At the time of writing this, I am finally going on vacation. And during this brief but precious month, I’ll be able to dedicate myself to some pleasant things. It’s time to do what you love, or at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself I will. In fact, I’m using this time to repair some of my failings as a reader (or human being). Until recently, I had never read a single line of J.R.R. Tolkien. Now, I’ve read The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, and I’m already well on my way to reading The Two Towers. However, there’s another book that’s also been catching my attention.
Published in 2001, the book “The Varginha Case,” by Ubirajara Franco Rodrigues, is practically required reading for those who delve into the swamps of ufology. So I’m fulfilling that prerequisite. I think we can learn a lot about pseudoscience, and therefore about science, by investigating these reports and the discussion surrounding them.
The Varginha Case, one of Brazil’s most famous UFO reports, centred on the testimony of three girls (Liliane, Valquíria, and Kátia) who claimed to have seen a strange creature in a vacant lot in the Jardim Andere neighbourhood of Varginha, Minas Gerais, on January 20, 1996. The girls described the being as humanoid, with brown, oily skin, large, red eyes, a head disproportionate to its body, and prominent veins. The girls’ strong emotional reaction, as they ran home in terror, lent weight to the story and drew the attention of the press and ufologists, who soon associated the incident with the crash of a supposed unidentified flying object in the region.
Many of the accounts of the Varginha Case contain, in addition to possible exaggerations and biased interpretations, a significant omission: the old urban legends about a certain Zé Gomes, owner of a plot of land in Jardim Andere, which borders the lot where the girls claim to have seen the creature. For decades, rumors circulated in Varginha that Zé Gomes practiced black magic rituals. It was said that he had a “pact with the devil,” that he summoned demonic entities, and that he had even “bottled a little demon.” These stories were part of the local imagination long before the infamous 1996 episode.
I learned about this thanks to an audio recording posted on the João Marcelo YouTube channel, narrated by Ubirajara Rodrigues, who is now very skeptical of a strictly extraterrestrial view of UFO investigations, but who was one of the main investigators of the case at the time. In addition to the legend of Zé Gomes, the recording recounts a story about how a local esotericist claimed to have opened a “portal” in a certain part of the city, from which emerged thin humanoid creatures with red eyes and horns – a description that coincides, to some degree, with the girls’ accounts years later. This suggests that the sighting may have been influenced, at least in part, by this pre-existing cultural melting pot.
This isn’t to say the girls lied, but to recognise that testimonies are constructed within a psychological and cultural context. Even Ubirajara, one of the case’s lead investigators, admits that, initially, his own expectation of alien contact led him to ignore these local legends. He also considers another plausible hypothesis: the girls, already frightened by rumours of someone attacking people in the region, may have come across someone or something crouching near a wall and, in a panic, interpreted the scene in light of their beliefs and fears, as a “demon.” The confusion, reinforced by social panic and the way in which reports spread, would have created the fantastic narrative we know.
To this day, the three girls maintain their story and categorically assert that they didn’t see a person there. I don’t want to suggest that they saw nothing. However, it should be noted that they were Catholic and, initially at least, believed they saw a demon, not an alien – precisely on the land that belonged to Zé Gomes.
There is also the broader cultural context of Varginha and the surrounding region. In his 2001 book, Ubirajara presents this cultural backdrop well. Regarding the city, he writes that it is:
… located an average of an hour’s drive away, on all sides, from extravagant settings: towards São Paulo, the city of Pouso Alegre is home to a world-renowned alleged paranormal site. At the opposite extreme is the controversial São Thomé das Letras, the focus of mystical fads. To the southeast, the late clairvoyant Neila Alkmin lived in Conceição do Rio Verde. The Brazilian Society of Eubiose (SBE) established itself in São Lourenço, Carmo de Minas, and Aiuruoca. Toward Belo Horizonte, Carmo da Cachoeira is almost entirely taken over by followers of someone who claims to receive knowledge from extraterrestrials, who are acquiring properties and living in a rural community every day. And they say other projects continue to arrive in the region. All within about an hour’s drive.
In fact, specifically speaking of Varginha, the city had been dealing with UFOs for decades. In the November 29, 1970, edition of the Tribuna Varginhense newspaper, an article reports an alleged sighting of a flying saucer over the city. One of the locations where one of the sightings occurred? The Jardim Andere neighborhood, where, in 1996, the “Varginha ET” was seen. In the National Archives, you can even find a 1971 report from the Ministry of Aeronautics about the case in question (you may need to log in to the GOV system to access it).
Given all this, the simplest option is perhaps the most plausible. It’s reasonable to assume they saw something and misinterpreted it, something the science of behavior and perception knows well.
However, what’s troubling is that, instead of addressing these more prosaic explanations, part of contemporary ufology responds by doubling down: it now proposes that the case didn’t involve aliens, but rather extradimensional beings arriving through magical portals, in a desperate attempt to salvage the case at the expense of another, even less plausible, hypothesis. As fascinating as it is to imagine visitors from other planets or realities, the lack of concrete evidence must outweigh the desire to believe.
This story was originally published by Revista Questão de Ciência in Brazil. It is translated and reprinted here with permission.
