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This Project Blue Book file from the USAF, released via The Black Vault, covers the 16 January 1958 sighting at Trindade Island. Its record card says two Rio de Janeiro newspapers printed photos of an alleged flying saucer taken from a Brazilian naval ship, and that ONI analysis judged them a hoax. The file also holds galley proofs from a Menzel book arguing the Barauna photographs were faked, plus APRO Bulletin and NICAP material.
“Sea”17 pages
ROB MERCERFINAL GALLEY PROOF Galley So-THE WORLD OF FLYING SAUCERS The lcarai Submarine Ii lmtil1 g Club The accounts ori!(inally printed in the Brazilian papers and in o Cruzeiro contain a number of significant details that have been glossed over or ignored by UFO enthusiasts, both in Brazil [18] and in the United States [22], who accept the Trindade saucer at face value. A study of the available news stories, facts gathered by In- telligence officers, and of the photographs themselves leads inescap- ably to the conclusion that the Trindac1e Island sighting was a hoax. Almira Baraunn \vas a free-lance pho tographer. A professional of unusual skilI. he had long been interested in Hying saucers and, some time before the Trindade incident, he had published a pur- posely humorous magazine article entitled "A Flying Saucer Hunted Me at Home" and illustrated by admittedly faked photographs. He had also published trick photographs of "treasure chests" lying on the ocean bottom. In addition, Barauna specialized in underwater photography and was a rnember of the Icarai Submarine Hunting Club, a group inte rested in skin diving and the study of li fe on the ocean floor. When the Almirante Saldanha. left Rio for its historic January visit to Trindade Island, the ship had on board, as guests of the Navy, five members of the ICaI"ai Club. Among the Rve, in addition to Barullna, were Amilar Vieira Filho, captain of the group, and Jose Teobaldo Viegas, a retired captain in the Brazilian Air Force [23]. On January 16 when the ship was getting ready to leave Trindade, these three friends were on deck, Barauna with his loaded Rolleiflex camera, the other two standing some distance away. Suddenly Vieira remarked on "a big sea g ull" in the sky. Looking up, Teo- baldo immediately shouted, "Flying saucer!" and Barauna snapped his pictures. No other eyewitnesses have been found, even though the deck was crowded with sailors. The ship's dentist has been listed as a witness ( in one document he appears as two persons, under two diHerent vers ions of his name ) but no newspaper yet examilled mentions his story. Captain I3ncellar, returning from his post as com- mander of the Trindade station, has also been listed as a witness bilt, according to his statement, he was not on deck when the incident occurred. Vieira, the first man to sight the object, hac! called it "a big sea gull." When interviewed five weeks later, in the midst of the saucer excitement, he was no longer certain just what he had seen: "First, I want to make it very clear that I do n't know if what I saw was really the so-called 'flying saucer.' \~' hat I saw, in fact, •was an object of gray color and oval in shape when first sighted, which passed over the island and then-emitting a fluorescent light it didn't possess before- went away towards the horizon and was
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