The Acevedo and Moya Rally Car Encounter (Car #102)

The Vuelta a la América del Sur was a monster of a rally. Organised by the Automóvil Club Argentino, it left Buenos Aires on 17 August 1978 and ran about 28,590 km over 39 days through ten countries. Fifty-seven cars started. Twenty-two finished.

Car #102 was a Citroën GS driven by Carlos Acevedo Ramírez, a 38-year-old Chilean businessman who owned a shoe store in Santiago. His original co-driver, Hugo Prambs, had left the rally. In his place rode Miguel Ángel Moya, 28, Acevedo's own mechanic.

The night of 23 September 1978. The crew refuelled at the ACA station in Viedma at 02:00 and set off toward Bahía Blanca. Around 03:00, near the turn-off for Cardenal Cagliero, about 30 km north of Carmen de Patagones, they were doing about 100 km/h.

Acevedo saw a point of light in his mirror and took it for a faster rally car. It grew until it filled the mirror, and kept coming. "The light flooded the interior completely, and I couldn't see any farther than the hood of the car," he said. "It was very dense and bright, and its color was yellowish with a violet tint." Moya saw his friend rigid, arms locked on the wheel.

Moya could no longer see even his own hands. He pulled at the door handles, but the doors would not open. Acevedo looked out and saw the car about two metres off the ground. "The car, instead of descending, seemed to continue its ascent out of control."

A few seconds later the light left the car. To the west, Acevedo saw a cone of yellow light, cut off at the top, perhaps 6 or 7 meters high. It retracted from bottom to top, like a curtain, leaving only an oval white yellowish light. The engine raced and died. They were back on an empty road.

At 05:10 they reached Pedro Luro. The odometer showed 52 km for the leg. The real distance was about 123 km. The trip had taken 2 hours 20 minutes. The freshly filled 40-litre reserve tank was empty. Night watchman Eduardo Forchesatto was the first to hear the story. At the police station, Inspector Daniel Osimi took statements. "Acevedo se agarraba la cabeza con desesperación," he recalled. Moya could not speak. For more than a day he felt pressure in his chest. Residents near Hilario Ascasubi reportedly saw a powerful yellowish light heading west.

Guillermo C. Roncoroni of the Servicio de Investigaciones Ufológicas interviewed the crew, the police and the attendant. The witnesses, he concluded, deserved trust. He even suggested hypnotic regression. The police file recorded no conclusion. Decades later it was saved from disposal and reached Silvia Pérez Simondini of CEFORA, who promoted it as Argentina's first declassified UFO file.

Not everyone believed. Organiser Jean Pasture said the control times never added up: "¡Era un tramposo ese tipo!" Competitors spoke of a shortcut, yet Acevedo had reportedly already been disqualified and was running without timing. Fabio Zerpa gave the story little weight, while Acevedo once told a doubter that what they had lived was the truth. Acevedo died in a traffic accident in 1987.

Chile's TVN later found Moya in Coyhaique for its OVNI series. Now he said, "estuve en una nave": a long corridor, figures 1.20 to 1.40 m tall, a dome with a control panel. None of this appears in the 1978 accounts. Researcher Patrick Gross reads it as a time and distance puzzle, strictly not a close encounter, and calls the abduction label wishful thinking. The missing kilometres remain unexplained.