UFO enthusiasts often get the mocking for their extraterrestrial belief these days. Voices of critics often prevail than those who assert the existence of real UFOs. However, some UFO sightings are seemingly impossible to find any rational explanations. One of these is the Night of UFOs in Brazil, which is one of the most famous UFO-related incidents in decades. On the negative note among believers, this major event has mostly been forgotten today despite the national coverage of it.
Popularly known as the Brazil’s Night of UFOs, the incident took place on May 19, 1986. It involved 21 UFOs that were noticed by the Air Force radars in the country. Many witnesses claimed to have spotted the mysterious objects in different areas of the country, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Interestingly, the Night of UFOs was not just all about the number of unidentified flying objects. The Brazilian government and the military were reportedly taking a serious investigation into the incident. The country’s Air Force was deployed to take a look at those strange aerial things with instruction to engage them if necessary.
The Air Force scrambled Northrop F-5E Tiger II aircraft, Dassault Mirages III fighters and other military aircraft. Despite the capability of Air Force aircraft to fly at high speeds, the UFOs reportedly outran the military fighters as the unusual aerial objects flew as fast as 2500 mph. The entire operation of the Air Force lasted around three hours.
On the day following the bizarre event, Brazilian Air Force Secretary Octávio Julio Moreira Lima held a press conference about it. Government officials and military officers spoke about the Nigh of UFOs. They promised the public full blown investigation into the incident and its findings would be released to the public. However, the full disclosure never happened. Then sceptical explanations about it followed later, such as the sightings being caused by ball lightning, meteor showers, a reflection of the full moon or problem with the radar system. Eventually, interest about it died down.
About a year ago, the audio tapes of the air traffic control were declassified. There’re hours of conversations between airports and military bases. The main character, at São José dos Campos airport talked about the “beautiful inteligent lights” he was seeing in the sky close in the sky and the radar signatures. Other airports comment and the records are cut off when the interceptor fighters are scrambled. Unfortunately, recently, when asked to comment, he didn’t wat to elaborate. These tapes are very important ufologic document.