On August 21, 1966, after receiving a tip of dead bodies high on a rugged hill in southeastern Brazil, authorities discovered two formally dressed male corpses in waterproof coats, partly covered with grass and each wearing eye masks made of lead. The young men bore no obvious signs of trauma, and there was no evidence of a struggle or immediately apparent cause of their deaths.
So what happened?Miguel Jose Viana and Manoel Pereira da Cruz were respectable citizens with young families who worked together as electronics technicians in the town of Campos dos Goytacazes near Rio de Janeiro. On August 17, 1966, the two set out ostensibly to gather electronics supplies for their work, and at 2:30 pm, they got on a bus to a nearby town, Nietrói, where they purchased water from a bar and raincoats from a shop.
Witnesses later claimed that Miguel seemed “very nervous” and frequently checked his watch. The pair set off up Nietról’s hill, Marro do Vinétm, at about 3:15 pm, and by some accounts, they hitched a ride in a Jeep. At 5 pm, a local boy, Jorge de Costa Alves, saw them higher up the hill.
According to reports, the boy returned to the hill the next day and saw the men lying on the ground; he assumed they were asleep. When he returned again two days later, on August 20, the hilltop was permeated with a putrid smell, which he returned to town and reported.
Venturing up the hill the next day, police found the dead men as previously described, and near them was an empty bottle of mineral water, two wet towels and a notebook with various notations, including (translated from Portuguese) “4:30 be at the specified location.
6:30 ingest capsules, after the effect protect metals await signal mask.”The men also had receipts for the raincoats (Cr$9,400) and for the water bottle, and a small amount of money (Cr$161,000) on them.
Adding to the mystery, in addition to the cryptic note, the notebook also had a list of electronic part numbers, which some have speculated were encrypted codes, though the evidence at hands appears to be that they were simply part numbers used by the men over the course of their day job.
Although the note identified “capsules,” the police found none (presumably indicating if they existed the men had consumed them). Unfortunately, or more likely fortunately for those advocating an alien or supernatural cause of death, no toxicology tests were done on the bodies, so what, if anything, the two men ingested is unknown. The cause of death, however, was determined to be cardiac failure.
During their investigation, police spoke with Elcio Gomes, a friend of Miguel and Manoel, who told them that they were…
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