Marco Chereze
Marco Chereze (died 1996) was a Brazilian military police officer who is alleged to have physically handled one of the non-human entities recovered during the 1996 Varginha UFO incident and who subsequently died of a rapidly progressing bacterial infection attributed to that contact. His case is cited by researchers including James Fox as evidence that the recovered beings posed a direct biological hazard to human handlers, analogous to the pathogen-exposure deaths associated with other alleged UFO crash retrieval operations.
The capture
Approximately one to two hours after three young women — Liliane Silva, Valquíria Silva, and Kátia Andrade Xavier — encountered one of the beings in the Jardim Andere neighborhood of Varginha, Brazil, at around 5:00 p.m. on January 20, 1996, military police officers Chereze and Édio Lopes were on patrol in the area, having been directed to look for "something highly unusual." Lopes was at the wheel when the entity crossed the road in front of their vehicle. Chereze exited the car and, without hesitation, physically seized the being with his bare hands and placed it in the back seat of the vehicle.
The entity was then transported first to a local clinic (which refused to treat it), then to the regional hospital, and finally to Humanitas Hospital in Varginha, where it was held overnight in a military vehicle before being transferred to the University of São Paulo (USP) campus at Campinas for examination. According to Fox's research, US Air Force aircraft subsequently flew into Campinas without Brazilian government authorization and transferred the being (or remains) to the United States via helicopter — a sequence corroborated by Brazilian Air Force radar control officer Marco Feres, who came forward publicly for the first time during Fox's 2022 filming of Moment of Contact.
Illness and death
Following the capture, Chereze rapidly developed symptoms his family described as unlike any ordinary illness: he was observed rubbing himself repeatedly with rubbing alcohol, his skin had a greasy quality, and there was a distinctive stench associated with his condition. The infection progressed from the point of contact with the being and was described as bacterial in nature but not consistent with any known locally endemic pathogen. Chereze died within weeks of the incident; he was approximately 23 years old at the time of his death.
The official attribution — an infected cat scratch — is widely considered inadequate by Varginha researchers to explain the speed and unusual character of the infection. Joe Rogan, discussing the case with Fox, summarized its significance: "the fact that one guy handled one of them and got this insane infection and died very quickly afterwards and he was very young and healthy military man" was among the most compelling elements of the entire Varginha case.
Autopsy documentation
Forensic pathologists who conducted the autopsy on Chereze held their findings for nearly three decades before agreeing to come forward. As of Fox's 2023 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, two forensic pathologists who documented the autopsy had agreed to provide long-form autopsy reports and supporting documentation — the first time any medical professional directly involved in the case went on record: "We just got two forensic pathologists for the first time ever working together to come forward and make statements — and they're providing documentation of the autopsy reports done on the deceased military officer." Leslie Kean was engaged to have the autopsy materials professionally translated and reviewed by independent medical experts.
Martha Chereze
Chereze's sister, Martha Chereze, became a key witness and advocate after Fox's team tracked her down by knocking on doors in Varginha. Fox described the encounter: "I said immediately, please translate this — I'm here to give your brother justice. I'm here to get the story out." Martha had previously made limited statements to Brazilian researchers Vitório Pacaccini and A.J. Gevaerd, who conducted the original primary fieldwork in Varginha and compiled witness statements from military and emergency personnel. The Chereze family's consistent testimony, given without financial compensation or public advocacy until tracked down by Fox's team, is considered by researchers one of the stronger indicators of authenticity in the Varginha case.
Édio Lopes
Chereze's patrol partner at the time of the capture, Édio Lopes, survived the incident without comparable illness — a fact researchers attribute to the difference between Chereze's bare-handed contact with the being and Lopes's position in the driver's seat with no direct physical contact. Lopes remained elusive to Fox's investigation for years. As of Fox's 2024 JRE appearance, the key living survivor of the second capture was "Eric Lopes" (likely the same individual), described by Chereze's family as a key witness who had never given a formal statement: "He'd be smoking cigarettes and drinking and getting really nervous and just wouldn't say anything."
Significance
Chereze's death is cited by Varginha researchers as a near-parallel to alleged post-contact fatalities documented in other crash-retrieval contexts: Clifford Stone's accounts of Vietnam-era recovery operations involving beings with anomalous biological characteristics include references to handler fatalities following unprotected physical contact. The pattern — rapid-onset bacterial-type infection not consistent with local pathogens, progressing from contact point to systemic failure within weeks — suggests that the biological chemistry of the recovered beings may be radically incompatible with human immune systems in ways that make unprotected contact acutely lethal.
Brazilian Air Force Brigadier José Carlos Pereira, when secretly asked about the Varginha incident by Fox and his Brazilian collaborator "Marco" (identified in the film), responded only with the words "it happened" before entering his car — a private admission Fox describes as "a personal level of validation that kept us going."