The Anolaima Encounter: Arcesio Bermúdez and the Light Over Casateja

Anolaima sits in Cundinamarca, about 65 km from Bogotá. On its border with Cachipay, in the vereda of Tocarema, was Casateja, the farm of Arcesio Bermúdez. He was 53. The family called him "papá Garza". On the evening of Friday, July 4, 1969, three adults and ten children were at the farm.

Mauricio Gnecco, 13, and Enrique Osorio, 16, saw it first. The children shouted "platillo volador". Arcesio's sister, Lucrecia Bermúdez Sierra, remembered a little light like a balloon's appearing in the distance. Eight-year-old Marleny Suárez saw a big, piercing light passing very low over the farm, along the edge of the trees.

Gnecco later described a sphere about the size of a car. Its amber glow cast no shadow. It made no sound. It came slowly out of a valley, straight toward them, and dropped to about 11 or 12 metres above the walnut trees. It circled some 45 metres from the house. For a few seconds, its light went out. The children flashed a torch at it. It seemed to answer.

Then Arcesio took a flashlight and walked toward it. He got to about 7 metres, closer than anyone. Gnecco said the object and the man stayed as if looking at each other, for a couple of minutes. Arcesio shone his light and shouted that there was a Martian inside. Then the object rose vertically some 30 metres. In Gnecco's words, it went "shup" in a spurt of light and disappeared.

About two days later, Arcesio felt constantly cold and fainted. His temperature was about 35 °C. He had black vomit, bloody diarrhoea and third-degree dehydration. The date of his death is disputed. Recent press says around July 7. Earlier accounts say July 12, 1969, at the Seguro Social hospital in Bogotá, hours after admission. Dr. César Esmeral found the missing fever unusual. But he said he could not link the death to the object. The death certificate read gastroenteritis.

He was buried in Bogotá's Cementerio Central. Five or six years later, the family came to move his remains. The coffin was empty.

APRO, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization run by Jim and Coral Lorenzen, sent people to Colombia to interview witnesses and doctors. Its bulletin reported that the Colombian nuclear affairs institute found no radiation on Arcesio's clothes or watch. Its medical consultant, Dr. Benjamin Sawyer, concluded there was absolutely no proof of radiation exposure. Hypnotist Luis E. Martínez García and psychologist José Barreto questioned four child witnesses. Their drawings reportedly showed basically the same object: a yellow-orange body on two luminous blue legs with green tips.

The everyday reading is a natural death from gastroenteritis and severe dehydration. The radiation theory is undercut by the negative tests. Alan Murdie, who visited in 2000 and 2001, linked the case to local beliefs in spirit lights that foretell death. The empty grave has its own theories: grave robbing, a poorly recorded relocation, or foreign scientists who had asked to exhume him. Gnecco calls the NASA and alien ideas far-fetched.

Pablo Villarrubia Mauso told the story in Las luces de la muerte. Fortean Times, El Tiempo and El País returned to it. Researchers compare it with the death of João Prestes Filho in Brazil. Colombian astronomy writer Germán Puerta calls it significant in UFO analysis worldwide. The witnesses' accounts have stayed consistent for more than 50 years.