Anyone who reads the stories on this website knows
me as an American who researches UFOs in Brazil. Now they can also think of
me as a “Brazilian” researcher as well.
That’s because members of the Brazilian UFO community
have bestowed on me the title of “Ufólogo Brasileiro Honorário” – or
an Honorary Brazilian Ufologist.
The honor came during a UFO conference in the city
of Curitiba in May 2003. Before saying more about that, I wish to pay tribute
to all Brazilian ufologists.
There are about three hundred active ufologists in
Brazil, ranging from the youngest and least experienced to those with unbelievable
numbers of thoroughly investigated cases.
Hulvio Aleixo,
for
example, has a record of research that may be unequaled in the world. Hulvio
(left) has spent more than thirty years investigating UFO reports in Vale
das Velhas, or the Valley of the Old Women. This region has been one of the
most active UFO spots in the world and UFOs are still being seen there, as
several colleagues and I learned in mid-May, just a few days after I took
this photo of Hulvio. (It was the fifth time he has helped me since 1979.)
In this mountainous farming region north of Belo Horizonte,
Hulvio and members of his research group CICOANI investigated at least fifteen
hundred cases, including some three hundred major ones. He developed a network
of people 
throughout
the region that kept him informed of sightings and encounters, and between
1969 and 2000 he and his group spent hundreds of weekends in the valley investigating
cases. (I have records of twenty-one of those thirty-one years of expeditions
and they show that Hulvio and members of CICOANI went to that region at least
three hundred and seventeen times. Among the missing ten years of records
are two trips that I made with him in 1991 and 1996.)
Hulvio and his colleagues often returned to the scene
of an encounter again and again with tape recorders, cameras, sketch pads
and other gear. They would conduct repeated 
interviews
with witnesses and others until they were sure they had a solid case and that
they had all the information they could get. In an innovative investigative
technique, they also had witnesses use Playdough to create models of the UFOs
they saw. This was particularly effective in helping witnesses to describe
the shape and colors of the UFOs.
Many other Brazilian researchers have investigated
countless cases with similar thoroughness.
There are so many sightings and encounters in Brazil that within a few years almost every active investigator becomes as experienced and competent as any in the world.
I have worked closely with at least forty Brazilian
investigators. All of them treated me with friendship and respect. Each unselfishly
shared his or her best cases, taking me to the sites where encounters occurred
and introducing me to the witnesses.
Never once did I hear a harsh word or sense any hostility
or resentment, nor were these investigators ever reluctant to tell me about
any case that I was interested in. All through the years they treated me as
an intelligent, competent equal, just as I did them.
Brazilian researchers helped me in at least half of
the several hundred cases I have investigated in Brazil.
CURITIBA
CONFERENCE
Now back to the honor I was given in Brazil.
On the night of April 29, 2003, I flew from Miami to Rio de 
Janeiro
and the following evening continued on to the big, busy city of Curitiba four
hundred miles south of Rio. It was my fourteenth visit to Brazil since 1978
and was to become the most 
rewarding.
Over the next three days I participated in the twenty-seventh
annual Brazilian UFO Congress in Curitiba. It was organized by Rafael Cury
(right), president of the National Association of Ufologists of Brazil and
co-editor of the magazine Revista UFO. I was one of three Americans and more
than twenty Brazilians to speak at the conference.
When I gave my talk on the afternoon of Saturday, May
3, about two hundred and fifty people were in the auditorium. I told them
about a number of the unusual UFO cases that I had investigated in Brazil
since 1978.
I talked only about cases that I had investigated without
help from Brazilian researchers. I was careful to not include encounters that
had
first been investigated by the men and women who had helped me over the years.
The reason is that those cases were rightfully “their” cases, not “mine,”
and they had probably already talked about them in front of other audiences
at earlier UFO conferences.
I used slides to illustrate the talk and was blessed
to have an excellent interpreter, Marcos Malvezzi Leal (left), relay my words
to the audience. Earlier in the year, Marcos had translated my book UFO DANGER
ZONE into Portuguese. It was published in the United States in 1996 and it
is about my UFO research in Brazil. It has now been published in Brazil under
the title Perigo Alienígena no Brasil, Perseguições, 
Terror
e Morte no Nordeste (see cover below). It was released in July 2003 through
the magazine Revista UFO.
(Marcos, an English teacher and professional interpreter,
has translated about two hundred books into Portuguese and has written his
own book, SERES, Fantástica Realidade, Relatos Surpreendentes Sobre a Interação
de Humanos com Outros Seres, or BEINGS, Fantastic Reality — Extraordinary
Stories About the Interaction of Humans With Other Beings.)
When
I finished my talk and started to walk off the stage, Marcos stopped me and
asked that I wait for just a moment. “They,” he said, “want to give you something.”
The next thing I knew, veteran ufologist Mário Rangel
(above right) walked up to me with a large black portfolio in his hands and
asked Marcos for the microphone. At about the same time, Rafael Cury and twenty
or more people began walking on stage behind him. Because the portfolio was
big and one of Mário's hands was now occupied with the microphone, Rafael
helped him open the portfolio (above left). It revealed 
first a Brazilian flag and then a beautiful diploma naming me an "Ufólogo
Brasileiro Honorário" — or an Honorary Brazilian Ufologist — in recognition
of the research I had done in Brazil over the years. There were also three
similarly large pages with signatures on them.
Adding
to my amazement was the fact that the people now on stage behind Rafael and
Marcos were Brazilian ufologists who had been in the audience (I learned later
that in his speech, Mário had invited them on stage), and these men and women
were lining up to shake my hand (below). It was a very emotional moment for
me.
The diploma itself was signed by three of the country’s
leading ufologists, Mário himself, Rafeal and A. J. Gevaerd, editor of Brazil's
leading uFO magazine, Revista UFO. Three additional pages contained
the signatures of 
seventy-five
other ufologists from all over the country. (Please note also that all photos
from the presentation ceremony were taken by Tom Tulien, a historical researcher
from Minneapolis, Minnesota.)
Later I learned that Mário was the moving force behind
the honor. Many good things have happened to me because of Mário. He discovered
through the Internet that in July 2001 I had spoken at the MUFON Symposium
in Irvine, California about my Brazilian research and that I had written a
book about some of those cases. Mário got my email address, contacted me,
and we exchanged copies of our books.
He liked my book and for many months he urged me to
get it translated and published in Brazil. He sent me the names and addresses
of more than a dozen publishers in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. I contacted
all of them, sending each a letter, a book proposal and a copy of the book,
but 
only
one was interested. However, that publisher had a backlog of UFO books to
do and it could be several years before he would get to mine.
Mário never gave up, and early in 2002 he persuaded
magazine editor A. J. Gevaerd (below left) to publish the book. Through his
group, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas de Discos Voadores (CBPDV), Gevaerd
(below left) has published a series of a dozen UFO books that includes Mário’s
Seqüestros Alienígenas, Investigando Ufologia com e sem Hipnose (Alien
Abductions, Investigating Ufology with and without Hypnosis).
Mário, who lives in São Paulo, was not finished yet.
When he learned I had been invited to speak at the Curitiba conference, he
began working on the Honorary Brazilian Ufologist honor and got other ufologists
to support the idea.
He
worked with researcher Rodolfo Heltai (below right) to design and create the
diploma on Rodolfo’s computer, along with extra pages to contain signatures
of ufologists.
In his own computer, Mário created labels, many of
them individual ones with the names of ufologists printed on them. He sent
the labels to as many ufologists as he could reach and included self-addressed,
stamped envelopes 
along with a letter explaining what he was doing.
In addition, Mário traveled to UFO conferences, getting
more signatures. The result was seventy-eight signatures.
When the labels came back in the mail, he glued them
into the signature pages that Rodolfo had created.
The whole undertaking, Mário said, was “Very simple.”
I met Mário for the first and only time in Curitiba
and was able to talk with him several times during the conference. He is a
tall, distinguished-looking man, extremely courteous and serious. He
has white hair and a quiet sense of humor, and speaks English and Spanish
in addition to his native language. He and his wife Tereza have four daughters
and two grandchildren.
Mário is a retired executive of an encyclopedia company,
having served during the last eight and a half years of his career as director
of distributors in fourteen countries of Central and South America. He has
traveled extensively and has visited seventy countries.
A private pilot much of his life, he became interested
in UFOs one day in the early 1970s when he and another man watched an object
hover for a minute or two in broad daylight about five hundred feet above
Bacacheri Airport in Curitiba, less than two kilometers from the auditorium
where I received the diploma.
Below are the people who signed the diploma naming
me an honorary Brazilian ufologist. To all of them and all ufologists throughout
Brazil, my profound thanks.
Ademar José Gevaerd
Adilson Machado
Alberto Romero
Alcione Luiz Giacomitti
Aldo Novak
Alexandre Gutierrez
Alexandre Rosado
Allyson Santos de Souza
Álvaro Fernandes
Álvaro Santos Marciano
Antônio Faleiro
Arismaris Baraldi Dias
Basílio Baranoff
Carlos Alberto Machado
Carlos Alberto Reis
Carlos Arlindo de Souza
Cynthia Newby Luce
D. Reis
Dalton Corrazzari de Santi
Dino Nascimento
Edilson da Silva
Edison Boaventura Junior
Elizabeth Aparecida Rodrigues
Silva
Enos Francisco Beolchi
Eustáquio Andréa Patounas
Evandro Narciso
Fernando Grossmann
Flávio Pereira
Gener Silva
Henry Albert Nakashima
Hernán Mostajo
Hulvio Brant Aleixo
Jackson Luiz Camargo
Jaime Barros Junior
Jeferson C. S. Martinho
João Oliveira
Jonas Marcelo Augusto Coelho
Josef David S. Prado
Julio César Goudard
Lúcia Menta
Luciano Stanka e Silva
Luís Carlos Santos
Luiz Gonzaga Scortecci de Paula
Luiz Ricardo Geddo
Marco Antônio Petit
Marco Aurelio Leal
Marcos Malvezzi Leal
Mário Rangel
Max Berezovsky
Michel Cervelló
Mônica Borine
Naou Estrada
Nelson Vilhena Granado
Pablo Villarubia Mauso
Paulo Anibel Gomes Mesquita
Paulo F.I. Giordano
Pedro Gabriel Scarabello
Rafael Cury
Reginaldo de Athayde
Ricardo Barreto
Rodolfo Heltai
Romio Curi
Rosana Beni
Rubens Junqueira Villela
Rubens Sgarbi
Sebastião Alves França Bruce
Sérgio Bernardinelli
Sheylla Salles Patounas
S. S. Saga
Thiago Tichetti
Ubirajara Rodrigues
Valmir Borine
Vanderlei D’Agostino
Vanessa Guido
Wallacy Albino
Walter Oliveira da Silva
Wendel Stein
Wilson Picler
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