The most famous of all purported photographs of a UFO, the Trindade Island saucer, also came from Brazil. First published in Brazilian newspapers on February 21, 1958, the pictures showed dark mountain crags looming against an overcast sky. Above one peak appeared a startling image (much like the _O Cruzeiro_ saucer of 1952) resembling the planet Saturn--a flattened sphere banded round the middle by a dark line that extended like a platform beyond the curved sides. According to the accompanying news stories, the UFO had flown over the island of Trindade and had been observed by the officers and crew of a ship of the Brazilian Navy. The pictures, taken by a photographer on board, had been examined and supposedly pronounced genuine by Navy experts before being released to the press. Since a responsible military organization and a major world government thus seemed to accept the photographs as proof that flying saucers actually existed, the incident raised a storm of official inquiry both in Brazil and abroad. Then, within a few weeks, the storm abruptly subsided. Although no explanation was given, the object in the pictures was obviously considered no threat to our planet’s security (see Plate VIb). Although saucer enthusiasts regard these pictures as genuine evidence for the reality of UFOs, careful study of the facts strongly suggests that this case, which rocked the Brazilian Government and created a short-lived but world-wide saucer scare, was merely an unusually skillful hoax[X-18]. At first glance, the circumstances of the sighting seemed to be entirely clear and straightforward[X-19]. Trindade is a barren, mountainous island of about six square miles, about 600 miles from the coast of Brazil. Abandoned after the end of the Second World War, the island remained deserted except by sea gulls until October 1957, when the Brazilian Navy established an oceanographic post and a meteorological station there to carry out its research for the International Geophysical Year (IGY). To facilitate the oceanographic studies, the Navy also converted a training ship, the _Almirante Saldanha_, into a floating laboratory equipped with scientific apparatus and photographic darkroom. With a crew of about 300, the ship routinely traveled between Rio de Janeiro and Trindade Island on its duties for the IGY. A major function of the meteorological station was the launching and tracking of weather balloons; they were painted red, inflated with hydrogen, and carried radio transmitters. Launched each morning, they were tracked by radio and optical devices to show the movements of the winds in the upper atmosphere. At a certain point (when the balloon burst, or at a prearranged signal) the balloon released a bag of scientific instruments which, attached to a parachute, floated to the ground to be retrieved.