Prepared by Alberto Francisco do Carmo
The Baleia Hospital Case- Belo Horizonte- Minas Gerais, Brazil- 14.9.67
The article is very well written, but due to space and personal points-of-view, many subtle yet important details were omitted. Therefore, please allow me to introduce my own point-of-view and perspective, as I also worked close to the witness in this case investigation.
THE STORY
Fábio José Diniz was a young lad, working as a salesman. He was selling Venetian blinds and thought it would be a great idea to try making a sale to a hospital. After all, it would be a place where one would need many of them.
He chose the Hospital da Baleia, a famous hospital in Belo Horizonte that had an orthopedics section and also an area for contagious diseases treatment.
Fábio arrived a bit late, nearly lunch time, and was told that he had to talk to a person who was in one of the buildings devoted to contagious diseases.
A slopped walkway links the two areas and in between them a small soccer field is located on the right side of this walkway. When Fabio passed by, he noticed a strange thing in the middle of the soccer field. Mushroom shaped it had colored lights flashing under the mushroom top. From the start, Fábio didn’t believe it was “a flying saucer”. Indeed some expositions (mostly equipment exhibitions) were being carried out by the Brazilian Army in town at this time. Fábio thought it could be something connected with such promotional activities, in a time when the military was ruling the country.
As he approached the object, something like a cylindrical glass shield descended from the top of the “mushroom” to the ground. Immediately, on the central column, to Fabio’s dismay, a door started to open. The column had seemed entirely smooth before. There had been no trace of a door.
From the inside came two very tall humanoid beings. They wore tight green overalls, and a sort of mask that covered the areas of their noses and mouths (assuming they had mouths or noses). Visible were thick triangular eyebrows and all-black eyes, no sclerotic. From the mask, a tube descended down their bodies, seeming to be glued on their overalls, and entering the overalls near the heels. One of them carried something like a gun, held to his “biceps” by a band, but equally held by the right hand. The other one had over his head something like a short stick topped by a little sphere, both in black. The skin that could be seen, in their nearly covered faces, was yellowish green.
Now, Fábio noticed that he was in front of an alien apparition. He tried to run away, when a bass loud voice warned him:
-“Stop! Don’t run!”
Fábio stopped and turned back, to see the UFO and beings and hear a frightening order: -“Come back tomorrow, at this same time or we will take your family.”
Fábio, shocked and confused, replied:
-“But why ???!!” (this was not put on the report of the case)
They didn’t answer him. They turned their backs, entered the central column, the door closed, the transparent shield was lifted, and the UFO started to take off, spinning and flashing the lights below.
Then Fábio ran away. He looked back once and the UFO was high in the air. He ran a little further and looked back again and the craft had vanished.
Completely shocked Fábio wasn’t able to look for help or assistance at the hospital area. Almost like an automat he caught a bus to downtown. On his way, he encountered a friend: - “Wow, Fábio! You look so pale! Have you seen a ghost?”
He didn’t respond but it had been almost like that.
Still confused Fábio went to the famous DOPS, at the Afonso Pena Avenue. Surely it was not the right place, but it was the nearest police station at hand.
That police station was charged to watch subversive political activities. Through the years, that police branch was accused of being a center for torture regarding political prisoners. The sheriff who received Fábio- crying, trembling and sweating- was David Hazam. A very known tough guy, a walking ugly legend among politicians, rebel rousers and political prisoners. However, this very tough guy felt impressed at Fábios poor psychological conditions. As he knew Húlvio Brant Aleixo, Mr. Hazam phoned CIOCANI’s leader:
-“Hi Húlvio. Do you still care about flying saucers?” Mr. Hazam briefly summarized the story to Mr. Aleixo. who left to the quoted police station, at once. The DOPS transported Húlvio, Fabio and some policemen to the Hospital da Baleia yards and its soccer field.
Húlvio, who was to graduate in Psychology, heard and cared after Fábio all the day. In the evening, the CICOANI group was reunited in the apartment of a member of the group, a veteran publicity designer named Rujos, an artistic name.
Fábio was taken there. Among the meeting participants one could enlist: Dr. Heros Campos Jardim, lawyer and Vice-President of CICOANI; Mr. Húlvio Brant Aleixo; the journalist José Otaviano Lage (who didn’t belong to CICOANI); Rujos and myself.
Rujos started to draw the first artistic conceptions on the case. Later I would draw my version. We heard Fábio for hours. Definitely he didn’t look like a liar, a practical joker, a faker, or a hoaxer. As I would learn years after, the body’s language is stronger than the verbal language. In case of doubt prefer the body’s language. But in this case, no doubt: both kinds of language were fully matched and transmitting an impression of fear, insecurity as to the morning to come, and the decision to come back to the place of the incident, or not. Fábio was very concerned about the threat to his family. Especially his mother who was not very healthy at that time.
Many times he firmly and sincerely stated that he didn’t care whether we were believing his story or not. The only thing he wanted of us was to have our physical presence and support on that soccer field the next morning.
The meeting ended and a plan was sketched.
Number one, somebody took Fábio to his house, but with a recommendation: not a word to his family. Days after when we had a talk with his parents, they heard the story for the first time. Although reticent, Fabio’s father informed us that he found it strange that the night Fabio was expecting the next morning meeting at the hospital, Fabio’s room lamps stayed lit up and he noticed that Fabio remained sleepless, walking through the room all night.
A consensus had been established as to leave Fábio alone in the middle of the soccer field while we would hide ourselves in the nearby vegetation and safe corners.
Personally, I didn’t like it. After all, we did not know with what we were dealing with. Suppose something happened to the boy? What would we say to his family? Besides, I reminded Húlvio of the case of the peasant Rivalino Mafra da Silva, who simply vanished and never was found anymore, in the presence of his son, near Diamantina, years before. Who did it? A probe-like UFO, floating over a fence of his property shot Rivalino with a blast of smoke. When the smoke was gone, Rivalino was goneForever.
It seems this argument convinced Húlvio that the schedule had to be changed for a more conventional routine.
In the morning, we (the CICOANI group and some police agents) met again. We drove to the Baleia Hospital yards. I stood close to Fábio who was VERY TENSE, but trying to stay calm. I stood close to him. In a certain moment he didn’t resist and almost crushed my hands with his hands, looking for support. Almost cried, I remember well.
After all this nothing happened. Except that we reconstituted the incident. While looking for any kind of physical traces (I wondered how a big thing could land there without any trace) I discovered some burnt pieces looking like carbonized popcorn. Later their composition was studied by the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Such composition almost fully matched with the one found, also carbonized fragments, in Vila Constitución, Argentina, where a big UFO had landed, in that same year.
After so many years, I think that in both famous CEIII cases the CICOANI investigated- Sagrada Família and Baleia- there were three aspects that we possibly ignored.
• In both cases, UFOs suddenly “vanished” in the incidents’ last moments. It might have been the same property of suddenly becoming optically invisible, as displayed by the recent “Mexican” Ufos. • In both cases and some more, one had daring incursions in inhabited areas, but close to empty or near-wilderness areas, perhaps to guarantee an emergency retreat. • All seemed to be planned to avoid human witnessing. In the Sagrada Família case it happened right in the time people used to be inside their houses having dinner, children starting their school tasks and the like. As to the Baleia case something similar seemed to happen as the lunch time was soon to start. An odd detail: the soccer field area should have had a security guard at that time. But that very day the guard decided to leave for lunch a bit earlier. • In both cases something fell through: a housewife decided to wash a coffee strainer, and then delivers the task to three boys. In the other case, a young salesman decided to sell Venetian blinds and pass by a place that ought to be empty.
If the aliens are able to control people, it seems they are not perfect. Good news. Finally, the Baleia entities were not good guys. This is clear to me.
The Recovered Images:
Thanks to the wonders of the Adobe Photoshop software, the artistic conceptions I made, were recovered from slides, since the original drawings were lost. Then, thanks to the skill of my friend Alcebíades Muniz Neto, journalist and photographer ( Ms.Sc on photographic hoax in the digital era) a little doctoring was carried out to renew the images. So, the soil color is more realistic, and the opening of the unseen door was improved.
These are not high resolution images. Simply stated they are a previous study about what can be done next. Some dark points and dots that appeared on the images are due to particles of dust over the slides. They will be eliminated in our next works.
TWO CASES COLLECTED ON THE VICINITIES OF THE TOWN OF SERRO, STATE OF MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL IN 1971.
The cases summarized below do have an inner virtue. They display that a fairly well prepared group can investigate UFO events and sightings in an unknown region and then return with good descriptions, and that an artist can depict them easily without any further checking as to the witnesses themselves, as when they are very difficult to be found again. That’s the case, or these are the cases, as you will read:
A man from the Serro region was taking a bath and swimming in a river there. Seems he was wearing just a slip, bathing himself near one of the river banks. Suddenly he noticed a strange feminine figure, standing on the opposite bank. She had a beautiful face, but her gown was odd: a long gray smock, long sleeves. Her hair remained unseen, as she wore a sort of green cap, similar to the ones used by swimmers.
On the left hand, she held something looking like a thick green book, while the right arm and hand held something like an old fashioned coffee-pot, also green, no holder and two parallel pipes.
Amazed and curious, the witness asked in a loud voice who she was, and received no answer. He crossed the river, dried himself off, put on his clothes and then approached the “lady” whose beauty, from near at hand, stunned him even more. Again the questions: “Who are you?” “Where did you come from?”
“I came from Cera,” she replied.
As the place is full of hills, the witness initially thought she had said “I come from the “serra” (sierra in Spanish, hill in English) but then it occurred to him that that was actually not what she had said.
The witness walked a few steps beside the mysterious lady, commenting on how pretty she was, without any reaction from the latter. Suddenly he noticed that her gown sleeves were really long, almost hiding a disturbing detail that he hadn’t previously noticed: her fingers WERE HAIRY! Next he turned his head to the side, but when he looked back, SHE HAD VANISHED. Seconds before she was beside him. Then, she was gone, without any possibility of having run away, or she would have still been seen.
The long gown, with the sleeves that were too long, the hairy fingers, contrasted with a face that was too beautiful, made us wonder if the entity was in fact not so beautiful at all, wearing a long gown and a fine mask perhaps to hide its real appearance, something probably very ugly by human standards.
Other data may be obtained from Húlvio Brant Aleixo, a researcher who has this report filed and not publicized.
The witness, a lone rider, was traveling on the ridge of a hill, when he saw a strange little craft land some tens of meters in front of him, also on the ridge.
It was a boxy, transparent little vehicle (possibly 2.5 meters long), but with a green floor, having two rectangular transparent lateral winglets. Inside, two humanoids could be seen. They sat on square backless seats.
Both got out. They were short by human standards. Both wore a green overall, were white, Mediterranean looking, with dark hair and beards. Their beards seemed to be well-kept and trimmed.
Both took out a kind of notebook and pencil and started to write on it, not aware of the lone human rider.
The latter approached them and innocently thought they could be from the Brazilian Army, because of the green uniforms, not to mention a cap (also green), that was similar to the one used by the military.
The imagination of the simple rider went farther, but not to the stars. He wondered if they could have had something to do with a land property dispute that was possibly taking place. The Army (the country was under military government at the time) could have sent people to monitor the land.
The rider stopped, dismounted from his horse and gave a few steps towards the strangers. In order to look polite, he gestured a military salute (honors).
However, the strangers, just watched him briefly, stopped taking their notes, entered the craft which took off and then landed about one kilometer away from the witness.
Notwithstanding, the lone rider adamantly insisted on approaching the mysterious flying duo. But when they watched him come toward them again, they just displayed a look of disgust (like someone who thinks, “Oh, here comes that stiff again!”) and they again reentered the little craft and didn’t land again. They just went away.
During the incident the witness never thought that he could be in front of aliens. His cultural environment made this impossible for him to believe. .
COMMENTS More than thirty years ago, Brazil still had wide underdeveloped areas (still has them but not so wide and underdeveloped anymore) and their inhabitants have been able to clearly describe UFOs, their effects and occupants, surprisingly diversified. Many of them simply had never thought about UFOs and ufonauts like more educated audiences do.
To the field researchers involved, they could clearly dismiss the prejudice that reliable UFO data MUST come from highly qualified witnesses. This is a nasty prejudice that ignores the power of the popular knowledge that - many times- comes before the academic knowledge. People like the late Dr. Walter K. Bühler (a pioneer on field research of that kind in Brazil) plus Húlvio Brant Aleixo and CCIOANI’s team, Mrs. Irene Granchi, and ¬last but not least Bob Pratt, could have written for years and talked for hours about their experiences in Brazil’s hinterlands.
Investigation team:
Miss Maria Irene de Melo Neves, daughter of Mrs. Irene de Melo Neves, Mr.Roberto Castro Aleixo; Miss Zulmira Rolim de Mendonça Lins; Mr. João Paulo Neves de Carvalho, brother of Miss Maria Irene and son of Mrs.Irene de Melo Neves.
