The Cláudio Case: Police Pursue Luminous Beings in Minas Gerais

Cláudio is a town of about 25,000 people in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Wednesday, 19 November 2008. Renata Veloso Guerck Austríaco, wife of the local police commander, looked out from her apartment. She saw a luminous hexagon. Two smaller spheres circled it, one silvery, one red "like incandescent iron". Accounts place the moment between about 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., shortly before the Brazil vs Portugal game.

As the object neared the Nossa Senhora Aparecida church, the street lights of Bela Vista went black, block by block. Some residents reported hot air entering their homes. The police report described objects flying at incalculable speed, turning at angles of ninety degrees or less, stopping abruptly. No sound at all. One sphere dropped to the treetops and rose again, like a game of ping-pong.

Cpl. Amilton José Rabelo was on patrol near the Sobrado area. He saw something rectangular with oval edges, the size of a minibus. A bus without wheels. A white, xenon-like light shone from an opening along its middle. It was silent. His patrol turned and followed it towards highway MG-260, always keeping visual contact.

Near the Santa Inês distillery, about 500 m into the cane, it stopped. It made two circular movements that seemed pre-determined. Then it rose and vanished into the night sky towards the local airfield. About 25 minutes in all. Rabelo took three photographs with a Sony Cyber-shot. The patrol pickup, vehicle 13533, had electrical problems and trouble starting.

20 November. Near São Bento, the commander, Eisenhower Guerck Austríaco, and two sergeants saw two luminous beings about 90 cm tall. Arms, legs, large smooth oval heads. No eyes, no nose, no fingers. They glowed, yet lit nothing around them. "We were in the Mitsubishi truck at about 20 km/h and these continued ahead and to the right, it was perceptible that those things 'walked' without touching the ground." They seemed to be working the soil, like scientists. Sgt. Waldir tried to photograph them. Only fireflies appeared.

The officers described headaches, heavy limbs and trouble raising their arms to their weapons. They felt their thoughts were being controlled. What seemed like 40 minutes was two or three hours. On 21 November they went back. The lagoon they had stopped beside was gone. Only pasture or cane field remained.

Rabelo said Air Force personnel from Base Aérea de Lagoa Santa interviewed him the next day. They asked him to draw the object, copied his memory card, then erased it. Their explanation was artificial gas burning. His photos survived anyway and were first published by Pepe Chaves on Via Fanzine. One private, Balbino, was so shaken he later asked to leave the force.

Austríaco's preliminary report is dated 8 December 2008 and was obtained through an information request in 2015. Some accounts say it came through the Arquivo Nacional, though the hosted copy is filed under the state government of Minas Gerais. Edison Boaventura Jr. and Lauro Miguel have since gathered fresh testimony, and Miguel's documentary Serra do Ouro Fala has been in production since 2021.

No hoax allegation has surfaced. In 2024 Revista Questão de Ciência compared the beings to Carl Sagan's "dragon in my garage", untestable by design, and argued the witnesses were probably mistaken rather than lying. No official body has endorsed an unusual origin. Then, in March 2026, at his farewell ceremony before entering the reserve, Lt.-Col. Austríaco spoke openly: "we were face-to-face with unknown visitors". The case is often set beside Operação Prato and the Varginha case, also in Minas Gerais.