
On the night of that Saturday, March 6, 1982, Operário, five years after being a semi-finalist in the Brazilian Championship, beat the Vasco team 2-0 in the opening of the second phase of the Golden Cup.
But what fans remember, more than the two goals from center forward Jones, was the strange cylindrical object that crossed the sky over the Morenão Stadium. Emitting strong lights and extremely silent, the object flew over the stadium for a few moments, unfortunately without photographic records or filming.
The UFO has become part of Campo Grande folklore. To this day, media outlets from all over the world come to the city with a single objective: to discover the story of the legendary flying saucer.
But after so long, can it be guaranteed that the city’s fans had immediate, first-degree contact with some form of alien life that day? Years later, the doubt persists.
“I believe in the things of God. Just that. Whatever there was there that night, there was. It stood on top of me, emitting lights. But I don’t believe it’s extraterrestrial or anything like that”, says former football player Cocada, brother of Muller, Brazilian player and world champion in 1994, that night the former athlete was experiencing the joy of making his debut for the team in a Brazilian Championship. Little did he know that it would be unforgettable for other reasons.

“The tension in the game was enormous, I was very concentrated on the field. It was all very fast. It wasn’t something that everyone stopped and watched for hours,” said the former football player.
From that night, Cocada says he remembers the perplexity of Vasco’s famous rivals, some of them players on the Brazilian national team. “I told them the airport was nearby and it could be a helicopter”, Cocada said.
Campo Grande News reporter, Paulo Nonato de Souza, worked covering the game that night and explains that what happened was something beyond human understanding. “In 1982, there was no adequate technology to reproduce something similar”, said the reporter.
Professor Ascanio Bottini was one of the spectators on the day and also believes that the appearance was that of extraterrestrials.
“I remember that, from my angle of view, it looked like 4 tubes, two above and two below, in parallel. At each end a strong light. We were focused on watching the game when a buzz began in the crowed grandstand and eyes went from the game to the sky. For a few seconds everyone was static. At incredible speed the object passed by and disappeared. When people ask me if I believe in flying saucers, I answer: “How can I not? I saw it”, said Bottini.

At the time, Brazilian ufologist Ademar Gevaerd came to Campo Grande to study the phenomenon. He heard reports of similar apparitions not only in neighboring cities, but throughout Mato Grosso do Sul and even in neighboring states and countries.
“We were certainly visited by another form of intelligence”, said the ufologist.
Gevaerd even won an internationally recognized award in the early 1990s for studying the phenomenon, which proved to have occurred in more than 300 cities in the same week.
That night the Morenão Stadium made history, with its audience of 24,575 people, it is the world record for witnesses of a single public UFO appearance.
