TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
Russell: It's Saturday afternoon, august twentieth, nineteen sixty six, on the hill above Natero, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, an eighteen year old named Jorge de Costa Alves is out there flying a kite on Moro de Vietim, the steep brushy rise in Santa Rosa, and then he just sees something that should not be on the hill, and it's two men and they're lying side by side in the brush. And they're dressed like they had somewhere to be. And they're wearing suits, and they're wearing waterproof raincoats, even though this week isn't calling for a storm. And next to them there's an empty water bottle and a packet with two towels. And there's no blood on the ground, there's no sign of a fight, just two grown men side by side on a hillside, almost nobody climbs.
Mitchy D: And then there's this other detail. Over their eyes there are these crude little shields cut from lead, and they look like homemade goggles with no glass. And the metal is heavy and soft, and it's just sitting with the bodies like it belongs there.
Russell: And Jorge goes for help, and by the time the police and firefighters fight their way up to the slope, these men have been out there for days in the heat. And nobody on that hill can tell you yet who they are or why the lead is there and what they are waiting for. So tonight on Yeti to Rumble, it's the lead masks case. Two electronics technicians who left home saying they were going to buy equipment, climbed a hillside out in a tarot, and never came back down. All right. Welcome out everybody, or welcome back to this episode of Yeti to Rumble. I am your host, Russell.
Mitchy D: And Mitchie Dee.
Russell: And I feel like it's been a minute. I feel like
Mitchy D: It has.
Russell: we missed a week again. Sorry, life gets busy. Sometimes it happens. We have we're we're we're we're
Mitchy D: Sickness.
Russell: dads, we have kids, we've got just all the chaos in the world going on sometimes, so sometimes it just does not happen. But we've been here most of the time. Most of the time. I think this is episode fifty three
Mitchy D: It is true. try it.
Russell: or fifty four, I don't know, one of those two. And thanks to all of our subscribers. It's awesome. Even though we did not release an episode last week, it was still cool to see new people getting on and listening to the previous episodes that we've listened to. So thank you for that.
Mitchy D: yeah, that's very cool.
Russell: And thank you to all of our subscribers. I can see how many subscribers we have on Spotify. I can't see on other places exactly. So anyway, thanks to all of our subscribers on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, everywhere else you get your podcasts. Please continue to write reviews, share with your friends and family. We super appreciate it. And hopefully, as we come to the end of the year, and hopefully we will be part of your year wrapped on your Spotify. So that'd be actually really cool to see if we if
Mitchy D: yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Russell: if if we were on your
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year wrapped as one your top podcasts listen to. So yeah, I know my daughter will be one of those people. I'm not sure. Actually, I don't I guess
Mitchy D: Yeah, that'd be cool.
Russell: her I guess her Yoda boxes don't have year wrapped, but she would be. Cade though, Cade. We will be on your re your wrapped. We better be. Cool. All right.
Mitchy D: He better, yeah, we better be.
Russell: And then as a reminder too, we have Mitch's other podcast.
Mitchy D: Yes, the Gamer High Council. We are going strong there. We're on week. I want to say we're around 26 ish. I want to say around there. But yeah. huh.
Russell: I'm not even caught up all the way. I caught I wa I listened to the most recent one that came out this last week, but I think I'm I need to go back and listen to the one previous to it still. So I am behind. I I have homework.
Mitchy D: Well, now you're behind. Unbelievable. Yeah, so that is our gaming podcast, our weekly news podcast. If you're interested in gaming, if you're a gamer, it's always fun to kind of see behind the scenes and that's mostly what we talk about and what's going on at the moment. So come on over and give us a listen.
Russell: Sweep and that's on Spotify.
Mitchy D: Yes.
Russell: Cool. All right. Well, I guess with that we can get into our topic.
Mitchy D: All right. Well, let us get started with intro and topic set up. OK, so the two men on the hill were and. Yeah,
Russell: We're gonna butcher all these names by the way, so don't worry
Mitchy D: just bear with us. This is a Brazilian Portuguese, I guess, right?
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: So we'll do our best. So the first man was man. Manuel
Russell: Manuel? Probably.
Mitchy D: Pereira de Cruz, 32, and Miguel Jose Viena, 34. They were electronic technicians from Campos dos Goitacases, city a few hours up the coast in Rio de Janeiro state. They knew radios, television, transmitters, and the kind of careful work you do with your hands and a part list. Their families last saw them around August 17th, 1966. And looking, okay, so three days is when they were first found. Three days later, a teenager flying a kite found them on Morro Dove, Morro Dove in 10. It just doesn't slide off the tongue very well.
Russell: It does not.
Mitchy D: Nobody ever explained what killed them. In Brazil, the case still has a name that sounds like a campfire warning. The Mysterio das Mascarros de Chumbo. The mystery of the lead masks. very heroic. 60 years later, including in an anniversary reporting out of Notario in 2026, it is still without an official cause of death. It sits in the uneasy place half police file and half story people never quite stop telling. Tonight we followed the two of them from Campos to the bus station, through a couple of ordinary errands in the city, and then up that hill in the order it happened. The strange objects in this case land harder if you meet the men first as people with a plan, not as a headline. Keep one question with you as we go. Why did two careful
technicians climb into the bush with lead cut for their eyes they were waiting for something.
Russell: It's a weird that is a that is a question. And did they
Mitchy D: That's just a weird question.
Russell: realize that lead is not good for them?
Mitchy D: 66 probably not
Russell: They probably had coats lined with asbestos too or something like that. Yeah.
Mitchy D: Well, you gotta keep warm. Come on.
Russell: All right. So getting into the background in history, in the mid-1960s, Campos de los Gayacas is a working city in northern Rio State, the kind of place where radio and television gear still needs hands-on repair. Manuel and Miguel know that world. They install and fix transmitters, amplifiers, and the little coded parts that a technician keeps in a notebook. These are not tourists who go get lost on a hike. Friends and family later tell police that the two men also share an interest in Brazilian Brazilian spiritualis spiritualism spiritism. And in that scene, people mix seances, psychic research, and in some circles talk about contacting the other worlds through ritual and experiment. Books and conversations like that turn up around their names after their deaths. Police start
Mitchy D: Hmm.
Russell: asking about expediencias, experiments, and almost as soon as they learned who the men were, they weren't operating in a vacuum either. In Campos, they had a circle that included another radio technician, Elisio Corelia Gomez. Magazines at the time connected Elisio to earlier outings with Manuel and Miguel, including talking of homemade experiments and trips to remote places. After the death, publications and man, esotericism? I think so. Not terrorism, esotericism. And spirits were reported
Mitchy D: I like it.
Russell: in the men's homes. Elisio
Mitchy D: Hmm.
Russell: later described them as part of a scientific spiritualistic group, people who thought you could reach something beyond the ordinary life if you prepared the right way. In that circle, a remote hill, a scheduled hour, a homemade shield over the eyes can start to look less like a costume. and more like equipment. And we'll come back to him when the police do.
Mitchy D: So first thing I'm thinking I was like, because nowadays a lot of people use old radios when they go ghost hunting, right? And
Russell: Yeah, I guess that's true.
Mitchy D: stuff like that, like old equipment. So interesting. Do you?
Russell: Maybe for our two year anniversary, we'll get some old radios and go in a haunted place and we'll we'll live stream
Mitchy D: at
Russell: it and you can watch two grown men scream. Yeah.
Mitchy D: Have you not learned anything over the past year of doing this? Mitch will not be on that company retreat. I mean, I assume we know someone who's been to Brazil, right?
Russell: I do.
Mitchy D: Do you know if you would...
Russell: Not well though. I don't know a lot.
Mitchy D: Enough to ask, do you know this story or anything? If it's that popular or whatever?
Russell: yeah, I could ask my brother in law was there. yeah,
Mitchy D: well yeah, brother-in-law, that's easy.
Russell: I could ask him and then I feel like I know someone else. I can't think of who it is though. But
Mitchy D: Did Ryan go to Brazil?
Russell: who's Ryan?
Mitchy D: Cruisy.
Russell: I don't know.
Mitchy D: I thought he went to Brazil for a long vacation.
Russell: Maybe.
Mitchy D: Anyways, let's get back to it. On the morning they leave, they tell their wives a clean story. Hmm. Did
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: they tell them other stories sometimes?
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: They're going to buy work materials and the trip is framed around Sol Polo equipment, maybe even a car. It sounds like errands. It does not sound like a climb into the brush above Notario. The next time anyone can clearly place them, they are not in Sao Polo at all. They are in Notario, across the bay from Rio, hours from home, walking into ordinary shops as if this was always the destination. They take a large amount of cash with them, the kind of role that stands out for two technicians on a day trip. Many reports at the time put it around 2.3 million cruzeiros. That money is going to bother the police later. Once the bodies are found and not all of it is still there, for now it just looks like two men who expected to buy something and come home. Notario sits across Guanabaro Bay from Rio. And in 1966, it is still the state capital. Moro do Vintem rises over the Santa Rosa neighborhood as a steep, brushy hill people don't casually stroll. From down in the streets you can see the rise, but once you're in the scrub, the city falls away. Local kids fly kites on the easier slopes. If you want privacy, you climb farther in. The same geography that can hide a private appointment can also hide two bodies for three days. until a teenager with a kite forces the city to look. Once you are up there, the slope does not give you back easily.
Russell: All right. All right. Now it's time for the prices right. I just Googled I just
Mitchy D: No.
Russell: Googled this. How much do you think two point three million cruceros is worth in American dollars in nineteen sixty-six?
Mitchy D: zeros 1966 let's go with 359 bob
Russell: Three hundred and fifty nine dollars.
Mitchy D: Yes.
Russell: Wow. it's just low. i well it's
Mitchy D: What? I don't know!
Russell: a thousand dollars. I I which is not a lot, but I was expecting you to go higher than that. But anyway.
Mitchy D: Well, I thought it was kind of like yen, where it's like a billion for one dollar.
Russell: Yeah, when I lived in Mexico it was thirteen pesos to a dollar. So yeah.
Mitchy D: That's hard. That's a weird way to... What's the word I'm looking for? Anyways. 13 to 1.
Russell: Yeah. All right.
Mitchy D: Yeah.
Russell: Okay, so they had a thousand dollars on them in nineteen sixty six, they're up on a hill, they're found dead by a guy ki
Mitchy D: So I would say Brazil $1,000, 66. I assume that's quite a bit.
Russell: Well, even nowadays, I
wouldn't take a thousand dollars on a hike.
Mitchy D: Yeah, no, no, I wouldn't.
Russell: And the poor kid flying a kite, that's gotta be traumatic. It's like, look at look, two guys, two guys taking a nap. Why aren't they moving?
Mitchy D: No, was a lovely day.
Russell: Maybe they were out sunbathing. You know, like people put those goggles on over their eyes when they get into it was just Yeah, it's
Mitchy D: yeah, there you go. Like the tanning bed.
Russell: just like two guys. Mitch and I do it all the time. We also go tanning together.
Mitchy D: Yeah. What's the big deal here? I don't know.
Russell: That's a company write off kids. He flies from Texas. I fly to Texas. It's all it's it's Okay, so
Mitchy D: Everyone's really nice. It's all in the details.
Russell: key evidence in sighting. So the IRS is now one of our listeners. All right,
Mitchy D: Crap.
Russell: all right, so the bus to Neatero. So Wednesday, August seventeenth, nineteen sixty-six, Manw Manuel and Miguel leave Campos dos Cayacas by bus. Police later reconstructed their last living afternoon their last living after afternoon from clerks, a waitress, and what they were carrying. The timeline that's stuck puts them between Neatero around 2.30 that Wednesday. From the bus station, they start making stops that look ordinary until they lay them in a line. Police later place them at the rotavaria, then around a visit then around a visit to an electronic shop. Then a purchase of waterproof raincoats, finally a bottle of mineral water from a bar near the hill. And none of those honestly sound that weird on their own. Like it's a normal go buy a raincoat, it's normal to go buy water. But y yeah, if you put all those together, electronic shops, waterproof raincoats, mineral water, it starts getting weird. All right,
Mitchy D: Yeah, it's not fitting together.
Russell: the raincoats are the first things that don't seem right. One account puts the purchase at a hardware store. And it isn't the kind of day that demands foul weather gear, which is why the codes stick out in people's mind. Two men in suits buying protection from weather that isn't coming and then moving closer and closer closer to Moro de Viet Viet Viet my gosh, Ventem, whatever this is called. I'm sorry everybody in Brazil
Mitchy D: Well that and why are they in suits if they're
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: just going for like errands
Russell: And if you're going for a hike, why would you wear suits?
Mitchy D: Yeah, hi, yeah, exactly. I have to put on my best dress to go errands.
Russell: And then covered up with a rain poncho.
Mitchy D: What are you doing? Okay, so the waitress and the watch. They go into a bar near the hill and buy mineral water. The woman behind the counter later tells police that Miguel seems nervous. He keeps checking his watch like he has a time he's supposed to hit. Brazilian papers in the weeks after the discovery repeat that detail until it becomes part of the case's bones. After the bar, the reconstruction says they walk toward the hill. No one ever places them coming back down. There's no phone call home that night and no hotel ledger that becomes the official answer. The last living picture we have is two men in suits and new raincoats carrying water moving toward brush that swallows trails. Let's see an and they buy mineral water. doesn't say how much.
Russell: That's true. And why would you and why do you I don't know, it's weird. Why would you buy water from a bar?
Mitchy D: Yeah, I thought that too. Yeah. Yeah.
Russell: That seems like a last-minute purchase or a not planned purchase. why wouldn't you go to a grocery? I don't know. Or maybe it was convenient. I don't know. That just seems weird.
Mitchy D: Not the first place I would go for water, but okay.
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: What happens on the slope between that bar and sundown is the hole at the center of the whole story. Afternoon is turning toward evening. The hill is steep, the brush is thick, and if they have a time they need to hit, this is when the clock would start to matter. For a little while, Manuel and Miguel are just two technicians on an afternoon trip. Then the trail goes quiet and it stays quiet for three days.
Russell: Alright, so the c getting under the traumatized child. S the kite flyer. Alright,
Mitchy D: The kite flyer.
Russell: Saturday, August 20th, Jorge de Costa Alvis is flying a kite on Moro de Viet V Vinta. Yeah.
Mitchy D: It even ruined his weekend. Like he was out from school. He's on a Saturday.
Russell: He's like, everything is going my way. Whatever,
Mitchy D: Yay!
Russell: that kid was probably t excited. He probably told the story until the day he dies. Remember that one time I found the two guys like Yeah.
Mitchy D: That's true. Started a whole investigation for the whole country.
Russell: Yeah. Alright, so it's the August twentieth when he finds them. He goes for help. The train is bad enough that the police and firefighters don't reach the bodies until the next day. And then by then the men have been lying in the Brazilian August heat long enough to start wrecking the one exam that might have closed the case. So they're side by side in the brush, partly covered by grass, still in suits and raincoats with an empty water bottle nearby and a packet with two towels. That's the other weird thing. Like, what's the packet with the two towels?
Mitchy D: What's a packet with two towels?
Russell: Like a b I'm guessing a bag or something?
Mitchy D: Okay, there's just another phrasing of it, I guess. A packet with two towels.
Russell: Yeah. So the b the bo the bodies are already decomposing in the heat. There's no major wounds or no obvious fight torn through the vegetation. And with them there are crude lead masks, cut like oversized eyewear with no glass, shaped to cover the eyes and leave the rest of the face open. The lead isn't scrap that blew onto the hill. So to understand those masks, police have to leave the slope and go back to campos.
where they did their normal work for their jobs.
Mitchy D: So I'm picturing something very like a... what's the word lost word but raised in punk that way your picture in here is it just me
Russell: Maybe. I keep I can't I can't I keep thinking the tanning bed things.
Mitchy D: Okay, just bigger one of those with no glass. Okay
Russell: Yeah. Yeah.
Mitchy D: The notebook when they search Manuel's workshop they recovered lead pipe a saw and mask offcuts including pieces that look like the nose contours cut out of the same metal a journal Doe Brazil reporter is with detectives when some of that scrap turns up Inside the investigation, the working conclusion is that Manuel and Miguel made the masks themselves. Homemade lead goggles are a choice. They didn't see it on the clearance rack. You don't see eye shields out of pipe because you forgot sunglasses. Very true. Somebody decided their eyes needed metal between them and whatever they thought was coming. And they decided it before the bus ride, not in a panic on the slope. Then, in a pocket, police find a small notebook. Inside it, in handwriting later tied to Miguel Jose Viena, there is a schedule. The line most often quoted from the 1966 papers reads, 1630, estar no loco determinado. I'll take any help here. 1830, ingerar capsulos apos efeto proteger metes agrodar senal mascara. In English, that roughly means to be the determined place by 430, ingest capsules at 630, and after the effect, protect the metals, await a signal, and use the mask. There's other writing in the book too. Numbers and letter codes that match electronics valve references, the kind of scrap a technician would keep. Police also find bus tickets from the trip mixed in with their things. The notebook starts looking like something one of the two men carried for himself, not like a prop dropped at the scene after the fact. Hold that schedule next to the waitress who watched Miguel check his watch. Her detail stops being color. It starts looking like a countdown she couldn't hear. They had a place, they had times, they planned to swallow something, put metal over their eyes, and wait for a signal. This reminds me of the episode of The Office where Jim sets Dwight as a CEI mission or whatever.
Russell: Mm.
Mitchy D: Go to the roof and wait for further instructions.
Russell: Mission compromise, destroy phone.
Mitchy D: Big prank, the whole thing.
Russell: That's what I was just thinking. This sounds like some homeless person or some random person just convinced them that they were part of some super secret like they're part of the matrix or something. Like they need to take the cappels, put the lead shields, and then Morbius will appear and take you. Yeah.
Mitchy D: Mm hmm. Yeah. Red pill or the blue pill? I mean, if that was my instructions, I would go for it.
Russell: All right. all right. So what the doctors could not say at the institute Instituto Medico Legal Natero Doctors look hard for violence and they don't find it. Early paperwork drifts towards Morte Natural or natural death, which here mostly means that the body doesn't show a wound that explains the end, so there wasn't like a gash in their head or a gunshot wound.
Mitchy D: I'm thinking something they may have swallowed. But that's just me. Yeah. That's just me. You know, whatever.
Russell: maybe they swallowed lead pills or s let's see. the Gubber Guanabara Criminalistics Institute takes its own looks and comes back in the same way. There's no natural trauma trail and no obvious poison signal on what they can still assess. Toxicology is the exam the notebook makes unavoidable because the schedule talks about capsules. The exam never hands the clean the case of cate clean chemical answer. Let's see. The Viscera are sent on for more testing. Years later, Rene Globo's Lena Detra reporting says that the samples deteriorate at the Naterials Institute before the work was finished. And in nineteen sixty seven the bodies are exhumed under the IML director I'm sorry, man. Sebastian Falance Hornal de Brazir Horn Hornal de Brazil report state security asking for an outside technician help and later bone and tissue going to Sampala Atomic Energy Institute. So that was confusing for even me. So I think it's saying that they didn't
Mitchy D: Yeah.
Russell: get a toxicology report done.
Mitchy D: That it. Yeah, for they didn't do it fast enough for.
Russell: Yeah, and the chemicals degraded and then later they ex exhumed the bodies. So
Mitchy D: Yeah.
Russell: none of the laboratory scramble produces the sentence everybody wants. For a case built around a schedule that says in jest capsules, the one test that might have named the susta substance never came back clean. The official answer on what killed Manuel and Miguel stays blank. The empty space is where the rest of the story rushes in.
Mitchy D: Hmm. Okay. here we go. The money on the hill. See, it's always about money. Always
Russell: Yes,
Mitchy D: about money. Then there's the cash. They left Campos with a large roll. Some money and their watches are still with the bodies. A portion appears to be missing. Early in the inquiry, Delegado José Venacio Bittencourt leans hard into robbery. What Brazilian law calls Loutro Sino. In the press he basically says nobody dies a natural death dressed like that on that hill and a lot of is gone. Police wondered about that from the first week. Some of the cash is still in the pockets and the watches are still there, which is strange kind of robbery if that's what this was. There are no wounds that look like a fight and no one ever goes to trial on that charge. The missing money is a real headache in the file. It just... never becomes a finished ending. So the investigation starts looking harder at the people who already knew Manuel and Miguel and at the strange outings they used to take when they wanted to be alone.
Russell: Right.
Mitchy D: Mm-hmm.
Russell: All right. So Elissio and the lights at sea. please pull in Alissio
Corelia Gomez, the Campos friend. Ocrucero writes that the early experiments and odd trips writes about earlier experiments on odd trips. And by trips, we're unsure on what they mean by trips. If they're if they're ingesting random substances, it may have been more than one kind of a trip.
Mitchy D: Yeah. They were trying to to build up their endurance to it, but they w they took too many this time.
Russell: Yeah. Alright, Jorno de Brazil prints a story he hands out at nights months before the deaths when Miguel and Monroe took him out to Altona Beach near Saun Jalo de Bara to watch Fenemoa de Luz, a light phenomena at sea. That sounds like UFOs. Lisio
Mitchy D: Mm.
Russell: says he saw a red flash and a blast over the water. The local inspector and even military agents were later looking into that explosion. When Elisio
Mitchy D: Hmm.
Russell: asks what it was, Miguel tells him they are spiritual forces. For august seventeenth itself, Elisio produces a Campos invoice placing him hundreds of kilometers kilometers from Natero, and the paper says he walks on that alibi. Later in a statement, covered by Corello de Maha, he describes the two men going out to deserted places performing a ritual, taking drugs because they believe supernatural beings would enter their minds.
Mitchy D: And we had money and now we have drugs. What are the odds?
Russell: Mm. On Sept on September fourteenth, nineteen six six I'm sorry, I gotta say it that also reminds me of the episode in the office where Creed sells Kelly diet pills. And he's like he's like, That was a t
Mitchy D: yeah, that's right.
Russell: or or no, she says it was a tapeworm or something, and then he's like, that wasn't a tapeworm or like I don't know.
Mitchy D: Yeah. What did he I can't remember what he said it was, but yeah. That wasn't that was just something he found.
Russell: Yep. All right, so let's see. On September fourteenth, nineteen sixty six, deputy I Idovan Ferrera closes the n Natero inquiry anyway. He tells the press there is no doubt they died from an experiment with psychotic forces they weren't prepared for, and the experiment proved fatal. It sounds like an ending. No one is charged. The case is later archived without a killer and without a toxin written down in ink. And Still, from that Wednesday evening, there's one more report the city never quite shook off.
Mitchy D: So an object an orange object over Santa Rosa. So on the evening of august seventeenth, around the hours in the notebook, an Etario n an Ontario resident named Gracinda Barbosa Cotin de Sosa one more time. Gracinda Barbosa Cotino de Sosa. Tells police she was driving a Volkswagen Beetle near Moro de Vintem and her three children when she saw something over the hill. She describes an orange oval object with a bright halo hanging there above the slope. O Cruzero p prints the family's account of a large rounded shape with orange tones and a shining ring. Her daughter Denise draws what they saw, and the drawing ends up in. Manchete magazine. In two thousand four, when Globo's Linha Doreta comes back to the case, the family confirms by phone a low object edged in blue and yellow light. They don't want to film an interview. Other people in the neighborhood also ask about an orange object or a bluish ray around that night. Apro's English Bulletin in the fall of nineteen sixty six even carries Mrs. de Souza's report out of Brazil. To UFO researchers abroad. If you line her clock time next to the notebook 6 30 line, you get the version of this story that never left late night radio. Two men on a hill, capsules, led over the eyes, waiting for a signal, and an oval glow reported overhead. Jacuz Valet later writes, Ventium Hill into confrontations. That stack is why the case still travels and why people still argue about what what was in the sky that night.
Russell: The aliens got their souls, that's what happened. They drove past the just I have no idea.
Mitchy D: It just got interesting. What was the lead for then?
Russell: All right. The hill keeps the rest. So through 1967, 1968, and into 1969, the case case keeps twitching. There's talk of San Paulo's prisier prisoner's confession pointing at a spirit spiritist center plot, then talk of reopening, then another league goes nowhere. And by the end the courts archive it. What remains are the two dead technicians, lead mask, a notebook, and no cause of death that a toxic toxicologist signed. Sixty years on, O'Globo goes back to the Natero for the anniversary. A daughter of Gracinda, elderly elderly by then, still remembers lights over the hill from the car that night. She doesn't want to name her name in the paper. Sh she doesn't want the stamp f the family story opened back up. She just remembers the light. The hill above Santa Rosa is still there. The question on the notebook is still there too.
Mitchy D: Mmm. So expert voices and sources. The bones of the case are stubborn. Two named electronics men leave campos, buy raincoats and water in a toro. and Climoral Day Vintim on august seventeenth of sixty six. On august twentieth, a kite flyer finds them dead, side by side with lead eyed masks and a notebook scheduling capsules and a signal. Doctors find no violence, the lab never settles the capsule line, no one is convicted. The file just stops, and the hill keeps the rest, the way it has since nineteen sixty six. Some people believe they took something themselves and it killed them. An experiment that went further than they planned. Police wondered whether somebody else was on the hill and walked away with the money. Other people have always believed the two technicians climbed into the brush with lead over their eyes because a signal was coming, and that whatever answered them or did not left nothing the coroner could name. You can hold all of those possibilities at once and still be left with the same picture. Two skilled men, a steep slope at dusk, Homemade lead over the eyes and a handwritten hour they meant to
keep.
Russell: The coldest object in the file is still that notebook page. Be at the place, take the capsules, protect the metals, and wait for the signal. On Moro de Viet V Vinten in August of 1966, someone followed those instructions far enough that two men never walked back down. Maybe the capsules did work. Maybe somebody else was up there and walked away. Or maybe Manuel and Miguel really were waiting for a signal and the letter of their eyes was just the last careful thing they ever did. The file never chooses for you. It just leaves two names, a steep hill, a schedule that reads like a door left open. The lead masks are the image everybody remembers. The unanswered signal is what keeps the hill talking. Sixty years later, every time someone opens up the case again and looks at the hill, be at the place, take the capitals, protect the metals, wait for the signal. So and you should actually Google this, Mitch, what 'cause Google Lead Masks Brazil case nineteen sixty six 'Cause I'll tell you the goggle things don't aren't like what I imagined.
Mitchy D: So they really do look like sunglasses. Yeah. yeah. After you've gone to the eye doctor. Big old s sunglasses. But that wa that
Russell: They're my They look like the old people sunglasses that people wear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mitchy D: they had to be heavy then.
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: And then this picture is just a recreation, I guess.
Russell: Yeah, there's some AI images, people regenerating a whole
Mitchy D: Yeah.
Russell: but it looks like there's actual pictures and yeah, they just look like without the the things that go over your ears, just the glasses part of old bulky sunglasses.
Mitchy D: Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Okay, yeah, that was definitely not what I was thinking. I was thinking more of a a European something. Okay. So did they
Russell: Yeah. So w
Mitchy D: say they found some money in the pockets still?
Russell: It sounded like there was some money, just not all of it.
Mitchy D: they were running errands, so they had to have bought some stuff, but
Russell: But does a bottle of water cost eight hundred dollars or and r and rain and r and raincoats? What was that what was that mineral water? Holy cow.
Mitchy D: In Brazil, supply and demand, man. And raincoats. Don't forget the raincoats. Only the finest for them.
Russell: Apparently. So what's your theory? What do you think happened?
Mitchy D: I don't know, someone someone else in the group of this group of people looking for spirits or whatever knows that they run a successful business or something. They have money, I mean a thousand dollars, like we said, and convinces them somehow and makes that list of instructions and then they happen to be there. And they took advantage of that and And then took the money and ran off. So I could see that. But then they would probably investigate other people of that group. If it was more of a group, I don't know. I guess it doesn't really say if it was more people.
Russell: Yeah. My bet is that they yeah, they thought they were gonna have some either UFO experience or some sort of spirit weird out of this world spiritual experience. They met up with
Mitchy D: Mm-hmm.
Russell: someone on the side of the hill, gave them money for something the pills that they ingested.
Mitchy D: Mm.
Russell: They took the pills, the guys realized something went wrong and it killed them, and the guy took off. Well, because he only took part of the money. So that makes me think that the exchange
Mitchy D: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and took the money. Yeah.
Russell: happened. They died, the guy freaked whoever was guy or girl, I don't discriminate. Maybe it was a woman, maybe it was a woman who sold them the pills,
Mitchy D: maybe he just freaked out. That's right. That's right.
Russell: or a man, whoever sold them the pills, yeah. Cause if it was like a robbery, you would think they'd take all the money, but that's what makes me think that it was just somewhat
Mitchy D: That's true. And the watches. Mm-hmm.
Russell: like a drug dealer experience gone wrong. They gave the pills, they were expecting the guys just to trip or something like that, and then
Mitchy D: Mm.
Russell: they died, and he's like, crap, I gotta get out of here.
Mitchy D: Yeah. Yeah, I'm out of here.
Russell: Yeah, and that's why they didn't take the watch, the rest of the money.
Mitchy D: Yeah. Th the the only thing that is 'cause I I'm with you, I think this is just like a just a mishap of some hor
Russell: Mm-hmm.
Mitchy D: some s sorts, but the whole orange light in the sky, that's what brings this to a supernatural case, I guess. Cause why would
Russell: The ledge shielding on the eyes is weird too.
Mitchy D: yeah, why would you do that? 'Cause that's only for like X rays. Are they trying to protect From X rays or
Russell: Or if if that's the case, just look away. if if you're only
Mitchy D: Yeah.
Russell: shielding this much of your face, a little like that can't be that helpful. unless they only unless they
Mitchy D: Yeah. And it's not like they could see through that lid, like
Russell: only think radiation comes through the eyes or something like which maybe in 1966 they maybe they did. It's just like when
Mitchy D: Yeah. It was the earliest. Exactly. But
Russell: you go get an x-ray and they're like, Yeah, this is completely safe, but I'm gonna go stand behind this big thick wall while you get your x-ray done.
Mitchy D: Yeah. You'll be fine.
Russell: you'll be fine. I'm just gonna go in my bomb shelter while you get your X ray
Mitchy D: And I like how these these sunglasses they actually did make the time to make the the Yeah,
Russell: The nose brim.
Mitchy D: the so they fit gently over the nose. No, no, no, no.
Russell: But not enough to make the earpiece.
Mitchy D: Let's not go that far. But it interesting.
Russell: But maybe that's because they knew they were gonna be laying down. So they knew they wouldn't eat the earpieces 'cause it's just laying on top gravity is I don't know.
Mitchy D: They started laying down, went for
Russell: Yeah.
Mitchy D: it. That's true.
Russell: But yeah, based on because there's no physical damage to the bodies, they had to have inje it had been whatever these pills were that they ingested that killed them or whatever.
Mitchy D: Mhm. And and then yeah, we didn't take it in time, Hm, well, why didn't you? So
Russell: But the lead that that's premeditated because otherwise it was just some other random if I was a
Mitchy D: Mm-hmm.
Russell: killer, which I would never because I'm too I'm I'm too cowardly and too it sounds like a lot of work. Anyway, but kill your victim and then leave something crazy that'll confuse the cops. Like Yeah, like dress them up less dress
Mitchy D: Yeah. That's really thinking ahead.
Russell: dress them up like a clown. Like there's
Mitchy D: Yeah.
Russell: like what happened here?
Mitchy D: He's never shown any interest in clowns before. What's going on?
Russell: Yeah, just like super confusing. But the lead glasses again, I sounds like they're the ones who invade them. But anyway,
Mitchy D: Uh-huh.
Russell: well yeah, so again, sorry to the people of Brazil. Feel free to come on the show and correct our pronunciation.
Mitchy D: That for first.
Russell: We we're equal opportunity slaughterers of languages, though. So we've slaughtered many other cultures in this podcast through our terrible pronunciation, so
Mitchy D: Yeah, we're not don't think you're the first and you will not be the last.
Russell: So Brazil y yeah, Brazil, you've had it coming. Any other country we haven't covered, yours is coming in future episodes. I mean,
Mitchy D: You're next.
Russell: to be fair, I feel like I mispronounce English words, so even our own country wasn't saved, so all right,
Mitchy D: Yeah. Yeah, even English. We don't we leave them out. No, no, no, no, no.
Russell: cool. Well, this has been it, the lead masks case from Brazil. I can't remember if I said this is episode
Mitchy D: Interesting.
Russell: fifty-three or fifty-four, but this is like our
Mitchy D: It was one of those.
Russell: our historical mystery. So next week should be back to a cryptid, I think, and then the next one will be a UAP thing again. So
Mitchy D: Mm-hmm.
Russell: getting back into our normal rotation. But again, check out Mitch's podcast, video gaming news, the gamer high council on Spotify. And thanks everybody for listening.
Mitchy D: All right. Thanks everyone.