Otherworldly Visitors

Many people believe that the cerrado and the Chapada dos Guimarães are landing spots of choice for UFOs. This assertion goes back to Brasília's early days, when an Air Force officer claimed that his weekend home just outside the city was one such spot. A popular story in the Chapada tells of a bus left powerless for several minutes after being encircled by beams of colorful light.

In 1996 officials in Barra do Garças, 420 km (260 mi) northwest of Brasília on the Goiás-Mato Grosso border, designated 12 acres for the world's first UFO "airport"—the Interspace Aerodrome. Though the aerodrome was never built, the publicity it received fueled the notion that the cerrado is a hotbed of UFO activity.

In mid-1997 members of a small farming community 258 km (160 mi) northeast of Cuiabá were convinced that a local farmer and his son were hiding aliens after a fiery ball was seen to crash on their property. The next year people all over the west, from Campo Grande to Cuiabá, reported seeing a large shiny cylinder pass silently overhead. Other mass and individual sightings have been reported, as have alien abductions. Many cerrado residents will warn you to beware of nighttime attacks—not by jaguars, but by aliens.

Many people and religious fanatics of the Osho Lua sect believe that Alto Paraíso de Goiás will be the capital of the world after the apocalypse. They claim the region hides the world's biggest diamond, which attracts "energetic vibrations."