“My Hospital Operated On An Alien!” -Top Surgeon [Exclusive Interview]

• This episode of American Alchemy features an extraordinary three-part interview with key witnesses of the 1996 Varginha UFO incident in Brazil, often called the “modern Roswell.” The guests are Carlos de Sousa, a pilot and ultralight instructor who witnessed the UFO crash and held a piece of its hull; Dr. Italo Venturelli, the head neurosurgeon at Hospital Regional who spent three to four minutes face to face with a living extraterrestrial being; and Dr. Armando Fortunado, a forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on a soldier who died from a mysterious and extremely virulent infection possibly contracted from contact with the alien. The episode, co-hosted with Michael Shellenberger, presents a detailed chain of events corroborated by 15–20 witnesses, including police officers, nurses, farmers, and the former mayor, and raises the possibility of U.S. military involvement in a secret retrieval operation.

Carlos de Sousa’s Account of the Crash

• On the morning of January 20, 1996, Carlos was driving near Varginha when he saw a cigar-shaped, metallic object — roughly the size of a school bus — trailing smoke and losing altitude. He initially thought it was a blimp filming a football match. The craft crossed back over the highway, rose briefly as if trying to avoid the city, then crashed into an open field.
• At the crash site, Carlos described a strong ammonia-like smell that burned his eyes, a rear section completely destroyed, and the front half slid into a tree. He picked up a curved piece of debris that was extremely light — “like aluminum foil used to wrap chicken” — and when he crumpled it, it immediately returned to its original shape, suggesting a memory-metal-like property.
• Within two minutes, a Brazilian military convoy arrived. Soldiers formed a perimeter, and an officer ordered Carlos to leave. When he protested, a soldier cocked a rifle and pointed it at his head. The soldier knocked the debris from Carlos’s hand and threw it away.
• Minutes later, at a roadside gas station, two tall men in black suits arrived in an unmarked car with no license plate. One addressed Carlos by name, recited his wife’s name, his company, and his address, and warned him: “You didn’t see anything. You don’t know anything. If you open your mouth, you’re going to have serious problems for the rest of your life.”
• Carlos was subjected to ongoing harassment: unmarked cars watched his business, tax audits dragged on for days, and his phone appeared to be monitored. He moved houses and changed his phone number. He stayed silent for roughly 25 years until a family gathering where relatives mocked him publicly, prompting him to contact UFO researcher Marco Leal and eventually participate in James Fox’s Moment of Contact documentaries.
• Under hypnotic regression, Carlos appeared to recall a telepathic exchange with the being, in which the creature communicated: “Calm down. Everything is fine. Go away. It’s dangerous for you here. We just want to thank you for your concern.” Carlos has no conscious memory of this and treats it cautiously, but the recording of his session was so intense that the hypnotist stopped it early.

Dr. Italo Venturelli’s Encounter with the Living Being

• Dr. Venturelli, a highly respected neurosurgeon who managed three hospitals in the region, had no prior interest in UFOs. On the night in question, he had just finished operating on a child and returned to the hospital on foot. A TV Globo reporter asked him, “Did you operate on the ET?” — he had no idea what she meant.
• Inside the hospital, his younger colleague Dr. Marcos Vinesis showed him a video on a large 1990s camera of a small, non-human being lying in a hospital bed. Venturelli then went to the room and saw the being in person for approximately three to four minutes.
• The being was roughly the size of a seven-year-old child, with a teardrop-shaped skull, large lilac-colored eyes (compared to Elizabeth Taylor’s), white skin, no visible hair, no nipples, a very small mouth, and three fingers on each hand with an opposable thumb. It had no odor. It was calm, conscious, breathing normally, and showed no signs of pain or bleeding.
• Venturelli described the being’s gaze as profoundly moving — “like an angel looking at us” — a look of understanding, forgiveness, and peace, as if it were saying, “I know what you did for me. It’s all right. Everything’s fine.” He became emotional recounting this and said the experience changed him permanently.
• Marcos Vinesis had apparently performed a minor surgical procedure — likely a few stitches — on the being’s head using basic instruments in an improvised location. The procedure was not a full neurosurgical operation. The being was not restrained, not monitored, and had no IV drip.
• Venturelli believes the being was transferred out of the hospital by the military, with rumors it was taken to Campinas and eventually to Area 51 in the United States. He does not know its ultimate fate.
• A video of the being existed — Marcos showed it repeatedly to friends and family on his computer — but it has never been recovered. Marcos died in 2018. His widow still lives in the same house, and Venturelli believes the tape may still be there, possibly hidden among his collections of watches and CDs. James Fox’s team searched the house but did not find it.
• Venturelli initially told some interviewers he had only seen the video, not the being directly, out of fear of professional consequences. He later clarified that he did see the being in person. He has faced no formal disciplinary action but remains cautious about speaking publicly due to concerns about his medical license and reputation.

Dr. Armando Fortunado and the Autopsy of Marco Sharesi

• Dr. Fortunado, a forensic physician and public health doctor who served as municipal health secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic, performed the autopsy on Marco Sharesi, a young, healthy military police soldier who died roughly 12–14 days after a minor drainage procedure for a skin lesion (boil) in his left armpit.
• The soldier’s infection progressed with shocking speed, becoming septic and fatal despite antibiotics. Dr. Fortunado sent tissue samples to Dr. Doto Janini, a renowned 90-year-old pathologist who serves as a regional reference for over 100 cities. Janini’s report identified an extremely virulent, atypical bacterium — a strain of staphylococcus — that he had never seen before or since in his decades of practice.
• Sharesi’s sister reported that in his final days, the soldier repeatedly said he had apprehended an alien being and was worried that the “oily, greasy substance” on the creature’s skin was making him sick. He had been one of the officers involved in capturing the being.
• Dr. Fortunado now considers it a plausible hypothesis that the soldier contracted the infection through contact with the extraterrestrial being, though he acknowledges the primary medical explanation remains a post-surgical complication. He has formally requested judicial authorization to exhume Sharesi’s remains for further DNA and bacterial analysis.
• Janini, in a signed written statement sent for this episode, confirmed the bacterium’s extreme virulence and unusual behavior and stated he could not rule out an extraterrestrial origin. He has also suggested the bacteria may show signs of genetic engineering.
• Separately, a zookeeper at the Varginha zoo reported that several animals died during the same period from an unknown cause, raising the possibility the alien may have carried or contracted a terrestrial bacterium that proved lethal to both animals and the soldier.

Broader Context and Significance

• The Varginha case involves an unusually large number of witnesses for a UFO incident: approximately 12–15 who saw the craft and up to 5–6 who saw an alien body, including the local chief of police, nurses, doctors, farmers, and the three young girls who first reported seeing the creature. The city has since erected a large UFO statue to commemorate the event.
• The UFO material described by Carlos — lightweight, foil-like, shape-resembling — is consistent with accounts from the 1947 Roswell incident. The craft’s “tic tac” shape matches the object described in the 2004 Nimitz encounter.
• U.S. involvement is suspected but unconfirmed: witnesses report unmarked vehicles, military-style intimidation, and rumors that the being was transported to the United States. An American soldier reportedly told a Brazilian witness he had seen something similar but feared losing his pension if he spoke publicly.
• None of the three main witnesses have profited from their testimonies. Carlos and Dr. Venturelli both explicitly refused payment. All three describe enduring ridicule, harassment, and professional risk for coming forward.
• James Fox, the documentary filmmaker behind Moment of Contact, has spent over 15 years investigating the case and assembling the witness chain. He continues to push for further investigation, including soil analysis at the crash site (which was bulldozed and planted over shortly after his documentary aired), ground-penetrating radar surveys, and the exhumation of Sharesi’s remains.