Brazil’s Roswell Turned 30 This Year. The Witnesses Went to Congress. The Government Still Has No Answer.

On January 20, 1996, three young women walking home through Varginha, Brazil encountered a small, crouching creature with reddish eyes, brown oily skin, and three bumps on its head. They believed they had seen the devil. By the end of the week, the Brazilian military had reportedly deployed forces across the city, at least one creature had allegedly been captured and hospitalized, a young soldier who assisted in its transport was dead from an unusual infection, and a US Air Force cargo plane had reportedly landed at a nearby airport and departed with unknown cargo. Thirty years later, witnesses testified about this case at a closed session of the United States Congress. The mystery remains officially unsolved.

Varginha is a coffee-growing city in the state of Minas Gerais in southern Brazil. It has a population of around 100,000. It has a two-foot statue of a two-toed alien marking the spot where the creature was seen. It has a museum. It has a documentary. And on January 15, 2026, it had a closed-door meeting in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress sat listening to a Brazilian neurosurgeon describe staring into the lilac-colored eyes of what he described as a nonhuman being.

The session, attended by three members of Congress seeking greater UAP transparency, was arranged by filmmaker James Fox and was the first time witnesses from the Varginha incident testified directly to American legislators. It was followed five days later — on January 20, the 30th anniversary of the incident — by a public press conference in Washington.

What the Witnesses Said

Liliane Silva, now 46, described the moment she and her sister and friend encountered the creature crouching beneath graffiti on a wall in the Jardim Andere neighborhood. “I saw the creature,” she said. “It was short in stature, with red eyes, brown skin, as if covered in oil. When I saw it, I had a terrible feeling as if the world had stopped.” Her family has consistently rejected the military’s official explanation, which attributed the sighting to a local mentally disabled man named Mudinho who was known to crouch. “We had known Mudinho since we were children,” said her sister Valquíria. “Without a doubt, it wasn’t him.”

Neurologist Italo Venturelli broke decades of silence at the press conference. He described being in a Varginha hospital in 1996 and encountering what he called a nonhuman being on the floor. He described it as white, with a teardrop-shaped skull and lilac eyes. “I looked at it, it looked at me, it looked out the window and back at me,” he said. Fear of professional ridicule kept him silent for decades. A serious illness that nearly killed him finally prompted him to speak.

Carlos de Sousa described witnessing the crash of a cigar-shaped object in a field outside Varginha a week before the creature sightings. He described a strong smell of ammonia and rotten eggs, scattered debris, and military vehicles arriving quickly. Men in an unmarked car subsequently approached him, demonstrated they knew his personal details, and told him he had never seen anything.

The Soldier and the Cargo Plane

A medical examiner who worked in Varginha at the time provided written testimony describing an autopsy performed on a young soldier who died unexpectedly from a severe infection. The bacterium involved was described as highly aggressive and unusual, not common in human infections. Samples were sent to a pathologist. The soldiers who handled the creature and later died have been named by researchers. The bodies have been sought for exhumation and further testing.

Retired US Air Force Colonel Fred Claussen told the conference that records of a US cargo plane mission to Brazil in January 1996 would exist if the mission happened. Air Mobility Command at Scott AFB and Charleston AFB would hold flight records. International flight plans would have been filed. He called on anyone with knowledge of such a mission to come forward.

Fox told journalists that he now knows the names of individuals who were in possession of video footage of the alleged nonhuman entities. He said he has not given up trying to obtain them.

Six other Brazilian witnesses who had been expected to testify in person were denied US visas by the State Department.

Sources: The Debrief — Landmark Brazilian UFO Case Reaches Capitol Hill as Varginha Incident Turns 30 — British Brief — New Testimonies Revive Brazil’s Famous Varginha UFO Mystery — NewsNation — Witnesses describe 1996 Brazil UFO encounter — The Guardian — Brazil’s UFO Capital Marks 30 Years Since Alien Encounter