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By A. J. Gevaerd,
Editor, Brazilian UFO Magazine
Coordinator, Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU)
National Director, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)
Another distinguished officer supports the campaign UFOs: Freedom of Information Now!
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Last Sunday, October 25th, Brazilian UFO Magazine interviewed the former minister of Air Force during the government of Fernando Collor, from 1990-1992, lieutenant-brigadier Sócrates da Costa Monteiro. The interview was conducted in his residence in Rio de Janeiro and was performed by this editor A. J. Gevaerd, with the cooperation of the co-editor Marco Antonio Petit and the consultants Francisco Pires de Campos and Arthur Ferreira Neto. It was more than two hours of extremely interesting and fruitful conversation, in which the military felt comfortable to talk about Ufology, like some other officials who also gave their statements to Brazilian UFO Magazine.
Monteiro is retired from the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) for a number of years, but keeps his bounds with active militaries from various sectors of the Brazilian military. He has an extremely lucid memory of the major facts of his activities in the Air Force and – of special interest to the Ufology – about how the country handled with the matter during the time when he was on active duty. Like other ministers, before and after him, Monteiro also had access to sensitive information on the interaction of other cosmic species in our country, reporting a few cases. He was pilot of many airplane types, including fighters, gathering more than 5 thousand flight hours in them.
“Technology Far More Advanced Than Ours”
The officer was the commander of I Integrated Air Defense and Air Traffic Control Centre (Cindacta), in Brasilia, at the time when he was ahead of registering the ufological occurrences all over the country, especially in the area of the Federal District and Southeast region. He revealed that the observations of unidentified flying objects were regular on the radar screens of the institution, well before he assumed its command, and that all the cases were carefully registered, with some of them being further investigated by the Air Force. In that occasion the expression “Traffic Hotel” was not yet used to designate UFOs.
Monteiro described a situation when the radar station of Cindacta in Gama (DF) was overflown at low altitude by a disk type object of great proportions, and that its staff, without knowing what to do, opened fire against the “intruder”. When he got to know it, Monteiro gave them express orders to stop the gun fire immediately. “They have a technology far more advanced than ours and we don’t know how they would react to our action”.
The interviewee also was the commander of IV Regional Air Command (COMAR), in São Paulo, institution that controls the air space of the Southeast region, during the famous “UFO Official Night in Brazil”, on May 19th 1986, when the area was flooded by the appearance of more than 20 flying spheres of more than 100 m diameter each, which were chased by 7 FAB’s fighters F-5E and Mirage, sent from the air bases of Santa Cruz (RJ) and Anápolis (GO). This is one of the most important ufological cases in the country, which counted on the participation of the Embraer’s president at that time colonel Ozires Silva, on board of a Xingu airplane heading from Brasilia to Sao José dos Campos. Ozires spotted an object and even chased it over Sao Paulo state. As it is known, the Air Force Minister at that time Octavio Moreira Lima went to TV in national broadcast, the next day, to admit the “invasion” of Brazilian air space by UFOs. Both, Ozires and Moreira Lima, are friends of Monteiro and the first told him details of his sighting. Ozires is at this moment being contacted by Brazilian UFO Magazine for new statements.
UFO Official Night in Brazil
As it’s known, the government just released a very important document about the mentioned “UFO Official Night in Brazil”, in which it is admitted that the observed objects were “solid and reflected somehow intelligence”, additional to the fact that made amazing maneuvers. The document can be downloaded at:
www.ufo.com.br/documentos/night/. With this disclosure, the main matter of the interview, naturally, was the occurrence on May 19th 1986, which was confirmed in different ways by Monteiro, including details unknown until the moment. It is attributed to him some strong statements about the facts, given at that time. For example, the officer said that “for many years these cases have been registered by the Air Force” and that the UFOs “went from 250 to 1.500 km/h in seconds”. Monteiro also said that “FAB recorded the entire event on tape”. These facts are now complemented by him.
Always referring to the term “electronic abnormalities”, “with the lack of a better explanation to what those object were”, according to Monteiro, the interviewee said the speed of the UFOs was really astonishing and that the fighters could get closer to them only for a few moments, because the artifacts would escape away at extremely high speed. “There was no way for us to get closer, so we abandoned the search, which last for many hours in that night”.
There is a reference stating the UFOs achieved the speed of Mach 15, and about i, Monteiro said it is possible, although the instruments measured only near to 3.500 km/h, “because beyond that, there could be natural reading distortions”. About FAB recording the facts on videotape, he said that, actually, the institution – especially Cindacta – always registered what happened on the radar screens, and everything was registered in appropriate recordings done from those instruments. But pointed out that every 30 days the tapes are deleted and reused.
Visited By Other Cosmic Species
The interviewee was cautious during the whole time. But, initially closed, was giving up to the pressure of the interviewers and making clear that, as other graduated officers of the country, also he had the clear notion that we are being visited by other cosmic species. Although at the beginning referred to the UFOs as “electronic abnormalities”, gradually started talking about “they”, to refer to its crew members, and “ships” in order to effectively describe what their vehicles were, mentioning also its “technology”. Also referred openly to the intelligence behind the phenomenon, giving clear notion that we are before superior civilizations.
This was the most striking statement given during the interview, at the end of the session, when he again mentioned the case in which his men were shooting at the flying saucer in Gama, and he had to immediately intervene because “the reaction could be tragic to us”. For that, he used as analogy the Mantell Case, occurred in USA in 1948, in which a pilot was found death and his plane was destroyed after a pursuit to an UFO. “For that, the fighters, when chasing those “electronic abnormalities”, did it with caution”. By the end of the conversation, when feeling more comfortable with the interviewers, he was referring to the abnormalities almost laughing of his own interpretation of the phenomenon and admitting the use of the expression “only because of the lack of an UFO on hands to say what they exactly are”.
Support To The Freedom of Information Campaign
Finally, the lieutenant-brigadier Sócrates da Costa Monteiro is one additional person from the Brazilian military circle who, recognizing the serious mission of the ufologists of Brazilian UFO Magazine on the pursue of these questions, supports the campaign UFOs: Freedom of Information Now, conducted by the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU). He, like his colleagues previously interviewed, among them the brigadier José Carlos Pereira and the colonels Uyrangê Hollanda and Antonio Celente Videira, admitted the seriousness of the ufological manifestation and the need of treating it in a straight way. And declared: “The files must be opened and you must keep your action with the government, in order to ensure it happens”.
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As October comes to a close, I'd like to wish all of our readers a Happy Halloween, and as the publisher/editor of The UFO Chronicles, I'd like to express my sincere appreciation for those of you who graciously submitted a monetary contribution this month (as well as all of you who have donated in the past) in support of this site and the work we do here—it is very much appreciated!
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