On May 19, 1986, a series of radar and visual contacts with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) took place across the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Goiás, becoming locally known as the "Night of the UFOs". Incident At around 8:15 p.m. BRT on the 19th of May 1986, Sérgio Mota da Silva, an air traffic controller at São José dos Campos Airport (SJK), spotted three bright lights hovering over the airport on the night sky, and Guarulhos International Airport detected contacts in the vinicity of São José dos Campos. Sérgio observed the objects with a pair of binoculars, noticing that they seemed to emit a bright red light, but often changing colors to yellow, green and orange-like. Dimming the runway lights, he noticed that the objects seemed to approach the airport, moving away once the lights were increased again. At 9:08 p.m. BRT, a EMB 121 Xingu plane, callsign PT-MBZ, on its way towards SJK from Brasília, reports seeing bright red lights at radial 150 of SJK's VOR, near the coast moving east to west. This aircraft was flown by Colonel Ozires Silva, the founder of Embraer, who was returning from a meeting with President José Sarney and who would take office as president of Petrobras on the following day. According to Ozires, the objects seemed like "big red stars". He then proceeded, of his own accord, to attempt to approach the objects, without success. By 9:39 p.m. BRT Santa Cruz Air Force Base was put on alert due to the presence of several unidentified radar plots around São José dos Campos. Around half an hour later, Anápolis Air Force Base reports the detection of radar echoes at radial 270 of its VOR, prompting the air base to also be put on alert. The radar contacts obtained by Anápolis were not being detected by the Center of Military Operations (COpM) located in CINDACTA I. At 10:27 p.m., a F-5E of 1º/1ºGAvCa "Jambock", callsign JB17, was scrambled from Santa Cruz AFB, taking off just seven minutes later. The pilot, approaching at an altitude of 17,000 feet, reported having detected a radar plot and having visual contact with a white light below its level, that then proceeded to climb, steadily maintaining itself 10–12 miles away and 10° above his aircraft until it reached 33,000 feet. During this period, the pilot reported that the light changed from white