The Dionisio Llanca Abduction

Dionisio Llanca was 25. A truck driver born in Ingeniero Jacobacci, Río Negro. On the night of 27 October 1973 he was on Route 3 near Bahía Blanca, hauling construction material to Río Gallegos.

Kilometer 705, near Villa Bordeu. About 1:15 am. A tyre was low, and Llanca pulled over to change it. Then the road lit up with an intense yellow light that seemed about 2,000 meters away. He took it for another vehicle. Seconds later it turned bluish, "similar to an electric arc welder." Above him hung "a great thing in the form of a plate," some seven meters up and about four meters across, with one window. It was "silent as the night in the countryside."

Three beings stood before him. Two men, a woman between them. All were blond and about 1.70 m tall. They had wide foreheads and elongated eyes, and wore smoky grey coveralls with yellow boots and long gloves. For about five minutes they simply looked at him. Their speech "sounded like a badly tuned radio."

An unknown force froze him. One being lifted him by the neck. Another pressed a device against his hand, "similar to a razor but with a small tube." He felt no pain. He remembers two drops of blood sliding from his finger to the ground. And the woman's fixed gaze. Then nothing.

He came to among the railway corrals of the Sociedad Rural de Bahía Blanca, about 10 km from his truck. Total amnesia. His watch, lighter and cigarettes were gone. His money was not. The Hospital Municipal recorded head trauma and barely perceptible excoriations on his left eyelid.

Ufologist Fabio Zerpa led a private study, Operación Bordeu, with eight doctors. Under hypnosis and sodium pentothal, given by forensic doctor Ricardo Smirnoff, the missing time filled in. A beam of light lifted him aboard. Inside were "many devices, two televisions, a radio." The beings spoke Spanish and told him he had nothing to worry about. Two hoses came down from the craft, one to water, one to a high-voltage line. Supporters linked this to a power cut in Bahía Blanca that night. The team called his story consistent, and in 1977 their work won an award in Acapulco. The APRO Bulletin reported the case that same year.

Doubts came from inside ufology itself. Dr Héctor Solari concluded "El testigo no es hábil como tal" and recommended psychiatric treatment. Guillermo Roncoroni reported "unequivocal evidence of fraud." Roberto Banchs, writing in Stendek, noted that nobody else saw anything on a busy road, that police found only Llanca's footprints, and that he had once faked being mute to get free meals. The power cut, Banchs wrote, came from a short circuit at a substation about 25 km away. He proposed a head injury and confabulation under leading questions. Hilary Evans pointed out that yellow runs through the whole story.

Llanca paid dearly. Evicted from his parents' home, he passed through hospitals in Mendoza, Buenos Aires and Rawson, and ran away to escape the injections. In 1979 Zerpa publicly apologised for the "torturas investigativas." Llanca lived quietly in Patagonia for decades. In September 2021 Lorena Gisela Sciarratta and Marina Giaveno found him. His verdict: "La pasé peor con los de la Tierra que con los de allá." He had a worse time with the people of Earth than with the ones from up there. He died on 31 May 2024 in Villa María, Córdoba, aged 75. Two films, La Búsqueda and El Caso Llanca, carry his story on.