Aladino Félix: From Contactee to Terrorist

September 30, 2019September 29, 2019 / Tristan / 4 Comments

Our lord and savior, Aladino Félix

I imagine few people have a résumé as colorful as Aladino Félix’s. This Brazilian Renaissance man was an author, translator, World War II veteran, contactee, psychic, cult leader, messiah, and a terrorist. Félix’s journey to greatness began with the events in My Contact with Flying Saucers, a book he wrote under the name Dino Kraspedeon in 1959. Like Buck Nelson and other contactees in the United States, Félix claimed to be on good terms with extraterrestrial beings. His first book is presented mostly as a dialogue, featuring the usual contactee tropes of spirituality, warnings about the atomic age, and a poor understanding of science.

According to Félix, his first encounter with a UFO occurred in November 1952. It was a rainy day, and Félix had just reached the top of a mountain with a friend when the two pals noticed a squadron of five UFOs in the sky. After the sighting, Félix spent three days waiting at the same spot, hoping to see a saucer again. On the third night, the earthling’s wish was granted. Not only did a UFO appear and land, but the captain of the ship invited Félix inside. The visit lasted over an hour, and it ended with the captain promising Félix that he’d be back soon.

Some four or five months passed. While sitting at home one Sunday afternoon, Félix’s wife heard the doorbell ring three times. After finding a traveling parson at the door, Mrs. Félix fetched her husband. At the time, Félix was an atheist. He dreaded listening to preachers, but let the parson in to be polite. The stranger was dressed up enough to put a Jehovah’s Witness to shame, wearing a nice cashmere suit, a white shirt and blue tie, and an impressively clean pair of shoes. As Félix came face-to-face with the man, he realized the handsome parson was no stranger. Just as he promised, the UFO captain had returned.

The captain stressed that he’d come in peace. He only wanted Félix’s friendship, and apologized for showing up in a disguise. (Mrs. Félix apparently couldn’t handle the thought of a spaceman sitting in her kitchen.) Over the course of five conversations, the captain revealed a myriad of things, including that he was from Jupiter. He was also a strong believer in the Christian God, convincing Félix to turn away from his atheism. By the time the captain said goodbye, leaving Félix at a São Paulo train station, the enlightened Brazilian was taught everything from the working of UFOs to the “fact” that gravity didn’t actually exist.

My Contact with Flying Saucers was a surprising success, and it was even translated into English. Félix published another alien-themed book in 1959, using the Dino Kraspedeon pseudonym one last time. That same year, he embarked on a translation of Centuries, a collection of vague prophecies by the infamous Nostradamus. While translating the text, Félix became convinced that the book contained references to his own life and relatives. Later, a disembodied voice told Félix that it was Jehovah, and it was his destiny to unite the Jews. Reinventing himself, Félix passed on his revelations in the 1960 Message to the Jews, published under the name Dunotas Menorá.

As the decade went on, Félix’s ideas grew more bizarre and grandiose. Insisting that he was a messiah, Félix adopted yet another new name, Sábado Dinotos. As he popped up on TV and made predictions about the future, Félix gathered up a base of fans and followers. In 1967, the self-proclaimed reincarnated King David elaborated his doctrine in The Antiquity of Flying Saucers. In Félix’s baffling history, Earth was the battleground of two opposing extraterrestrial forces. The good guys, the inhabitants of Jupiter, bequeathed us the Old Testament. The bad guys, a bunch of villains from Venus, gave us the New Testament.

Along these lines, Christianity was evil. As a matter of fact, Jesus was a freak spawned from artificial insemination, a Venusian agent to lead humanity astray. Fortunately, Félix revealed, this dark age was almost over. The Jews would take complete control of Jerusalem, sparking the Catholic Church to call for a crusade. Jupiter would then intervene and send a fleet of UFOs, leading Félix to victory as master of the world. There was nothing anybody could do to stop it. Félix predicted disaster after disaster, claiming great violence was about to shake up Brazil and the rest of the planet.

Between 1964 and 1985, Brazil was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship. When Félix issued his prophecy, the Brazilian government was getting ready to clamp down on critics and dissidents harder than ever before, a period of repression and violence known as the Years of Lead. Beginning in December 1967, a wave of mysterious terrorist attacks swept São Paulo. The terrorists stole weapons and bombed a number of important places, including a stock exchange building and a police headquarters. The crime spree continued for months, only coming to a stop when police nabbed the culprits after a bank robbery in August 1968.

To the superstitious, the whole episode proved Félix’s prophecies were correct, but there was a tiny problem. As the authorities interrogated the terrorist group, which consisted of policemen, they realized the ringleader was a familiar face on Brazilian television. The mastermind behind the attacks, the man who had plotted to overthrow the government, was none other than Sábado Dinotos, otherwise known as Aladino Félix. The true messiah was duly imprisoned, before escaping from prison and getting thrown in jail again. Félix was ultimately let off lightly, and was released in 1972. His last days were spent away from the public, writing, pondering, and wondering why his Jovian allies never arrived.

The great prophet died in 1985, leaving behind several loose ends. Why, for example, did Félix receive such a light punishment? And why were his co-conspirators acquitted, some of whom were allowed to go back to work? In 2018, the saga of Aladino Félix took another wild turn when investigators discovered that he had links to elements in the old military dictatorship. Félix and his right-wing group were actually encouraged to carry out their spree of terror, in the hope that left-wing terrorists would strike back, and the government would be justified in tightening its control. Of course, the plan worked, but one has to wonder why Félix’s military buddies entrusted a lunatic to help them. Were they, perhaps, afraid that the communists would team up with Venus?

If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider supporting my work by buying my book “Forgotten Lives” on Amazon here. My first collection of short stories includes the company of such wonderful people as a vengeful circus dwarf, a gourmet cannibal, and a mother who convinces her daughter that aliens are coming to abduct them. The book is available on Kindle, and makes an excellent diversion for anybody who’s grown impatient waiting for the Jovian flying saucers.

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The Disappearance of Rivalino Mafra da Silva: Alien Abduction or Foul Play?

July 8, 2016July 9, 2016 / Tristan / 6 Comments

Depiction of Rivalino Mafra da Silva’s abduction on an Italian magazine.

Rivalino Mafra da Silva was a Brazilian diamond prospector who lived in Diamantino, a town in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. Rivalino’s wife had died in 1961, and he raised his three sons Raimundo (12-years-old), Fatimo (6-years-old), and Dirceu (2-years-old) by himself in a shack. On August 19, 1962, the family was woken up during the middle of the night by a shadow in their shared bedroom. According to Raimundo, the shadow was “half the size of a man and not shaped like a human being.” It quietly moved through the room, looked over the Mafras, and then left their house.

After the shadow left, the Mafras heard voices and footsteps coming from outside. One of the voices said, “This seems to be Rivalino,” and then Rivalino jumped out of bed and went into the living-room. He asked the voices who they were, but they refused to identify themselves. They told Rivalino that they were going to kill him. Eventually, the voices stopped and seemed to have left, but the Mafras couldn’t sleep after this incident. They were so scared that they prayed all night.

In the morning, while fetching his dad’s horse, Raimundo saw two ball-like objects hovering in the air near the family shack. One of the objects was entirely black in color, the other was black and white. Both objects had antennae and tail-like appendages. They also made humming noises, and flashes of light or fire came out from their backs.

Raimundo shouted for his father, and when Rivalino came outside, the two objects combined into one ball and released a yellow smoke. The smoke covered Rivalino and filled the air with a terrible odor. When the smoke cleared a minute later, Rivalino and the ball-like object were gone. Raimundo looked all over for his father, but couldn’t find him. He ran to the local police station and reported what happened. When the police searched the Mafras’ shack, they found drops of human blood, although it couldn’t be determined whether it belonged to Rivalino.

Drawing by Raimundo of the objects he saw.

Naturally, the authorities didn’t buy Raimundo’s incredible story. They suspected that he killed his father, or perhaps was covering up for the murderer. Joao Antunes de Oliveira, a psychiatrist, thought that Raimundo was perfectly sane. He seemed to truly believe that he saw a ball-like object abduct his father. The police didn’t buy it though. In a cruel trick, they covered a (still living) volunteer with a sheet and told Raimundo that it was Rivalino’s dead body. Raimundo still refused to take back his account. In tears, he insisted that the story was true and that the ball must have returned his father.

While some believed the boy, other residents sided with the police. Elagmano Marques da Costa, a businessman in the area, thought Mafra ran off and abandoned his sons. One popular rumor suggested that he was murdered. Perhaps Raimundo saw the shadows and voices of the murderers, but hallucinated the rest of the incident due to shock. While he might have been deemed sane, Raimundo wasn’t in the best of health. He was badly malnourished, illiterate, and couldn’t even read a clock. Interestingly, Raimundo related the same story over and over. His account is said to have never changed, perhaps confirming the psychiatrists’ observation that he believed what he saw. (Or, if you will, the veracity of Raimundo’s testimony.)

Five days after his father’s disappearance, Raimundo gave an interview to the press. The next day, an article about the story appeared in the newspaper Diario de Minas. A Rio de Janiero-based paper, Tribuna da Imprensa, covered the case on August 29. In a September article for The A.P.R.O Bulletin entitled “Man Kidnapped by Globes,” Olavo T. Fontes translated Raimundo’s press interview, the first report of the case in English-speaking media. Many other articles and books, as listed here, have since covered Rivalino Mafra da Silva’s disappearance, but with distortions and inaccuracies.

One common piece of apocrypha, missing from the earliest sources, concerns alien dwarves. Slightly before Rivalino’s disappearance, two of his co-workers are said to have seen a pair of three foot-tall beings while walking past his house. The dwarves were digging a hole, and when spotted, ran into the bushes. A red UFO then emerged from the hiding spot and took off into the sky. Others claim that it was Rivalino himself who saw the dwarves.

Many English sources also neglect the fact that Rivalino’s body might possibly have been found. In October 1963, A Estrela Polar reported that a group of hunters found bones near Rivalino’s house in “a place of difficult access.” Due to the belt that was found with the remains, along with the location, the body was identified as Rivalino’s. Of course, some have questioned whether the bones really were Rivalino’s, but this was enough to (partly) satisfy the foul play theory. To my knowledge, however, nobody could come up with the names of the murderers. Whatever exactly happened to the Mafra boys after their father’s disappearance is also obscure; Raimundo is said to have died in 2001, and the whereabouts of Fatimo and Dirceu are unknown.

The Alien Cyclops of Sagrada Familia

March 24, 2016March 25, 2016 / Tristan / 4 Comments

Comic book depiction of the Sagrada Familia Cyclops, an alien encountered by three boys in Brazil in August 1963.

On August 28, 1963, 7-year-old José Marcos Gomes Vidal went to play with his friends Fernando and Ronaldo Gualberto at their home in Sagrada Familia, a poor neighborhood in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Around 7 PM, after eating dinner, the boys went out to the backyard to wash a coffee strainer. While Fernando stood a small distance behind him, José dipped his head and arms into a barrel to collect some water. (I believe Ronaldo was hanging around the side of the house, away from the other two boys.) Suddenly, Fernando noticed a glow coming from the top of an avocado tree. When he looked up, he saw a UFO hovering above the tree’s branches.

The craft, which was spherical and had a pair of antennas on top, was completely transparent. It held four human-like passengers sitting inside, one of whom sat in front of a machine that appeared to be a control panel. The passengers were about six feet tall and dressed in spacesuits. They all four had only one eye. Three of them were thin and bald, while the other looked like an overweight woman with blonde hair.

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As Fernando gazed at the sight in awe, the UFO shot out two rays of yellow light. One of the cyclopes then appeared between the lights, slowly floating down onto the ground. Once his boots touched the earth, the creature began to walk toward José, who was completely unaware of what was happening since he was still collecting water. Worried that the cyclops was going to abduct his friend, Fernandos panicked and tackled José. José fell to the ground, and Fernando got back up and faced the cyclops. Now all three boys were aware of their visitor.

Instead of moving any farther, the cyclops moved his head and made hand signals. Its mouth moved and spoke a few sounds that was nothing like the boys ever heard before. The creature then turned around and stared back at the UFO. Fernando, spotting a brick on the ground, picked it up and aimed it at the cyclops. The cyclops suddenly faced the boys again and shot Fernando’s hand with a yellow light from a triangular crest on his chest. Fernando dropped the brick, and all three of the boys became calm and frozen.

A newspaper photo of Fernando using a stick to show how tall the cyclops was.

The cyclops spent the next few minutes talking to the boys in his language. The boys didn’t understand anything that the cyclops said, but he sounded like he was serious. After pointing one of his fingers at the moon, the cyclops began to walk back toward the UFO. (One source places Fernando’s attempt to hit the creature with a brick at this later point.)

As the cyclops walked away, José asked if he would ever come back. He shook his head affirmatively, plucked a plant from the ground, and then waved his hand at the UFO. The UFO shot out two rays of yellow light again, and the cyclops slowly floated back up into the vehicle. As the boys continued to watch, the UFO flew eastward and disappeared out of their sight.

After the UFO was gone, a wave of fear settled over the three boys. José ran into the Gualbertos’ house and hid under a bed. Fernando and Ronaldo were also badly spooked, and told their mother María José about what happened. She sent a neighbor girl to fetch her husband, Alcides, from the bar. When Alcides returned home to check the backyard, he found large footprints, like those of a boot, near the water barrel. José and his friends reportedly never saw the cyclopes again. While the case was at one point investigated by a Brazilian ufologist, it has remained mostly unknown to the wider world.

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