Reports of a mysterious object drew journalists to Conde. The telegram a local reporter sent from there was the only thing the document called newsworthy.
Reports of a mysterious object brought people to Conde, but no one who had seen it could be found. A local reporter sent a telegram from there using an old Morse device.
According to the American consul's report, the journalists and others who came to Conde could not find anyone who had seen it.
A device for sending messages using short and long signals. A local reporter used one to send a telegram to his newspaper.
Reports that a mysterious object had come down near Conde, Brazil, brought journalists to the town to investigate what had happened. But their search turned up no one who had seen the object.
The reports had already spread, yet the American document describes a striking gap: a big newspaper story with no local witness and no reports at the time. Still, one thing from Conde did make the news: a telegram sent by a local reporter.
The American consul in Salvador wrote that the story appeared to have been fabricated in Rio de Janeiro. According to his report, journalists and others hurried to Conde after the reports appeared, but none could find anyone who had seen the object.
Local newspapers had published no accounts at the time the incident supposedly took place. Articles that appeared later did not tell a consistent story. One reported that a Brazilian government ministry denied that a strange object had been in Conde.
An official in the public security services suggested that the object might have been a weather balloon. But no one confirmed seeing one in the area. The consul described the reports as based on a story invented in Rio, not on a firsthand sighting in Conde.
The document does not identify who first published the story or exactly how it spread. It does describe how the reports brought people to Conde, where, according to the consul, the search turned up no witnesses.
A reporter for a local newspaper sent a telegram to his newsroom from the telegraph office in Conde. He used an old Morse device, which sends messages through short and long signals. The reporter wrote that this was the only thing about the affair that was newsworthy.
It is not known who made up the story or what prompted its publication. A weather balloon was mentioned as a possible explanation, but the document contains no confirmation that anyone saw one.
No one found the object described in the reports in Conde. But one telegram did leave the town, and it remains the only tangible trace of the story.