1958: Space Babies

On January 16th 1958, a team of scientists were on board the Brazilian naval vessel, Almirante Saldhana, setting up a weather station on the uninhabited Trindade Island as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Suddenly, a fuzzy object not unlike the planet Saturn flew around the rocky outcrop. At the same time an electrical winch used to haul in a small boat lost all power. A photographer on board took half a dozen unsolved pictures of the UFO as it circled the island.

In Brazil on 22nd February, Rio doctor Olavo Fontes privately circulated his report on Antonio Villas Boas amongst UFO researchers. Villas Boas (a farmer) had visited Fontes' office to tell how four months earlier he had been working on his tractor in the middle of the night when a UFO landed nearby. The tractor engine and lights had failed. He tried lo flee but had been grabbed by some small men who led him into a craft - where he was forced to give a sperm sample to a red haired female of the same diminutive stature. The alien woman indicated by gestures that she would now give birth to their child in space.

Only four weeks after the Villas Boas encounter a housewife in Birmingham, England, claimed that a strange alien figure visited her home in a flash of light that scorched some newspapers. He conveyed more information during subsequent visits. In September he arrived to tell her that she was going 'to have a 'cosmic child' - but did not explain how this would occur. Precise details of the baby's sex, birth weight and arrival date were offered - all of which were proved correct when the child was born in May 1959. The woman had not known she was pregnant when the alien had visited, but was later shown to have been about three weeks into term at that point.

These seemingly ridiculous stories were the beginning of a new phase of UFO activity.