# The Varginha Encounter [View on uap.fun]() CASE FILE 012 · 1996 Three young women fled a crouched figure in a rain-darkened lot. Their fear became Brazil’s most famous alien story—and a lasting dispute over what happened next. ![Illustration of three young women walking away through rain beside a muddy vacant lot in Varginha, with a distant crouched person-like silhouette partly obscured near a wall.]() Not a real photo. Maintained by uap.fun · Last updated at September 17, 2026 at 12:25 AM CDT. Sources reviewed September 17, 2026 · Reviewed annually or when significant Brazilian archival records or first-hand testimony emerge. ## AT A GLANCE - **DATE:** January 20, 1996 - **LOCATION:** Jardim Andere, Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil - **REPORT TYPE:** Multi-witness humanoid report and alleged recovery - **ENCOUNTER KIND:** [Third kind (CE3)]() — Based on three witnesses’ report of a nearby humanoid figure. The later capture, hospital, and crash narratives are disputed and are not treated as established events. - **RECORD STATUS:** Witness encounter unresolved; official inquiry rejected military recovery claims ## The story ### A shortcut through the rain On Saturday afternoon, January 20, 1996, sisters Liliane Fátima Silva and Valquíria Silva were walking home through Jardim Andere with their friend Kátia Andrade Xavier. Near a vacant lot and masonry wall, one of them noticed a crouched figure. The three later described a small, unsteady humanoid with dark brown, shiny-looking skin, a large head, prominent red eyes, and raised forms on the head. They did not call it an extraterrestrial in that first terrified moment. They ran home saying they had seen the devil. Sources: [Conheça a história da aparição do ser do espaço]() · [Tale of Stinky Extraterrestrials Stirs Up UFO Crowd in Brazil]() · [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() ### The look that sent them running The women’s accounts centered on a brief exchange of attention: Kátia screamed, the figure turned or moved its head toward them, and they fled. Liliane told Folha de S.Paulo that she saw no clear mouth or nose and compared the skin to something coated in oil. Their mother, Luiza Helena Silva, went back to the lot and later reported a strong odor and marks on the ground, but she did not see the figure. No photograph, biological sample, measured track, or contemporaneous instrument record preserved the encounter itself. Sources: [Conheça a história da aparição do ser do espaço]() · [Tale of Stinky Extraterrestrials Stirs Up UFO Crowd in Brazil]() · [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() ### From frightened witnesses to an alien story News traveled through family, neighbors, radio, television, and local investigators. Lawyer and ufologist Ubirajara Rodrigues interviewed the women and framed the event as an extraterrestrial encounter. By February, Fantástico had carried the story nationally. In June, The Wall Street Journal described Varginha as a destination for the international UFO crowd; in August, Folha reported visitors still stopping at the wall. The story’s public identity formed quickly, while most later claims remained dependent on recollection, rumor, or anonymous testimony. Sources: [Tale of Stinky Extraterrestrials Stirs Up UFO Crowd in Brazil]() · [Varginha vira meca ‘ETmaníacos’]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() ### A second story grows around the first The women reported a figure in a lot. Investigators and storytellers then connected that episode to other events: farmers’ reports of a low, smoke-trailing object, firefighters and military vehicles in the city, unusual hospital activity, a supposed creature capture, and an alleged transfer through the Army’s Sergeants’ School at Três Corações to Campinas. Those elements created the familiar recovery narrative. They were not one continuous observation, and the public record does not contain an authenticated photograph, specimen, transport order, hospital chart, or chain-of-custody record proving that a nonhuman being was recovered. Sources: [As pegadas do ET de Varginha em 20 anos]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() · [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() ### The death folded into the mystery Military police officer Marco Eli Chereze died on February 15, less than a month after the sighting. Ufologists later alleged that he had handled a captured being and become infected. Contemporary and later reporting instead described a severe infection following treatment for a cyst or abscess, and no public medical record establishes contact with an unknown organism. His real death became the story’s darkest and most emotionally charged strand, but the alleged connection to a creature remains an attribution, not a demonstrated medical finding. Sources: [As pegadas do ET de Varginha em 20 anos]() · [Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO]() · [Requerimento de Informação n. 3.515/2018]() ### The Army investigates the accusations After a 1996 book named military personnel and accused institutions of participating in a capture and transport, the Escola de Sargentos das Armas opened Military Police Inquiry no. 18/1997. The Superior Tribunal Militar catalog describes 357 folios in two volumes, produced between February 13 and June 19, 1997 and archived that August. Its subject was the published allegation of military involvement. It was not a same-day forensic investigation of the vacant lot, nor did it turn every civilian report into a tested case file. Sources: [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() · [Requerimento de Informação n. 3.515/2018]() ### Routine movements, extraordinary interpretation The inquiry compared testimony, duty schedules, routes, and vehicle movements. Its conclusion rejected an extraordinary Army operation and treated the trucks associated with the story as routine maintenance movements. The former EsSA commander later said the unit had conducted an internal inquiry, questioned those named, and found no participation by its personnel. Researchers who allege a cover-up reject those denials, but no publicly authenticated operational record has surfaced to establish the claimed recovery convoy. Sources: [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() · [De ‘casal de anões’ a ‘Mudinho’: como autoridades contestaram o suposto ET]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() ### The man called Mudinho For the figure in the lot, the official inquiry proposed Luís Antônio de Paula, a local man known as Mudinho who was often seen crouching. Its theory was that rain, mud, posture, distance, and fear transformed a familiar resident into something uncanny. The three witnesses reject that identification. Liliane and Valquíria told a 2026 documentary that they had known him since childhood and were certain the figure was not him. The hypothesis is documented and plausible in broad outline, but it was developed after the event and is not a positive identification made by the witnesses. Sources: [De ‘casal de anões’ a ‘Mudinho’: como autoridades contestaram o suposto ET]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() · [Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO]() ### Claims change while the core persists The case did not freeze in 1996. New witnesses appeared, alleged insiders spoke anonymously, documentaries linked separate events, and some participants later revised or withdrew claims. A 2026 g1 review noted retractions from an ex-soldier and a firefighter and reported that Ubirajara Rodrigues, once a leading promoter, no longer believed evidence established the larger story. Other witnesses continued to defend it, and new hospital testimony arrived decades later. The original three women have remained consistent on the narrow point that they saw something frightening and did not recognize it as a normal person or animal. Sources: [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() · [De ‘casal de anões’ a ‘Mudinho’: como autoridades contestaram o suposto ET]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() ### A city adopts the visitor Whatever stood by the wall, the ‘ET de Varginha’ became a civic character. The city staged anniversary celebrations, built or decorated public structures with saucer and alien imagery, sold souvenirs, and eventually opened an ET memorial. Folha documented the first wave of visitors in 1996; the municipality itself organized a fifteenth-anniversary event in 2011; later reporting found the imagery embedded in Varginha’s tourism and visual identity. The cultural legacy is visible and verifiable even where the recovery narrative is not. Sources: [Varginha vira meca ‘ETmaníacos’]() · [Prefeitura comemora 15 anos do ET de Varginha]() · [As pegadas do ET de Varginha em 20 anos]() ### What remains beside the wall Varginha endures because the case contains two different mysteries. The first is intimate: three people saw a crouched figure at close range and were deeply frightened. The second is expansive: a crashed craft, captured beings, hospitals, soldiers, and concealment. The first rests on named witness testimony and contemporary reporting but lacks physical evidence. The second accumulated from many separate and often late claims, while the official record rejects military participation. Keeping those layers apart preserves both the witnesses’ experience and the limits of what the archive can prove. Sources: [Conheça a história da aparição do ser do espaço]() · [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() · [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() ## The evidence ### The strongest evidence is early testimony The most durable evidence is that Liliane, Valquíria, and Kátia promptly described an encounter and appeared genuinely frightened. Their descriptions reached major Brazilian and international newspapers in 1996. Early reporting can establish what they said and how the story spread; it cannot identify the figure or demonstrate extraterrestrial origin. Sources: [Conheça a história da aparição do ser do espaço]() · [Tale of Stinky Extraterrestrials Stirs Up UFO Crowd in Brazil]() ### The official file has a narrower scope than the legend IPM 18/1997 is a substantial primary record of the Army’s response to accusations against named personnel. It preserves testimony, schedules, vehicle questions, press material, and institutional conclusions. Its existence does not validate a recovery. Its later date and institutional focus also mean it should not be described as a complete forensic investigation of every January 1996 sighting. Sources: [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() · [Requerimento de Informação n. 3.515/2018]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() ### The recovery chain lacks a public chain of custody No publicly authenticated object fragment, body, biological sample, medical image, hospital chart, photograph, video, or transport document connects the lot encounter to the alleged captures. Anonymous or decades-late testimony may identify leads, but without independently verifiable records it cannot establish that one creature moved from a lot to a hospital, military base, university, or foreign custody. Sources: [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() · [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() · [Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO]() ### The conventional explanation is incomplete but serious Misidentification during severe weather is the strongest developed ordinary explanation. A crouched local resident, wet clothing or skin, mud, poor light, fear, and later social reinforcement could produce an extraordinary interpretation. The witnesses’ claim that they knew Mudinho weakens a simple identification, while the absence of physical evidence weakens the alien interpretation much more. The surviving record does not permit a confident positive identification of the figure. Sources: [De ‘casal de anões’ a ‘Mudinho’: como autoridades contestaram o suposto ET]() · [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() · [Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO]() ### Classification This file is classified as an unresolved humanoid witness encounter surrounded by an unverified recovery narrative. The official inquiry rejected military capture and transport claims and proposed a human misidentification. ‘Unresolved’ applies to what the three women saw in the lot; it does not imply that a nonhuman being, spacecraft crash, or government recovery has been established. Sources: [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() · [De ‘casal de anões’ a ‘Mudinho’: como autoridades contestaram o suposto ET]() · [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() ## Timeline - **20 JAN 1996 · ABOUT 3:30 PM:** Liliane and Valquíria Silva and Kátia Andrade Xavier report seeing a crouched, dark, red-eyed figure beside a wall in a Jardim Andere lot and run home in fear. - **20 JAN · LATER:** Their mother visits the lot and later reports a strong odor and marks, but does not see the figure; the account begins circulating locally. - **4 FEB 1996:** Fantástico broadcasts the witnesses’ story nationally, accelerating press interest and the linking of other local reports to the encounter. - **15 FEB 1996:** Military police officer Marco Eli Chereze dies after a severe infection; later recovery narratives allege a creature connection that public medical evidence does not establish. - **28 JUN 1996:** The Wall Street Journal publishes a contemporary dispatch from Varginha, documenting the witnesses’ description and the growing international UFO pilgrimage. - **AUG 1996:** Folha de S.Paulo reports the encounter, military denials, continuing visitors, and the city’s emerging identity as a destination for UFO enthusiasts. - **13 FEB–19 JUN 1997:** EsSA conducts Military Police Inquiry no. 18/1997 into published allegations that named military personnel captured and transported an extraterrestrial being. - **AUG 1997:** The inquiry is archived after rejecting military involvement and finding no basis for criminal proceedings arising from the published accusations. - **2010–2016:** The inquiry’s conclusions receive renewed public attention while anniversary reporting records the witnesses’ doubts, continuing disputes, and the story’s permanent imprint on Varginha. - **2022:** The documentary Moment of Contact revives the alleged recovery narrative for an international audience, prompting another round of testimony and criticism. - **JAN 2026:** Thirty-year retrospectives publish new interviews, retractions, witness rebuttals to the Mudinho theory, and renewed access to the digitized military inquiry. ## Sources & interviews - [Inquérito Policial Militar n. 18/1997]() — Superior Tribunal Militar · Arquimedes catalog · 357 folios in two volumes · 1997 - [Requerimento de Informação n. 3.515/2018]() — Câmara dos Deputados · Request concerning 1996–1997 Army records and the Varginha case - [Conheça a história da aparição do ser do espaço]() — Folha de S.Paulo · Rodrigo Vergara · August 18, 1996 · Contemporary reporting - [Varginha vira meca ‘ETmaníacos’]() — Folha de S.Paulo · Rodrigo Vergara · August 18, 1996 · Contemporary reporting - [Tale of Stinky Extraterrestrials Stirs Up UFO Crowd in Brazil]() — The Wall Street Journal · Matt Moffett · June 28, 1996 · Contemporary reporting - [ET de Varginha, 30 anos: o que se sabe e o que nunca foi explicado]() — g1 / EPTV · January 20, 2026 · Retrospective with records and witness updates - [De ‘casal de anões’ a ‘Mudinho’: como autoridades contestaram o suposto ET]() — g1 / EPTV · January 8, 2026 · Interviews with witnesses, researchers, and former EsSA commander - [As pegadas do ET de Varginha em 20 anos]() — O Globo · Samantha Silva and Régis Melo · January 18, 2016 - [The ‘ET of Varginha’ captivates Brazil 30 years after the sighting]() — El País · Naiara Galarraga Gortázar · January 20, 2026 - [Brazil’s Roswell: The Varginha UFO]() — Brian Dunning · Skeptoid \#853 · October 11, 2022 · Skeptical analysis - [Prefeitura comemora 15 anos do ET de Varginha]() — Prefeitura de Varginha · January 12, 2011 · Municipal celebration record - [Varginha UFO incident]() — Wikipedia · English-language orientation and reference trail · Consulted September 17, 2026 - [Incidente de Varginha]() — Wikipédia · Portuguese-language orientation and reference trail · Consulted September 17, 2026 - [Varginha]() — Wikipedia · City and regional orientation · Consulted September 17, 2026 - [Varginha UFO incident media category]() — Wikimedia Commons · Media and licensing search · Consulted September 17, 2026 ## A NOTE ON EVIDENCE Unidentified describes a limit of the available information. It doesn’t identify an origin. [NEXT CASE FILE: The Shag Harbour Lights]()