Case description
At about 19:00 on an evening in 1950, thirteen-year-old William Ortiz was riding a horse along the gravel road leading to his family's home near Floridablanca, in the Bucaramanga region of Colombia. William was described in the later account as deaf and non-speaking. As dusk settled over the wooded hills, he noticed a child-sized figure among the vegetation beside the road.
Looking farther toward a large rock, William then saw a disc-shaped object resting or hovering immediately above it. Several little figures were gathered nearby. One left the group and approached the mounted boy, stopping close enough for William to study its clothing and face.
The approaching figure wore a close-fitting uniform that covered the neck and legs, boots, and a high turtleneck-like collar. A V-shaped seam or panel crossed the shoulders. Its hands may have had four fingers. William described a large hairless head, very large black oval eyes, tiny ear openings, a small nose and lips, and gray-brown skin.
The figure looked directly into William's eyes and made deliberate hand signs. William later understood the exchange as a telepathic communication consisting of eight words or concepts. The surviving summaries do not preserve a dependable verbatim sentence, but identify ideas including the sky, love and a secret. The Atlas therefore does not reconstruct dialogue that the source does not provide.
After the exchange, the figure turned back toward the rock, moving in a manner William characterized as half walking and half floating. It rejoined the other figures. The disc then rose, turned toward the southwest and disappeared from view. William remained on the road with his horse; the account contains no boarding, transport or physical examination.
The large rock was later reported to bear unusual lines, circles, disc-like forms and serpent shapes. The available source route does not establish when the markings were first documented, whether investigators photographed them under controlled conditions, or whether a geological or archaeological examination excluded ordinary or pre-existing origins. They are retained as a reported aftermath detail, not authenticated physical evidence.
The detailed narrative is attributed to Virgilio Sanchez Ocejo in the CUFOS Associate Newsletter and is preserved through later catalogues. No near-contemporary 1950 police file, newspaper report, medical record or original signed statement was located in this pass. William's age, disability, the precise wording of the communication and the rock symbols therefore require careful attribution to a later secondary source.
CE3 reflects the reported close observation and communication with occupants outside a landed or low-hovering object. The encounter is historically and narratively distinctive, but its evidentiary weight is limited by the late source chain and absence of independently verified contemporary documentation.
The portrait reconstructs the principal reported moment: William remains fully clothed and mounted on the family road while one small figure communicates through gaze and gesture, with exactly three additional figures and the disc visible on the marked rock. It is an illustrative reconstruction, not a photograph or proof of the event.