It was the night of November 19, 2008, around 10:00 PM, in the municipality of Cláudio, Minas Gerais, Brazil, when Mrs. Renata Veloso saw an object descending from the sky at high speed, as if it were a lightning bolt.
It was a moment of anticipation, just a few minutes before the game between Brazil and Portugal, and people were getting ready to watch the event. Alarmed by what she saw, Renata called her husband, the commander of the Military Police Platoon of Cláudio, Lieutenant Eisenhower Guerck Austriaco.
After much insistence, he walked to the window and what he saw was impressive: a huge luminous object in a hexagonal shape, accompanied by two smaller ones, spherical in shape, which rotated around it.
When the main object approached the Church of Our Lady Aparecida, the streetlights in the Bela Vista neighborhood began to turn off, block by block. One of the smaller objects had a silver color, while the other shone red, like glowing iron, changing color from time to time.
After some time observing the object’s maneuvers, the lieutenant decided to alert his colleagues by calling 190, where he was assisted by Soldier Barbosa. The patrol car, composed of Soldier Rabelo, Soldier Francisco, and Soldier Balbino, was then sent to the location, on Avenida Bela Vista/Valongo.
From the window of his apartment, he directed the actions of the officers. When they spotted the object, the police began shouting, overcome with a mix of excitement, fear, and surprise. Officer Francisco yelled loudly, “Look, Corporal! Look, Corporal!” while Corporal Rabelo tried to remain calm. The officers saw the object cross the MG-260 highway and head toward a sugarcane field, in the direction of the municipalities of Carmo da Mata and Oliveira.
The object then returned toward the church, emitting an intense light, and began moving between the municipalities of Itapecerica and Oliveira, stopping and starting its movements several times. The observation lasted so long that the witnesses lost track of time. They called Mrs. Irma, who lived on the sixth floor of the building. When she reached the window, she also witnessed the phenomenon, confirming what the others had seen.
During the course of November 19 and 20, Lieutenant Guerck Austriaco reported in the Military Police report that several people, including Mrs. Renata, Corporal Rabelo, Soldier Francisco, and Soldier Balbino, witnessed with astonishment lights flying over the city and something even more astonishing: “small humanoid beings” had also been reported.
During all these events, several armed officers observed the phenomenon at different times, with up to three patrol cars operating simultaneously.
A woman from the village of Formiguinha, upon opening the door of her house, saw small beings in her yard and also a bright object, resembling glowing iron, suspended in the air behind eucalyptus trees about 800 meters away. She described the object as having the shape of the “military cap” that the commander wore.
The objects flew at an incalculable speed, making turns at angles of ninety degrees or less, and seemed to defy the laws of physics, stopping abruptly without any sound. The streetlights flickered and went out as the objects approached, while they flew through the sky around the city, disappearing at one point and reappearing at another. When the police patrol stopped, the objects performed aerial maneuvers; when the patrol moved to another observation point, they followed it.
One of the spheres descended to the treetops and then rose again, like in a game of ping-pong. The most intriguing aspect was that when they tried to surprise one of these lights, they themselves were surprised, as if something inside the silver or incandescent spheres was observing them, as if there were occupants.
Pursuit of luminous and floating humanoid beings
The mystery involved everyone, leaving an unforgettable mark on the memory of those who witnessed the phenomena. But the greatest of all experiences was yet to come.
It was the night of November 20, 2008, when a team of military personnel composed of Lieutenant Austriaco, Sgt. William, and Sgt. Waldir were patrolling in a Mitsubishi pickup truck along a road near a sugarcane field in the region of the village of São Bento.
Sgt. William, attentive to the road and the surroundings, noticed something unusual in the vegetation and, without hesitation, turned patrol vehicle 13533 toward what he described as “luminous beings.” As they approached, at a distance of about 15 to 20 meters, the beings began to glide through the sugarcane. The vehicle was moving at approximately 20 km/h, but the beings remained ahead and to the right, moving in a peculiar manner, without touching the ground. Although arms, legs, and oval-shaped heads were visible, there were no discernible feet or fingers. Surprisingly, “despite being luminous, these beings did not emit enough light to illuminate the surrounding environment.”
The team followed the beings to a lagoon, where they were forced to stop. After reversing the vehicle and parking at an observation point, the officers positioned themselves about one hundred meters away from the beings. However, something strange occurred: despite being directly in front of them, the beings did not appear on the camera. The reflection of the moonlight on the lagoon was also not captured by the viewfinder, even though it was clearly visible to the naked eye. Sgt. Waldir Araújo Silva tried everything to photograph the beings, adjusting the lens zoom, but without success; only fireflies appeared in the images. The lagoon, although clear, appeared to be deep, but this was impossible to confirm.
The situation became increasingly disturbing. The officers began to feel headaches, body aches, and a growing sense of fear. Reaching for their weapons felt like a herculean task, as their arms were heavy and difficult to move. Sgt. William Alcione da Silva, visibly shaken, repeatedly said, “Look there, sir, look there, sir.” Both Lieutenant Austriaco and the two sergeants perceived the same characteristics and strangeness in the creatures they were observing.
The luminous beings seemed to be performing some specific task, as if they were placing or removing something from the ground, resembling the behavior of scientists in the field. The officers felt that their minds were being affected, as if the beings were controlling their thoughts and leaving their bodies exhausted, unable to reason strategically or tactically. The experience was so confusing that they could not distinguish between reality, dream, or nightmare, all of them sharing the same sensation and vision.
After what seemed to be 40 minutes, but in reality was 2 or 3 hours, the officers were deeply affected. Everyone felt an intense need to drink water, and the experience left them with headaches, anxiety, and a persistent sense of unease. The next day, on the morning of November 21, 2008, the team returned to the location where they had seen the beings, but to their surprise, the lagoon had disappeared. In its place, there were only sugarcane plants and a slope. What had once been a lagoon was now just pasture, to the astonishment of Commander Austriaco and the other officers.
The creatures they had seen were luminous, small, about 90 centimeters tall, with no visible eyes or nose, no separated fingers, only forms with noticeable elbows. Basically, they had large smooth heads, thin bodies, two arms, and legs without feet. Several other people in the region reported similar experiences, some mentioning a sensation of heat entering their homes. The patrol vehicles began experiencing electrical problems; the Mitsubishi, in particular, would not start properly. The officers who had the most contact with the phenomena seemed distressed, more fatigued, and drowsy, and there were reports of people feeling as if they were levitating.
Faced with the strangeness of the events, the officer decided to conduct a study on his own. Corporal Rabelo, one of the officers involved, presented photographs he had managed to take during the sightings with his camera. A Simplified Police Report (BOS) was created regarding the initial incident and filed at the Military Police Station, where all the documentation is officially recorded.
The silence broken: the testimony of Corporal Rabelo
The first to break the silence about the case was Corporal Amilton José Rabelo, who recorded UAPs in photographs. In a recent interview with ufologist Edison Boaventura, he revealed unprecedented details about the sightings of 2008, offering a crucial perspective on the event and the subsequent official intervention.
He stated that, in addition to the UAPs sighted and photographed during the incident, he had also witnessed and photographed, together with other police colleagues, a UFO. According to him, the UFO was a luminous and silent object, with a shape similar to that of a van or a large microwave oven. It hovered at a height of one to two meters above the ground, performing slow and calculated movements, suggesting intelligent control by whoever was operating it.
During the sighting, Corporal Rabelo used a Sony Cyber-shot digital camera to record the object, which then ascended and disappeared at extremely high speed.
The most sensitive point of the testimony is the reaction of the authorities. According to him, personnel from the Aeronautics (Brazilian Air Force), dressed in blue uniforms, appeared at the Military Police headquarters, confiscating the camera and the memory card from the officer. When it was returned, the card was completely erased, not only of the UFO photographs, but also of approximately 50 to 60 personal photos belonging to Corporal Rabelo. The official explanation given for the phenomenon was that it was merely a “natural gas burn,” a narrative that contrasts drastically with the direct experience of the officers at the scene.
Another military officer who also decided to publicly report his experience was Soldier Francisco, who was present on the day of the incident and actively participated in the police actions. Like the others involved, he confirmed the sightings and added important details, especially regarding the presence of the beings observed during the events.
In a recent account given to researcher Lauro Miguel, Soldier Francisco stated that, on that night, he witnessed the presence of three unidentified flying objects over the region. Two of them disappeared rapidly at extremely high speed, while the third remained visible for a longer period. This object had a reddish coloration, a hexagonal shape, and a size comparable to that of a microbus, performing zigzag maneuvers over a church. According to the officer, the phenomenon coincided with a blackout in the Bela Vista neighborhood, which also affected the electronic systems of the police vehicle.
During the attempt to follow the object, Francisco reported that he and his colleagues were overcome by an unusual sensation of paralysis. For a few moments, the officers were unable to speak or handle their weapons, while the object remained hovering nearby, intensifying the feeling of vulnerability and strangeness.
In addition to the aerial sightings, Soldier Francisco also reported a direct encounter with one of the beings. He described the entity as small, transparent, and childlike in appearance, measuring about 90 centimeters in height. According to his account, the being floated over a sugarcane field and was holding a device resembling a keyboard.
This episode occurred near a leachate lagoon that, inexplicably, was found completely empty the following day. The disappearance of the water further reinforced the anomalous nature of the events experienced by the military personnel.
Another military officer who came forward to publicly report events at the time of the incident was Sergeant William, a military police officer of the Minas Gerais Military Police, currently retired. He describes, in the first person, two UFO sightings that occurred in the same region in 2008.
The first sighting occurred while on duty. The sergeant was at the barracks when he was called over the radio by Sub-Commander Valdir to join a lieutenant on a patrol near the roundabout between BR-260 and MG-494, close to the Beira Rio gas station. The patrol car was parked about 500 meters from the location, at which point the lieutenant pointed to a dense white cloud with a bright light at its center.
According to him, the light was composed of two “spheres,” one in a vertical position and the other horizontal. The horizontal sphere moved like a pendulum. Then, the main light emerged from the cloud with great intensity and headed south, toward Oliveira. Shortly afterward, another light appeared and interacted with a commercial airplane, possibly a jet, which was flying from the south toward Belo Horizonte. This light accelerated, decelerated, stopped at high speed, passed by the airplane, and disappeared. The other spheres flashed and vanished vertically. The sergeant notes that each witness perceived slightly different details of the same event. This sighting was not officially recorded at the time it occurred.
The second sighting took place off duty, around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. Sergeant William was again called by Valdir for a supervision mission together with a captain, heading toward the power plant. Still at home, he was already observing strange lights in the southern sky, which did not resemble stars. Upon arriving at the location, he and the other officers saw three bright luminous spheres, all the same size, moving in a disorderly manner toward a sugarcane field near a flour factory or mill.
The patrol vehicles followed in pursuit to the vicinity of Fazenda Santa Inês. The lights descended, and the sergeant estimated that they were about one meter in diameter, at an approximate distance of 100 meters. The spheres shone intensely, comparable to the brightness of the Sun, but without illuminating the surrounding area. On the ground, they changed color, as if they were “scanning” the terrain, although they did not display all the colors of the rainbow.
The group climbed into a Mitsubishi pickup truck and remained observing the phenomenon for about three to three and a half hours. The sergeant reports having felt strong emotion and a certain confusion, but he did not perceive a threat. During the episode, the patrol car radio failed, and the vehicle took time to start, something he attributes to his emotional state at the moment. The spheres disappeared one by one, leaving at extremely high speed.
He states that he did not see beings, only the luminous spheres. According to his account, other military personnel involved, such as the lieutenant, the captain, and Valdir himself, reported having seen beings in sightings related to the same set of events.
Sergeant William emphasizes that everything occurred in an official manner. The captain ordered reports to be written, which were sent to the commander and remained archived at the barracks for years. He stresses that there was no fabrication of facts, highlighting that those involved were in a period of promotion and studies, which implied risks of retaliation. He also mentions that other witnesses, both military and civilian, avoid speaking publicly about what occurred.
After the events, he reports having initially felt a sense of lightness, followed by a more reflective state. He states that to this day he looks at the sky every night, although he has never witnessed new similar episodes.
If you want to download the official document of the Cláudio Case, click here.
Below are the three videos with the testimonies of the military personnel.
