Fighter jets in Brazil chased mysterious bright UFOs travelling at speeds of up to 11,500mph, while hundreds of witnesses claimed to have seen the same from the ground.
Five pilots were left baffled after seeing 21 brightly lit objects appear and disappear during Brazil’s so-called 'Night of the UFOs’ back in 1986.
Alongside the pilots, ‘hundreds’ of troops on the ground also witnessed the unusual phenomenon, which left force officials admitting ‘there is no explanation’.
Over the course of several hours, hundreds of people saw the objects that moved at high speed in the sky.
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While pilots claimed to see objects in front of them that didn’t appear on radar systems.
Traffic controller Sergeant Sergio Mota da Silva was one of the men working on 19 May 1986, when the incident unfolded.
He was the first to see anything unusual – spotting a bright light in the sky near the city of Sao Paulo.
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He said: “It doesn't go up or down, it doesn't go to the left or to the right, it's just standing there.”
After seeing the bright object, he got in touch with controllers at Sao Paulo’s international airport to ask if any planes were due to heading towards his airfield, but was told there was not.
He claimed the lights dimmed as they moved towards the control tower and brightened as they moved away.
He added: "Whether they were trying to interact with me, I don't know. What I do know is that they behaved intelligently.”
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Later the same evening, around 2,000 cadets and officers from a nearby air force training school also reported seeing lights in the sky.
Pilots flying into the airport also reported seeing the lights.
The numerous sightings prompted the country’s air force to send pilots up into the sky to try and intercept the objects – but they were unable to do so, as the lights didn’t behave in a normal way.
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Mota da Silva said: “Sometimes, the pilots had visual contact with the targets, but the radars did not register anything.
“Other times, the radars even picked up the presence of objects, but the pilots could not see them.”
Brazilian UFO researcher Ademar José Gevaerd said aliens with intelligence ‘immensely superior’ to ours were responsible for the incident – he said the UFOs did not want to attack but simply played ‘cat and mouse’.
The bizarre events of the night were leaked out and a press conference was held, during which pilots who had witnessed the objects spoke about what they’d seen.
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After testifying to what they say, air force minister Brigadier Octávio Júlio Moreira Lima admitted there was ‘no explanation’ for the incident.
The 'Night of the UFOs' is likely to be brought up again later this week, as the Brazilian Senate is set to hold a hearing into UFO activity.
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Claire Reid