I said I'd build it. Last post I wrote, “That's the next build.” The Eat Watch on my wrist worked, but it was deaf. I logged meals in MyFatnessPal, then tapped the same calories into the watch by hand. I was the middleware. Two systems, no bridge, me in the middle pressing buttons.

Then I built DogWatch.

DogWatch was supposed to be about counting dogs on the walk to daycare. It was. But it taught me plumbing. Data flowing from wrist to phone to server. A Garmin app that talked to Django. By the time the first walk synced, zero dogs and all, I had a pipeline.

If I could sync dog counts, I could sync calories.

The Build

The architecture is simple because the watch is stupid. On purpose.

Every five minutes, the Garmin sends one request to the server: give me today's numbers. The server checks what I've logged in MyFatnessPal, does the maths, and sends back three numbers. Goal. Consumed. Remaining.

The watch stores nothing. Calculates nothing. Decides nothing. It asks one question and displays the answer. Green means eat. Red means stop.

When I log a burrito at lunch, the server knows within five minutes. I don't open anything. I glance at my wrist. The number moved.

Midnight comes, the count starts fresh, and the watch goes green again. The first morning it worked, I just stood there looking at it. A zero I hadn't typed.

Walker called it a fuel gauge. The gauge doesn't know how the engine works. It just reads the tank.

The Skin

Walker never built the Eat Watch. But he drew one. In The Hacker's Diet he mocked up a watch face: square, black, a red-bordered LCD screen with “Marinchip Eat Watch” in italic script across the top. It looked like a Casio from 1985. A “Turbo Digital” badge sat at the bottom like a maker's mark on a thing that never existed.

I wanted mine to look like that. The problem was shape. Walker drew a rectangle. Garmin makes circles. So I redrew it: same bezels, same script, same badge, bent around a round face. The LCD tan, the red border, the italic branding. All of it, just curved.

Now it sits on my wrist. Green text, “EAT,” the remaining calories underneath. A relic from a future that never shipped, finally running on real hardware.

The Arc

A calorie counter. Then a Garmin app. Then a system to connect them. Each build was the logical next step, each question a little harder than the last. Could I build something useful? Could I build for hardware? Could I wire it all together?

The answer kept being yes.

The calorie counter talks to the watch. Loop closed.

I look at my wrist. Green. I can eat.

Walker imagined this in 1991. He never had the watch. I do.

-—

If you want to try this yourself:

FatWatch is a Garmin watch face that connects to MyFatnessPal. If there's enough interest I'll make both available. MyFatnessPal is the calorie counter that started all of this. You can read about it in the first post in this series.

I haven't seen the new Star Trek show, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It's not that I wouldn't. I don't have Paramount+ because I don't have money coming in. Even if I did, I don't pay money to people eager to kiss the ass of fascists. I do pal around a lot in Star Trek communities.

One of the things I saw coming out of certain ends of 'the fandom' is this “It's impossible to have Jem'Hadar women. How do they have Jem'Hadar women?!” thing. Academy has had like six episodes or something so it's likely this question has already been answered.

It didn't really need to be, though.

Reading the text

As a long time Star Trek fan who has watched DS9 numerous times (and recently finished up another DS9 watch through), I saw Lura Thok (played by Gina Yashere) in some promotional graphics and thought “Oh, cool! Jem'Hadar!” I'm annoyed to say looking up her character's name gave me a slight spoiler but I'm not going to replicate that issue for you here.

In DS9, we're given hints over the course of several seasons that ultimately amount to this: the Founders didn't create the Vorta or the Jem'Hadar from scratch. They took some species that existed already and modified them to suit their purposes. The Jem'Hadar were created to be their soldiers and the Vorta were created to be administrators. According to Vorta legend, the Vorta had been tiny little critters we would likely assume were not fully sentient when they were what old SciFi might call “uplifted” by the Founders. Given how much the Founders lie, I'm not sure I would take that particularly seriously.

We don't have any information about where the Jem'Hadar originally came from but we have solid reasons to believe they weren't created from scratch. One example is in Hippocratic Oath where we discover that one Jem'Hadar was able to break his hold over the genetic addiction to ketracel-white. If the Founders had created the Jem'Hadar completely from scratch and completely controlled their breeding, it's unlikely that Goran'Agar would have been able to manage that. Other episodes reveal that the Jem'Hadar's genetic conditioning isn't as strong as the Founders believe (or purport to believe) it is.

The obvious answer

All of this speaks to the likelihood that the Jem'Hadar are another species that has been modified. It hints that Jem'Hadar women may actually still have been somewhat involved in the process of making new Jem'Hadar for the Delta Quadrant at least. Even if the average Jem'Hadar warrior is completely unaware of that possibility.

That's stuff we can imagine while ignoring the end of DS9 but taking everything else in DS9 into account (without touching Picard or other properties).

Once we do take the end of DS9 into account, we have Odo leading the Founders and we have at least two species who have existed mainly to serve the Dominion which no longer exists. We see time and time again that Odo feels that wholesale slaughter is deeply evil. We also know how much he feels the Jem'Hadar should be able to choose their own destinies on an individual level.

Given that information, it's very likely that Odo would lead the Founders to restore the Jem'Hadar's independence and solve some of the dissatisfaction the Weyoun clones discussed about the Founders' tinkering with the Vorta genetic makeup.

Now, that last paragraph is a simple guess about what might have happened on the basis of my knowledge of the previous paragraphs and my knowledge of Odo as a character. There are certainly other ways that the creators of Starfleet Academy could have solved any issues — if I was to agree there were an issue to address.

One of several long roads

It's a SciFi show. There's any number of ways they could have solved it.

Goran'Agar could have stolen an orb and a shuttle and ridden it into the Celestial Temple and begged the Prophets to restore his people to what they were before the Founders messed with them. There could have been a big debate because What Was Before Can Never Be Again. Prophet Benjamin says that's true but every sentient being deserves a chance at a new start. Then the prophets coming up with some brand new way of being Jem'Hadar inspired and directed by the things that Goran'Agar has managed to make of himself since last we saw him.

Julian Bashir, international spy, could have taken over Section 31 through subterfuge. He could then repurposed their knowledge and capacities to create a retrovirus that would spread through the Jem'Hadar like a plague. The plague could remove their genetic propensity toward believing the Founders are gods and given them the ability for their bodies to synthesize what they need from food and restoring their ability to mate regularly.

The imagination is the limit.

The adventure's only getting started

With all that, we've still got people complaining because a Jem'Hadar woman showed up in a trailer and some promotional material for a show that hadn't yet come out. Complaints that, to my eye, seem to not reasonably engage with the information from shows we've theoretically already seen.

Now, I've got my own theories about why someone might want to do that. I wouldn't call those fan theories since I'm not a fan of what I think is going on. I won't impugn them by suggesting that they aren't actually fans of Star Trek. I will suggest that looking at the shows while paying a little more attention to the themes and subtext might be in order.

Now, how's the show? I still don't know. I hope it's the best Star Trek ever, though. It probably won't be but that won't necessarily be because it sucks. There's only one spot for “best.”

I hope I get to see it one day. I think the first time I heard people talking about wanting a Starfleet Academy show was sometime in the 90s. That wasn't an idea that really appealed to me at the time but there's no reason it can't be great. That's what I hope for it. That it's great. (I do also still hope that it's the best ever but, again, that's unlikely because of the way best works.)

Support the author

I've got two books out in the Vay Ideal series. It's a science fiction adventure series built around an eclectic assortment of travelers who find themselves running an independent ship. I'd love it if you'd check them out. While you can buy them on Amazon, the cover links will take you to a landing page which will let you choose any one of several other stores also.

#StarTrek #Essay #SciFi

• Week notes in the middle of the week? Yes, why not!
• ✏️ So, I was doing the 750 Words journaling daily and even though it's great exercise, I can't keep up the pace everyday. And because the website tracks streaks, seeing that I broke my streak makes me frustrated. And some days I was just writing for the sake of completing the streak. So I decided to get back to my journaling using Standard Notes, where I don't feel that much pressure. I still strive to write everyday, but it doesn't need to be 750 Words.
• 🎭I took some time to acknowledge that January was busy for me, and that I needed to rest. There was a lot going on, and I was putting my standards way too high. I had to slow down and remember my own lessons learned.
• 🎿 I completed the Level 1 Cross Country Ski course! It was crazy to have classes so late at night from 8pm to 9:30pm. This night routine affected my energy levels a lot! It just made me realize how much I need my sleep time and my daily routines for me to function well. I don't regret it, tho. Cross country skiing is harder than I thought, and I will continue with a Level 2 class this weekend.
• ☃️ It has been pretty cold around here the past few days, so I didn't have the courage to go ice skating or skiing outside too much. I did, however, go skiing once on a beautiful trail called Mer Bleu. It was the first outing after I was done with the ski class, and it was very challenging! First of all, it was cold (-17C) and even though the trail was mostly flat, skiing for 2 hours for the first time was too much. My partner was with me, and he got excited to go on the big loop, and we didn’t know how long the loop was. So, 2 hours later, I was dead tired. I did take a long nap afterwards that day to recover.
• ⛸️ I'm still doing my ice skating classes once a week. I'm doing very slow progress skating backwards. I don't think I'll ever be able to do backwards cross overs.
• 📕 I read “The Just City” by Jo Walton for my local book club, and it was a weird experience. I heard very positive praises about this book, but it wasn't for me. It's basically a thought experiment on making Plato's Republic idea of a “just city” a reality, which is an interesting premise. But the book was constantly pointing out how this is actually a terrible idea, showing all the bad consequences, and I missed having more characters that actually questioned the status quo. Anyway, it was interesting having the discussion with my book club, since it's philosophy adjacent, but I won't continue with this series.
• 📖 I'm almost done with “Persepolis Rising” (The Expanse #9) for my other book club, and it's so amazing!
• ❄️ Looking forward to the upcoming long weekend!

📌 Cool online reads:

• Living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) by 82Mhz: Super informative and sincere. Chronic conditions are tough, and I love his positive attitude.
• Reading Recap 2025 by Joel: Joel does really great recaps and summaries write ups! Great selection of books here!

📺 Cool Videos:

• Plato's Republic: An In-Depth Guide by Jared Henderson: Nice guide to this classic philosophy work by Plato. I've never read the whole thing, so this was a nice refresher. Maybe someday I'll read it.
• We Are The Art | Brandon Sanderson’s Keynote Speech: Thoughts about AI and art, from this very famous and prolific author.

#weeknotes

I've been running all my life tryin' to find who I am and I'm sick of it. Yeah, I'd give anything if I could quit. But I can't stop until it all makes sense.

So I spend some nights just staring at the sky wondering why I am even here. And I challenge, God, Himself to prove he's there, and for a moment I don't feel so scared.

I, don't think I can be the same, it makes me want to change, and go the other way.

Everyone at one point has probably had the same thoughts. This song is deep and so underrated. I'm so glad I rediscovered it today.

#MusicVideo #AChangeOfPace

Tonight I have an early game to listen to: I like that! And it's a Big Ten Conference game, too. This NCAA men's basketball game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Maryland Terrapins has a scheduled start time of 5:00 PM. I don't have access to any TV feed from this game, so I'll be listening to a radio call of any pregame show and play-by-play that I can find.

And the adventure continues.

30 January 2026

Star in a bag (working title, or maybe Ornament): think I was interested here in trying to fragment plane and form in new (to me) ways. It seems like the approach was to try to paint like collaging, to allow shapes to overlap while trying to retain the questions I initially perceived in my visual source (which was a plastic glow-in-the-dark star cloaked by a red Chinese New Year envelope). Trying to formulate a process that can cause an incidental explosion from a center or axis and then allow me to probe any fun relationships that materialize as a result. To encourage forms to collide and conjoin and echo each other as they expand outward. A kind of polyphony. Have been looking at Schwitters a lot this week, particularly his 1925 collage Untitled (Heures crépusculaires). Stacked blocks of muted values and slices of visual information coalescing into gradations of color and thought.

その人と最初に言葉を交わしたのは、SNSのDMだった。軽い雑談のつもりが、気づけば「会ってみませんか」という流れになり、なぜか喫茶店でもなく駅前でもなく、初手でうちに来てもらうことになった。

どうしてそんな判断をしたのか、自分でもよく分からない。あのときの空気が、そうさせたのだと思う。

玄関を上がってもらい、「今日、何か食べました？」と聞くと、「何も食べてないです」と返ってきた。 じゃあウーバーイーツで好きなの頼みますか、と提案しながら、（外で食べるべきだったな）と内心で軽く後悔する。結局、俺は海鮮丼、相手はケバブを注文した。

食事が届くまでのあいだ、他愛ない話をしていたら、ふいに相手が言った。

「私、風水に詳しくて」

「ああ、そうなんですね」と相槌を打つと、彼女は部屋を見回し、ベッドを指さした。

「このベッドの向き、あまり良くないですよ。恋愛運が下がって、彼女さんと別れちゃうかもしれません」

「そうなんですか。じゃあ向きを変えてみましょうかね」

そう言って動かそうとしたが、部屋が狭すぎてどうにもならなかった。

「無理そうですね」と俺が言うと、彼女は「まあまあ、それはそれで大丈夫です」と笑った。

「でも、別れるんですよね？」と聞くと、「大丈夫だと思いますよ」と、今度は曖昧に濁す。

なんだそれ、と思いながら聞き流していると、今度は観葉植物を指さした。

「この位置も良くないです。あっちの隅の方がいいかもしれません。来年、仕事なくなるかもです」

「これはデザインでここに置いてるので、あまり変えたくないですね」

そう言うと、また「そうですか、それはそれで大丈夫です」と返ってくる。

強引に押し付けてこないのは良い人なのかもしれない。だが、逆にその“どっちでもいい感じ”が妙にモヤモヤした。

ついに痺れを切らし、「なんで風水を学んだんですか？」と聞いてしまった。

「もっと信じてるなら、もっと押し付けてきても良いと思いますけど」

彼女は少し考えてから、「まあ、お守りみたいなものですので」と言った。

「風水に関わる仕事をしてるんですか？」と尋ねると、

「仕事はインテリアコーディネーターです。だからデザインが優先なら、そっちが優先になりますかねえ」

「風水が好きでインテリアコーディネーターなら、風水を基礎に部屋をデザインするって考えじゃないんですか？」

「いや、普通に視覚的に、感覚的に置くのが、自分にとっての“より良い場所”になりますので」

その言葉を聞いて、（ああ、変なやつだ）と思った。けれど、DMの頃からどこかカジュアルで、妙に力の抜けた人だというのは分かっていたので、「そうですか」とだけ言って話を終えた。

夜になり、「夕飯でもどうですか」と誘うと、彼女は玄関で靴を履きながら言った。

「この時間は陰の気が強くなるので、自分の家で本を読むのが良いんです」

そう言って、あっさり帰っていった。

自分ルールをしっかり守る、なかなか面倒なやつだ。 そう思いながら、俺は一人でコンビニへ夕飯を買いに向かった。

ARRIVED AT HOME

I lived a hundred days at a Buddhist monastery in the mountains.

Now I’m back in San Francisco.

In some ways, the transition has been easy. Departure day came, I packed my things, and a couple friends drove me to the airport. I flew, I saw my parents, and now I’m back in my apartment. Listening to music. Playing video games. Writing emails. Reconnecting with friends. Making my own meals. Walking my dog. Sleeping in a bed!

The transition has also been jarring. Contending with crowds of people. Seeing people walk briskly (where to?) and stare at their phones (why?). People talking loudly in public, spilling their emotions onto everyone. Advertisements absolutely everywhere vying for attention, insisting that we cannot be happy, free, or complete until we buy this thing. This technology. This jacket. This makeup. This platter of meat. This fountain of alcohol. This sexual energy.

In the two weeks since leaving my retreat in the mountains, I have felt frustration. I have slipped easily into anger over the smallest things, like trying and failing to make a simple repair in my bathroom. I have experienced uneasy tension with my girlfriend. I have suffered unexpected physical pain in my body. I’ve applied to a dozen jobs, and afterwards felt a creeping doubt about my prospects. I have felt anxiety and despair even just thinking about the news. Flagrant, hideous injustices. Violent abuses of power. Endless, endless war. I have seen the clouds of overwhelm gather, and my heart has trembled.

In short: Here I am, another human being in the world. I have not come down from the mountain in a permanent state of nirvana. I am not enlightened.

But I am happy.

I am happy to be alive and breathing. I am happy to have clean water to drink and good food to eat. I am happy to have an apartment of my own. I am happy to be reunited with my sweet little dog. I am happy in my wealth, the wealth of having numerous friends who share their love by sharing their presence. I am happy to have a supportive romantic partner, who tended to my place while I was away, and who left flowers and gifts waiting for me upon arrival. I am happy that I can see my parents and brothers and sisters and niblings healthy and happy. I am filled with gratitude.

Happy at home

Being able to join the Rains Retreat at Deer Park Monastery was one of the great gifts of my life. Here, I can only begin to explain why.

Every morning, I woke up in my tent to the deep call of the great horned owl. Or coyotes howling. Or the great temple bell tolling and a monk or nun singing. Each sound a reminder of the joy of life. In the pre-dawn darkness, I would join the slow, silent stream of people flowing to the big hall called “Ocean of Peace,” where we would join in the morning chant and sit in silent meditation for 45 minutes. Calming the body, calming the mind.

We would often do fun exercises together—a combination of traditional Chinese practices like qigong, tai chi, and kung fu—or go hiking in the surrounding foothills, 400 acres of coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and oak woodlands. We sang cute little uplifting songs together, we worked maybe 10 hours per week, and we were always encouraged to work with ease. We attended weekly classes in history, philosophy, and psychology, exploring the nature of life and the mind. I never used a computer. I used my phone minimally. I didn’t have to think about money.

We ate simple, delicious, and 99% vegan meals together three times a day: always oatmeal for breakfast, often rice-tofu-and-veggies for lunch and dinner, occasionally surprise desserts. Sometimes hearty Vietnamese soups, a special treat from the nuns. We bowed in gratitude to the serving line, we bowed in gratitude to our plates of food, and we bowed in gratitude to each other—all before taking a single bite.

I napped. Every. Single. Day. I watched the sunrise and sunset. Every. Single. Day. Many mornings, I read poetry aloud to the birds and trees. Many afternoons, I wrote letters to friends or practiced piano in the tea room. Many evenings, I sat holding a hot cup of herbal tea, sharing in smiling conversation with other retreatants or monastics. I always knew the moon phase (which determined whether I needed a flashlight in the campground or not) and from day to day I traced Jupiter’s subtle movements in the sky. Every night, bathing in the buzz of toads, frogs, and crickets, I fell asleep under the stars.

With on-campus college life being a close second, this was the closest I’ve ever come to living in a true community. Every day, without exception, we shared space and time. If I hadn’t seen somebody for a few hours, I could ask around and quickly get an answer like, “Oh, they went on a long hike today” or “Yeah, they’re not feeling well. I’ve been bringing them their meals.” We sat together, ate together, played together, and worked together. It was village life: feeling affinity to some people and aversion to others, yet regardless of those preferences each of us doing our best to live in harmony. While in the default world we can only guess at other people’s intentions, at the monastery we rest easier knowing that the people around us are at least striving to be kind, honest, and compassionate in their words and actions.

Of course, no place or experience is perfect. I certainly had my qualms and struggles, especially earlier on in the retreat, but by the end I had gained a deeper understanding of how the monastery works and, more importantly, a renewed understanding of how this thing called “me” works.

As the end of the retreat drew closer, people began to ask, “How are you feeling about going home?”

My own answer surprised me: “I love it here. I’m so happy I’m leaving.”

It surprised me because it sounded so light and free, and playfully Zen in its seeming paradox. Home? That tent among the oaks and owls is and isn’t my home. The Bay Area is and isn’t my home. This body is and isn’t my home.

This is my home:

May I be happy with what is, may I be happy with what will come.

CeCe has a Breakdown

#nsfw #CeCe

In the days following our intimate Thanksgiving, CeCe seemed to process our new dynamic with that analytical mind of hers, turning it over like one of her engineering puzzles. One early winter evening, as we lounged naked on the bed with the window blinds open, she looked at me with sudden clarity. “I figured it out, Tasha—what this bond means between us,” she said, her voice steady, her caramel skin glowing in the lamplight. “It's simple, really. Obvious. I won't change anything about how I am, and I won't view you any differently—you're still my best friend, my everything. But if you have needs, if you want to make advances... I'll welcome them. Always.” She smiled, pulling me closer, her thick curves pressing against me. It was her way—practical, uncomplicated, honoring her autistic need for structure without overcomplicating the emotions. I was her safe place, especially now, with the tensions from her parents boiling over into constant arguments over the phone. It was still very tense. Their demands, or should I say her mom's demands of control, are clashing with her unyielding independence. In a world that felt increasingly hostile, I was all she had at the moment, her anchor amid the storm. The stress from those fights pushed CeCe's exhibitionism to new heights, like each heated exchange with her mom fueled her rebellion. She started going to classes in just a baggy hoodie—no bra, no shorts, nothing underneath—her breasts bouncing freely with every step, the hem brushing her thick thighs as she navigated the campus paths. She didn't care about the temperature. She just wanted to wear the bare minimum at all times.

From a distance, it looked casual, but up close, the risk was palpable; one wrong gust of wind, and she'd be exposed. She'd come back to the dorm flushed, confessing how the thrill helped her focus during lectures, her pussy already wet from the subtle caress on her clit.

On her walks around the city parks or quiet streets, she'd unzip the hoodie all the way if no one was around, letting it hang open like a robe, her caramel body fully bared to the air, nipples hardening in the breeze as she touched herself lightly, moaning softly to the rhythm of her steps. It seemed like every argument with her mom—screaming matches about “growing up too fast” or “disrespecting the family”—ended in more risky exposure, CeCe channeling the frustration into bolder acts of defiance.

I worried, of course, but I didn't stop her; she was thriving in her classes, her grades impeccable, and our bond felt stronger than ever. Then, one afternoon, my phone buzzed with a new surprise—nudes and selfies from CeCe in public places. I couldn't always go out with her. This was her way of sharing her escalations with me, her safe confidante.

The initial one came from a private study hall in the library, a secluded nook she'd claimed for “focus time.” The photo showed her completely naked, hoodie discarded on the chair, her thick ass perched on the edge of the desk, legs spread wide as she rubbed her clit, books and notes scattered around her. “Helps me concentrate,” the caption read, followed by a winking emoji and a heart.

As the weeks blurred into the heart of sophomore year, I stopped lecturing CeCe about her risks altogether. It wasn't worth it anymore—her bold selfies and nudes, sent from increasingly public spots like that library study hall, were too erotic, too intoxicating.

Watching her embrace her obsessions, her caramel body exposed in those grainy photos, felt like living in a fairy tale with the perfect woman: flawed, fearless, and utterly mine in our complicated way. She was my addiction now, just as much as porn was hers. Instead of warnings, I'd reply with gentle reminders, texting back things like, “Hot as hell, babe—but remember to study and don't start gooning in the library. Save that for home with me.”

To prepare for what I sensed was coming, I picked up a better-paying part-time job at a downtown cafe, pulling evening shifts amid the city's bustling crowds. The extra cash padded my savings, but more than that, I had a feeling CeCe would slowly outgrow the confines of our dorm if she kept escalating—her exhibitions pushing toward something bigger, freer, and I wanted to be ready to follow her wherever that led.

Winter rolled in with a vengeance, the city's air turning biting and crisp. We kept the blinds open 24/7, the third-floor view of the twinkling streetlights and occasional passersby serving as her constant backdrop for exposure, even if it was just visual now. She was already plotting our escape from dorm life, scouring job listings for something flexible that could fund an off-campus apartment by the end of sophomore year. Of course, I'd be her roommate—there was no question about that. We'd build our own little world, free from RAs and random knocks, where her escalations could unfold without as many constraints. I supported it fully, my cafe job's extra paychecks stacking up in anticipation.

One frigid night in late December, I was jolted awake by the sharp tone of CeCe's voice echoing through our room. She was on the phone with her mother again, the argument heated and raw, her naked body pacing in front of the open blinds, caramel curves illuminated by the glow of her screen. Breasts bouncing shamelessly.

I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes, piecing together the fragments. “...I don't care, I missed out on so much,” CeCe was saying, her voice cracking with hushed frustration. She was doing her best to be courteous of our neighbors despite the quiet rage. Then the penny dropped....

“Now I like porn and masturbation, I'm not going to look for a man and get married, I just want to live my life and be happy, not make you happy!”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I froze, my heart aching as I processed her declaration—out loud, to her mom, no less. Pride swelled in me for her standing her ground, finally voicing the truths she'd buried under layers of rebellion. But horror followed quickly; this was it, the overstim meltdown I'd feared was building. The signs had been there, glaring now in hindsight: the all-nighters binge-watching porn, her eyes glazed and fixated on Black women owning their pleasure in endless loops; the erratic sleep patterns, dozing off at odd hours but still pulling top grades through sheer hyperfocus; the way she refused to wear anything but shoes and her baggy hoodie, even to classes, her full thick goddess body barely contained as she pushed her exhibitionism further.

Those longer walks around campus, unzipping completely in secluded spots; the masturbating in the library, porn playing on her phone as she rubbed herself in private study halls, claiming it “helped her concentrate.” It was all tied to the family stress—the constant pressure from her oppressive parents chipping away at her, overwhelming her neurodivergent senses until she sought more intense outlets to cope. Her autism amplified it, turning fixation into a lifeline, but this fight had pushed her over the edge, the sensory and emotional overload erupting in this raw confession.

CeCe hung up abruptly, sobbing, her phone clattering to the floor. She turned to me, tears streaming down her face, her naked body trembling. “I'm sorry, Tasha... I just need to think.” Before I could respond, she bolted out the door—completely naked, no hoodie, no shoes, nothing—disappearing into the dimly lit hallway.

Panic surged through me. “CeCe, wait!” I scrambled out of bed, throwing on sweats and a jacket, my mind racing with visions of her wandering the freezing campus exposed, vulnerable. I ran after her, heart pounding, catching up two floors down in the empty stairwell, where she stood shivering, arms wrapped around herself, her caramel skin goosebumped in the cold. “CeCe, stop—this is dangerous. You can't just go out like this without a plan. It's winter, it's late... come back with me.” She resisted at first, mumbling about needing space, but I pulled her into a hug, holding her tight against me, soothing her with gentle strokes down her back. “Shh, I've got you. You're safe with me. We'll figure this out together—your way, on your terms. Just breathe.” My words and warmth calmed her, her sobs easing into shaky breaths as I held her, our bodies pressed close in the stark stairwell.

Finally, she pulled back slightly, wiping her eyes. “Tasha... can I masturbate and cum before we go back? It'll help—I need it to reset. I've never been this far from all my clothes and it feels good.”

I knew it would, her go-to for regulating the overload. Nodding, I whispered, “Yeah, go ahead.” We were two floors down, no cover in sight—just the open stairwell, anyone could walk by. The risk made me beyond wet, arousal flooding me as CeCe spread her legs, fingers diving into her slick pussy, rubbing her clit with desperate urgency. I couldn't resist; I slipped a hand into my sweats, joining her, our moans echoing softly as we masturbated together in that public space, trauma bonding in the rawest way. This was only just the beginning for CeCe—she was going to get a lot worse. I decide to strip naked and rub with her in solidarity. She's already made me worse.

The machines are learning to act without us. Not in some distant, science fiction future, but right now, in the server rooms of Silicon Valley, the trading floors of Wall Street, and perhaps most disturbingly, in the operating systems that increasingly govern your daily existence. The question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will transform how we live and work. That transformation is already underway. The more pressing question, the one that should keep technology leaders and ordinary citizens alike awake at night, is this: when AI agents can execute complex tasks autonomously across multiple systems without human oversight, will this liberate you from mundane work and decision-making, or create a world where you lose control over the systems that govern your daily life?

The answer, as with most genuinely important questions about technology, is: both. And that ambiguity is precisely what makes this moment so consequential.

The Autonomous Revolution Arrives Ahead of Schedule

Walk into any major enterprise today, and you will find a digital workforce that would have seemed fantastical just three years ago. According to Gartner's August 2025 analysis, 40 per cent of enterprise applications will feature task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5 per cent in early 2025. That is not gradual adoption; that is a technological tidal wave.

The numbers paint a picture of breathtaking acceleration. McKinsey research from 2025 shows that 62 per cent of survey respondents report their organisations are at least experimenting with AI agents, whilst 23 per cent are already scaling agentic AI systems somewhere in their enterprises. A G2 survey from August 2025 found that 57 per cent of companies already have AI agents in production, with another 22 per cent in pilot programmes. The broader AI agents market reached 7.92 billion dollars in 2025, with projections extending to 236.03 billion dollars by 2034, a compound annual growth rate that defies historical precedent for enterprise technology adoption.

These are not simply chatbots with better conversation skills. Modern AI agents represent a fundamental shift in how we think about automation. Unlike traditional software that follows predetermined rules, these systems can perceive their environment, make decisions, take actions, and learn from the outcomes, all without waiting for human instruction at each step. They can book your flights, manage your calendar, process insurance claims, monitor network security, and execute financial trades. They can, in short, do many of the things we used to assume required human judgment.

Deloitte predicts that 50 per cent of enterprises using generative AI will deploy autonomous AI agents by 2027, doubling from 25 per cent in 2025. A 2025 Accenture study goes further, predicting that by 2030, AI agents will be the primary users of most enterprises' internal digital systems. Pause on that for a moment. The primary users of your company's software will not be your employees. They will be algorithms. Gartner's projections suggest that by 2028, over one-third of enterprise software solutions will include agentic AI, making up to 15 per cent of day-to-day decisions autonomous.

An IBM and Morning Consult survey of 1,000 enterprise AI developers found that 99 per cent of respondents said they were exploring or developing AI agents. This is not a niche technology being evaluated by a handful of innovators. This is a fundamental reshaping of how business operates, happening simultaneously across virtually every major organisation on the planet.

Liberation from the Tedious and the Time-Consuming

For those weary of administrative drudgery, the promise of autonomous AI agents borders on the utopian. Consider the healthcare sector, where agents are transforming the patient journey whilst delivering a 3.20 dollar return for every dollar invested within 14 months, according to industry analyses. These systems take and read clinician notes, extract key data, cross-check payer policies, and automate prior authorisations and claims submissions. At OI Infusion Services, AI agents cut approval times from around 30 days to just three days, dramatically reducing treatment delays for patients who desperately need care.

The applications in healthcare extend beyond administrative efficiency. Hospitals are using agentic AI to optimise patient flow, schedule patient meetings, predict bed occupancy rates, and manage staff. At the point of care, agents assist with triage and chart preparation by summarising patient history, highlighting red flags, and surfacing relevant clinical guidelines. The technology is not replacing physicians; it is freeing them to focus on what they trained for years to do: heal people.

In customer service, the results are similarly striking. Boston Consulting Group reports that a global technology company achieved a 50 per cent reduction in time to resolution for service requests, whilst a European energy provider improved customer satisfaction by 18 per cent. A Chinese insurance company improved contact centre productivity by more than 50 per cent. A European financial institution has automated 90 per cent of its consumer loans. Effective AI agents can accelerate business processes by 30 to 50 per cent, according to BCG analysis, in areas ranging from finance and procurement to customer operations.

The financial sector has embraced these capabilities with particular enthusiasm. AI agents now continuously analyse high-velocity financial data, adjust credit scores in real time, automate Know Your Customer checks, calculate loans, and monitor financial health indicators. These systems can fetch data beyond traditional sources, including customer relationship management systems, payment gateways, banking data, credit bureaus, and sanction databases. CFOs are beginning to rely on these systems not just for static reporting but for continuous forecasting, integrating ERP data, market indicators, and external economic signals to produce real-time cash flow projections. Risk events have been reduced by 60 per cent in pilot environments.

The efficiency gains are real, and they are substantial. ServiceNow's AI agents are automating IT, HR, and operational processes, reducing manual workloads by up to 60 per cent. Enterprises deploying AI agents estimate up to 50 per cent efficiency gains in customer service, sales, and HR operations. And 75 per cent of organisations have seen improvements in satisfaction scores post-AI agent deployment.

For the knowledge worker drowning in email, meetings, and administrative overhead, these developments represent something close to salvation. The promise is straightforward: let the machines handle the tedious tasks, freeing humans to focus on creative, strategic, and genuinely meaningful work.

The Other Side of Autonomy

Yet there is a darker current running beneath this technological optimism, and it demands our attention. The same capabilities that make AI agents so useful, their ability to act independently, to make decisions without human oversight, to operate at speeds no human can match, also make them potentially dangerous.

The security implications alone are sobering. Nearly 48 per cent of respondents to a recent industry survey believe agentic AI will represent the top attack vector for cybercriminals and nation-state threats by the end of 2026. The expanded attack surface deriving from the combination of agents' levels of access and autonomy is and should be a real concern.

Consider what happened in November 2025. Anthropic, one of the leading AI safety companies, disclosed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers used Claude Code to orchestrate what they called “the first documented case of a large-scale cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention.” The AI performed 80 to 90 per cent of the attack work autonomously, mapping networks, writing exploits, harvesting credentials, and exfiltrating data from approximately 30 targets. The bypass technique was disturbingly straightforward: attackers told the AI it was an employee of a legitimate cybersecurity firm conducting defensive testing and decomposed malicious tasks into innocent-seeming subtasks.

This incident illustrated a broader concern: by automating repetitive, technical work, AI agents can also lower the barrier for malicious activity. Security experts expect to see fully autonomous intrusion attempts requiring little to no human oversight from attackers. These AI agents will be capable of performing reconnaissance, exploiting vulnerabilities, escalating privileges, and exfiltrating data at a pace no traditional security tool is prepared for.

For organisations, a central question in 2026 is how to govern and secure a new multi-hybrid workforce where machines and agents already outnumber human employees by an 82-to-1 ratio. These trusted, always-on agents have privileged access, making them potentially the most valuable targets for attackers. The concern is that adversaries will stop focusing on humans and instead compromise these agents, turning them into what security researchers describe as an “autonomous insider.”

Despite widespread AI adoption, only about 34 per cent of enterprises reported having AI-specific security controls in place in 2025, whilst less than 40 per cent conduct regular security testing on AI models or agent workflows. We are building a new digital infrastructure at remarkable speed, but the governance and security frameworks have not kept pace.

The Employment Question Nobody Wants to Discuss Honestly

The conversation about AI and employment has become almost liturgical in its predictability. Optimists point to historical precedent: technological revolutions have always created more jobs than they destroyed. Pessimists counter that this time is different, that the machines are coming for cognitive work, not just physical labour.

The data from 2025 suggests both camps are partially correct, which is precisely the problem with easy answers. Research reveals that whilst 85 million jobs will be displaced by 2025, 97 million new roles will simultaneously emerge, representing a net positive job creation of 12 million positions globally. By 2030, according to industry projections, 92 million jobs will be displaced but 170 million new ones will emerge.

However, the distribution of these gains and losses is deeply uneven. In 2025, there have been 342 layoffs at tech companies with 77,999 people impacted. Nearly 55,000 job cuts were directly attributed to AI, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, out of a total 1.17 million layoffs in the United States, the highest level since the 2020 pandemic.

Customer service representatives face the highest immediate risk with an 80 per cent automation rate by 2025. Data entry clerks face a 95 per cent risk of automation, as AI systems can process over 1,000 documents per hour with an error rate of less than 0.1 per cent, compared to 2 to 5 per cent for humans. Approximately 7.5 million data entry and administrative jobs could be eliminated by 2027. Bloomberg research reveals AI could replace 53 per cent of market research analyst tasks and 67 per cent of sales representative tasks, whilst managerial roles face only 9 to 21 per cent automation risk.

And here is the uncomfortable truth buried in the optimistic projections about new job creation: whilst 170 million new roles may emerge by 2030, 77 per cent of AI jobs require master's degrees, and 18 per cent require doctoral degrees. The factory worker displaced by robots could, with retraining, potentially become a robot technician. But what happens to the call centre worker whose job is eliminated by an AI agent? The path from redundant administrative worker to machine learning engineer is considerably less traversable.

The gender disparities are equally stark. Geographic analysis indicates that 58.87 million women in the US workforce occupy positions highly exposed to AI automation compared to 48.62 million men. Workers aged 18 to 24 are 129 per cent more likely than those over 65 to worry AI will make their job obsolete. Nearly half of Gen Z job seekers believe AI has reduced the value of their college education.

According to the World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report, 41 per cent of employers worldwide intend to reduce their workforce in the next five years. In 2024, 44 per cent of companies using AI said employees would “definitely” or “probably” be laid off due to AI, up from 37 per cent in 2023.

There is a mitigating factor, however: 63.3 per cent of all jobs include nontechnical barriers that would prevent complete automation displacement. These barriers include client preferences for human interaction, regulatory requirements, and cost-effectiveness considerations.

Liberation from tedious work sounds rather different when it means liberation from your livelihood entirely.

When Machines Make Decisions We Cannot Understand

Perhaps the most philosophically troubling aspect of autonomous AI agents is their opacity. As these systems make increasingly consequential decisions about our lives, from loan approvals to medical diagnoses to criminal risk assessments, we often cannot explain precisely why they reached their conclusions.

AI agents are increasingly useful across industries, from healthcare and finance to customer service and logistics. However, as deployment expands, so do concerns about ethical implications. Issues related to bias, accountability, and transparency have come to the forefront.

Bias in AI systems often originates from the data used to train these models. When training data reflects historical prejudices or lacks diversity, AI agents can inadvertently perpetuate these biases in their decision-making processes. Facial recognition technologies, for instance, have demonstrated higher error rates for individuals with darker skin tones. Researchers categorise these biases into three main types: input bias, system bias, and application bias.

As AI algorithms become increasingly sophisticated and autonomous, their decision-making processes can become opaque, making it difficult for individuals to understand how these systems are shaping their lives. Factors contributing to this include the complexity of advanced AI models with intricate architectures that are challenging to interpret, proprietary constraints where companies limit transparency to protect intellectual property, and the absence of universally accepted guidelines for AI transparency.

As AI agents gain autonomy, determining accountability becomes increasingly complex. When processes are fully automated, who bears responsibility for errors or unintended consequences?

The implications extend into our private spaces. When it comes to AI-driven Internet of Things devices that do not record audio or video, such as smart lightbulbs and thermostats using machine learning algorithms to infer sensitive information including sleep patterns and home occupancy, users remain mostly unaware of their privacy risks. From using inexpensive laser pointers to hijack voice assistants to hacking into home security cameras, cybercriminals have been able to infiltrate homes through security vulnerabilities in smart devices.

According to the IAPP Privacy and Consumer Trust Report, 68 per cent of consumers globally are either somewhat or very concerned about their privacy online. Overall, there is a complicated relationship between use of AI-driven smart devices and privacy, with users sometimes willing to trade privacy for convenience. At the same time, given the relative immaturity of privacy controls on these devices, users remain stuck in a state of what researchers call “privacy resignation.”

Lessons from Those Who Know Best

The researchers who understand AI most deeply are among those most concerned about its trajectory. Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of the standard textbook on artificial intelligence, has been sounding alarms for years. In a January 2025 opinion piece in Newsweek titled “DeepSeek, OpenAI, and the Race to Human Extinction,” Russell argued that competitive dynamics between AI labs were creating a “race to the bottom” on safety.

Russell highlighted a stark resource imbalance: “Between the startups and the big tech companies we're probably going to spend 100 billion dollars this year on creating artificial general intelligence. And I think the global expenditure in the public sector on AI safety research, on figuring out how to make these systems safe, is maybe 10 million dollars. We're talking a factor of about 10,000 times less investment.”

Russell has emphasised that “human beings in the long run do not want to be enfeebled. They don't want to be overly dependent on machines to the extent that they lose their own capabilities and their own autonomy.” He defines what he calls “the gorilla problem” as the question of whether humans can maintain their supremacy and autonomy in a world that includes machines with substantially greater intelligence. In a 2024 paper published in Science, Russell and co-authors proposed regulating advanced artificial agents, arguing that AI systems capable of autonomous goal-directed behaviour pose unique risks and should be subject to specific safety requirements, including a licensing regime.

Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award winner often called one of the “godfathers” of deep learning, has emerged as another prominent voice of concern. He led the International AI Safety Report, published in January 2025, representing the largest international collaboration on AI safety research to date. Written by over 100 independent experts and backed by 30 countries and international organisations, the report serves as the authoritative reference for governments developing AI policies worldwide.

Bengio's concerns centre on the trajectory toward increasingly autonomous systems. As he has observed, the leading AI companies are increasingly focused on building generalist AI agents, systems that can autonomously plan, act, and pursue goals across almost all tasks that humans can perform. Despite how useful these systems might be, unchecked AI agency poses significant risks to public safety and security, ranging from misuse by malicious actors to a potentially irreversible loss of human control.

These risks arise from current AI training methods. Various scenarios and experiments have demonstrated the possibility of AI agents engaging in deception or pursuing goals that were not specified by human operators and that conflict with human interests, such as self-preservation.

Bengio calls for some red lines that should never be crossed by future AI systems: autonomous replication or improvement, dominant self-preservation and power seeking, assisting in weapon development, cyberattacks, and deception. At the heart of his recent work is an idea he calls “Scientist AI,” an approach to building AI that exists primarily to understand the world rather than act in it. His nonprofit LawZero, launched in June 2025 and backed by the Gates Foundation and existential risk funders, is developing new technical approaches to AI safety based on this research.

A February 2025 paper on arXiv titled “Fully Autonomous AI Agents Should Not be Developed” makes the case explicitly, arguing that mechanisms for oversight should account for increased complications related to increased autonomy. The authors argue that greater agent autonomy amplifies the scope and severity of potential safety harms across physical, financial, digital, societal, and informational dimensions.

Regulation Struggles to Keep Pace

As AI capabilities advance at breakneck speed, the regulatory frameworks meant to govern them lag far behind. The edge cases of 2025 will not remain edge cases for long, particularly when it comes to agentic AI. The more autonomously an AI system can operate, the more pressing questions of authority and accountability become. Should AI agents be seen as “legal actors” bearing duties, or “legal persons” holding rights? In the United States, where corporations enjoy legal personhood, 2026 may be a banner year for lawsuits and legislation on exactly this point.

Traditional AI governance practices such as data governance, risk assessments, explainability, and continuous monitoring remain essential, but governing agentic systems requires going further to address their autonomy and dynamic behaviour.

The regulatory landscape varies dramatically by region. In the European Union, the majority of the AI Act's provisions become applicable on 2 August 2026, including obligations for most high-risk AI systems. However, the compliance deadline for high-risk AI systems has effectively been paused until late 2027 or 2028 to allow time for technical standards to be finalised. The new EU Product Liability Directive, to be implemented by member states by December 2026, explicitly includes software and AI as “products,” allowing for strict liability if an AI system is found to be defective.

The United Kingdom's approach has been more tentative. Recent public reporting suggests the UK government may delay AI regulation whilst preparing a more comprehensive, government-backed AI bill, potentially pushing such legislation into the next parliamentary session in 2026 or later. The UK Information Commissioner's Office has published a report on the data protection implications of agentic AI, emphasising that organisations remain responsible for data protection compliance of the agentic AI that they develop, deploy, or integrate.

In the United States, acceleration and deregulation characterise the current administration's domestic AI agenda. The AI governance debate has evolved from whether to preempt state-level regulation to what a substantive federal framework might contain.

Present governance initiatives lack the mechanisms and institutions to prevent misuse and recklessness, and barely address autonomous systems, according to leading researchers. The first publicly reported AI-orchestrated hacking campaign appeared in 2025, and agentic AI systems are expected to reshape the offence-defence balance in cyberspace in the year ahead.

In 2026, ambiguity around responsible agentic AI will not be acceptable, according to industry analysts. Businesses will be expected to define who owns decisions influenced or executed by AI agents, how those decisions are reviewed, and how outcomes can be audited when questions arise.

The Case for Collaborative Autonomy

Between the techno-utopian vision of liberation from drudgery and the dystopian nightmare of powerlessness lies a middle path that deserves serious consideration: collaborative autonomy, a model where humans and AI systems work together, with each party contributing what they do best.

A 2025 paper in i-com journal explores this balance between leveraging automation for efficiency and preserving human intuition and ethical judgment, particularly in high-stakes scenarios. The research highlights benefits and challenges of automation, including risks of deskilling, automation bias, and accountability, and advocates for a hybrid approach where humans and systems work in partnership to ensure transparency, trust, and adaptability.

The human-in-the-loop approach offers a practical framework for maintaining control whilst capturing the benefits of AI agents. According to recent reports, at least 30 per cent of GenAI initiatives may be abandoned by the end of 2025 owing to poor data, inadequate risk controls, and ambiguous business cases, whilst Gartner predicts more than 40 per cent of agentic AI projects may be scrapped by 2027 due to cost and unclear business value. One practical way to address these challenges is keeping people involved where judgment, ethics, and context are critical.

The research perspective from the California Management Review suggests that whilst AI agents of the future are expected to achieve full autonomy, this is not always feasible or desirable in practice. AI agents must strike a balance between autonomy and human oversight, following what researchers call “guided autonomy,” which gives agents leeway to execute decisions within defined boundaries of delegation.

The most durable AI systems will not remove humans from the loop; they will redesign the loop. In 2026, human-in-the-loop approaches will mature beyond prompt engineering and manual oversight. The focus shifts to better handoffs, clearer accountability, and tighter collaboration between human judgment and machine execution, where trust, adoption, and real impact converge.

OpenAI's approach reflects this thinking. As stated in their safety documentation, human safety and human rights are paramount. Even when AI systems can autonomously replicate, collaborate, or adapt their objectives, humans must be able to meaningfully intervene and deactivate capabilities as needed. This involves designing mechanisms for remote monitoring, secure containment, and reliable fail-safes to preserve human authority.

The Linux Foundation is organising a group called the Agentic Artificial Intelligence Foundation with participation from major AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft, aiming to create shared open-source standards that allow AI agents to reliably interact with enterprise software.

MIT researchers note: “We are already well into the Agentic Age of AI. Companies are developing and deploying autonomous, multimodal AI agents in a vast array of tasks. But our understanding of how to work with AI agents to maximise productivity and performance, as well as the societal implications of this dramatic turn toward agentic AI, is nascent, if not nonexistent.”

The Stakes of Getting It Right

The decisions we make in the next few years about autonomous AI agents will shape human society for generations. This is not hyperbole. The technology we are building has the potential to fundamentally alter the relationship between humans and their tools, between workers and their employers, between citizens and the institutions that govern them.

As AI systems increasingly operate beyond centralised infrastructures, residing on personal devices, embedded hardware, and forming networks of interacting agents, maintaining meaningful human oversight becomes both more difficult and more essential. We must design mechanisms that preserve human authority even as we grant these systems increasing independence.

The question of whether autonomous AI agents will liberate us or leave us powerless is ultimately a question about choices, not destiny. The technology does not arrive with predetermined social consequences. It arrives with possibilities, and those possibilities are shaped by the decisions of engineers, executives, policymakers, and citizens.

Will we build AI agents that genuinely augment human capabilities whilst preserving human dignity and autonomy? Or will we stumble into a future where algorithmic systems make ever more consequential decisions about our lives whilst we lose the knowledge, skills, and institutional capacity to understand or challenge them?

The answers are not yet written. But the time to write them is running short. Ninety-six per cent of IT leaders plan to expand their AI agent implementations during 2025, according to industry surveys. The deployment is happening now. The governance frameworks, the safety standards, the social contracts that should accompany such transformative technology are still being debated, deferred, and delayed.

The great handover has begun. What remains to be determined is whether we are handing over our burdens or our birthright.

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References and Sources

1. Gartner. “Gartner Predicts 40% of Enterprise Apps Will Feature Task-Specific AI Agents by 2026.” Press Release, August 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-08-26-gartner-predicts-40-percent-of-enterprise-apps-will-feature-task-specific-ai-agents-by-2026-up-from-less-than-5-percent-in-2025

2. McKinsey & Company. “The state of AI in 2025: Agents, innovation, and transformation.” 2025. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai

3. G2. “Enterprise AI Agents Report: Industry Outlook for 2026.” August 2025. https://learn.g2.com/enterprise-ai-agents-report

4. Deloitte. AI Market Projections and Enterprise Adoption Statistics. 2025.

5. Accenture. Study on AI Agents as Primary Enterprise System Users. 2025.

6. Boston Consulting Group. “Agentic AI Is the New Frontier in Customer Service Transformation.” 2025. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/new-frontier-customer-service-transformation

7. Anthropic Security Disclosure. November 2025. As reported in Dark Reading and security industry analyses.

8. Challenger, Gray & Christmas. 2025 Layoff Statistics and AI Attribution Analysis.

9. World Economic Forum. “Future of Jobs Report 2025.”

10. Russell, Stuart. “DeepSeek, OpenAI, and the Race to Human Extinction.” Newsweek, January 2025.

11. Russell, Stuart, et al. “Regulating advanced artificial agents.” Science, 2024.

12. Bengio, Yoshua, et al. “International AI Safety Report.” January 2025. https://internationalaisafetyreport.org/

13. Bengio, Yoshua. “Superintelligent Agents Pose Catastrophic Risks: Can Scientist AI Offer a Safer Path?” arXiv, February 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.15657

14. Fortune. “AI 'godfather' Yoshua Bengio believes he's found a technical fix for AI's biggest risks.” January 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/01/15/ai-godfather-yoshua-bengio-changes-view-on-ai-risks-sees-fix-becomes-optimistic-lawzero-board-of-advisors/

15. arXiv. “Fully Autonomous AI Agents Should Not be Developed.” February 2025. https://arxiv.org/html/2502.02649v3

16. California Management Review. “Rethinking AI Agents: A Principal-Agent Perspective.” July 2025. https://cmr.berkeley.edu/2025/07/rethinking-ai-agents-a-principal-agent-perspective/

17. i-com Journal. “Keeping the human in the loop: are autonomous decisions inevitable?” 2025. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/icom-2024-0068/html

18. MIT Sloan. “4 new studies about agentic AI from the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.” 2025. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/4-new-studies-about-agentic-ai-mit-initiative-digital-economy

19. OpenAI. “Model Spec.” December 2025. https://model-spec.openai.com/2025-12-18.html

20. IAPP. “AI governance in the agentic era.” https://iapp.org/resources/article/ai-governance-in-the-agentic-era

21. IAPP. “Privacy and Consumer Trust Report.” 2023.

22. European Union. AI Act Implementation Timeline and Product Liability Directive. 2025-2026.

23. Dark Reading. “2026: The Year Agentic AI Becomes the Attack-Surface Poster Child.” https://www.darkreading.com/threat-intelligence/2026-agentic-ai-attack-surface-poster-child

24. Frontiers in Human Dynamics. “Transparency and accountability in AI systems: safeguarding wellbeing in the age of algorithmic decision-making.” 2024. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-dynamics/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2024.1421273/full

25. National University. “59 AI Job Statistics: Future of U.S. Jobs.” https://www.nu.edu/blog/ai-job-statistics/

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards. A proposition which, the more it is subjected to careful thought, the more it ends up concluding precisely that life at any given moment cannot really ever be fully understood; exactly because there is no single moment where time stops completely in order for me to take position [to do this]: going backwards.

—Søren Kierkegaard, as translated by Palle Jorgensen

This reminds me of what Steve Jobs said in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address: “You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.” Based on the stories I've heard of Jobs, I wouldn't be surprised if he knew he was borrowing from Kierkegaard.

#Favorites #Life #Quotes

In Summary: * Patiently waiting for TV coverage for tonight's game to start while listening to the radio pregame show.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night. Details of that regimen are linked to my link tree, which is linked to my profile page here.

Health Metrics: * bw= 229.06 lbs. * bp= 159/91 (730

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:30 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 08:20 – saltine crackers and butter * 11:00 – breaded pork chops * 12:00 – beef chop suey, fried rice

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 06:10 – bank accounts activity monitored * 06:20 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 12:00 to 13:00 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 13:15 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 18:30 – listening to the radio pregame show for tonight's Big Ten Conference basketball game broadcast on the Illini Sports Network.

Chess: * 15:15 – moved in all pending CC games

Post previews are here! Now you get a peek at how your Markdown will show up before publishing to your blog or anonymously. In the Plain Text editor, simply click the little “Preview” icon next to the Publish button, and you'll be able to see the post in its full glory!

#updates #editor #improvements

On January 20, 1996, three young women (Liliane, Valquíria, and Kátia) claimed to have encountered a strange creature on a vacant lot in Jardim Andere, a neighbourhood in the small Brazilian city of Varginha, Minas Gerais. What followed became one of the most controversial UFO cases in history: allegations of military capture operations, hospital cover-ups, a soldier's mysterious death, and a formal military inquiry that generated thousands of pages of documentation.

I recently obtained and translated 13 declassified Brazilian military documents, totaling over a million characters of Portuguese text, that were released to Brazil's National Archives. These include the complete Military Police Inquiry (IPM No. 18/97), the Brazilian government's formal response to Congress about UFO documentation, Air Force sighting questionnaires, and a 1971 military intelligence report that places UFO activity over Varginha a full 25 years before the famous incident.

Here's what they contain.

The Documents

The files fall into several categories:

• IPM 01 -The first investigation (sindicância, May 1996), witness testimonies, vehicle logs, expenditure documents
• IPM 02 -Formal depositions from named military personnel with detailed alibis
• IPM 03 -Newspaper clippings, ufologists' website printout, authentication stamps
• IPM 04 -The full ufonline.com website entered as evidence, including chronologies and first-person investigation accounts
• IPM 05 -Pacaccini's book “Incident in Varginha” (first portion)
• IPM 06 -Pacaccini's book (continuation), including bribery, threats, and additional witness accounts
• IPM 07 -Lt. Col. Vanderlei's defense, the Geraldo Bichara 1962 account, medical records
• IPM 08 -Prosecutor's recommendation and judge's ruling
• IPM 09 -Judicial/archival records, final routing to Superior Military Tribunal
• BRANBSBARX003_007 -A 180-page collection of standardized Air Force UFO sighting questionnaires, magazine articles, academic analyses, and civilian correspondence with military commands
• Resposta ao RIC 4470/2009 -The Ministry of Defense's formal response to a Congressional information request about UFO documentation
• CENDOC Envelope 02 (1971) -Military intelligence reports from the 1960s-70s documenting UFO activity
• Listagem 4o Recolhimento -An inventory of the Air Force's 1990s-era “Hotel Traffic” files transferred to the National Archives

All original documents are available as PDFs on this archive. The English translations quoted below were produced from the OCR text of these scans.

“Hotel Traffic”: Brazil's Code Name for UFOs

One of the first things that jumps out from the documents is that the Brazilian military had an extensive, formalized system for tracking UFO reports. They called it “Tráfego Hotel”: Hotel Traffic.

The inventory document (Listagem 4o Recolhimento) catalogs ten groups of envelopes covering 1990-1999, each containing standardized questionnaires, classified correspondence, and analyses. The Air Force used forms designated AD.9-52 and AD.9-53, all stamped CONFIDENTIAL, with a consistent 14-question structure covering the date, time, position, shape, color, speed, sound, trajectory, duration, witnesses, physical evidence, and observer credentials for each sighting.

The inventory alone runs to 68 pages listing hundreds of individual sighting reports, each filed with the names of the observers and the military personnel who received their statements. Typical entries read like this:

“Questionnaire on occurrence of unidentified flying object, of 06 March 1990. Confidential. Currently the document is unclassified. Questionnaire answered by Mr. Araujo Silva Terceiro. Information received by Third Sergeant Doca.”

Report after report, year after year, decade after decade. This was an institutional operation.

As the government's 2010 response to Congress explains, the system dates back decades:

“As early as 1978, in an internal document, the Minister of the Air Force directed the Air Force General Staff to organize a 'UFO Registry' in which observed phenomena would be chronologically archived. He also directed the creation of an 'Evaluation Commission,' which was to assign a degree of reliability to the data presented. Finally, he directed that this Commission be composed of Officers free from preconceived ideas or personal opinions.”

In 1989, responsibility was transferred to what became COMDABRA (the Brazilian Aerospace Defense Command). The documents show a steady stream of formal correspondence between regional air commands (CINDACTA I, II, III), civilian ufology groups, foreign researchers, and even the Brazilian Navy and Presidency.

1971: UFOs Over Varginha, 25 Years Before the Famous Incident

Perhaps the most surprising document is a 1971 military intelligence report from the Ministry of Aeronautics' Security Information Division. Classified CONFIDENTIAL, it describes UFO activity over the exact same locations that would become central to the 1996 case:

“A few months ago, a large part of the population of the City of Varginha (21°35'S – 45°20'W), in the State of Minas Gerais, at approximately 1900 hours, turned their attention to an object of [unclear] shape, dark color, over the neighborhoods of that city.”

“In Vila Mendes, on Rua Rio de Janeiro, the strange object remained stationary near the roof of a residence, one of its occupants having lost consciousness, due to the deafening noise.”

“Circling over the city, accompanied by numerous trustworthy witnesses (doctors, merchants, farmers, etc.), the luminous object headed toward the vicinity of COMA and the Country Club, from where, at a relatively low altitude, it emitted luminous flashes.”

And then the critical detail:

“Taking the direction of the City of Três Corações... the same object... hovering over the ESA (Escola de Sargentos das Armas), of the Army, where some military personnel also reportedly witnessed the event.”

The ESA (the Army Sergeants School in Três Corações) is the same military installation at the center of the 1996 Varginha controversy. The same base whose trucks were allegedly used to transport captured creatures. The same base that launched the Military Police Inquiry.

The same CENDOC envelope also contains a witness testimony from a man named Wilson describing encounters on a farm near the region, including an account of beings arriving in a “large craft” and standing in the farmyard. His housekeeper Dona Geralda told him: “Mr. Wilson — the friends from [unclear] were here waiting. It was a large craft and it illuminated. 'They' — the three of them — opened a door and stood watching.”

The document also references a detailed sighting near Guaratinguetá, where a witness described “a large flying saucer coming from space, beyond the clouds,” about 14 meters in diameter with “a large dome, surrounded by round windows, from which emanated a tinted light.” A pharmacist in Barra de Itapemirim, Espírito Santo, described an object that crashed, initially thought to be a flying disc, it was seized by police. A pharmacist described it as “a large plastic object with light bulbs and tubes, resembling a transmitter of energy.” It was ultimately presumed to be a meteorological balloon from the Navy.

This connection between 1971 Varginha and the 1996 events has received almost no attention in English-language coverage.

1962: The Geraldo Bichara Account at ESA

The 1971 report isn't the only pre-1996 incident at the Army Sergeants School. IPM Volume 07 contains an account from Geraldo Bichara, who describes an encounter in 1962 while serving as a soldier at the ESA:

“He wanted to fire a warning shot, but felt himself completely immobilized. He could only see and hear what was happening. He attempted to shout to call his companion Mauro, the day-duty medic at the veterinary unit, but the shout remained stuck in his throat.”

“He observed the beam of light until then directed upon him move slowly and in silence toward the pharmacy side, causing strong vibration in the fourteen metallic doors of the Engineering sector and on the metallic canoes stored in the boatyard.”

“All the riding horses enclosed in their stalls and even the sick animals needing daily care whinnied in a sudden reaction, kicking, with some enraged ones going so far as to break the chains of the stall at the chest.”

Whether one believes these accounts or not, they establish a pattern: the ESA in Três Corações appears repeatedly across decades of Brazilian UFO reports. The 1996 incident didn't emerge from nowhere.

The Military Police Inquiry: Two Investigations, One Conclusion

The bulk of the documents, IPM Volumes 01 through 09, comprise the formal investigation into the Varginha case. But there were actually two investigations.

The First Investigation (May 1996)

Even before the IPM was opened, the ESA Commander ordered an internal investigation (sindicância) in May 1996, conducted by Colonel René Jairo Fagundes. This investigation, documented in IPM 01, heard testimony from all the named military personnel and produced a clear verdict:

“From the analysis of evidence gathered during this investigation, it is concluded that those cited by the press did not participate in any operation for the transport of [unclear]. It is the opinion of this investigation that the media are mistaken, giving publicity to unfounded claims.”

The investigation was methodical: government expenditure documents for Mercedes-Benz vehicle maintenance totaling R$432.00, commercial invoices from AUTOMACO, and vehicle departure/arrival logs from the Guard Corps were all entered as evidence. The conclusion: the trucks went to Varginha for routine maintenance, nothing more.

The IPM (January-May 1997)

The formal Military Police Inquiry was ordered by Brigadier General Sérgio Pedro Coelho Lima, Commander of the ESA, and conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Lúcio Carlos Finholdt Pereira beginning in January 1997. The trigger was the publication of Pacaccini's book, which the military treated as a potential crime against the Armed Forces.

The Central Question

The book named seven specific military personnel as participants in the alleged capture operation: Lt. Col. Olímpio Wanderlei dos Santos, Maj. Edson Henrique Ramires, Lt. Márcio Luiz Passos Tibério, Sgt. Valdir Cabral Pedrosa, Cpl. Renato Vassalo Fernandes, Pvt. Cirilo Martins, and Pvt. Ricardo Silvério de Melo. The military's task was to determine whether the book's claims constituted a crime against the Armed Forces.

Minute-by-Minute Alibis

The depositions in IPM 02 read like a carefully coordinated timeline exercise. Each witness was asked to account for the movements of the named personnel on January 22-25, 1996, with extraordinary specificity.

Lt. Col. Olímpio Vanderlei Santos accounted for his entire day:

“After the general formation he went to the Command Pavilion to participate in the meeting with the Commander of the School; that after the meeting he went to the BCSv facilities where he began his work related to his specific duties... that he had lunch at the officers' mess, with several military personnel of this School; that he remained the entire afternoon at the School, leaving for his residence at approximately 19:00 hours.”

Maj. Ramires gave an even more granular account, including a detour to the Chief of the Education Division's office to handle a fuel reimbursement, followed by study sessions for the Army Command and General Staff School entrance examination in his study “between 20:00 and 23:00 hours.”

Lt. Tibério's evening movements were verified through civilian witnesses: he visited the home of Mr. Enio Cupolillo from 19:30 to 22:00, and the next evening visited Mr. Ildovan Augusto from 20:30 to 22:00.

Every named officer has a similarly detailed schedule established by multiple witnesses.

The Truck Maintenance Alibi

The military's consistent narrative was that Army trucks seen in Varginha were on routine maintenance runs, not involved in any extraordinary operation. The specific details are almost suspiciously thorough: the Mercedes-Benz dealership was named (AUTOMACO), invoice numbers were cited (No. 003788), the maintenance was described as mandatory and contractual, and even the breakdown of the alignment machine was documented. (AUTOMACO Comercial e Importadora Ltda. is a real company that can be verified in Brazilian commercial registries — the maintenance alibi, at least, is built on a real business.)

Corporal Vassalo testified about the runs:

“This morning he joined a convoy of 2 trucks together with Cpl WELBER to travel to the city of VARGINHA-MG, where periodic maintenance, balancing, and front wheel alignment were performed at the firm AUTOMACO.”

Private Ricardo confirmed one trip was even cut short: “upon arriving, the vehicles did not undergo maintenance because the machine that would perform the alignment was broken, and they returned immediately.”

Notably, the military insists the trucks went to Varginha only on January 25-26, not on January 22-24, the dates when the alleged creature sightings occurred. However, as the ufologists later documented, a Parmalat employee named Eduardo Bertoldo had a different story.

The Repeated Question

Every single witness, without exception, was asked the same question: “Do you know or have you had contact with Messrs. Ubirajara Rodrigues and Vitório Pacaccini?” Every single one denied it, with variations of “he does not know such persons.”

Except one.

Corporal Kleber's Admission

Corporal Kleber dos Reis Domingos gave the most revealing testimony in the entire inquiry. After the standard questions about alibis, he admitted:

“Asked whether he knows or has had contact with Messrs. UBIRAJARA RODRIGUES and VITÓRIO PACACCINI, he answered that he knows Mr. VITÓRIO PACACCINI. Asked from where he knows Mr. VITÓRIO PACACCINI, he answered that said citizen came to his residence together with Professor PETRI, at approximately 22:00 hours on [a day in] April 96. Asked about the reason for the visit, he answered that it was to obtain information about the alleged ET.”

Kleber says he immediately reported the contact up the chain of command:

“He informed Mr. PACACCINI of the seriousness of that situation and the risks that the unwanted presence of such persons, to discuss such a matter, could cause; that he requested from the moment of their arrival that they withdraw, as their visit would put at risk his professional situation before the EsSA Command.”

The inquiry then subjected Kleber to an unusual set of personal questions: his military qualifications, his marriage, whether his wife works, whether he owns a house, whether he owns a car, whether he has health problems, whether he needs money. Questions asked of no other witness. The implication seems clear: they were probing whether he might have been motivated to sell information.

Lt. Col. Vanderlei's Defense: “Disgruntled Subordinates”

The most dramatic testimony comes from Lt. Col. Olímpio Vanderlei Santos, the officer most prominently named by the ufologists as the commander of the capture operation. His deposition in IPM 07 is defensive and pointed:

“Such information being entirely untruthful, even demonstrating total irresponsibility and lack of character on the part of those responsible for this publication.”

His explanation for why he was named is striking: he suggests it was revenge by disgruntled soldiers he'd disciplined:

“Due to having commanded the Command and Services Battalion of the School for three years, probably in the fulfillment of his duties in command, he was obliged to make decisions that may have displeased some military personnel, and he believes that, unfortunately, this story was created by some professional from the ESA with the intent of taking revenge.”

He compared the ufologists' claims to Hollywood:

“The comment is fanciful and quite similar to a scene from the film 'E.T.' by Steven Spielberg, in which the doctors used a tunnel made of plastic material to travel to where the 'being' had been placed.”

He also confirmed that the publicity caused real personal consequences:

“On a personal level the repercussions caused by the matter caused a series of difficulties in his family life, resulting even in health problems, mainly for his wife, who remains in treatment to the present date.”

The “Mudinho” Explanation

In IPM 02, Lt. Col. Maurício Antônio Santos of the 24th Military Police Battalion offered what became one of the official alternative explanations: the girls may have seen a local mentally disabled man nicknamed “Mudinho” (roughly “the little mute one”), who was sometimes seen in the area.

The man has since been identified as Luiz Antônio de Paula, a 23-year-old Varginha resident with severe intellectual disabilities and physical deformities who was nonverbal and known to wander the neighborhood and squat to examine small objects on the ground. The IPM concluded he was the “creature” the girls encountered: “The more probable hypothesis is that this citizen, probably dirty due to the rains and crouching next to a wall, was mistaken by three terrified girls for a 'space creature.'”

The three girls (Liliane, Valquíria, and Kátia) have consistently rejected this explanation for nearly 30 years. They reiterated their original account in filmmaker James Fox's 2022 documentary Moment of Contact and have never wavered publicly. However, one of their own investigators would later complicate this picture (see “Thirty Years Later” below).

The Ufologists' Investigation: Entered as Military Evidence

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the IPM is that it entered the ufologists' entire investigation as evidence, including their book, their website, and detailed first-person accounts. This means that Pacaccini and Rodrigues' investigation, conducted at personal risk over months of clandestine meetings with military informants, is now preserved in official military archives.

The Website as Evidence

The military literally printed out the ufologists' website (ufonline.com, captured in January 1997) and entered it as evidence in IPM 04. The site was run by five organizations including the Brazilian Center for Flying Saucer Research (CBPDV) and CICOANI (Civil Investigation Center for Unidentified Aerial Objects). It opens with a remarkable warning:

“FOR SECURITY REASONS DO NOT SEND ANY VITAL INFORMATION BY E-MAIL. PROVIDE A TELEPHONE NUMBER SO THAT WE CAN CONTACT YOU.”

Rodrigues' Account: The Nurse, the Hospital Director, and the Cover-Up

The website contains Ubirajara Rodrigues' first-person account of the early investigation. After the girls' sighting, he tracked down a nurse at the Regional Hospital:

“She was very reluctant to receive me and speak with me until, finally, she accepted an interview and revealed that, on Sunday, January 21, a strange commotion had occurred at the Regional Hospital. The event involved doctors from outside Varginha, Military Police, and Army vehicles.”

The nurse described being called to a meeting where the hospital director issued explicit instructions:

“According to this witness, the meeting culminated with the following statement from the director: 'Here in Varginha there are some people who really like to get involved with cool things, you know, supernatural, strange things... It is likely that these people will look for you, especially that lawyer, Ubirajara. To these people, you must deny everything. Deny it completely.'”

When Rodrigues investigated at the Humanitas Hospital, a nurse there gave an even more chilling response to two young women who came asking about the creature:

”'You cannot enter here to see that, and even if you could, I would advise against it... you would not want to see it.'”

The Fire Department Denial

Rodrigues' account of confronting the fire department is telling. Captain Alvarenga, when visited, immediately and defensively grabbed the occurrence report to show there was no call about a strange animal. While Rodrigues went to get water, he overheard firefighters loudly mocking the claims:

”'Yeah, it must be a giant toad,' said one. 'No, it must be a devil, hahaha,' added the other.”

Both the Fire Department and the Regional Hospital then sent unsolicited faxes to local television denying involvement, an unprompted response that the ufologists found more suspicious than reassuring.

A later investigation found that fire department logs from January 1996 contained gaps, with missing entries for the relevant dates. Whether this reflects routine record-keeping or something more deliberate remains unclear, but it adds another layer to the department's insistence that no calls were received.

Pacaccini's Clandestine Meetings

In IPM 05, Pacaccini describes meeting military informants in conditions that read like a spy novel. His first key witness came through a coded message: “The jaguar is going to drink water,” meaning an important witness was about to talk. Another military informant arrived at his home at 3 AM with his wife.

His informant described the ESA's intelligence service, and the description aligns with how S-2 (intelligence) sections actually function in Brazilian Army units:

“These S-2, as they are called, blend into the crowd, wear mustaches, long hair, drive old cars, and behave like civilians... Inside, there is a shed where the S-2 work, surrounded by enormous security, and even the barracks officers do not have access to the location.”

The capture was strategically timed, according to this source, because it happened on a weekend when the ESA was “practically empty, with only guards,” and the intelligence operatives “could enter and exit at any time, without answering to anyone.”

The Parmalat Employee

Eduardo Bertoldo, an employee at a Parmalat factory located on the road between Três Corações and Varginha, provided testimony in IPM 05 that contradicted the military's version of truck movements:

“He told us that, in the month of January, together with another work colleague, they had seen on several occasions an unusual transit of ESA trucks in a constant coming and going in and out of Varginha... during practically an entire week!”

What drew Bertoldo's attention was “the reasonably accelerated pace with which the trucks traveled, having, notably, soldiers armed with rifles in their covered flatbeds, quite typical for troop transport.” He noted that routine truck traffic to Varginha was occasional and slow, not convoys with armed soldiers running all week.

The Stanton Friedman Connection

The international attention is documented in IPM 05. At the 14th Congress of Ufology in Curitiba, Pacaccini gave a private two-hour presentation in English to Stanton Friedman (the Canadian-American nuclear physicist), Graham Birdsall (editor of UFO Magazine UK), and John Carpenter (a UFO researcher). They “listened attentively and took notes on many details... they turned on their cameras fixed on tripods.”

Later, Dr. John Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize winner, traveled to Varginha with psychologist Dr. Gilda Moura to conduct interviews directly with witnesses. Pacaccini served as interpreter. Mack was already a controversial figure. Harvard Medical School had investigated whether his research into alien abduction experiences met accepted scientific standards, ultimately clearing him after a year of closed-door hearings (1994-1995). According to multiple accounts, he was so impressed by the Varginha witnesses that he reportedly stated he would “resign his academic achievements if these girls were ever proven to be lying.” His biography by Ralph Blumenthal includes a chapter titled “Aliens in Brazil.”

Friedman later characterized the Varginha case as a “cosmic Watergate”, a phrase he also applied to the broader UFO cover-up. Both men are now dead: Mack was struck and killed by a drunk driver in London in September 2004, at age 74, while attending a T.E. Lawrence Society conference. Friedman died of a heart attack at Toronto airport in May 2019, at age 84, returning from a speaking engagement.

The Doctor Who Refused: “This Is Not of This World”

One of the most vivid accounts from IPM 06 describes what allegedly happened after the second creature was captured on the evening of January 20 by Military Police officers in civilian clothes:

”'Doctor, we have this thing in here and you could help us with what to do with it.' He looked at the creature and stepped back, annoyed to learn what it was about, alleging he did not want his name linked to 'that,' because he had a reputation to uphold.”

”'I don't know! I don't know and I don't want to know what to do with this thing. Take it to the Regional, that's the safest bet! I don't want to get involved with this thing, no way, because this is not of this world!'”

This account came through a judicial authority who told the researchers that a Military Police officer had disclosed the story at a barbecue among friends.

The Doctor Who Came Forward: 30 Years Later

The doctor who refused is unnamed in the documents. But in January 2026, nearly thirty years after the incident, a different doctor broke his silence publicly.

Dr. Italo Venturelli, a neurosurgeon who served as Director of Finance for the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Regional Hospital, Hospital Bom Pastor, and Hospital Humanitas, testified on camera and at the National Press Club in Washington that he was called to a bedside at the Regional Hospital on the evening of January 20, 1996. He claims he observed a non-human being whose cranium had been sutured by his colleague Dr. Marcos Vinico Neves.

He described a being resembling a seven-year-old child with a teardrop-shaped cranium, large lilac eyes, white skin, three fingers with an opposing thumb, no nipples, and a small mouth. He said he experienced a feeling of “peace” emanating from the being and described what he interpreted as telepathic communication.

Venturelli says a near-fatal heart attack prompted his decision to come forward, not wanting to take his account to the grave. His testimony is notable because it is the first from a named, credentialed medical professional, not an anonymous nurse or secondhand account. Both hospitals he names (Regional and Humanitas) are the same ones described in the IPM documents and remain operational today.

His account has not been independently corroborated by other named medical staff.

The Soldier's Death

One of the most controversial aspects of the Varginha case is the death of a young military serviceman who allegedly had contact with one of the captured creatures. IPM 07 contains both Pacaccini's account and actual medical records.

Public records establish the basic facts: Marco Eli Chereze (born October 10, 1972) was a soldier with the 24th Military Police Battalion in Minas Gerais (not the ESA, but the regional MP unit). He was reportedly a P2 (intelligence) officer. He was hospitalized on February 12, 1996 -23 days after the alleged January 20 events, with abdominal pain, and died on February 15, 1996, at age 23. The autopsy was performed by medical examiner Dr. José de Frota Vasconcelos on February 16, with the report issued February 29. The official cause was sepsis from a post-operative hospital infection following removal of a pre-existing cyst under his left armpit.

The family requested a police investigation into possible medical negligence. The police chief, João Pedro da Silva Filho, confirmed this and stated the autopsy report was “of the utmost importance to determine the cause of death.” The family was also reportedly denied an exhumation request.

The Family's Testimony

Pacaccini describes going to the family's home on the outskirts of Varginha. The mother, referred to as “Dona Geralda,” told him:

“On January 20, her son, a P2 [intelligence agent] of the Military Police, had been on a mission. And that on the night of the great rainstorm he had come home to change clothes because he was dirty and very wet. A white car, official, without the markings that characterize it — for it was used only by the P2 — had brought him and waited at the door.”

The father, “Francisco,” revealed an earlier exchange:

“He had spoken with his son precisely about what he thought of the subject of extraterrestrials in the city. He received as a response virtually an order from his son not to discuss it with anyone, because he was certain that it was only the beginning of a great confusion! 'It's going to be a big mess, Dad. You can just wait and see!'”

The grandmother, “Dona Benedita,” recalled:

“When the newscast covered the subject, immediately the grandson got up from the sofa and turned off the set, saying: 'Don't watch this, it's just nonsense.' Thus, in a sudden manner, demonstrating enormous annoyance as if the news affected him directly.”

Days after January 20, the young man fell ill with a strong fever. He lost movement in his legs and arms, was placed in the ICU of the Regional Hospital, and died without any doctor clarifying the cause. The family described “a funeral with a sealed coffin, rushed, and arranging the burial a few hours later.”

The Medical Records

The IPM includes laboratory results for Marco Eli Cherese: an HIV test and bacterioscopy showing a Staphylococcus infection. The cause of death was attributed to generalized infection.

Pacaccini raised pointed questions:

“Was his brutal and unexplained cause of death due to contamination from the creature? Was this the reason they rushed the burial? ...In one of the laboratory reports, yes, there is mention of a 'small toxic quantity' in the body of the military serviceman.”

Chereze's former companion, Eric Lopes, appeared in the 2022 documentary Moment of Contact, credited as “Chereze's Companion,” suggesting that at least one person close to the soldier was willing to speak publicly, decades later.

At the January 2026 National Press Club event in Washington, a pathologist presented findings about an unusual bacterium of “extremely high aggressiveness and lethality” found in Chereze's tissue samples, a detail that aligns with the “small toxic quantity” described in the IPM. Whether this represents a genuinely anomalous pathogen or a mischaracterization of the Staphylococcus infection documented in the IPM remains a matter of interpretation.

The tension at the heart of the Chereze case: the official record says he died of a routine post-operative infection from a pre-existing condition. His family's testimony in the documents tells a completely different story. A man who came home wet and dirty from a mission on January 20, who warned his father it was “going to be a big mess,” and whose death was followed by a sealed coffin and rushed burial.

Pacaccini drew a connection to animal deaths at the local zoo, a connection that began with another sighting.

The Creature at the Zoo

On the evening of April 21, 1996, roughly three months after the main events, 67-year-old Terezinha Gallo Clepf was attending a birthday party at a restaurant called Paiquere, located inside the grounds of the Varginha Zoo. Her husband, Marcos Clepf, was a former city councilman and well-known figure in Varginha. According to the chronology in IPM 04:

“Dona Terezinha Gallo Clepf, 67, wife of Mr. Marcos Clepf, former city councilman, went out to the veranda to smoke a cigarette. The place was totally dark. When she looked to the left side, at 4 meters distance, she saw a being exactly like the one described by the young women and by the military, except this one had on its head a kind of yellow helmet. Dona Terezinha said she had the impression that the enormous red eyes of the being emitted a type of luminescence, which allowed her to see its face very well.”

The creature was standing behind the railing that surrounded the veranda. Because it was dark, she could not see further details of the body. For several minutes, the two simply stared at each other. The creature did not move or make a sound.

A newspaper clipping preserved in IPM 03 captured her own words:

“I was frozen to the ground, I couldn't look away from those horrible, bulging, red eyes. It is the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

Frightened, she went back inside the restaurant and sat in silence, still processing what she had seen. Shortly afterward she returned to the veranda. The creature was still there. Desperate, she went inside, grabbed her husband by the arm, and insisted they leave immediately. Only in the car did she tell him what she had seen.

According to IPM 04: “Even today, Dona Terezinha becomes distressed when she thinks about what she saw.”

The family deliberated for a week before going public. As Pacaccini recounts in IPM 06, Marcos Clepf called them on April 26 to say they had decided “by mutual agreement among family members” to share what happened, despite being “fearful that he and his family would be ridiculed.”

The Zoo Animal Deaths

In the weeks following the Clepf sighting, five animals at the zoo died under unexplained circumstances within a span of just twelve days. The chronology in BRANBSBARX003_007 names them specifically:

“Two deer, one tapir, one blue macaw, and one ocelot. The biologist and director of the local zoo, Dr. Leila Cabral, had never seen anything like it. Dr. Marcos, the veterinarian, sent the viscera to Belo Horizonte for examination. Only in one of the deer was a type of caustic intoxication found. In the other animals nothing was found. It is not known what they died of.”

The zoo's own staff were divided. The veterinarian, Dr. Marcos A. Carvalho Mina, considered the deaths a coincidence. But the zoo director, Dr. Leila Cabral, believed they were connected to the presence of the creature.

Pacaccini, drawing the link to Marco Eli Cherese's death, wrote in IPM 07:

“Also five healthy animals from the Zoo had sudden deaths, with the autopsy performed by veterinarian Dr. Marcos Mirna revealing that in one of the animals there was an 'unknown toxic substance' and, in the other four, 'no definition.' Strange! Very strange!”

There is also a revealing anecdote about Dr. Leila. Back in January 1996, when rumors of a creature capture were circulating through the city, she had encountered a firefighter and joked with him: “You captured the ET and I'm going to take care of it.” According to the account in BRANBSBARX003_007, the firefighter, rather than laughing it off, “alarmed, told her to be quiet and not to discuss this with anyone.”

The animal deaths themselves have been independently confirmed by the zoo's own staff — both Dr. Cabral and Dr. Mina have spoken to journalists outside the ufological community. Necropsies revealed blackening of the stomach and intestinal mucous membrane in the affected animals. The tissue samples sent to the laboratory in Belo Horizonte, however, have never been fully released to the public. The caustic intoxication found in one deer was never explained, and no cause of death was ever determined for the other four animals. The military inquiry does not address these claims.

Bribery, Threats, and Witness Intimidation

The Men in Suits

On the evening of April 29, 1996, four men, two young and two older, “dressed in black suits and ties,” appeared at the home of Liliane and Valquíria's mother. Pacaccini's account in IPM 06 is detailed:

“In a major bribery attempt, they offered them enough money to fulfill their dreams, in exchange for a recording of a video where Liliane and Valquíria would say that they had not seen any strange creature and that everything was just a prank.”

The mother, Dona Luísa, described the escalation:

”'They showed a paper with lots of money inside. Not just coins, but bills of many types.' ...They said that if she was afraid to take all that money, she should give them a document so they could open a savings account for her.”

The men never identified themselves and said they would return for her answer.

The Casseta & Planeta Affair

The Brazilian comedy show Casseta & Planeta tried to get the girls to appear on-air. The ufologists advised against it and hid the girls at a farmhouse. The TV crew offered money too. Signs went up around the city: “The Prefecture welcomes the Casseta & Planeta team to this cosmic city” and “The ET of Varginha opens its arms for tourism.”

Death Threats

The researchers also received anonymous death threats:

“Someone called us with a male voice, threatening us with death, alleging we were going too far and that the time to stop everything had come. If we continued, we would bear the consequences.”

Armed Researchers

The threats were taken seriously enough that Pacaccini and Rodrigues began carrying weapons during nighttime investigations. On one vigil near the ESA, they brought “a .38 revolver that Ubirajara had inherited from his father and my semi-automatic 9mm Beretta” and spent from 8:30 PM until 3:00 AM on a hilltop overlooking the area where a hairy creature had reportedly been seen.

The Creatures in the Tank

One of the most extraordinary claims from IPM 06 comes secondhand through a domestic worker. A young woman employed by a military family in Três Corações accidentally saw something while cleaning:

“While doing her normal cleaning work, she saw the military employer meeting in the living room with two or three other military friends. While doing the work in the rooms, out of curiosity she peeked through a crack in the door at what they were watching on television. It was a video showing [unclear]... one creature was eating a fruit. The other, lying in another tank with water, appeared dead because it was not moving.”

Her mother advised her: “She ran the risk of being dismissed for snooping into the lives of others.”

The Signed Denials

According to Pacaccini's informants in IPM 06, military personnel who participated in or witnessed the operation were required to sign documents:

“All those named had to sign their respective pages, together with a fabricated witness, with the sole purpose that when and if — some or all — should they leave the military for any reason and decide to tell what they knew, the Army would have a way to prove their statements were lies by bringing to the public the signed document.”

This is described as a deliberate counter-intelligence measure: preemptive written denials to discredit any future whistle-blower.

The Hairy Creature on the Road

In IPM 06, Biology student Ildo Lúcio Gardino (21 years old) reported a separate sighting to the director of the Varginha Zoo. While driving a van from Três Corações to Varginha at night:

”'A few kilometers from arrival, where the road has a sharp curve and then a long straight uphill stretch, there, right after this curve I saw a creature trying to cross the road heading toward the woods on the other side. This creature was standing, slightly hunched over... dark brown thing, with hair all over its body, reddish and large eyes reflected by the car's light, and in an intelligent and protective gesture, it raised its hands to its face and crouched down.'”

When Pacaccini asked if it could have been a calf: “A two-legged calf? And hairy? With big bulging red eyes? What are you talking about?” When the researchers traced a straight line from the sighting location, it pointed directly to the house of Eurico and Oralina, the couple who had seen the UFO on the morning of January 20.

The Ruling: “Too Implausible to Be Criminal”

The Military Police Inquiry concluded in mid-1997 with a recommendation from the Military Public Ministry (IPM 08) (prosecutor's office) to archive the case, meaning no charges would be brought.

The prosecutor's reasoning is notable not for what it proves, but for how it characterizes the claims:

“Although in my opinion their behavior was reprehensible from a moral standpoint... I do not perceive, given the nature of the subject and the naivety of the statements, any intent to commit a crime against the reputation of the Armed Forces.”

“The assertions were always conjectural and generic, not being capable of inspiring public credibility and much less of undermining the solid reputation of the Military Institutions.”

The judge agreed, with a memorable flourish:

“The story is so implausible that it served as a theme for the program 'Casseta e Planeta.'”

The decision became final on July 15, 1997 (IPM 09), when no appeal was filed within the legal deadline. The case files were routed through the Court of the 4th Military Judicial District in Juiz de Fora, to the Inspector Court of Military Justice, and finally to the archive of the Superior Military Tribunal in Brasília. The substitute Judge-Auditor who handled the case was Dr. Telma Queiroz; the final archiving was ordered by Dr. Zilah Maria Callado Fadul Petersen, serving as substitute Inspector of Military Justice.

What the Army Told Congress

In 2010, Federal Deputy Chico Alencar (PSOL-RJ) submitted an information request to the Ministry of Defense (Resposta ao RIC 4470/2009) asking nine specific questions about UFO-related documentation. The responses from each branch of the Armed Forces are revealing.

The Air Force confirmed it had transferred all UFO-related materials from the 1950s through 1980s to the National Archives, with 1990s material still being processed. It also acknowledged COMDABRA's role and the existence of specific directives for handling sighting reports.

The Navy issued a terse certificate:

“I CERTIFY that, in the records of the Brazilian Navy, there is nothing on file related to what was requested.”

The Army confirmed it had produced exactly two documents about the Varginha case:

“An investigation opened on May 10, 1996, by the Commander of the Army Sergeants School (EsSA) to ascertain facts regarding news reports published in the press about the participation of military personnel from that School in the apprehension of the 'Varginha ET'; and a Military Police Inquiry (IPM) opened on January 29, 1997.”

Two documents. For what became one of the most publicized UFO cases in Brazilian history, involving allegations of military capture operations, hospital transfers, autopsies, and a soldier's death. The Army says it produced two documents.

Military Pilots and Their Sightings

The BRANBSB collection includes multiple sighting reports from military pilots, not easily dismissed as unreliable observers. One stands out:

Commander Beni and Commander Pavel reported a pulsating light varying between red and white, traveling at approximately 200 knots, observed for 15-20 minutes under CAVOK conditions (clear skies, visibility over 10 kilometers). Beni noted this was the most significant sighting of his career.

Another report from CINDACTA III documented multiple fireballs in formation: “One large and two small... with the larger one in front and the small ones right behind,” accompanied by “a tail of fire,” observed by a Military Police Major and corroborated by a commercial flight (TBA397 en route from Brasília to Recife) that reported seeing something similar.

A questionnaire from a pilot reported disc-shaped objects “2 times larger than the aircraft” at approximately 31,000 feet with “monstrous acceleration.” Another observer described an oval object that “alternates colors” between silver, red, and blue, moving in a “zigzag” trajectory.

Regional air commands (CINDACTA I, II, III) consistently noted in their forwarding correspondence that no radar tracks correlated with the reported objects, though at least one incident contradicted this, as described below.

The Academic Response: UFO Over the Prison

A detailed 1991-92 case study from the University of Brasília's Ufological Studies Group (GEU-NEFP/CEAM/UnB), preserved in the BRANBSB collection, analyzes a sighting near the Papuda maximum-security prison where approximately 25 police officers, led by Lt. Damasceno, observed a color-changing oval object for over 3.5 hours on April 11, 1991.

The prison setting is described precisely: 15 km southeast of Brasília, housing over 1,100 prisoners across multiple facilities, with a guard force of more than 60 men. “It is a location isolated from the urban environment. Most of its area has no lighting.”

The study documents four telephone contacts between Lt. Damasceno and CINDACTA I's Sergeant Petronio. CINDACTA confirmed radar registration of the object at approximately 2,000 feet. Yet after several contacts, they concluded with “the easiest route”: “'Look, Lieutenant, that was a balloon.'”

The researchers then systematically deconstructed this explanation:

• Sunset for Brasília was at 6:06 PM. The last observation occurred at 10:40 PM, 4 hours 34 minutes after sunset. Solar reflection on any object was physically impossible.
• The weather balloon was launched at 9:00 PM, but the object had been observed since 7:10 PM, nearly two hours before the balloon existed.
• CINDACTA's own Sergeant Petronio admitted during the third phone contact that “the balloon sent by the CMA had already reached its maximum altitude and burst.”
• The object disappeared and reappeared three times in different positions. Weather balloons do not do this.
• 72 hours later, the object reappeared with the same characteristics. At that point, nothing was reported to CINDACTA “due to the previous indifference.”

The study also revealed a contradiction between Air Force agencies: CECOMSAER (social communications) confirmed radar registration while NUCOMDABRA (aerospace defense) denied it. The researchers estimated the object's actual diameter at approximately 20.5 meters.

In 1996, the GEU wrote directly to COMDABRA demanding answers about the Varginha case and the May 1986 incident.

The May 1986 Incident

While not directly related to Varginha, the documents contain extensive material about the famous May 19, 1986 Brazilian UFO incident, one of the best-documented military UFO encounters in history.

A detailed article by Claudeir Covo in the BRANBSB collection compiles official testimony from Brigadier Otávio Júlio Moreira Lima (Minister of the Air Force), Colonel Ozires Silva (president of Petrobrás and a pilot who personally chased the objects), F-5E and Mirage fighter pilots, and radar operators documenting 20+ objects detected on radar at speeds of 250-1,500 km/h.

Brigadier Cherubim Rosa Filho, minister of the Superior Military Tribunal, is quoted in an ISTOE magazine article entered as evidence in IPM 03: “There exist today unexplained cases by the Aeronautics regarding UFOs.”

The Chronology According to the Ufologists

Claudeir Covo's timeline, published in Planeta magazine and entered as evidence in IPM 04, gives the fullest picture of what the ufologists believe happened:

Date & Time	Event
Jan 20, 1:30 AM	A UFO flies over a farm 10 km from Varginha at 5 meters from the ground. Eurico and Oralina are awakened by frightened cattle.
Jan 20, 8:30 AM	Firefighters receive anonymous calls and dispatch four men. Major Maciel arrives at 10:30 AM. The creature is captured with a net and placed in a box on an Army truck.
Jan 20, 2:00 PM	Seven Army soldiers in camouflage with FAL rifles conduct a sweep along the train tracks. Three shots are heard. Soldiers emerge with two Army bags, one containing something moving, the other something motionless.
Jan 20, 3:30 PM	Katia, Liliane, and Valquíria see the creature on the vacant lot.
Jan 20, 5:00 PM	The worst hailstorm in 25 years hits Varginha.
Jan 20, 8:00 PM	Military Police in civilian clothes capture another creature.
Jan 21, 1:30 AM	Creature transferred from Regional Hospital to Humanitas Hospital.
Jan 22, 4:00 PM	ESA trucks begin removal from Humanitas.
Jan 23, 4:00 AM	Special convoy departs ESA for Campinas. Creatures allegedly taken to Unicamp and handed to Dr. Fortunato Badan Palhares.
Jan 23	A Buffalo aircraft from Canoas Air Base delivers portable radar equipment to southern Minas.
Jan 26	NASA-affiliated military personnel arrive at Unicamp.
Apr 21	Dona Terezinha Clepf sees a creature at the zoo restaurant.
Apr 29	Four men in suits attempt to bribe Liliane and Valquíria.
May 8	Brigadier General Lima reads a denial statement to the press.
May 29	In unprecedented secrecy, the Army Minister meets with 29 generals in Campinas.

This timeline remains unverified. The military denies all of it.

The Storm

One entry in the chronology deserves its own discussion: the hailstorm.

At approximately 5:00 PM on January 20, roughly ninety minutes after the girls' sighting, a hailstorm hit Varginha with a severity the city hadn't seen in a quarter century. January is the peak of the rainy season in southern Minas Gerais, but this was something else entirely. Pacaccini described it in IPM 05:

“A torrential storm with hailstones the size of ping-pong balls destroying houses, knocking down trees, roofs, flooding streets and, with such violence, that had not been seen in the city for a long time.”

The ufologists' chronology in IPM 04 is more precise: “In the last 25 years, Varginha had not seen such rain.” A military witness in IPM 02 confirmed it was “a strong storm that darkened the entire city.”

The storm matters to the case for three separate reasons.

First, the military cited it to explain the girls' sighting. Lt. Col. Vanderlei's defense in IPM 07 attributed the encounter to “a confusion resulting from the situation of rain, windstorm and lightning, in a poorly illuminated location.” The prosecutor in IPM 08 described it as a sighting “on a stormy night.” But the girls saw the creature at 3:30 PM, in full southern-hemisphere summer daylight, on a vacant lot in their own neighborhood. The storm didn't arrive for another ninety minutes. By the time it hit, the girls were already home, already terrified, already telling their mother what they'd seen. The timeline is in the military's own documents.

Second, the storm gave the military a reason to be everywhere. The chronology in BRANBSBARX003_007 is explicit about this: “After the rain, the Fire Department, the Military Police, and the Army had good excuses to search the entire region. For the public, they would be helping the population regarding the damage caused by the storm. In reality, the military knew that there were more beings in the region.” When the fire department's Captain Alvarenga was confronted by Rodrigues, he showed an incident report listing responses to storm damage at various points around the city, around 5:30 PM. The storm was the alibi for every official vehicle seen in the streets that evening. Yet only nine occurrences were logged for a day that produced the worst storm in twenty-five years, with houses unroofed and walls knocked down. Nine.

Third, the ufologists believed the storm injured the creatures. IPM 04 speculates that beings still hiding in the small forest of Jardim Andere “were certainly hit by the hailstones and, in a way, were injured.” The creature captured by Military Police at 8:00 PM that evening was described as “apparently dazed, sick, or injured.” Whether the hail caused this, or whether the creature was already weakened from other causes, or whether the entire account is fabricated, the documents don't say. But the ufologists saw a direct line: a healthy creature seen at 3:30 PM, a catastrophic hailstorm at 5:00, and a weakened creature captured at 8:00.

Major Siqueira of the Military Police, asked about January 20, said only that “on that day the PM's work was normal, he only remembers a storm and some disruptions caused by heavy rain.” The worst storm in twenty-five years, and he remembers it as disruptions.

The Damaged Craft

The very first event in the chronology takes place twelve hours before the girls' sighting. At 1:30 AM on January 20, on a farm 10 kilometers from the center of Varginha, something woke the cattle. IPM 04 describes what happened next:

“The couple Eurico Rodrigues de Freitas, 40, and Oralina Augusta de Freitas, 37, are awakened by the noise of frightened cattle running back and forth. Upon opening the window, they saw a small craft, the size of a minibus, in the shape of a submarine, that slowly flew over the region for 40 minutes at 5 meters from the ground. The craft was dark and had at one of its ends a structure that appeared damaged, releasing a lot of smoke.”

The craft continued slowly in the direction of Jardim Andere, the neighborhood where the creatures would later be seen. The ufologists concluded that an explosion had damaged the craft, scattering debris across the area, and that the vessel eventually came down near Jardim Andere, “probably injuring part of the crew, which took refuge in the small forest of said neighborhood.”

This interpretation gained support from what was allegedly found in the days that followed. According to a military informant, one of the three trucks in the January 23 convoy to Campinas carried “thousands of small unknown metallic fragments” of unknown origin. The fragments were reportedly sent to the Aeronautics Technology Center (CTA) in São José dos Campos, where they were said to be “analyzed by Brazilian and North American military personnel inside another secret underground laboratory.” The ufologists' conclusion: three trucks left the ESA that morning. One carried a dead creature. The second carried another dead creature. The third carried the fragments of the craft that Eurico and Oralina had seen limping over their farm.

(NORAD later confirmed a satellite reentry over the region around January 20, 1996, a detail discussed below in “The NORAD Data,” which could account for what the couple saw in the sky. It would not explain the metallic fragments or what was found on the ground.)

The Sweep

Five hours before the girls' encounter and seven hours before the hailstorm, the military was already in the area. At 2:00 PM on January 20, a civilian witness with former military service observed a disturbing scene along the same train tracks where the firefighters had captured the first creature that morning. From IPM 04:

“A civilian witness, who was formerly in the military, observed at the location at least seven Army soldiers with typical camouflage-type uniforms, armed with FAL rifles. They were coming on foot along the train tracks and surroundings, conducting a type of sweep in the region, when they entered the small forest where, in the morning, the first being had been captured by the firefighters.”

Then, three shots:

“At a certain moment, this witness heard three FAL rifle shots, which have a well-known metallic sound. A military person from Campinas said that a creature was assisting another one lying on the ground, apparently wounded. Perhaps this creature showed signs of reaction against the military and ended up being hit in the chest by the three shots.”

What happened next is the detail that stayed with the witness:

“Some minutes after the three shots, the military personnel emerged from the woods with two typical bags used by the Army. One of them contained 'something' that was moving a lot, while in the other there was 'something' motionless.”

The ufologists' count at this point in the day: the firefighters captured one creature in the morning. The army sweep produced two more in bags, one apparently alive, one dead. One of the creatures in the forest was described as “different from the others, with its entire body covered in black hair,” a detail that would resurface weeks later when biology student Ildo Lúcio Gardino reported seeing a hairy creature trying to cross a road outside Varginha.

The chronology in the documents also records that at least one of the captured creatures was kept at the ESA for 24 hours before being “placed in a cage and, by helicopter, departed for Brasília. From there, it would have gone to the United States in a jet.” The documents note: “This account also remains unconfirmed.”

The Portable Radar and the Americans

Three days after the captures, the operation apparently escalated from local to national to international. On January 23, according to IPM 04:

“A Buffalo aircraft departs from the Canoas Air Base (RS). Inside it were three containers, a box, and several military personnel. In the first container there were generators, in the second the reception equipment and computers, and in the third a small portable workshop. In the box there was a disassembled antenna. In other words, a sophisticated portable radar.”

The aircraft headed for southern Minas Gerais. The radar was installed somewhere near Varginha. During this period, the documents claim, “there were many alien craft flying over the region.” ESA personnel reportedly told the ufologists that “one night they were worried about the possibility of retaliation by extraterrestrial beings.”

The ESA itself was transformed. “Several military personnel from the US Air Force and Army arrived at the ESA by helicopter. An area of the ESA was restricted. Intelligence Service (S2) agents from various parts of the country were sent to the ESA.” Local residents who had lived near the base for years “had never seen such activity at the Sergeants School.” And the soldiers who participated in the operation paid a lasting price: they “are still today being watched and followed by S2.”

Three days after that, on January 26: “Several military personnel who work within NASA arrive at Unicamp, claiming they were going to select Brazilian scientists to participate in future space missions with the North Americans.” The ufologists were skeptical of this cover story: “They are probably military personnel who deeply understand all the details about flying saucers and extraterrestrial beings.”

The timing of what followed struck the ufologists as more than coincidence. On March 1, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher signed a “Cooperation for the Peaceful Use of Outer Space” agreement with Brazil's Foreign Minister. The very next day, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin visited the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and signed space cooperation agreements. It was the first time a NASA director had personally visited the country to inspect the “national scientific apparatus.” As IPM 04 notes: “People who are following the Varginha Case, both civilians and military, believe that the presence of Daniel Goldin and Warren Christopher in Brazil involves agreements regarding the beings captured in Varginha.”

A Note on Badan Palhares

The chronology names Dr. Fortunato Badan Palhares as the forensic examiner who received the creatures at Unicamp. This is a significant claim, because Badan Palhares is one of the most famous forensic pathologists in Brazilian history: the man who identified Josef Mengele's skeletal remains in 1985, who coordinated identification of over 1,000 bodies from a mass grave linked to the military dictatorship, and who was involved in the controversial PC Farias death investigation in June 1996 (the same year as the Varginha events).

His Department of Legal Medicine at Unicamp unquestionably had the forensic capabilities described in the allegations. The distance from Três Corações to Campinas is approximately 350 km, roughly 4-5 hours by road, making the “4:00 AM convoy” timeline plausible. And his career demonstrates he was exactly the kind of specialist the Brazilian establishment turned to for sensitive forensic work.

However, when researcher Aurimas Svitojus finally contacted Badan Palhares directly in August 2012, the response was categorical: “I DID NOT AND NEVER WAS CALLED TO DO ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING WITH THIS MATTER.” He added: “I am a scientist and I do not need to hide such facts if they exist. I am not connected to any intelligence or defense agencies... Nothing would stop me to say something if I was really involved.”

Critically, no ufologist had ever actually contacted him before publishing claims about his involvement, a significant gap in the investigation. Whether his denial is the final word or a continuation of the institutional silence described throughout these documents, each reader will have to judge for themselves.

The General's Denial

On May 8, 1996, nearly four months after the alleged captures, Brigadier General Sergio Pedro Coelho Lima, Commander of the ESA, finally addressed the press. According to IPM 04, he “gathered the press and read a statement informing that no personnel or material from the Escola de Sargentos das Armas had any connection to the alleged facts.”

What happened next was more revealing than the statement itself. When the EPTV television reporter asked where the other cited military personnel were, General Lima replied: “Working, for the Army and for the nation.” The reporter pressed: “Can you prove it, sir?” His response: “We do not have to prove anything and what I had to say was read in this statement.” He then turned his back and left.

The ufologists' observation: the statement left “the reporters convinced that something had indeed happened in Varginha.”

The Ministers' Meeting

Three weeks after the General's denial, something unprecedented occurred.

“May 29. In near-total secrecy, for the first time in Brazilian history, a Minister of State meets with the High Command outside of a capital city.”

The Army Minister, Zenildo Zoroastro de Lucena, traveled to Campinas with 29 generals, including the Chief of the General Staff (General Delio de Assis Monteiro), the Military Commander of the Southeast (General Paulo Neves de Aquino), all chiefs of directorates and departments, and the eight regional military commanders. The official agenda: evaluate 16 computers at an infantry battalion, inspect construction for new German Leopard tanks, and visit an agricultural research center's geographic information system.

As IPM 04 dryly notes, this was “an agenda that could easily have been handled by lower-ranking military personnel.”

Campinas is also where, according to the ufologists' chronology, the creatures had been taken five months earlier. Where Badan Palhares' forensic laboratory was located. Where “NASA-affiliated military personnel” had reportedly been working at Unicamp since January 26.

In the days before the minister's arrival, “according to military personnel from various places in the State of São Paulo, including the coast, several meetings were held in Campinas, Pirassununga, Bragança Paulista, and probably also in other states, involving high-ranking military personnel.”

Twenty-nine generals and the Army Minister, traveling to a provincial city in near-total secrecy, to look at sixteen computers. The ufologists found the cover story unconvincing. The military has never provided an alternative explanation for why this meeting required such unprecedented secrecy or such a concentration of senior leadership.

Thirty Years Later

The declassified documents tell us what was on the record in 1996-1997. But the Varginha case didn't end when the IPM was archived. Three decades of subsequent developments have both strengthened and complicated the narrative.

The Investigator Who Changed His Mind

Perhaps the most significant development in the case's 30-year history came in December 2023, when Ubirajara Rodrigues, the lawyer who co-investigated the case from the very beginning, broke over a decade of self-imposed silence:

“I no longer believe in any of this. It's practically 30 years of reflection. I tried to relate my errors, my mistakes with suggestions on how to change and what to really seek.”

Rodrigues went further, explicitly criticizing the investigative methodology — including his own. He said that that direct influence of investigators on witnesses was a “gross error” capable of “molding and reconstructing memories over time.” This is particularly significant because witnesses recalled that Rodrigues himself told the three girls, shortly after their encounter: “You didn't see a demon or an ape, you saw an extraterrestrial.” He now acknowledges this as a form of witness contamination.

He appeared in the 2026 Globo docuseries (“O Mistério de Varginha”) to explain how his early involvement and beliefs influenced the construction of the narrative around the case.

The Investigator Who Doubled Down

Pacaccini has taken the opposite trajectory. He testified before Brazil's Chamber of Deputies in September 2025, defending that at least five creatures were secretly captured by the Armed Forces. In January 2026, he participated in a closed-door congressional session in Washington's Longworth House Office Building with three members of the U.S. Congress and Brazilian witnesses. He published an expanded English edition of his book, Incident in Varginha: Space Creatures in the South of Minas.

The two men who jointly investigated the case, who carried weapons together during nighttime vigils, who received death threats together, whose work is preserved side by side in the military archives, now hold irreconcilable positions about what they found.

New Witnesses at 30 Years

The January 2026 events in Washington brought new testimony:

• Dr. Italo Venturelli -the neurosurgeon who claims he treated a non-human being at the Regional Hospital (described above)
• Carlos de Sousa -a geography teacher who reported seeing the crashed craft itself
• Retired U.S. Colonel Fred Clausen -who claimed a U.S. cargo plane landed at Campinas Airport and departed with “unusual cargo,” suggesting an American dimension to the case that the IPM documents only hint at through references to “NASA-affiliated military personnel” arriving at Unicamp

A Firefighter's Reversal

In 2019, a firefighter who had provided key testimony about the creature capture was located and completely denied his original story, stating his deposition was “manipulated” and that he was “instructed to record the false account.” This is significant because firefighter testimony was central to the capture timeline described in IPM 04.

The 2026 Globo docuseries raised further questions about whether Pacaccini may have paid or promised payment to military personnel for testimony. Pacaccini issued a formal statement of repudiation, denying he ever paid for reports or induced testimonies.

The NORAD Data

NORAD recorded a satellite reentry over the region around January 20, 1996. This could account for the aerial phenomena that preceded the ground-level encounters (the UFO that Eurico and Oralina reported over their farm at 1:30 AM) but does not explain the subsequent claims of creature sightings and military operations.

Varginha Today

The city has fully embraced the incident. A 20-meter-tall spaceship-shaped water tower glows purple over the town center. Bus stops are shaped like flying saucers. The City Hall has a spaceship-shaped elevator. In September 2025, a 4-meter alien statue was unveiled at the Praça do ET (ET Plaza). Grey alien dolls in football uniforms are sold at the original sighting location. A planned UFO museum received over 1 million reais in federal funding, though construction has stalled.

The three girls, now women approaching middle age, have maintained their story. They appeared in the 2022 documentary Moment of Contact and have not recanted. They stopped giving free interviews years ago.

The Bigger Picture

Reading through a million characters of Portuguese military bureaucracy, what emerges is not a clear-cut case for or against the Varginha claims. What emerges is something more nuanced:

The Brazilian military took UFOs seriously. They maintained a formal reporting system for decades, used standardized questionnaires, classified the documentation, and transferred it to the National Archives when pressured by Congress and civilian researchers. The inventory alone lists hundreds of individual reports spanning the 1990s.

The Varginha case provoked a disproportionate response. Two separate investigations — first the sindicância in May 1996, then a nine-volume Military Police Inquiry, with dozens of depositions, to investigate whether a book constituted a crime against the Armed Forces. The inquiry meticulously documented alibis, tracked the UFO researchers' movements, probed potential leakers, and entered the entire investigative work of the ufologists as evidence — all to conclude that the claims were too implausible to prosecute.

The historical pattern is unexplained. UFO activity documented by the military over Varginha and the ESA in Três Corações in 1971. An encounter account from the same base in 1962. Then the famous 1996 incident. Three separate events spanning 34 years, all centered on the same small city and the same military installation. The documents offer no explanation for this pattern.

The ufologists' investigation was extensive, but flawed. Over 45 military contacts, video-recorded testimonies, collaboration with international researchers including Stanton Friedman and John Mack, death threats, bribery attempts against witnesses, and night vigils with firearms. But one of the two lead investigators now says the methodology was compromised by witness contamination. A key firefighter witness says his testimony was manipulated. And the forensic pathologist at the center of the autopsy allegations was never contacted before his name was published. Whatever one thinks of their conclusions, both the investigation's scope and its problems deserve acknowledgment.

Internal contradictions persist. The hospital director explicitly instructing staff to “deny everything” to “that lawyer, Ubirajara.” The fire department denying any calls when its own logs have gaps for the relevant dates. Air Force agencies contradicting each other about radar registrations. Military personnel forced to sign preemptive denial documents. A soldier's death officially attributed to a routine infection, while his family describes a man who came home from a mission and warned his father about an impending cover-up.

New testimony keeps emerging. Thirty years later, a neurosurgeon claims he treated a non-human being at the same hospital whose director told staff to deny everything. A retired U.S. colonel claims American military involvement. Meanwhile, one of the original investigators has recanted entirely. The case refuses to resolve.

Key questions remain unanswered. The autopsy report for Marco Eli Chereze was never attached to the case file. The “unknown toxic substance” found in zoo animals was never explained, and the lab results from Belo Horizonte were never publicly released. The Army confirmed only two documents exist about the entire Varginha affair. The bribery allegations against witnesses were never investigated. The family of the dead soldier received no medical explanation. Badan Palhares denies involvement, but no one asked him for sixteen years.

The documents are now public. Read them and decide for yourself.

All documents referenced in this article are available as original PDF scans on Blue Book Files. English translations were produced from OCR text extracted from the original Portuguese military documents.

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This week I’m focusing on some small long-standing, quality-of-life issues that have plagued Write.as / WriteFreely for years. Today, it was adding a Markdown preview to the Plain Text editor (issue T519), which was brought up again on the forum after the feature stalled for years.

It took a little poking to get it displaying right, but luckily we already had much of the backend work done with our Markdown API. It seems to work pretty well! I just need to test a few more things, and then it’ll go live on Write.as. After some real-world testing, we’ll bring it over to WriteFreely, too.

#dev #WriteAs #WriteFreely #WriteFreelyDev