Sunday, December 30, 2012

Argentina: Alleged UFO Photographed Over Tucumán












Source:Tucumán a las 7 and Planeta UFO
http://www.tucumanalas7.com.ar/nota.php?id=75405
Date: 12.28.2012


Argentina: Alleged UFO Photographed Over Tucumán

** Highway worker was performing his duties in Yasyamayo Valley. Hugo Cesar López was engaged in his daily routine when he saw a UFO and photographed it**

A strange object appeared in Valle de Yasyamayo and Hugo César del Valle López was able to photograph it.

The man works for the local Highway Authority (Vialidad Provincial) and was working in the area. He took the photos which he inevitably associates with an unidentified flying object.

As Valle López explained, the photo was taken on 20 December 2012 at 16:30 hours. While it is hard to state that what he photographed was indeed a UFO, the image invites us yet again to wonder if we are alone in this world.

[Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO]

Friday, December 28, 2012

Argentina: Cattle Mutilations Return to Santiago del Estero



















Argentina: Cattle Mutilations Return to Santiago del Estero
By Andrea Pérez Simondini, Vision OVNI


PLACE: Estancia El Retiro, 14 Km. NE of Frías, Choya, Santiago del Estero (Argentina)
DATE DISCOVERED: 22 December 2012 (Saturday)
NUMBER OF ANIMALS: Five (5) sheep
OWNER: Raul Alberto Aguilero


Case Details:

Strange deaths were a reason for surprise and uncertainty for a family of small livestock producers in Estancia El Retiro, located some 14 kilometers to the northeast of Frías.

Published on 12/27/12 (El Liberal newspaper)

The bones were found last Saturday by Raul Alberto Aguilera, one of the members of the family, at a small dry dam that is completely enclosed. EL LIBERAL visited the site yesterday afternoon, acting as the only news outlet in charge of documenting this strange event.

"On Thursday of last week, we left the animals in the dam because it still had a little water in it. When we went back on Saturday, we found their carcasses spread all over the place," said Raul. "What was strange was the absence of decomposing bodies, and all of their soft parts had been eating. No tracks of pumas or other predators who could've attacked the sheep were found in the area."

Only one animal is missing: a lamb. Locals say this is the first time such a thing has taken place in the area. For the moment, beyond the strangeness of the event, the event is not being ascribed to any particular real or mythical animal. Rather, they prefer to be cautious, endeavoring to determine the reasons behind what took place.

OPINION BY DR. BENANCIO BONETT, VETERINARIAN:

Yesterday morning, EL LIBERAL contacted Dr. Benancio Bonett, an experienced veterinarian residing in Frías for many years, offered his view from the scientific perspective. "First and foremost, a necropsy should have been performed the moment the animals were found. Secondly, if the only existing injury in in the throat, generally all predators chose that spot and particularly on lambs, because they are very helpless animals," he explained, adding: "When a perforation appears on the animals, vultures or crows devour their entrails and do it through that spot, getting inside and dragging off the soft parts, and leaving the skeleton with nothing but hide."
He event went as far to suggest the possibility that these attacks were produced by dogs, since one of their traits is biting the throat.

[Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Andrea Pérez Simondini]

Monday, December 10, 2012

Argentina: Another "Time Slip" Reported in La Pampa















Argentina: Another Time Slip Reported in La Pampa

[Argentinean Oscar “Quique” Mario, founder of the Centro de Estudios OVNI – CEUFO – is among his country’s most respected researchers. Quietly effective, Quique has managed to accumulate a staggering amount of material that we hope to see in book form someday. The latest update to his blog is another “time slip” incident in 2012. Argentina has been prone to incidents of this sort since the 1960s, and almost certainly earlier. – SC]

Date: November 27, 2012
Source: CEUFO Blog (www.ceufo.blogspot.com)


Two young men whose duties cause them to travel National Route No. 5 on a regular basis between the communities of Catriló and Santa Rosa reported feeling “disoriented” during the trip on three separate occasions. After several minutes had elapsed, they noticed that they continued the trip without any further incident, but without any recollection of the distance they had already covered.

This occurred to them on three separate instances and at different times, both noon and sunset, without any apparent explanation. Joel, one of the protagonists of the strange story, told CEUFO that they were chatting normally at one point and suddenly became disoriented, having no idea of what happened to them, but upon reacting, they realized they had covered several kilometers without any memory of doing so.
The stretch of road where this alleged incident occurred is a segment of some 35 kilometers between the towns of Lonquimay and Anguil.

A similar incident befell a driver some ten years ago in the vicinity of Lonquimay. He stopped at a service station to ask “where he was” as he had no idea how he’d gotten there, although he had envisioned driving along that road. The driver continued his journey in the area in question, feeling disoriented once again. He reached the locality of Toay without knowing how he’d accomplished the trip.
The event became widely known and a source of discussion among residents of Lonquimay and its environs, but was not picked up by the media.

For this reason, the Centro de Estudios OVNI issued a communiqué aimed at “people driving along National Route No. 5, specifically the segment between the localities of Lonquimay and Anguil, and who may have sensed time anomalies, should please report it immediately to CEUFO, as we have received reports of three cases at different times and days within the past month.”

Taking into consideration the request made by the Fundación Argentina de Ovnilogía (FAO) in La Plata, which was also aware of similar incident, it is a matter of vital importance to gather as much information as possible in order to perform the necessary studies toward understanding such an unusual phenomenon and its causes.

[Translation © 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Quique Mario, CEUFO]

Portugal: Hunters Startled by UFOs in Serra de Grandola













Portugal: Hunters Startled by UFO in Serra de Grandola
By Luis Romao

[Portuguese UFO researcher Nuno Alves posted this interesting item to Guillermo Giménez’s Planeta UFO site. It is a message directly sent by the eyewitness regarding his unusual experience – SC]

This event took place on the evening of 31 August of this very same year, 2012.
I was in the company of two friends, both of them hunters, who saw exactly the same thing. We live in Grandola, and hunt wild boar for sport in Serra de Grandola and Santiago do Cacém. I have been hunting for nearly 30 years and never saw anything like it.

It was already past midnight and we were on our way back home when we say a light that we could not explain. It was a very quiet night, moonlit night, and ideal for hunting.

We became tired of waiting for wild boar to appear, so we decided to return home – one of my companions had to work on Saturday. We walked for some twenty minutes back to where we left our vehicle. This must have been around half past midnight or one o’clock in the morning, more or less. We got the car going and set off on the return trip, driving past Santa Margarida da Serra.

A few kilometers ahead on the road there is a tight, elbow-type curve before the straight segment that leads to Santiago do Cacém Grandola, and it was exactly after taking that curve that we saw a very bright light above the trees and pine groves in the road’s median strip.

Blinded by the light, I slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder. The three of us got out to get a better look at the light. We weren’t able to see any figures, just a light some 20 meters long, with an elongated shape.

The light flew very slowly to our right, passing over the pine groves at the summit of the mountain range where were stopped. We weren’t frightened; just amazed by the inhospitable presence of that light.

One of my companions said that it was a firefighting helicopter that monitored the mountain range on account of the forest fires. However, we decided that it couldn’t be a helicopter, as there was no engine sound to be heard.

A few meters head from us, a car pulled over and a military man from the GNR, known to us, emerged. He saw the same thing and spoke with us about what we had seen.
We remained there for a good 10 minutes, looking at the light. The military man phoned someone to discuss what we were seeing at the moment – I suspect he was talking to his base! At that point, one of my friends remembered [the existence of] a fire tower whose staff could well be seeing the same thing. The light vanished slowly into the mountain range, and me and my friends returned home, amazed. I believe the soldier followed the object. He was very curious about it, and it was he who recorded the object on his cellphone. Our own were turned off at the moment, and we didn’t even think about cellphones at the time.

Meanwhile, some days went by, and I happened to mention the event to some fellow hunters without mentioning the word UFO. I never believed in such things, until I saw one. I was impresses with what other hunters told me, swearing that they had seen lights that they at first took for helicopters, but made no engine sound whatsoever.
I’ve been a hunter for many years, and I’ve seen shooting stars, meteorites and all those natural things. But what we saw on the night of 31 August goes beyond anything I’ve known in my life. I served in the Navy and never knew of a helicopter that didn’t make an engine noise. Such a thing doesn’t exist. I am aware of many new technologies in contemporary military aircraft.

I’m convinced that the fire fighters on duty in the Grandola tower also saw the light. It was a very large object; not seeing it was impossible. My hunting companions and I still wonder what that light was. We have gone hunting in the same area again, but haven’t seen it again. The oddest detail is that when we now lie in wait while hunting, I’m constantly looking at the sky, like someone who expects to see something that surreal all over again.

After undergoing an experience like this one, not knowing whether it was a UFO or not, my notions about these objects have changed significantly. I would like to say that I saw a UFO, but I can’t say for sure, as all I saw was a light. A light I’d never seen in my life. I’ll send you a drawing of our position with regard to the light. On the Internet, my son found an image that resembles what we saw. It was at my son’s insistence that I am sharing the sighting – it’s not the usual topic of conversation for a coffee shop. Many would not believe. I’m curious about the recording made by the GNR soldier. He made the recording with his cellphone camera, and I can say it was a good recording, because we commented about it as he was recording.

[Translation (c) 2012, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Nuno Alves - UFO Portugal- and Guillermo Giménez, Planeta UFO]

Friday, December 07, 2012

The Alien Who Spoke Russian and the Corkscrew-Shaped Antenna








The Alien Who Spoke Russian and the Corkscrew-Shaped Antenna
By Paco Mañez – La Cara Oculta de los Ovnis

On 20 October 1954, Louis Ujvari, 40, a native of Slovakia, got on his bicycle and pedaled away from home. After 10 years in the French Foreign Legion, he had lived in France with his wife and five children for 3 years, specifically in the town of Le Bas in a small, isolated farm near the picturesque road from Saint-Remy to the Fraispertuis Valley.

His work shift began at three o’clock in the morning at the Derey works, a construction materials firm, in the town of Etival, so he set off around 02:30. After a few hundred meters, he was forced to dismount and continue the remainder of the way on foot, since the road was under repair, making it unsuitable for his vehicle.
As he pushed his bicycle along, he saw the shape of a man. A phrase he couldn’t understand prompted him to freeze in his tracks. The stranger advanced toward him with a gun in his hand, threatening him with the weapon all the time in a language that Ujvari couldn’t understand. The man stood at least 1.65 meters, dressed like a pilot of that time: cloth trousers, collared leather jacket, a sort of cloth balaclava. His boots made an audible noise on the fractured pavement.

His time in the military had given the old Legionnaire the rudiments of several languages, and what the man had told him didn’t sound like any of them. So he decided to address him in Russian, and the man suddenly understood.

“Where am I?” asked the stranger, “In Italy or Spain?”

Ujvari was not afraid, despite the weapon, and explained that he was the Vosges, in the district of Saind-Dié. “Am I far from the German border?” asked the pilot. About a 100 miles from the Rhineland, came the reply.

The stranger appeared to be completely disoriented, even asking about the time. Two thirty in the morning, replied Ujvari. The obfuscated man changed the pistol to his other hand in order to pull out a pocket watch. He then shouted angrily: “You lie! It’s four o’clock!”

The next question showed that the pilot was more than lost. “How far away is Marsillia?”

Ujvari, believing he meant Marseilles, told him.



“Go away!” the stranger spat. He accompanied Ujvari for some 30 meters, pointing the sidearm at him throughout. That’s when the old Legionnaire saw the “flying saucer”. Earlier, he had seen an outline that made him think of a car or truck. For a brief moment, he was able to make out the object’s shape – 1.60 meters tall by 3 in diameter, dark grey in color. It looked like two enormous welded plates supporting a dome, crowned by an antenna with corkscrew-shaped fins. He felt the gun’s barrel against his back, prompting him to keep moving. Then he heard: “And now, farewell!”

The stranger took off quickly. Ujvari got on his bicycle, escaping toward a farmhouse some 200 meters away. Before being able to warn anyone, he saw a beam projected upward into the sky, the sound of an engine, and saw the saucer rise vertically like a helicopter. Some 10 meters above the ground, the machine accelerated, heading toward Saint-Dié. The pilot turned off the beacon, and the object became lost in the darkness. Ujvari retraced his steps and was unable to find any footprints on the ground.

He told his co-workers the story upon reaching the factory. They thought it was a prank or hallucination, but given the former Legionnaire’s insistence, the story reached the ears of the mayor of Saint-Rémy. The gendarmes of Raon-l’Etape were notified, but their investigation added little. The General Information Brigade (Reseignements généraux) – the secret service – also intervened, subjecting Ujvari to questioning.

Amid the French flying saucer craze of the time, the Le Matin newspaper published the story on 22 October. It was picked up by other newspapers and included in books on flying saucers over time. Apparently, the idea of using “flying saucer” and “Martian” came from Jean Thernier, the news item’s author, since at no time did Louis Ujvari every say anything along those lines. The drawing included in the article was not the exact image of the object described. The fins were removed, with their corkscrew-shapes, replaced by a single spiral antenna. Ujvari’s exact description was ““une sorte d'antenne se terminant par des ailettes en forme de tire-bouchon.

When I read this case many years ago, I didn’t understand that the former Legionnaire was describing what he saw exactly, even if the sighting lasted only a few seconds. Having an extraterrestrial blindfold over your eyes keeps you from seeing things clearly. A few days ago, I re-read this story by chance, and winked at the boy that I was, willing to believe anything.

Ujvari spoke of a fuselage, a cabin, fins and a rotor, that is to say, a helicopter seen head-on, in my opinion. When he said “corkscrew-shaped”, he didn’t mean a spiral, but specifically shaped like a corkscrew. Few people in 1954 had seen a helicopter in the dark, up close, and more importantly, with a pistol to their backs. I don’t know if the vanes were referred to as fins in France, or if the term “ailette” was used by Ujvari for lack of a better word.



The story most likely involves a pilot, possibly from East Germany, who became lost with his helicopter. The rest was the handiwork of journalists, swept along by the saucer craze, a draftsman who distorted the description and the fantasies of fans who wanted to believe their hearts’ desires (I was foremost among them, at the time)

[Special thanks to Paco Máñez, La Cara Oculta de los Ovnis: http://lacaraocultadelosovnis.blogspot.com/2012/11/el-extraterrestre-que-hablaba-ruso-y-la.html. Translated by Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology, 2012]

Power, Politics and Sorcery in Latin America

















Power, Politics and Sorcery in Latin America
By Scott Corrales (c) 2012

In July 2009, the notorious “Wonkette” blog published a story that made the rounds of the Internet with the speed of a stray neutrino: Mrs. Marian Robinson – better known to the whole world as President Barack Obama’s mother-in-law, was supposedly a practitioner of “Afro Hispanic magic” (Santería). The report, sourced to Jane Mayer of Townhall, indicated that the then newly-sworn-in head of state was livid at discovering that Mrs. Robinson was actively practicing her devotions within the hallowed halls of the White House.

“Wonkette” goes on to say that Mrs. Robinson turned to Santería in the 1980s in despair over her husband’s battle with multiple sclerosis. According to a friend of Michelle Obama, the future first lady “put her foot down when she heard that her mother took her dad to ceremonies where they did spells and trances and sacrificed animals, chickens and goats, I think. But Marian was desperate and kept going anyway, even when her husband was too sick to go with her. I don’t think the president knew anything about this earlier before they met.” It was made clear that neither the President nor the First Lady embraced these practices at any time. (1)

While lurid, the Santería practitioner in the White House story was nowhere near as compelling as Nancy Reagan’s consultation of astrologers in the ‘80s, or the Kennedys relying on the services of Jeanne Dixon in the ‘60s, and faded away. But perhaps it should have served as a reminder to many that the upper reaches of the political world have, over the years, availed themselves of magical means to both attain and retain power, influence others, and insure their health

A President Covered in Honey

One of the little-known chapters of Mexican paranormal history involves the story of the strange faith healer known as “el Niño Fidencio” – the Child Fidencio – whose amazing and gruesome healings created a sensation in the early years of the 20th century.

Born on 17 October 1898 in Yuriria, Guanajuato, Fidencio S. Constantino was the fourteenth of twenty children. At the tender age of six, his mother dropped him off in a nearby town with a single-classroom school and never returned. He was taken in by the parents of a classmate, Enrique López de la Fuente, in whose house he worked in exchange for room and board. Young Fidencio was said to “wander the roads with the faith of an enlightened one, healing the sick and seeking the holy earth, as God had commanded him to do.”

In the meantime, his friend Enrique López had made a name for himself as an officer in the Mexican Revolution and then – fleeing from Pancho Villa – found a haven at a ranch owned by a German émigré in the town of Espinazo. Remembering his friend Fidencio’s skill as a cook and housekeeper, he sent for him. Fidencio would live in this town for well over a decade, as his reputation as a curandero (faith healer) increased by leaps and bounds, particularly as a male midwife, using boiled shards of glass as his only implements in performing Caesarian sections and household threads and needles to suture wounds.

The curandero’s reputation spread far and wide, and much like in a fairy tale, stories of the living saint who performed miraculous healings reached the ears of the most powerful man in the land: Plutarco Elías Calles, President of Mexico at the time. Federal envoys were dispatched from the capital to the remote north to see exactly what was going on, and a report described Fidencio’s healings as nothing short of “miraculous”. (2)

The First Citizen’s entourage went to Espinazo in search of “spiritual healing”, but more importantly, a remedy for the “shameful disease” that afflicted him. On 8 February 1928, the presidential train pulled into the town, stunning the locals who never expected to see such august company in their midst. Nor did the presidential entourage, one must admit, expect to be greeted by a municipal band of lepers and hydrocephalic greeters waving tricolor flags.

Once inside Fidencio’s house, President Calles met privately with the healer and the subject of their discussion remains unknown to this day. The only fact is that the executive was closeted with the curandero for three hours.

After that time period elapsed, the presidential entourage saw Fidencio leave the room without addressing them. More hours passed, and General Almazán, Calle’s top aide, was getting nervous. What was going on in the room, and where was Niño Fidencio?

Unable to wait any longer, and in view of the fact that Fidencio hadn’t returned, the general barged into the room, only find the president sitting naked on a wooden chair, covered in a thick layer of honey from head to toe. Visibly upset, the general ordered his guards to find the faith healer. They found him soon enough, playing with some of his handicapped patients.

The curandero’s charms must have worked, as President Calles rewarded his good services by building an aqueduct that brought water directly to Espinazo from a gorge twenty miles away, plus trainloads of supplies for his staff and patients.


Otherworldly Assistance

We will never know the truth about President Calles’s miraculous healing from his intimate affliction or the nature of Niño Fidencio’s powers, if he indeed had any. But political interest in otherworldly assistance was not circumscribed to that particular moment in the early years of the 20th century, as we shall see.

While most Latin American societies are rigidly Catholic and witchcraft is condemned by church and state alike, a long list of shamans, brujos and clairvoyants have been at the service of powerful men (and more recently, women) since Colonial times.

Journalist José Gil Olmos entered this no-man’s-land of politics and witchery in his book Los Brujos del Poder (The Warlocks of Power), describing how practicitioners of the esoteric have influenced Mexican politics for over a hundred years. The ultimate goal remains unchanged since the time of the Old World kingdoms: secure greater power, avert jealousy, see the future and overcome adversaries.

“They want more power, making themselves untouchable during their tenure. It’s not legitimacy they’re after, it’s invincibility,” remarks Olmos in his book. “The succession of rulers who have heard the whisperings of magic is long and broad throughout Mexican history. Presidents, military men, governors, municipal leaders, social movement leaders and even minor party officials have sought assistance and protection from characters linked with the supernatural. There have even been politicians who have performed magical rituals, influenced by the power they see before them.” (3)

During the tumultuous six-year term of President Carlos Salinas, it emerged that the services of a witch known as La Paca (Francisca Zetina) had been retained by a prosecutor to find out the culprits behind the assassination of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu in 1994. Massieu, a leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had been gunned down in broad daylight on Mexico City’s majestic Paseo de la Reforma.

Aspects of the esoteric, says Gil Olmos, have also gone on to become part of official policy. In 1994, Manuel Cavazos, governor of the state of Tamaulipas, on the Mexican side of the border with Texas, declared his unflagging belief in transcendental meditation (TM) and pyramidology, always carrying a tiny pyramid with him to “foster positive energy flows”. TM became mandatory at every level in the state bureaucracy, and was even included in the statewide school curriculum. All this accentuating of the positive, however, did not keep him from being implicated with the Mexican drug cartels, and he has been advised not to leave the country until investigations are complete. (4)

An even more recent case of politics and the supernatural is evident in Mexican politics. Marta Sahagún, former president Vicente Fox’s wife, allegedly engaged in sorcerous activities at the official state residence – Los Pinos – with some of her close associates. Even though media described her as a woman “brought up in a conservative religious environment”, she did not hesitate to employ black magic to attain her goals. This particular ritual was supposedly aimed at binding the affections of her husband, feeling threatened by the presence of his ex-wife, Lilian de la Concha.

According to a report in Saltillo’s “El Zocalo” newspaper (5) an unnamed witch was brought in from the city of Salamanca to perform a ritual aimed at allaying Sahagún’s fears and dispelling the influence of Fox’s former spouse and members of his entourage. Photographs of the main players were obtained and set on fire. “Marta’s enemies,” says the newspaper report, “died off one by one, or fell by the wayside along the road that would lead Fox to the presidency of the Republic.

The situation, according to El Zócalo, didn’t end there. President Fox’s children wrote their father a letter explaining the nature and frequency of the magic rituals being conducted at the presidential dwelling, but the letter was never delivered: senior officials told them that “their father would surely not believe” such allegations.

Sahagún entertained greater ambitions. Not content with being first lady, she began to think of a way of running for president, surrounding herself with plutocrats and members of Mexico’s elite. Among them was the General Secretary of the PRI National Executive Council, Elba Esther Gordillo, leader of the Partido Nueva Alianza (PANAL) party and a practitioner of brujería, who accompanied Marta Sahagún to Morroco in search of a black magician who would make her aspirations come true, but according to the article: “Fox’s term proved to be a failure. Change never arrived, structural reforms were never approved, and his aphorisms, which had been an asset as a candidate, became a handicap to his presidency. This lady may have done her things, her witchery, but she obviously lacked the level of perception or strength that Elba Esther Gordillo had for such evil things, and it all went bust.”

One wonders what this “strength for such evil things” actually means. Perhaps it is a veiled reference to a 1996 incident mentioned in José Gil Olmos’s book: President Ernesto Zedillo had asked Gordillo to leave the country. Faced with her refusal, he threatened to audit her seemingly endless personal wealth.

It was then that Gordillo boarded a plane to Nigeria, where she allegedly took part in a black magic ritual said to be one of the most dreadful in that country’s sorcerous practices – the slaying of a lion, making the animal’s death as gruesome as possible, so that its rage and pain could be conveyed to politician. Covering her in blood and testicular matter, an elderly warlock traced magical symbols on her body with the feline’s claws, chanting all the while, as those accompanying her could hear the sound of animals howling in the darkness – supposedly mandrills, possibly demons. Sitting for hours under a fetid layer of offal, facing an enlarged photograph of President Zedillo, the politician and her retinue were later astonished to receive a phone call from the chief executive over a satellite phone, asking her to return to Mexico for negotiations.

According to those present at the ritual, and who refuse to be named for obvious reasons, the total cost of the ceremony came to Forty-Five Thousand U.S. Dollars. But the warlock “laughed mockingly, saying that the true price of the ritual would be the life of one of her relatives.” Shortly after the trip, one of Gordillo’s grandsons had his head crushed by an elevator door while playing with other children. (6)

The Argentinean Warlock

Cosmopolitan and worldly Buenos Aires, “the Paris of the Americas”, found its political fortunes bound with the rise and fall of a singular individual whose name is likely unknown to English-reading audiences outside of academe.

José López Rega (1916-1989) was variously known as “the Creole Warlock” or “the Rasputin of the Pampas” for his extensive occult background and involvement with the Brazilian Umbanda religion. In political circles he is best remembered as the private secretary of the strongman Juan Domingo Perón, over whom he exerted a powerful influence, similar to that of the Russian mystic over the tsar of all Russia.

López Rega had evinced an interest in spiritual affairs since his youth, and reputedly had an extensive library for one so young. In the 1950s, he would cross the path of clairvoyant Victoria Montero, who initiated into Spiritism, but with a cautionary note: she told him that if he worked for the good, his personal gifts would be a boon to others, making him able to heal the sick and soothe the soul. If he chose to abuse his powers – much as with the dark side of the Force – he would become blight upon the Earth, leading to his own ruin. Posterity can attest that he did not listen to her words.

Moving in these circles, he became involved with Freemasonry and practitioners of Umbanda. Lopez Rega saw himself as the chosen one to further the aims of the Brazilian faith, and his political involvement was simply another tool to achieve this. He would eventually become part of Perón’s security detail during his exile in Spain, advancing to the position of Minister of Social Welfare when the strongman returned to power in 1973 after being twenty years in exile.

According to historian Marcelo Larraqui, who wrote a biography on the “Rasputin of the Pampas” Lopez Rega saw Perón’s return to power as a spiritual endeavor, saying as much in a speech: “The General’s return is an eminently spiritual mission that shines under a political surface. We must overcome the forces that have left him in helpless exile, in the same way that Rosas and San Martín [heroic Argetinean figures] were deserted. Our sole mission is to bring Perón back to Argentina, to redeem his image along with that of Evita. His return shall be our spiritual victory.” (7)

This talk of spirituality did not keep the Minister of Social Welfare from embarking on a bloodstained trajectory: from the 1973 Ezeiza Massacre (in which snipers concealed beneath a platform opened fire against members of the left-wing of the Peronist party) to his role in the deaths and disapperances of thousands of his fellow citizens, the “Creole Warlock” fulfilled the prophecy uttered by the clairvoyant decades in the past.


“Simon Bolivar Has Been Reincarnated”

When Hugo Rafael Chávez came to power in Venezuela in 1998, no one outside his country had heard of the career military officer from the village of Sabaneta. Perhaps some readers of the international press noticed the article about an attempted overthrow of the elected government of Carlos Andrés Pérez 1992, a plot mastered by Chávez’s MBR-2000 (Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement). But within months of his election, Venezuela found its name changed to the “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” and Chávez’s anti-imperialist, populist regime would begin in earnest. A friend to all of South America’s nascent left-wing movements, the Venezuelan leader is media-savvy and self-involved, known to break into song during broadcasts of his own television program, Aló Presidente.

Even fewer knew that there was a paranormal side to the mercurial military man. Pubic statements made by radio personality Rafael Sanchez, an important figure in Venezuelan Spiritism, imply that Chávez is a practitioner of Spiritism. “He is the reincarnation of [Venezuelan revolutionary leader Antonio José] Sucre, hence his constant references to Bolivar, of whom he was a close friend.”

Or is Hugo Chávez a reincarnation of Bolivar himself? Uwe Siemon-Netto, a Lutheran theologian and former religion editor for United Press International, mentioned that worshippers of the indigenous deity “María Lionza” hold that Simón Bolivar, the “Liberator of the Americas”, no longer appears in their rituals, since he now lives within the contentious person of Chávez. It would even seem that Chávez ascent from obscurity to world prominence was foretold. Siemon-Netto writes: “The victory of this former lieutenant-colonel seemed to confirm a prophecy by Beatriz Veit-Tané, a self-proclaimed high priestess of María Lionza. She predicted in 1967 that in the year 2000 “a messenger of light will rise from the humble classes” to resurrect Gran Colombia, Bolivar’s short-lived creation. It consisted of present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Bolivia, but collapsed shortly before Bolivar’s death in 1830. To restore Gran Colombia was also one of the political goals of the FARC, Colombia’s lethal, kidnapping, cocaine-trafficking Communist guerilla movement whose leaders proclaimed Chavez as the quintessential “Bolivarian officer.” It seems fitting that before he came to power, Chávez always kept an empty chair for Bolívar at board meetings of his Socialist Party. (8)

El Señor Presidente, like any self-respecting leader in history, also has a personal oracle. Tarot reader (and journalist) Esmeralda Queen had a 1996 session with Chavez in which she foretold his upcoming political role. Ms.Queen has spoken openly of the fact that Chávez has dealings with Santería practitioners, making periodic visitors to Havana not just to chew the fat with Fidel Castro, but also to undergo Santería “cleansing rituals”. This is all hearsay, of course, but the average citizen in Venezuela ascribes his apparent immunity to a number of assassinations and coup attempts.

Flying south from Venezuela over jungles and mountains we come to Bolivia, where Juan Evo Morales has been president since the year 2006. Born to an Aymara family in the village of Issallawi, Morales went from a conscript in the Bolivian army to coca farmer, championing the rights of the cocaleros and other peasants, eventually starting his own political movement and rising to the highest office in the land. Named “World Hero of Mother Earth” by the U.N. General Assembly in October 2009, his name has become synonymous with pro-indigenous movements throughout the continent. (9)

This populist champion, however, traded Socialist atheism for the “faith of his fathers” during a 2006 ceremony held in the ancient ruins of Tiahuanaco, where Aymara elders anointed him in the manner of ancient kings. Morales would repeat the ceremony in 2010 with considerable media coverage. On this occasion, a centenarian Aymara priestess would accompany the president, bedecked by coca garlands and wearing a garment made of llama skin. Chamalú, a Bolivian shaman, says that Morales’s native religious inclinations were stirred after many years in the Socialist tradition. “He is now recovering the traditions of the Inca peoples, as was evident in his investiture.” (10)

Conclusion

Obtaining power and keeping it are urges as primitive as mankind. We can effortlessly conjure up the image of a stone-age chieftain worried about betrayal from within the clan, or the outcome of a raid against a neighboring one, and demanding the right answer from a witch or shaman.

Perhaps it is the uncertainty of higher office – elected, hereditary or taken by force – that prompts those in authority to question the rock-steadiness of their position. Uneasy lies the head upon which rests the crown, we have been told for centuries. It isn’t a one-way street, either. The magic user or warlock gains power by being seated beside the throne or presidential chair, whispering obscure warnings into the politician’s ear. This ancient and uneasy relationship causes us to wonder if we are indeed as advanced, rational and skeptical as we claim to be at the dawn of the 21st century.

Sources:


(1) http://wonkette.com/410601/is-barack-obamas-mother-in-law-a-black-witch
(2) Bernal, Maria Luz. Mitos y Magos Mexicanos (Mexico: Editorial Gaceta, S.A., 1982)
(3) Olmos, Jose Gil. Los Brujos del Poder (Mexico: Mondadori, 2007)
(4) http://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/703223.busca-pgr-contra-3-ex-gobernadores-de-tamaulipas.html
(5) http://www.zocalo.com.mx/seccion/articulo/las-brujerias-de-marta-sahagun
(6) http://kikka-roja.blogspot.com/2009/01/elba-esther-su-adiccin-la-brujera.html
(7) Larraqui, Marcelo. Lopez Rega, el Peronismo y la Triple A (Buenos Aires: Punto de Lectura, 2008)
(8) http://uwesiemon.blogspot.com/2011/04/faith-matters-hugo-chavez-bolivars-red.html
(9) http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=14919&ArticleId=342574
(10) http://www.fmbolivia.com.bo/noticia21861-evo-morales-llego-a-tiahuanaco-para-recibir-bendicion-de-lideres-aimaras.html


[Note: This article was featured in issue #53 of Paranoia Magazine]