Event · 20 January 2026 · National Press Club, Washington, D.C.

James Fox's Varginha press conference at the National Press Club (20 January 2026)

Also known as Varginha press conference, National Press Club Varginha event

A press conference at the National Press Club, broadcast live by NewsNation, at which James Fox presented testimony from his updated documentary Moment of Contact. It was a press event, not a hearing: nothing was said under oath to Congress, and no documents or physical evidence were presented. Brazil's Senator Eduardo Girão attended in a private capacity.

Sources: NewsNation live broadcast (20 January 2026)

Facts and claims

Key moments: Varginha press conference at the National Press Club: James Fox and the Brazilian witnesses (NewsNation live, 20 January 2026)

  1. 31:15 Kirk McConnell: McConnell: as extraordinary as the Varginha witnesses' claims sound, “similar reports” of crash retrievals and the recovery of non-human beings have reached senators and staff in their investigation.
  2. 34:25 Jacques Vallée: In a recorded statement, Jacques Vallée says the database he set up for the DIA-sponsored program at Bigelow Aerospace held “hundreds of reports of creatures live or dead associated with crashed or” landed vehicles, some similar to those described in Varginha.
  3. 43:08 James Fox: Fox: “numerous witnesses reported a cigar- shaped object in distress” that crashed outside Varginha; days later three young women met a creature, and firefighters and military police captured two non-human beings.
  4. 44:00 James Fox: Fox: according to multiple Brazilian officials, the debris and the beings, “likely one still living, were flown out of Brazil within days by US Air Force”.
  5. 46:46 Carlos de Souza: Carlos de Souza, an ultralight pilot and geography teacher, in his first public statement in 26 years: “I witnessed the crash of a non-terrestrial craft on January 13th”, a cigar-shaped object releasing white smoke with a tear down its side.
  6. 52:59 Carlos de Souza: De Souza says that at the crash site, among Army vehicles, a soldier struck him with a rifle and ordered him to leave “or I'll split your skull”, and that two men in suits later threatened him at a petrol station.
  7. 59:59 (Portuguese, recorded in Brazil) Fábio Furtado: in January 1996, at a farm near Três Corações, he and a friend saw a cylindrical object the size of a minibus zig-zag and come down behind a hill; the next day he found a yellowed patch on the ground.
  8. 1:01:06 Liliane Silva: (Portuguese) Liliane Silva, now a pre-school teacher: on Saturday 20 January 1996, at about 3:20 p.m., she saw a short creature with red eyes, brown skin that looked oiled and veins from neck to arm; when it looked at her she felt it was suffering and hiding from someone.
  9. 1:02:43 Kátia Xavier: (Portuguese) Kátia Xavier: she was two metres from the creature, brown with red eyes, oily skin, a large head, three fingers and a big foot; she has never changed a syllable of her account in thirty years.
  10. 1:04:36 Valquíria Silva: (Portuguese) Valquíria Silva: the creature looked as frightened of them as they were of it, brown, with red eyes and a shine on its body as if oiled.
  11. 1:05:27 (Portuguese) Luíza Helena da Silva, the sisters' mother: at the site half an hour later she saw a footprint with three long toes; later four men in black opened a case of money and offered to make the family rich if she had the girls say on TV that they had seen an animal or a sick person. She refused.
  12. 1:08:18 (Portuguese) The director of TV Princesa, a local station, says EsSA soldiers stopped him reaching the site, citing national security, that he heard men in the woods calling to surround something, and that his reporters were warned they would be arrested if they pressed the Army on it.
  13. 1:10:39 (Portuguese) An unnamed former Army soldier says he saw the being through a door at the hospital and drove it from Varginha to Três Corações and on to Campinas, where other soldiers took over, and later heard the Americans had it.
  14. 1:11:49 (Portuguese) Marta, sister of military police officer Marco Eli Chereze: her brother, 23, took part in the capture and died of a cause still undetermined; she asks the authorities to say what happened.
  15. 1:15:40 Armando Fortunato Filho: Forensic examiner Armando Fortunato Filho: he performed the autopsy of the 23-year-old soldier, whose death from what looked like a simple abscess led the military police commander to request an investigation for suspected medical error.
  16. 1:18:39 Armando Fortunato Filho: Fortunato Filho: the infection was caused by “a highly virulent and multi-drugresistant bacterium” that spread through the body and caused septic shock.
  17. 1:22:19 João Baptista Macuco Janini: Pathologist João Baptista Janini, in a statement read for him: the bacterium went beyond a conventional infection, which “raises the hypothesis of its alien origin”; an exhumation for molecular studies is awaited.
  18. 1:55:47 Ítalo Venturelli: Neurosurgeon Ítalo Venturelli: in 2023 he told Fox's team only that he had seen a video of a non-human creature at the hospital on 20 January 1996; a near-fatal heart attack in 2024 moved him to say more.
  19. 1:58:50 Ítalo Venturelli: Venturelli: behind a makeshift partition lay a being like a seven-year-old child, calm and breathing well; “Its eyes were lilac and teardropshaped”, the skin white, the arms very thin, three fingers and an opposing thumb.
  20. 2:07:50 Fred Claussen: Retired USAF Col. Fred Claussen: a fighter pilot with more than 4,000 hours, he says he intercepted a UFO in an F-15 and his gun-camera film was confiscated.
  21. 2:09:16 Fred Claussen: Claussen, relaying a Brazilian air traffic controller: around 20 January 1996 a U.S. Air Force cargo plane, most likely a C-17, entered Brazilian airspace without clearance and landed at Campinas; if true, “30 to 40 Americans had direct knowledge of this flight”.

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