Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClean smith. For
Speaker 1: the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that,
Speaker 1: for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show.
Speaker 1: In last week's episode, Shores of the Unknown, we ventured
Speaker 1: to the west coast of Wales, where in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: fourteen school children claimed to have seen a UFO lingering
Speaker 1: in a field behind the far end of their playground.
Speaker 1: The bizarre episode at Broadhaven School seemed to set off
Speaker 1: an extraordinary series of events that remain unparalleled in the
Speaker 1: history of the British UFO experience. Incredibly, this wasn't by
Speaker 1: any means the most peculiar UFO event to her in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. For that, we need to travel four
Speaker 1: and a half thousand miles away southwest across the open
Speaker 1: waters of the North Atlantic Ocean to a remote fishing
Speaker 1: village on the north coast of Brazil. It was a
Speaker 1: balmy night when forty eight year old a Medio Oliviera
Speaker 1: returned home from work, exhausted and crawled into the hammock
Speaker 1: strung up in his living room. At some time around
Speaker 1: eleven pm, he sensed a sudden brightness in the room.
Speaker 1: When he opened his eyes, he found the place lit
Speaker 1: up by a single beam of light that seemed to
Speaker 1: be coming through the roof a medio. Watched with alarm
Speaker 1: as the beam tracked across the room before finally stopping
Speaker 1: to rest on the outside of his thigh, just above
Speaker 1: the knee. He cried out in pain his leg was
Speaker 1: burning when the light disappeared. Moments later, he rubbed at
Speaker 1: the spot where now there was a perfectly round red
Speaker 1: mark exactly where the light had been. Twenty five year
Speaker 1: old dentist Luccia Marquess was buying food at the local
Speaker 1: market when she heard a loud commotion coming from the beach.
Speaker 1: Walking towards the shoreline, she found a large group of people,
Speaker 1: excitedly huddled together and pointing wildly into the air. She
Speaker 1: looked up to find two lights, one red and one green,
Speaker 1: circling each other in the sky above. As she continued
Speaker 1: to watch, she noticed the lights seemed to be taking
Speaker 1: it in turns to switch on and off, almost as
Speaker 1: if they were signaling to each other. Both incidences took
Speaker 1: place in Kolares, a village in northern Brazil on the
Speaker 1: banks of the vast Rio Para, a large channel at
Speaker 1: the southern edge of the Amazon Delta. Cholaris Is itself
Speaker 1: located on the island of Calaris, which sometime at the
Speaker 1: end of the last ice age, found itself severed from
Speaker 1: the mainland when ice melt caused the surrounding waters of
Speaker 1: the Furo de Laura to rise. Just over sixty miles
Speaker 1: to the south lies the city of blem where Carlos Mendez,
Speaker 1: a junior journalist at the State of Para newspaper, receives
Speaker 1: the first of many calls one afternoon from a number
Speaker 1: of Cholaris's two thousand residents, all claiming to have witnessed
Speaker 1: the bizarre lights in the sky. Around the same time,
Speaker 1: twenty four year old doctor Valai di Carvalio, director of
Speaker 1: health at the local care unit, notices a sudden increase
Speaker 1: in the number of people attending her clinic. Before long,
Speaker 1: ten to twenty people are turning up each day, all
Speaker 1: displaying similarly strange injuries, and all with a peculiar story
Speaker 1: to tell. The symptoms were all the same, with patients
Speaker 1: displaying clear radiation burns, but also more strangely small punctu
Speaker 1: wounds that they claimed only appeared after they had been
Speaker 1: supposedly attacked by the lights. The wounds, which seemed to
Speaker 1: turn black within hours of occurring, as if they were
Speaker 1: weeks old, were nothing like doctor Carvallio had ever seen before.
Speaker 1: Back in blem Carlos Mendez pulls in a photographer and
Speaker 1: together the pair make the two hour journey to Calaries
Speaker 1: to investigate the apparent sightings for themselves. Within minutes of arriving,
Speaker 1: they are swamped by terrified residents desperate to share their stories.
Speaker 1: One woman described being struck by the light while inside
Speaker 1: her home and how at the moment she saw it,
Speaker 1: her arms and legs became instantly paralyzed. It was only
Speaker 1: the next morning when she found the small puncture wounds
Speaker 1: on her thorax. It was, she said, as if something
Speaker 1: had been sucking on her blood. As more and more
Speaker 1: residents came forward to tell their stories, it became clear
Speaker 1: to the young journalist that the town was in a
Speaker 1: dangerous grip of panic. So neither Mendes nor his photographer
Speaker 1: would see anything untoward themselves. They were left in little
Speaker 1: doubt that the fear they had registered on the faces
Speaker 1: of the townsfolk had been very real. Indeed, are you
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Speaker 1: dot com Slash Unexplained podcast. It was sometime in September
Speaker 1: when a young woman was rushed by panic stricken relatives
Speaker 1: into doctor Carvalio's surgery, unable to open her eyes or mouth,
Speaker 1: with her body spasming violently. Carvalio did her best to
Speaker 1: stabilize the patient, but due to the limitations of the clinic,
Speaker 1: was eventually left with no choice but to drive the
Speaker 1: woman herself for immediate treatment in the far better equipped
Speaker 1: Valm City Hospital. It was five days later when another
Speaker 1: woman was rushed to the clinic in a severe state
Speaker 1: of shock, her body so rigid that her relatives had
Speaker 1: barely been able to maneuver her into the car. Carvalio
Speaker 1: listened with incredulity as they described how the woman had
Speaker 1: merely been standing in her back garden when she was
Speaker 1: enveloped in a beam of light, which had left her
Speaker 1: in a complete trance. Again, Carvalio had little choice but
Speaker 1: to drive the woman to Belem Hospital for emergency treatment.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Carvalio received the devastating news that
Speaker 1: both her patients had died, and when she asked to
Speaker 1: see their death certificates, the cause of death had been
Speaker 1: listed merely as unknown. Troubled by what they had seen,
Speaker 1: Carvalio and her colleagues, although skeptical of the reports of
Speaker 1: strange lights in the sky, were none the less concerned,
Speaker 1: and being especially eager to prevent a mass hysterical episode,
Speaker 1: pleaded with local officials to mount a thorough investigation. As
Speaker 1: it happened, the authorities had ample reason to take reports
Speaker 1: of weaponized flying objects very seriously. Indeed, only two years previously,
Speaker 1: the Brazilian military dictatorship led by Ernesto Gissell, had finally
Speaker 1: ended a brutal and bitter guerrilla war with the militant
Speaker 1: faction of the Communist Party of Brazil. With much of
Speaker 1: the fighting happening in the local state of Para, it
Speaker 1: led some to wonder whether the strange flying objects might
Speaker 1: in fact be some sort of weapon given to a
Speaker 1: surviving band of militants by a more advanced communist regime.
Speaker 1: Soon after, a team of air force officers from the
Speaker 1: Regional Command of the Brazilian Air Force were duly dispatched
Speaker 1: to the region. The team, led by experienced operations Captain
Speaker 1: Urungue Hollander, began by ordering his men to collect as
Speaker 1: many eye witness accounts of the phenomena as possible before
Speaker 1: trying to record it for themselves. As such, a series
Speaker 1: of observation posts were set up across the island, each
Speaker 1: team being equipped with multiple cameras and telescopes to aid
Speaker 1: their investigation. Over the next few months, Horlander and his
Speaker 1: team collected testimony from over three thousand local residents who
Speaker 1: claimed to have seen or at least heard about the
Speaker 1: apparent U foes. More than eighty claimed also to have
Speaker 1: been directly targeted, injured, and even chased by them. One
Speaker 1: evening in October, doctor Carvallio, who had remained unconvinced by
Speaker 1: the more fanciful reports, was returning home from work when
Speaker 1: she saw a woman fainting suddenly in the street. Rushing
Speaker 1: to help her, she was amazed to find a cylindrical
Speaker 1: object floating in the sky no more than a hundred
Speaker 1: feet above them. Feeling threatened, she tried to move away,
Speaker 1: only to find that she was frozen to the spot.
Speaker 1: She could only watch in terror for the few moments
Speaker 1: it took until the object circled once above them, before
Speaker 1: making its way toward the coast and disappearing out to
Speaker 1: sea with no sign of an end to the extraordinary reports.
Speaker 1: The people of Corrals were dismayed when, without warning one
Speaker 1: morning in December, Captain Hollander ordered his men to pack
Speaker 1: up their equipment and immediately vacate the area. Despite their
Speaker 1: best efforts, neither doctor Carvallio or Carlos Mendez were able
Speaker 1: to find any official word from the Brazilian military or
Speaker 1: government as to what they had or hadn't discovered during
Speaker 1: the four month operation. Within a few more months, the
Speaker 1: reported sightings of weird objects and lights in the sky,
Speaker 1: named chupa chupa by the locals meaning succor succor, became
Speaker 1: fewer and further between. By March nineteen seventy eight, they
Speaker 1: had all but stopped, as the local community was left
Speaker 1: alone to try and come to terms with what had
Speaker 1: been experienced. Over the many years that followed, the stories
Speaker 1: soon dissolved into local legend, and so it would remain
Speaker 1: for the next two decades. It was sometime in June
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven when Adela mar javert Co, editor of
Speaker 1: zis Ufo magazine, received a surprise phone call from Captain
Speaker 1: Hollander of the Brazilian Air Force. Hollander, who had become
Speaker 1: an avid reader of Gavard's magazine, congratulated the stunned ufologist
Speaker 1: on his diligent work and reassured him that he was
Speaker 1: on the right path. But what Hollanda said next sent
Speaker 1: a genuine chill down his spine. For twenty years, he said,
Speaker 1: he had been forced to keep a secret, but now
Speaker 1: he was retired, he didn't want to keep it anymore.
Speaker 1: He asked finally if adelmar wanted to know what really
Speaker 1: happened on that top secret excursion to Corrales Island in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. Days later, a nervous and excited Chavert,
Speaker 1: along with his co editor Marco Petit, traveled to Hollander's
Speaker 1: home in a wealthy suburb of Cabo Freyo in the
Speaker 1: state of Rio de Janeiro. Prior to arriving, the pair
Speaker 1: had not quite been sure what to expect of the
Speaker 1: mythical captain, whose top secret mission had taken on a
Speaker 1: heart of darkness level of mystique. They were soon relieved, however,
Speaker 1: to find him, although a little shorter than they had expected,
Speaker 1: in complete possession of all the mental faculties one might
Speaker 1: expect of a man with such significant military experience, and
Speaker 1: what he told them in the course of two extraordinary
Speaker 1: hours would change their lives forever. It was true that
Speaker 1: the Brazilian government had indeed sent him and his men
Speaker 1: to Kraals to investigate the apparent UFO's sightings, and that
Speaker 1: they had abruptly ended the investigation after four seemingly fruitless
Speaker 1: months of research. It had even been given a formal name,
Speaker 1: operasone Prato, meaning Operation Saucer. What wasn't true was that
Speaker 1: they hadn't found anything. Not only had they recorded over
Speaker 1: fifteen hours of film footage as well as five hundred
Speaker 1: photographs of UFOs, Hollander had seen them himself, a variety
Speaker 1: of objects in the sky, some as much as one
Speaker 1: hundred meters in diameter, one coming clearly into view above
Speaker 1: his team before flying out eastwards over the Atlantic. He
Speaker 1: even claimed to have one night been visited by a
Speaker 1: pilot of one of the crafts. A powerful flash of
Speaker 1: light had lit up his bunk, revealing a creature about
Speaker 1: one and a half meter's tour standing behind him. It
Speaker 1: was dressed in what looked like a diving suit with
Speaker 1: a gray mask, and it spoke only to reassure him
Speaker 1: that they meant no harm. Next, Hollander offered his arm
Speaker 1: to Petit's video camera. See here, he said, as he
Speaker 1: poked and prodded at the skin. They put this inside me.
Speaker 1: Petite and Gavard looked on in shock, seeing clearly that
Speaker 1: there was indeed something buried in the captain's forearm. The
Speaker 1: researchers turned to each other in stunned disbelief as the
Speaker 1: aging captain sat back, exhaling a long, deep breath, as if,
Speaker 1: like the ancient mariner, he had suddenly been released from
Speaker 1: a huge and intense burden. Shavert and Petite thanked Hollander
Speaker 1: for his time, and Julie made their way back home,
Speaker 1: barely able to fathom what they had just heard. The
Speaker 1: pair published Herlande's story in July nineteen ninety seven, to
Speaker 1: little fanfare outside of the wider eufology community. It was
Speaker 1: immediately denied by the Brazilian government and military. It was
Speaker 1: three months later when Captain Herlande's daughter, who had not
Speaker 1: heard from her father in a few days, arrived at
Speaker 1: his home to check up on him. After repeatedly shouting
Speaker 1: for him and receiving no reply, she opened the bedroom
Speaker 1: door to find the veteran's lifeless body slumped down against
Speaker 1: the back wall. His bath robe belt used as a
Speaker 1: makeshift noose, was wrapped around his neck. Despite an official
Speaker 1: verdict of suicide, many were quick to suggest that there
Speaker 1: may have been more to Herlander's death than seemed coming,
Speaker 1: as it did so soon after he had spoken out
Speaker 1: about Operation Saucer. Ufologist adel Mar Javert dismissed the accusation, however,
Speaker 1: believing instead that Horlander's actions were in keeping with a
Speaker 1: man who had struggled with depression for much of his life.
Speaker 1: It was testament to what Chavert and Petite saw as
Speaker 1: Horlander's bravery in coming forward that they doubled down on
Speaker 1: their search for the truth about what exactly occurred in
Speaker 1: that remote fishing community in nineteen seventy seven after launching
Speaker 1: a request of information. In March two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: after years of denials, the Brazilian government reluctantly admitted that
Speaker 1: a UFO investigation had indeed taken place after all. In
Speaker 1: May two thousand and five, Chevert and Petite traveled to
Speaker 1: the headquarters of the Brazilian military in Brazilia, where they
Speaker 1: were granted the opportunity to view a number of documents
Speaker 1: pertaining to the investigation, including diagrams drawn by Captain Hollander
Speaker 1: himself detailing his own personal sightings, as well as a
Speaker 1: selection of photographs taken during the investigation. Although there remains
Speaker 1: no clear evidence to reveal exactly what had taken place.
Speaker 1: What is true is that the majority of the operation
Speaker 1: source of file remains to this day classified. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters,
Speaker 1: you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com, Forward
Speaker 1: slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small,
Speaker 1: are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are produced by me,
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes.
Speaker 1: Feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Unexplained Pod. Now it's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself. To make time for you, Tell
Speaker 1: a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to
Speaker 1: help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven
Speaker 1: a m. To nine pm local time, seven days a week.
Speaker 1: Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download
Speaker 1: the app or visit teledoc dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained
Speaker 1: podcast Today to get started, that's teladoc dot com Slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast