The Varginha Incident

When looking back on UFO incidents, there are only a handful of high profile cases that involve creatures quite as dramatic as those reported at Varginha in Brazil.  The hysteria and media circus that would follow would be considered one of the most controversial of the 1990’s in an already controversial topic.  And to this day many questions remain unanswered about the creature that was allegedly seen.

The Varginha incident began on the 20th of January in 1996 when several witnesses spotted a mysterious creature loping through the bushes behind their house.  As they watched three girls got a very clear look at the creature and would later describe its mysterious features to the media.  According to their written and spoken testimony, the creature had an extremely spindly and thin body with scaly brown skin hanging loose on it, long strange fingers, and V shaped toes.  The creature’s head was said to be extremely large and bald in keeping with many representations of extraterrestrial visitors.  But perhaps the most disturbing feature of its physical body was the fact that it had two glowing fiery red eyes.

Soon the event would be mirrored dozens of times by various witnesses, and the media would take hold of the sightings as well.  As the incredible claims were investigated further, witnesses would find themselves badgered by captivated audiences wishing to hear every single detail of the mysterious creatures and their relationship to equally mysterious craft observed in the skies shortly before the string of close encounters of the third kind came about.

Vitorio Pacaccini was one of the most outspoken supporters of the mysterious events and a seeker of proof that the witnesses were observing actual visitors from outer space.  But as the media’ suspicion grew and rumors started circulating that the case would go nowhere due to an “official” cover-up, soon the events were lost to the annals of history.  Or was it?

Even long after the Varginha incident was officially declared closed, and its creatures stopped appearing on the nightly news, some witnesses were not afraid to come forward and continue to tell their stories.  The creature even became directly linked to chupacabra folklore.  In fact, one of the most commonly reported physical descriptions of the chupacabra seems to mirror the Varginha creature now, even if the original creature is less commonly reported.  So with so many people over the years still describing the mysterious and disturbing creatures spotted in Varginha, is the case really closed?

Of course there is also no shortage of controversy on the events.  Pacaccini himself is often accused of fabricating stories regarding the events as he rarely, if ever, gave sources to any of the discoveries he made and the witnesses he interviewed always remained anonymous.  Still, even if Pacaccini was a con-man as so many would have us believe, there were certainly the scores of other witnesses who independently witnessed it and still do to this day.