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Lead Masks Case (Brazil: Morro do Vintém; August 1966)

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OldTimeRadio

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(Copied from the 'Human Mutilation Case Photos' thread)

There was also the episode of the two Brazilian radio technicians who received instructions from the "aliens" to go to a high hill, lay on their backs, don leaden masks (which they'd constructed) and wait for contact.

The next morning they were both found dead with the lead masks on. (The masks were large enough that they wouldn't have interfered with breathing.)

Not a mutilation case but still two very creepy deaths with Paranormal and UFOlogical overtones.
 
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OldTimeRadio is there a reference or article concerning this Brazillian episode?
 
Oooh yes please [clapping hands in excitment]... :madeyes:
 
The tale of the two Brazillians going up a mountain to encounter a UFO and being found dead was in a Vallee book - was it "Confrontations"?
 
naitaka said:
The notes found on their bodies indicated that they had "taken orange capsules"[...]
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One wonders if the autopsy looked for any signs of poisoning...
 
Jerry_B: "one wonders if the autopsy looked for any signs of poisoning."

I read Confrontations, and according to Vallée, the police still saw the case as a true enigma. As for poisoning, it was tested during the autopsy, with no result. But it is true that many poisons are little known, every laboratory doesn't have the means to detect them. In any case, it would not explain the other anomalies.
 
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Jerry_B said:
As for lead masks incident, is does seem to me to be a case of two people being lead down some sort of deluded path and then possibly being poisoned. This isn't the first time such things have happened, and it's not anomalous IMHO. Odd behaviour, yes, but that's about it.
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I never said that it was anomalous. You will note that I put the word "aliens" in quotation marks. I merely said that the story was "creepy," which most people find it, and that it had Paranormal "overtones," which many murders have, at least until the actual perpetrators are apprenended, tried, and the case proved against them..

But whether there is anything truly "anomalous" about the deaths of the two radio engineers is something we simply don't know.
 
I merely said that the story was "creepy," which most people find it, and that it had Paranormal "overtones," which many murders have, at least until the actual perpetrators are apprenended, tried, and the case proved against them
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But the actual paranormal element in that case exists in the minds of those people considering such events. That's different from the actual event/murder actually being paranormal itself. What people think of an event and what that event actually is are two different things.
 
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Jerry_B said:
But the actual paranormal element in that case exists in the minds of those people considering such events.
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But how does the fact that people believe an event to be Paranormal prevent it from being Paranormal?

That's different from the actual event/murder actually being paranormal itself.
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I think you're putting the cart before the horse. To the best of my knowledge, murder was never conclusively established here. (I personally believe that it was murder - but see your own quote regarding belief above.)

What people think of an event and what that event actually is are two different things.
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Agreed. But in this case we simply don't know all the parameters. So we can't simply toss out the possibility of paranormal involvement - unless, of course, we're such arch-Skeptics that we entirely rule out the very existence of the Paranormal in advance.

Surely the Brazilian episode has more apparent Paranormal "overtones" surrounding it, almosr permeating it, than some career street criminal bursting into a skid-row liquor store and blowing away the clerks.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
But how does the fact that people believe an event to be Paranormal prevent it from being Paranormal?

I think you're putting the cart before the horse. To the best of my knowledge, murder was never conclusively established here. (I personally believe that it was murder - but see your own quote regarding belief above.)
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I wasn't saying this particular event was a murder or not - I was instead replying to the statement you made that 'it had Paranormal "overtones," which many murders have, at least until the actual perpetrators are apprenended, tried, and the case proved against them'. My point being that just because people ascribe a paranormal explanation/theory for an event, that doesn't make it actually a paranormal event. An event, such as a murder (for example) could be completely mundane - and even if some people think it's 'weird' or 'paranormal' doesn't necessarily mean it is.

Surely the Brazilian episode has more apparent Paranormal "overtones" surrounding it, almosr permeating it, than some career street criminal bursting into a skid-row liquor store and blowing away the clerks.
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Only in the sense that some people think that it's a weird event - after all, the two men could have been the victims of a delusion and poison. That in itself is not at all paranormal. People will bring meaning to an event because it may seem odd to them - but that has more to do with perception than any possible actualities.
 
Happy New Year everyone! :D

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I'm looking for any threads/info on the FTMB's about the case of the two men in *IIRC* Brazil, who were found dead wearing lead masks after taking some pills.

Thanks for your help!
 
It's a very strange case indeed. :shock:
 
Thank you, EnolaGaia

It sure is, Mythopoeika, and one that really gives me the creeps. :shock:

Strange that there's only a breif mention of it on here though, I would have thought it was a rather good Fortean case?!
 
I recall the "lead masks" thing being bandied about in UFO magazines when I was a kid -- Argosy and Saga's at least. Didn't Jacques Vallee investigate the case for one of his books?
 
I've found this case interesting since I first read about it a few months ago. It is indeed, extremely creepy. :eek:
 
I always think there is a link between this case and MIB's, only due to the fact that the men were in suits! lol

*Don't worry, I'll go and put my tin foil hat back on now!*
 
Here's the full text of the account from the October 1966 MUFORG Bulletin ...

THE LEAD MASKS DEATHS MYSTERY

The mystery began on August 21st, when the bodies of two men were found in a hilltop clearing near Niteroi, Brazil. (Niteroi is across the bay from Rio de Janeiro.) Two lead half-masks, for covering the upper half of the face, and strange, partially coded notes were found beside the bodies.

The two men were identified as Manuel Pereira di Cruz, aged 32, and Miguel Jose Viana, aged 34. They were both radio and television technicians. According to an autopsy report they died from stoppage of the heart. There was no apparent cause of this. The men had been dead for about four days when they were found.

A mathematician reported that part of the notes contained only the ohm equation (dealing with the strength of electric current) and the rest was unintelligible.

A number of people came forward during the investigation with reports of an oval, orange coloured object hovering over the top of the hill. One woman reported seeing the object at the time the men went up the hillside. The affair was investigated by local detectives and experts from Rio de Janeiro with the help of troops and the Brazilian Information Service. A weird array of theories was considered including murder, suicide, smuggling, sorcery, spiritualism, attempts to contact the Martians, atmospheric electricity and radio waves. A man who reported that the men had been trying to contact the planet Mars was held by police for questioning. This man was said to have exercised a powerful influence over the dead men and to have owed them money. According to one report, a man and a woman were arrested in connection with the case. The men were said to have had a great deal of money with them when they went up the hillside. The notes found on their bodies indicated that they had "taken orange capsules" and were "waiting for the promised sign".

When detectives searched Manuel Viana's workshop they found lead from which the masks were apparently made, and a book on scientific spiritualism, with marked passages referring to masks and intense rays of light.

The police eventually called off their investigations, having failed to solve the mystery. Detective Idovan Ferreira, who led the investigations said: "I have no doubt they died of an experiment with psychic forces, for which they were ill-prepared and which turned out to be fatal."

(Credit: Liverpool Daily Post, 29/8/66; Liverpool Echo, 15/9/66; BUFORA Newsletter No. 2; Groupement pour l'Étude des Sciences d'Avant-Garde (Belgium))
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The original link is dead. This was salvaged from the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080117093712/http://magonia.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/mboct66.htm
 
Analis said:
... I read Confrontations, and according to Vallée, the police still saw the case as a true enigma. As for poisoning, it was tested during the autopsy, with no result. But it is true that many poisons are little known, every laboratory doesn't have the means to detect them. In any case, it would not explain the other anomalies.
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According to multiple accounts I've read about the incident, the two men had been dead for a few days before their bodies were discovered and retrieved. The most specific timeline I've seen is given in:

The Mystery of the Morro do Vintem
Charles Bowen
Flying Saucer Review
March - April 1967, pp. 11 - 14.

http://www.noufors.com/Documents/Bo...g Saucer Review/FSR,1967,Mar-Apr,V 13,N 2.pdf

... which indicates they'd been dead for 3 days.

According to the Wikipedia entry for the incident:

A search for toxic substances did not occur. The coroner's office was very busy at the time and, when the autopsy was finally conducted, the internal organs of the two victims were too badly decomposed for reliable testing.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_Masks_Case
 
EnolaGaia said:
According to multiple accounts I've read about the incident
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@EnolaGaia had you seen this secondary/tertiary reference? https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4398

Provides some further hypotheses, including about the lead masks, and the fascinating tidbit that there may have been a solo electonics tech found similarly-dead (and lead masked) around four years earlier
 
Yes, I've seen the Dunning article at Skeptoid.

Dunning relied a lot on the Bowen article, so I'd recommend you go back and check that one (Bowen; FSR).

The various accounts differ as to whether the two men were wearing the lead masks when they were found. Some vaguely indicate they were wearing them, while others specifically state the masks were found beside their bodies. If I had to choose which one to believe, I'd go with the more specific ones like Bowen - i.e., that the masks were lying beside the bodies.

Bowen's account is one of the very few to mention an earlier death in the same location involving a lead mask. He says the 1962 fatality was named Hermes and was also a TV technician. This makes me wonder whether the two men were attempting to replicate whatever Hermes had been doing 4 years earlier.
 
Detective Idovan Ferreira, who led the investigations said: "I have no doubt they died of an experiment with psychic forces, for which they were ill-prepared and which turned out to be fatal."
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That's a relief, I was worried for a moment that they might have died in a non fatal experiment.

Who writes this stuff?

Still a good story, and a case I hadn't heard of before.
 
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