The Varginha Incident
On 20 January 1996 three young women in Varginha, Brazil, said they saw a red-eyed creature in a vacant lot. A 1997 army inquiry blamed a local man, Mudinho.
The Varginha incident began on the afternoon of 20 January 1996 in Varginha, a city in Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Three young women, sisters Liliane and Valquíria Silva and their friend Kátia Andrade Xavier, said they saw a strange creature crouching in a vacant lot in the Jardim Andere district. It had dark, oily-looking skin, large red eyes and three bumps on its head. Ufologists later claimed the army and fire brigade captured one or more creatures and took them to local hospitals, and that a young military policeman who handled one died weeks later. A Brazilian military inquiry in 1997 concluded the women had seen a local man with a mental disability, known as “Mudinho”. It found no unusual military activity. The case is often called “Brazil’s Roswell”.
The sighting
Around 3.30 p.m. the three women took a shortcut past a vacant lot. They said they saw a biped with a large head, brown skin with veinlike marks, two red eyes like balls, and three bumps or small horns on its head. It seemed unsteady. Some accounts add a strong ammonia smell. The women ran home and told their mother they had seen the devil. Earlier versions of this page gave the creature a height of five feet, V-shaped skull ridges and three-fingered hands as if every witness agreed on them. Accounts of the details vary.
The claims that followed
The story spread fast. Ufologists, chief among them Ubirajara Rodrigues and Vitório Pacaccini, gathered accounts that went much further. They described army trucks, firefighters capturing a creature, a second creature caught that night, and beings taken to local hospitals. Some claimed the creatures and wreckage were examined and moved to Campinas in São Paulo state, and even to the United States. Pacaccini and Maxs Portes published these claims in the book Incidente em Varginha in 1996. Rodrigues wrote O Caso Varginha in 2001. Other reports tied the case to the deaths of several animals at the local zoo.
None of this is backed by photographs, film, medical records or physical remains in civilian hands. Most of it rests on anonymous or second-hand testimony collected by the researchers.
The death of Marco Eli Chereze
Marco Eli Chereze was a 23-year-old soldier of the Minas Gerais military police. He died in Varginha on 15 February 1996. Ufologists say he handled a creature without protective equipment, fell ill and died of an infection nobody could explain. His burial was low key, with a sealed coffin.
The military inquiry found that he died of septic shock following routine surgery, and that there was no contact with any unknown agent. His family has never accepted that account and still links his death to the alleged capture. Earlier versions of this page spelled his name Cherese.
The official inquiry
The Brazilian army opened a military police inquiry, IPM no. 18/97, on 29 January 1997 after Pacaccini’s book came out. It concluded that the women had most likely seen Luiz Antônio de Paula, a local man with a mental disability known as Mudinho. He was said to have been crouching against a wall, dirty and frightened. The inquiry found that the military and fire brigade activity in the city that day was routine and had been misread. It also noted that there was no record of NASA or US government involvement. The result was made public in October 2010.
Many people in Varginha reject that explanation. The women insisted that what they saw was not a man. The sceptic Brian Dunning argues the opposite case, that nothing unusual happened and that the story was built up by researchers into proof of alien visitors.
The most telling change came from inside the ufology community. Ubirajara Rodrigues, one of the first and most important investigators, later said he no longer accepted the extraterrestrial explanation because he could see no material evidence. He admitted that investigators influencing witnesses had been a serious error that may have shaped their memories. Others, such as Marco Antônio Petit, still argue for a crash and a cover-up.
Varginha today
The city has embraced the story. A 20-metre water tower with a disc-shaped tank, known as the Nave Espacial de Varginha, stands in the centre. There are alien-themed bus stops and statues. An ET Memorial opened in 2022. In 2023 the municipal cultural council recognised the case as part of the city’s intangible cultural heritage, and in 2025 a four-metre ET statue was unveiled. Documentaries keep the case alive, including James Fox’s Moment of Contact in 2022 and the Globo documentary O Mistério de Varginha, first shown in January 2026.