UFO Attacks in Brazil

About the Author

This site's own Thiago Luiz Ticchetti key-figures entry and its existing UFO Contacts in Brazil article already document his three-decade research career, his editorship of UFO Magazine, his seven years as president of the Brazilian Commission of Ufologists, and his role as MUFON's National Director for Brazil since 2021. This article does not repeat that ground; where his 2019 book surveyed Brazil's major cases broadly, this 2025 book narrows to a single-case, book-length treatment of Colares specifically.

This article's own research located one specific, on-record claim from Ticchetti predating this book's publication by roughly a year: in a September 2024 appearance on Weaponized with Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp, he stated the Brazilian military captured unusually clear film footage of the phenomenon that was sent to the United States and has never been publicly released. This article presents that claim as Ticchetti's own assertion, not as an independently corroborated fact -- no source located during this research verifies the footage's existence or its transfer.

Historical Context & Origins

This article's own research confirms the well-documented outline of Operação Prato: the field investigation ran from roughly October 1977 to January 1978, led operationally by Captain (later Colonel) Uyrangê Hollanda under Brigadier Protásio Lopes de Oliveira and Colonel Camillo Ferraz, and was officially closed after about four months, with the Air Force's public position citing no confirmed unusual phenomena. Hollanda gave a notable 1997 interview to Brazilian ufologists Ademar José Gevaerd and Marco Antônio Petit; he was found dead, in circumstances suspected to be suicide, roughly three months later -- a coincidence that has fueled conspiracy narratives around the case independent of anything this specific book claims.

Declassification pressure on Brazil's own UFO files began in earnest around 2004, with the Ministry of Defence releasing batches of Operação Prato material around 2008-2009, now also held at Brazil's National Archives -- the same declassified record this book's own promotional description says it draws on. This article's own research was not able to confirm what specific material in this 398-page book is genuinely new versus already present in that declassified record or in earlier chroniclers' work, including American researcher Bob Pratt's, whose own book on the case this site covers separately (see below).

Core Arguments & Key Concepts

Per publisher and retailer descriptions, the book combines official records, eyewitness testimony, and Ticchetti's own investigative framing to argue the Colares wave represents a genuine, still-unresolved anomaly that the Brazilian military itself took seriously enough to investigate operationally -- consistent with the broader case file's own "Operation Saucer" framing on this site.

This article's own research was not able to confirm whether the book directly engages a specific, documented skeptical counter-narrative around this same case (detailed in the next section): reports that some photographic evidence was later admitted to have been altered, and that some circulated "official" document stamps were subsequently found to be fabricated. Readers should not assume the book addresses or rebuts these specific points simply because it presents "declassified files" generally.

Key Cases & Evidence Discussed

This site's own Colares case file (Case File #012) documents Operation Saucer in far greater depth than any single book review allows. Readers wanting the complete record, including this site's own existing companion coverage of Bob Pratt's UFO Danger Zone: Terror and Death in Brazil -- an eighteen-year, eleven-trip field chronicle built on more than 1,700 witness interviews -- should consult both directly alongside this newer book.

This article's own research surfaced a documented skeptical counter-narrative around the Colares case that neither this site's existing Pratt-focused article nor, as far as this research could determine, this new Ticchetti book directly addresses: a Metabunk research thread reports that a participant's son later admitted to doctoring some photographs for dramatic effect, that some circulated official document stamps were found fabricated in later 1989/1991 military reviews, that some reported injuries have been explained as self-inflicted scratches sustained during panic rather than beam burns, and that the case's most dramatic element -- claimed deaths -- appears only in a 1993 interview given sixteen years after the events, without independent corroboration. Brigadier Oliveira himself reportedly offered a "malfunctioning lighthouse" explanation for some sightings, which Pratt's own research disputed, while a "collective hallucination" theory was floated and ultimately set aside by Hollanda himself. This article presents this counter-narrative not to dismiss the case but because any reader relying on this new book, or on this site's own case file, should know it exists.

Critical Reception & Controversies

As of this article's research (August 2026), the book is too recently published to have an established critical record: its Goodreads listing shows only a single rating (4.0/5) and no written reviews. This article's own research located promotional podcast and interview appearances timed around the September 2025 release -- including That UFO Podcast and Mysteries and Monsters -- indicating a modest release campaign, but found no independent press review, academic engagement, or named-researcher endorsement to report.

This article's own research also located what appeared to be positive customer-review quotes circulating in search results, but was not able to trace them to an identifiable, verifiable review page. Consistent with this site's own standing policy of never publishing a specific factual claim it cannot independently verify, those quotes are deliberately omitted here rather than repeated on unconfirmed sourcing.

Influence & Legacy

It is too early to assess this book's influence or legacy with any confidence; this article notes only that it represents Ticchetti's first single-case, book-length treatment on this site, following his broader 2019 national survey, and that it arrives nearly two decades after Brazil's own formal declassification of the Operação Prato files began -- positioning it as a synthesis of already-public material and Ticchetti's own three decades of research access rather than a first disclosure.

Set alongside this site's own Colares case file and its existing UFO Danger Zone coverage of Bob Pratt's earlier, more extensively field-verified account of the same case, this book's lasting value will depend on how it holds up against both the declassified record it draws on and the documented skeptical counter-evidence this article surfaced -- a judgment this article leaves open given the book's newness.

The Book

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