The Puno Patio Beings and the Chaves Family's Roadside Object, Peru 1965

Peru, 1965. Through August and September, reports of strange lights and small beings came in from Lima, Cuzco, Cañete, Huánuco and other parts of the country. Near Arequipa, two men described a one-eyed being about 80 centimetres tall. Then the southern highlands. Puno sits beside Lake Titicaca, close to the road that runs along the lake toward Bolivia.

The night of September 8. Jacques Vallée later put the time at 10:00 p.m. A boy was in the patio of a house on Acora street. Gordon Creighton, who first reported the case in English, gave his age as 7, while later versions say 12. Seven small beings stood there, about 80 centimetres tall, and each had only one eye.

The boy ran for help. When his family came, the patio was empty. "All they saw was an immensely bright light rising rapidly into the sky."

At almost the same time, Jorge Chaves was driving with his family near the towns of Juli and Pomata. Chaves was a well-known sports writer. In Creighton's words, they saw a strange object "settle gently on the road ahead." Chaves tried to approach it. "It rose and vanished at great speed."

No shape, colour or size was recorded. One detail gave the report weight. According to Creighton, it "was confirmed to be correct by the editor of El Comercio, Lima, Peru's most serious paper."

Both accounts reached the wider world through a single channel. Donald Hanlon sent a list of Peruvian landing reports abroad, and Creighton summarised it in Flying Saucer Review in 1966. He returned to it in his chapter on South American humanoids in The Humanoids, edited by Charles Bowen.

From there the case passed from catalogue to catalogue. Vallée listed it in Passport to Magonia in 1969. James M. McCampbell wrote in Ufology: "At Puno, Peru, near Lake Titicaca, seven of these very small people were seen together, and at Pichaca, six." Albert Rosales later entered it in his Humanoid database, now with "seven or eight" beings and a landed object in the patio.

Patrick Gross, in the URECAT catalogue, rated three problems as severe: a single child witness, no primary source and no investigation. He also noted how the story grew with each retelling. The boy's age changed, one boy became "children," and a landed craft appeared even though the earliest version does not mention one. URECAT's evaluation was: "Extraterrestrial visitors or confusion or invention."

Creighton had his own idea about Peru's one-eyed beings. He proposed that "all five cases simply arise from a mistaken interpretation of the type of 'window' in the front of helmets worn by certain entities." He also pointed to the Cyclopes of Greek myth. The El Comercio article that confirmed the Chaves report has never been traced.

Puno remains one of the quieter entries of the 1965 Peruvian wave. Twelve days later, at Pichaca in the same region, a shepherdess described six small beings in white clothing that gave off flashes of light. McCampbell set the two side by side. Together with the Arequipa being, they form a cluster of 80 centimetre figures reported in southern Peru within a few weeks. A boy, a family on a dark road, and a light that left before anyone could follow.