There are places on Earth where the line
between the known and the unknown wears
thin.
Brazil is one of them. It's a country of
rainforest, rare minerals, [music] and
some of the strangest UFO encounters
ever recorded.
>> Lights over the Amazon. Beams from the
sky. A creature with red eyes and skin
that's [music] lethal to the touch.
There's no one better to walk us into
that mystery than today's guest, Aldo
Rebello,
>> Brazil's former minister of defense,
current presidential candidate, and a
man who spent decades [music] at the
center of Brazilian power. a man who's
probably seen firsthand into the UFO
vault and who said on the record that if
the United States opens its own files,
he'll open Brazil's
today. He's also the man who will look
you dead in the eye and tell you that
the phenomena is real. The records about
such unidentified celestial phenomena
date back to antiquity.
They're not new.
In this unprecedented candid
conversation, we cover [music] it all.
We get into the Chupa Chupa attacks in
Colaris in the 70s where UFOs in the
Amazonian night sky allegedly fired
mysterious beams
that left villagers with burns, blood
loss, and puncture wounds. a multi-month
event affecting 200 [music] people. So
serious that the Air Force ran a real
investigation on it called Operation
PRAO.
We touch on Brazil's mass UFO radar
incursions of 1986,
an unforgettable night for the Brazilian
military.
And then there's Virginia, Brazil's very
own modernday Roswell. [ __ ] you now,
brother.
Rebello basically acknowledges that in
1996 in the small city of Virginia,
something crashed. It was recovered and
a nonhuman creature or [music] multiple
creatures with slick oily brown skin and
big red eyes was seen by multiple
witnesses and even treated by a
neurosurgeon in [music] a hospital.
I know that sounds like a Spielberg
movie you'd want to watch. It's actually
a case that Spielberg is familiar with.
Except this isn't Hollywood. This is the
former Brazilian Minister of Defense
sitting across from me telling me it was
real. In America, our equivalent would
be a former Secretary of Defense like a
Jim Mattis or Robert Gates, saying that
Roswell was real. saying candidly that
yeah, a saucer probably did crash in New
Mexico and beings probably did emerge
from it. And in doing so, he gives
validation and voice to all the
witnesses, researchers, doctors,
military personnel, and ordinary people
who have been attacked, dismissed, and
ridiculed over this subject for decades.
And he provides shelter and safe haven
to those who haven't come out yet.
believing that a phenomenon like this
exists.
Of course,
>> to Rebello, the real question isn't
whether the phenomenon has occurred.
It's where it came from, why it was
here, and what it means for the future
of science, society, defense, and where
humanity stands in the universe.
So with that, enjoy this historic
conversation with Aldo Rebello, Brazil's
former minister of defense, current
presidential candidate, and the man who
will tell you that some of the strangest
stories you've ever heard might also be
the truest.
>> Ignition sequence.
[music]
>> How is this possible?
>> Nothing too unusual about that.
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I'm here with Aldo Rebello who is a
former minister of the Chamber of
Deputies, former minister of defense,
former minister of sport, current
presidential candidate for the Christian
Democracy Party, although there's some
controversies I want to talk about
there, but you've had an illustrious
history. You are a cornerstone of
Brazilian politics. Uh you are currently
running against Lula and Bolsinaro, but
in many ways you kind of exist at the
intersection between both. uh you were
kind of the uh almost Plato's
philosopher king of Brazilian politics
over the last 20 or 30 years. So I'm
very excited to speak to you about your
philosophy of Brazilian sovereignty,
your long career. But the reason that I
am here, as you know, I focus on uh kind
of anomalous phenomena, the nature of
reality, is that you tweeted uh
something very interesting. You said,
"As former defense minister, I am
provoked to speak on the subject."
You're talking about UFOs. I know what
the armed forces have in their archives.
What I can say is that if the US
government reveals its documents, I will
do the same if I am elected president of
Brazil. So, I'm very excited to be here.
Thank you for having me. It's an honor.
>> Thank you so much, Jesse. And welcome.
Welcome to Brazil. I know it's your
first time here in my country. So,
welcome. I hope that your stay does
justice to you, not only as a
journalist, but also as a guest.
>> What was the first time, if you can
recall, that you started to take UFOs
more seriously? Was there a moment, do
you remember, when you first heard about
UFOs?
>> Yes. In my youth, there was this huge
curiosity about these phenomena. And it
was a type of healthy curiosity because
the news was divided between phenomena
that were observed and there was also
sci-fi literature that used this subject
matter as the object of writers,
journalists and also afficionados. So it
got all of our attention
and we saw that in the movies in
literature and yeah it got my attention.
I've never monitored it really closely,
but I've always been curious about
seeing it in the news, especially with
regards to phenomena that is related to
national defense concerns.
In Brazil alone, there are hundreds of
episodes, but three at least were
closely overseen by the armed forces and
the Brazilian intelligence and defense
systems.
One occurred in the state of param in
the 70s. Another one was in the 80s in a
town called Sonus Compus
and the other one was in the '90s in the
south of Mineris in the town of Vine.
These episodes were documented were
overseen.
The armed forces were interested in the
subject
because there was a concern that these
events could pose a risk to national
defense and security.
And naturally, this for me, someone
who's always been concerned with issues
pertaining to national security and
national defense
as also part of Brazil's foreign policy.
This is what led me to keep up with at
least these three events.
>> I'm very excited to talk about all three
events. I want to start with um Praau,
Operation Praau in 1977, Colaris. Uh
it's a fascinating case and it's a very
dark case because you have the the
people uh in this village, this little
fishing village were being terrorized
essentially. They called it the chupa
chupa because uh their blood was being
extracted. Uh the the mayor was uh in in
deep fear. you had men and women
sleeping uh in the 50 to 60 uh you know
in one place just so you know the men
could defend the women because often it
was uh younger females that were the
targets of these sorts of attacks and it
felt like uh lasers and directed energy
were uh being beamed at them. So uh what
do what do you know about this and what
do you know about this specifically that
the rest of the public might not know?
Well, Jesse, what all of us who keep up
with this phenomena know is what has
been documented, and there's a lot of it
because there is testimony of the
military who were in charge of the
operation because they had to send a
whole task force to monitor these
phenomena.
And there are accounts of not only
military but also a physician, a doctor
who attended to the victims of these
incursions
of these strange unidentified beings.
At night, they would see those objects
in flight, and the method never varied.
As it was flying, the object would cast
down a beam of light.
That light illuminated the person and
paralyzed them. From in that white light
came a second beam which was yellowish
in color and roughly 30 cmters in
diameter that would be pointed at the
person's chest.
After that there was another beam that
was red.
This beam would make a puncture. It
extracted blood and also put something
in the body of the victim.
Something like an implant. There were
several deaths.
So there's a suspicion that they were
laser beams, but no one really knows
what kind of beam struck and affected
those people. And after being hit, these
people had perforations,
blood loss. They were anemic. They also
suffered other
they felt numbness in their bodies. a
number of injuries that were identified
by the physician who assisted these
people
and the officers who witnessed it and
set up the whole operation
in this village in the state of Barah
documented these objects as they were
approaching
and they couldn't identify where they
were. So that has been fully documented.
Now part of the reports and accounts of
this event and the operation,
I mean it was a long operation still
remains classified
kept by the armed forces.
But that which has been documented is
substantial evidence of the existence of
the phenomena.
of the people that were victims of the
contact with these unidentified objects
and accounts by highly credible people.
These are officers from the armed forces
and the physician who tended to these
patients who had complications and
injuries that stemmed from the event
that took place in the state of PA.
And you had an official investigation
that it sort of prompted. It was, you
know, operatial uh Praau and you had
Captain Aland Lima uh go in and
investigate. He brought a whole team.
They documented 300 plus encounters.
They took 500 photographs and they
recorded 15 hours of Super Eight film
footage and they had a whole
documentation that was over 2,000 pages.
He himself actually saw an alien being
that was in a space suit and and the the
being sort of gave him a hug and uh he
went on record uh about this later about
two decades later in 1997 and then he
sadly committed suicide a few months
after that.
The Super 8 footage this is still I
believe exists in uh the defense
ministry. Did you ever see it? And do
you have access to it,
>> Jesse? There is no question that there
was an official operation executed by
the Brazilian armed forces to monitor
this phenomenon
with the title Operation Pratu.
So, this isn't up for debate.
The operation took place. It was an
official operation led by the armed
forces to monitor these phenomena in the
state of PA.
The second fact is the existence of the
diagnosis and the testimony of the
physician regarding the victims that
were affected by the same phenomena.
There is no question about that either.
The only question that still remains is
about a report that was not documented
or disclosed
on part of the then captain who later
became a colonel. When he passed he was
a retired colonel.
That part of the report which is still
classified, which remains confidential,
is what we didn't have a chance to
analyze or witness what it's comprised
of.
So, we only have access to that which
has already been disclosed. and it's a
full detailed description of the
contact, the testimonials, and the
testimony of the members of the armed
forces that were responsible for leading
the operation.
So, there's no doubt about that.
Now, you seem like a very thoughtful
person who doesn't just take in evidence
that's anomalous and not think about it
a lot. Do you have any leading theories
about what Colaris was? because it's
such a bizarre fact pattern. You had
puncture wounds, blood taken, it almost
looked like ultraviolet burns on a lot
of people. Uh you had a physician who
was present actually, Dr. Carvalo, who
famously went on record seeing two women
who basically had strokes, who died due
to these UFO contact events. Do you have
any theories as to what caused all of
this?
>> There's a list of injuries. And all of
this is part of the diagnosis of the
medical report. It wasn't just a matter
of the strokes or anemia or blood loss.
Other consequences like numbness
and a variety of others that resulted
from the contact of these people with
these unidentified objects and beings.
You see, I don't have the scientific
knowledge.
>> I was not present during the event.
In order to develop a theory regarding
the origin of whatever it was that was
reported,
not only in this event that happened in
Kadis, but the others as well, like in
Vagina.
And if science itself with all of its
resources, all of its means can't
clarify, I think it would be reckless on
my part in trying to develop my own
theory on the origin of these phenomena.
[clears throat]
It really wouldn't be prudent of me to
even attempt to provide a diagnostic
after decades of efforts from experts
and scientists and people who dedicated
their whole lives like Nick Pope himself
who went to his grave saying, "Well, I
can't account for the 8% of the facts."
>> Who am I to say anything?
>> Fair, fair enough. uh you know Jacques
Ble is uh one of the godfathers of UFO
research. He's French. He's an
astronomer. He was actually involved in
the invention of the internet and he
came down um to Karis to investigate and
he also came to the he calls he all his
his diaries are called forbidden science
and he came to the conclusion because he
spoke to Dr. Carvalo who saw 35 patients
who all had the same sunburns and
puncture wounds and the two women that
died of a stroke and he was just
astonished that science can't even look
at it. It's too it's almost too much for
uh humans to cope with for our kind of
epistemology to kind of understand. And
so, uh, I I I think that's very fair to
not come to a conclusion, but I hope
that we can study this in a more
official capacity. Um, you obviously are
running for president. Um, there are
rumors about conversations between you
and Bolsinaro. I know you've had some
issues with the Christian Democracy
Party. Uh, if you were in office, would
you would you start to have that
conversation in a more official
capacity? Would you try to get the best
and brightest Brazilian scientists on
these sorts of topics?
>> Yes, provided that the common
denominator is the national interest.
The reserves have to protect national
security. I believe that here we have a
classic liberal common notion that the
state should not have secrets. People
can have their secrets. Companies can
have their secrets.
But there are some people who believe
that the state should never hold
secrets. I think there are secrets that
are personal,
secrets that relate to trade,
cooperative secrets,
scientific secrets,
technological secrets,
and secrets that are national of the
public interest that pertain to the
state. The state many times is forced to
adopt procedures that it can't announce
publicly, especially in the areas of
defense, foreign policy, and
intelligence.
This information will be revealed taking
into account that there is a common
agreement with other countries.
That's why I conditioned the disclosure
of this information from Brazil to the
disclosure of the same information from
the United States
because a significant part of this
information and I guarantee you is
shared. If a man who is an expert
migrated from the UK to the United
States to do the same job, it's because
there was some level of reciprocity or
you could even call it complicity
between the intelligence services of
both countries with regards to sharing
this information.
So to the extent that this information
may be shared and disclosed under a
reciprocal agreement,
This should be done for the benefit of
science, for the dissemination of
knowledge, even if it does eventually in
many cases raise a sense of uncertainty
and suspicion.
Because of course, if you admit that
there is life outside of our planet,
it's not a small matter. It isn't merely
scientific. It involves morals. It
involves philosophy and religion. Some
very sensitive nerves are going to be
touched upon that have to do with human
history, human culture and human
traditions.
So it's very important to be cautious
when you touch on these very delicate
sensitive issues that have to do with
the values of humanity is a must.
Brazil is very interesting to touch on
what you just said because it sits at
the intersection between traditional
Catholicism but you have people
practicing traditional Catholicism and
also Kendombé Umbanda Alan Cardich is a
you know spiritist from the 1850s who
obviously had his whole taxonomy of you
know non-corporeal beings you know huge
following in Brazil and So, uh, it's an
interesting place in that you have the
traditional religious element, but you
also have the openness to some of these
phenomena. And so, do you think, uh,
UFOs in in your mind, do you think it's
consistent with Catholicism? How do you
think people in Brazil would react?
Because in my experience, I almost think
that it feels more natural and it feels
like they're more open to the phenomena
than in places even like the US.
Jesse, the concern
regarding this subject appears in a very
indirect way. When I was really young,
there was a book that was released here.
It was super successful. Everyone read
it.
>> Chariots of the Gods. The Portuguese
title would translate to were the gods
astronauts.
So, did they build the pyramids?
And that ignited a wave of curiosity.
science fiction movies, movies about
extraterrestrials,
the possibility or not of the existence
of extraterrestrial life. All of this
raises a huge commotion, a lot of
curiosity,
especially when fiction addresses these
ideas. So, it shows that people have a
lot of interest and curiosity about the
subject and maybe even beyond interest
and curiosity.
It also reflects and reveals an
existential concern.
In other words, what are we in the
world? Are we alone? What if we're not
alone?
How do you explain these other forms of
life, these other beings? If we here
were created in the image and likeness
of God, if this was how man was created,
are we ready for a different
circumstance? Another hypothesis.
I believe that this has to be discussed
with a lot of respect and a lot of
caution. It's not something that can be
subject of mere speculation. Unless
we're talking about fiction, then it's
absolutely fine. Movies, literature,
talking about if gods were astronauts,
about an alien aboard a spaceship,
that's fiction.
Science, however, has another level of
responsibility. It can't treat the
subject that way. There's a book by Carl
Sean who was probably one of the
greatest scientific exponents in the
United States called Demon Haunted World
in which he touches upon the amount of
scientific ignorance of American society
of rulers of statesmen. Ronald Reagan,
for example, would rely on a card reader
to make his decisions.
back then he would say that there was
only one that had a background in
science which was the prime minister of
the UK who had a degree in chemistry. So
he would say that the average American
was so ignorant scientifically speaking
that they had the equivalent mentality
of someone from the end of the 19th
century. So these people would look at
science from a great great distance.
Their worldview is explained by the
presence of demons and not by the
presence of science. So that has to be
taken into account that situation.
According to him, a survey was done
with Americans asking them
how they believed the dinosaurs had
vanished. And 90% of Americans would
say, well, it's because they couldn't
fit into Noah's ark and that's why they
disappeared because they were left out
of Noah's ark. So this issue has to be
taken into account and it's not
exclusive to the US. It's all over the
world.
[laughter]
>> It's true. And that's a great book by
Carl Sean, The Demon Haunted World.
Sean's very interesting though because
he also wrote the movie Contact in the
book Play Pale Blue Dot. And so and in
his early diaries as a child, he
speculates a lot about UFOs. He has
clearly a wonder for, you know, the
universe. And he talks about, you know,
platonic objects, you know, uh things
like uh higher dimensional space objects
that uh you know, like a tesseract that
you would only see the shadow of if you
were kind of on a lower plane. And so,
you know, I go back and forth. I I
wonder what he actually believed about
about UFOs. And I know Nancy Reagan and
probably Ronald Reagan had their
astrologer but maybe sometimes you know
mystical ways of of knowing are also you
know valid too you know um Baba Vanga
would you know regularly advise world
leaders I believe Bolsinaro who you've
you know now have sort of a friendly
relationship with he I think has an
astrologer as well. Yes. And there is a
type of astrology which would turn to
knowledge as well which is Egyptian
astrology.
It's not the astrology that comes from
horoscopes that you read in the
newspaper. That's another thing. The
astrology
that was referred to in Egypt was based
on the rigorous examination
of the stars. It wasn't this mere
poppyccock made to sell these packages
with astrology and horoscope issues that
was sold with daily papers. There's
another important book by Carl Sean
which it's called I'm not sure in
English but in Brazil it's called
billions and billions and he touches
upon this issue with a lot of care and a
lot of sensibility
and I believe that in this way
I believe that the care taken into how
science
should approach
this subject
has to do with taking into account the
science scientific knowledge of people
because you shouldn't really breed
desperation or create panic. It's very
easy to create panic. You know the uh
the Orson Wells story,
>> the radio show.
>> In other words, he created panic by
simply telling a story that wasn't real.
It was fake news. But since he was such
a competent and efficient communicator,
as Orson Wells was known for, he whipped
up a panic on a news radio show. So I
understand the caution and the prudence
of science because it's different from a
mere opinion from a piece of literature,
a short story, a novel, a movie. When
science makes a statement about a
specific subject, there's a weight to
it,
which is not the same as what fiction
authors write about.
>> Very well said. I want to go on uh kind
of in chronological order. So, we talked
about operation prao karis in 1977. 1986
in May, you had 21 unidentified objects
uh spotted in four different Brazilian
states. You had six fighter jets that
were dispatched from bases near Brazilia
and Rio. And all of them were scrambled
by these objects. And you have the Air
Force making a very fascinating official
statement on the whole thing, saying
these were basically aircraft flying in
ways that we technically don't
understand. They were flying, you know,
at extreme speeds and maneuverability.
What do you know about that night in
1986?
>> Yes. And in fact, the fighters that we
had at the time were state-of-the-art.
The F5 jets, which were American, but
also the Mirage fighters that came from
a base close to Brazilia, the Anopoulos
air base, which was built very close to
the capital of the country.
And those jets flew from the base in
Santa Cruz in the state of Hanei and
from the Anapoulos air base in Guayis in
the attempt to intercept the UFOs. But
after that, other pilots in the air
force
reported very similar phenomena.
[clears throat] And long after that and
in the 80s
there were many reports by pilots from
the air force that were documented.
One of them, for example, was a pilot
that was flying from Chile to Brazil,
flying a fighter jet. And he says that
an object made its approach at a very
high speed. And that when he tried to
approach it, the object took off, and
this is documented, at a speed of 25,000
km an hour, according to what the radar
picked up.
So, the existence of the phenomena is
undisputed.
I sat down with Jose Manuel Fernandez
who worked for the Brazilian Air Force
for 34 years and was an air traffic
controller at Sao Paulo's Kongas airport
on May 19th, 1986.
This was the same night as the mass
sighting known as Brazil's night of
UFOs.
Fernandez watched in real time as
fighter jets scrambled to intercept
these UFOs only to be completely
outmaneuvered and outmatched.
So I relayed [music] the information. I
could see the fighter jet, the F5
fighter jet,
you know, reach supersonic speed to try
and reach the object.
But curiously enough, and I can assure
you
that I speak the truth. Even though the
F5 was moving at supersonic speed
as the fighter jet was in pursuit of the
object,
I could even see the tracks that were
left by the fighter jet.
You know, the object was just playing
hideand seek. it would just show up and
appear at a very distant point. So when
the F5 would try to come closer, the
object would just simply disappear and
then just reappear further down.
What's up for debate is what these
phenomena are. That's what still has to
be
investigated, discussed, identified. And
this could also be an effort
that is more in the interest of science
than the interest of defense. Because
really
when it comes to the national defense of
countries, this was never reported as a
risk or threat, right? Or registered as
such. The information that these objects
would be trying to collect or capture
really cannot be
verified. However,
in terms of threats or risks or even
damage for the defense of Brazil, the
United States, England, Russia, there's
no record that any of these phenomena
resulted in damage for these countries.
So therefore, from the point of view of
national defense, it's a permanent
reason of concern, but it's not really a
risk. So much so that the concerns in
Brazil in the area of defense have
subsided. But what still remains is the
question, the
shadowy area. What hasn't been brought
to light in terms of science? To this
day, from a scientific point of view,
there's more dark than light when it
comes to these phenomena.
>> You've mentioned some of these UFO cases
in the context of advanced technology.
Do you think that some of what we've
experienced maybe on this night for
example in 1986 or some of these other
Brazilian encounters are not in fact you
know other beings but they're our own
advanced technology. Obviously the
United States has conducted military you
know secret operations in Brazil since
World War II.
Jesse, it's very hard to believe that
the United States commands the
technology to produce objects that can
move at 25,000 km an hour.
The US sacrificed
a generation of their best pilots in
trying to overtake the Russians during
the space race
when Gagadin Yuri Gagarin took his first
orbit trip
and the world was astonished.
The US entered a situation of despair
and panic because they were surpassed in
an event that gave the Soviet Union
international projection. Gagardian was
received in New York and S. Paulo as a
celebrity, respected, cherished, and
admired around the world. To overcome
this, an American author wrote a novel
about this. They actually made a movie
about it as well.
>> They brought together the best pilots in
America to an air base.
And the majority of them died trying to
do it because they didn't have the
equipment. They didn't have the
material. It couldn't resist a space
flight. And the widows learned of the
deaths of their husbands of these very
young pilots because they didn't have
the right material. If the US in fact
had the material that would resist
what was seen involving these objects,
they wouldn't have sacrificed their own
pilots. I'm not sure if it was Paul
Kennedy, a writer, who described this in
a very nice novel about No, it was the
same one who wrote a bonfire of the
vanities. This one that wrote a book to
Tom Wolf wrote the right stuff.
Tom Wolf. Tom Wolf wrote the novel about
the sacrifice of these young pilots for
America in the space race. So I don't
think that it had anything to do with
espionage on part of the US or even the
Russians. They didn't have that material
available with that degree of resistance
that would endure that kind of speed. it
would have melted by much slower speed
than that.
>> So that kind of explanation just isn't
reasonable.
>> Yeah. I mean even in the 80s the US was
just starting to build stealth craft but
the rumor even the rumors of the most
advanced stealth craft was Mach 4 Mach 5
which is you know 3,000 to 4,000 mph. So
25,000 is just orders of magnitude more
advanced than you know anything that
that we had. Maybe you had some unmanned
drone then but I don't know. I think
it's very hard uh to believe. So you
would agree with the the Air Force
minister Brigadier um Octavio Julio Mora
Lima's statement that these things they
we detected them. They were what they
were and that the facts are what they
are and we don't know what they are. You
would you would agree with that that
these are sort of genuine.
>> I agree. Absolutely. Totally. We we
don't know what they are, what these
phenomena are. We don't know what these
objects are. And it's so hard to
identify them that science itself is
unable to develop a theory on it. They
can develop a theory about what they are
not. They are not man-made. They cannot
be man-made because in science the
ability to build that kind of material
at that level of resistance.
There's no alloy that can resist that
kind of procedure of these objects and
these phenomena. No man-made object
would be able to move at that speed. I
mean, look, in the ' 40s, in the UK, and
then in the 70s, in the 80s, what kind
of material would resist 25,000 km an
hour? Impossible. Not here, not in the
US, not in Russia. Okay, but who else
could have done it? Who was leading the
special alloy production for rockets and
spaceships were the US and Russia.
That's it. But not at that level of
sophistication. No.
>> Some of the patterns are just
remarkable. You see 90° turns. So it's
breaking Newton's laws, conservation of
momentum. And uh Captain Virat recorded
this thing on radar and it was he
recorded at Mach 15 doing a zigzag
pattern. If you were elected president
or vice president, would you ever sort
of look into this radar data and
consider uh exposing some of this radar
data and maybe the super eight footage
from Colaris to the public for broader
research and study.
I would rather look into all those
reports to look at all the footage
and talk and consult with those who are
interested in the subject matter at
hand. There is multilateral interest.
We're not the only ones interested in
it. There's probably this interest in
identifying that phenomenon in the
States. same in Russia, maybe in China
as well, Germany
or the UK. So I believe that this should
be the object of a multilateral
agreement
among countries with the inclusion of
the two most important key elements
which are the fields of defense and of
science, the world of science. Perhaps
an international conference to be
responsible for that.
A consultation with experts
and scientists,
physicists
and experts and defense
so that the world can start looking into
this with more transparency, more
responsibility and more scientific
curiosity. So that these phenomena are
not just constrained to the world of
fiction because fiction can explore very
successfully the curiosity and
humankind's existential concern as well.
>> That's a beautiful vision and I hope
that happens because there are all these
patterns that start to develop if you
deeply research this stuff. Uh but I
think a lot of the scientific community
just looks away. they don't look at the
patterns. And so I know one example is
that uh you know the the Amazon River
basin is 7,000 or I think it's 7 million
uh square kilometers and you have
obviously outlets rivers all over Brazil
and water is a very important part of
the UFO phenomena. They often seem to go
submerge into water, come out of water.
their uh indigenous myths going back you
know centuries about you know water
people and that sort of thing. So it
would be very interesting to develop an
international coalition and have our
best and brightest scientists from all
different countries really in an
unbiased way investigating this.
Well, that's probably because when it
comes to unknown phenomena in space,
there really is no visible [snorts]
financial interest.
Einstein got to the theory of relativity
because there was a search by mankind to
turn matter into energy.
So, you had capitalism and expansion.
The system needed energy which was
scarce but it was the main input for the
development of capitalism and scientists
from all over the world were looking for
a way to turn matter into energy and the
theory of relativity Einstein's equation
which is comprised of
energy equals mass times the speed of
light squared is basically to turn a
small particle of matter
into a large amount of energy. That is
what led to the theory of relativity. It
has nothing to do with the need of
understanding and identifying these
phenomena. There's no clear financial
interest in that. If there were, perhaps
the world
would have mobilized academia,
scientists.
The United States spends over half of
their budgets on military research.
But this was never the focus of this
investigation. So I think that once that
comes up as a possibility,
maybe then science will
actually be interested because now it's
more of an existential issue, a
curiosity. And unfortunately, science is
funded, but it's not funded by
curiosity. It's got much more practical
objectives and much more material
drivers
than
scientific curiosity.
However, governments can mobilize
part of their science
towards multilateral initiatives
to first gather information.
And once information has been compiled
to work out what's common and how to
move forward. Perhaps nothing can be
solved in a first conference on that
topic, but you could establish a process
to
shine a light on a matter that to this
day there's only been shadows.
>> Yeah, well said. And I think as much as
uh studying UFOs or exotic propulsion or
some of these, you know, free energy, it
seems sort of useless. I think in many
ways, you know, even if you look at
semiconductors, it came from a bunch of
people who were considered crazy in
Copenhagen thinking about the nature of
reality. And before that, they said
electromagnetism was the was the last
act. There'd be there'd be nothing, you
know, after that. And then you get the
quantum revolution and even with
electromagnetism, Maronei, you know, was
told that he was, you know, not a very
good student and that he was crazy,
that, you know, he'd never be able to
send electromagnetic waves as far as he
did. And so I think there's a lot of
value actually in government spending on
science that seems useless because that
ends up being the most useful. It's the
science that is the most existential
deals with the contemplation of reality
itself.
Exactly. Because
science comes
from experimentation.
The steam engine has been around for
2,000 years. Someone from Egypt, from
Alexandria, realized that when he heated
up water,
steam created mechanical energy. But
that remained as it was for 2,000 years
until someone in the UK said, "Actually,
that mechanical force discovered by
Heron from Alexandria could actually
move a steam loom." And then heron from
Alexandria's steam engine became what
drove the industrial revolution in
England.
And then the military revolution because
then the UK created the steam engine and
the British Navy ruled over China and
then over the world. So this transition
from experimental research and knowledge
to technological knowledge and economic
activity is a natural step and humankind
is familiar with it. Most probably
Einstein wasn't thinking about the atom
bomb
when he thought about turning matter
into energy.
But what happened was
just like the steam engine was turned
into the steam gunboat.
You see, matter uranium was transformed
into the atom bomb which was dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that's how
science works for better or worse.
[snorts] There's a small town in
southern Brazil called Virginia. It has
130,000 people. And in January of 1996,
something absolutely remarkable happens
there. Uh my friend is a documentarian,
his name is James Fox, and he made a
movie called Moment of Contact. And he's
spoken to maybe 15 to 20 people between
people who have seen beings and people
who have seen the craft. He's
triangulated the flight path. And
basically this cigar- shaped tic-tac
craft seemed to have some sort of
puncture in it. Gas was coming out of
the back. It crashed on something called
the Myolini farm. An ultralight pilot
named Carlos Doza, who's also a
geography teacher, held pieces of the
craft in his hands.
It seemed to have bounced the rear end
of the craft which was completely
destroyed. There were pieces everywhere
and the front of it which was
practically half of it slid further and
ran into a tree. That's literally what
it did. It ran into a tree,
hit the tree and stopped. Thinking he's
looking at a blimp or some kind of
experimental aircraft, Carlos's first
thought is that there were people
inside. So, he rushed to the crash site
to help. And that's where he realized
this wasn't a normal crash.
The very first thing that I observed and
that really caught my attention was the
smell. Because at that moment, what I
was expecting was the smell of diesel
fuel or kerosene or aircraft fuel.
It's normally a very strong smell. And
on the contrary, the smell that I felt
at the crash site felt like ammonia.
It was very strong. I don't know what
was the fuel or the substance that was
there, but it was a very strong smell,
something different, and it began to
burn my eyes.
A military convoy then pulled up and
soldiers started to secure the area.
Before they reached him, something on
the ground [music] caught his eye. Shiny
pieces of metal from the wreckage. He
picked it up. When he tried to crumple
it, the material went back to its
original shape.
And a soldier, huge, really strong,
probably 2 m tall, really strong, came
running, shouting, "Get out of here. Get
out of here." And just at that time, I
could see quite a few pieces of debris
on the ground. And I picked them up and
it was kind of curved and then I was
surprised to see how light it was.
You know aluminum foil that you use to
wrap up chicken to roast that you use
normally in the kitchen. It was that
kind of weight. It didn't weigh anything
at all.
>> And I thought, well, this is strange.
>> All right. So I said, I'll keep it. And
so I crunched it up and so I made this
kind of movement, you know, to put it in
my pocket.
And what happened was this foil or this
sheet regained its shape.
Sounds a lot like the Roswell crash
material. Foilike, weightless, and
impossible to deform. Carlos wanted to
keep it, but things took a turn when he
was ordered to leave at gunpoint.
And then that soldier arrived, took his
rifle and started hitting me in the
chest and saying, "Get out of here." And
I started to question him, saying, "No,
there are people there who are going to
need help. I'm going to help them. I'm a
pilot, man. I know what they're going
through." He took a step back, raised
his gun, cocked it, and pointed it at my
head.
pointing at my head right here and said
to me,
"I'm not asking. I'm giving you an
order. If you don't leave, I'm going to
blow your brains out."
And he was later apprehended by some men
in dark suits. The beings then ran off.
Three women who seem very honest to me
saw the beings. It was a red, you know,
red eyes, brown uh with skin skin color.
And um it seems like one of the beings
was also apprehended by the military
>> by um a guy named Marcos Shereesi who
was a soldier and that he died due to a
puncture wound from the being. And uh
even Armandu Fortunado who did the
autopsy uh basically saw it was a
bacterial that he had never seen before.
And then all these people at the
hospital mention treating an ET being
there's a neurosurgeon Italo Ventterelli
who manages uh the whole chain of three
hospitals but Rejoales where they held
this being he was there and he was
checking the work of a guy who stitched
up and actually worked on did some basic
you know operating procedure on this
being. So you get thing after thing
after thing, this whole chain of custody
of this being different witnesses. To
me, it's the most interesting UFO case
globally
as far as documentation.
Uh because it's from the '90s and a lot
of these people are still alive. What do
you think about this case?
>> You know that that event created a
celebrity in Brazil. It name is the Va
ET.
Nobody saw the Vaja ET but everyone
knows about the ET. By the way, this
phenomenon, the Vaja ET, became a
national phenomenon.
In fact, sometimes people will kind of
poke fun at it.
They'll joke around about when someone
becomes a celebrity or famous, they say
that they're more famous than the Vah.
Now even if the ET itself remains, shall
we say unseen,
the phenomenon was documented
and also documented
both by the military and in the field of
health, the medical field. The
testimonials, if not all of them, but
most [clears throat] of them
are publicly wellknown, disclosed. We're
talking about testimony from doctors
like Dr. Itto Ventterelli, a chief
neurosurgeon [music] from Hospital
Regional. By his own account, he showed
up to work like it was any other day.
His colleague, [music] another
neurosurgeon named Dr. Marcos Phinesis,
pulled him aside. At first, he showed
Ventelli a tape, grainy footage of what
looked like a small child with a
deformity getting patched up after a
procedure. But then Marcos Vinesis
insisted that Italo see his patient in
person.
He brings Ittolo into the room where he
came face to face with the being for
four entire minutes. He was just lying
there with the surgical drape.
One hand in the other out like this.
Nothing here. And it's peaceful.
The bed positioned upright
like we do for neurological patients.
Eventually, the reality sunk in that
[music] this patient wasn't human.
He had arms. He had a chest. Pal's wife
asked if he had nipples. I didn't see
nipples. I didn't see a nipple lying
there like that. Neck, very small mouth.
The eyes like this as if they were drops
like that.
Lilac
and very peaceful. There was no
suffering there. No suffering at all.
>> There was no bad smell, no odor, no
nervousness, nothing diabolical. A very
angelic kind of being. Totally at peace.
It's hard to overstate how bizarre this
must have been. [music] A neurosurgeon
walking into what should be an average
day at work only to find what looks like
an alien creature lying in a hospital
bed.
>> It's not [music] bleeding. It's not in
pain. It's breathing normally. No
problem.
Everything's fine.
The being looked at me. As I always say,
it looked at me with a very beautiful
look. Not a judgmental look, not a look
of fear.
It had the look of someone who
understands very well what is going on.
But it was a different person, a
different being. It wasn't human at all.
It wasn't a case of human anomalies. it
was a different being.
>> I've been dealing with humans for 46
years, but back then about 30 years ago,
we knew how to tell when it was or
wasn't a human.
What's intriguing is that they didn't
lead to the initiative, for example,
of submitting
those who witnessed the events
both in the medical and military fields
to be questioned
to help shine a light on that event and
maybe lead to potential hypotheses about
what was seen about what was witnessed,
what it meant,
and the possible origins. No, they hid
it under a rock, so to speak.
The problem was treated with a lot of
secrecy, and they didn't move forward
with it. The possibility to clarify what
happened never took place except for the
city of Vahina itself which turned into
a sort of reference touristically
speaking. The town hall created a museum
to acknowledge and value the phenomenon,
to document it, and to give it a sense
of permanence, to take it away from the
world of fantasy, and turn it into
something, a phenomenon that was part of
the town's history, the region's history
here in the south of Mina. By the way,
the town is next door to international
soccer superstar Pelle's hometown. It's
close to Tresoras where Pelle has a
property. I've had the opportunity to go
to Vah and Toras and in Vah the
phenomenon is undisputed. There's no
doubt about whether it happened or not.
Now officially,
for example, health authorities, the
medical federal council, because there
were physicians involved, they'd never
get involved in the records or in the
investigation of the event. and the
armed forces were even more prudent,
especially when it came to reasons that
involve issues that have to do with
national security.
>> Not just defense, but national security,
which is broader.
>> Yeah. I mean, uh, you had a base there,
issa, and it seemed like they were all
kind of mobilized immediately when this
crash occurred. There's an actually an
air traffic controller that also claimed
that he said you and he says the US Air
Force was involved. Um and then there's
even a pilot in the United States that
just testified before Congress. I'm sure
you're aware that a lot of the um
witnesses came to the US. They actually
came on my show and they also went to
Washington DC and they spoke with a
bunch of Congress people and you have a
US pilot now saying uh on record that uh
basically there were missions that were
now scrubbed from the record going on
between you know CIA, Air Force and
Virginia around that time in 1996.
>> My name is Fred Clawson. I'm a retired
US Air Force Bird colonel and fighter
pilot.
In order to secure a cargo plane, a
specific protocol must be adhered to.
The tasking would be sent to Air
Mobility Command at Scott Air Force
Base, Illinois, who has command
authority over all US Air Force cargo
aircraft and refueling tankers.
The paper trail has begun.
>> So, do you think that the US is involved
in a lot of these sort of UFO events and
crashes in Brazil?
The United States are involved in
everything all over the world. The
question should be, what isn't the US
involved in? It's obvious that events of
that nature would immediately peak the
interest of the United States. Because
let's just work on the basis of the
hypothesis that an unidentified object
was in the reach
of a government.
That unidentified object would raise
interest across many different ways
because first the object what was it
built from? What kind of material? You
see what was the technology that allowed
that object to move at such a speed?
What were the alloys that were used to
build that material? What were the
communication instruments?
Or what was the fuel that was used in
order to make that object move? All of
that involves the interests of defense,
of science,
and obviously the US would definitely be
concerned that such an object didn't
fall in the wrong hands. So either we
manage to
find the object or the Russians will,
the Soviets will.
So it's a matter of national security,
of national defense, and also of science
because you could reveal a whole world
of perspectives of possibilities
in high resistance alloys just based on
one of such objects.
I'm not saying that this is what
happened.
I'm just saying that there would be a
natural interest.
>> That interest wouldn't stop at metal. If
you're truly trying to understand the
craft's technology, you're also going to
be interested in the craft's occupants.
And in Brazil, there's a whole parallel
story about that with rumors that the
Vargia creature was eventually
transferred to US custody.
The story was he was taken carried to
Campion to a very famous pathologist a
friend of the Rahmandus Palaris and that
they then took it to Area 51. I don't
know. That's what they say, right?
>> There is a unit, an army battalion
in the town of Tresoras
because the army there holds the oldest
school in Brazil for the formation of
sergeants.
There's another sergeant school for the
air force, but that one's in Guachinga
in the state of S. Pao.
So in this base this army base there is
a battalion
which has its hierarchy they can
mobilize
and it's very close to vajim maybe 30 km
away so obviously the unit or at least
part of that unit went to provide
support to an operation
that involved the presence
and the existence of these phenomena. So
I have no doubt that there's an interest
from the US but whether that did take
place and how that is still shrouded in
some mystery and there is indeed close
contact between the two defense
departments especially when that
phenomenon took place. I mean both
Brazil's defense department and that of
the US. I have no doubt about that
because we have a history of cooperation
when it comes to defense that dates back
to the second world war.
There is a previous history with
Germany, with France, but as of the
Second World War, our biggest
cooperation in the military and defense
came to be with the United States.
Because
in Italy, there was a Brazilian army
division that fought alongside the
American soldiers in Italy against the
German forces.
You were a defense minister under Dilma
Rusev in 2015 2016. Uh did you look into
UFOs in that official capacity at all?
>> No, we had other concerns.
Inside of the Ministry of Defense, we
have a classified area that is only
shared by the minister or some experts,
but it's more geared toward the area of
intelligence because we have military
intelligence which pertains to the high
command of the army which has an
extensive history. We have naval
intelligence as well. I believe it works
similarly in the US and we have air
force intelligence also. And we
concentrate information in the
intelligence department of the ministry
of defense. And as with any other
institution, we have classified data and
information
that cannot be made available. There is
the concern regarding cybernetic threats
because
there's the possibility of attacks on
the institutions by hackers
by people who want to eavesdrop and
collect information or simply eavesdrop
snoop and release sensitive information.
So this is probably the area where the
classified information
is concentrated. And in Air Force
Command, which is the institution that
kept a closer eye and received reports
with more frequency because they were
conveyed
both from military pilots and also civil
aviation pilots that many times made the
reports to control towers that are also
supervised and controlled
by the air force command.
So the information therefore is
concentrated
in this area. Same goes for the army
because they also participated
in some of these operations. So the
reports come from army officers.
However,
the discussion in society with regard to
this agenda has decreased in importance.
In recent years, I'm not sure if it's
only in Brazil, but at least in Brazil,
we see that the discussion and the
information regarding these phenomena
has migrated to the civil sphere much
more rather than remaining only in the
military sphere.
>> You said that fundamentally you do think
something happened in Virginia in 1996.
When you hear the testimony of Itala
Ventterelli, he's this neurosurgeon. He
manages a few hospitals. Um, seems like
a very competent guy who's never made a
penny off of his testimony. And he says
he sat face to face with what he
describes as an extraterrestrial being
for 4 minutes. Do you believe him?
Of course, I believe him. Why wouldn't
I?
believing that a phenomenon like this
exists. Of course, because these were
phenomena that had the testimony of
totally credible witnesses. Three girls
had no reason to make up a vision or
invent a creature just to testify about
it. They couldn't. and they had no
reason to make it up between themselves
that they saw a different phenomenon or
creature that hadn't made any
appearances previously or had been
witnessed.
Same goes for the doctor and the
military officers. They had no reason to
make it up. One of them is Dr. Armando
Fortunado. He's the forensic pathologist
who performed an autopsy on the soldier
Marco Sharesi.
Marco, who is patrolling Virginia
[music] for the being while driving his
vehicle, sees the being out of the
corner of his eye. He tells his fellow
soldier to stop the car. He jumps out
and he grabs [music] the being in order
to apprehend it and take it to the
hospital.
The infection he had is extremely rare,
not impossible,
but it's virolence and severity caught
the Tojanini's attention.
A scratch or some sort of contact with
an extraterrestrial
shouldn't be ruled out.
>> That infection quickly turned [music]
lethal.
After his death, his case landed on the
desk of Dr. Fortunado and the samples
went to one of Brazil's most respected
pathologists, Dr. Xiao Jamini, owner of
IPD Laboratory [music] in Virginia. What
they found lying in Marco's body in that
autopsy was so disturbing that both men
are still talking about it decades
later.
Janini said recently last year that the
bacteria found in the material
examined in the laboratory
is not common
in our country
and that the bacteria was extremely
virulent
and which are very progressive
deviating from the norm of everyday
practice in Brazilian medicine
and that he did not rule out given the
circumstances that had come to him that
the bacterium could be an alien
bacterium.
According to Dr. Armando, Marco's sister
said that Marco had come into contact
with the Vgenia creature and later Dr.
Jamini told filmmaker and friend of mine
James Fox that he thought the bacteria
had strange evolutionary
characteristics. I think it was like the
term he used was he never seen an
advanced bacteria of this strain behave
the way it did ever before or since. And
even Cesario who was working on him,
it's like I threw the kitchen sink that
should have all the antibiotics I gave
him should have saved his life but it
didn't do anything like it just he goes
I've never seen anything like it before
since either. So it was a adaptation or
an evolution of a particular bacteria on
Earth, but that they haven't seen on
Earth that type of evolution. It's the
best way he described to me as a
neopight. So
>> So we're not talking about an unknown
life form, but a native strain acting in
a completely unfamiliar, unprecedented,
almost upgraded way.
We have pretty good testimony from a
number of witnesses on the Brazilian
side that the entities the the ET went
back to America, but we don't know what
happened to the craft itself. has heard
any rulers of where the craft went.
The information that's held by the
Ministry of Defense
is strictly classified.
Therefore, it cannot be disclosed or
released under any circumstances
unless
there is an international agreement. I
said that if the United States discloses
its information, then we also have the
right to do so. But that of course
remains purely hypothetical.
>> So if if the bar incident didn't happen
then it wouldn't be classified. So that
tells me
>> oh James James he already he already
said on record I know it happened. I we
just need to interpret what happened.
>> The problem is not the existence or not
of the phenomena. The issue is
explaining,
identifying
precisely what happened. That's the
object that poses itself naturally as a
challenge. The phenomenon existed. It
was there. The objects were there. The
creature was seen.
But what was it? And where did it come
from? And why were they there? What did
they want from us? I believe that this
is what really is of scientific interest
so that we can begin to theorize about
it.
>> I know you're you're you're speaking
very um casually about the phenomena
being real and then the fact that we
don't know exactly what it is. I just
want you to realize how uh historically
unprecedented and amazing in my opinion
it is that somebody of your caliber is
saying that because really until this
year politicians all over the world at
civilian agencies like NASA or
intelligence agencies like the CIA or
even elected officials were
professionally gaslighting and telling
basically the public that this stuff is
all fake. And so I think it's amazing to
have a former defense minister, current
presidential candidate who is kind of
the ideological
uh backbone of a lot of modern Brazilian
politics say in such a kind of p way, of
course UFOs are real.
Look,
I believe that it would be the first
time in history that nation states would
start becoming interested in a
non-existent event, you know, in
something that is impossible.
Why did the British prime minister
organize a committee inside the Royal
Air Force, inside the RAF
to study these phenomena?
Why was there in the United States such
dedication to the investigation of these
phenomena? Why is it that in Brazil the
army and the air force created a unit to
monitor these phenomena?
Why have pilots of jet fighters formally
educated and trained
to deal with
all types of airspace phenomena
reported
on more than one occasion these
phenomena in detail? Would they simply
make up that they had an encounter with
an object that moved at 25,000 km an
hour? Why would they?
Frankly, if they didn't make it up,
>> if the physicians in the state of Barah
or the doctors in the town of Venia
documented
with their professional credentials,
with their professional
responsibilities,
these phenomena, the people that were
impacted by them,
why wouldn't you
lend these people credibility.
Now this is but just a part of the
issue. See the testimonial, the witness
and the existence of the phenomena. The
other part,
the other issue is identifying the
meaning behind them. This means that the
inexistence of the phenomena can't be
the answer to ignoring the science
because this takes us back
to a period
to the times of old when humans didn't
believe
that in fact
it was the earth
that revolved around the sun.
people didn't believe because they
didn't know it yet. Many times the
consequence of ignorance is the denial
of that which you don't know. So I
merely attribute the denial of these
phenomena
to the inability
to explain
what they mean and what they represent.
But all the testimonials
cannot be challenged and people with
authority
in life to provide testimony as we have
around the world.
Well, I think uh millions of Brazilians,
you know, after hopefully this makes
national headlines will feel heard and
will feel seen by their leaders around
this topic because I think a lot of
people have seen things in the sky. And
um in 1954 actually in the Escola
superior degera you know basically the
national war college here there was an
air force captain Olivivera and he said
this phenomena is real and you know he
was very passionate about that in the US
we have very many equivalents too. So, I
think a lot of people who've um you
know, we have a great researcher here,
Pacini, who was very deep on the Vargia
case. He's filming and um you know, a
lot of these guys have felt very um
probably unrepresented by their leaders.
And so, I think they'll be very uh just
feel very emotional and excited that
somebody of your stature is sort of
giving them that validation.
[music]
I wasn't approached. They tried to kill
me.
>> Really?
>> Yes. I was coming. One of one of those.
>> What did they try to do?
>> What? What they did? They shot me. Shot
my car.
>> This is researcher Victoriao Pakuchini.
For others, it might be easy to casually
dismiss UFOs as a modern SCOP. But he
remembers when investigating a crash
like Bargia could get you killed. one of
those days because I used to go back and
forth taso city, Virginia City. Mama was
living there. My used to stay with my
mama.
>> So you were well known as being the
primary investigator of this going back
and forth.
>> Yes. Yes. Everybody I was there. I went
to the I I called the media to give the
names who were involved. The militaries
I gave all the names, the operations. I
was the one. There are videos all over
the country, all over the world right
now about it. So, everybody knew me and
the secret service, the intelligence
service probably was paying attention in
all of us. One of those nights I was
coming back from Virginia to Trescos to
have dinner, my mama, relax, have a good
night of sleep. in the middle of the
way,
a car behind me. I I I don't speed up,
okay? I I'm nice and easy listening to
some bolli,
okay? Laini, nice music. And then the
car didn't pass me. I I felt that a
little strange.
Kept going. All of a sudden,
hit my my bumper. Okay. My back bumper
twice. Okay. For for the the noise, I
knew it was a was a shot. I stepped on
the accelerator to to give me distance.
Okay. I got some distance from this car.
I took distance so I could stop the car
and and abandon the car. Otherwise, I
would be a rabbit running from the fox
until a point that the fox would grab
me. And I had a friend at that time with
me all the time. It was my 357 Magnumon.
Okay. Nobody knew, but I was at that
time the director of the Mino Jedi
Shooting Federation.
I had a lot of training with my 357
Magnum.
>> So, they were [ __ ] with the wrong
guy.
>> Well, probably. So, I I I stopped the
car, got some distance, I abandoned the
car, and went behind the trees,
hoping that they would quit that
operation. It didn't work very well. I
escaped, but the car came, a black car,
but since the the the headlights were
on, I could see somebody with the with
an arm and a gun outside the window. And
he shot twice again. He missed my car.
I wasn't in the car, but he missed
because the first two shots hit my my
bumper, my back bumper. But the other
two shots, they missed. I didn't
because when they passing I was be
behind a tree right next to my car when
they pass and they missed the car they
passed
I fully discharged
six times and I also heard bing bing I
broke the windows
and I hit and I hit the metal. Okay, I
had a speed loader. I emptied the gun.
get a screw loaded once again and six
more. If you ask me if I killed
somebody, I don't know because I didn't
go there to check it out because I was
afraid they were waiting for me. So
immediately I got back to my car and
went back to Virginia to find a public
phone and said, "Mama, they tried again.
Don't worry, I'm still here. I'll wait
for the the sunrise and I'll be back in
Tresoras. Don't worry.
The thing is when it comes to politics,
especially when the person holds office
in the executive branch, they're driven
by immediate events. You have to deal
with practical problems. is you have to
solve practical demands and that which
demands no solution because the solution
doesn't
involve a material economic interest.
It's always sidelined or postponed.
This means you have to entrust
the investigation,
the debate of these issues to the people
who understand that there is an
importance that goes beyond the
material. The importance of science,
the importance
of shedding light on that which for
humanity can expand horizons that are
still unknown to them or that they still
don't master. And especially the world
of politics and even the military are
driven by very immediate interests.
Someone holds office and they remain
there for two years, right? And two
years is just just enough time to pay
some bills, to manage units, solve
problems that pertain to human resources
that they'll eventually have under their
command. There's just not enough time to
deal with goals and interests that
aren't under their direct responsibility
and other the attainment of the solution
that is possible to be provided by him.
So this issue of investigating UFOs,
objects, unidentified objects that
appear here and there is far removed
from the demands of the authorities that
tend to administrative issues and
defense in governments.
>> Well, you're right. Most political
leaders aren't particularly academic or
ariodite. In the US you had uh Woodro
Wilson uh you know in the early 20th
century who was president of Princeton
but since then it's been very few and
far between as far as you know people
who are really well read and polymathic
and kind of renaissance you know type
people. It seems like you are uh you
know I know from your son Pedro that you
have a library of over 6,000 books many
of which you've read personally. You've
taken notes on. He said that he was
writing, you know, his uh his thesis and
uh he was using your books to research
the thesis and that you had sort of
notes, you know, all throughout the
books. And so, um I think that allows
you to think more broadly about some of
these, you know, nature of reality
questions uh than people who are just
trying to execute on functional tasks
ahead of them. And it's in the vein of
you know Plato who said that the the the
king or you know not calling you a king
but people who are leaders should be
also philosophers and they should be
sort of the most learned and uh you know
I feel like uh in modern politics that's
kind of been divorced
received its best contributions from
those who dedicated themselves to
abstract thought.
Greek philosophers
have lasted so long because they thought
well beyond their everyday needs,
well beyond their immediate concerns.
Plato, Aristotle,
even Arab philosophers, Jewish
philosophers,
the Romans,
they were philosophers of abstraction.
In other words, of general ideas. From
general ideas, they attempted to explain
everyday phenomena.
But modern politics
has lost that ability. It's all about
the immediate power struggle.
The abstract plane
has all but been dismissed. It's all
about conquering immediate power,
remaining in power, working to maintain
power, and anything that's not part of
that is either dismissed or neglected,
belittled,
and it's not exclusive to Brazil. The
same thing happens in the US with a few
exceptions.
But the democratic world lives off of
managing its deficiencies, its crisis,
the contestation and protests of
politics,
the loss of quality among public people.
It's lost its ability to select
in the US,
which is the role model of democracy
that the world looks up to with more
interest.
There used to be elections, but there
used to also be selection parties
used to select their candidates.
There was a time,
the man who conquered the North Pole,
Lindenburgg, he used to be a celebrity,
a well-known person. Had he been a
candidate, he would have had 80 to 90%
of votes. But he made a very interesting
remark to Nazi Germany.
and the leaders of the Republican party
said no this could lead to conflict with
Germany tomorrow. Our president cannot
state such views. So he was sidelined in
the convention of the Republican party
specifically because there was in
addition to the elections
something previous which was the
selection. Politicians weren't just
elected they were selected also. There
was a sort of committee,
a senior group of people more seasoned
who functioned as a sort of filter
and contemporary politics has lost the
ability to filter. Democracy has become
something
very contradictory because an
increasingly more open democracy is a
possibility.
But the quality of public people
unfortunately has collapsed especially
from that point of view of knowledge,
the ability to perceive the world to
consult science
to support public planning and public
policies. That's what's happening all
over the world.
>> Yes. Uh there's a great book called the
the fall of public man and it talks
about how uh public life has become a
panopticon prison and there used to be a
phrase called you know private vice
public virtue where a lot of people who
we consider great leaders you know
didn't have the most perfect backgrounds
but they were the the man of for their
time you know and I think now today uh
you almost have this two-pronged thing
where you have to be you have to have a
perfect personal record in order to and
so nobody would ever want to go into
politics because you have to be this
sort of you know jump through every hoop
start you know the perfect foundation
here and virtue signal constantly or on
the other side you have reality TV stars
and social media people uh because
they've sort of grown up in that and
they don't even care and so you you end
up with a completely intellectually
vapid landscape and Um it sounds like
you sort of resonate with that, but that
it's definitely the case in the US and
so it seems like you're um you know uh
an anacronism in many ways. You're
you're a rarity in today's political
world.
>> That's true. The same thing happens here
because you have in politics there are
celebrities in politics, communicators,
the Tik Tok phenomenon. These are people
with a lot of engagement
from an electorate that isn't very well
read,
lacks education
and guide their decisions based on
social media. It's based immediately on
emotions. It's not based on information.
The ability to move people is what
drives the vote and therefore politics.
And what starts to happen in the
political world is this deficiency on
part of the candidates. And what also
begins to occur is a phenomenon that was
called by an American theologian
the corruption of virtue.
What's the corruption of virtue?
The corruption of virtue is the use of
virtuous causes for very nonverirtuous
objectives.
So when you want to
take oil from a different country, you
don't say you want oil, you say you want
democracy. So you bring down a
government and you say that it was for
democracy. Democracy is a virtuous
cause. So people support it. But what
you actually want is oil. And when you
come to the Amazon and you say that
you're going to defend the environment,
people support that because the
environment is a virtuous cause, an
important one, a humanitarian cause, but
it's not really about the environment.
What's at stake is a different interest.
Maybe mineral resources, water,
biodiversity,
sources of energy, whatever is in the
Amazon that is of interest to those
people. So they resort to the
environmental cause because it's a
virtuous agenda.
So the corruption of virtue
is very present today in politics, in
geopolitics, in diplomacy
and all international relations and
politics across countries.
>> Yeah, absolutely. It's um it's very hard
to criticize an NGO, a nonprofit, some
sort of international organization that
seems like it's here to help uh when in
fact, you know, those can be used uh in
sort of predatory ways to gain leverage
and you know, to deplete resources and
to do all sorts of things. I mean, one
kind of interesting phenomena that
actually occurred uh today was just
announced that uh the Vatican is working
with Anthropic, which is this AI company
in the Bay Area. And so um you have this
interesting idea of uh perhaps a
religious organization weighing in on a
technology and sort of, you know,
attempting to possibly regulate it. Uh
have you thought about this at all? Is
this sort of, you know, at all
interesting to you or
>> I have thought about it and I'm very
worried about it because
three or four weeks ago,
the Economist magazine
on the cover of The Economist and their
main news article talked about the five
main AI organization leaders
and called them the new baronss of
global economy.
the men who will replace oil tycoons,
steel tycoons.
These are the new tycoons. They hold a
lot of power.
So this article said that they have
offered a study
on
the risk
of finance
being attacked by hackers
in the US. And the study shows a huge
vulnerability in the financial system.
The US government is very concerned
about that and asked them not to
publicize the study because if it were
to be made public, it would confirm to
those interested in hacking the system
what they were looking for because the
study would show exactly where the
vulnerabilities are
in the financial system. But the
economist was talking about the
exponential increase in crime in the
financial system that originates from
AI. Artificial intelligence isn't
exclusive to banks. It's also available
to those who want to breach bank
secrets.
So what is the problem? The problem is
the US government only wants a small
group of companies to have access to
these AI studies. These companies argue
that if this happens, China would be at
an advantage because it would make
available to all of their companies
this information and knowledge.
Therefore, Chinese companies would have
an advantage over Americanmemes if only
the major companies had access to it.
The Israeli author
Yuval Hari
anticipated these concerns in his two
books sapiens and homodus.
So mankind is creating the ability to
create life and to exterminate life and
artificial intelligence
is creating. His book claims that
mankind will create an AI that will be
so powerful
that it will want to replace the homo
sapiens. The homacina
will want to replace the homo sapiens.
That
theory which 10 years ago might have
been considered science fiction is a
real thing today. So the concern
on part of the Vatican is valid. Their
concern is valid because it'll involve
international efforts
and there will be a dilemma between
freedom
and control. How do you strike a balance
between these
two needs?
Because they're contradictory
and antagonistic.
Because if freedom, if you have full
freedom, then there is no control. And
if control doesn't have any limitations
then there is no freedom. So this is a
challenge that has to be shared by the
whole world
and not only governments but religious
leaders as well. That must be the
concern of the Vatican. No one is exempt
from this situation.
Speaking of extremely advanced
technology, a documentary just came out
of the United States where you had a
former CIA director, Brennan, and former
director of national intelligence, James
Clapper, and you had a whole host of
intelligence officials, um, quoted
people like David Grush, who was, you
know, former national geospatial agency,
a bunch of people down the line saying
that the US is not only involved than
UFO research, but they have uh materials
and they have saucers and crafts and
hangers where they're working on reverse
engineering these UFOs and they have
alien bodies as well that they've
recovered alongside these crafts. Really
remarkable statements. Do you believe
those statements are true?
>> I would need more information about this
situation. But if
unknown
machinery or equipment [clears throat]
that might provide access to material
that human engineering hasn't been able
to develop is
in the grasp of United States
authorities,
that would require a level of knowledge
that perhaps isn't available to us
even if
global science has made such progress.
Carl Sean himself
used to say that when it comes to the
universe, human knowledge is still a
grain of sand in the desert.
It's a drop in the ocean. What we know
compared to what's out there in the
universe.
So first of all, I think science needs
to be humble. It needs to acknowledge
its limitations or for lack of a better
word, ignorance, scientific ignorance.
And those who have dedicated themselves
to learning more need to admit that
there is still so much we don't know.
and also need to admit
that
politics
once Einstein was asked why man was able
to take control of the atom but not stop
the atom bomb and this was his answer
because politics is a much more complex
science than physics.
Politics is much more complex.
So we need to rebuild bridges between
politics and science because politics
built on ignorance and lack of knowledge
can lead us to the worst catastrophes.
So science really needs first and
foremost
to acknowledge its own limitations,
its own ignorance and it needs to keep
an eye on and charge
the field of politics more scientific
responsibility
because otherwise we could get to the
point of no return
in that relationship and this field of
artificial intelligence
is precisely the most sensitive point of
the situation.
Why do you think UFO disclosure seems to
be happening globally now? Do you have a
take on why this whole topic has so much
momentum over the last five or 10 years
in a way that it hasn't had for a
century? And you know the US the
department of war is now dropping all
these documents that it has you know the
department of war has a specific website
that has 500 million hits more than the
entire US population. You have
congressmen in the US that take up the
UFO issue that are seeing all sorts of
amazing popularity because you know
really people grab on to the issue. But
do you have a sense of why now?
What caught my attention was that the
controversy came up recently because of
a dialogue, let's call it a dialogue,
between former President Obama and
current President Donald Trump.
So they had this dialogue and I wonder
why would a former US president from a
very recent period
and the current president
who has
so many responsibilities,
so many tough issues to deal with. In
fact, he missed out on his own son's
wedding ceremony
to monitor negotiations with Iran very
closely and to open the straight of
Hormuse to put an end to the conflict,
but he had time to have this controversy
with President Obama. A former president
of the United States also has a very
busy schedule. conferences, talks all
over the world, not only in the US.
So why would they waste time or spend
time with a current president at a time
when the world tends to underestimate to
treat in a belittling manner this issue
and saying, "Oh, it's not important.
It's not relevant at all. Never
happened. It doesn't exist."
Why would two such important men start
dealing with something that didn't exist
that supposedly has no relevance, no
importance? Either something happened or
something is about to happen. Right? I
don't know exactly what happened or what
could happen. What I can say confidently
and with certainty
is that if the current president of the
United States who doesn't have the time
to go to his own son's wedding has the
time to deal with this issue, I mean to
deal with the war with Iran or relations
with China.
The president of the United States
doesn't deal with more than two or three
problems a day. It's impossible for them
to deal with more than two or three
problems a day that are key to the
country. I know that I worked very
closely with presidents. I was a
minister. I worked in political
coordination. I was a political leader.
I saw the president's diary. They
delegate to ministers and they use their
secretaries from different departments.
Science and technology, defense, state
secretaries. They all have their own
schedules and the president chooses two
or three issues to deal with every day.
So suddenly in the middle of all that
this subject emerges and reemerges
the subject of unidentified
objects, unidentified flying objects
within
controversy between both the former and
current head of state. Obviously, this
requires anyone capable of rational
thought to realize that something
important
might be said or revealed. What exactly?
Only he knows.
>> Yeah. And Obama sort of walked his
statement back. He talked about Area 51
and alien beings underground there. But
then he realized the documentary that
got made that I was talking about. It's
called Age of Disclosure. Uh John
Brennan was his CIA director and James
Clapper was director of national
intelligence. And then Obama has a
production company where he's making a
movie about the first abduction in the
United States, Betty and Barney Hill in
1961.
>> So he's definitely interested in the
topic. Um, have you looked into those
sorts of phenomena like uh close
encounters of the third kind where
people meet beings face to face? There's
one that's famous here, Antonio Vas
Boas. I don't know if you ever heard of
this in the 60s, but there are many
cases where people seem to like, you
know, interact with the beings and go up
on the ships. Have you ever seen
anything like that or [laughter]
>> No, I've only heard what I saw in the
news. It's an expression that we use in
Brazil too.
There was a phenomenon,
an event close to
in the state of Mineris.
This very well-known event involving a
group of students who were on an
excursion in the mountainous region of
Mina.
and
one of the girls moved away from the
group for a while and just vanished.
And the investigations never came to a
conclusion about what happened to her.
This young girl, she was with this party
and the local press said that it was
like
a phenomenon
of abduction. In other words, she
disappeared due to a immaterial
phenomena.
And this is of course in the literature,
but it's not part of my knowledge or
domain, nor is it my role to make
further considerations about it. This
phenomena,
>> you know, the the final case I'll bring
up is there's a there's a Stanford
professor named Gary Nolan. He's a
famous professor in the US and um I
guess there was a columnist here at O
Globbo. His name is Ibraim Sueed and he
was mailed a little piece of a UFO
because this crash was seen by this
fisherman on the beach in Ubatuba. Have
you heard of this case in 1957?
>> No
of the object. They didn't get the whole
thing and that ended up with Ibrahim Sue
and he sent this
this part of the object to this
scientist at Stanford in the United
States.
>> Yes, exactly. So, um, this fisherman
sees this thing zigzagging, flying in a
sort of a pattern. It blows up on the
beach and fragments fall out. He then
mails this to Ibrahim Sueed. Uh he then
mails it to Jacques Valet, the French
UFO researcher I met I mentioned
earlier.
>> Jacqu Valet is close with Gary Nolan,
the Stanford professor. And he says, "I
want you to do mass spectrometry on it.
Test it." And so he tests it. He
>> did they spectrometry?
>> Yes. He has it in his lab today. I've
seen it actually myself. And it has
99.9%
magnesium, a level of purity in the
magnesium that you would never find
naturally on Earth. You only find
magnesium with sort of alloys. So
extremely interesting facts pattern.
That's very strange. And even stranger
is that science did not go any further.
They didn't make any statements about
what this could mean or about what it
represents scientifically speaking. Who
could ever here among us
build similar material or process a
similar alloy? And why was this type of
alloy built? What was the goal of this?
These are the questions that science
should be asking as an alternative.
>> I agree. Speaking of controversies
between present and former presidents uh
in the United States, I think you are
very interesting because you you exist
at the intersection between Lula and
Bolsinaro. Uh in many ways you're kind
of the intellectual fabric between them.
Obviously you worked with Lula. Uh now
it seems like Bolsinaro, you know, is
taking up some of your ideology, but uh
very few people can be described as sort
of a, you know, former socialist,
communist, now nationalist. So you're
sort of like this walking paradox. Um
but I think you've remained consistent
in some underlying ideology. Uh how do
you view your role now in Brazilian
politics and how do you think this next
election is going to shake out? I've
always been a nationalist.
My origin is nationalism, earthbound
nationalism, the countryman's
nationalism.
I was born in the countryside. I was
born with the help of a midwife. I'm not
sure how to translate it to English.
I was educated in a rural school.
Then I attended an agricultural school,
technical agricultural school. and
everything pointed to the importance of
national history, domestic history, the
national memory, national history as an
explanation of who we are. Why are we a
national community? Because we have a
common history.
And then I joined the Communist Party
because we were under the military
regime. I fought for freedom of speech,
for amnesty, for the freedom of
association, political association, and
I spent a long time there, but I'd
always been a nationalist. And as I
stood by these convictions, I saw that
the world in the past 200 years has been
guided by two types of nationalism.
The nationalism that resulted in the
independence of the United States, which
was a struggle against colonial powers.
American independence was a nationalist
struggle. The independence of the
countries in Portuguese dominated
America and Brazil were nationalist
struggles. The independence of the
Spanish colonies in America
was a nationalist struggle. So it was
the nationalism of the emerging
countries
against the nationalism of the colonial
empires because Britain wanted colonies
to maintain its own nationalism. And the
same goes for Portugal and Spain. So
recently we saw a wave of national
struggles in Africa. We're talking about
the nationalist leaderships that fought
for the independence of African nations
against France, England, Belgium,
Portugal
who had African colonies. The struggle
in Vietnam was a nationalist struggle,
the defense of the country's unity, etc.
And this is a contemporary struggle. You
have a dominating nationalism
against a defensive nationalism,
democratic. Therefore, I always attempt
to
see the positive sides of both Lula and
Boson
because no one votes on a party or a
candidate because of their negative
aspect.
Every
political leader, if you look closely at
their biographies, solely focusing on
the flaws of their private life, no one
can escape.
If you look at the private life of
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar,
you'll hardly look and say, "No, they're
perfect." What should be examined is
their contribution to the development of
the world. Hellenization
promoted by Alexander the Great
recognizing the importance of Greek
culture. So that's the lens we should
look through here in Brazil. Why does
Lula have so much prestige? Because he
has a social concern
concern with the poor with minimum wage.
And this concern should be valued.
People recognize this. It's not because
he was charged with corruption because
of the mansal operation car wash. People
don't vote for this. And why did they
vote for Bolson? Was it because he
didn't didn't deal with the pandemic the
way the population wanted? Because he
belittled the struggle and other
important issues of the country.
People don't vote because of that.
People voted on Bosanu because they see
in him the concern with the yellow and
green with the national symbols,
concern with family values which the
leftwing many times see as something
conservative. He values family religious
values which are very important
especially for the poor. Bonadu values
this. So I think that it's important to
bring together that which
from the population's viewpoint is
important in both figures. Being
concerned with the poor is important.
Being concerned with Brazilian
sovereignty is important. It's important
to be concerned about national values,
about family values, about religious
values. So my nationalism is a
democratic nationalism. So, it's about
reducing inequalities
and appreciating democracy. And this is
what I mean. I'm not talking about the
form of parliamentary democracy. I'm
talking about the ability of a country
to establish dialogue, analyzing its
conflicts and finding common solutions
because we are united in our problems.
Public safety is not a problem
exclusively of the left or the right.
The price of fuel doesn't have a
left-wing or right-wing agenda. When you
go to the gas station, you don't find
a different price depending on which
candidate you voted for. I think it's
the same around the world. In the
States, the gas price is the same for
Democrats and Republicans alike. If a
criminal is going to mug you, he's not
going to ask, "Who did you vote for? Oh,
you voted for him?" No, he's going to
rob you. Period. So if the problem
unifies the country, so should the
solution. I was a minister under Lula. I
was speaker of the house when he was
president. I was government leader in
Congress
and I
worked alongside Balssonado for more
than 20 years on the same committee of
foreign affairs and national defense. We
would travel together. We talk. Of
course, we had disagreements because I
was from a left-wing party and he was
more conservative. So, it's important to
be able to disagree, but to also find
common ground, common solutions.
I was speaker of the house
from a left-wing party and I was invited
by the speaker of the house in the
United States, who was a Republican, to
visit. I was very wellreceived. We had
an important agenda.
We talked about Brazil, Venezuela,
Bolivia, and I was welcomed by the
assistant secretary of state for South
American affairs, and we became very
close. After that, he became ambassador
to Brazil. At the time, I held office as
a minister. So, I think this is what
it's about, Jesse. You have to hold on
to your beliefs. But you should place
the common interest, the national
interest dialogue above everything else.
>> You mentioned the economist before. I
used to read the economist all the time.
And in the kind of mid 2000s, you had a
term that the economist would always
write about bricks. B R I Brazil,
Russia, India, China, the developing
economy. And there was this narrative
that all four of those countries were
going to sort of overtake the developed
world in a lot of ways. Lula obviously
pulled a lot of Brazilians out of
poverty, but you've had setbacks since
the protests in 2013, and you know,
things haven't gone, I think, the way
that in the mid 2000s one would have
hoped aspirationally as a Brazilian. How
do you get back to that momentum when it
comes to GDP growth and future progress?
>> Well, Brazil is a very rich country, but
it's also a closed off country, blocked
institutionally speaking.
In Brazil, we have the largest mineral
reserves in the world.
China has so much rare earth because
it's examined all of its territory.
Brazil has much more rare earth than
China across all of its territory.
If you go to Hurima in the north of
Brazil, it's very difficult not to find
rare earth. Even close to Vaj in the
south of Mina,
you find an extreme density of rare
earth.
If you go to Guayis in the center west
of the country, you will find
highdensity rare earth. The United
States bought a single mine we had of
rare earth for 14 billion he eyes. $2.5
billion. We could have 200 of these
mines authorized. But everything is
blocked. Oil extraction, potassium, gold
extraction. So it's important to lift
these restrictions in mining, in
agriculture, in cattle raising.
Brazil is the largest basin of protein
and grains in the world. Brazil is the
largest frontier of energy in the world.
We could increase our hydroelectric
power generation twofold if we set up
five or six plants in the Amazon.
There's no railway system in Brazil, no
waterway system. China has been building
50,000 km of railways and has been doing
this for 15 years.
And Brazil doesn't have a single train
connecting its two largest cities
Janeiro and Salo. There isn't a single
train connecting the federal capital,
the capital of Brazil to any other city
in the country. So the country needs to
change. The United States connected the
Atlantic and the Pacific in the mid 19th
century.
railways across the country. To this
day, we have not been able to reach the
Pacific Ocean by rail.
So, Brazil is a country that's blocked,
that needs to be unblocked,
unrestricted, so that we can create a
sovereign rare earth fund, issue bonds
for rare earth, and [clears throat] even
receive royalties for rare earth. And in
very little time, Brazil can become a
prosperous country with very good growth
rates as long as these restrictions are
lifted. But for that, you need public
policies, not only economic policies.
Hm. Uh there are rumors now and I guess
I I want to ask you uh the Christian
Democracy party uh seems to have uh come
up with something around expelling you
and so what do you have to say about
that controversy? I know you reject the
idea and then on the backs of that
people are now saying that you might be
throwing your hat in with Bolsinaro. And
so I want to ask you, are you going to
be running alongside Bolsinaro?
No, I'm going to remain a pre-candidate.
The leader of the party invited another
precidate who hasn't said anything thus
far, but they looked into his
performance and his polls were very low.
So, I'm keeping my precidency on my
agenda because my pre-candidacy isn't
just about the elections.
I need to communicate my agenda to
Brazil to bring back the development of
this country. The agenda of national
value, national defense, national
science, national technology, national
diplomacy, infrastructure,
employment, increasing income,
especially for lower income people
living on minimum wage who can't live
with dignity.
That is my agenda, national unity. I
don't want a fragmented country.
You can win an election with a polarized
country, but you'll never govern a
polarized country. You'll be wasting
energy and you need to gather energy,
creativity, and enthusiasm
of people
around hope. What do I mean by hope?
Economic development leads to hope.
Development
leads to discipline.
When people see the possibility
of doing better in life, they study.
They look to become more qualified
to go and look for a better job for
their lives. And when there is no
development,
when there is no hope that as I said
leads to discipline,
what you get instead is despair. And
despair is the road to predition,
especially among the young. That's what
drug trafficking in the Amazon is all
about. It's an alternative for young
people who don't have an economic
alternative.
They live off government aid. A very
large part of the population in the
Amazon depends on government aid because
there's no economic activity there.
So, we need to pick that up again across
the country. We need to bring the
country together
around shared objectives.
In the 19th century,
Brazil became independent as a monarchy
and that monarchy protected the unity of
the country because republics would have
segmented Brazil.
So we had a monarchy that brought the
country together.
But there were still civil wars, local
leaders who wanted their own republics.
The emperor at a certain point invited
the most important of those leaders and
said, "I want to have an administration
that will reconcile people.
I want to have a ministry that will
reconcile both parties. I want you to
have an administration with both
parties." So, there's a huge division in
Brazil now. It's almost like a cyber
civil war. It's a war in social media.
It's online, but it's civil war. There's
a lot of hatred, a lot of intolerance.
We need to put an end to that so that
this country's energy can go towards
building something.
Of course, there will be lots of
disagreement on many points. But will we
only have disagreements? Is there
nothing that brings Brazilians together?
What unites Brazil? What brings us
together? Business owners, workers, the
middle class, academics, the military,
religion.
For the country to get back to growing,
we need to decrease inequality. We need
to place value on education. I think we
can bring this country together. A
country that places value on democracy.
Democracy is the ability to talk. Okay?
You think you're leftwing, you think
you're rightwing, but the country is
above that. Citizens are not left or
rightwing. They want a solution to their
problems. They want to be able to pay
their bills at the end of the month, to
pay for groceries, to make rent, to pay
for their car, their children's school,
the pharmacy. That's what they care
about. They don't care if an
administration is left or rightwing.
They want an administration that can
solve their problems. Can we offer them
this administration? So, let's see.
You're in favor of two people of the
same sex being able to get married and
you're against it. Okay, let's talk
about it. Okay, you think that there is
racism in this country? Fine, let's talk
about it. But that cannot be above the
common shared interest.
I believe that this is the political
solution. The economic solution is to
unblock the country. The political
solution is to unite the country around
everything that can bring people
together.
unite people.
>> Have you studied uh other success
stories when it comes to governance over
the last 70 years? Places like uh
Singapore with Lie Kuwan Yu or Taiwan,
you know, Chiang Kaishek uh where you
have massive growth uh and do you think
like a certain industry can be what
reboots uh growth here in Brazil? You
mentioned rare earths. Obviously that's
a key area of contest between the US and
China specifically when it comes to
refinement. Um is that it or do you have
other ideas for how Brazil really gets
back to high growth territory?
I do have an interesting example in the
United States which was Lincoln's
choice. Lincoln's choice as the
Republican party candidate
at a convention when he wasn't the
strongest candidate. There were two
governors who opposed each other, I
believe, that were much stronger
candidates than Lincoln was. But the
conflict between these two
suitors
made Lincoln become the consensus
solution. He was a lawyer who'd lost an
election to the Senate.
that was described in the book and there
is a film about his story, Lincoln's
story.
And what he did after he was elected was
he asked his competitors to rule with
him and he gave the state department to
one, the treasury to the other. The key
positions were given to those who were
competing against him in that
convention. So the United States does
have that example of unity and of
dispute. For example, what happened with
the independence movement? There were
key differences
between
the leaders who paved the way for the
independence of the United States. I
just read Alexander Hamilton's biography
and he talks about those differences but
they were addressed because of a shared
interest a common interest and the whole
world is like that. If you look at any
transformation process in the world
there are always conflicts disputes but
there's also unity and unity should
protect what is in the interest of the
country. Brazil has
plenty of opportunities to have
relations with both the US and with
China, but here they want to pick a
side. Either we're paired with the US
and we're going to stick with the
Republican party agenda and the other
side with the Democratic Party,
either with the US or with China. Why
does Brazil have to make that choice
between the US or China? Brazil should
choose Brazil.
Why is that? Because we have
a very powerful bond with the US. They
were the first country in the world to
recognize our independence.
Our emperor was the first foreign head
of state to visit the United States. The
first trip of a US secretary of state
abroad was to Brazil.
So, we have a longstanding relationship.
Culturally, we're very close.
>> Every Brazilian with a certain degree of
education is very fond of American
literature.
Walt Wittmann dedicated a poem
to Brazil's proclamation of
independence,
a poem dedicated to both constellations.
We have a constellation on the Brazilian
flag and there is a constellation on the
US flag and that was celebrated by the
greatest poet in the United States. We
always had the habit of keeping up with
the literature of the United States
reading for example Mark Twain, Jack
London,
American poets and more recent
literature. We all admire literature
from the 30s, the 40s.
all of this American movies.
But of course, we also have our
differences.
Why? Because the US is a powerhouse with
geopolitical interests around the world
and here too. So
we
were recognized by the US as an
independent country and the following
year there was a rebellion, a
successionist rebellion in the northeast
and the US supported that. When the
leader of the succession was killed, an
American citizen was also killed who was
encouraging the separation in Brazil.
And the emperor reacted violently with a
lot of repression. And that created a
huge diplomatic standoff because the US
government, the embassy, and the
consulate tried to put a stop to it. In
1964, we had a coup in this country with
support of the US. But right after that
the military cut relations with US
because of the nuclear program and the
space program. In the second world war
our main agreement was made with the
United States. We gave the busiest
airspace to the US which is in the
northeast. We provided rubber to the
allies. There couldn't have been a war
without rubber. They needed steel, oil,
and rubber. You can't build a warship, a
plane, or a tank without rubber.
Japan took the rubber from the English
in Asia. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt,
came to Brazil twice. Once to Rio to
meet with Vgas and to Hugan D. Vargas
never left Brazil to travel to the US,
but Roosevelt came here twice. And he
came specifically to ask for rubber and
an air base. Also because Germany had a
plan to invade the northeast of Brazil
to stop support from leaving Brazil to
go to the allies in Asia and Africa. So
we've always stood together, fought
together, differences, disputes and
unity, and we should remain united in
the interests that we share. We
shouldn't do anything to go against the
United States and we shouldn't accept
anything from the United States that
goes against our interests. It's like
having a draw. Okay. What are our shared
interests here? We are committed. This
is what I said when I was the speaker of
the house when I visited the US. We are
committed to putting our best effort
into fighting drug trafficking. That is
what we'll do. And secondly, putting our
best effort into making sure that there
are no terrorist bases on our border or
in our country.
And we will not accept US military bases
in South America because that's going to
create a difficult situation. One
country is going to want an American
base. Another one's going to want a
Russian base. Another one is going to
want a Chinese base. And it's going to
be a mess.
So we should have good relations with
the US and with China. China doesn't
fund any NOS's here.
They have their interests here. Food
security, rare earth, infrastructure,
energy, those are Chinese interests.
Brazil sends more than a third of its
exports to China. So Brazil must also
have a relationship with China that
respects Brazilian sovereignty. And the
same with the US. Whatever is beneficial
to Brazil and to China and as a shared
interest, we should do. There's a lot
that Brazil can do, both with the US and
with China. Brazil has everything the
world needs. Food security, we have it.
Energy security, we also have it.
Mineral,
strategic mineral resources like rare
earth, we have it. Biodiversity for the
economy of the future, we have it.
What are we missing? We just need to
choose in accordance with what fate has
given us. That's what we need.
>> Yeah, that's a beautiful vision.
I want to switch back to UFOs briefly
and say that actually Brazil is very
forward on this subject. Uh, as of 2009,
there was an ordinance called uh uh
551GC3
and it basically any military branch
that sees a UFO, they are mandated to
give that information to the Central
Aerospace Defense Command. And so I want
to ask, did you ever look into that in
2015? And if you were elected president
now, would you look into this?
This ordinance has the objective
naturally of concentrating information
and the ability to
make decisions regarding the behavior
and actions surrounding these events in
the air force which is the right
institution to adopt
mechanisms
to act because they have what is
required. It shouldn't be the navy or
the army or the intelligence service.
The first action should be taken by the
air force naturally.
And today in the world, there is a
change going on. There's no longer just
one air force.
They've been turned into aerospace
forces.
Speaking of which, military attaches
when I was minister of defense wouldn't
introduce themselves as air force
attaches. You have the navy ates, you
have the army attaches,
and there was the aerospace forces
attaches.
Brazil still hasn't adopted that
nomenclature, but it will have to
because
with the
militarization of aerospace
or the possibility of the militarization
of aerospace. We're not just talking
about air defense. We're talking about
aerospace defense.
And as such,
it's going to have to deal with
predictable phenomena,
known phenomena, but also unpredictable
unknown phenomena. It's not a choice,
it's a given. Either you prepare for
that or you cannot fulfill your duties,
your mission in the defense of
space and in the defense of aerospace.
This
is the correct and upto-date
nomenclature. You mentioned rare earths
being present near Virginia. Which rare
earth specifically? Which which uh yeah
rare earth minerals?
>> It's rare earth and strategic minerals
that are found in the south of Mina.
It's a quadrangle that goes from Baso
Jakaldes to the municipality of
Andrades.
There you can find the important
presence of exploration
of these minerals.
Also in the area of Mina which is known
as the Mina's triangle
you can find
nobbium
which is very important in the
fabrication of highresistance alloys for
aerospace applications and the the
information
from the geological reports about the
presence of these minerals in the region
of Vahina
points to rare earth of very high
density and very high quality that
supersedes anything that has been
explored in the world today.
Very close to minarize we have bos
city. Okay. Around that area it's plenty
of Iranian
>> and they process Iranian to make the
yellow cake. The yellow cake is the last
stage of uranium before you turn it into
plutonium
>> or enriched uranium.
>> Yes. Right next to Virginia,
>> for example. But it's not only uranium.
There's a lot of uh uh rare elements.
Okay. In the whole mineriz states. And
if when people ask us why minarize
well the answer for us is quite obvious
because there's a lot of rare elements
you can find all of them most all of
them of the uh periodic table of the
chemical elements you will find in
minarize and you and you find many caves
we have more than 4,000
different caves around minariz with all
these minerals. For us, there's a close
relationship
>> between the UFO phenomenon and the those
rare elements, minerals in the whole
state
>> because it's incredible.
>> It's the center of the UFO event in
Brazil. Although all over the country,
we have many accounts, but in Mina
Jarice is the center.
>> It seems like UFOs often show up around
areas with rare earths. Uh sometimes
they're uranium mines and you know rare
yeah rare minerals and and elements that
you wouldn't find elsewhere and kind of
geomagnetic anomalies present and this
is throughout you know there's a famous
case of 61 school children in Rua
Zimbabwe seeing a UFO land and a being
coming out and it's right next to a
uranium mine and that's very very
common.
Well, according to legend,
the territory which today is the state
of Hurima on the border of Guyana and
Venezuela
is very rich in rare earth and strategic
minerals.
So it is believed that when these
American satellites that can perform
these scannings searching for minerals
all over the planet when they cross over
the state of Hima, the signal is so
strong from the presence of rare earth
that the satellite shakes violently
almost to the point of dropping because
of the vast presence of rare earth in
Horima.
So Brazil, here's the thing, it's all
under indigenous reservations. Wherever
there's minerals and rare earth, there
has been demarcation campaigns on the
part of NOS's on indigenous land. And if
it's indigenous land, you can't explore
in it, touch it. It's frozen, so to
speak,
and it can't be used for economic
purposes. But there's a lot of that in
Brazil. You have that presence in the
north, for example. You have very
important mineral reserves. And this is
because
when the mineral deposits were formed on
the planet,
this happened during the period that
geologists denominate the pre-Cambrian
era. And these deposits are not made up
of only one type of mineral. They're
what you call associated minerals. So
much so that in Brazil, these reserves
are called national reserves. So you
take the mineral that has the highest
presence, for example, copper. But it's
copper and associated minerals because
with copper you have gold, you have
tungsten, a variety of other minerals
that can be found with a very high
density. and Brazil. One time in the
institute de France in France talking to
a physicist he had a map of minerals in
the Brazilian Amazon. So I asked how did
you make this map and he said we didn't
make this map in Brazil we made it in
Africa because you know at that time the
two continents were joined together. You
didn't have the Atlantic Ocean
separating the two. So African reserves
were developed at the same time as the
Brazilian reserves. So if we take into
consideration that they had a greater
presence the French in Africa
which is on the same parallel of the
Amazon we'll have the same in the Amazon
as well. So I said very interesting. So
whenever Brazil decides to explore these
minerals these French companies will
already have this information available.
I want to end on a more fun note which
is you are a big football fan and we're
here in Sa Paulo uh where you have the
team Palmas which you are as deep on the
history of as honestly anyone you've
written actually like a a book about
this 1945 tro t t t t t t t t t t t t t
t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
t t t t t t trophy that you found that
was covered in dust. Uh some legends
like Roberto Carlos and KFU have come
through this organization. I want to ask
you, it's, you know, on everybody's
minds right now. Uh, in this most recent
World Cup, Neymar is being called back.
The once kind of wonderkinned legendary
football player is obviously very
controversial and he's being called up
to be on the Brazilian national team. Do
you have an opinion on that?
>> Look,
one has to understand what soccer means
to Brazil. Soccer is much more than a
sport.
Soccer is a phenomenon that challenges
sociologists, historians.
Why is soccer so dear to Brazilians? Why
is it so beloved?
Even for people who can't go to stadiums
to watch games because they're poor,
they can't pay for tickets, but they
love soccer, the teams.
In my view, it's because soccer was the
first way of rising up the social ladder
for poor people
at a time when the country gave no
opportunity for a young black man,
misogynated, mulatto, from the
impoverished outskirts because he
couldn't make it to university.
There was no economy that would give him
the opportunity to become middle class,
for example.
He was condemned to poverty,
condemned to scarcity. And then along
came soccer, which promoted and gave the
young black man, Mulatu poor for the
first time in history validation,
admiration, respect. So when the first
young black man had a position in
society, it was through soccer. and poor
people came to see in soccer this virtue
of being a democratic sport. A sport
that really opened up opportunities for
those who didn't have any. So people
embraced the sport and became a national
phenomenon.
Unique the teams in Brazil are not
restricted to states or cities like they
are in Spain. the team is from Barcelona
or Madrid or Catalonia or the team is
from Castia or Basque country or
Galatia.
Not here. Here the teams are national
institutions and people identify with
the sport of soccer because of these
virtues.
It was the first institution that
promoted
the young black man that recognized his
talent, his capacity. Only a young man
from the middle class could receive this
kind of recognition. Soccer created this
opportunity. And it became the sport of
the workers, of the downtrodden, of the
immigrants, of the Italians, for
example, who created Balmas. The
Italians suffered a lot of
discrimination here by the old elites of
the country.
So they created these teams. The rail
workers. The rail workers went and
created their own teams.
So I myself as a very young man still
living in the countryside of Algoas
started supporting Palmirez because next
to Santos which had Belle and Bafogu
which had Gahinia it was one of the
country's best teams
and in 1951
or rather in 1945 there was a classic
match between Kinchans and Palmier in
Sao to raise funds for the communist
party campaign. So I wrote a book called
The Red Game and why were they raising
funds for the Communist Party.
It was a recognition of the role of the
Soviet Union in the Second World War,
the effort of the Allies. The Communist
Party mobilized people to go and fight
the Nazis
and Nazi Germany. So there was this
recognition. The team managers were not
a part of the party. They merely wanted
to pay this tribute and raise funds for
the party. In 1951, there was a
championship that was organized by FIFA
with all the big teams from Europe and
Balieras participated in this tournament
and won. So they asked FIFA to recognize
this as the first
club world cup. And some time passed
with FIFA hesitating to make a decision.
And when the World Cup was finally held
in Brazil, it was Palmira's centennial
year. So FIFA brought together a
committee meeting and finally they
recognized this title. But above all, I
have a deep admiration, a deep
appreciation
for the role soccer played in Brazil as
an institution of social change, of
validation of poor people, validation of
the dispossessed
and of promoting the unification of the
country. It is truly a national passion
and Neymar is Brazil's most recent idol.
he can still play in this World Cup
and we have high hopes that he's going
to be in good physical condition and
that he can
fulfill such an important role in the
team and that Brazil can keep its status
as the country that participated in the
most World Cups and that won the most.
>> Well, there you go. I'm sure uh you know
the the the whole country is is waiting
to see what happens and uh you answered
that in a way that is kind of worthy of
how religious uh uh the following is of
you know Brazilian uh football. So thank
you so much for your time uh Mr.
Rebello, Minister Rebello. Uh this has
been an honor for me and I really
appreciate just how forward thinking you
are on a topic that uh most politicians
aren't really able to speak eloquently
about. So, it's it's uh it means a lot
and uh hopefully this is just the just
the start and maybe you get elected and
you know this is the beginning of a much
longer conversation.
Thank you so much for the visit, for
interviewing me, and I hope that you can
take from Brazil, in addition to
information, a good impression of our
country, our history, our culture, our
cuisine, and that when you go back to
the United States, you'll feel the urge
to come back as soon as possible to
Brazil. Thank you very much.
>> [music]
[music]
>> Heat.
[music]
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