In 1966, two Brazilian electronic technicians were found dead on a hilltop in Niteroi, wearing suits and handmade lead eye masks. A note beside them gave instructions for contacting spirits.
August 20, 1966. Niteroi, a city across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A teenage boy flying a kite on the slopes of Vintem Hill spotted two figures lying in the tall grass.
Manoel Pereira da Cruz, 34, and Miguel José Viana, 32, lay on their backs in formal suits and raincoats. Their posture was calm, almost serene. And over their eyes, each man wore an identical mask — crudely fashioned from lead sheeting, shaped to cover the eye sockets.
They were both dead.
Manoel and Miguel were business partners who ran an electronics repair shop in Campos dos Goytacazes, a city about 300 kilometers northeast of Rio. On August 17, three days before they were found, the two men had put on suits and left town, telling family they were going to Niteroi to buy supplies for their shop.
Along the way, they stopped to purchase raincoats. They also bought a bottle of distilled water. The shopkeeper later recalled that they seemed to be in a tremendous hurry.
In Niteroi, they were seen buying a bottle of water at a bar before heading toward Vintem Hill. That was the last time anyone saw them alive.
Beside the bodies, investigators found a small notebook page with handwritten instructions in Portuguese:
"16:30 — be at the agreed-upon location. 18:30 — ingest capsules. After the effect begins, protect eyes and ears with the lead masks. Wait for the signal to make contact."
Contact with whom? What signal? What capsules?
Here is where the case becomes truly confounding. No cause of death was ever determined.
The bodies were not discovered for several days, and decomposition had already begun in the subtropical heat. Brazilian authorities at the time did not perform a toxicology analysis. There were no wounds, no signs of violence, no evidence of struggle.
Whatever the two men ingested — the "capsules" referenced in the note — remains unidentified.
Subsequent investigation revealed that Manoel and Miguel had a deep involvement in Spiritism and what they called "scientific spiritual experiments." In their workshop, they had been building electronic devices they believed could facilitate communication with spirits. They had reportedly conducted similar hilltop rituals before.
On the night of the deaths, multiple residents near Vintem Hill reported seeing glowing orange orbs hovering over the area. This testimony has linked the case to UFO lore in Brazil, where it remains one of the most famous unexplained incidents.
But a more prosaic explanation exists. The two men may have voluntarily ingested a psychoactive or toxic substance as part of a spiritual experiment — expecting visions, contact, transcendence. The lead masks were likely intended to shield their eyes from the anticipated "light" of the encounter. The substance, whatever it was, proved fatal.
Was it a tragic accident born of misguided belief? A poisoning disguised as ritual? Or something genuinely inexplicable?
The wind that sweeps across Vintem Hill carries no answers. Two electronic technicians climbed that slope seeking contact with something beyond. They never came back down.
