José Antônio da Silva, Bebedouro
A young soldier said small hairy beings paralysed him while fishing near Pedro Leopoldo and kept him aboard a craft for days.
1969 CE · -19.62, -44.04 · status: account
The account
José Antônio da Silva, a soldier in Minas Gerais, turned up in May 1969 saying he had been taken from a lake at Bebedouro by three small, hairy humanoids, flown about, questioned and dropped off far away, from where he returned by train. Investigator Húlvio Brant Aleixo interviewed him at length, and the case ran across three issues of Flying Saucer Review (1971, 1973, 1975).
The sceptical view
The only evidence is his testimony; the press and Aleixo versions differ on key details such as where he was released and when he first saw the craft.
The researched reading
A soldier’s days-long absence explained as an abduction. A dissociative episode or an excuse are far more likely than an encounter.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 44% | A days-long absence explained by a detailed abduction fits a dissociative fugue or a vivid altered state; such episodes produce coherent, sincerely held narratives. |
| Undetermined | 27% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 14% | Aleixo’s long interviews found him consistent on the core story, but there is no corroboration. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | A soldier absent without leave has a strong motive for an extraordinary excuse; versions differed on key details. |
| Something known, misidentified | 4% | Nothing in the sky needs explaining beyond his account. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | No natural phenomenon fits. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 2% | No unusual phenomenon fits. |
| Secret human technology | 2% | No programme fits. |
Official position: No official investigation; the case is known from civilian researchers and Flying Saucer Review.