What Happened in Paciência? On most mornings, at 2 AM to be exact, Antonio La Rubia wakes up, brushes his teeth, showers, packs a bag, and leaves for work. A routine, it always takes at least 15 minutes, but never more than 20. Antonio was a bus driver in Paciência, Rio de Janeiro; his work day started early and required he take a bus to get to his own. Each work day, he walked from his home, down a road, a aside a stretch of field. Today, though, he stopped at its grassy edge in awe. From above, looking out over the field, he saw something confusing: a large, metallic object. At first, he thought it was the bus he took each day, but it was clearly not. The dull lead colored thing was far too large, first of all, and was was shaped like a hat. It had three points, the tallest in the center, and was round at its base. Staring at it, he estimated it was over 230 feet long, outsizing even the field it sat in. Though he didn’t believe in aliens or UFOs, the thought crossed his mind. He turned and started to run… but his legs wouldn’t work. He was frozen in place.

A bright light burned behind him, bathing everything in blue. Suddenly, three robot-like beings appeared out of nowhere. They were not stereotypical robots, but something much stranger. They had small, metallic heads shaped like an American football balanced on its end. Wrapped around the middle, like a strip of film, were a series of light blue, rounded square mirrors. Those facing him were a darker, more vibrant hue; the squares dimmed and lit up as they circled him, watched him. Extending from the top of the head was a long antenna. It was nearly as tall as the rest of the creature, stretching 3 feet or so above Antonio. Minus the antenna, they were rather short: only 4 feet tall.

The aluminum creatures had no neck; their head was plugged directly into a wide, robust torso. On each side was an arm-like appendage. It was not like a human’s arm, but an elephant’s trunk. The limb was thick at its base, tapering down to a single, rounded, finger-like digit. Its body and arms were composed of a kind of skin that resembled rough scales. It gave the creatures a reptilian rather than an armored appearance. Snug around its middle was a thick belt; hung on hooks all around it were squat, sharp syringes. While the entity in general was strangest, the oddest part was its legs and feet, or, more aptly, its lack of them. The beings’ oversized body was plopped atop a metal pole that ended in a flat-bottomed, UFO-like disc; it looked like a ship or diner’s stationary bar stool with a hefty bag balanced on the cushion. He thought the robots may have been sitting on some sort of floating object, but the pedestal was its lower half.

One on each side and one facing him, the robots stilled, watchful. Surprisingly, Antonio didn’t feel fear, but nervousness. He tried to move once more, but could only swing his arms around wildly. In his struggle, he discovered he was trapped in an invisible bell or jar. One of the robots held up a syringe and pointed it at Antonio. Against his will, he could feel his legs tuning and walking towards the UFO. The light beaming at him grew brighter and brighter until he felt the ground or his body shiver and realized he was no longer outside. Somehow, like the robots’ appearance before him, he had teleported inside the ship.

Antonio was facing a wall; to his left and right were long, aluminum hallways. It was harder to breathe here. The air felt thick, heavy. Two of the robots floated left, the other right. Unable to move anything but his arms and head again, he looked behind him and stared in amazement. The outer hull of the ship was completely see through. As he peered out at the field, he felt the floor rumble under his feet and a force pushing down on him. The ship was lifting off. The field grew smaller and he passed his house and other recognizable landmarks. They were taking him north.

A blue light turned on above him. Coming from the ceiling, it was a bright and vibrant blue, like the robots’ activated eyes. As the light reached him, though, it paled, eventually blending into the gray corridor. Looking up, he stood in front of twenty four robots; he was no longer in the hallway, but in a much larger, round room. Half of the entities were to Antonio’s left, the other half to his right, making him feel like a teacher addressing a class. He felt his vocal cords loosen and he immediately screamed, “What do you want? Who are you?” The beings fell to the ground, as if stunned. As he wondered if he had disabled them with his voice, the light above him turned on. This time, however, he couldn’t see at all, blinded by bright white.

Several seconds passed. While Antonio couldn’t make out anything in the light, he could make out sounds: strange, unnatural, breathy sighs, like a cycling mechanical pump. His sight slowly returned and he spotted several of the creatures. He released more shouts, but they did not fall backwards and incapacitated this time. Instead, each raised a tentacle-arm up to grab the top of their antenna; at the top, a small orb had been spinning so fast it has been imperceptible. With the antenna top stopped, it looked like a ridiculously long, tiny spoon.

Antonio could no longer move his arms. He frantically turned his head, assessing this new location. The room was barren except for a single object that resembled a piano. The box was 4 feet tall, 6 feet wide, and stood on two legs. On the side facing him, the box had a series of blocks that looked just like piano keys. On top of the box, there was an antenna on each end and a thin, empty, metal can; a hole, it led inside the box. The eleven robots gathered close and faced the wall opposite the box and Antonio, their dark blue eye fixated. One of the beings pulled a syringe from its belt and injected its contents into the hollow can. Then, it pressed down on one of the piano keys and a tone sounded.

On the wall appeared a video. It was in high definition and vibrantly colored, but there was no sound. The video was filming Antonio from above, inside a gray, white, and blue room he didn’t recognize. Floating in the air, or maybe stretched across an invisible table, he was naked and angrily flailing his arms around. His legs were perfectly motionless and straight. A robot bent over him on each side, inspecting his head and chest. They both flipped on something in their limbs and the room glowed blue. One held a bright-blue laser pointer, directing the beam across his body. The second held a soft blue light and focused on his head. The video stopped and the wall was a blank, gray slate.

A second robot walked forward, injecting a new syringe. This one produced another video of Antonio. This time, he stood naked and motionless in a hallway. The only movement was the blinking of his eyes; he did not seem conscious. Only a few seconds long, another robot began the next.

In this one, a robot approached his comatose body and Antonio’s eyes came to life, looking around frightfully. The creature pulled a syringe from its belt, passing it to its other limb. The syringe’s tip began to rotate, spinning so fast, you couldn’t tell it was moving. The robot pointed at Antonio with it and he outstretched one arm towards it, hand spread. The needle was plunged into his middle finger, filling up with bright red blood. After, the robot pointed at a picture on the neighboring wall and then drew 3 circles with his blood. The video ended after it drew an ‘L’-shaped mark that bisected all three shapes.

Another robot, another syringe, another video. Antonio, dressed this time, carrying his work bag nervously. His teeth chattered and he anxiously swung run arm back and forth. Falling to a fetal position, he vomited and defecated on himself, sweating profusely. Smoke puffed from his back. Next, a horse-drawn cart pulling an unknown man across an unfamiliar dirt road; the stranger wore a straw hat, a torn shirt, but no shoes. Then, Anotonio standing next to a wavering ball of orange light. Almost mirroring the former, a blue ball of light wavered next to a still robot. A new one, an agitated dog baring its fangs; frothy lipped, it barked and snapped at a robot that watched it just out of reach. After a fifth bark, the robot melted from top to bottom, like porridge falling from a bowl. Next, a hangar of some sort; three rows of UFOs were visible, some nearly finished, others only the crafts’ skeleton. Millions of the robots milled about. Again, a new one, this time an old, beaten down, and weathered Japansese bullet train; dented, paint chipped, and devoid of windows, it roughly traversed the rails and disappeared into a tunnel. The final display, the eleventh robot, the eleventh syringe, the eleventh video took place in Avenida Presidente Vargas, one of Rio de Janeiro’s busiest roads. It focused on a traffic jam, a multitude of cars.

Suddenly, he was no longer in the piano-box room but outside on his hands and knees. He had been thrown from the ship. One of the robots stood next to him; on his other side was his bag, which they must have grabbed when he first came face to face with them. He looked up and saw a shadowy object; it didn’t look like the ship, it looked like the bottom of a massive balloon, but he knew it was. It floated up in the sky, growing smaller and smaller in size. He looked to his left. The being was gone. He looked up. The UFO was also gone. He looked down at his watch. It read 2:20 AM… but it couldn't be correct. He held it up to his ear and watched it; it was still working.

Grabbing his bag, he stood and looked around. Only one other person was there on this street this early and it was someone he recognized. The town drunk stared, dumbfounded. Running, he jumped a street over and made it to Paciência Station. Asking the clerk for the date and time, it was only 2:55 AM on September 15, 1977–the same morning he woke up what felt like days ago. He could still catch his 3:10 bus and arrive on time.

As the day passed, he grew more and more ill. Nervous, feverish, archy, naseaus, pained, he pushed through his shift. As he drove, his vision occasionally darkened or went away, but he safely ran his routes, regardless. His symptoms persisted all day and the next. Then, they grew worse. It dawned on him that parts of the videos played by the piano-box had come to life. Was it telling his future? 

Friday night, he went home. Instead of telling his wife what had happened, he went to bed. He slept fitfully and suffered extreme stomach aches and diarrhea. Saturday and Sunday were even worse; he called off work. An excruciating, hot, burning sensation ravaged his entire body; pleading for relief, his wife rubbed alcohol onto his skin, which helped a little.

Monday morning, he felt no better. He showed up to work even more visibly ill, a sickly shade of green. He itched, burned, and struggled to breath air that seemed to grow thicker each day. Before he quit, he asked a coworker to spray him with the water hose.

Antonio’s condition didn’t improve for 33 days. He described it as not only painful, awful, and uncomfortable, but like walking through a cloud. A severe emptiness had overwhelmed him. Taken to a clinic, he refused a tranquilizer to ease his pain and help him rest. When he began to talk of UFOs and his abduction, they restrained and strapped him to a bed, fearing he was having a psychological breakdown. Antonio’s 103 degree Farenheight fever was soon brought down, but doctors could not find cause for his illness and he was never given a reasonable explanation.