Unsolved:The Trindade Island's UFO

A photograph of the supposed UFO taken by Almiro Baraúna. The object is the small gray dot just to the right of the image center.

The Trindade Island's UFO refers to an unidentified flying object which was seen and photographed over the Trindade Island on January 16, 1958. The photographs were rumored as being a hoax. In August 2010, a major T.V. show in Brazil aired information stating that the original photographer had made "hoax" photographs in the past.

The story

At 12:00 p.m. on January 16, 1958, Brazil ian ship Almirante Saldanha, taking part in projects of the International Geophysical Year, was preparing to sail away from Ilha de Trindade, off the coast of the state of Espírito Santo.

Among the crew of the ship, there was a member of the Brazilian Air Force , Captain José Teobaldo Viegas, the submarine photographer Almiro Baraúna, several scientists and a group of highly trained explorers.

Reportedly Captain Viegas was on the deck with several scientists and members of the crew when he suddenly noticed a flying object, which had a "ring" around it, just like Saturn. Witnesses present reportedly saw the UFO at the same time.

It reportedly came toward the island from the east, flew towards the "Pico Desejado" (Wished Peak), made a steep turn and went away very quickly to the north-west.

As soon as the object was noticed, Almiro Baraúna was sought for photography. After getting the camera and going up the quarter-deck, he managed to take several pictures of the object.

After being disclosed, the pictures were exhaustively analyzed by the Laboratório de Reconhecimento Aéreo da Marinha (Brazilian Navy's Aerial Reconnaissance Laboratory) and by the Serviço Aerofotogramétrico Cruzeiro do Sul. All the pictures were considered genuine, taken from a real occurrence, with the certification of military personnel. The pictures even received confirmation from Juscelino Kubitschek, president of Brazil at that time.

To this day because of the certification of the witnesses and the official recognition, the object in Almiro Baraúna's pictures remains unexplained.

In 2010, a document containing a testimonial by Baraúna was unveiled:

“ On January 16, 1958, the Navy training ship "Almirante Saldanha" was moored at a bay in Trindade Island, some eight hundred miles off the coast of Espírito Santo. It was around 11:00 a.m., the sky was clear and the crew was getting ready to return to Rio de Janeiro when suddenly a group of people at the stern, among them the retired Força Aérea Brasileira captain-aviator José Viegas, alerted everyone.

Instantly, all who were in the deck (some fifty people) started to see a strange, silver, saucer-shaped object moving above the sea towards the island. The object didn't make any sound, was shiny and sometimes it moved quickly, then slowly, up and slightly down and when it accelerated, it would leave a white phosphorescent trail that would disappear shortly. In its trajectory, the object disappeared behind the Desejado Peak and all expected it to reappear on the other side of the island, it reappeared from the same direction, stopped for some seconds and then disappeared again with great speed at the horizon. At first, when the object returned, I was able to take six pictures, two of which were lost due to the confusion at the deck, and the other four showed the object on the horizon, in a reasonable sequence, approaching the island from the mountain's side, and finally disappearing, going away. I took the film from my camera twenty minutes later following the commander's request, who wanted to know if the pictures had good quality. Almost the entire crew of the ship saw the film and they were unanimous in their reports to the Secret Service of the Brazilian Navy. These were the crew of the ship:

Chief Amilar Vieira Filho, banker, diver and athlete; Vice-chief: retired Força Aérea Brasileira captain-aviator José Viegas; Divers: Aluizio and Mauro; Photographer: Almiro Baraúna.

The group above was part of a group of spearfishing from Icaraí. Among the five members, only Mauro and Aluizio didn't see the object because they were at the ship's kitchen and when they ran to see it, it was already gone. According to the rumors I heard at the deck, the electronic equipment of the ship stopped working during the apparition of the object; what I can confirm is that after the ship left the island, the equipment malfunctioned three more times and the officials didn't have any plausible explanation for what was happening. Every time the ship stopped, the lights weakened slowly until the point they completely went out. When this happened, the officials would walk to the deck with their binoculars, however, the sky was clouded and they couldn't see anything. I need to say that if the reporter of the newspaper Correio da Manhã hadn't been smart enough to take copies of the pictures offered to then president Juscelino Kubitscheck, maybe no one would ever be aware of this pictures since the Navy had "marked" me, asking how much did I want not to publicize the pictures. I would like to make it clear that every official with whom I had contact during all the period of the interrogation were quite lovely with me, I felt completely comfortable and they didn't impose any objection to the possible unveiling of the case. they only mentioned that the sensationalist nature of the case could cause panic among the population and that was the reason the Brazilian Air Force wanted to avoid the publicizing of such cases

”

Controversy

Other investigators of the case have questioned the authenticity of the photos. Project Blue Book (the controversial U.S. Air Force investigation into the UFO phenomenon) concluded that the photographs were hoaxed. The credibility of Barauna himself has been questioned. He had produced hoaxed photographs in the past (not only of UFOs) and in the past had written an article showing how a well-known UFO photograph taken some years earlier could have been hoaxed. Also, Barauna had the negatives for two days before the Brazilian Navy took them from him for their investigation, and he had cut them away from the remainder of the film negatives. Also, the Brazilian Navy did not get statements from the witnesses immediately after the event. Therefore, the actual number of witnesses is not known with certainty.

See also

• UFO sightings in Brazil

External links

• Forgetomori article about the hoax
• Trindade Island's UFO - MUROF
• Trindade Island's UFO - Cohen UFO
• Trindade Island's UFO - NICAP
• Trindade Island's UFO - One of the pictures taken by Almiro Baraúna
• Trindade Island's UFO - Work by Kentaro Mori (Brazil) with many links to other works
• Martin J. Powell's Trindade Island UFO page
• Study by Martin Shough
• Study by Alexandre Borges