The Riolândia case: a huge cylinder over a flattened sugar cane field

Riolândia is a small town in north-western São Paulo state, 555 km from the state capital. On the bank of the Rio Grande, the river that forms the border with Minas Gerais, stands the Pousada Piapara. It is a fishermen's inn. Next door, in January 2008, the sugar cane stood between 5 and 8.5 feet tall.

The night of 19 to 20 January 2008. Maurício Pereira da Silva, 39, ran the inn. He woke to a loud noise like crushing cane. It sounded like a bulldozer rolling over the plants, but without engine sounds. Only the sound of plants being crumpled or broken.

Silva looked out. About 90 feet away was an object, "very large, cylindrical in shape and ovoid at the tips." A dim yellowish light shone from its bottom part. It made no humming sound. It was still in the air. Ufologists later put its length at 30 to 40 metres.

Durval Ambrizzi Jr., 58, a retired guest sleeping in a trailer, heard the same sound. He saw no object. Only dim, whitish lights spread around the place, "as though they were linked to a very large object."

At daybreak both men went out with their wives. Roughly 3,600 to 5,200 square metres of cane lay flattened, with a main circle about 60 metres across and two smaller circles nearby. The stalks were combed down, roots intact. No machinery tracks. No animal tracks. No burn marks. Solange Ambrizzi took the first photographs. Within days came TV crews, ufologists and sightseers. The mayor, Maurílio Viana da Silva, called the marks strange. "We will allow those who understand this matter to investigate," he said.

The amateur group INAPE of Araçatuba sent an eight-person team led by electronics engineer Jorge Nery, who reportedly failed to flatten the cane by hand. Revista UFO investigated in February 2008. Its ufologist A.J. Gevaerd claimed the Brazilian Air Force's CINDACTA I station at Tanabi logged unidentified traffic in the region between 18 and 22 January. No Air Force document has been published. Roberto Affonso Beck of EBEET, from Brasília, reported dozens of other flattened patches.

January 2014. INAPE released its Dossiê Riolândia, the work of eleven people. It rejected a tornado, found normal radiation readings, and recorded a cloudy night with light rain and an 8 km/h wind. "Hoje podemos dizer que foi um fenômeno sobrenatural, extraterrestre," Nery said. Today we can say it was a supernatural, extraterrestrial phenomenon.

Sceptics saw ordinary storm damage, called acamamento in Portuguese. Pedro Dias of USP told Fantástico that atmospheric phenomena could explain it. Meteorologist José Carlos Figueiredo proposed a tornado or microburst. Agronomist Luís Fernando Zorzenon said such patches are common in cane fields after strong wind. At Ceticismo Aberto, Kentaro Mori noted that the film Signs had aired on Globo about two weeks earlier, that the patches lined up with dirt tracks, and that Silva's account shifted, later becoming three luminous spheres side by side. No one has shown that either man faked anything.

Riolândia was one of many flattened cane fields across São Paulo state that year, from Ribeirão Preto to Araraquara. Revista UFO later compared it with damage at Buritama. Gevaerd stayed convinced. "Acredito serem mesmo óvnis," he said in 2014. I believe they really are UFOs. The cause of the flattening is still argued. What two men heard in the dark remains their story.