1958.01.16
[Click on images to clarify and enlarge]
12.20
At about 12.20 on 16 January 1958, the sailing ship Almirante Saldanha was preparing to weigh anchor near a small rocky island in the South Atlantic ocean. Ilha da Trindade (Trinity Island) lies about 1,100 km off the coast of Brazil, to which it belongs. It was used as a military base for US and Brazilian warships fighting German U-boats during the Second World War. Usually uninhabited, it then possessed a meteorological and oceanographic station as part of Brazil’s contribution to International Geophysical Year.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
The Brazilian Navy’s four-masted sail training ship the Almirante Saldanha was converted to a hydrographic survey unit for International Geophysical Year, which opened in October 1957. With a crew of 300, commanded by Captain Jose Santos Saldanha da Gama, the vessel had been surveying the waters around Trindade… Among the civilian technical team on board were Almiro Barauna, an expert underwater photographer, and members of his diving club, including former Brazilian Air Force captain Jose Teobaldo Viegas and Sr Amilcar Vieira Filho. In October 1957, the Navy had set up an oceanographic post and meteorological station on Trindade itself, under Captain of Corvettes (Commander) Carlos AlbertO Bacellar.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
… Professional photographer Almiro Barauna (42).
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
Barauna was… at the time feeling unwell, not having taken the seasickness pills he customarily took.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
There were at least 300 people on board, including numerous highly qualified marine researchers, geologists and scientists…
At around noon, the photographer… was preparing to shoot the scenes as the ship-to-shore transport pinnacle was being hoisted aboard before departure.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
Barauna claimed that he was on deck along with many of the crew and some of the civilians, 48 in all according to Smith (1983). He… had with him his Rolleiflex (set at f/8 and 1/125 s). The sky was bright but rather cloudy and the sea was agitated.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
Standing 60 feet (twenty metres) away from him, Vieira Filho saw what he thought was “a large seagull”, and pointed it out to Capt Viegas, who immediately began shouting “Flying saucer!”
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
There was a great commotion and several people began pointing at a bright object which appeared to be flying towards the island. They shouted at Barauna, urging him to take photographs.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
At the time the UFOs approached the island there were around 48 witnesses on the deck watching the incident. Below deck the captain, Carlos Alberto Bacellar, was unaware of events.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
The fuzziness was a real effect, possibly an ionization field, and the ship’s electrical equipment malfunctioned as the UFO passed by.
(UFOs and How to See Them, Randles)
Despite being pushed and pulled by those around him, and nearly falling into the sea, Barauna managed to take six pictures in about fourteen seconds. The first two were taken as the object approached the island. It then disappeared behind a peak on the island [Mount Desejado], only to reappear a moment later moving in the opposite direction. At this point Barauna obtained his third picture. The object then moved at high speed away from the island but, because of the confusion on deck, Barauna missed it with his next two shots. However, he obtained one last picture as the object seemed to stand still before it disappeared in the distance, near the horizon… The incident lasted no more than 45 seconds.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
According to the photographer, Almiro Barauna, they show a solid object that flew in a parabola over the island and (an odd detail, this) moved “like a bat”.
(Borderlands, Dash)
Barauna described the object as dark grey in colour, but appearing to be surrounded by a kind of greenish phosphorescent cloud. It glittered or flashed occasionally, but whether from reflected sunlight or its own light he could not tell. He was certain that it was a metal craft… It made no noise…
Following the incident, the captain in charge of the oceanographic station (Carlos Alberto Bacellar) and other officers insisted that the film be developed at once, despite the poor facilities on board and the lack of photographic paper to make prints.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
Barauna, shaken by the sighting, waited an hour to calm down…
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
A washroom… was converted to a darkroom on the spot. As an extra precaution, Bacellar insisted that Barauna, before going into the darkroom, should strip to his swimming trunks in order to make it impossible for him to conceal a previously developed film and thereby produce any kind of hoax photograph. This indicates the degree of seriousness which followed the event.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
The developing process was observed by a retired Air Force captain, Jose Teobaldo Viegas, and the still-wet negatives were inspected by Captain Bacellar, who matched the scenery around the vessel against them…
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
The settings chosen by Barauna were unsuitable for sky photographs and so the pictures were slightly over-exposed. Nevertheless, the mysterious object was certainly visible on the negatives. They were seen and examined by the whole crew, and those who had seen the object agreed that the negatives showed it. Barauna retained the negatives until the ship reached the mainland.
The negatives and subsequent prints were examined by the Brazilian Navy’s Photo Reconnaissance Laboratory, and later by a civilian organization (Cruzeiro do Sul Aerophotogrammetric Service). The latter made large prints which were examined by the Ministry of the Navy and the US embassy. All these experts, and others in the USA, concluded that the pictures were genuine. They found no evidence of a hoax or trickery.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
1958.02.20
Against the Navy’s advice, the president of Brazil, Sr Juscelino Kubitschek, had released the photos to the press on 20 February. In a country where the military was also a political faction, the Navy naturally wanted to maintain a united front.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
1958.02.21
On 21 February 1958, a Navy spokesman made the following announcement:
“On the morning of January 16, 1958, over the island of Trindade, the crew of the school [training?] ship Almirante Saldanha sighted an unidentified aerial object for a few seconds. A civilian who was aboard the ship took some pictures of the object. The Navy has no connection with the case, and its only connection with the occurrence was the fact that the photographer was aboard the school ship, and came back with the ship to Rio.”
The same day another spokesman for the Navy high command released a statement which claimed that “no officer or sailor from the Almirante Saldanha witnessed the event”…
The Brazilian Navy appears to have concluded that the object was a real flying craft. Based on time trials and the ship’s position relative to the island, they estimated the object’s speed at between 900 and 1,000 kmh. They also estimated that the object was about 36 metres in diameter and about seven metres high. These estimates must have been based on an assumption about the distance of the object (only a few kilometres)…
The Brazilian Navy instructed the crew of Almirante Saldanha not to talk to the press.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
The Brazilian Navy’s lack of enthusiasm for the pictures – demonstrated from start to finish of the affair – paradoxically explains their order to sailors not to speak to the press about the sighting.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
Shortly after the photographs were made public, the country’s Navy minister, Admiral Alves Camera, told reporters: “The Brazilian Navy is involved in an important secret which cannot be made public, since there is no explanation for it. I have not believed in flying saucers until now, but Barauna’s photographic proof has now convinced me.’
The last word on the Barauna pictures goes to naval commander Moreira da Silva, who said: “I can in any case verify that the photos are authentic and that the film was developed on board the Almirante Saldanha; moreover that the negative was immediately examined by a number of different officers. Any possibility of a photographic forgery was completely excluded.”
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
The pictures were published in the Brazilian press on 21 February.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
1958.02.22
The object was seen by other civilians who were with Barauna on deck. They included retired Air Force captain Jose Teobaldo Viegas, who confirmed Barauna’s report in a press interview on 22 February. He described how his attention was called to what he thought at first was a “big seagull”:
“The first view was that of a disk shining with a phosphorescent glow which even in daylight appeared to be brighter than the moon. The object was about the apparent size (angular diameter) of a full moon. As it followed its path across the sky, changing to a tilted position, its real shape was clearly outlined against the sky: that of a flattened sphere encircled, at the equator, by a large ring or platform.”
Commander Paulo Moreira da Silva, of the Navy’s Hydrography and Navigation Service, told the press that the object, which was encircled by a greenish glow, was certainly neither a weather balloon nor a guided missile. Amilcar Vieira Filho, president of the Icarai club for submarine hunting (of which Barauna was also a member) and a member of CACEX research division (a federal department), could not say whether or not what he had seen was a “flying saucer”. However, it was a grey oval object emitting a fluorescent light. It looked like an object with a polished surface, but it was neither a balloon nor an aircraft. Nor was it a seagull.
Mauro Andrade, an employee of the London Bank of South America, and also a member of Barauna’s group, was below deck at the time and so did not see the object. However, he confirms that there was commotion on deck and everyone he met told him they had seen a flying saucer…
The incident and the pictures caused a sensation in Brazil, and the photographs were given wide press coverage.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
1958.02.25
A United Press International report of 25 February stated that the Brazilian Navy had analyzed them and that Brazil’s president, Sr Juscelino Kubitschek, personally vouched for their authenticity…
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
1958.03c
An enquiry to the Ministry of the Navy by a member of the House of Representatives prompted an investigation. The resulting dossier was never made public, but some details [were] leaked to the press, which also uncovered other information. The incident was not isolated; at least seven other sightings had occurred towards the end of 1957 and early in 1958, one of them in daylight on 7 March 1958. A fifth photograph, taken with a box camera by a sergeant of the garrison prior to 16 January, was part of the dossier, but it was not made public. After receiving an answer to his enquiry, the representative concerned (Sergio Magalahes) declared that he concluded that an unidentified object was seen by the crew of the Almirante Saldanha and photographed by Almiro Barauna.
(The UFO Mystery Solved, Campbell)
It was later revealed that there had been eight sightings in the area since the previous November, four of them over [Trindade] within the previous 40 days.
(Fact or Fiction: UFOs, Blundell)
Witnesses to these included Captain Bacellar.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
“A flying saucer sighting would be unlikely at the very barren island of Trindade. As everyone knows, Martians are extremely comfort-loving creatures.” The above comment… was part of an official report by the US Navy attache… in Rio…
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
… It has been suggested that the object in the pictures is a “double-merged and -magnified mirage” of the planet Jupiter. Yet critics of the sceptical perspective have pointed out that the photographs were taken shortly after noon, when Jupiter is simply not bright enough to be visible to the naked eye.
(Borderlands, Dash)
There is no evidence that the pictures were faked and the circumstances make it extremely unlikely… Menzel’s adoption of the hoax hypothesis… flies in the face of a statement by the Navy confirming the incident.