The incidents started in the city of Cláudio, Minas Gerais, on November 19, 2008. At around 8:30 p.m, shortly before the Brazil vs. Portugal game, Mrs. Renata Veloso Guerck Austriaco saw a luminous hexagonal object accompanied by two other spherical flying objects that rotated in its orbit. As the UFO approached the Nossa Senhora Aparecida church, the streetlights in the Bela Vista neighborhood went black, turning off block by block. From that moment on, several residents of Cláudio began to observe strange lights flying over the city and landing in the rural area, on the banks of the MG 260 highway. Renata, who was the wife of the commander of the Cláudio Military Police Platoon, caught the attention of her husband, Captain Eisenhower Guerck Austriaco, who began to see the same phenomenon for a few minutes, then called the police station, Corporal Sírio Barbosa de Oliveira, and ordered the vehicle, consisting of Corporal Amilton José Rabelo, Private Heverton Francisco, and Private Balbino, to move to Bela Vista/Valongo Avenue. One of the smaller objects was silver, while the other flying object was red, like glowing iron, and sometimes changed color. At a certain point, the captain called a neighbor, Mrs. Irma de Fátima Rodrigues Santos, who lived on the sixth floor of the building, and began to observe the same phenomenon. Later, her testimony was collected and attached to the “Cláudio Case” Military Police file. Commander Eisenhower Austriaco ocordinated that military action from the window of his apartment for several hours. According to Corporal Rabelo: “We were called to a place called Sobrado, near the city’s industrial park, where people claimed to have seen a light, from a possible suspicious vehicle in the middle of the woods.” Rabelo and two other military, Private Francisco and Private Balbino went to the location, via the local road that leads to the town of Matias, from where he believed it would be an ideal spot to have a privileged view of the indicated region. “After approximately one kilometer, we saw on the right side of the road, a very bright yellow and white light that was moving to the right of our position,” he said. Stunned by seeing the strange light, the police team decided that they should follow it. “We turned around and started following the light. Once on the MG-260 highway, heading towards Cláudio/Divinópolis, we headed towards Campo de Aviação, always maintaining visual contact with the object. At the entrance to Campo de Aviação, we noticed that the object was maintaining the same altitude, the same speed and heading in the same direction, from west to south. We continued to follow it until we got close to the Santa Ines alcohol distillery,” the police officer stated. Near the distillery, Rabelo states that, “We entered a sugarcane plantation, continued approximately 500 meters through the sugarcane and reached the end of the fence, where it would not be possible to continue. We stopped the vehicle in a place with a wider view, at a distance of approximately one kilometer,” he estimates. At that moment, the object stopped in its path and stopped in the sky. The police officers got out of their patrol car to take a closer look and, according to Rabelo, “The object stopped for a while. We all got out of the patrol car and I could see that everyone was very nervous. One of the officers present asked me what procedure should be adopted in this case. I immediately contacted the PM Operations Room to inform them of the facts and was ordered to monitor it and then describe what had happened.” He goes on to report that, “During the telephone contact, the luminous object, which we had already determined to be rectangular in shape, with oval sides, the size and appearance of a bus without wheels, emitted a white light, like a xenon headlight. This light came out of an opening that cut through its entire center. Then it rose until we lost sight of it.” The police believed that the unusual sighting had come to an end, but something incredible was yet to happen, such as a true farewell. According to Rabelo, “When we were thinking about leaving the place, the driver of the patrol car called our attention, because the light was returning, stopping higher than it had been before. It was making two circular movements that seemed to have been predetermined, and it disappeared immediately.” Approximately 25 minutes passed from the first visual contact to the last. Rabelo, who said he always carries his Sony Cyber Shot 7.2 mp camera, managed to take three photos of the object [see this article] and asked to make it clear that he waited until he was retired so he could make public what he saw. “At the time, I was prohibited from making this report to anyone or the press, because I was active in the Military Police. Today, as a retired officer, I am sending you this report. I have received several reports from people in the city who have also had recent visual contact. They are reputable people who took photos of this object.” 

In 2019 Corporal Rabelo gave a new interview to researchers Edison Boaventura and Paulo Werner. He confirmed officers from Brazilian Air Force confiscated his photos, but fortunately he had previously saved a copy on his computer thanks to the instructions of his Commander: ““The next day, I was off duty and military from the Lagoa Santa Air Base in Belo Horizonte came and interviewed me, asked me to draw the object and asked for the camera card so they could copy the photos. They erased the photos, including my personal photos. They gave me the card with the blanks. They said that what I had seen was ‘artificial burning of gases’. So I told that natural phenomenon doesn’t do the same maneuvers as that object did.” He also said that after the incident, Private Balbino was very disturbed and requested discharge from the police.