Project Blue Book file: Trinidade Island, 16 Jan 1958

ROB MERCER"On the morning of J a nu~r y 16, 1958, over the island of Trin-
dade, "1,C crew of the school ship A/lIliralltc Sal' ,lw sighted an
unick,_ .... ied aerial object for a few seconds. A ~... ilinn who was
aboard the ship took some pictures of the object. The Navy has no
connection with the case, and its only connection with the occur-
rence was the fact that the photographer was aboard the school
ship, and came back with the ship to Hio:' [20]
On the same day anothcr Navy spokesman released a similar un-
official statement to 0 Clabo:
"The news about a fl ying saucer sighted over the Is1and of Trin-
dade was received here with utmost reserve. There will be an in-
vestigation to verify the authenticity of the sightings and photos.
No officer or sailor from the N.E . Almil'Gnte Saldanha witnessed the
event." [20]
Immediately an international furor broke out. \¥ere these pictures
indeed proof of extraterrestrial spaceships, or were they a hoax,
with the Brazilian President and the Brazilian Navy as victims?
Who were the witnesses, and exactly what did they report? In the
United States, high officials askeel for copies of the pictures. An
editor of Look magazine asked Dr. Menzel to fly to Brazil to evalu-
ate the evidence, but later canceled the plan when the Hio office
advised that the photographs were generall y considered fraudulent.
Public excitement in Brazil became so great that on February 23
the Naval Ministry released an official statement, distinguished by
its air of caution, which concluded:
"Clearly this Min istry will not be able to make any pronounce-
ment concerning the reality of the object seen because the photo-
graphs do not constitute sufficient proof for this purpose." [20]
The day after the pictures \-"ere published, the Almirante 50l-
dallliQ. which had been lying outside the harbor at Rio, received
orders to sail. Not until February 24, when the ship docked at
Santos, did newsmen have a chance to interview the officers and
crewmen who allegedly had observed the Trindade saucer and
could support Barallna's story. None of them, it turned out, had
actually seen the object.
The assistant Naval Attache of the United States, who was then
in Santos in connection with the visjt of the U. S. Coast Guard
cutter '·Vestu;il1ci, vis~te d the Brnzilian ship to collect information
about the Trinclade saucer, but with little success. The commanding
officer stated that he had not seen the allegee1 UFO; he had seen
the pictures but refused to express an opinion on their authenticity;
he st<.lted that his secretary might have seen the UFO but the secre-
tary, when questioned, preferred not to discllss the matter. The
executive officer said that he had not been on deck at the time of
the sighting, but that other persons might have seen the object.
During the next week arguments for and against the authenticity
of the photographs filled the Brazilian papers, and 0 Clabo pub-
lished deliberately faked views of a "flying saucer"-a china plate
tossed into the air. A fed eral deputy in an official note to the Naval
:Ministry deplored their ama.zing fa ilure to procure sworn statements
from the officers and crewmen who were reported to have witnessed
the UFO.
In spite of the widespread and increasing skepticism, the weekly
magazine 0 Cruzeiro used the Trindade pictures for its lead story
in the issue of March 8. "Once bitten , twice shy" apparently did not
apply to its editors, who seemed instead to adopt the principle, "In
for a penny, in for a pound:· The photographs, they remarked
editorially, not only proved the existence of flying saucers, they also
established the authenticity of the !lha dos Amores pictures pub-
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