Truth Seeker Forum

Brigadier Jose Carlos Pereira confirms that on the Official Night Mirages and F-5Es were carrying missiles. Didn’t they have the intention to fire?

No. They had missiles because that was a mission for interception when all aircraft take off carrying weapons. That was just in case, because if force is needed we must be ready whether to defend or to attack.

Wasn’t there any fear on the part of the military that the jets could be viewed as a threat by the UFOs?

Yes, I feared that. I wanted we to check, but not to get much closer [The interviewee falls into contradiction, since we previously stated he couldn’t have followed the Official Night because he was in Rio]. Also, how could they know we carried weapons?

Maybe they have technology enough to detect it.

Yes, it can be. Technology is an interesting point. We know that our limit is the speed of light, for now. However, we shall cross that frontier one day. Only then maybe we can understand what is happening today.

Brigadier, what do you say about all the huge amount of documents still held at official archives? What should be done about that?

What should be done is what is being done, that is, the disclosure triggered by ufologists. The government should call for intelligent people who are interested in the subject and put those materials in their hands – or at least facilitate their access to those files.

Do you support our campaign UFOs: Liberdade de Informação Já which calls for the government to open those files?

You can be sure about that! Files must be opened and you should go on with your campaign towards the government in order to make that happen [emphatic]. Then you come to tell me what you’ve got besides what you already have now.

This interview was conducted in collaboration with Marco A. Petit, Francisco Pires de Campo, and Arthur S. Ferreira Neto, consultants and co-editors to the Brazilian UFO Magazine. All rights reserved. Thanks to the volunteer translator Eduardo Rado, from the Brazilian UFO Magazine team: www.ufo.com.br

On 19 May 1986, Brazilian jets could not force the UFOs to land. The recently disclosed report tells how every jet was launched, what they saw, and how they unsuccessfully tried to approach the objects. There were times when they turned from hunter to prey. One of the UFOs reached 180 km in a matter of seconds going Atlantic Ocean inwards at Sao Paulo coast, then turned back to chase Brazilian jets.

That’s true. What we see is that one can not approach these objects. During this specific incident, pilots tried many times, but UFOs simply sped up and left them behind.

Impressive. And all was recorded by ground and cockpit radars. The UFOs were being observed both by the pilots and Ozires Silva.

Those were “visual electronic anomalies” [laughing each time more when quoting the term].

Have you had the chance to talk to those pilots or other military involved, such as the commander of Comando de Defesa Aérea (CODA), Major Ney Cerqueira, now a retired Colonel? Or have you talked to the then minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier Octavio Moreira Lima?

No. I didn’t talk to them because I had no intentions of carrying out a profound investigation on that. I knew it would lead us nowhere.

How did you know it would lead you nowhere?

Because it was always like this, at least here in Brazil.

But researching takes us somewhere, at least.

Yes. One day we’re going to get there.

Sources say that 21 round-shaped objects, 100m in diameter each, were involved. Such a massive manifestation of UFOs wouldn’t be a threat to national security, to civil air traffic, especially at the time of the occurrence?

No, we knew there wasn’t any threat. We were convinced that their intention was to know better.

To know what or who? Us?

Yes, to know us.

So it means you admit “they” exist and are intelligent beings trying to know us.

Well, they were electronic anomalies [laughing even more]…

At a time when even the government discloses information it’s becoming more and more difficult to deny it, isn’t it?

My friends, I can assure you one thing: if I had any concrete evidence about the reality of UFOs, I would pass it on to you immediately. Unfortunately I don’t have any, but I do know a lot of credible people who experienced the phenomenon and I can give you their names. For example, Jose Aluizio Borges, a general manager to Banco Real. He was at his farm near Campo Grande (MS) and saw a flying saucer. “It was a huge light that crossed in front of us in the middle of the night”, he told me [that witness was not found to give his interview].

So your friend was impressed just like you when you saw that light together with your wife?

Yes. Humans are naturally inclined to look for the unknown. Brazilians have such inheritance from the Portuguese people. Some 300 years ago, someone called Bartolomeu Gusmao did something incredible. He made a small balloon go up inside the Portuguese royal palace, so that he could prove his point that flying was possible. Before that, when he was only describing what he would do, everybody laughed. Then, when people saw the balloon going up, they started to clap. Gusmao then asked the king’s permission to develop that means of transport. After him, how many people got inspired to conduct similar experiments? Would you believe that someone thought about that means of transport 300 years ago?

You have mentioned the event within Cindacta facilities in Gama. Do you know of any other case in which UFOs were shot at by the military? Do you know of any jet fighters having targeted objects in the air?

I don’t know any case of that. Actually, at the time we followed the doctrine of non-aggression.

That doctrine was enforced by whom?

By no one. That was just a logical conclusion, once we knew that an artefact capable of such flying maneuvers could never be hit. It would be even crazy on our part to attempt anything against it. We knew that and no one would be fool enough to try an attack. That “thing” could simply pulverize us with a beam of light. However, we were never prevented from trying to approach the ships in order to see them closely. Actually, all the military were dying to see a UFO at close range.

Was that a formal doctrine within your regulations?

No, it was rather informal. It was a natural behaviour for pilots and commanders. One would ask, “Hey, would you shoot that?” and the other would reply, “Of course not. I’m not stupid”. In fact, as we didn’t believe one could get even close to those objects, we never had a procedure to be adopted in these cases.
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What do you mean? When did that happen?

In 1950, when I was still a cadet. I was flying a training session over Barra da Tijuca and saw something similar to a balloon, as I can describe it. My trainer saw that as well and agreed that that could be a balloon, but the object suddenly disappeared. Not long after that, the magazine O Cruzeiro published a report entitled Disco Voador na Barra da Tijuca (Flying Saucer over Barra da Tijuca). If you check the magazine archives, you’ll get to the description of what was seen that day. I think that was the same object I saw during my training along with other colleagues. O Cruzeiro even mentioned that a group of aircraft flying that zone might have spotted the object. They were talking about us.

Indeed, a passage in Fernando Cleto Nunes Pereira’s book A Bíblia e os Discos Voadores (The Bible and the UFOs) [Editora Ediouro, 1986], says that a cadet from Campo dos Afonsos would have seen the UFO pictured by magazine O Cruzeiro.

It might be me or any other cadet. I saw that “thing” at Barra da Tijuca, which could be a balloon. That happened at the same time and same place in which the UFO was photographed. To my understanding, that was a balloon. However, when O Cruzeiro hit the stands the next Sunday, the report defined that as a flying saucer. I didn’t see anything that seemed like a saucer, but only a balloon, as I can describe it. [When inquired about it, the interviewee revealed he was never aware of the controversy surrounding Ed Keffel’s pictures of an alleged UFO. Ed Keffel was a reporter for O Cruzeiro and worked in partnership with Joao Martins. Those pictures are considered to be a hoax by most of the Brazilian ufology community].

Was the object just hanging still in the air? Didn’t it move to any direction?

When you are flying, it’s difficult to observe the movement of other things in the sky. It’s hard to tell if that moved or not.

Brigadier, you already know that our main wish today is having government ackowledgement of UFOs existence as well as the disclosure of official archives. Brazilian ufologists also want to establish a research committee to work in cooperation with Air Force officials, be them retired or not. We wish to conduct joint operations for case analysis aiming both military and civil data files. Can we count on your support for that?

Of course you can. Sure. As for the Aeronautics as an institution I think that, if you’re able or lucky to reach most concrete data, they will use you in order to find explanations or collect more information.

How do you suggest we could approach the Aeronautics with such a proposal for a joint work?

It maybe by finding out more new facts.

We have hundreds of facts. What we need now is an institutional and bureaucratic breakthrough so that our idea is officially made into effect.

How did you get access to all these information you’ve just brought to show me?

We made formal requests to the Aeronautics and many other bodies as part of procedures put in place after the Carta de Brasilia and, later on, by the Dossiê UFO Brasil [See UFO 155 and 158]. Most of materials were released by the Centro de Documentação e Histórico da Aeronáutica (Cendoc).

If that was the case, I believe you should follow on the same path. The body you said to have released most of materials is, in fact, the most accessible one to that kind of proposal. I’ll see what I can get to you in that sense.

We thank you very much for that. Regarding the time you served in Manaus as a commander to the VII Comando Aéreo Regional (COMAR VII), was there any UFO sighting you could tell us about?

No. Despite the intense air traffic in that area, I didn’t get any information of that kind. Roraima’s Boa Vista airport used to be the most requested one in Brazil that time due to mining activities in the region. There were more than 200 daily flights, normally monomotors. There was a huge exploration of cassiterite at that time.

Such an aircraft traffic demands extreme caution on the part of controllers, isn’t it?

Yes. That’s the reason why after two months in office as a minister I took the president to the region and proposed him the implementation of a surveillance system in order to keep track of anything that happens in the Amazon. This is what we know today as Sistema de Vigilância da Amazônia (SIVAM). It was prepared by the Armed Forces in order to monitor the air space in all of that area. The initiative has its civil part, which is denominated Sistema de Proteção da Amazônia (SIPAM). The president accepted the suggestion and the system was put in place years later.

When SIVAM started operations you were not at the Ministry anymore, correct? Despite that fact, didn’t you know of any occurrence in the Amazon, either through civil or military pilots?

No, nothing. That time there was nothing in the Amazon, only rains.

Regarding the Official Night, there is another question. Some sectors in the press attempted to discredit the importance of the case, while others argued that the Air Force would never launch 7 jet fighters to intercept something of little importance. In fact, an operation like that would be too expensive.

Of course they wouldn’t. However, this kind of interception operation is short. There’s no interception lasting 2 or 3 hours. It normally takes no more than 30 or 40 minutes. The aircraft goes, checks, identifies the target or not, then returns to the base. But you’re right, the costs are really high.

So you mean the Aeronautics would never deploy jets if the case was not very serious?

They would not, but let me tell you a story. During the conflict in Malvinas islands, in 1982, I was a commander at Cindacta when we spotted an aircraft entering Brazilian air space from the North, through Belem region. We knew that was a Russian Ilyushin flying from Havana to Buenos Aires whose route crossed Brazilian air space. We didn’t know the pilot, but we knew the Cuban ambassador to Argentina was onboard carrying US$ 200,000 – and that I don’t know what for. The aircraft entered Brazilian skies without contacting controllers in Brasilia. The Military Operations Center immediately launched two Mirage against the intruder. It was a Thursday, a day before Good Friday, with a heavy storm falling over Brasilia. The air strip was dark, we had lost the lights. So we put lamps on in order to make the taking-off possible. The Mirage would take off at 22h00 in order to intercept the Cuban aircraft. They ordered the intruder to come back and land in Brasilia, but their pilots pretended not to listen. Then the Mirages turned on their lights behind the Cuban aircraft and its pilots understood they had no other choice. So they returned and landed in Brasilia. What I want to say is that our system for interception really works! [emphatic] However, if the HIlyushin had not landed in Brasília, we wouldn’t know what to do, because none of our authorities would have the courage to authorize an attack against the intruder. Now it’s a different situation because we have a legislation regulating the possibility of putting an intruder down.

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Besides Gravatai incident and the Brazilian Official UFO Night, do you remember any other case in which jets were sent to intercept UFOs?

No, there were none that I remember. Besides, we had the habit of not commenting on things we could not prove. So we avoided talks on those cases because we lacked concrete data in order to identify the nature of those objects. There was also the issue of meteorological phenomena to be taken into consideration. Some balloons might reach incredible altitudes.

You’re right, but Cindacta radars and experienced jet pilots wouldn’t take one thing for another…

Sure, but every aspect must be considered. There is a meteorological phenomenon called St. Elmo’s fire, for example, which is a strong bluish light that can stood still or move. This one is often seen in cemiteries due to the decomposition of organic matter. The gas resulting from it generates a bluish light when in contact with the air. This is what we call St. Elmo’s fire.

There were many reports from pilots seeing the St. Elmo’s fire. However, what they usually describe are more likely to be associated with ufological occurrences. The foo-fighters at the II World War are an example.

All pilots have already seen the St. Elmo’s fire in the sky. I have seen it many times. It might even enter the aircraft and cross through it. I’ve seen it very often over the Amazon when flying a C-47 or a DC-3 for the Brazilian postal service. I have more than 2000 hours of flight in that region and witnessed many electrical storms, which may generate strange phenomena. There is a number of atmospheric effects to be considered – the electric fire or the St. Elmo’s fire is only one of those. The light rests at the tip of the helix, then jumps from one side to another before going away. We got even afraid of being burned. That happens to me several times. This is why pilots always think, “It’s the St. Elmo’s fire again, get ready” when there’s a light in the sky. However, not everything can be explained like that, since the St. Elmo’s fire is just a small luminous ball inside the cockpit. There are much larger lights. Anyway, any commercial pilot flying over 10.000 meters have experienced that.

There is another statement allegedly yours regarding the Brazilian Official UFO night. It says that FAB had recorded the event in video. Is it true?

No. Actually the whole event was registered in magnetic tapes, not in video. Radars have the ability to record everything they detect. Then we keep these recordings for 30 days, as I said before. After that we clear the magnetic tapes not to let them pile up.

Even recordings of an event which triggered an interception operation in 19 May 1986 were deleted?

When there’s something like that we normally wait a little more before deleting the recordings. Maybe 2 or 3 months. After that, recordings are deleted for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. But Cindacta has recorded things like that many times. Not once or twice, but many times. We always prepared reports and sent them without any comments, since we didn’t know what or how to explain.

Regarding this event or any other, have you ever been pressured by foreign governments to share information?

No. During my time as a minister that never happened, or it happened without my knowledge.

Brigadier Jose Carlos Pereira [See UFO 141 and 142] (EMAER) has already recorded hundreds of ufological sightings since the 1950s. Do you confirm that?

Well, Pereira was a chief of EMAER. Therefore, these materials were in his desk for him to access anytime he wanted.

In recent interviews he states that “it’s time to end UFO secrecy”, and “secret files on UFOs should be disclosed”. He firmly supports our campaign UFOs: Liberdade de Informação Já. What do you think about these statements?

I think there are two possible interpretations. First, we need to disclose the files in order to clarify what the phenomenon is. Second, this is necessary in order to avoid people saying we are hiding the truth. I can anticipate people saying, “the government hides mysterious phenomena from its people”. This is not true. So files must be opened at once in order to avoid this idea. We can not remain in an uncomfortable position regarding this issue.

Brigadier Pereira says exactly the same. He even says that people do not fear what is transparent, they fear what is opaque instead. He further says that the documents can not affect national security, do not pose a threat to the population and do not harm the privacy of people involved. Files must be disclosed. Do you agree with that?

No doubt about that. Actually, I didn’t open (the files) before, as a minister, because I was never asked to do so. If I were ever asked, I’d have them opened.

Would you do so even though they contain serious incidents such as the Official Night, in which FAB jets were sent to intercept objects of unknown nature?

Yes, even those cases must be disclosed. Note that jets were launched but could not even approach the objects. We are talking about UFOs [not mentioning “electronic anomalies” anymore], and our aircraft could not even get close to them.

Do you think such impossibility to intercept the objects was due to their alleged superior technology?

Yes, [that’s why] we could not even get close to those things which reach thousands of kilometers per hour in less than a second. Ozires Silva saw that, my wife did, and so did I. As I described before, there was a bright light standing still in the sky. I was watching and waiting for it to turn left or right, but it didn’t. My conclusion was that it was flying directly towards me, although it seemed to be not moving.

What did you think that time?

I’m realistic about these matters. All I wanted was to enter that “thing” and see how that works. This idea had already gone through my mind long before.

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How about Operação Prato? What do you know about it?

Not much. I only know it occurred in the Amazon, in 1977, and was under Brigadier Protasio [Lopes de Oliveira]. As you know, I was a commander to the VII Comando Aéreo Regional (COMAR VII), in Manaus, and that all happened at the I Comando Aéreo Regional (COMAR I), which is in Belem.

Exactly. Operação Prato was prepared at COMAR I and carried out at the island of Colares, 80km from Belem. Documents disclosed show routes, formats, and sizes of UFOs.

All these [pointing to papers shown to him] are official government documents? Did you have access to all that?

Yes, we did. These are copies from the originals and tell of all that happened at that time. Similarly interesting are the documents recently declassified which account for the occurrence of 19 May 1986, which had Ozires Silva as a main figure involved, the so-called Official UFO Nights in Brazil.

That’s interesting. I can see here among the documents regarding that night there’s an incident report signed by Brigadier Jose Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque.

Yes. In that report he describes how the objects zigzagged, stopped, reached incredible speed, and so on. It also states that the objects both chased and were chased by Brazilian jets [See UFO 160].

I see. Decisions at the time were made by the Comando de Defesa Aérea (CODA), a body responsible for the monitoring of any non-identified objects which could pose a threat to the country. CODA was the body in charge of the taking-off of Mirages and F-5Es and the interception of intruders. There (CODA) is where the search for anything unusual starts.

Now we know that thanks to this document disclosed by the government. However, there are still some topics missing in order to illustrate that night. For example, you were the commander of the IV Comando Aéreo Regional (COMAR IV), in Sao Paulo, which was the body directly in charge of the occurrence. Did you follow the development of the incident?

No, I did not. That was the same night my wife witnessed those objects in Rio and I was with her when Mirages and F-5Es were launched against the objects in Rio and Sao Paulo. At the same time, Ozires Silva was on his way from Brasilia to Sao Jose dos Campos and witnessed the phenomenon.

As the commander of COMAR IV didn’t you follow on the facts? There were statements published at the occasion which were quoted as being yours. You were quoted as saying that those facts were long being reported and that FAB was aware of that. That was all published. What do you have to say about that?

Yes, now I remember. What I’m saying is that I didn’t have the opportunity to witness the event in real time. I only knew that radars had spotted unusual objects or, again, “electronic anomalies”. We put that all down in reports that were sent to EMAER, which was the appropriate reporting mechanism.

Did you get any answers from EMAER about that case or any other event reported to them? Also, did you receive any instructions as to how to behave in those circumstances?

No, but I know how they dealt with it. When there was nothing to say or no plausible explanation to give, the reports were sent to the archives awaiting for the day when a possible explanation could arise.

Do you know if at any given time the government, EMAER or even CODA had established a committee in order to address these cases?

When I was a minister of Aeronautics and received that kind of reports, I just did as usual: sent them to the appropriate files containing all of those similar cases. That was a single folder so that we do not loose the origin of the reports. All was kept there. When we lacked an explanation, we simply waited for it to come up one day. I used to give orders for a research, but it was not an investigation or an inquiry. It was just an informal check-up.

Those check-ups were routine or were applied in only special cases?

It happened only in a few cases, when we consider it worth to investigate. When the description of the event was a credible one, I tried to search for more concrete data.

How were those check-ups conducted?

I used to send someone to talk with locals from the place where the event occurred. We talked to people who might be linked to what was reported. We also inspected the area followed by the witness, because such cases normally happened in the rural area or small cities, not in large urban centers. At least

this is what we normally got. If I’m not mistaken, it has been happening in Brazil since the 1950s, when officers from Gravataí Air Base, state of Rio Grande do Sul, saw strange objects in the sky at broad day light. I believe that was in 1954.

Were you already in the military at that time? What was your rank?

Yes, I was a Lieutenant at the Air Force. The event was registered in Gravatai and caused great commotion, since high-ranking officials like Brigadier Jose Hernani were involved.

Brigadier, I’d like to resume the Brazilian Official UFO Night when jets were sent to intercept the objects.

In that occasion you’ve said that FAB had been recording such cases for years. You also said that the artefacts went from 250 to 1500 km/h in less than a second, which is confirmed by the documents recently disclosed by the government. What else can you say about it?

My technicians mentioned 4000 km/h, but that speed is too much for our radars. It makes them loose accuracy. Therefore, we can not really state that they flew at that speed (4000 km/h). However, they disappeared from radar screens so quickly that Cindacta’s system registered a not much reliable velocity assessment. We could not precisely assert 4000 km/h technically speaking. What was certain is that the objects were at more or less 800 km/h, then suddenly sped up so quickly that they disappear from radar screens. Our technicians said that happened at 4000 km/h, but I do not endorse this assumption.

When radars showed that the objects disappeared in that fashion, did you still think of “electronic anomalies” as an explanation?

Well, I still called it “electronic anomalies”, because I didn’t have any other name to give to it [laughing about his own definition].

But what do you think those objects were? What is your opinion?

I don’t think anything and do not have a personal say on that.

Have you ever considered those might be ships from another planet crewed by a superior intelligence?

I’d like to think like that. I’d like to be able to say I believe it, that I’m sure, but I’m kind of skeptic about things I can not prove. However, if you ask me if I think that is all fabrication, I’d say no. I don’t think this is the case. But the point is I can not say what those things are.

I would insist in asking you: What do you think they are?

I think it’s very hard to say that nothing can exist beyond our knowledge or beyond our world. That would be false. I wish I could say “they” are there, but I still had no opportunity for a close look. I have no concrete data to give to you regarding those objects. Believe me, I wish I could join you in order to research this “thing”, but I’m in no conditions for that.

As you said before, FAB had been recording UFO sightings. Can you tell of any case which had this same proportions?

Yes, I consider the Gravatai case as a significant occurrence. [See box].

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