Text and Photos by Barry Chamish FATE Magazine, May 1998 reprinted by permission In the heart of Brazil's southern plateau, barely 90 minutes from the capital city of Brasilia, lies a village called Valley of the Dawn. In this unique rural community, medieval Sephardic Judaism is mixed with the worship of extraterrestrials to form a most unexpected new religion. In December 1997, an international group of ufologists boarded a bus and journeyed there. That month, two of the biggest UFO conferences in the world had taken place. More than 20 international ufologists, including Budd Hopkins, Michael Hesemann, Whitley Streiber, and myself, had spoken before audiences of more than 700 people in Acapulco, Mexico. It was a marvelous experience and we all looked forward to an even greater one in Brazil. However, once in Brasilia, we found that it was not to be. We felt we were being exploited by a group called the League of Goodwill, whose buildings in Brasilia and Rio have signs outside reading "The World Ecumenical Parliament." I had little idea what this group's agenda actually was, but I was certain it was some kind of New World Order cult. Its goal is partly to "save" street urchins from poverty in return for allegiance to a new religion, which is a mishmash of Christian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Marxist symbols. We UFOlogists, to our utter confusion, spoke in a temple replete with an Egyptian meditation room and crystals. The crowds were sparse and almost totally composed of League members wearing white, silky uniforms. It was quite frightening to see the young members walking barefoot in zombie-like trances under pyramids and crystals. And we were aghast at the surveillance of our activities: Every time we stepped outside, a platoon of crew-cut, black-suited young toughs reported our whereabouts on walkie-talkies. At last, we were to escape the suffocating confines of the Temple of Doom and venture into the wide-open Brazilian countryside to meet a few simple, hard-working peasants. In a bus rented by Glennys M. Mackay, an Australian in our group, we would discover another side of Brazil. The bus ride mellowed and energized everyone. The vehicle was filled with a collection of some of the most inquisitive minds on the planet. And as we rolled deeper into the crimson-soiled terrain of the South American wilderness, I thought to myself, This is peaceful. No more young kids wearing sheets, no more Babylonian statues, no more blending of every nation, religion, and creed into one worldfaith, no more... What's this? It looks like some sort of... what do we call it?... weirdo temple. Don't tell me Glennys got us up at 6:30 to see another damn New Age sanctuary? Into the Valley Indeed, she had. I felt a second punch to my gut. We had returned to sinister spiritualism, and just when my stomach was starting to settle. With utmost hesitation I descended from the bus and immediately swallowed a mouthful of what I assumed were malarial mosquitoes. We were now in dengue country and I knew that what Mexico had started, Brazil would finish off. Dreading each step, I approached the temple area. I soon noticed a major difference between the World Ecumenical Parliament and Valley of the Dawn -- simplicity. The area was dotted with tiny farms and shops, and unlike in the elaborate and pricey Brasilia compound, the art outside the temple was relatively unsophisticated. This place seemed more genuine. A lot more genuine. I ventured into the compound. The most striking feature was a pair of gigantic stairways leading to a cutout of a yellow sun with seven beams radiating from its orb. Now what on Earth, I wondered, is that supposed to symbolize? Glennys filled me in. The people of the town believe a fleet of UFOs hovers over the temple, and each day they pray to receive its energy. The gods of the ships, they think, will someday walk down those stairs. Uh-huh. Sounds reasonable. Top Left: Chamish at the wacky Brazilian temple. Top Right: A painting from the Brazilian UFO temple, showing the stylized "face" of one of the space gods. Above: Ceremonial steps on the Brazilian UFO temple. UFOs are supposed to land on this rock platform and giant UFO 'gods' walk down these steps to the greetings of faithful worshipers. Right: A view of the Brazilian UFO temple. She called over a priest, and as the UFOlogists gathered, she initiated a conversation translated by our tour guide. She didn't make much small talk before rushing into the extraterrestrial beliefs of the town. But the priest would not say so much as a word about the subject. I snuck into the temple alone. Wait a minute, I thought, there's something very familiar about this gate. And that altar. And what's that hanging from the cross? I've seen that seven-branched candelabra before. I had walked into a synagogue. Sure, there was a picture of Jesus above the altar and some crosses about, but the majority of the symbols were plainly Jewish. Stars of David were everywhere inside and out, and the sevenhorned candelabra was a Menorah. The Star of David and the Menorah are the two central symbols of Judaism, ancient and modern. Draped around the crosses were talitot, Jewish prayer shawls. The heavy Jewish symbolism could not have been accidental. There was too much of it for that. A Secret Heritage I recalled an important piece of Jewish history. Many Jews have a very non-standard interpretation of the discovery of America in 1492. Christopher Columbus set sail on the day of Tisha B'Av, 1492, a day of mourning. And how appropriate the timing was, for on the same day that the historic voyage commenced, the Spanish Inquisition erupted. Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism or face torture and death. Many fled, but many converted, and whole communities became Marranos, a word meaning "swine," because these converts secretly kept Jewish symbols and rituals while outwardly acting as believing Christians. Some Jewish historians have posited the theory that Columbus was hired to find a refuge for the threatened Jews of Iberia. A few are convinced that Columbus himself was secretly a Jew. They point to the facts that the first Spaniard to land on American soil was his navigator Jacobo Leon (one of five Jewish crew members), that Columbus reverted to a right-to-left script in his diaries at times, and that new discoveries were given Hebrew names. For instance, the turkey was named after the Hebrew word for parrot, tukey. Whether it was his mission or not, Columbus did blaze the trail for Jews and Marranos alike. Barely a decade after his journey, the Portugese discovered Brazil, and the majority of the first new settlers there were Jews fleeing their country's own inquisition. Within decades, the Inquisition arrived in Brazil, and many of the pioneers escaped inland to the plateau region. There could be no doubt that the descendants of the Valley of the Dawn included many Marranos. Forty years ago, Mother Yara -- a seven-foot-tall psychic priestess who lived to the age of 103 -- inspired the building of Brasilia with her visions of space gods. She then proclaimed that the skyport of the aliens was directly above the Valley of the Dawn, and hundreds of local residents erected a temple there. Today, the sect numbers some 5,000 people who devote their lives to praying to the space entities. Three times a day, the adherents gather at a 100-foot-wide pool of water shaped like a Star of David and make psychic contact with the space fleet above. They beseech the sky people to return to the Earth. Many visitors claim to feel powerful, unexplained energies at the pool. Contact I approached our guide and asked him to call the priest over to me. As we began our conversation, the UFOlogists gathered to listen. I said to the guide, "Ask him if he knows what Marranos are." The priest did not. I told him Marranos were Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity in the sixteenth century. The priest became very excited and replied, "Yes. That is our religious origin but there is a human origin as well." I took a chance that my own research was relevant to the situation. I had lectured on a series of recent, highly documented sightings of extraterrestrial giants in Israel, and I had pondered the possibility that these were the giants of the Bible, the Anakim, returning. The Bible tells us the Nefilim descended from the sky before the Flood and had children with the daughters of Noah. It describes these children as giants: Anakim. I asked the priest, "Do you know what Nefilim are?" He smiled and became a bit agitated, but replied, "They are the giant winged ones who descended to earth 32,000 years ago." I asked the tour guide, "Tell him that I am a journalist from Jerusalem and I know something about what he means." The priest reacted by calling over a superior priest. The men spoke briefly, and the second showed me his ring, pointing to the Star of David. He explained, "We were once Jews and partly we still are. We believe now that all humans were created by the Nefilim, 32,000 years ago." A not-so-outlandish belief, when one considers that primitive Homo Sapiens became modern humans at just about the same time, a fact that has stumped evolutionists to this day and probably always will unless they discard the more dogmatic credos of Darwinism. I recited a couple of Hebrew prayers to the priests but they showed no recognition. Then I had a clever thought. I pointed to the tassels of the prayer shawl that was wrapped around a cross and said, "When we finish reading the Torah, we take a fringe of the scroll and kiss it." I lifted an imaginary fringe up to my mouth. The priests burst into wide smiles and nodded their heads with vigor. After a few photos, I decided that my moment had passed; any more inquiries would have turned me into a pest. Michael Lindemann and James Courant began their own inquiries and I faded away. When we started a collection to donate to their cause, the money was firmly, though nicely, turned down. Lindemann later told me that the priests explained that on the appointed day, their prayers would gather all 12 tribes of Israel back together again in the Valley of the Dawn. Barry Chamish is an Israeli journalist and UFOlogist. FATE Magazine is published monthly by Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 1 year subscriptions are $21.50; send to FATE Magazine, P.O. Box 1940, 170 Future Way, Marion, Ohio 43305. 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