Brazilian archive report — Varginha, MG — 1996-01-20

On January 20, 1996, Varginha, Minas Gerais, became the center of a rapidly expanding series of claims about unusual creatures, military activity and possible recoveries. The best-known episode involves three young women: Kátia Andrade Xavier, Liliane de Fátima da Silva and Valquíria Aparecida da Silva. While passing through the Jardim Andere area, the three said they encountered a strange figure crouching beside a wall or embankment in a damp vacant lot. The being appeared weakened or frightened rather than aggressive. When it realized it had been seen, it reportedly turned back toward the vegetation as though trying to hide. The description attributed to the witnesses was unusually specific. If standing, the figure was estimated at roughly 1.6 metres. It had dark brown skin, long arms, three fingers on each hand, three bony ridges or protrusions on top of the head, very large red eyes without visible pupils, two openings where a human nose would be, a narrow mouth and a thin black tongue. An ammonia-like odor and a buzzing sound compared with bees were also reported. The three women left the area alarmed and told family members what they had seen. Their account became the public center of the Varginha story. The Atlas treats them as witnesses to the crouching figure only; they did not witness every military, hospital or transport claim later attached to the case. Separate reports were woven into the developing chronology. Oralino and Eurico Rodrigues de Freitas reportedly saw an unusual object over a farm around 01:30 that morning. Later accounts alleged that firefighters or soldiers captured at least one creature, that another died at Hospital Humaitá, and that remains were transferred through military or medical facilities. Those later claims came from different sources and require separate corroboration. By July 1996, Estado de Minas published a multi-page retrospective chronology. The preserved dossier includes three newspaper clippings dated July 15, reporting on the three women's sighting, alleged captures, named institutions, military rumors and the arrival of an American television team. The clippings entered Brazilian national archival custody under reference ARX.0.0.451. Archival custody demonstrates that these stories were collected and reported; it does not verify that the creature, captures, hospital events or international transfer occurred. Some margins of the preserved newspaper page are reportedly cut, and this dossier relies on a detailed Portuguese mirror synopsis rather than a new forensic inspection of every original clipping. The case has generated decades of additional testimony, denials, documentary films and reinterpretations. Those later materials can be linked as separate media only when their provenance is clear. Rumored photographs, anonymous military statements and recreations should not be displayed as evidence merely because they repeat familiar imagery. The Atlas assigns CE3 to the three women's direct reported observation of a being. It does not fold all Varginha claims into one undifferentiated event, and it does not treat the alleged capture or extraterrestrial origin as established. The named witnesses, detailed description and contemporary public reporting make the encounter historically important even while the larger narrative remains disputed. The portrait reconstructs only the encounter the three women said they personally experienced: all three witnesses together in the wet Jardim Andere setting, facing one crouching dark-brown figure with red eyes and three head ridges as it turns toward cover. It omits soldiers, spacecraft, capture, hospital and corpse imagery. It is an illustrative reconstruction based on reported descriptions, not a photograph of the being.