Colares — Operação Prato

OVERVIEW

In 1977 numerous lights were reported over the island of Colares in Pará. Residents said scars on their bodies were caused by them and called the lights "chupa-chupa". To keep them away they organised night vigils, lit fires and set off fireworks, and the mayor, José Ildone Favacho Soeiro, asked the Air Force for help.

HISTORY

The Brazilian Air Force responded with Operação Prato — Operation Saucer — commanded by Captain Uyrangê Hollanda, between 1977 and 1978; it is described as the first Air Force operation conducted solely to investigate UFOs. Photographs of lights were taken in late 1977, but after about four months the operation was closed having found, officially, no unusual phenomena. The files were classified until the late 1990s and can now be obtained from the National Archives.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

In 1997 Captain Hollanda gave an interview to the ufologists Ademar Gevaerd and Marco Antônio Petit about the operation; three months later he was found dead at home, apparently by his own hand, which has drawn conspiracy theories. Jacques Vallée wrote that people were killed by the lights and had injuries consistent with microwave radiation, and other ufologists claimed the lights drew blood from 400 people. Those claims are ufologists', not the Air Force's: the entry records a documented outbreak of fear and an official investigation, with the stronger claims attributed to the people who made them.

VISITING

Colares is a lived-in town in Pará; the events of 1977 were frightening for its residents.