'Chupa-chupa' deaths, Parnarama
Deer hunters in Parnarama, Maranhão, were said to have died after being attacked at night by lights from the sky, the 'chupa-chupa'.
1981 CE · -5.68, -43.10 · status: claim
The account
Jacques Vallée's book Confrontations lists several deer hunters in the Parnarama region who in October 1981 were reportedly engulfed by light from hovering objects; Abel Boro (17 October) and others are said to have died, one with purple marks on his body. The name chupa-chupa ('sucker') was used across northern Brazil for lights blamed for burns and anaemia, most famously at Colares in 1977.
The sceptical view
The Parnarama deaths are known almost entirely through Vallée's second-hand account and no medical records have been published. The Air Force's Operação Prato at Colares found no unusual phenomena.
The researched reading
Tragic deaths blamed on lights, known only through secondhand accounts. Without medical or police records, ordinary deaths explained through a regional panic is the likeliest reading.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 30% | The “chupa-chupa” rumour spread through northern Brazil after Colares; once a story of attacking lights exists, deaths are easily explained by it. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 20% | Deaths of men alone in the bush at night have ordinary causes (heart failure, snakebite, lightning, violence); bruise marks on bodies are common after death. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 15% | The accounts reached ufology mainly through Jacques Vallée’s secondhand reports, with no death certificates or police files published. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 13% | Vallée interviewed local witnesses and found the reports consistent; if the deaths happened as told they would be unexplained. |
| Something known, misidentified | 8% | Hunters used lights and hammocks in trees at night; aircraft or other hunters’ lights may have started the scares. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 7% | Luminous phenomena are often reported in this region, but none was linked to the deaths with evidence. |
| Undetermined | 5% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| Secret human technology | 2% | Nothing fits. |
Official position: No official investigation is documented.