MYSTERY WIRE — For more than 40 years, UFO sightings and encounters in Brazil have been investigated by the country’s leading UFOlogist.
The researcher is A.J. Gevaerd. Gevaerd has also been publishing an international UFO journal for more than 40 years and recalls how the Air Force responded to a dramatic increase in UFO sightings years ago.
Some of the sightings were similar to the recent UFO sighting by the crew of an American Airlines jet over New Mexico.
American government officials haven’t had much to say about this near-miss UFO case. But in radio traffic the pilot says an unknown cylindrical object zoomed over their flight Sunday afternoon.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are both said to be investigating.
This type of sighting is not unique to the United States. In Brazil, the fifth largest country on Earth, by both population and geographical area, there is one man who is considered the top UFO investigator in the country.
Brazil, like the U.S., has a long history of UFO incidents, but according to the nation’s leading civilian researcher, the Brazilian Air Force decided years ago to be more transparent with its investigations.
“They assembled a team of men, 30 to 40 men heavily equipped to investigate those lights,” Gevaerd told Mystery Wire in a recent interview. “It was called Operation Saucer, which is the largest military mission that we have knowledge (of) in the world to investigate those things. Operation Saucer men stayed at their location for four months from September to December 1977. And they were able to make over 500 photos of the objects, 500 photos and 16 hours of film.”
Gevaerd has shared thousands of pages of documents released by the air force related to Operation Saucer.
Brazil’s UFO sightings and encounters have also been reported on by BBC and Yahoo.
Below you can watch and read the entire interview with A.J. Gevaerd.
George Knapp
Can you sort of introduce yourself to our audiences who are not familiar with your work, how long you’ve been involved in UFO research and how the different ways that it manifests itself, your magazines and conferences, things like that?
A. J. Gevaerd
Well, I’m involved with the UFO since my childhood. The first book I ever read was Erich von Däniken’s first one, the Chariots of the Gods in the 70s. When I was seven years old, then I then I started investigating you for this as early as when I was 12 years old. My first lecture was on four when I was 14 years old. And I never stopped I do all the things that can be done in the UFO segment. If I heard of a case, if I have a report, I investigate, I write about I share with my colleagues in Brazil, and abroad. And I published the magazine, the Brazilian UFO magazine, which is about to be 40 years old, the longest leaving UFO magazine in the world is still in print. We have a version of digital version as well. But we are still in print. And among all that. I do lectures, I’ve been to over 60 countries in 180 international trips to lecture. Only in the United States have been 70 times lecturing all over. So is that life dedicated to the UFO phenomenon.
George Knapp
Well, your magazine is terrific. It’s high quality. It’s read all over the world. Can you give me a sense of what the level of public interest is in this topic in your country right now? Has it gone up during the quarantine? Or is it about the same?
A. J. Gevaerd
It has been going up since the last 20 years and the quarantine make it a little higher. The interest of population like 20 years ago, only one third of the population believed that we were being visited by other forms of life, intelligent live from outside Earth. Now it’s the opposite. It’s two thirds of the society of the Brazilian population that believes that we are being visited by other forms of life, and that the government knows about it. But this is because like 15 years ago, we started a movement, a very strong movement, to ask our military to come clean about the UFOs, to declassify their documents, and something some people thought it was a childish idea that the government, that the military would come straight about it, would come clean about it. But they did. And they released over 20 pages of UFO official documentation that was classified as secret before. And it can be read by anybody in the National Archives, which is a national National Public Library. So Brazil has the most well succeeded, movement coming from people coming from the society because either for researchers or for society, to make a government to release its papers.
George Knapp
You know, the US government, we’ve learned so much about secret programs in the last three years, programs that existed that they would never admit. Can you describe the relationship that you have with your government and military? And how long that’s been going on where they have been more open than our government has been?
A. J. Gevaerd
It has, our government is more open. For instance, well, first of all, we were the first country to ever admit that UFOs exist. That was 1954. I mean, publicly. It was made by a military captain, called Manuel, I don’t remember … I’m sorry. And he said, in a public hearing that UFOs exists in the Brazilian Air Force knows about it and will investigate it. And it actually did during several several times in history. We investigated UFOs officially, like 1968 and 69 on the operation or Project Bluebook in the United States to cover up the thing, cover up the whole thing. We in Brazil had a huge structure within the walls of the Brazilian Air Force, General headquarters to investigate your (inaudible) was called system of investigation for evidence by flying objects. And it resulted in 1000s of pages of reports of UFOs made by population, which was where some of them were selected, to be investigated by the military. So the military will go to farmers who go to the land or go to the field to talk to people about UFOs. Then in their results, there are even cases in which UFOs landed we cruise, so we check the lands on outside being reported by the military, Brazil military. Now, 10 years ago, the former commander of the Brazilian Air Force issued a document that they’re mining, that all units of the Brazilian information that had reports of UFOs or received reports of UFOs should send them out to Brazil, the federal capital, where is the Brazilian commander of airspace in space Aerospace Defense Command over there to be scrutinized and then sent to the National Archives. It was an official thing published in the official journal of Brazil, where all the the acts from the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary are published.
George Knapp
I know that some of the things that you have accomplished you personally have accomplished in Brazil, the relationships you have developed with military officials and former military officials are sort of the envy of UFOlogists around the world. We can only guess what our government is doing. There’s no dialogue, but you have developed an ongoing dialogue with some of these officials. They trust you with this information.
A. J. Gevaerd
Yes. Further than that, we were invited. I mean, my team and I, the Brazilian committee of researchers, which I put in 1997. My team and I were invited to go to Brasilia to visit veal to us to see the documents that we have so much wanted before they were released. And we sat with the military, we spoke with them, they are aware of it. But when they speak of militaries and meaning Air Force military, because because it’s different when it comes to Army, or Navy, they don’t want to talk about it. But the Brazilian Air Force is really, really transparent about UFOs. So we have that occasion. And then seven years, actually three years after that, the documents started to pop up. And they’re popping up since that, we haven’t gone by, like I told you 20,000 documents are ready to release the National Archives, and between this process among this process, are making the documents open to the public. We were invited by the Ministry of Defense in Brasilia to meet with the heads of the Armed Forces of Brazil’s Navy, Army and Air Force to demand them personally what we wanted under the, Yes, under the coordination of the ministry itself.
George Knapp
That’s astonishing. Do you suspect that at some level, there is a secret stash of really sensitive cases, national security implications that maybe the military, even the Air Force would keep separate from you? And I’m asking in this context that the US government, the US military has such great influence over allies and friendly countries, the UK and European countries where our influence keeps them from opening up their files?
A. J. Gevaerd
Yes, still there is material that has not been released. What was released is what was is releasable, the classifiable because there are informations that are very sensitive. And I know why one of the reasons that the military wants disclosure is because this document when disclosed, can offer to enemy nations, their locations of radars, very sensitive radars. And also because in some cases in, was told to me privately by a very high rank official of the Brazilian Air Force is that got the Brazilian government has cooperated very intimately with the United States government. And there was some sort of interference of the US intelligence and US military, in cases happening in Brazil, and the military don’t want the public to know about that, that we let other govern another government whatever it is, if the US if UK, wherever whatever, interfered in our business, so it’s something that is very sensitive for most military.
George Knapp
What about your president and your legislature? Are they interested? Has Bolsonaro ever expressed an interest in this subject?
A. J. Gevaerd
He has expressed interest in this subject in the past longer road, and his Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Marcus Pontes, which is an astronaut who went to space. He was for several years consultant of my magazine, the Brazilian UFO magazine, and he appeared in conferences and congresses, we are all expecting the pandemic to go away to get most of this to knock at most amount of doors into knock at Marcus Pontes door to get them involved. As a matter of fact that something very interesting that I can tell you in in some lines and not in details is that there is a Brazilian senator, which is interested in having UFO searches, commanded by me organize public hearings in the Brazilian senate about UFOs. And if it’s about to happen, it’s going to be next semester, let’s say September, October, something like this. And if it happens, it’s gonna go attract public, attract the attention of the media world widely, not only in Brazil, because that will be a country the fifth biggest country in the world. Assuming he (inaudible) dismayed that UFOs are serious matter.
George Knapp
I know that some colleagues of mine from here in Las Vegas traveled to Brazil to interact with some folks down there and find out what they could, files, for example, from the government, an organization called BAASS. us that was headed by Bigelow working under a contract with a Defense Intelligence Agency. Are you familiar with what went on there?
A. J. Gevaerd
About eight years ago, some guys from Bigelow came to my city and asked him for a meeting with me. We had a meeting, they were very much interested in metamaterials, metamaterials. And they even proposed (to) me like a contract, if I choose to work with them, looking for cases in Brazil, in which we had metamaterials. But the talk didn’t go ahead. But I’m aware of what’s going on in Bob Bigelow’s industries, especially in BAASS. And that is going fuller in the UFO phenomena investigation. I’m aware of that. And I think that’s a very important for the world. But I would prefer that they chose to share more information with the world instead of closing itself.
George Knapp
Let me ask you about metamaterials. What are the most famous meta material cases is from Brazil, the Ubatuba, this material was analyzed long ago. Can you address that? And also, the larger question, have there been crashes? Have there’s been material collected by your military or government? And maybe has the American government got access to any of that?
A. J. Gevaerd
Yes, there has been crashes in Brazil and in several moments of history, since like the 40s on one of them. That is the most important of cures. And, and Ubatuba, as you said, in the late 50s, if I don’t see if I remember correctly, and two pieces of this material that are not any longer in Brazil, or in a UFO Museum in a city of Victoria, they enter us in Argentina, Dr. Jacques Vallée went there and got a piece of one of the samples and took to the Silicon Valley to analyze it. And some of his conclusions or the results of the analysis showed to be something that is not naturally found, is not normally found in the nature itself that was created is alloy, very strong, with very high concentrations of magnesium.
George Knapp
That is like 99% pure or something like that. Right?
A. J. Gevaerd
Yeah, yes. That I have other cases as well. But nothing too recently. 25 years ago, the most recent case that we have which is one, one quarter, 25% of our century was Varginha case in which a lot of crash now and to build at least two occupants survived the crash and were captured by the Brazilian army which won’t discuss it in any way with anybody.
George Knapp
Do you think that’s a legitimate case that they have? Could they still be alive? Are they pushed? Are they stuck away in a in a prison somewhere?
A. J. Gevaerd
No, they died just before they were captured. The case appeared during the night of January 1996, about 4 a.m. a couple saw a small object seeing the object look like a small submarine, with smoke in the part crashing down, it took a while to crash down. They live in a farm close to Varginha, they estimate the object will have crashed closer to Varginha than they are. And in the next morning maybe attracted by the lights of the city. Two creatures appeared on the boundary in the limits of the city. Then were seen by several people. And someone called the fire department because the fire department in Brazil is in charge of capturing wild animals, which is what the people saw. But they would be and in a few hours, not only the fire department but also a small troop from the army arrived to that location and they were able to capture one creature with nets and put them in a box on top of the truck, which left town. And the other creatures escaped. But were captured night in the city of Varginha after being seen in several areas of that town. That was a small town. And that creature was captured about 8:30 at night by two policemen. In a police car with no marks no signs, they are from the Secret Service the military police have state of militarized and one of the in the military men called (inaudible) at 23 years at that time, captured this creature that run over, run, run from one side to the other side of the street. He captured the creature he put in his own lap in spite of the fact that the creature was smelling bad, was very disgusting. And they took it to the hospital. And this young gentleman died three weeks after that. He captured the creature without any sort of protection, no gloves, no nothing. He was sent to die by his commander, as well as all the military in that area to look for something strange. It’s a very vague notion, why could be something strange, he thought would be that creature he kept the creature took to the hospital, where it arrived almost dead, almost dead. And it was taken both the creatures was taken out of town, to the State University of Campinas,2 or 300 kilometers south, and they were autopsied there. And then they went somewhere to United States.
George Knapp
Well, it’s no wonder the army won’t talk to you. They don’t want to talk about that one.
A. J. Gevaerd
No, they don’t want to talk about that.
George Knapp
Your country is so huge, and has such a rich history of UFO incidents, dramatic cases, photographs, videos, but so much of the country is the Amazon, it’s wilderness. Things that happen out there, you don’t even you don’t get to hear about them. But there have been very dramatic cases where humans have been harmed severely harmed by interactions with whatever these things are. Right?
A. J. Gevaerd
Right. It happened in 1977. And a few more in a few months, 7678 people were being attacked judge people were being attacked by balls of light that came from sky suntan came through the trees in a particular area called the island of coladas, which is by the Amazon River. It’s 100 kilometers from the very well populated city of Belém in the state of Para. And these people were attacked by the hundreds. It were hundreds of people that were attacked, and people was fleeing, they are escaping from that situation by moving to other places of the state. Only like 10% of the population remained. At some point, the government decided to interview to do something about and asked the Brazilian Air Force which has a big base in Belém to do something and the Brazilian Air Force. At the first regional command in Belém, they assembled assembled a team of men 30 to 40 men heavily equipped to investigate those lights. It was called Operation Saucer, which is the largest military mission that we have knowledge in the world to investigate those things. It stayed the operation (inaudible) men stayed at their location for four months from September to December 1977. And they were able to make over 500 photos of the objects, 500 photos and 16 hours of film, film not videos because there were no videos, but super eight and super 16 millimeters. And this material from these materials like two to 300 photos were declassified and are at National Archives. Not one single second of the film were declassified yet. This is how we’re going bold again after the pandemic with our movie man UFOs Freedom of Information now to ask for sign for those pieces of evidences, and Operation Saucer gathered like they produce 2000 pages of reports of UFO sightings and talking to the witnesses, they collected rape reports as well, more than the duck the reports made by the military. And over 1000 of those pages were also released, declassified in our the National Archives.
George Knapp
That’s a spectacular case that really happened. And the government did investigate and people really were harmed. Was anyone killed, do you know?
A. J. Gevaerd
Four people were killed. And also animals, like chicken, cocks were attacked, goats, and they all died instantly. I’ve had been investigating this case for quite a long time, including (inaudible) to happen in 1977 20 years later. I was in a TV show, which is largely seen on Sundays night in Brazil. And I was talking about the Operation Saucer, with the documents that they received anonymously. And then in the morning of Monday, just a few hours after the program, the very commander of the operation saucer, (inaudible), call me at my office, to congratulate me for what I was doing, informing the society about Operation Saucer, I was the one who revealed its existence. And that man decided to open his heart to me. And he said, AJ, I couldn’t meet you in the past when you looked for him at in Brazil and in Rio. But now, I’m disconnected from the Air Force. I no longer belong to the Air Force. And if you want to talk about Operation Saucer, again, come to my house, and we speak freely, you can record you can do whatever you want. And I went to Rio with my co editor. And we did a very long interview with this gentleman, he had a very fresh memory of the facts, he included, told me that he had an encounter with an occupant of a large UFO, a large UFO, it was by the middle of December 1977. The commander, with one of his men were in a small boat on the south end of the island. When they were about to leave to the camping on the north end of the island, they saw an object coming down. It was a cylinder like object with almost 100 meters in height, that almost touched ground on the other bank of the river. But it didn’t is it stay like five meters or so from the ground? It didn’t touch down. So his men was startled what is that? Oh, my God. And then they saw from the upper part, the top part of that object, a door was open, and then a humanoid figure, just like a human being coming down floating in the air. It had two legs, two arms, a body, a neck. And in a face where we’re dressing I see suit of white suit, and a helmet like the those helmets that the bikers use, we’d have a dark visor and he floated down until he came close, like a few meters from the boat where (inaudible) and his men were. But no communication was made. Nothing was made. No gesticulation like a hi or telepathic or something, nothing. Then the creature went back by the same paths entered the depth of that big UFO, which just went up and up and disappeared. Now, this is fascinating. This is what caused the finish Operation Saucer.
George Knapp
What is it about Brazil that attracts so much of this attention of whatever these things are? Because as I said you have a long history in that country of very dramatic incidents. And who knows what goes on out in settlements and villages in the Amazon that you’d never hear about.
A. J. Gevaerd
Yes, well, I have been specializing investigating in the Amazon. There are several artists of the Amazon. I fly to Manaus to Belém and take a car. I go The fastest city that I can reach by the river. There, I rent a boat with a guy driving the boat. And we go further and further inside the jungle. And I start talking to families that leaves isolated from society that barely have a radio. I talked to them, and I go into communities, very poor, very hollow communities. And I talked to them, I asked them if they have seen something strange. And you will be shocked to see that out of 10, 10 people have experiences! Now. They see objects that they call a castle, or something like that come from inside Amazon river, without making any waves in going up, they should add the object sometimes, or do you just get amazed by the beauty of these objects, the lights that are surrounding all over the objects? It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful to hear what they have to say. And they’re very simple. They use to connect or to compare what they saw with what they know. And don’t they give names. to, to the object they seem, according to their beliefs, according to their knowledge of the world itself itself. Some of these people don’t leave their houses for years don’t go to the capitol, Manaus because they don’t have how to they have a little plantation in the back of their house, some animals and fishing.
George Knapp
A.J., it’s great talking to you. We can do this again. If people here in the US want to find your work, where should they go? Where’s where should they go to find you?
A. J. Gevaerd
My website is ufo.com.br. We have amazing content. We have produced over 500 magazines in four decades. And it’s all in the website, free to everyone.
