ALIEN: Colares UFO Incident

In 1977, on the small island of Colares, Brazil, a series of UFO sightings escalated to full-blown attacks. After being hit by lasers, witnesses reported symptoms like paralysis and burns that landed a handful of them in the hospital. The Air Force was sent in to study the phenomenon, but to this day no one knows if the crafts were manmade or extraterrestrial in nature.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:32Speaker 01

  I think the reason why I like stories about the supernatural is because a lot of the time, they bring us hope, right? Hope that there is something beyond this world waiting for us. Hope that miracles really do exist. Hope that maybe we're not alone when it comes to saving our planet.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Believe it or not, that's actually how I feel when I hear some of the UFO stories. Like when some unidentified craft shuts down a nuclear missile before it's launched. Or stories like Valiant Thor, who works for some intergalactic federation that's supposedly looking after us.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  These things make me feel, I don't know, better? Like maybe if aliens are out there, they truly do come in peace?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  But then, my dreams were crushed when I heard today's story.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  In 1977, people on a small Brazilian island called Colares reported a wave of UFO sightings. But this wasn't just some lights in the sky or a silver disk hovering above the ocean. This thing shot at them with lasers, causing real bodily harm, leaving scars and physical proof. Meaning that this was a whole heck of a lot more than mass hysteria. And whatever it was, it wasn't here to help us. But maybe that just means that there are multiple species of aliens using Earth as their sandbox. And like humans, some are good and some are evil.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Or is it possible that the UFOs seen in Colares, Brazil may not even be aliens at all, but instead something of our own making?

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I'm Ashley Flowers and this is So Supernatural.

• 2:59Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, you can't talk about UFO sightings without touching on government cover-ups. But y'all, this case is a little different. You'll have to stick around to the end to see how, though. I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 3:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecoraro. Today, we're covering the Colares UFO Incident, which is considered one of the most documented alien encounters in all of Brazilian history.

• 3:28Yvette Gentile?

  And that is a big deal, because UFOs are a huge part of Brazilian culture. Roughly 1 in 3 people there believes in aliens, which is right on par with the number of believers here in the US. The difference is, in Brazil, lots of elected government officials openly admit to being believers. The Brazilian Senate has even put out statements formally inviting extraterrestrials to attend some of their sessions.

• 4:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  All to say, Brazil is a country where people are very open to the idea that aliens exist. And it's no wonder, when you look at what they experienced in the late 1970s. Also keep in mind, there are a lot of Portuguese names in this story, so please, please, please forgive us if our pronunciations aren't spot-on, but we are trying.

• 4:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  With all of that said, let's turn back the clock to October 10th, 1977. That's when a 40-year-old man named Orlando Trindaji is living in a tiny Brazilian town called Colares. It's on an island called Ilha de Colares in the northern part of the country. It has a population of a few thousand people and it's technically in the Amazon rainforest. Since Colares is surrounded by ocean and rivers, most of the people who live there are fishermen. Apparently Orlando is one too, because he's awake, either on a boat or near the ocean, we're not quite sure, at around 2:00 AM that morning.

• 5:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's when he looks up and sees a bright light in the sky. It's pretty far off in the distance and it's hard for him to say exactly what it is. Orlando thinks it looks like a traffic light at first, other than the fact that it's blue. Also, it's hovering above the water and it's moving outward further into the sea. Orlando has no idea what to make of this, and he doesn't seem to think it's coming from a boat or from a plane. But he keeps his eyes on the sky and watches the thing slowly drift outward. It takes about three and a half hours until 5:30 in the morning for this thing to actually get far enough away that he can't see it anymore.

• 5:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  On its own, I know this isn't the most exciting UFO report, but Orlando's story is important because it's the latest in a wave of sightings all over Colares. People have been spotting strange lights on the island since at least August, but Orlando sparks a whole new chapter.

• 6:22Yvette Gentile?

  And the next incident happens only 24 hours later. At 3:00 in the morning on October 11th, a farm worker in the next village over is ready to leave for work. His name is Miguel Suareth. But before he heads out, he hears shouting from outside the house. It's a bunch of people yelling, "There it goes, there it goes." And naturally, Miguel wants to know what everyone is so worked up about. So he steps outside, just to find all of his neighbors gathered in the street. And they're all pointing and looking up. When Miguel glances at the sky, he sees an orange-red light about 200 feet above his head. For context,

• 7:05Yvette Gentile?

  that means it's about as high up as the top of Disney World's Cinderella Castle, or, if you've ever been to Pisa, it's about the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The point is, this light is too high up to be a flashlight, but way too low to be a plane. And while Miguel is watching, he sees a blue beam come shooting out of it like a laser. Right away, Miguel knows this is bad news. And he's worried about his wife, who's still inside the house. So he darts back indoors, but the moment he steps through the entryway, Miguel gets this tingling feeling, like when you get a little static shock, except in Miguel's case,

• 7:50Yvette Gentile?

  it's all over his body. He assumes it must have come from that blue light beam. As this sensation washes over Miguel, he realizes he can't move. He's physically frozen in place. For the next few minutes, Miguel is stuck right there by the front door. He can't even yell or warn his wife about what's going on. A chill runs through him. Then he heats up to be uncomfortably warm. Then he cools and heats up again, repeating this pattern a few more times. And even though Miguel isn't physically able to talk, his throat is getting sore and hoarse,

• 8:33Yvette Gentile?

  almost like he's been screaming. The good news is that after a few minutes, these symptoms fade.

• 8:41Yvette Gentile?

  He returns to a normal temperature, finds that he can take a few more steps into his home, and returns to normal. It's not clear to me if he goes back outside to see if anyone else was impacted, but it seems like by the time Miguel can move again, the light in the sky is gone. Also, I don't know exactly what he does after that, if he reaches out to authorities, a doctor, or anyone else, but I do know that the UFO sightings in Coladas are far from over.

• 9:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  The next day, there are more incidents reported just like Miguel's. Across the island of Coladas, in the dark of night, people notice strange objects in the sky, and they're often firing beams of light. The reports are a little contradictory. Sometimes the glow of the ship itself is said to be blue, other times it's yellow or even red. And the descriptions of the beam also vary. Most witnesses say it's red, but a few say it's blue. One thing is reported a lot, though. Whenever someone pauses to get a better look, they feel a sudden jolt or a shock.

• 9:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  Sometimes they actually see the beam of light hit them. But other times, they just assume they've been struck, just like Miguel was. And the tingling electric feeling always leaves the people paralyzed for several minutes afterward.

• 10:15Yvette Gentile?

  By the evening of October 12th, people in and around Coladas are really on edge. There have been at least a dozen sightings that we know of, and rumors are flying. And nobody knows who or what is controlling these lights. And to make matters worse, at 10:00 PM that night, the electricity all over town abruptly shuts off. Nobody knows if this was planned, maintenance, an ordinary glitch, or something more concerning, like some kind of attack. Naturally, most locals are too nervous to even go to sleep that night, so they all lie awake as the hours tick by. At 3:25 in the morning,

• 11:01Yvette Gentile?

  a pair of priests decide to go for a quick walk around town just to stretch their legs and calm their nerves, and check around just to make sure everything's okay. Well, while they're walking, they both see a bright light over the sea. It's red on the top and blue on the bottom, and it's brilliant enough to illuminate the entire town. It's also moving over the water really fast, and one of the priests says it's faster than any known airplane. But he doesn't specify exactly how fast it's going. And... what does he say? That it's utterly silent.

• 11:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  From there, the reports keep piling up. Throughout the rest of October, the UFO sightings continue around Colores. So do the mysterious attacks. On the 15th, a 36-year-old man wakes up at 4:00 in the morning to see a bright light shining through his bedroom window. Except the guy's only half awake, so he doesn't realize how weird this really is. So he just goes back to sleep. But when he gets up later that morning, he feels like he has the flu. He's weak, he's dizzy, and he's got a terrible headache. On top of that, there's a weird, painful red welt on his leg,

• 12:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  which is even hot to the touch. The man can't make sense of any of it, but he gets the gut feeling that the light somehow did this to him.

• 12:40Yvette Gentile?

  The next day, October 16th, at 6:30 in the evening, Dr. Vella Egiz Sesim Carvalho is leaving the hospital where she works when she sees a light silently hovering over the parking lot. Dr. Carvalho is a professional scientist, so she knows the importance of gathering evidence and documenting everything. She writes a description of the unidentified craft, which is one of the most detailed accounts we have at this point. Carvalho says the ship is shaped like a cylinder, with a top part that's narrower than the bottom, a bit like a red solo cup, if you will, that's turned upside down.

• 13:24Yvette Gentile?

  It's about 10 feet tall and 6 and 1/2 feet wide. And the thing is moving, but not like any vehicle Carvalho has ever seen. Instead, it jerks around, starting and stopping abruptly, and making sharp turns without warning. And luckily, this thing doesn't attack Dr. Carvalho like it did everybody else. Instead, it darts around for a while, and then eventually just disappears out of sight.

• 13:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  But it keeps coming back. Night after night, all the way through the end of November, the light continues to appear all over the town of Colares and in the surrounding villages. These incidents tend to play out the same way. The light appears, sometimes blasts a colorful laser, and then people feel paralyzed and tingly all over. Except, as time goes on, in some cases, they begin to report headaches and nausea the next morning. Many people also say that when they're frozen, they feel a weight or a tightness in their chest.

• 14:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  Others get this distinct sensation like a lot of their blood is being sucked out of their bodies. People report this so consistently, they eventually give the lights a nickname: Chupa Chupa. Which totally reminds me of the phrase chupacabra, and that makes total sense. Chupacabra is Spanish for goat sucker. And the very familiar Portuguese phrase, chupa chupa, literally translates into English as sucker sucker.

• 15:10Yvette Gentile?

  By November, at least 40 people have been injured badly enough to need medical treatment, thanks to the chupa chupa. Which now means, it is time to get the Brazilian government involved.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  And I'm Brett. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files, we're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 16:27Yvette Gentile?

  All through the fall of 1977, strange lights repeatedly appeared over Coladas, Brazil, and the surrounding countryside.

• 16:37Yvette Gentile?

  By October, eyewitnesses were seeing them almost every single night. And occasionally, they also spotted beams of light that caused paralysis and other symptoms. Naturally, some of the people who got hit by the beams headed to the local hospital for treatment. Keep in mind that Coladas Island was a tiny rural fishing town. There weren't a ton of medical facilities for the locals to choose from. Most or all of these patients ended up at the "hospital" where Dr. Carvalho worked. And at the start of the wave before seeing the UFO for herself, guess what?

• 17:19Yvette Gentile?

  She was a skeptic, meaning she didn't believe in aliens. But she also didn't know what was hurting all of her patients. I mean, what causes burn marks on someone's chest or face? And some of them had huge scorches on their torso and their limbs. And Dr. Carvalho knows that usually these kind of injuries need two to three days to heal. Normally, about 72 hours after a blister forms, it starts peeling. And then there will be healthy skin underneath. Kind of like how you feel a lot better after a sunburn flakes off.

• 17:59Yvette Gentile?

  Except several times, she'll be investigating a patient's fresh-looking blister only for it to peel open right before her eyes. It's like someone hit fast-forward on the healing process, and the skin is mending in a matter of seconds rather than days. By the time the appointment is over, all that remains is a scar. On top of that, Carvalho knows this process should be incredibly painful, no matter how long it takes. But most of her patients say their burns don't hurt at all. They're warm or hot to the touch, but not uncomfortable.

• 18:43Yvette Gentile?

  Which is interesting because they also have puncture wounds on or near the burned areas.

• 18:51Yvette Gentile?

  But other than that, there's no real pattern to the attacks. Carvalho sees men, women, old people, young children, everyone in between. There's no rhyme or reason to who gets targeted by the chupachupa and who doesn't.

• 19:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  In total, Carvalho ends up treating 40 different people during the fall of 1977, all with the same burn marks. And many of them say the medical problems began after a light in the sky blasted them with a laser beam. It doesn't make any sense. Carvalho doesn't know how to explain what's happening. But she's grappling with that question on the night of October 22, 1977. For context, it has been six days since she first saw the UFO for herself, and a month or two, give or take, since her first chupachupa patient checked into the hospital.

• 19:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  At 7:30 PM, Dr. Carvalho is outside. She looks up, and the light is there again. It looks exactly like it did the last time around, and it's still moving in that jerky motion. And from what I can tell, it's around this time that she finally accepts the evidence that's right in front of her. I mean, Carvalho has seen a UFO for herself twice now. She's treated its victims. So finally, she becomes a believer and accepts that UFOs are real.

• 20:28Yvette Gentile?

  But that acceptance doesn't stop more patients from pouring into the hospital night after night. Plus, their symptoms are getting stranger and more serious. In some cases, their hair is falling out around the affected area, almost like they're suffering from radiation exposure. Except, radiation poisoning doesn't typically leave people unable to move. But some of Carvalho's patients end up in a kind of rigor mortis state, staring ahead with their eyes locked. The early witnesses were able to shake this effect off after a few minutes. But now, her patients spend hours or days unable to move.

• 21:14Yvette Gentile?

  In fact, one evening early in the wave of sightings, a woman was wheeled into the emergency room with burns all over her chest. They were so severe that her life was in danger. So Carvallo dropped everything to treat her. By the time Carvallo's shift ended later that day, it wasn't clear if the patient would actually survive. And tragically, when Carvallo clocked back in the next morning, she learned that that woman had passed away the night before from a heart attack.

• 21:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  This was the first time someone died after experiencing a chupachupa attack. No autopsy was performed, so it's unclear how much her injuries contributed to her heart attack. But it's really alarming, to say the least, because it's not typical for people to be hospitalized with laser burns, even the really severe ones. Actually, it's pretty rare to hear people dying from alien encounters too. And Carvallo cannot get this woman out of her head. She keeps wondering if she could have done something different to save the patient, or if she's going to start losing more people to these aliens.

• 22:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  So once the woman's formal death certificate gets filed, Carvallo takes a look at it. It seems she's curious to see how the other doctors described her injuries and what theories they have about what killed her. Except the death certificate doesn't even mention the woman's burns. As for the cause of death, well, the certificate says it was a heart attack. But Carvallo has no idea how the coroner came to that conclusion, because the woman didn't even receive an autopsy. Dr. Carvallo knows this wasn't a mistake. No physician would fail to notice the terrible, life-threatening burn marks on the woman.

• 23:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  And no one would forget to order a postmortem after losing a patient under such mysterious circumstances.

• 23:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  To me, it sort of sounds like a cover-up.

• 23:30Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, 100% it does. And she's not the only one who's suspicious. Across Colares, people are asking questions like, "What's going on here? Who's attacking us? Where did these lights come from?" And of course, "Why are they so focused on this tiny fishing village?" Even the local police can't uncover any answers. They launch a few small investigations that go nowhere, then the mayor files a formal request with the federal government. He says, "Colares is under attack, and the Brazilian military needs to come defend them." The Brazilian Air Force responds to his request,

• 24:13Yvette Gentile?

  not by dispatching troops, but by sending a team of investigators. By the end of October, they launched a huge program called "Opera Sal Prato", translated from Portuguese, that means "Operation Plate". So it's pretty clear from the name alone what the purpose of "Opera Sal Prato" is. The Air Force apparently believes the lights are in fact flying plates, or, as we call them, flying saucers from outer space. And they want to gather all the evidence they can about a potential alien invasion.

• 24:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  Earlier, we said the Colares incident was one of the most documented UFO waves in all of Brazilian history. And that's because the "Opera Sal Prato" investigators are so thorough. See, the program is run by Air Force Captain Uri Rangui Holanda. And when he first gets the orders to go to Colares, let's just say he isn't thrilled. Holanda thinks the people of Colares are just imagining the chupa-chupa. And this feels very degrading to even repeat. But, he believes a lot of the locals are uneducated. He thinks many don't know how to read,

• 25:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  and Holanda assumes they're all too ignorant to know what's really going on. But pretty soon, he ends up singing a different tune. And to explain why, we need to talk about the timeline here. Remember we mentioned at the beginning that people were spotting some strange lights in the sky around the island of Colares beginning in August of 1977? And they lasted until November 28th of that year. Opera Sal Prato goes from October of 1977 until January of 1978. So they're stationed in Colares while the lights are still appearing. They're witnessing these attacks for themselves.

• 26:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  And since they have cameras with them, they capture 500 photos and 15 hours of recordings over the course of the investigation. During those four months, Holanda sees the lights with his own eyes. He meets people with bizarre medical problems that can't be explained. And he captures tons of evidence on film. Hopefully, he also learns an important lesson about humility and not making assumptions about people based on their education level.

• 26:54Yvette Gentile?

  At one point during the investigation, although I'm not exactly sure when, Holanda hears about an eyewitness. It's a young boy who spotted the UFO while gathering clay by a river somewhere on the island. Holanda wants to investigate his sighting for himself. So he and a team go to the same river. The problem is that by the time they arrive, it's 7:00 PM, close to sunset, and it's pouring rain. In these conditions, it would be almost impossible to see anything in the sky. So most of Holanda's men head to a nearby shack to dry off and drink coffee. But Holanda stays by the river.

• 27:38Yvette Gentile?

  His curiosity is eating at him. And he just has this gut feeling that something will happen if he stays outdoors.

• 27:48Yvette Gentile?

  And sure enough, as soon as he's alone, he sees something in the sky above him. Barely high enough to clear the tops of the trees. It's covered in red and green lights, but Holanda can't make out anything about its shape or size. And it's super noisy. Holanda thinks it sounds like a jet engine combined with a really loud air conditioning unit, which is very unusual, right? Since a lot of people say UFOs are notoriously silent. The thing zips over Holanda's head, moving incredibly fast. Holanda is shocked that any pilot

• 28:31Yvette Gentile?

  would even dare to fly so low to the ground in such terrible conditions. It seems way too risky unless they had very advanced technology. It's also stunning that Holanda ends up just staring at the sky in astonishment for several minutes after the vessel disappears. Eventually, one of his men comes to check on him, and Holanda describes what he saw. But he can't explain how any of this is even possible.

• 29:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  By the time "Opera Sal Prato" is over, Holanda is a true believer in aliens. The evidence has convinced him. More importantly, Holanda thinks the chupa chupa are a serious threat. He doesn't understand how their ships or lasers work, which means he doesn't know how to defend the Brazilian people if a war breaks out. He's absolutely terrified. And it gets worse. One day in January of 1978, Holanda gets an unexpected call from his superior officers. They say, effective immediately, Holanda and his men need to wrap up their investigation, close the case, and go home.

• 29:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Holanda is confused because his work is far from done. He asks for clarification, but the officers only repeat that "Opera Sal Prato" has been shut down. Someone very powerful wants the investigation to stop, but they won't even say who that powerful person is.

• 30:10Yvette Gentile?

  Holanda doesn't know if they're with the Brazilian government, if they're a foreign official, or anything. His superior officers also tell him that all his findings are going to be classified. He's not allowed to tell anyone what he's learned or share his photos or videos. And Holanda just doesn't believe there's any national security need to keep Opera Sal Prato secret. Instead, he believes the people of Brazil deserve to know the truth. But, orders are orders. So he tells his men to never speak about what they've learned. And he's instructed to begin silencing civilians too.

• 30:53Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, Rasha, how many cases have we done where we hear the same, exact thing?

• 31:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  They try to silence everyone, but the truth always prevails, in my humble opinion.

• 31:06Yvette Gentile?

  That's right. The truth will set you free. Anyhow, one day, an Air Force official approaches Dr. Carvalho and tells her "The so-called Colada's incident is nothing but a mass hallucination." Her patients are all imagining their symptoms. Okay, I mean, obviously, Carvalho knows that this isn't true. But when she tries to argue, the official tells her, "This isn't up for debate." She will treat her patients as though they're experiencing a shared delusion. And even though Carvalho knows it's wrong, here we go again. She caves to the pressure. And we understand that, because so many of them do.

• 31:52Yvette Gentile?

  From then on, anytime someone comes to her seeking treatment, she refers them to a mental health professional and tells them they need therapy. But Carvalho does find one way to fight back. She suspects that Air Force wants to confiscate all of her paperwork, including the notes she's been keeping on all of her patients. And Carvalho just knows that if she hands over her files, they'll never see the light of day again. She figures if the people of Brazil can't see her research, well, then nobody can. And she doesn't want the Air Force to be able to study her hard work while hiding it from everyone else.

• 32:38Yvette Gentile?

  So what does she do? She burns all of her documents and research. That is so incredibly sad. It is, but I guess it's a symbolic act of defiance on her part. But it's not like destroying her research is going to bring more transparency to the people of Colares. But she knows it would be risky to actually publish her research or go to the press. And Carvalho is right to be careful with the Air Force. Because it's very clear that they're willing to do anything to keep the information about the Chupachupa a secret. Maybe even commit murder.

• 33:29Speaker 00

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• 33:38Speaker 00

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• 34:00Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm going to walk you through it the way I tell my best friend. Because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  And I'm going to have the answers, because we have Case files, we're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts. So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now. And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 34:56Rasha Pecoraro?

  In 1977 and 1978, Brazil's Air Force investigated a wave of UFO sightings and attacks in Colares. The program was called Operação Prato. And once the study was done, Air Force officials announced that their findings were a state secret and therefore classified. But Prato's director, Captain Holanda, can't stop thinking about what he saw and experienced firsthand. He needs to know more. So he starts reading every book, every newspaper article, and every report he can find about other UFO incidents, especially ones in other countries.

• 35:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Holanda is looking for patterns, trying to figure out what the aliens might want. But he can't make sense of any of it, in part because most of the stories he reads are so different from the Colares incident. It's very rare for UFOs to attack people and burn their skin. It's even rarer for visitors from outer space to kill people. There are maybe five or six alleged incidents ever in the history of the world. And Holanda can't figure out why they're hurting and killing people in Brazil. It's the sort of mystery that keeps him up at night.

• 36:21Yvette Gentile?

  That's right. In fact, one evening, Holanda is lying awake in bed like usual. And I'm not sure exactly when this happens, but I assume it's after Operação Prato is over. Since he's home and not in Colares, his wife is asleep beside him, and he's basically trying to clear his mind so he can get some rest, too. But at midnight, he's still up. He's lying on his side with his back to the rest of the room, when suddenly, he hears a clicking noise, like someone just flicked a switch on the fuse box. Then a brilliant light comes streaming in through his window, and after a moment or two, it just fades away.

• 37:06Yvette Gentile?

  Holanda is terrified. Then he feels an arm reaching around his stomach, like somebody is squeezing or grabbing him from behind. Holanda rolls over to see who's touching him. He sees this human-like figure. It's about five feet tall and wearing a bulky silvery-gray metallic jumpsuit. It looks like the space suits astronauts wear. As for the figure's face, it's hard for Holanda to make out anything in the dark, but it appears to be completely blank and featureless, as in, no eyes, no mouth, no nose.

• 37:50Yvette Gentile?

  It's not clear to Holanda if these things actually look like this or if they're wearing a mask. But next, the being speaks to Holanda. The voice is robotic, like it's using a computer to speak. It says, "Calm down, we won't do you any harm." As soon as it's done talking, Holanda hears the clicking noise again. The light flashes, and when it fades, the figure is gone. Strangest of all, Holanda's wife is still sound asleep right next to him in bed.

• 38:33Yvette Gentile?

  She doesn't wake up at any point during this entire encounter.

• 38:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay, now at this point, you're probably thinking, maybe Holanda just dozed off and had some sort of wild, vivid dream.

• 38:50Rasha Pecoraro?

  Except the next day, Holanda reports to work on the base where he's stationed. Like usual, the first thing he does in the morning is stand in formation in the yard while they raise a flag. It's just your typical morning for Holanda. But, all through the ceremony, his arm is super itchy. Like, it's taking every ounce of discipline that Holanda has not to scratch it. He grits his teeth, doing his very best not to squirm. Then finally, the flag makes it to the top of the mast, and Holanda's superior officer dismisses him. Immediately, Holanda rolls up his shirt sleeve to find his arm is red and inflamed.

• 39:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  There's a bright red dot at the exact center of the affected area. Then, when Holanda presses on the red dot, he can feel something hard and solid under his skin. Holanda ends up seeing multiple doctors for advice, including one good friend who isn't affiliated with the Air Force. They all poke and prod at his arm, and they agree: "There's definitely something there." But, when one physician orders x-rays, the results show absolutely nothing. Clearly, Holanda isn't imagining this thing, but it seems to be invisible to the imaging equipment.

• 40:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  Holanda asks the doctor if he can have the object removed, and the physician says he doesn't think it's a good idea. Because, as it turns out, the doctor has seen this before. There was at least one other man working on Opera Sal Prato, a lieutenant, who came in with similar symptoms in his left thigh. Beneath the irritated area, he also had a foreign object under the skin.

• 40:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  But none of Holanda's doctors want to try and remove the items because they don't know what complications might come from the surgery. Plus, it's got to be tricky operating on something you can't even see on X-rays.

• 40:59Yvette Gentile?

  Hearing that, I can't help but think of the deep dive we did on alien implants. There are so many similarities, right? With people waking up to see inhuman strangers in their rooms, and then they discover these tiny objects that are inserted in their bodies. And again, they're hard to take out as well. It just makes me think about Patient 17. I mean, Holanda and his friend could have been basically Patient 18 and 19 with these implants, right? But if you check out our episode on alien implants, you'll see that in that episode, those doctors were able to see the implants on an X-ray.

• 41:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, by this point, Holanda has also done a lot of reading on UFOs and alien sightings. And he's thinking something similar. Whatever is in his body, aliens must have put it there. But if he can't find a doctor who's willing to remove it, and he can't publicly talk about what's going on, Holanda doesn't know what to do. He decides to just stay quiet, keep his head down, and wait to see if the Air Force ever lets him tell the world what he's been through. Later, he learns the lieutenant who also had an implant in his leg apparently died of a stroke, even though he was much younger than Holanda.

• 42:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  And while it wasn't clear if the two things were medically related, it still seemed to freak Holanda out.

• 42:34Yvette Gentile?

  But before he knows it, 20 years fly by just like that.

• 42:41Yvette Gentile?

  By 1997, Holanda is 57 years old, and he's sick of waiting for answers. "Opera Sao Prato" is still classified. Holanda isn't supposed to talk about it. But he's been retired since 1992, so he's a private citizen now, and the secret has been weighing on him for way too long. So he reaches out to a Brazilian publication called UFO Magazine. Holanda tells the reporters there that he's ready to reveal the truth about the chupa-chupa. Then he gives a very lengthy interview, which is published in its entirety. It's 38 pages long.

• 43:26Yvette Gentile?

  And in this discussion, he talks about the witnesses he questioned during "Opera Sao Prato", his sightings by the river, the encounter with the strange beings in his home, and the implant that's still in his body. The interview, needless to say, makes an enormous splash. People all over Brazil are thrilled to see that someone in the government is finally willing to share what they know. Holanda becomes a hero in the UFO community. And as far as anyone can tell, Holanda seems delighted to finally be sharing his truth. He gets a little bounce in his step,

• 44:10Yvette Gentile?

  like he's excited about the new direction his life is taking. All of the fear he used to feel is gone.

• 44:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  So imagine how shocking it must be to his friends and family when, three months later, Holanda is found dead in his home. His cause of death is an apparent suicide.

• 44:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  His loved ones all say this makes absolutely no sense. Holanda was happy. He was excited about the future. There was no sign whatsoever that he was thinking of taking his own life. Now, I want to acknowledge, the warning signs before a suicide aren't always easy to spot. We never truly know what struggles someone is dealing with internally. And maybe that was the case with Holanda too. But I can't ignore how suspicious the timing is. Naturally, rumors start flying that Holanda didn't really die by his own hand.

• 45:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  Instead, someone with the government must have murdered him for saying too much, and then staged the scene afterward just to look like a suicide.

• 45:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  Now, I don't know if there's any truth to those rumors. I mean, to this day, Holanda's death is still officially considered a suicide.

• 45:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm not totally certain a cover-up would make much sense, considering that seven full years after Holanda's death, the Brazilian government changes their tune on the Coladas events? I mean, that's a long frickin' time. I'm not sure exactly what motivates this, but in 2004, they declassify some of the Aper Sapo Prato records. The problem is, based on what has been declassified, we still don't know what the ships in Coladas were or what they wanted. We can only speculate. And it's really interesting that the reports out of Coladas are so different from the majority of other UFO encounters.

• 46:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  A lot of the time, unidentified craft don't physically hurt people, nor do witnesses ever end up dead. So it stands to reason that there's something different about this incident. Maybe the Chupa Chupa were a new species of UFO, one that was more hostile, but luckily, hasn't returned since. After all, space is a big place, and there has to be a ton of planets with intelligent life on them. But other people say the Chupa Chupa might not have come from a distant planet, but from closer to home. This theory suggests these lights could have been military aircraft.

• 47:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Maybe the Brazilian government was testing a new kind of airplane and cutting-edge weaponry. Or perhaps the United States or the Soviet Union were responsible for the attacks. After all, in 1977, the Cold War was raging. And many people believed that the world's superpowers decided to test out their new technology on the innocent people of Brazil. They might have even done it without the Brazilian government realizing it.

• 47:33Yvette Gentile?

  Except all throughout the Cold War, Brazil had a complex role. Veering toward Castro after the Cuban Revolution, but then becoming US-friendly during the two decades of military dictatorship that began in 1964. So it's possible the US or the USSR might invade their airspace. But it would be odd for the Brazilian government to cover up for a hostile nation, or for that matter, to harm its own people. Not to mention, if this kind of laser technology existed in 1977,

• 48:15Yvette Gentile?

  why don't we know about it almost 50 years later, in the here and now, in 2025? I haven't heard of any craft that can shoot a beam of light that paralyzes people and makes them feel like their blood was being sucked out. I mean, that seems something right out of a horror movie. To me, the evidence seems clear. Whoever's responsible for the attacks are probably not affiliated with any government here on Earth.

• 48:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  And if you can accept that the chupa-chupa are aliens, things get really wild from there. Because after the Brazilian officials started releasing the Prato paperwork in 2004, they also declassified all the rest of their UFO files. As in, all the evidence they've gathered about past incidents throughout Brazilian history. Even reports from sightings in the 1950s that never made it into the news are included.

• 49:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  Now, they're available to literally anyone who requests them. I'm sure this is no surprise, but those files are massively popular. More people request them than any other official Brazilian report. Coladas officials still don't know exactly where these UFOs are from, or what they are doing. All they know is that the evidence is clear and undeniable. Brazil is actually the first country in the whole world to fully declassify its UFO files. But, others have begun to follow suit. After their announcement, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and even the United States

• 50:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  announced that they're going to start declassifying and releasing some of their UFO files. But, not all of them.

• 50:12Yvette Gentile?

  Who knows what will come of this UFO renaissance? Maybe once these files become public, more people will take an interest in ufology and start demanding answers. Maybe it will pressure all of the governments in the world to be transparent about what they know so far. Because there comes a point where we can no longer deny. We are not alone. To refute these accounts is to deny the people of Coladas their truth. It took a lot of courage for those villagers to even come forward to talk about emotional and physical scars

• 50:57Yvette Gentile?

  these unknown objects left them to bear. It left an entire generation of people with a trauma that only few of us will ever understand. But maybe their courage and willingness to confront the truth is something that we can all learn from. Because there is something in our skies. And if the world can unite to unravel this mystery, maybe it will bring us the answers we're looking for.

• 51:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at so-supernaturalpodcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 52:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 52:06Speaker 06

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing: Full Body Chills is back. This season, Step Inside: Original Tales, where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful: you never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.