The Villa Santina Little Green Men

 Villa Santina Little Green Men

By Cole Herrold

The history of UFOs and extraterrestrial encounters is a bizarre one that diverges at the point of interpretation. There are certainly those of the Ancient Aliens persuasion who will state that UFOs and extraterrestrials have been amongst us from the beginning, but the "official" acknowledgment of the existence of extraterrestrials or UFOs can be pointed to the original report by Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947. After Arnold's sighting, Brazilian Jose Higgins would have the second official UFO sighting on July 23^rd, 1947, a mere 29 days after Arnold's, yet the third official UFO sighting, which happened some 50 days after Arnold's, was perhaps the most interesting and profound for unlike the previous cases which simply involved craft this sighting can possibly be marked as the first official case of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind and its occupants were anything far from the traditional extraterrestrial even though they clearly was the original Little Green Men.

At 9:00 am on August 14, 1947, Professor Rapuzzi Johannis, both an avid artist, writer, and geologist, was out near Villa Santina in Italy. While out searching and studying strange and unusual rock formations and searching for fossils in the Friuli region of Villa Santina in the North of Italy. He was ascending the short valley of the mountain stream known as the chiarso and traversing on a path along the left bank of the stream. When traversing this hill, he was surrounded by various fir trees and large deposits of alluvial rubble and detritus. As he emerged into a clearing from one of these clumps of fir, he noticed a large red lens-shaped object with a low central cupola and a telescoping antenna that was similar to those found on motor cars. The object was about approximately 30 ft wide and about 18ft high near a rocky riverbank that was some 50 yards away. The professor, short-sighted, proceeded to take out his glasses and stare at the object and felt that the craft was made seemingly of some sort of varnished metal, not unlike a child’s toy. The object was not exactly hovering but seemed to be embedded about a quarter of its length in a great transverse cleft in the mountainside and was anchored about 6 meters above the bed of the stream. The professor, completely amazed at what he was seeing and totally unaware of the phenomenon of UFOs, decided to head up and investigate the object but had decided to try and see before the trek towards the mysterious object if there was anyone around that could come help him investigate the strange object.

 The professor began to approach the object reaching about 25 meters, and as he came closer, he noticed two figures which at first he thought were "two boys," near the grove of trees that he had just recently entered from. As he stared at the boys, he began to yell and point toward the object as they seemed completely oblivious to the bizarre object nearby and realized as he looked and approached them that these were certainly not earthbound boys. The beings began to approach him in a slow robotic fashion and kept their hands down at their sides. The beings were about 3ft tall and wore dark blue translucent coveralls with strange red-colored collars and cuffs. They also had a wide red belt. The clothing, however, was not the only strange thing about these beings as they had large heads noticeably larger than a human's, and that a top, these colossal craniums that seemed reminiscent of a cartoon caricature with a brown tight-fitting cap similar to an alpinist’s bonnet a topped them. They appeared to be hairless not only on their heads but also on the rest of their bodies, and that they had green skin similar to the plasticine used by sculptors or a clay dipped in water with long straight noses with fish like mouths that much like a fish was opening and clothing as if this is how it breathed. Their eyes were yellow-green in color and were large hemispherical, and seemed to protrude from the face much like once again a fish. Yet the fish adulation ended there as the pupils of the entities were more akin to a reptile's as they appeared as a kind of slit. These beings also had no eyebrows or eyelashes but strange ring-like lids around the lids of the eyes. Johannis was seemingly paralyzed by the fright of these creatures as they slowly approached him with steady strides, and Johannis watched the beings in horror for some 2-3 minutes. Realizing these were not humans, Johannis eventually was able to overcome the fear of seeing the unknown and began to yell at the creatures to get their attention and to ask them who they were and where they came from. As he did this, he raised his pick that he used for his geological excursions (other sources say his paintbrush/easel, but Johannis would fix this with his follow up in the Humanoids edited by Charles Bowen). As Johannis did this, he raised his hand holding the pickaxe, which he felt, later on, was probably interpreted as a threatening gesture. Upon doing this, the beings wheeled around very quickly. As he watched, one of the two entities proceeded to put their right hand onto their belt, which emitted a thin puff of smoke which he later felt was some sort of ray. During this, Johannis felt that the pickaxe in his hand suddenly was being pulled away and as he watched, the ax flew away; and as this happened, he suddenly found himself crumpled on the ground and that he was paralyzed and felt an electric shock throughout his body, but he could still watch the beings approach the ax. They reached within 6ft of Johannis, and as they got to that point, he was able to roll over on his side and watch as one of the creatures lifted up the pickaxe, examining it; as Johannis stared at the beings, he noted that their hands while having human-like digits had hands that appeared to be clamped almost like claws. In other words, these entities had some 8 digits that were hinged at a certain point; in other words, 4 digits on one side and 4 digits on the other side. These 8 digits seemed jointless but were still noticeable as fingers. The beings observing the pickaxe breathed heavily, and Johannis compared this breathing to a dog's after a long run. Johannis struggled to sit up but was able to eventually do so but needed to firmly plant his arms to the ground to avoid falling over again. As he watched the creatures return to their craft and as he watched he climbed into the object, which rose vertically 15ft above the ground much like the appearance of a gong, and watched as the object attempted to fly away. As the object dislodged from the cliff, several stones fell down to the riverbed. Johannis noted that the object seemed to have problems flying as the object hovered a bit. Johannis, during this time, tried to get up but could not and fell back again, and he watched as the disc-shaped object tipped and unleashed a gust of wind. Johannis was still immobile and was moved when the blast of wind from the craft moved him into a stony riverbed. Then the craft began to do something altogether curious the object began to shrink in size and continued to do this until it eventually and finally disappeared.

Johannis's Original Eyewitness Sketch of the Green Men

Johannis would wait some 2hrs before he finally was able to get ahold of his faculties, and even then, he was exhausted as he during that time slept and upon moving his limbs felt extreme pain as if every bone was broken. Upon being able to move, he noted that all the aluminum objects in his objects were missing; he found that his flask of coffee was shattered but that the metal casing that surrounded it was gone as well as his fork and canister that held his lunch. He found that all of his sketches were stained with coffee and that his lunch was left scattered in the bag as well, which left him having only coffee-infused bread as a meal as he had to throw away the salami and the rest of his intended lunch. Johannis then began, after eating and being able to move to search for his pickaxe but was not able to find it; he was certain that the beings had taken it with them then and later, after learning more about the UFO phenomenon, felt that it was in some extraterrestrial museum being carefully analyzed as the aliens attempted to decipher his name, his mountaineering motto, a pair of alpine flowers and an eagle which were cut into the handle of the ax and he hoped that the beings "rack their brains to a standstill trying to make it out ."This irritated him even further on the return trip as he had used the pickaxe as a kind of walking stick to help traverse the terrain. It was about 2pm by the time he had made it to his room at the inn in Raveo; upon entering the door, the proprietress of the inn, who he had known since he was a boy, saw the banged-up visage of the professor and instantly asked what happened. He responded by saying he fell from a rock, and upon hearing this, the woman said in a rather condescending tone that it served him right and that it was about time that he stopped going around collecting stones. He shrugged her off, went up to his room, and then proceeded in sheer exhaustion to crawl into bed and fall into a deep sleep.

The following day Johannis armed himself with another pick as well as a revolver and went back to the spot. He searched the area and the cleft from where the craft was moored but found nothing, but he was more focused on some hope that the beings did not take his pick and that they left it near where the object was, but of course, he found nothing. Johannis asked later on if others in the area had seen some strange airplane and found that two people, an old man and a little boy from a nearby village had, had told him separately that they had seen a red object that flew up into the sky both at 8:30 and 10 during the day of his sighting. The old man was sitting down in the village square enjoying the day when he noticed a large red globe being 'carried aloft on the wind' behind the mountain on the slope of which the village lies. The boy was with his mother and other people working in a field on the edge of the village when he noticed a red ball “like the ones they have at fairs," which was rising at great speed and proceeded to disappear into the sky.

Attempting to rationalize what he had seen had changed several times since, in the beginning, he nor anyone else in Italy was aware or had any context of UFOs. At first, he thought the craft was some experimental machine of the allied forces, which were during that time occupying the Campoformido aerodrome in the Friuli area. His next thought was that perhaps this was some Russian device. He then wondered about whether this device and the beings were some unknown civilization that remained hidden away in the unexplored regions of our world, such as he felt the Matto Grosso of Brazil. Yet he was not happy with any of these possibilities as the men he encountered were so unusual that they could not have been human. Two months later, he sailed to New York, and during the crossing, he heard about Kenneth Arnold's sighting, and only then did he make the connection to flying saucers and Ufonauts. During the five years while in the USA, he followed the ongoing wave of flying saucer sightings, and in 1950, he decided to come forward with his account, which led to it being initially published in the journal of the Centro Studi Clipeologici, Via San Secondo 15 Torino, May 1964^th edition of the Clypeus issue No. 2-5. As time progressed, Johannis would have some doubts about the beings he encountered; he became unsure as to the position of the vertical pupils or even as to whether they had pupils at all and even then started to question whether the beings were flesh and blood at all and even began to think that chances are that they were more likely to be robots. All of this and a final follow-up would be chronicled for Gordon Creighton for the mandatory Fortean book The Humanoids, edited by Charles Bowen.

Now, this case is extremely fascinating. I have been fascinated with this encounter since I first read about it; for me, the most important thing about this is this is the first official Close Encounter of the Third Kind during a time when not only were extraterrestrials not even thought of but that the UFO phenomenon in general from how we perceive it today was literally just gaining traction. While some out there will point to the ancient aliens' aspect of beings like Quetzalcoatl or other gods being alien races, I must stress that this is an interpretation of data and not the data straight-faced. When looking at the history of UFOs, this is one of the earliest and, therefore, one of the most important. One could argue that this case is revolutionary as it puts the term little green men, not into a context of sarcasm or discredit but as possibly the original origin of the phrase (the same can be said about the Hopkinsville Goblins). So, a quick refresh of the importance of the case, 3^rd documented case of a UFO, 1^st case of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind, 1^st case of a Little Green Men type extraterrestrial which just having those merits surprises me that this case is not more famous than what it is.

Now, of course, breaking down this case, there are actually a few ways to look at this case, yet the element that determines the interpretation is the Green Men themselves. Obviously, there's the extraterrestrial angle; this is perhaps the most popular identity of these beings as they had many features we would associate with a living creature, such as pupils, skin, the use of clothing and tools, as well as a fish-like opening and closing of the mouth. Much of this would indicate a biological creature, and the same would also involve the creature's curiosity and even interpretation of Johannis's waving arm and ax and shouting as a kind of threat. If these creatures were mechanical or something along those lines, unless they were being piloted or controlled, one would not think that they would behave in such a way that seems to be more defensive.

Now while these entities do appear biological, there is always the chance that they are androids or robots. The main indication of this is that the creatures moved in a robot-like fashion and even Johannis, later on, felt that the creatures were something along those lines. There are tons of reasons for why this would be a plausible answer for these entities since if an advanced civilization wanted to learn more about our culture or planet in general, they would send drones to search and investigate the planet. They could serve as data collectors collecting pieces of our culture or tools; the various soil collecting cases could be to see the general makeup of our world or if the atmosphere would be breathable, or if there were some hazardous diseases or microbes that could hinder further contact or conquest.

While there are a lot of indications that these entities are extraterrestrial in origin, and that has since been where most researchers firmly plant them. There are other options that could indicate that what these beings are is something much older and more at home on earth. These creatures could very much have been members of the Faerie kingdom. Now many researchers have drawn comparisons to alien encounters and the fae, but one thing that I've come across in my research is that faerie encounters still to this day occur and that they come in countless forms. One particular variety that pops up across cultures is green-skinned beings, whether it be elemental figures like the Green Man, a figure associated with the changing seasons and the woods, or beings of a more aggressive nature like Jenny Greenteeth, an aquatic faerie hag that drowns those that come too close to her watery lair. Now the Villa Santina Little Green Men behave in many ways like the fae they stole seemingly mundane and shiny objects, something that has been repeated in faerie lore for centuries. They had odd brightly colored clothing with cuffs, something that is also reported in faerie encounters and differs from most extraterrestrial encounters, who mostly are reported wearing robes or skintight diving suit style outfits even though other bizarre fashion choices exist. Another element is that the craft that the beings left in behaved rather strangely as opposed to flying or taking off in a traditional way or simply disappearing as in other UFO cases; this craft began to shrink before ultimately disappearing as though it winked out of existence. This winking out of existence, as well as the shrinking to nothing, is something that has been reported with faerie encounters before. Just how or why the fae do this is clearly anyone’s guess, but I did find it an interesting similarity, to say the least.

Another possibility, of course, venturing off this world and once again into another is the possibility that these beings were interdimensional entities. This is sort of a catch-all possibility, but if these entities have technology and can travel through dimensions, it could explain the overall strange behavior of the craft and that the shrinking could be the manner in which these organisms come in and out of another dimension. Also, needless to say, in another dimension, there are countless evolutionary lines or possibilities as to just how a being like this could exist, but again, there's clearly no definitive answer.

This is perhaps one of the most important cases out there and also one of the most interesting. It amazes me that this case has not been focused on or reached mainstream interest in the same way as, say, the Flatwoods Monster or the Hopkinsville Goblins has. There are so many interesting elements, and I find that it's also one of the most ambiguous in regard to the origin of these beings. I would argue that this is just one of several cases that seem to cross over into faerie encounters, but at the same time, there is that strong extraterrestrial origin for these beings. It's interesting too that these beings, while similar in overall shape to Grays, are clearly not since they have almost reptile-like eyes and a much greener complexion as well as their bizarre 8 digited claw-like hands, so that in itself is just refreshing since greys are so overbearing. Just what these entities are much like in almost any case, we will never come to a conclusion, but that's one of the appeals as well since this is just one of the countless one-off cases out there. These entities, be they from space or earth or another dimension, are fascinating, and who knows what the future might hold perhaps some other alpinist, while out might have a run-in again with these visitors and the only thing I can suggest is to hold onto your pick with your life.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Extraterrestrials, Robots, Faeries

Location: Villa Santina, near Raveo, Carnic Alps, Italy

Sighted: 9:00 am, August 14, 1947

Works Cited:

The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials By Patrick Huyghe

Humanoid Encounters 1930-1949 By Albert S. Rosales

The Humanoids By Charles Bowen

The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters: The Definitive Illustrated A - Z Guide To All Things Alien By Ronald Story

Martian Shrub of Peru

 The Martian Shrub of Peru

By Cole Herrold

When people think of extraterrestrials, the first thought that comes to mind is of small gray or green beings with large almond shape black eyes, yet if history has shown us anything, this is not to be the case. The world of extraterrestrial encounters has some downright bizarre entities, but almost all of them have a symmetrical or human-like form. Whether it's the Flatwoods Monster, Space Penguins of Tuscumbia, or the La Rubia Abductors, these entities, while mostly different compared to the organisms we know, do share some features with us or animals that make them seem less alien. It's from these accounts even the most seasoned Ufologist is familiar with reports of machine-like or animal-like extraterrestrials, yet sometimes the entities reported do not follow those categories and seem to resemble something that is around us all the time. The Martian Shrub of Peru is an extremely short case but compelling nonetheless, perhaps most notably as the entity described in the encounter bears none of the earmarks of the classic UFO driver but instead seems to be some form of a sentient plant.

It was in August or September of 1965 when Julio L. de Romana and Antonio Chavez Bedoya were driving along the Pan-American motorway. The pair was almost 12.5 miles from Arequipa when they noticed a strange figure standing in the road. The car continued to truck down the road as they expected this figure to eventually move or scurry across the road, but as they came closer, they realized that this dark form was still standing perfectly still. The two realizing that if they did not alter their course, they were going to strike whatever this creature was, promptly swerved off the road. As they looked over at the strange form blocking the road, they at first thought it to be some sort of litter or some plant that managed to get knocked into the road. Yet as they continued to stare, they realized this clearly was not the case.

There standing in the road was a dark entity black in color and a little over 2 ½ feet tall. The witnesses could only describe it as "a strange being, a Martian" the entity appeared to be alive, but at that moment refused to move its body, gave the witnesses the impression that it was some sort of plant life as to them it looked like a shrub. Whether there were branches or leaves is unknown, but the creature's overall plant-ness was not its most startling feature. There towards where the witnesses felt the head should be, was a bright golden eye that appeared to be gilded this eye was large, but it was not alone as all along the body were several smaller golden eyes that were skittered around in the assumed branches. These eyes seemed to glint in the sunlight as well and were joined on several of the branches or body segments by long metallic objects like strips of gold and silver.

As the pair was reeling in this bizarre entity that sounds suspiciously like a sentient Christmas Tree was shocked to see a UFO fly above their car and the vegetative visitor. What happened after this is not known except for assumedly the duo had put the pedal to the metal and drove out of this area of high strangeness. While the UFOs' direction went unreported other individuals in the area would later go on to report seeing a strange craft in the sky.

 As for the Martian Shrub, there have been no reports of anything remotely similar to it in the annals of Ufology. UFO creatures that bear a strong resemblance to plants have been collected; the Walking Stumps, for example, were three spider-like entities of varying colors and patterns that, to the witnesses, seemed to be like crawling tree stumps. While these entities did not exactly have the appearance of something of the flora persuasion, another entity known as the Vegetable Man had features that clearly seemed to be of a kind of sentient plant humanoid. This entity had long ears that appeared leaf-like and had long fingers which were tipped with suction cup-like appendages that ended in long syringe-type fingers. The entity's body was often described as something like a stalk or a carrot and communicated to the witness as well as draining blood. While this entity clearly was plant-like, the UFO connection to it is speculative as there was no craft seen but a strange whirring phonograph sound which was believed to of been the craft taking off. So, with that said, there are still no plant-extraterrestrial cases making this one incredibly unique.

Now, much like in other cases I've written about with assumed Extraterrestrials, there is always the chance that the creature seen has nothing to do with the UFO phenomenon. In this case, the strange shrub was seen standing in the middle of the roadway before the UFO was in the area, and when the UFO came to the area, apparently it did not stop and pick up its occupant as if this was to be the case it would have been reported. So perhaps this creature is some bizarre plant that has gone undiscovered and just happened to of been crossing the road at the same time as the UFO was crossing overhead. I will say, given the appearance of the creature and the metallic strips, this seems unlikely and probably isn't the case.

With that said, if we take the extraterrestrial route because this creature seems to have either some sort of technology or even what might pass for clothing on its world, it is particularly bizarre. The tinsel-like strips seem to almost be used only as an ornament as they apparently did not do anything particularly spectacular when the witnesses saw it, so what the actual purpose of it is can truly only be left for speculation. Yet this almost point-blank description only leads into one of the issues with this case.

One of the problems with this case is the vagueness of it. I have found this to be a problem with a lot of the South American and Central American cases as rarely there's a follow-up or finding the newspaper accounts are exceptionally difficult, so all we have to go on is the scant information reused in the Ufological literature. That’s one of the major problems with this case is that it sort of abruptly ends we don’t know if the witnesses did see some sort of landing and the Martian Shrub return to the craft or if the drivers simply could not handle all of the high strangeness and simply drove off it appears that there was just no follow up in this case at all.

Another issue with this case is that each resource that does publish something on it has alternative dates for when the encounter took place. Some sources state August 1, August 29, August 30, and even a month later on September 29, even though the newspapers covering the case were released for the 31^st. Perhaps this is a simple error or some issue with translation when the accounts were published in other sources, but it does make it difficult to get a true point on when the encounter took place.

While this encounter is extremely frustrating, it is interesting nonetheless, mainly for the description of the entity seen by the two men. There has been nothing similar to it as far as what has been reported, and I think that is one of the most important elements to the case as there has never been something that appeared as a goth Christmas tree in either the world of cryptozoology, demonology, or Ufology aside from this encounter. If it was the typical Grey, we probably would not be talking about this case today since nothing really happens, but it's the appearance of this entity that steals the show and definitely something we perhaps will never see again.

Initial Sketch of Christmas Tree Variant

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Vegetable Extraterrestrial

Location: Pan-American Motorway, Near Arequipa, Peru

Sighted: Either August 1, August 29, August 30, September 29, 1965

Works Cited:

The Humanoids By Charles Bowen

Humanoid Encounters: 1965-1969 -The Others Amongst Us By Albert S. Rosales

Cronica, Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 31, 1965

La Prensa, Lima, Peru, August 31, 1965

Gross, Patrick. “August 1965, Near Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru, Julio L. de Romana and Antonio Chavez Bedoya” URECAT July 3, 2008. https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/ce3/1965-08-31-peru-arequipa.htm#jv1. Accessed September 14, 2021. 

Triclops of Badaja Grande

 The Triclops of Badaja Grande

By Cole Herrold

What can be said of the reported visitors to our Earth that hasn't been said before. Extraterrestrials are nowadays almost entirely uniform to about four kinds: Greys, Nordics, Reptilians, and Mantids. While encounters with these kinds of ETs are interesting to a degree, they are completely boring compared to those entities that were reported 30, 40, 50, and 60 years ago. The space parade was incredible, and each encounter was entirely different from the famous cases like the Pascagoula Abductors, Hopkinsville Goblins, and Flatwoods Monster to those cases that flew under the radar or later became cult favorites like the Venezuelan Hairy Dwarves, the Space Penguins of Tuscumbia, and the Casa Blanca Entities they were all weird wild and different from the fifty shades of Greys that seem to plague UFO literature anymore. One of perhaps the greatest resources for weird alien encounters is Charles Bowen's The Humanoids. It was in this book that I came into awareness of some of the most unique cases ever written, mostly because the description of the aliens seen was something so different that it entirely encapsulates the account.

It was on either July 27 or 28, 1962 (some sources differ on the exact date) that 17-year-old Ricardo Mieres, a student of the Colegio Nacional de Parana, was driving his motorcycle (some sources state car, but due to the upcoming events, I tend to lean towards motorcycle) in Badaja Grande, Argentina and had only gotten about a little over 3 miles from the nearby city of Parana when suddenly for apparently no reason the motor suddenly stalled, and he was forced to the side of the road. On the side of the road, there was plenty of wilderness, and the only building close was a cement plant. The stranded motorist attempted to get the engine going again but, seeing that he was unable to, proceeded to sit and wait patiently on his bike until some passing motorist could come and give him a helping hand.

As he waited on the side of the road, he looked out towards where the cement plant was and saw that there was some bizarre movement that seemed to be coming his way. Thinking that perhaps someone had seen him struggling with the motorcycle, possibly from over at the plant that they had come to be a good Samaritan and help him in his time of need. As the figure approached, though, Mieres soon started to realize that whatever was coming towards him was clearly not human.

The entity that appeared to come from near the cement plant was something that could only be described as out of this world. The creature had a large watermelon-shaped head and was covered in long whitish hair on its humanoid form, yet while this creature stood like a man and was extremely tall, that was not its most unnerving feature. As the creature seemed to come closer, Mieres noticed that the creature bore in the center of its head that the eyes were not the usual bilateral symmetry that we were so familiar with but instead had three large unblinking eyes that stared intently at him as the entity approached the vehicle. The creature continued to stare with its still unblinking eyes as the man watched the creature get right next to him.

Why Mieres did nothing was never reported but what the creature proceeded to do was. The creature, now inches away from Mieres, reached out with its long fur-covered arms and reached towards Mieres neck. Mieres dreaded the worst, thinking the creature would strangle him, but the creature proceeded in grabbing the muffler (a kind of scarf) from around his neck and, in a robotic fashion, make a U-turn and head once more back the direction that it came. Mieres watched in disbelief as the creature continued its mechanical movements back the way it came muffler in hand and watched as it was a white speck on the horizon.

As soon as the creature was out of sight, Mieres's motorcycle sprung back to life. Mieres looked back at the area before ultimately leaving to head back; there was nothing around to indicate that something anomalous had occurred except that in the sandy soil, there were several footprints from the creature. Mieres, however, wanted some further validation to his encounter, and so driving back as fast as possible, he returned to Parana and, in the "Plaza de Mayo," gathered several of his friends and planned an expedition back up to the location to search for clues.

The group saddled up on motorcycles returned to the scene where there still preserved in the soft sandy soil was the set of footprints. Also, further down the road left carelessly was the muffler that had so either intrigued or infuriated the creature to the point of removing it from the teenager. During this timespan, others not necessarily connected with the search claimed to see a large flying object in the vicinity of the Badaja Grande, yet the Triclops was never seen or at least reported in that area ever again.

This case, while mentioned in books like the Humanoids, Passport to Magonia, and Space Oddities: Our Strange Attempts to Explain the Universe, there has never been an official investigation into the sighting from a Ufological organization, at least from what can be gathered from the sources that are available in America. There's a vagueness to this case that makes it frustrating to research because there apparently, outside of the original newspaper articles and the snippets that appeared in books, nothing has been done with this case leading, of course, to a lot of unanswered questions. One of the biggest unanswered questions to me is whether this creature is actually an extraterrestrial visitor.

I've made the argument before that two unknowns do not always mean a connection. A UFO and a bigfoot seen in the same area not interacting does not mean they are connected in the same way; if you see an elk and a UFO in the same way, you wouldn't naturally assume they're connected. With this case, it smacks of this similar flirtatious connection; the Triclops was not seen in direct connection with a UFO but was seen in an area where UFOs had been seen regularly, so people felt that they were connected. This is similar to other cases like the original Loveland Frog sightings in the 50s, where they were not seen in conjunction with a UFO but got lumped in with the ET movement. The Vegetable Man and Grafton Monster are some others where the idea of them being creatures from another world was placed upon them without any real direct connection to the phenomenon.

With all that said, the Triclops does have either some anomalous qualities or does have some technology that went unreported or even unnoticed. The fact that this creature appeared after Mieres motorcycle stalled and then as soon as it left, the bike started up again is similar to what is supposed to happen when people have encounters with UFOs or robots from extraterrestrial crafts. This bizarreness is doubled when one takes into notion the way the creature walked, which was described as robotic. When one thinks of a flesh and blood organism robotic, or mechanical is far from how one would describe such a creature.

This entity is bizarre because of how brief of an encounter it is but the thing that fascinates me most is the creature's decision to take the muffler. Extraterrestrials are often claimed to take soil samples, water samples, blood samples, and other things from Earth, so it would not be out of the norm for this to be a case of that except that the muffler was then found further down the road. Another type of entity known for taking human possessions are the infamous faerie folk. These entities have long oral traditions of asking for tedious objects or taking them for no clear reason as if it's a kind of game. Some researchers feel that such cases of entities or creatures taking human objects could be examples of modern faerie interactions during the Mothman flap; a MIB took Mary Hyre's pen after she said he could have it, and the entity proceeded in behaving giddily afterward. A similar case is the Millville Insanity Bird, where the colossal entity asked for a garbage can and, when denied, proceeded to attack the property owner. Maybe this entity is another example of this kind of phenomenon.

Whatever the Triclops of Badaja Grande was, it was never seen again. Yet, it stands out as just one of the countless unique cases that go unmentioned from a part of the world that is teeming with bizarre creatures and UFO reports. The creature's description, while vague, is startling as it's not often that we see entities with three sets of eyes or of any feature for that matter; typically, things, even from a Fortean standpoint, tend to be symmetrical, so this is completely mind-boggling. This case, while short and vague, is just the tip of the iceberg to an area of research that has gone almost totally unnoticed by those interested in the subject and one that has so many possibilities because of the overall vagueness with oddly specific points that it has tons of potential interest in every area of Fortean research.

Quick Facts:

Species/Potential Species: Mammal? / Extraterrestrial Mammal/ Robot/ Android/ Cyborg

Location: Badaja Grande, Argentina

Sighted: July 27 or 28, 1962

Works Cited:

The Humanoids By Charles Bowen

Passport to Magonia By Jacques Vallee

Space Oddities: Our Strange Attempts to Explain the Universe by S. D. Tucker

La Razon, Buenos Aires, July 29, 1962