The Brazilian Air Force has been investigating unidentified flying objects (UFOs) for over 60 years. In May 1986, Lieutenant General Octávio Júlio Moreira Lima, the head of the Air Force, held a press briefing in Brasilia to discuss a recent UFO sighting. He revealed that 21 UFOs had been detected by radar and witnessed by hundreds of civilian and military personnel. In response, five fighter jets were deployed to pursue and intercept the objects. However, the UFOs managed to elude the aircraft and escape at incredible speeds.
The Minister promised to release a detailed report within a month, but it took several years before the report was finally published. Today, the report is available to the public through the National Archives of Brazil, either in-person or online. The collection consists of over 20,000 pages of reports, drawings, audios, videos, photographs, correspondence, and press clippings. These documents cover the 743 UFO incidents recorded by Brazil’s military between 1952 and 2016.
The recent decision by NASA to study “unidentified anomalous phenomena” has brought the Brazilian UFO collection into the spotlight. The US space agency has appointed a director to lead investigations, a move that parallels the creation of the Unidentified Aerial Object Investigation System (SIOANI) in Brazil from 1969 to 1972. SIOANI was a unit within the Armed Forces dedicated to monitoring UFO events and gathering information about them.
During Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, the existence of SIOANI raised both alarm and curiosity. The team of uniformed personnel traveled across the country, conducting interviews and compiling reports with sketches of various flying saucer models. These reports, along with the 743 archived records, emphasize that UFOs can refer to any unidentified object in the sky, which may include drones, stars, satellites, weather balloons, or natural phenomena.
Both Brazilian and US authorities caution against assuming that UFOs are evidence of extraterrestrial life or spacecraft. Instead, they emphasize the need to investigate and identify the natural origins of such objects. The Brazilian Air Force’s extensive collection of UFO reports serves as a valuable resource for further understanding these unidentified aerial phenomena.
