Barra da Tijuca — the O Cruzeiro disc photographs
On the afternoon of May 7, 1952, the reporter João Martins and the photographer Ed Keffel of the weekly magazine O Cruzeiro were on the coast at Barra da Tijuca, south of Rio, when Martins pointed out what he first took for an aircraft “flying sideways”. Keffel took five photographs with a Rolleiflex in about a minute, and the magazine published them as a flying disc. They became famous across South America, and Brazilian Air Force officers reportedly declared a hoax impossible after studying the distances. In 1963 Menzel and Boyd pointed out that the disc is lit from the opposite side to the palm and the hillside beneath it, which a single sunlit scene cannot do. William Hartmann made an independent enlargement for the Condon study (1968), found that it supported the objection, and noted that the case was offered as incontrovertible while containing “a simple, internal inconsistency”. The study never interviewed the photographers, and the case has no other witnesses.
Explanation
Donald Menzel and Lyle Boyd called the photographs a hoax because the disc is lit from the left while the hillside and trees below it are lit from the right; the Condon study’s own enlargement supported that objection. Brazilian Air Force analysts had said a hoax was impossible, but no independent study of the negatives was ever made and neither man admitted a fake.
What was seen
Shape: A flat disc with a raised rim, seen sideways and tilted
Witnesses: Two O Cruzeiro staff: photographer Ed Keffel and reporter João Martins
Duration: About one minute (five frames)
Sources
- Condon report, case 48: Barra da Tijuca, Brazil (Project 1947 transcription)
- Wikipedia — UFO sightings in Brazil (1952)