"James Fox did not go to Washington to sell a movie; he went to give one of the most contentious UFO cases on record a direct line into the U.S. political bloodstream. Between a closed door briefing on Capitol Hill and a high profile press conference at the National Press Club, the 1996 Varginha incident—long dubbed “Brazil’s Roswell”—is now being treated by lawmakers, doctors, and investigators as a live, unresolved case with potentially historic implications"
| On January 15, 2026, three members of Congress—Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna, and Eric Burlison—met in the former’s office in the Longworth House Office Building with Brazilian witnesses and researchers to hear detailed testimony on Varginha. As The Debrief reports, the scene was disarmingly |
By
The UFO Chronicles 2-29-2026 © All Rights Reserved |
© The UFO Chronicles. All rights reserved–NOT FOR REPUBLICATION
Five days later, Fox hosted a full scale UAP event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., bringing together first hand Brazilian witnesses, medical professionals, investigators, and U.S. insiders to present the same case in a public forum. NewsNationn carried hours of live coverage, with Ross Coulthart and Meagan Medick framing the gathering as part of a wider debate over alleged crash retrieval programs and non human intelligences. FanBolt, in a detailed feature, described the National Press Club event as a “landmark” moment that moved Fox’s previous documentary work on Varginha directly “into the heart of Washington, D.C.” and tied it explicitly to the broader push for UAP transparency.
The foundation for all of this was laid in the late 1990s by investigators like the late Graham Birdsall, whose early reporting on the Varginha affair reads less like sensational UFO lore and more like a step by step case file. As our (The UFO Chronicles) retrospective recounts, Birdsall tracked a week long series of UFO reports across southern Minas Gerais that culminated on January 20, 1996, when a cigar shaped craft trailing what witnesses called “smoke” or “vapor” was seen skimming low over farmland near Varginha.
In the days that followed, Birdsall documented testimony from locals, firefighters, soldiers, and hospital staff who described an unusual military mobilization in and around the city. Multiple witnesses reported a small, seemingly fragile bipedal being with brown, oily skin, large head, and striking red eyes; one cluster of reports centered on three young women who encountered such a figure crouched by a wall in a vacant lot, appearing weak and distressed. Birdsall’s reconstruction then traced alleged removals of at least one body through regional hospitals, reports of an ammonia like odor, and claims that Brazilian military and medical personnel were ordered into silence, with hints of U.S. involvement in tracking and recovering the object.
That sober, methodical tone—dates, locations, named witnesses—set Varginha apart early on from typical tabloid UFO fare. It is that same scaffolding that Fox’s film Moment of Contact and now his Washington initiative build on, adding new testimony and seeking official records that could either corroborate or finally dismantle the story.
The Debrief’s long form investigation updates and deepens the case, introducing fresh on the record statements from key Brazilian witnesses. Ultralight pilot and teacher Carlos de Sousa told The Debrief he followed a damaged, cigar shaped craft to a crash site outside Varginha, where he found twisted metallic debris that briefly crumpled in his hand before returning to its original shape, and a pervasive, chemical stench in the air. According to his account, Brazilian military trucks arrived quickly, soldiers secured the area, and he was threatened at gunpoint and warned to forget what he had seen.
The three Varginha girls—sisters Liliane and Valquira Silva and their friend Kátia Xavier—gave detailed, independent accounts of their daytime encounter in the city, describing a short, brown, seemingly wet or oily figure with an enlarged head and large eyes that appeared to be in pain. Their mother later described an odd three toed print near the site and said officials visited the family, pressing them to publicly attribute what they had seen to a deformed or sick animal.
Most striking are the medical claims now on the record. Neurosurgeon Dr. Ítalo Venturelli told The Debrief he was called to a hospital room in 1996 and examined a small patient he is adamant “was not a human being,” describing lilac, teardrop shaped eyes, a torso without nipples, and an intense sense of emotion communicated through the being’s gaze. “The truth is, I saw the being,” he said, adding that the encounter “changes the concept of humanity.” Forensic pathologist Dr. Armando Fortunato reported performing the autopsy on military policeman Marco Chereze, who died after an infection he allegedly contracted while handling one of the entities; a signed statement by veteran pathologist Dr. João Janini describes a bacterium of “extremely high aggressiveness” outside normal experience, raising the possibility—however controversial—of non terrestrial origin.
Brazilian Senator Eduardo Girão and others are now backing a request to exhume Chereze’s body so that any remaining biological material or DNA can be analyzed with modern methods. That process, if approved, would represent one of the first formal, state sanctioned scientific tests tied directly to a classic UFO case.
At the National Press Club, Fox repeatedly emphasized that the goal was not simply to re tell Varginha, but to create conditions where additional evidence and witnesses could come forward safely. NewsNation’s coverage captured Fox and his colleagues calling for stronger whistleblower protections, access to classified archives, and clarity on the legal pathways by which officials and service members can share information with Congress without violating nondisclosure agreements.
Former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Kirk McConnell, appearing with Fox, stressed that it is illegal to withhold relevant information from Congress and that lawmakers are authorized recipients for even highly sensitive UAP related testimony. The Debrief notes that McConnell and others see Varginha as part of a larger pattern of allegations about crash retrieval activities that have already reached senior members of the intelligence and armed services committees, including former Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair Marco Rubio.
Retired U.S. Air Force colonel Fred Claussen, drawing on Brazilian sources, outlined a possible U.S. airlift of Varginha related material via a C 17 flight into Viracopos airport near Campinas around the time of the incident, and publicly appealed for any American personnel involved in such a mission to come forward. If such a flight occurred, it would have generated logs and refueling records that could, at least in principle, be sought through official channels.
Taken together, Fox’s National Press Club event, The Debrief’s investigation, NewsNation’s live coverage, FanBolt’s mainstream oriented analysis, and the archival work preserved here at The UFO Chronicles have pushed Varginha out of the realm of obscure UFO lore and into the center of an ongoing policy discussion. The facts as they stand are stark: dozens of Brazilian witnesses across different social roles, consistent testimony stretching back three decades, at least two senior medical professionals now on record, and active interest from both Brazilian and U.S. legislators.
None of this, by itself, proves that a non human craft crashed in Brazil in 1996 or that one or more non human beings were recovered. It does mean that a case once treated as a regional curiosity is now being treated by serious journalists and sitting members of Congress as an unresolved aerospace and security question with an evidentiary trail that merits deeper, formal inquiry.
Fox’s press conference may be remembered less for any single revelation than for the way it connected early, meticulous fieldwork to present day political mechanisms that can finally test the story’s hardest claims—through exhumations, document searches, and protected testimony. Whether those mechanisms are actually used, and what they find if they are, will determine whether Varginha remains a powerful legend or becomes a pivotal case in how governments and the public confront the possibility that we are, at last, dealing with something genuinely non human.
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