Project Blue Book file: Trinidade Island, 16 Jan 1958

ROB MERCERPage S
Trindade . ..
(Continued fl'om j);]gc 7)
a nxiety fo r the results. The negatives
were seen by everybody on the ship.
"When the ship arrived at Rio, the
negatives wcre taken to the Navy Minis-
try and projected on a screen, together
with a picture of a flying saucer sent
from the U. S., in a military report in -
forming the Navy about sightings made
in that country. A comparative study
demonstrated that the object sighted at
Trindadc was similar in shape to the
onc photographed in the U. S.
"Flying saucers have been sighted sev-
eral times in the past months by mem-
bers of the Navy Post at the Island of
Trindadc. Some of those people observed
UFOs on more than one occasion last
year, and were even able to guess with
accuracy the time a saucer would be
s ighted again over the island (the exaet
hour). But it was believed that they were
mistaken. There are a lot of sea-gulls in
th:lt region. In any case, Com. Bacellar
was so worried about the presence of
UFOs around weather balloons launched
from the island that, in November 1957,
he sent a radio messa ge to the Navy
reporting the strange events." Unquote
( Rio de Janei r o DIARTO DA NOTTE, 0
JORNAL, etc., February 22, 1958)
Captain Viegas' interview was a tre-
mendous blow for the group who ~I ill
tried to keep the secrecy about the inci-
dent. The press re action to the Navy's
attitude was going to be dangcrous unless
the policy to deny any connection with
the case was changed at oncc. It wa s
obvious t hat to foresta ll any more trou-
ble the Navy had to talk freely about
the facts and not try to hide them. As
3 result, statements ot seve ral Navy au-
thorities were released that same day-
all of them confirming the sighting and
the existence of t he photographs. Some
of these statements will be transcribed
in another part of this report, but one
of them will be presented now-for it
Came from an officer who was aboard
the NE 'Almirante Saldanha' when the
UAO was sighted.
This officer was Com. Paulo Moreira
da Silva, of the Navy's Hydrography and
Navigation Service. He was interviewed
on February 22 by reporters from the
newspapers "0 JORNAV' and "DIARIO
NA NOlTE, " relea sing the following
statement:
"The object sighted in the skies of
Trindadc was not a weather balloon,
neither an American guid ed missile. I
cannot give yet my conclusions, for the
data are being analyzed in a secret
evaluation at the Navy Ministry . I can
tell, however, that the object was not a
meteorological balloon- for the one which
we had launched that day was released
at 9:00 a.I11., two hours before the ap-
pearance of the object in the sky. This
balloon was tracked until it burst a t the
THE A. P. R. O. BULLETIN ~~
proper altitude. Besides, ·while thc object
was cncircled by a greenish glow, our
balloon was of r ed color. Also it was
not a guided missile from the U, S., be-
cause the Island of Trindade is off the
route of those rockets; they are launched
from Florida in the dircction of Ascen -
sio n Island." Unquote
The reports ft'OIl1 olhe r civilian obser-
vers aboard the NE "Almirante Saldan-
ha" were also printed in the press. One
of them came from 1'1r. Mauro Andrade ,
employee of the London Bank of South
America, and member of Barauna's
group. In an intervi e w published in the
newspaper "0 GLOBO" (Feb. 22, 1958 ),
he sa id:
"I d idn't witness the sighting because
I was inside the ship, not on the deck,
when the object was scen. But I can
give a list of respon sible people who saw
it and saw the photographer Barauna
take the pictures as well as develop the
negatives.
"I don't know how I was tracked by
the press. I was sta rtled by the publi-
cation of news a nd photos reJated with
the incident because we had promised-
all of us-to keep the whole thing secret.
"I was somewhere inside the ship, wa s
ale rted by the shouts, and ran outside to
sec what was happening. Yet I didn't sec
the object. But all people I found on deck
told me that they had really sighted a
flying s aucer. 1 believed the m , and my
belief was confirmed by th e film de vel-
oped aboard. In fac t, I saw a thing on
the negatives which looked like a flying
sa ucer, although I cannot be sure if it
was really one of them. The film was
developed before the eyes of witnesses,
and was shown late." to everyone
aboa rd. " Unquote.
The other report came fr om ~1r. Amilar
Vieira Filho, president of the Icarai Club
for Submarine Hunting, and member of
the CACEX Research Division ( a Federal
Department). He avoided any contact
with the press for several days, but was
finally interviewed by a reporter from
the newspaper "0 GLOBO" on February -
27. He explained that hi s attitude was
based on two rea sons: first, the compro-
mise assumed by the whole delegation
of his Club to tell nothing about the
strange sighting of January 16, at Trin-
dade; and second, his natural aversion
to any kind of publicity. However, after
the Navy official release on the matter,
and after thc interview given by other
members of his group, he felt that the
silence he had imposed on himself was
not justified anymore. He made the fol -
lowing statement :
"First, I want to m ;) ke it very clear
that I don't know if what I saw was really
the so,called 'flying sa uc el".' What I saw,
in fact, was an object of grey color and
oval in shape when first sighted, whieh
passed over the island a nd then-emit-
ting a fluorescent light it didn't possess
before-went away toward the horizon
March, 1960
ariel was galle, vanishing j ust on the
horizon line. Everything happen cd in just
a few seconds, in no more than 20 sec-
onds, and for this re ason I cannot give
you more details about the curious craft.
It looked like an object with polished
su rface and uniform color. I a m sllre it
was not a balloon , an airplane, or a sea-
gu ll. "
He was not go in g to tell anything more,
but the reporter decided to ask a last
question:
"Flying saucer or not, can you tell me
iJ the strange object yOll sighted was the
snme r egistered on Barauna's photos?"
Aftc,· a brief hesitation camc the answer:
"As I said befor e, the thing was too
rapid. It was almost impossible for the
human vision to fix any delail of the
ob.iect. Mr. Barauna, however , was op-
erating with a camera of modern type
which was able to register those details.
Generally speaking, the shape of the
object sighted was t he same see n on the
negatives developed aboard the NE 'AI-
mirante Saldanha.' "
The reports of Captain Viegas, Mauro
Andrade, and Amilar Vieira Fi lho r epre-
sent additional evidence confirming the
story told by Almiro Ba rauna. They Wel"C
rechecked with the wit !lesses and con-
firmed. They were not denied by the
Brazilian Navy. However, two things are
still lacking to meet the challenge of the
UAO agnostics-the non-believers. One of
lhem is an official release from the Navy
confi rming the whole thing. The other is
a written statement signed by Com. 13a-
cellar, former chief of t.he Navy Post at
Trindade.
These important documents will be pre-
sented in the conclusion of lhis report,
together with other addi tional fa cts con-
nected with the case.
UAO PHOTOGRAPHED
IN V IENNA
The Vienna ncwspaper Wiener l\Jontag
devo\.ed its whole fro nt page to a pic ture
of a glowi ng white object against a dark
b<lekground on I\'lal"ch 7, and labeled it
the "most sensational photograph of our
century."
The newspap er pholographer Ed ga r
Schedelbauer, snapped the picture on the
2nd of March, over a wooded area in the
Styria Provincc. Schcdelbauer said the
object moved slowly, then hovered for
about 10 seconds. He took scveral pic-
tures during this timc. The news paper
issued a statement that they published
the picture only after careful consider-
at ion and after experts had checked the
negative to determine wh ethcr it was a
hoax.
The photographer stated that when the
object, which disappeared after hover-
ing, left, he heard a sound similar to
that of a jet plane.