Niterói, Brazil: Two men found dead with lead eye masks on Morro do Vintém
On the afternoon of August 20, 1966, boys on the Morro do Vintém in Niterói, Brazil, found the bodies of two men wearing lead eye masks; a notebook beside them held cryptic instructions about capsules and a signal.
Background
Boys looking for a lost kite on the Morro do Vintém in Niterói found the bodies of two men; police and firefighters reached the difficult hillside only on August 21 and found the men side by side in formal suits, lead eye masks and waterproof coats, with no signs of trauma or struggle. Beside them lay an empty water bottle, two wet towels and a notebook with the instructions “16:30 be at the specified location. 18:30 ingest capsules, after the effect protect metals await signal mask.” The men were identified as Manoel Pereira da Cruz and Miguel José Viana, electronics technicians from Campos dos Goytacazes who had left home on August 17 and were last seen at a bar in Niterói. A friend testified that they belonged to a group of “scientific spiritualists” trying to contact extraterrestrials or spirits with psychedelic drugs, and that the masks were meant to shield their eyes from an expected blinding light; Hamilton Bezani later confessed that the deaths were a robbery in which his gang forced the men to take poison, an explanation many Brazilians reject. Jacques Vallée visited the site in April 1980 and noted that no vegetation grew there, while Eberhart sees no real reason to connect the case with UFOs beyond Vallée's involvement. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.