File 01 – The Lead Masks Case
It all begins with an idea.
Date range: 17 – 20 August 1966
Location: Morro do Vintém, Niterói, Brazil
Primary sources: Polícia Civil report (1966); Jornal do Brasil, Aug 21 1966; Revista O Cruzeiro, Sep 1966; field recordings archived by Brazilian Radio-Amateur Club 1965–67
1 . Public Record
Two electronics technicians, Manoel Pereira da Cruz (32) and Miguel José Viana (34), left Rio de Janeiro on 17 August 1966.
They told family they were buying parts for a transmitter.
Two days later their bodies were found on a grassy slope outside Niterói.
Both wore suits, raincoats, and homemade lead masks covering only their eyes.
Beside them lay a water bottle, two towels, and a notebook reading:
“16:30 be at agreed place / take capsules / after effect protect metals await signal.”
Autopsy: no external wounds, no poison identified, stomach contents consistent with barbiturates but below lethal dose.
Official cause: cardiac arrest from unknown origin.
2 . Site Analysis (2007 visit)
GPS – 22.8859° S, 43.0986° W.
The hill still overlooks Guanabara Bay.
Soil PH = 10.2 (alkaline; abnormally high for this region).
The slope where the bodies lay measures exactly 10 degrees.
Two rusted survey stakes remain; each 1 meter apart. When connected, they form a line that points directly toward a decommissioned radio antenna half a kilometer east.
I overlaid 1966 aerial photos with current satellite imagery.
The antenna’s foundation and the position of the bodies form the arms of a perfect X. Why the X?
3. Document Review
The original police file lists one item I’d never seen cited online:
a lead scrap stamped “B-10.”
The notation margin reads, “origin unknown / possibly battery part.”
Lead isotope ratios (reported in Revista O Cruzeiro, p. 42) match industrial batteries produced by Companhia Eletroquímica do Sul, lot #10A.
That batch was recalled for “excess radioactivity.”
Cross-reference: 1960s amateur-radio newsletter CQ Brasil mentions experiments using lead plates as parabolic reflectors for “psychotronic waves.”
I contacted surviving member R. Silva, callsign PY1RS.
He confirmed Cruz and Viana attended one of their demonstrations in early 1966 and “believed the mind could transmit in hertz.” I don’t quite understand what he meant by that…but I have an idea.
4. Anomalies
Timeline conflict: the coroner fixed time of death between 18:00–20:00; but both wristwatches stopped at 22:10.
Weather: meteorological logs show a lightning strike recorded at 22:10 within 200 meters of the site.
Notebook fibers: ultraviolet scan reveals faint indentations under the last line—letters forming “D-10”.
I built a simple frequency map using known radio bursts from that evening.
Every burst cluster around 101 Hz ± 1 Hz, repeating at intervals of 10 seconds—binary 1010.
Marina P., local resident, age 71:
“That night my dog howled at something high above the hill. Then I heard a pop, like a fuse burning, and the lights flickered. In the morning, police came.”
Her statement never appears in official files, though. Cover up? There goes my paranoid mind again.
5. Personal Log
Audio Note #1A (Hotel Central Niterói, 01:13 AM):
“Every time I replay the 101 Hz tone, my camera glitches for exactly ten frames. On the last frame I see a girl standing behind me, hair over her face.
I think Lilly used to hum at the same pitch when she was frightened, there’s now way I knew what exact tone she used, but it seems so… familiar. Maybe my brain’s imposing her on the footage.
Or maybe she’s answering.” Can this be what they meant with the “the mind can transmit in hertz” thing?
Later I noticed a water stain on my notebook shaped like a lily petal. The same place I’d written B-10.
Coincidence, maybe. But the petal outline glowed faintly under UV.
6. Hypothesis
Cruz and Viana attempted to amplify a narrow-band frequency in the sub-audio range (~100 Hz) using lead reflectors to shield their optic nerves.
The combination of lead masks, raincoats, and capsule ingestion suggests a deliberate sensory isolation experiment.
Whether the “signal” they awaited was electromagnetic or something else remains unknown.
But the 22:10 lightning strike implies a surge that might have completed their circuit.
I wrote in my notes: They didn’t die waiting for the signal. They became it.
7. Pattern Notes
Angle of slope = 10°
Soil PH = 10.2
Time of electrical event = 22:10
Lead scrap mark = B-10
Audio pulse = 101 Hz
If you have access to surviving 1966 amateur-radio logs from the Niterói region, recordings around 101 Hz, or family accounts of “signal” experiments, contact me.
I’m reconstructing the transmission.
Some nights I think it’s still broadcasting, right through my walls.
Leave a trace below.