Project Blue Book file: Trinidade Island, 16 Jan 1958

ROB MERCERjust a few seconds, in no marc than twenty seconds, and tor tJ1IS
rea SO"" l cannot give you more detail s about tlw r:uriolls craft. It
lookc'-...;ike an object with polished surface anl ___ .liform color. I
am sure it was not a balloon, an airplane, or a sea gull." This de-
scription does not mention the dark band around the object or the
"Saturn-like" appearance; indeed, it sounds remarkably like a de-
scription of a sea gull!
vVhen asked whether the object he saw was the same as that 011
Barauna's film , he replied, "As I said before, the thing was too rapid.
It was almost impossible for the human vision to fix any detail of
the object. Mr. Barauna, however, was operating with a camera of
modern type which was able to register these details . Generally
speaking, the shape of the object Sighted was the same seen on the
negatives . . . ." [24]
The Tri"dade Photographs
Accounts of the Trindade affair often remark that the photographs
must be genuine because no opportunity for fraud occu rred. On the
contrary, there wm-e ample and repeated opportunities. Since
Barauna was not under observation when he loaded his cameral he
could easily have inserted a "prepared" film, with no one the wiser.
With the type of camera used, the operation would have heen sim-
ple. He was aga in free from observation when he developed the
negatives. Captain Bacellar escorted him to the door of the dark-
room but remained outside, on guard at the door. The only person
to accompany Barauna inside ( to help by holding a flashlight ) was
his friend Viegas-the same man who had cried "Flying saucer!"
When Barauna emerged with the dripping film, Bacelbr exam-
ined it but what he expected to find is a question, since he had not
ohserved the UFO. The witnesses allegedly agreed, however, that
the negatives showed the object they had seen in the sky-an amaz":
ing feat when \.ve remember that the Rolleifiex film frame is small,
only about 2.25 inches square.
In the print of Frame 3 shown in 0 Cmzeiro, the UFO measures
slightly more than \I.i inch long and less than l/s inch thi ck. Assuming
all enlargement factor of a little more than three, we find that the
UFO on the negative would have appeared merely as a pale blur
about YI r. of an inch in length and no thicker than a pencil line.
Miraculous eyesight would have been required to distinguish a
"Saturn-like" or any oth er shape.
The Navy's officers on board shO\ved astonishingly littl e interest
in the film and did nothing to prevent the possibility of fraud. All
during the homeward hip the photographer had both the camera
and the negative in his own possession. \iVhen the ship stopped at
Santos, he and his fellow club members were allowed to debark
(with camera and negative ), and they completed the journey to
Rio hy bus. The ship had been anchored at Rio for two days before
Captain Bacellar, of the Trindac1e station, finally called on Baraumi
and asked to see the prints so that he could show them to the Navy.
Thus the photographer had been free of supervision for days. In
that time he could have produced pictures of little men from :Mars,
if he had wanted to.
The pictures themselves raise many questions. The three witnesses
had emphasized the brilliance of the UFO, yet the prints show
merely a gray shape with no suggestion of luminosity. Barauna had
used a Rolleiflex camera, 2.8 Model E, fl8 lens, set at 125. Finding
that he had overexposed the film, he said, he had treated the nega-
tive with silver salts after development in order to increase the