The Onilson Páttero Abductions, Catanduva to Colatina

Onilson Páttero was a book seller from Catanduva, in São Paulo state. He worked for a large publisher and set up libraries in public schools. He had a wife, Lourdes, and two daughters, Silvana and Samária.

Night of 21 to 22 May 1973. Páttero was driving a blue Opala when he picked up a hitchhiker near the Avanhandava bridge. The young man called himself Alex. Blond, with deep-set blue eyes and a penetrating gaze. Páttero dropped him in Itajobi around 03:00.

Soon after, the radio failed. Then the engine. A blue spot of light about 20 cm across crossed the car, and whatever it touched turned transparent. Ahead, about 15 m away and 10 m up, hung an object like two domes laid one on top of the other. Dark opaque grey, about 10 m wide, humming.

A cylinder of blue light came down from beneath it. The heat became unbearable. He opened the door, felt wrapped in something like thin rubber, and lost consciousness. Around 05:00 he was found by the road, crying "Eles querem me pegar" ("They want to get me"). Days later, painless blue-purple patches appeared on his body.

26 April 1974. About 23:30, Páttero was driving his blue VW Fusca home near Guarantã when he saw a blue glow running alongside the high-voltage power lines. He felt heat and air pressure. The engine began to fail. Remembering 1973, he tried to escape, first in the car, then on foot.

He was conscious as he was drawn through a transparent curtain into the craft. Alex was there, smiling, in the same clothes as in 1973. Páttero described an oval room under a blue dome, three hooded beings in motorised chairs, and a capsule in the floor where he lost consciousness. Later, three hooded "doctors" worked around him in silence.

At about 03:15 on 2 May he was set down on grass on a hilltop. Sheltering under a rock, he carved "OP" into the stone with a pocketknife. Farmer César Minelli heard him crying on Fazenda Catuá, about 12 km from Colatina, Espírito Santo. About 1,000 km from where he vanished. "You don't need to be afraid of me, I'm a decent person," Páttero told him.

Highway police had already found his Fusca near Guarantã, driver's door open, papers and cheques scattered. In Colatina, police chief Captain Luiz Sérgio Aurich took his statement and called him "a normal guy." Judge Arion de Vasconcelos and Dr. Aldo Machado ruled out hallucination. In São Paulo, Dr. Max Berezovsky of APEX ran clinical tests, an EEG and hypnosis. The EEG was normal. Then DOPS, the political police of the military regime, asked Berezovsky and Willi Wirtz for analyses. Ufologists found themselves under suspicion and surveillance.

Berezovsky accepted the 1973 encounter but doubted the 1974 one, and later withdrew his support. Páttero had denied watching the US series The Invaders. His wife said he had. Wirtz called both accounts "completely inconsistent." Critics noted he gave no account of eating or drinking in six days. Irene Granchi defended him. He had no exposure to UFO literature before 1973 and did not seek fame, she argued, and the retractions may reflect pressure during the dictatorship. Journalist Manoel Moreira: "He wasn't lying. Nor was he mad."

The case reached the APRO Bulletin in 1973 and the series Casos Ufológicos in 2019. Páttero died in Catanduva in August 2008, aged 75. In September 2023 his daughter Samária visited the carved stone. In 2026 Moreira published O Caso Onilson Páttero: verdades reveladas.