Globo and EPTV revisit the 1996 Varginha UFO case in the three-part series “O Mistério de Varginha”, with unseen archives and a premiere at the ET Memorial.
Thirty years after one of Brazil’s most enigmatic episodes, the Varginha UFO case is back in the spotlight with “O Mistério de Varginha” (“The Mystery of Varginha”), a new documentary series produced by Globo in coproduction with regional broadcaster EPTV. With in-depth reporting and a strong journalistic approach, the series reconstructs the events that changed the city’s history after the alleged appearance of an extraterrestrial being and highlights EPTV’s leading role in the original coverage.
On 20 January 1996, three young women – Kátia, Liliane and Valquíria – claimed to have seen a strange creature in a vacant lot in Varginha: brown skin, large red eyes, a heart-shaped head with three protrusions. In the days before, other witnesses reported unusual lights and movements in the sky over the region, feeding a story that quickly spread across Brazil.
EPTV revisits its own archives and the streets
EPTV was the first TV station to report the case and soon expanded its coverage through Globo, including features on the Sunday news magazine Fantástico. Three decades later, the team goes back to Varginha’s streets and into its own tape library, recovering reports, footage and interviews from the 1990s and combining them with new sources and the latest research.
Between October and December 2025, journalists travelled across Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Brasília to map out the chain of events surrounding the alleged sighting and to understand its local and national impact. Rather than simply retelling the story, “O Mistério de Varginha” reflects on how the episode shaped Varginha’s identity, influenced generations of residents and remained alive in Brazil’s collective imagination.
One of the core goals was to revisit the behind-the-scenes of the original EPTV coverage, now treated as a historical archive and incorporated into the documentary. These rescued images, combined with fresh testimonies and interviews with people who had never spoken publicly before, help broaden the understanding of how the case was experienced by the city and by the professionals who followed its day-to-day developments.
Three-episode structure and shared direction
The three-part series is directed by Ricardo Calil, from Globo, and Paulo Gonçalves, from EPTV. All production, field shooting and interviews were carried out by EPTV’s team, in partnership with professionals from both companies, reinforcing the collaborative nature of the project.
By revisiting the Varginha UFO case with journalistic rigour, the documentary underlines EPTV’s role as a regional broadcaster that not only witnessed but also helped to shape the public narrative around the episode. The series weaves together past and present, memory and critical perspective, from the point of view of witnesses, authorities, ufologists and journalists.
Premiere at the ET Memorial and national broadcast
The bond between Varginha and its most famous story gains a symbolic new chapter with the premiere of “O Mistério de Varginha” in the city itself, home to EPTV Sul de Minas. The first episode will have a free public screening on 4 January, from 5 p.m., at the ET Memorial, a museum inaugurated in 2022 to commemorate the case and used as a location for several interviews in the series.
The full series will air on Globo on 6, 7 and 8 January, after the miniseries “O Auto da Compadecida”, in the second prime-time slot. All episodes will also be available on Globoplay, reaching both those who followed the case back in 1996 and younger viewers who know Varginha mainly as “the ET city”.
Photo: Press handout
