UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

What do you do if you live in an area where there are no crops for making crop circles? If you’re near a beach, you make sand circles. And by “you” I mean either humans or aliens, since a case can be made for either with this story out of southern Brazil about mysterious circles appearing after a couple of UFO sightings. Are they related?

“They moved in the South-North direction, at low altitude. I didn’t have a cell phone to film. It was not an airplane or a shooting star. It was fast and amazing! It lit up everything around, even the thin clouds. Then they disappeared.”

GaúchaZH (Gaucho) media talked to Silvio Scienza who claimed to have seen two colored spheres changing colors between gold and orange in the sky over the North Coast beach around Tramandai and Cidreira between Magisterium and Torres, coastal cities in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state. The sightings occurred on June 23 at around 7:30 pm. GaúchaZH also located Mana Bosquetti, who claimed she and her boyfriend saw similar spheres while on the nearby Salina beach, although they appeared separately. Like Scienza, Bosquetti also claimed the spheres created an explosion of light before disappearing, but she also said the each broke in half.

Who’s watching the sky?

“When I saw it, I showed it to my boyfriend. Initially, we thought it was a drone. They were on the sea and were not very big, as they moved. The flash was very strong. Soon after, another similar light appeared, but it came from the sea towards Lagoa da Fortaleza.”

The sightings were initially reported on the Cidreira RS Facebook page, where many more residents reported similar unconfirmed sightings. Skeptics suggested the lights were meteors, but GaúchaZH contacted Professor Carlos Jung from the Heller & Jung Observatory and the Brazilian Meteor Monitoring Network (BRAMON) who said he had no record of meteors from June 23. Since no one recorded their sighting on camera or video, it’s hard to offer any other ideas, like fireworks or strange planes.

GaúchaZH (let’s take a moment to commend the site for such a thorough and detailed investigation) then contacted Carlos Odone, founder of the Gaucho Ufology Movement, who said he had received other reports of sightings in the Cidreira region during the same week. Ufologist and editor of a UFO magazine, Ademar José Gevaerd, had no reports but confirmed that the coastal area from Tramandai north to Araranguá in the state of Santa Catarina has a lot of UFO sightings. Without any other information, he said this:

“Everything indicates that it is due to the time, because it was on the coast and in good weather. But there is nothing to fear. These phenomena are harmless. There must be more advanced life forms in the universe and because they would not be exploring other planets, as we will do when we have the technology for that.”

Because this is a Google translation, it’s tough to determine if that’s an “It’s aliens!” or something else. However, GaúchaZH makes reference to an alleged portal between dimensions near Cabras beach between Cidreira and Tramandaí. There are stories of other UFO sightings, alleged abductions, mechanical disruptions (cars stopping, etc.) and alien sightings.

None of that seems to have occurred on June 23rd. But, on June 24th …

“It’s as if they had dropped a gourd of chimarrão on top of the sand, forming a perfect circle. In our case, it was more than a circle and they were symmetrical and aligned, at an equally perfect distance. I don’t even know if someone did it.”

Photos on the Cidreira RS Facebook page, taken by witness Luis Ricardo da Silveira, showed a number of these mysterious circles in the sand, including one much larger than the others. Since it’s sand it’s difficult to tell if the footprints around them are by human makers. It’s not reported how long there were there, but GaúchaZH note that this occurred during UFO Week, a time of ufology meetings and visitors in the area. However, Gevaerd thinks they’re nothing but human artwork.

This is harder than it looks.

No other reports of subsequent UFO sightings or sand circles in the area were found, and no one else seemed to connect the UFOs with the circles. Kudos again to GaúchaZH for its thorough coverage, even though they reached no conclusions.

Did you?

Frogs, toads, salamanders and other amphibians rarely make anyone’s favorite animal list (except perhaps for the psychedelic Colorado River toad), but they don’t pop up on the mast-fear lists either (except for the poisonous frogs of the poison dart kind). That may change with the recent discovery of the world’s first venomous amphibian – a limbless creature that resembles a scary cross between a worm and a snake but with teeth that deliver a deadly bite. Are you ready for Attack of the Killer Amphibians?

“We show here that amphibian caecilians, including species from the basal groups, besides having cutaneous poisonous glands as other amphibians do, possess specific glands at the base of the teeth that produce enzymes commonly found in venoms. Our analysis of the origin of these glands shows that they originate from the same tissue that gives rise to teeth, similar to the venom glands in reptiles. We speculate that caecilians might have independently developed mechanisms of production and injection of toxins early in their evolutionary history.”

A ringed caecilian, Siphonops annulatus.

Image: Carlos Jared, Butantan Institute

You have to be a herpetologist to know that caecilians are rare tropical amphibians found primarily in the wet jungles of Central America and South America, and occasionally in Africa, and southern Asia. While reaching snakish lengths of up to 1.5 meters (5 feet), they more resemble giant worms but with poisonous glands that would take them off the menu of giant robins or bass. The name caecilian comes from the Latin word caecus, meaning “blind,” and refers to their tiny eyes, which are mostly invisible but sometimes missing completely. Throw in the fact that they live and die in moist jungles and it’s easy to see (unless you’re a caecilian) why little is known of the evolution or traits of this strange creature.

Tell me more!

“You have to jump on it.”

In an interview with The New York Times discussing the release of his study published in the journal iScience, Carlos Jared, a biologist at the Butantan Institute in Brazil, talks about wrestling caecilians (note: good movie scene) deep in the jungle, only to lose them as they wiggle free after covering him with slime. Jared says he’s always careful to avoid the venomous glands while trying not to squeeze or scoop the giant worm-like wigglers to hard or they break in two … and, unlike some worms, neither end lives on. However, he managed recently to get enough so his partner, post-doctoral scholar Pedro Luiz Mailho-Fontana, could hatch some babies and watch them grow. He was particularly interested in the venomous glands.

“This is a very different thing here.”

That’s when Mailho-Fontana saw something unexpected. As the caecilians’ baby teeth formed (caecilians need teeth to catch and eat worms and insects), venomous glands appeared next to them. These had never been seen before in adult caecilians whose mouths are typically full of slime. (Photos here.) The glands are also difficult to get to in adults, so the researchers haven’t yet identified the toxins they secrete, although it appears to be similar to that of venomous snakes and insects. The researchers also haven’t seen the end results of a caecilian biting and killing a prey, although Marta Maria Antoniazzi, a co-author of the study, claims she was bitten by a small one and “It hurt a lot” while taking a long time to heal.

An early drawing of a caecilian guarding her eggs.

“Based on our data we suggest that caecilians developed the ability to actively inoculate toxins through their teeth early in their evolutionary history, probably representing one of the first terrestrial vertebrates having an oral venom system.”

Despite limited data so far, the researchers felt confident to conclude that caecilians could be one of the first land vertebrates to develop a venomous bite. Warning: they also offered no evidence that the bite can result in a psychedelic experience, so don’t go rushing to Brazil with a sack, a bucket of worms and collection of Jefferson Airplane music.

On the other hand, ‘The Bite of the Killer Worm’ definitely has movie possibilities.