and reach a police station. They were covered with deep scratches and bruises, their clothes torn in shreds. The police visited the site and found signs of a struggle. Doctors who examined them reportedly found them hysterical with fright.
Again, on the night of December 16, 1954, in San Carlos, Venezuela, a Jesus Paz was riding with two friends when he asked them to pull over so that he could relieve himself in some nearby bushes. However, it wasn’t long before the two friends heard Paz let out a piercing scream. Rushing to his aid they found Paz unconscious on the ground while a small hairy man ran to a flat shiny object that was hovering a few feet over the ground, soon leaving the scene with a deafening whistle noise.
Paz also ended up with long and deep scratches on his right side and down his spine, treated at a local hospital. Reportedly his injuries looked as though he’d been clawed by a wild beast.
Artistic reconstructions by Alberto Francisco do Carmo of what the Brazilian soldier Jose Antonio da Silva described seeing
Brazilian Army soldier abducted
On May 3, 1969, Jose Antonio da Silva, a 24-year-old Brazilian Army soldier, had taken a bus out of Belo Horizonte to do a little camping and fishing by himself at a lagoon at a place known as Bebedouro, in the district of Matozinhos. He pitched a tent upon arrival and the next day did some fishing at the lagoon. Around 3 p.m., relaxed and fishing, da Silva suddenly became aware that he wasn’t alone. From behind him he became aware of some movement between the bushes and trees and heard voices. Then a beam of light, green in the middle with red on the outer edges, originating from behind some bushes, struck him in the legs where he immediately suffered a painful cramp, followed by numbness, at which point he fell to his knees.
Next two small helmeted humanoid beings in overalls, about four feet tall, rushed up and grabbed da Silva under his arms and dragged him through tangled thickets, his knees scraping along the ground. Soon he saw a third being nearby, who he believed was the being that had shot him with the paralyzing beam. They carried weapons, that he called “rifles,” though certainly not ordinary rifles, with large barrels and on the top a trigger that had to be pulled back to fire.
The beings were described as around four foot tall, wearing shining light-colored “spacesuits,” with masks with two holes, at the lower portion of the dull-grey helmet, with a plastic-like tube that went out from the lower portion of the mask and came out over the chest and under an armpit, ending in a small metal container on the back.
Da Silva was carried by the beings to what turned out to be a craft in the form of a gray cylinder with a black plate on top and one on the bottom [see illustration], the total height of the contraption about seven feet.
Next da Silva found himself in a quadrangular shaped space illuminated by a bright “mercury vapor” type of lighting. No source for the light could be seen. The walls appeared to be smooth, resembling a dark gray stone appearance. Da Silva was sat down, a helmet forced over his head, with the two beings that carried him in positioned on each side. The third being sat down in a seat at the center of the room and pulled two levers, at which point there was a sensation of moving upward.
Many hours were to pass, experiencing difficulty breathing, crowded in this small space with these non-human beings who would converse back and forth in a strange guttural tone. Then, finally, there was a jarring sensation. They apparently had landed somewhere.
As da Silva’s seatbelt was removed a bandage was placed over the two holes in the helmet, preventing him from seeing. Again he was being carried under his arms outside somewhere. He could hear the masculine voices of other beings, in their weird guttural language, while the beings who were carrying him were silent.
Next he was again placed in a backless seat and the bandage was removed. He now was in a large quadrangular shaped room with four dwarfish beings, the three that had brought him there, who now removed their helmets, and another being. This new being da Silva took to be their commander as he was conversing in a very animated way with the trio who had initiated this strange journey. At this point, da Silva got a very good look at what these beings looked like without a helmet. The “commander” was very hairy, with red hair and a beard that went down to his waist. His skin was pale. He had large round greenish eyes that hardly ever blinked and a long pointed nose with large ears that were more rounded at the top than ours, with mouths that resembled those of fish, with no teeth.
The “commander” seemed in a happy mood, which put da Silva at some ease. As time progressed, other little men wandered in and out of the room, once with as many as a dozen in all in the room. They would seem to confer and take orders of some kind from the “commander.”
At some point though, da Silva observed something in the room that quite disturbed him. Four naked human bodies laid out side by side on a self, that appeared to be constructed of stone, and nearby were color photos, like a small earthly town, animals like a jaquar, a monkey, elephant, and giraffes, cars, and a small two-engine aircraft.
Then one of the dwarfs began to open da Silva’s cloth bundle and pull out his fishing tackle. Soon the other little men began to excitedly join in.
After this the “commander” tried to communicate with da Silva, using gestures and words that the soldier initially didn’t understand. The being also drew pictures on a white slate. Da Silva got the impression that they wanted him to get weapons for them. Da Silva was uncomfortable with this and responded negatively, though the “commander” seemed insistent. Then another being handed da Silva a small heavy stone cube, hollowed out on the inside containing a dark green liquid. The “commander” urged him to drink it, but naturally da Silva was reluctant. Then he noticed one of the other creatures drinking the same thing, and so he decided it was safe and drank it. He explained it had a bitter taste and that it made him feel better, and he even seemed to better understand what the “commander” was trying to communicate to him.
The being drew out a series of sketches and da Silva felt that what the being was proposing was that the soldier go back to earth for three years, collecting certain information for them, and then return with them for seven years, and after that return to earth as their guide.
Da Silva recalled how at this point he was fingering his rosary nervously and gestured disapproval to what he thought the alien leader was proposing. The “commander” then ripped a crucifix out of the soldier’s hand and a bead fell to the floor, which one of the creatures picked up and passed around, along with the crucifix.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, da Silva was surprised when a slender bearded Caucasian man, with long fair hair, wearing a friar’s cassock, appeared before him. The little men seemed oblivious to his presence. Speaking in clear Portuguese this figure imparted revelations to da Silva, informing him to keep them to himself, until he received further instructions – instructions that might not come for several years. Then the friendly figure disappeared.
The beings began quarreling among themselves at that point. Then the “commander” stepped forward and with the two original abductors, who had never left the soldier’s side, saw to it that da Silva was again blindfolded. Then he was carried back to the craft and again, after a considerable time of apparent flight there was again a thump, at which point his captors removed his helmet, unfastened his seatbelt, and carried him though the darkness and left him. Back on earth, dawn broke about an hour later. He crawled over to a stream, filled his water bottle, drank some water and even did some fishing. He found himself on the edge of a stone quarry beside a ravine.
Later he limped to a paved road and flagged down a motorist and learned he was 20 miles from Vitoria, the capital of the state of Espirito Santo, and it was May 9th. This would have been a little over 18 miles from his original location. He had been gone for 4 ½ days. He got a lift to a train station close to Colatina. At 7:25 a.m. the next day he got off the train at Belo Horizonte. There a railway security guard asked him for papers, suspecting that da Silva might be a copper thief [a common problem there] but he had none. His ID had been in his cloth bundle with the fishing gear that the little men had rummaged through and had apparently failed to put back. Thus, at that point, the officer took da Silva into custody. However, as the officer listened to da Silva’s story of what had happened to him and after questioning him couldn’t contradict him in his retelling of various details, he concluded that perhaps something unusual had happened to him, and called a reporter from Radio Guarani, who interviewed him about his experience. Afterwards da Silva was released to the military barracks where a Major Celio Ferreira, deputy commandant of the Guards Battalion of Minas Gerais Military Police, who da Silva had served, was relieved to see him. Just the day before the major had organized search parties to go out and look for him. He took da Silva home with him for food, some rest and medicine for the next 24 hours.
On May 11th, still lame in one leg, the young soldier was reunited with his family. That evening a group of ufologists who had heard about his story, including the noted Hulvio Brant Aleixo, interviewed him. On May 16th, the first major press reports were released about the story. On May 26th, ufologists and military police worked together on-site at Bebedouro with da Silva to reconstruct his abduction.
Da Silva claimed that around midnight on May 21st, he had gotten out of bed and stepped outside his home to see three of the little men again standing in the garden in their flight suits. He claimed he went right back inside and bolted the door behind him. In the morning he looked outside and they were gone.
Alberto Francisco do Carmo of Brasilia, a long-time ufologist since 1954, after his own sighting, who taught physics for 15 years and served as a Technician on Educational Affairs, was closely involved in the investigation of this case. “There’s no way to label the incident other than violent,” Alberto wrote me in 2006. “Then they tried to abduct a very miserable peasant deaf and dumb, named Constantino, who not only described the incident through gestures, but did recognize the same dwarf aliens that abducted Jose Antonio da Silva, through previous sketches made by an artist, Maria Irene Melo Neves. I also remember that another lonely peasant coming back from a village named Jaguara, very near the place where the soldier was abducted, was also chased by a ‘double mushroom’ shaped UFO. Also this man had to hide himself in some bushes, but could look and see those entities wearing some kind of helmets, looking for him, but didn’t find him fortunately. Then he rushed to his house. His name was Pedro Rodrigues. He had just bought some meat for his family when he was chased very early on a foggy morning.”
Reflecting on these encounters, Alberto speculated: “I wonder that sometimes progress may happen in some fields for some civilizations, but in other fields they remain very primitive and even experience a kind of involution. The same beings that are able to build spacecraft may also behave like barbarians.”
“One thing that is puzzling in Jose Antonio da Silva’s story is how the places are dull, even ugly, how the craft seats were just mere cubes (poor design). All bearded figures and the naked human corpses. And all looking like male figures. Where would be their “women”? Do they have women amongst them?”
Alberto also described to me how he had been involved in the investigation of da Silva’s case and visited the abduction site. “We camped there, me and some officers from the Military Police of the State of Minas Gerais, and we were watched by luminous points that started to perform crazy manuevers over us. I blinked a big flashlight the numbers of the ‘pi’: 3, 1, 4, 1, 5. After this the UFO stopped, moved backwards and started to make circles whenever I blinked those numbers.”
All though May and June UFO sightings had been reported in the Bebedouro region.
As detailed in my book Visitors from Hidden Realms (2004), Peru has had numerous of these curious little men incidents. In August and September 1965, a major UFO wave erupted there that included dwarfish ufonauts, 32 to 34 inches tall! These events were seriously pondered and chronicled by leading ufologists like Jim and Coral Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, Gordon Creighton of England’s Flying Saucr Review, and Dr. Jacques Vallee in his book Passport to Magonia (1969).
Shortly before noon, on August 20, 1965, just outside Cuzco, an engineer named Alberto Ugarte, along with his wife and a certain Senor Elwin Voter, and many other witnesses, observed a very small silvery disk, an estimated five feet in diameter, as it landed on a terrace of the Incan stone fortress Sacsahuaman. Two small humanoids, of dazzling brightness, emerged from the craft. They seemed surprised to discover humans present at the site, and soon got back into the object which rose into the air and took off to the west. At about 5 a.m., on September 1, 1965, a workman at an airfield near Huanuco observed a landed oval shaped UFO from which a roughly 34-inch tall humanoid emerged. Its head was described as twice the size of an average human head. The entity gestured to the witness who was unable to understand what the being was trying to communicate. The dwarf soon re-entered the craft that became illuminated and rose vertically into the air, and then flew off towards the west. Four other people reportedly also saw the object.
All through the Americas, and of course all through the world, tales of such dwarfish beings – who occultists long have called elementals – have been a part of folklore, beliefs and accounts of many people of many lands. Our Native Americans had numerous such stories. We’ve called them elves, gnomes, goblins, fairies, imps, etc.
I remember one ufologist, in Jim Moseley’s old Saucer Smear newsletter, suggested once that perhaps Jung’s archetypes of the collective unconsciousness have gone amok with high-strangeness. Maybe so. Whatever the explanation, I suspect there are very significant clues to pursue in this very bewildering avenue of inquiry.
