UFOs and the Brazilian Air Force
By A. J. Gevaerd,
Editor of the Brazilian UFO Magazine and
Head of the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU)

Friday, May 20, was an historic day for Ufology in Brazil and in the world as the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), for the very first time in its history, officially receives a committee of top UFO researchers to openly discuss sightings in the country and fully exam classified UFO documents in several military facilities in Brasilia, the Federal Capital.

By doing this very important step, Brazilian Air Force (FAB) has placed Brazil in a very short list of countries whose militaries acknowledge the Ufology as a serious activity and significative effort to fully understand the nature and origin of UFOs. "We want to have all info on the subject, that is withheld by us for some decades, fully released to public, through the UFO community", declared brigadier Telles Ribeiro, chief of Brazilian Air Force Communication Center.

The Brazilian Government, through the Brazilian Air Force, has finally decided to come forward and recognize the UFO research as a genuine activity as a direct result of the intense pressure made by the campaign UFOs: Freedom of Information Now, a movement started by the Brazilian UFO Magazine in April 2004. The campaign was launched by the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU), composed of 6 UFO civilian researchers: Claudeir Covo, Marco Petit, Rafael Cury, Reginaldo de Athayde, Fernando Ramalho and A. J. Gevaerd (Athayde was sick an replaced by new interim member veteran UFO researcher Roberto Affonso Back)

Details of the campaign both in Portuguese and in English can be consulted at: www.ufo.com.br  and www.ufo.com.br/secrecy.php

The approach of the Brazilian military by the CBU committee started last February, ten months after the campaign begun, with a phone call from a Brazilian Air Force spokesman, major Antonio Lorenzo, and a formal invitation to a visit and a chat in some Air Force headquarters in Brasilia. Major Lorenzo fully recognized the UFO researchers' efforts in this field and provided a few details of what kind of reserved files and procedures the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) has about the UFO Phenomena and its detection, recording and investigation in the country.

Two meeting between the civilian UFO researchers and the military took place last Friday, May 20, and firstly happened in the headquarters of the Integrated Center of Air Defense and Air Traffic Control (Centro Integrado de Defesa Aérea e Controle de Trafego Aéreo, Cindacta), a very sensitive facility. During two hours, the researchers were given lectures of the procedures conducted at Cindacta and had the chance to visit air traffic control rooms and understand how UFOs could be detected by the Air Force personnel.

The second and most important meeting took place just after this one at the very reserved facilities of Brazilian Air Defense Command (Comando de Defesa Aerea Brasileiro, Comdabra), an even more sensitive installation that controls the entire air defense situation in the country and surrounding areas of Atlantic Ocean and South America. In this facility the UFO researchers were given full briefing of the top aspects of aerial defense of the country.

It was in this facility that its own commander, brigadier Atheneu Azambuja, admitted to the UFO researchers how concerned the Brazilian military are about the UFO phenomena. Azambuja also gave details of Comdabra procedures and openly admitted that the country has systematically detected and registered UFOs in the country - labeled as "H Traffic" - since 1954. That wasn't a surprise for the UFO researchers of the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU), but how this registering process took place was.

After detailed explanations of Comdabra activities, brigadier Atheneu Azambuja, for the first time in history, gave full access to the civilian UFO researchers to exam 3 different folders with classified UFO information, cases from specific dates of 1954, 1977 and 1986. The first case was an airplane pursuit of a UFO in the ocean shores of Paraná State.

The second file was much more important. In the folder containing the 1977 docs that could be examined by the UFO researchers were dozens of cases of UFOs in the Amazon with and amazing amount of over 100 pictures made during the so-called Operation Saucer, an official program of UFO investigation by the military that took place from September to December, 1977, and has been fully covered by specialized UFO press over the world.

The third case was the "The Official Night of UFOs in Brazil", a very significative group of events that happened in May 1986, when 21 objects of over 100 m in diameter jammed Brazilian air traffic control system over Rio de Janeiro, Sao Jose dos Campos and Sao Paulo, mainly, and several jets were sent to intercept - without any success - the intruders.

The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) representatives at those meetings then fully admitted that Ufology is serious business and broadly recognized the activity of UFO research by the civilian UFO community. And also guaranteed that further steps are about to be taken to let the researchers to exam the entire military UFO files in a more comprehensive way. Plus, a committee of military and civilian UFO researchers was promised to start operating very soon, coordinated by the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU).

This certainly means that we will start a new era in Ufology in Brazil and in South America. Very good things are about to happen as the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) command, the Brazilian Ministry of Defense and the Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva receive the open letters and formal requests for opening for good the documents and start the mentioned committee, as presented to them by their spokesman.

More news to come. ...

A. J. Gevaerd, editor
Editor of the Brazilian UFO Magazine and

Head of the Brazilian Committee of UFO Researchers (CBU)

www.ufo.com.br
gevaerd@ufo.com.br

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