Antônio La Rubia and the Robot Abduction, Paciência, 1977

15 September 1977. Paciência, a neighbourhood in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Antônio La Rubia was 33, a bus driver, about 5 ft 5 in and muscular. In the early hours he left home for a pre-dawn shift.

Something was sitting in a field. He put it at 70 meters across. It was shaped like a hat, a dull lead-grey. He turned to run. An intensely bright blue light flooded the area. He could not move.

Three figures stood around him. He called them robots. They were about 1.40 m tall and stockier than he was. Each had an egg-shaped head crossed by a band like "a row of small mirrors of a blue shade", with a single antenna spinning on top. Their arms were like "elephants' trunks, narrowed to pointed tips". Each stood on one leg ending in a saucer-sized platform, and they seemed to glide. One pointed a syringe-like instrument at him. His arm rose by itself. He felt a tremor. Then he was in a corridor.

Next he was in a large, round, white room. About 24 beings sat in rows. They put their instruments into a small console "like a piano", and coloured pictures appeared on the wall. He saw himself naked on an invisible table. A peasant in a straw hat driving a horse and cart. A slobbering dog attacking a being, which "began to melt, from top to bottom, like porridge". A factory of craft, with "millions" of beings. An avenue jammed with cars.

A being took blood from his right middle finger. His blood was the only colour he could see. With it, the being drew three circles and marked them with an "L". When he shouted, the beings shrank back.

Then he was thrown out near Paciência station, still holding his shopping bag. He looked up and saw "the bottom of a dark, smooth balloon, lifting up". It rose until he could no longer see it. His watch had read 2:20. The station clock read 2:50. He caught the 3:10 bus and drove his shift.

His body ached. His vision darkened at the wheel. He struggled to breathe. By Sunday a burning feeling had spread through his body, and he rubbed himself with alcohol for relief. Co-workers said he was "as green as grass". In hospital he ran a fever of about 103 °F. The company psychologist, Dr. Neli Carbonel, found him psychologically normal. One doctor called in six colleagues and judged the case "serious and worthy of further study".

The Rio daily O Dia broke the story on 4 October 1977. Irene Granchi, APRO's field investigator in Rio, searched the field on 8 October and found no impressions or burned grass. On 18 October she interviewed La Rubia at her home, with his brother Arnaldo present. The APRO Bulletin published it as "Brazilian CE4 Case", a close encounter of the fourth kind, calling it an "alleged and very bizarre abduction case". Granchi weighed the pictures: "The simplest seems that, as we harm them, they can harm us. That there are many of them, as there are many of us."

The record has gaps. There was one witness. A local man said he saw a UFO that morning, but APRO dismissed him as a known drunk. No puncture mark was found, and doctors first found La Rubia physically normal. Versions differ on the date, with Brazilian sources such as Claudio Suenaga giving 19 September, and on the number of pictures. The Iron Skeptic retold the story with open mockery. Yet no confession or hoax finding has ever surfaced. The one-legged robots of Paciência remain among the strangest beings in the abduction record.