SAO VICENTE

Opening

On 1 October 1995, two fishermen, named in later accounts as Fernando Beserra and Wilson da Silva Oliveira, were gathering their nets on Ilha do Major, a small island off the coast near São Vicente in São Paulo state, Brazil. They reported a bright yellow, disc-shaped object coming in overhead. At first they took it for a balloon.

When it kept descending, they ran for their boat, and they say it set down a short distance away. Afterwards, photographs were said to show a circle of flattened grass and a notch in the soil, and a planting test was said to show that seeds would not grow properly in earth from outside the circle.

Timeline

1 October 1995The sighting and reported landing on Ilha do Major.

Date unknownThe ground-trace photographs are taken and the seed test is carried out. No account says when, or by whom.

2025The photographs resurface in an English-language tabloid article that presents them as newly found and cites "UK media outlets" as its source.

Key figures

Beserra and Oliveira are named in every version of the story. No interview with either man, or a statement taken from them by an investigator, has surfaced in English. Nobody is credited with taking the photographs, analysing the soil or running the seed test.

Physical and documentary trail

The physical claims are the heart of the case. The flattened circle and the soil notch match what witnesses in other landing cases have described, and the seed test is unusually specific: seeds planted in soil from inside the circle reportedly sprouted normally, while seeds in soil from outside it failed and were attacked by fungus. That reverses what most people would expect, and it would be striking if the numbers behind it were published.

They have not been. No method, sample size or lab is given, and no Portuguese-language newspaper report from 1995 or Brazilian ufology bulletin has been found. Other Brazilian cases from the same coast, such as the Ubatuba fragments and the Trindade Island photographs, have named investigators attached to their evidence. This one does not yet.

Competing explanations

A landing with physical effects. Two witnesses, a described descent, and ground marks with an unusual effect on the soil. If the seed test was done carefully, it is the kind of evidence most UFO cases never get.

A sighting and unrelated marks. Flattened circles in vegetation have many ordinary causes, and the marks may have been linked to the sighting later.

A story that grew in the retelling. Without a Brazilian source, the details may have sharpened as the story moved through foreign press.

Later life of the case

The case was close to forgotten until 2025, when the ground photographs reappeared in an English-language tabloid and travelled online as a new discovery. That brought it back into circulation without bringing back its source. For better-documented cases from the same stretch of Brazilian coast and sea, see Ubatuba and Trindade.

Finding

Two fishermen reported a disc coming down on a small island, and photographs of ground marks exist. The seed-germination claim is the most interesting part of the case and the least documented, with no named investigator or published method behind it.

What still will not resolve: the Brazilian source. Somewhere there should be a 1995 report, an investigator's notes, or the men themselves telling it in their own words. That is the record that would show what this case really is.