WHAT happened to the lead mask men?

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Solitaire Grand Harvest, Brazil, Vinton Hill, lead masks
2. 5:00 – 10:00: capsules, lead masks, electronic equations
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Miguel Jose Vana, Atapona Beach, Alicia Gomez, Brazil
4. 20:00 – 25:00: lead masks, scientific spiritualism, Brazil
5. 25:00 – 30:00: capsules, Brazil
6. 30:00 – 35:00: capsules, Brazil, lead masks, UFO
7. 35:00 – 40:00: Alexandre Montero Selvanetto, Hamilton Dani, capsules, spiritualism center
8. 40:00 – 40:45: Solitaire Grand Harvest

Notable quotes from "WHAT happened to the lead mask men? "

• The case of the lead mask men of Vinton Hill, a case that comes all the way from Brazil. And this is a case that has very much fallen victim to history to the passage of time.…

  about Brazil · at 0:20

• Description box down below and download Solitaire Grand Harvest for free. It's free. On the afternoon of the 20th of August 1966, the bodies of two men were found on the side…

  about Vinton Hill · at 3:36

• They presumably refer to them in the note. After the effect, protect metals await signal mask. These masks have been described as being very crudely fashioned from lead sheets.…

  about lead masks · at 7:27

• In the local area for TV and electronics repair. Both having completed electronic courses in Sa Paulo. And Miguel had even completed a correspondence course in electronics from national schools in Los Angeles in 1951.

  about Miguel Jose Vana · at 10:37

• And read it because it is so incredibly detailed. So although these men died in August, the story seems to start all the way back on the 12th of May or some sources say instead…

  about Atapona Beach · at 11:54

• He said that he and the dead men were part of a group of scientific spiritualists consisting of mostly electronics experts and nerds.

  about scientific spiritualism · at 13:50

• Anything more of interest to share until the August, just days before their deaths. On the 16th of August, Manuel wakes his wife up in the middle of the night and tells her…

  about Manuel Pereira Druge · at 15:03

• People would report seeing UFOs or aliens all the time, like literally weekly. And whilst Miguel and Manuel were interested in spiritualism, not necessarily ufology, the two were very.

  about UFO · at 31:15

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Miguel Jose Vana — Person · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 10:14
  The other man found dead with Manuel, his death is central to the mystery.
• Manuel Pereira Druge — Person · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 10:09
  One of the two men found dead in mysterious circumstances on Vinton Hill, central to the mystery discussed.
• Alicia Gomez — Person · Referenced person · 2 mentions · first at 13:12
  Linked to the men through their shared interest in electronics and spiritualism.
  Big explosion. Now, this man, Alicia Gomez, is a very interesting character in all of this. He worked with Manuel and Miguel in the electronic shop. He was mentored by them…
• Alexandre Montero Selvanetto — Person · Referenced person · 2 mentions · first at 37:24
  Suspected in the case due to initials matching a handkerchief found at the scene.
  Interested in spiritism. Remember ages ago at the beginning of the episode I said there was a handkerchief found at the scene with the initials AMS embroidered onto it. Yeah…
• Hamilton Dani — Person · Referenced person · 2 mentions · first at 35:54
  Claimed to know what happened to the men, but his story was false.
  They investigated her claim. And of course, it came to a dead end. But just one month later, a man called Hamilton Dani came forward saying that he knew what had happened. Now…

Companies & orgs

• spiritualism center — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at 36:13
  Place linked to the men's activities and beliefs.
  Worth remembering at this point that although the police looked into it, there was never any evidence that the men actually visited the spiritism center on that day. But…
• PMIG96 — Company · Referenced organization · 1 mention · first at 11:35
  Source of comprehensive research on the case.
  Few days and see what led to them dying on this hill in such strange circumstances. I do feel at this point I need to give a shout out to a blog called PMIG96 on WordPress which just had the most comprehensive research on this case out.

Concepts & topics

• lead masks — Concept · Core topic · 6 mentions · first at 4:17
  Crucial to the mystery, these masks were worn by the men when found dead.
• capsules — Concept · Core topic · 12 mentions · first at 6:48
  Believed to be ingested by the men, potentially causing their deaths.
  There was a note that translated to 1630 be at the specified location. 1830 ingest capsules after the effect.
• scientific spiritualism — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 23:56
  Believed to be practiced by the men, possibly linked to their deaths.
• UFO — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 31:15
  Linked to theories about the mysterious lights seen near the time of the men's deaths.
• electronic equations — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 5:51
  Found on notes with the men, possibly linked to their experiments.
  Lots of random pieces of paper with handwritten notes. They had one note with some electronic equations on it. I don't know exactly what that means, but electronic equations.…
• pendoba leaves — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 4:52
  Found at the scene where the men were discovered, adding to the mystery.
  Lying on a spread of pendoba leaves, which is a type of palm tree leaf that is pretty tough. like these leaves can only really be cut down with knives, but there were no weapons, no knives or anything like that at the scene.

Places & events

• Brazil — Place · Core topic · 7 mentions · first at 0:26
  Country where the events took place, central to the story.
• Vinton Hill — Place · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 0:20
  Location where the bodies of Manuel and Miguel were found.
• Rio de Janeiro — Place · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 3:48
  State where Vinton Hill is located, central to the events.
  These two men. They were 32-year-old Manuel Pereira Druge and 34year-old Miguel Jose Vana. Both men lived in Campos Scotcartis in Rio Janeiro State, and they did have wives…
• Atapona Beach — Place · Referenced location · 2 mentions · first at 12:06
  Site of a mysterious explosion linked to the men.
• Cruz's garden — Place · Referenced location · 1 mention · first at 14:08
  Site of another explosion linked to the men.
  Apparently, they all attended seances and worked on experiments to get in touch with aliens. He also said that he Manuel had held a very big experiment in Cruz's garden that…
• World War II — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at 11:09
  Contextual reference for correspondence courses taken by Miguel.
  Subscribers. So, Miguel didn't move to LA to do this. It was all done from home in Brazil. Apparently, this was something that was very popular in the aftermath of World War…
• 1968 cyclone — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention
  Mentioned in relation to Manuel's beliefs about preventing a global disaster.
  Across them hammering a lead pipe. He asked them what they were doing and Manuel simply explained, We are creating something that will prevent the end of the world in 1968 when…

Sponsors

• Solitaire Grand Harvest — Sponsor · Sponsor · 5 mentions · first at 1:40
  Sponsor of the podcast episode, mentioned for supporting the content.
  But first of all, I want to take a minute to talk about our sponsor today, Solitaire Grand Harvest. Making these videos wouldn't be possible without the help, without the support of sponsors.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 I have a mystery for you today. A mystery that has been on my list to cover for a really, really long time. And this feels very much like the early days of my channel. Just like a true baffling mystery with not really any answers whatsoever. I'm fascinated to hear what all of you guys have to say about this one in the comments. This is the case of the lead mask men of Vinton Hill, a case that comes all the way from Brazil. And this is a case that has very much fallen victim to history to the passage of time. This happened in 1966, 59 years ago. Meaning that over the last six decades, things have very much got lost, misconstrued, lost in translation.

0:44 That's a lot of time for stories to get dramatized, to be exaggerated, for whispers to get confused from person to person. And there is also, of course, the fact that this case comes all the way from Brazil. and a now fellow Portuguese. At least I don't speak Portuguese very well. All of the original source material for this story is in Portuguese. So, as well as this case being almost 60 years old, we're also relying on translations here as much as we can. As well, in my research, I pride myself on trying to get to the truth, to the core of any story. I don't want the fluffed up dramatizations. I just want to talk about what actually happened. And in cases like this, it gets a bit difficult to do that. There's just a lot of layers to this story, and I'm going to try my best to get to the center of it. This is a story that has baffled investigators, has baffled conspiracy theorists, has baffled anyone

1:36 who's looked at it for almost 60 years. But first of all, I want to take a minute to talk about our sponsor today, Solitaire Grand Harvest. Making these videos wouldn't be possible without the help, without the support of sponsors. So, a huge thank you to them. You guys know that I'm always looking for fun little escapes when I need a break from editing. Like I feel like between both of my channels, this one and my book channel, I am editing all the time. And sometimes I just need a break. Well, I just found a new little escape that I have been obsessed with lately.

2:10 Solitaire Grand Harvest. It takes the classic Solitaire game we all know, but adds this whole fun farming adventure twist that makes it so much more rewarding. There is so much more to this game than just solitaire. Like every time I complete a new level, I'm actually harvesting crops on my farm and I'm unlocking fun new little characters. I also love decorating my farm. I am an aesthetics girly at heart. I like things to look pretty and I'm very proud of how my farm looks so far. And beating a hard level and seeing your farm grow is just so satisfying. And it's not just solitire. There are side missions, too.

2:44 You can send gifts. You can grow crops with your friends. There are these collectible cards that you can unlock to get special rewards. You get to open card packs and complete collections. It's like pulling a rare trading card, only this time you also get in-game rewards as well. For me, Solitire Grand Harvest is the perfect level of gaming. It's very relaxing, but also keeps you engaged with all the little side challenges as well. Like when I want to chill after a long day, I can just play a couple of levels, but then I look up and realize I've also made real progress on my farm. I'm way too attached. I love it. Solitaire Grand Harvest is completely free to play. It is 100% adree, which is so rare today with mobile games, and it's the number one solitaire game in the world. So, who are you to argue with that? So, if you want to join me and start your own farm, whilst also playing some seriously fun

3:34 Solitaire, you can hit the link in the description box down below and download Solitaire Grand Harvest for free. It's free. On the afternoon of the 20th of August 1966, the bodies of two men were found on the side of Vinten Hill in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. They were discovered by a boy flying a kite. Depending on which source you want to believe, it was either a young boy or an 18-year-old man, but somebody who noticed something strange in the brush and decided to investigate. He found the two bodies dressed in what seems to be their best suits. They were lying together, seemingly peaceful, with no sign of struggle or violence. But the strangest thing was what was found on their faces. They were both wearing lead masks over their eyes. The boy quickly rushed back down the hill to contact the authorities, but due to the very difficult terrain of the hill, the authorities were unable to get to the

4:31 bodies until the next day. But when the authorities finally did get there the next day, they found an incredibly odd scene. Men were lying next to each other in their formal suits, but each of them wearing a raincoat over the top. There was no sign of any struggle or trauma. It simply seemed as if these men had laid down and then just happened to die at the very same time. They were found lying on a spread of pendoba leaves, which is a type of palm tree leaf that is pretty tough. like these leaves can only really be cut down with knives, but there were no weapons, no knives or anything like that at the scene.

5:08 Apparently, there was evidence of blood found on the leaves, but that was about all I could find about that. Some items of note found at the scene include an empty water bottle, a receipt for said water bottle, some cups fashioned out of aluminium foil, and a packet containing two towels found nearby. Some sources say the towels are wet, some don't. a newspaper and a clean handkerchief with the initials AMS embroidered onto it was also found. And inside the men's clothes, they found matches and cigarettes. They found large amounts of money. They found a watch inside one of the men's pants. And inside his jacket, they found a wedding ring tied to a reading glass. They were also found with lots of random pieces of paper with handwritten notes. They had one note with some electronic equations on it. I don't know exactly what that means, but electronic equations. One had letters and numbers and what seemed to be some

6:02 kind of code. One particularly dirty note had the word banzai on it, which is not a word in Brazilian Portuguese. It's actually a greeting in Japanese. There was also another note with some medicine recipes. And in a time with smartphones and the notes app, it perhaps feels unusual to have so many random handwritten notes on you. But I guess this maybe would have been normal in the 60s. I don't know. I wasn't alive then. But you'd have to write down your notes somewhere. I don't know if this is that weird. But most importantly, at the scene, they found a small notebook. A notebook which might actually hold the answers to this entire mystery or kind of the answers. Written in Portuguese.

6:45 There was a note that translated to 1630 be at the specified location. 1830 ingest capsules after the effect. Protect metals. Await signal mask. To me, this seems to be pretty clear. These are instructions, timings for them to do something like ingest some capsules. This could explain their deaths. Together, they ingested some sort of capsule that led to them dying. But whilst this might give a very brief, a very surface level explanation, it doesn't really explain why they made this choice. It doesn't explain what the capsules contained nor why they need to be wearing lead masks or signal masks as they presumably refer to them in the note. After the effect, protect metals await signal mask. These masks have been described as being very crudely fashioned from lead sheets. They were maybe in the rough shape of ski goggles and much bigger than your standard glasses. On each man, these lead masks

7:46 entirely covered the eyes and part of the face, and they were held in place by straps that went around the back of the head. It certainly seemed like these masks were handmade, that these men had fashioned them themselves specifically for this occasion. But why? What was the reason behind them? Why did they have these very crudely fashioned lead masks? And that is just one of the many, many questions this scene left authorities trying to answer. When they presumably ingested these capsules on the hill, did they intend to die? Was death the end goal here? Were they supposed to live?

8:24 Because the note in the notebook doesn't say anything about dying. It just says, "Igest capsules after the effect. Protect metals. Await signal mask." It doesn't really give you much in terms of motive. is just hinting that maybe they were interested in some sort of weird conspiracy. The note as a whole, as you can probably figure, lacks punctuation, so it's hard to figure out exactly what they were meaning when they wrote this, presuming they wrote it. Maybe they didn't. Is it ingest capsules after the effect? Or ingest capsules after the effect, protect metals, which could make sense seeing as they found Miguel's wedding band and his watch hidden away in his clothes. Were they protecting the metals? And then were they to await signal and then put the mask on? Or did they perhaps refer to their masks as signal masks? This is why punctuation is very important because there are so many ways that this one sentence could be

9:22 interpreted. And this also wasn't the only thing written inside this notebook, although nothing else seemed to make any more sense. Another note read, "Sunday, one capsule after meal. Monday, one capsule in the morning while fasting. Tuesday, one capsule after meal. Wednesday, one capsule when laying down. The day they died, or at least the day on which they were found, was a Saturday. So, had they potentially be taking these capsules wherever these capsules were all week? Or was the note intended maybe for the week ahead instead? Had they intended to die on this hillside? It's just another unanswered question on top of all of the other unanswered questions. Luckily, because this case didn't need any more mystery, it didn't take long for the authorities to find the identities of these two men. They were 32-year-old Manuel Pereira Druge and 34year-old Miguel Jose Vana. Both men lived in Campos Scotcartis in Rio Janeiro State,

10:20 and they did have wives, although I wasn't able to find any information on whether or not they had children. These men were friends, their business partners, and they owned a small TV repair shop that they ran from home. It seems they were very good at their trade at their job. They were the go-to people in the local area for TV and electronics repair. Both having completed electronic courses in Sa Paulo. And Miguel had even completed a correspondence course in electronics from national schools in Los Angeles in 1951.

10:53 A correspondence course is basically an entire educational course that was ran through the mail. Schools and companies would send out lessons by mail to subscribers. So, Miguel didn't move to LA to do this. It was all done from home in Brazil. Apparently, this was something that was very popular in the aftermath of World War II. But that's beside the point. We are presumably looking here at very intelligent, well-educated men who looked for opportunities to better themselves and their knowledge. So with their identities, the authorities were now able to look into the lives of these men to try and piece together the previous few days and see what led to them dying on this hill in such strange circumstances. I do feel at this point I need to give a shout out to a blog called PMIG96 on WordPress which just had the most comprehensive research on this case out of anywhere on the internet that I could

11:44 find or at least most comprehensive research in English. I relied on this blog post very heavily when trying to understand this timeline and I'll link their post down below if you want to go and read it because it is so incredibly detailed. So although these men died in August, the story seems to start all the way back on the 12th of May or some sources say instead the 12th of June on Atapona Beach, which was this big tourist beach. It was around 9:00 p.m. when there was a massive explosion on this beach. a ball of fire so big that it lit up the entire sky. It was heard up to 10 km away and even damaged the nearby houses thanks to how much this explosion made the ground shake. Some people said it felt like an earthquake.

12:29 And obviously something like that is going to attract a lot of attention. One local or fisherman out on the water swore that this was the work of aliens having seen a UFO, a flying saucer falling down into the ocean. But of course, there was never any solid evidence of this. What we do know for sure is there was a detective, a detective Fernandez nearby when this explosion happened, and he very quickly went to the beach to investigate what was going on. He would later report that he found a track in the sand, a seemingly large tire track of 14 by 10 in. And from these tracks was a very strong sulfur smell. But what did this have to do with Manuel and Miguel? Well, apparently on the day in question, a friend of the men called Alicia Gomez and a few others had been invited by these two men to Atapona Beach. Just before Gomez arrived, he described an intensely bright object that descended from the sky and hovered over the beach

13:28 for about five minutes before it started to climb again and then exploded. The big explosion. Now, this man, Alicia Gomez, is a very interesting character in all of this. He worked with Manuel and Miguel in the electronic shop. He was mentored by them, and after the men's death, he would be detained by the police for offering inconsistent claims. He said that he and the dead men were part of a group of scientific spiritualists consisting of mostly electronics experts and nerds. Apparently, they all attended seances and worked on experiments to get in touch with aliens. He also said that he Manuel had held a very big experiment in Cruz's garden that had also exploded, something that was backed up by witnesses. Now, this was apparently in the June and this garden explosion was also relatively big. caused quite a bit of carnage. And there were also a couple of other rumors around this explosion

14:24 and the beach explosion as well. One that a few days before the Atapona incident, Miguel had told his sister that he would soon be carrying out an important assignment, but he told her it was a huge secret. She couldn't share it with anyone. and two, the day before the beach explosion, the Navy had received a very strange series of radio messages that seemed to come from a station using identifications that didn't actually exist. Now, we don't know exactly what these messages consisted of, but the general thought is that they were related to the explosion, and this was reported in a newspaper in September.

15:02 And then it doesn't seem like there was anything more of interest to share until the August, just days before their deaths. On the 16th of August, Manuel wakes his wife up in the middle of the night and tells her that in the morning himself and Miguel are going to sell Paulo to buy a used car and some electronic components for his shop. Now, why he felt this was urgent enough to wake her up in the middle of the night. I don't know. Maybe he was overexited or maybe he knew he'd be leaving in the morning before his wife woke up and just wanted to let her know. Seeing as he's telling her so late, you would assume that maybe this was quite a last minute decision. But for reasons I'll talk about in a second, it doesn't seem like that was the case. But he just told his wife that they needed a car to better serve their customers, and that was pretty much it. So the next morning, he sets off taking with him a very large

15:51 amount of money. Most sources say it was 2.3 million croseros, but it may have been more. Some friends, knowing they were going to S Paulo, also gave them some money to pick some things up for them as well. This is why I said it can't have been that last minute of a decision because friends knew they were going. At 9:00 a.m. on August 17th, the friend takes them to the bus station, but they don't go to Sao Paulo. Instead, they board a bus to Nittoy, a city in the state of Riddiro, about 3 hours away from their homes in Campos Dorsoes.

16:24 It was in the correct direction to Sa Paulo, just not quite as far. So, at around 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, they arrive in the Troy where they immediately head to an electronic store where they chat with the owner. Apparently, they'd met this owner about 4 days earlier in their hometown. Manuel showed the owner a magazine ad for an AM FM frequency generator that cost 1 million crisos and then asked for some electrical components that they needed, but apparently there was nothing in stock. The owner would later say to the police that he was a bit confused by this whole interaction because these were two very experienced electrical technicians. They would have known where to go to get hold of these very specific components they were looking for. And they would have known it likely wasn't this tiny little shop in Nitaroy. And so after that, the men decide to continue on their journey. It seems continued S

17:15 Paulo. And they actually invited the shop owner to come along with them, but he declined. So, it does seem like this is still their end destination, but they don't leave the shop and immediately get on the bus for the rest of their journey. At 2:45 p.m., the pair are seen a plastics and rubber store nearby, where they each buy a raincoat, despite the fact that it was raining outside at the time. They strangely didn't put them on when they left the shop, something that was noted by witnesses as being just a little weird. Witnesses also said they seem to be very agitated by the time they reach the store, despite having been very calm at the store before. So, what had happened in the time in between? Had they maybe run into somebody or done something on the very short walk between the two shops? At 3:15 p.m., they head to a bar near Vintang Hill where they order a very cold bottle of water. They seem to be in

18:09 a bit of a rush by this point, but they still asked and waited for the receipt. There was apparently a scheme where if they returned the empty bottle later on, they could get a small refund, which doesn't quite seem to be the actions of two men who intended to be dying shortly. But that is what happened. After leaving this bar with their very cold bottle of water, they head directly to Vintang Hill, which is where they would later be found dead. They told multiple people they were going to Sa Paulo, but there's no way for us to know if that was genuinely their intended end destination.

18:43 Did they always intend to be going to Ventang Hill on this day? Or was this just a spur-of-the- moment decision? There are so many questions here and so few answers. So, they turn left out of the bar and turn down Andradi Pinto Street at the end of which are multiple winding trails, all of which lead to the top of Vintang Hill. We don't know which trail they used to get to the top, nor do we know if anyone was with them at this point. I also cannot tell you how we know they took this route to the hill. This is around 4:30 p.m. and what happens up there on top of this hill for the next few hours has always remained a mystery. At around 7:00 p.m., a woman called Grassinda Babos Cosinho was driving in the area with her children when they all noticed some very strange lights in the sky. It's so unusual that they actually all get out of the car to watch it for a few minutes, saying it was a bright oval orange with a seeming

19:40 ring of fire emitting blue rays of light in all different directions. Christinda wouldn't report this at the time, but when she heard the news a couple of days later about these men dying on the hill, she called the police. However, when she got home, she told her husband all about the lights. He went out to investigate by himself, but by the time he made it back there, the lights were gone. And at some point around here, Miguel and Manuel died, although they wouldn't be found till the afternoon of the 20th, so 3 days later.

20:12 There is a report of a boy who saw two men lying on the ground at the top of the hill the next morning, so on the 18th. But this boy wasn't sure if the men were sleeping or dead. He went to the home of a local policeman anyway, just to let them know. But the policeman didn't do anything about it. Classic. So, they remained there for another two days. And then the 20th comes around. The second boy comes across the bodies. He reports it to the police station. And they decide not to go and investigate until the next day because of bad weather. So, they remain for yet another night. And I suppose we could let them off. The weather was particularly bad.

20:49 And even the next morning, it took emergency officials and volunteers more than 2 hours to reach the bodies. The bodies were swiftly taken to the coroner's office where later that day, the coroner's assistant prepared the bodies for autopsy, removing all of the internal organs. Now, this was not standard procedure. It should have been the coroner himself doing this, but apparently they were just very busy that day. But it was reported at this point that there was no sign of violence or injury found on either of the bodies, and the organs were placed on a shelf to await the actual coroner to take a look.

21:24 The organs sat there, and they essentially rotted until it became very clear that they weren't any use of an autopsy, and so they were just thrown away. Their organs were never tested. We don't have a cause of death for Manuel and Miguel, but not because their bodies were mysterious, but because there was barely an autopsy. There certainly wasn't any drug testing done. The police did later ask another coroner or expert to read over the original report from the assistant and see if there was anything that had been missed, but there was nothing that could be gleaned from this. So, basically, there was no autopsy. There was no testing done. The cause of death might have been something very clear, very obvious, but we don't know it. In the days after the bodies were recovered, the police did attempt to investigate, but there was pretty much nothing to go on. They followed a few Lee's dead ends, and they really

22:16 focused in on these very strange lead masks, but nothing was quite able to give them answers, or at least answers as to their deaths. If Miguel and Manuel were up there on that hill conducting weird science experiments with crazy lights that could be seen miles away, having something like a lead mask to protect their eyes probably does make sense. But none of this provides actual answers. Like why were they up there doing weird science experiments in the first place? And how did they die? And if they were conducting weird science experiments, what were they doing it with? Because no scientific equipment was found up there with them. But what were the lights? So a week later on August 27th, the Brazilian Federal Police are bought onto this case and they investigate across four states. The army, the navy, and the air force also brought in, but they focused on whether or not whatever had happened on Vintang

23:10 Hill that night was related to the explosion at Phona Beach in May or June because there were still no answers for that one either. Investigators, of course, take a look through the men's homes and their business. And according to one newspaper, inside Miguel's studio, they found evidence of the lead mask being produced. They found traces of the production process. At Manuel's house, they found a bucket in which there were cutout pieces of lead that match the holes on the mask. It seems they'd used lead pipe to create these masks. And Manuel's wife did confirm that they had definitely made them.

23:45 She'd been told that they needed them for work. And why would she question that? At their shop, police also found more lead masks. There were so many lead masks. In the studio, they also found a book on scientific spiritualism that referred to masks and something called high luminosity. And this interest in scientific spiritualism isn't new information for us. I already said that Lucio Gomez had told the police the men were interested in this. But police soon found that they frequently attended seances along with basically every other local electronic expert. Anybody who was interested in electronics in this area of Brazil was interested in scientific spiritualism and went to meetings for it. But what exactly is it? Like what is it? It's defined by the spiritualist national union as the exploration of spiritual phenomena including consciousness, mediumship, and healing through a scientific lens. It basically

24:43 seeks to understand these phenomena, the spiritual elements of the world through a scientific lens. It sounds like this big scary thing, but the concept of it is actually quite simple. And I can see the allore for people like Manuel and Miguel, these big electronics nerds who are trying to marry their love of science with something larger in the universe. It blends the ideas of Christianity reincarnation and communication with the dead. And spiritism in general was a big thing in Brazil at this time. It was widely practiced across the country. There was even a spiritualist center in Lisoy at this time. They would have had to have walked past it on their way from the bus stop to the electronic shop. And the police did explore the possibility that they popped into the center, but there was no evidence to suggest that they did on that day. But yeah, spiritism was a big thing, particularly among the

25:35 educated middle class. So let's say that their deaths did have something to do with the spiritualism. How? Well, the theory goes that these men wanted to or they believed that they could make contact with higher entities or spirits through their experiments. Some sources even suggest that just a few days before his death, Manuel had told somebody, "I'm going to watch a definite experiment. After that, I'll be able to tell you if I believe in it or not." If we're to believe this quote, it seems like he wasn't quite allin on spiritism yet, but other things in his life seem to suggest that he was fully deeply in it. On August 12th, a neighbor had come to visit them in their studio and came across them hammering a lead pipe. He asked them what they were doing and Manuel simply explained, "We are creating something that will prevent the end of the world in 1968 when the great cyclone will devastate a large part of

26:29 our planet." and apparently didn't give any more information than that. The neighbor just left baffled. It does sound like whatever was going on with the men could have been erring in something akin to maybe a religious psychosis, whatever the spiritual equivalent of that is. And I do wonder how much of this was seeping into their everyday lives by this point. If they're willing to say something like that to a neighbor, what else were they saying or letting slip to other people in their lives? It does come to a point sometimes where people are unable to control things like this from coming out, but none of my sources seem to cover that.

27:04 So, I can't tell you if this was the case or not, like how much were Manuel and Miguel letting slip outside people. So, there's a big possibility here that they were on top of Intangill that day trying to conduct some sort of experiment to reach a higher power to talk to aliens, to talk to spirits, just to talk to somebody. But what evidence do we have of that? We have the cryptic note suggesting they needed to be at this specific location at 4:30 and ingest the capsules at 6:30. After effect, protect metals. Wait for mask signal. But what the capsules were, we still don't know. So, could this match up with some sort of spiritual experiment? Was this maybe some sort of drug intended to induce an ordered state of consciousness? Was it a psychoactive substance? Maybe that's also why they bought the water before they went up there. They used it to swallow the capsules. Was all this very intentional?

27:58 Maybe the protect metals bit could be a reference protecting the body's energy field or maybe electronic equipment. I don't know. That bit of the note has me baffled. Wait for mask signal suggests they were maybe waiting for some sort of queue after entering their altered state. Maybe something was needed to tell them to put their masks on. But interestingly, it doesn't seem like the bodies were found with the mask actually on the faces. Again, the sources are a bit iffy when it comes to this. Some sources say they were found with a mask on. Some say they were just next to their bodies. I can't tell you for sure.

28:31 Other spiritualists believe that these men maybe thought that the mask would protect them from harmful radiation or intense spiritual energy or perhaps just a bright light. And we do have witnesses saying there were bright lights coming from the hill that evening. However, as I said earlier, there was no electrical equipment found at this scene. There was nothing there that could have caused such lights. Many believers suggest this means that whatever their experiment was was successful, that they were able to attract higher powers or whatever it was they were trying to make happen. Maybe it was a UFO or maybe they did indeed have a third person with them on the hill that day. And after the men died through whatever means that was, the third person packed up the electrical equipment and just fled the scene. That seems much more likely to me as a skeptic, but maybe you believe otherwise. However, there was no sign of

29:24 a third person nor of any foul play or robbery. So maybe this person just covered their tracks well. Or maybe there wasn't a third person at all. And if this is all the case, what killed these men? An overdose here does tend to be the very common theory, and it likely is the thing that makes the most sense, but their bodies were never drug tested, so we can't know for sure. It does seem like a couple of years later some hair samples were taken and examined for poisoning. It was looking for things like arsenic or mercury, berium, thallium poisoning specifically, but nothing was discovered. There's only so much they can test for with just hair samples though, so it doesn't really mean anything. But these are men who didn't seem to believe they would be dying. Remember, they intended to return the water bottle for a refund. They asked the shop owner if he wanted to come to Sa Paulo with them. They were

30:15 also very highly educated. They wouldn't have taken a capsule knowing there was poison inside, believing they would survive. Or maybe they did believe that. Maybe their belief in metaphysics led them to believe that they could survive poisoning. But why would they take poisonous capsules? Why? I just don't think it was ever likely that those tests would have given a positive result because I would place bets on these capsules containing some kind of psychedelic. But then again, maybe the note with the instructions and the capsules were given to them by somebody else. Some sources say that the handwriting on these notes or this note in particular did not match either of the men's. And it also didn't sound like something either of them would write either. So, what was in the capsules?

30:57 Who wrote the note? What caused these weird bright lights? We don't know. This case is so confusing. So, then we move on to an alien encounter or UFO theory. Apparently in the midentth century, Brazil was a hot spot for UFO activity. People would report seeing UFOs or aliens all the time, like literally weekly. And whilst Miguel and Manuel were interested in spiritualism, not necessarily ufology, the two were very closely linked. Some people say they were also amateur UFO researchers. So maybe were they planning on meeting aliens at the top of that hill? Maybe the lead masks were designed by them to prevent mind control or telepathic interference from the aliens. Or maybe it was to protect them from the blinding light of a UFO. And without any other theories here that make much sense, I can see why believers would have think that the very strange light scene coming from the top of the hill that evening

31:53 would come from UFOs. Like, what else would these lights come from? Supporting evidence for the UFO theory here includes no sign of trauma on either of their bodies, which is apparently quite typical of alleged UFO/Alien related deaths. There was unusual weather on the day they died. And Vinten Hill had been the site of multiple strange sightings over the previous decade, all very alieny. But I am a chronic skeptic, so I can't say that I particularly lean towards this theory. I find it very hard to sit here and be like, "Yes, aliens were definitely responsible for their deaths. I just can't do it." Do I believe there is alien life out there somewhere in the universe? Yes, of course. I don't believe that humans are the only living things. I don't believe Earth contains the only living things.

32:41 But I also don't believe in aliens in terms of UFOs and abductions and blinding beams of light. And I don't believe in that kind of alien. And so we move on to a more believable story. At least in my eyes, foul play. I am much more inclined to believe that humans are awful rather than aliens. Their very strange actions on the day in question could suggest that they were being manipulated by someone. The fact that there is evidence they hadn't written those instructions that day and they were written by somebody else. Were they being manipulated?

33:14 Did somebody maybe sell them these drugs and then state a scene purposefully to confuse the authorities? I mean, undeniably, this whole scene was so strange. So many of the items found at the top of that hill could have been red herrings just sending the police on a wild goose chase. If there was foul play involved, they really knew exactly what they were doing. But why would somebody want to murder these men? And why would they do it in this specific way? There are so many much easier ways to murder someone if you want to do it. Was this all maybe part of a big cover up? Some people do suggest that this was part of a deeper government plan, that maybe the men had uncovered something in all their spiritual journey or their research, that maybe the government were mad at them for the beach explosion. But there are just still so many unanswered questions because again, if they were responsible for the beach explosion,

34:05 how, why, what was it? I mean, the government theory could explain why the autopsy was so poor though. I suppose if we're if we're going cover up, it's also kind of assumed that because of the whole ingest capsules thing, this was a drug overdose. But maybe we shouldn't run with that theory. There was a big lack of trauma noticeable on the bodies. But that doesn't necessarily rule out things like suffocation, especially if an underqualified person was in charge of the autopsy. We assume drugs. Maybe we shouldn't. The question is, did the men know they were going to die that night? Were they ever intending on continuing on their journey to Sa Paulo or was that just a cover story? What caused the lights that people saw from the top of Vintang Hill? And why had they seemingly been making bombs? Like what did they intend to do with them? I suppose this is a mystery with multiple different questions at the center of it,

35:00 but the two biggest ones are how did they die and why were they on the hill that night? A couple of years later in 1968, efforts were made to actually try and find a cause of death. The bodies were exumed and bones and tissue were collected, sent to the Institute of Atomic Energy of S. Paulo to try and get some answers. However, the results of the analysis were lost in the mail. And when the letter finally arrived with the police, Nero Roy, they had no idea what they were looking at. Eventually though, it was determined that all of the levels, everything tested was absolutely normal. There were no answers. But then in January 1969, something huge happened. A woman came forward and said that she knew who was responsible for the deaths of Manuel and Miguel. She was kept in custody by the police whilst they investigated her claim. And of course, it came to a dead end. But just one month later, a man called Hamilton

35:56 Dani came forward saying that he knew what had happened. Now by this point he was already in prison for a number of other crimes but he was free in August 1966. He said that on the night in question he was invited by three men to take part in a job they had a job in this context of course being a crime. He said that they all met at the spiritism center in Loy when Miguel and Manuel were waiting with three other men. Now, it's probably worth remembering at this point that although the police looked into it, there was never any evidence that the men actually visited the spiritism center on that day. But anyway, Hamilton said he drove these three men and Manuel and Miguel around town until he was told to stop. They all got out whilst Hamilton waited in the car. And then several minutes later, the three men returned without Manuel and Miguel this time. They apparently told Hamilton that they had forced these men to ingest some

36:49 poison and had taken all their money. Now, the police at the time did take the story seriously, but Hamilton's story quickly fell apart under questioning. It was fake. He was lying, of course. Turns out he just wanted an excuse to try and leave the prison to escape, but the opposite happened. Instead, he got done and given more time for giving a false testimony. But 1969 really seemed to be a year of movement in this case. In the July, a well-known criminal in Rio told detectives that he knew the murderers, two men already imprisoned in Sa Paulo.

37:22 They investigated, they found nothing. In the October, a man called Alexandria Montero Selvanetto, a criminal known as Professor Rammanana, made the news as the new number one suspect in this case. He lived very near Vinten Hill at the time of the deaths. And he was also very interested in spiritism. Remember ages ago at the beginning of the episode I said there was a handkerchief found at the scene with the initials AMS embroidered onto it. Yeah, that's his initials. Alexandre had been on the run for a bit and he was a fugitive. It took the police a while to track him down and they said they would eventually reopen the case once this man was arrested, which he was in 1971.

38:06 But then in 72 he escaped and he was recaught again in 73. And by that point, with all the drama, the lead men case was simply forgotten about. It was never reopened like the police promised. And it doesn't really seem like this lead ever came to March. And sadly, that is pretty much where we're at with this story. Not much has happened investigation wise since the 1960s. And this case became something circulated heavily online, pretty much as soon as the internet became a thing. And that leaves a lot of room for speculation and misinformation. I've tried my best to sift through all of that. I went into this case thinking it was going to be a very straightforward, easy case to talk about and just found this massive web to untangle, trying to figure out what is mistransated, what's true, what's not, what's just speculation. I did my best.

38:56 It was complicated. I don't really have any solid theories on my own theory in this case. I do think there being some sort of poison in the capsules makes the most sense as to their death. I think it makes sense that somebody else would have been with them on that hill. I think it's undeniable that they were trying to conduct some sort of experiment or another up there. But other than that, I simply don't know what was going on in this case. I don't know how they would have caused such big explosions, such big light shows. I don't I don't have answers. Nobody does.

39:31 Otherwise, this case might be solved. Like, if you're looking at just them deaths, then yeah, you probably say they ingested a capsule. there was some sort of poison in it. It killed them both very quickly, very easily. But why were they there in the first place? What were they doing? Why did they have the masks? What were the lights? There are still so many questions outside of just what killed them. And I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts about this one in the comments. Did I miss any theories? Did I miss anything really obvious? Like, what do you think could have happened? Thank you so much for tuning in today, and a huge thank you to Solitaire Grand Harvest for sponsoring this video. You can download the game for free using the QR code that's on screen right now or the link in the top line of the description. If you support my sponsors, it means that I can keep making videos and that is a really

40:19 wonderful thing in my opinion. Thank you for watching and I will see you in the next one. Bye guys.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "WHAT happened to the lead mask men? "?

In order: 0:00 Solitaire Grand Harvest, Brazil, Vinton Hill, lead masks; 5:00 capsules, lead masks, electronic equations; 10:00 Miguel Jose Vana, Atapona Beach, Alicia Gomez, Brazil; 20:00 lead masks, scientific spiritualism, Brazil; 25:00 capsules, Brazil; 30:00 capsules, Brazil, lead masks, UFO; 35:00 Alexandre Montero Selvanetto, Hamilton Dani, capsules, spiritualism center; 40:00 Solitaire Grand Harvest.

What is mentioned in this Georgia Marie episode?

21 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Brazil, Miguel Jose Vana, Manuel Pereira Druge, lead masks, Vinton Hill, Rio de Janeiro. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "WHAT happened to the lead mask men? "?

The episode runs 41 min; the transcript is about 7,503 words in 53 timestamped sections.

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