Gnomo. Argentina

OVNIRADIO ICOU

03. The Invaders (Humanoid Case Histories) – “The Lilliputians, Part 1”

Nelson Polanco: Hi there, Luis, how are you?

Luis Burgos: Just fine, Nelson.

NP: I wanted to discuss a very important segment of humanoid case histories with you for some time now. It’s something that caught my attention long ago, and I mean decades. I’m referring to the “mini-classifications”, the ones that you refer to as Lilliputians.

LB: Exactly.

NP: Classifications that differ greatly from the rest, and even differ from Type I, the shortest classification, standing one meter to one meter twenty in height. These are even smaller, and would hardly reach twenty centimeters in height.

LB: Yes, yes, They would constitute a sub-classification under the creatures that stand between eighty centimeters to one meter. It’s interesting to add sub-classifications. Notice that different kinds of humanoid morphologies appear over the decades, in other words, it’s hard to find a classification that’s exactly like another. We always go by a standard – small, medium and tall – to which we then added a fourth, that covers ‘strange beings’, we put them all in the same bag. But now, in this first section, we’ll be setting aside the Lilliputians as a sub-set of Type 1. Agreed?

NP: Yes, absolutely. Matter of fact, with what you’re saying right now, we put a great deal of effort into the classification you’re discussing right now. I was even able to look into some of these cases in person. With your extensive case files on humanoids, how many cases do you have that go back to the 1950s?

LB: It’ll surprise you, but here in Argentina there aren’t that many. We’ve only tabulated eight cases. There aren’t many abroad either. It isn’t a very common classification, but whenever [a case] presents itself, it’s important to take note of it, as it leads to substantial conclusions. Here in Argentina, for example, we have a very first case that goes back to 1968 during the worldwide [UFO flap] that includes Argentina, and the latest case, from around the ‘00s, was referred to me by [UFO researcher] Quique Mario, involving ‘little men’ in a corn field in the vicinity of Macachín in southern La Pampa. The case took place in broad daylight, and a rural worker was startled by activity in the corn field. As he approached, he reportedly saw a bunch of little men, tiny, standing some 20-25 centimeters. Many of them were holding onto the corn, the kernels and the stems. Obviously, seeing this made him feel nervous, he left the place, discussed his experience, some believed him, others didn’t…Quique Mario found him to be highly credible – why would he make up such a tale, when he could’ve conjured up a better one? This was the last case. The first one was in the summer of ’68 in Gualeguay, which we have mentioned in the OVNIS Siglo XXI blog, and whose protagonist was “Teresita”. The witness lives in Buenos Aires, I’m in regular contact with her, and she was 8 years old at the time. She had a playmate, and both girls lived facing the Gualeguay station. One afternoon, playing with rags and dolls, they saw something – over by a puddle, since everything was wet after the rain – standing amid the bushes. They thought it must be some animal, and when Teresita approached the area, she said it was a little doll, but a living doll. We gave him the name “el hombrecito” (The Little Man), the Little Man of Gualeguay. As far as she was concerned it was a living doll. It was naked, with soapy skin, perhaps on account of being wet. She picked it up and was astounded. When she and her little friend headed back to the station – the playmate’s father was the station watchman at the time – the man told her: “no, that’s no little man, that’s something that fell down,” this that and the other, and took it from her. He stole it. [Teresita] was living with her grandparents at the time and she was afraid to tell them about what had happened, out of fear of being scolded. But every time she saw the watchman, she would say to him: “I want my little man back, you stole my little man.” Would you believe, Nelson, there’s no trace of this person? Years ago the two of us tried to find his whereabouts when she returned to her old stomping grounds in Gualeguay. We asked neighbors, and they said he was from the days of the military dictatorship, a very furtive type, a bully, and he stole her little man! It’s a fascinating story, but incomplete, since we don’t know what the he did with that critter, the little man. What strikes her is that there was a shooting range in the background, and she and her friend would gather up the bullet casings left behind. Much later, as a working hypothesis, we wondered if there might have been a tiny spacecraft somewhere that ejected the little man and left him there. A truly astonishing matter, but to this very day – and she’s in her sixties – it’s something that she always reminds me about. Fascinating situation, and it led me to set up the chart for Lilliputian beings.

NP: Such an interesting case, also when considering the amount of detail. It’s important when a witness provides so much detail when humanoid beings are concerned. When we analyze the material, these humanoid beings have something in common. First, they’re all anthropomorphic. There isn’t one with a single arm, for example. They all have two arms, two legs, a spinal column, eyes, mouth…right? Like you said, a little doll. These are very small beings –

LB: You’ll also recall the Puente del Inca photograph from 1969…

NP: Of course, one of the famous cases – one of the most important photos in humanoid case histories.

LB: That case was investigated by Professor Corrado, an old Mendozan researcher. I was in touch with him, as we formed FAECE in 1978, and I remember it very well, as he was heavily involved in that case. He was a relative of Professor Noviltá from Puente del Inca. They made a brief stop one summer afternoon to take a photo, and upon having it developed he managed to see not only a figure standing between 15 and 20 centimeters, but also managed to see some kind of device behind it, could have even been a spaceship. The fact is that the photo became known worldwide.

And that’s how we arrive two years later, Nelson, at a case that will startle you. In 1981, it’s a case investigated by Marcelo Martinich, the ufologist from Santa Fe….

NP: Our fondest regards to dear Marcelo, a great field researcher in southern Santa Fe.

LB: …it was a case that occurred in Arias, in southern Cordoba. At the time, there were many ‘saucer nests’ in Arias, ground effects in the arable land, information provided by a correspondent of ours at the time. The case involved a rural businessman driving a pickup truck along a road. Morning. Broad daylight. He was going past the barbed wire when he saw a landed object only a few meters into the field – an oval-shaped device with a transparent dome. He said it was a glass window with a transparent dome. He figured the device was over two meters in diameter, and had something like two ‘fish fins’ sticking out of its sides.  Interestingly, [the device] flapped these fins all the time.

NP: A highly strange detail.

LB: Very strange! It’s unheard-of. The man approached the object and claims to have seen seven or eight tiny beings. He figured they were 30 centimeters tall, and what he found most striking was that they were naked. Their skin looked like horse skin, horse hide, but completely naked – he was even able to see their penises.

NP: You mean they were naked and had penises?

LB: This man returned to his pickup truck to fetch a hammer with which to smash the glass dome – can you picture the madness? And as he went through the wire fencing to get the hammer, he felt how the object rose into the air behind him. He turned around, the object rose higher and higher, and then vanished. But there’s another major aspect – it left behind a trail of yellow smoke, like sulfur. That’s an aspect that the researcher always stressed. Here we have a band of humanoids, not just one or two.  A band of Lilliputian beings, tiny ones. This case was added not long ago, when Marcelo Martinich told me about it.

NP: So good! What a fine dossier.

LP: The subject of the Lilliputians is mind-bending. In Azul, in 1985, I looked into a case involving a business couple in downtown Azul, right beside a sewer drain. They saw a little male and female figure, wearing military uniforms. A man and a woman, measuring some 20 centimeters, according to the witnesses. What’s more, their hair was light brown, nearly blonde. As they stared at this Lilliputian couple, [the creatures] decided to conceal themselves in one of the drainage holes. They went right into the drains. They crouched a little and crept into the drain. Businesses were open, traffic was flowing, people were walking around, and since the witnesses were known to the greengrocer, they told him what they’d just seen. “Look, you’re not going to believe us, but this this and that just happened to us.”

“I’m going to believe you,” said the greengrocer. “A few years ago, a neighbor lady, who doesn’t live around here anymore, told me the exact same thing.” She had told him exactly the same story.

NP: So it was a recurrent case in that area.

LB: It was indeed a recurrent case. In Azul. That was in the year 1985, Nelson.

NP: 1985, precisely the year of the UFO flap.

LB: That’s right, the beginning of the – this was in the summer of ’85. The flap kicked off in mid-year. And we bring the subject of the Lilliputians to a close with the famous case of the IPEFE hydraulic plant around the year 1990 when a series of sightings were reported in Berisso. We gave them the name ‘las monjitas’ (the Little Nuns). The little nuns of Berisso. The little nuns were not Lilliputians – they measured 80 centimeters. So what happened? Among the swarm of cases we were looking into in Berisso’s Supe district, there was one involving the water plant. An old water plant, dating from the 1900s, where the city of Ensenada and Berisso now stand. Both cities are separated by some fifteen or twenty blocks. The remains of that old plant are still standing. We were doing research and writing articles for some capital area newspapers. Some workers from the navy yards told us that they had been walking along the tracks around ten o’clock in the morning, and they saw what they took to be an imp in the wilderness surrounding the plant. The imp was also dressed in military uniform and stood 30 centimeters tall. Keep the Azul case in mind. It was dressed in that sort of clothing – the difference being that this one was bald and bearded. The creature just looked at the men as if scanning the landscape. When it saw the humans approaching, it did an about face and lost itself in the weeds. According to the witnesses, it went under the power plant.

We ourselves went under the power plant. A dark, damp, place with strange bugs, rats, you name it. And that’s where the story ended. It happened at the same time as the ‘little nuns’ – we were told to go to the abandoned plant to look for them, since a guy riding a bicycle one night had seen them there. This new case just presented itself. So you can see what a fascinating subject this is, these Lilliputians.

NP: Also interesting to see how the witnesses relate it to local folklore, because they automatically say “they’re imps, they’re gnomes” – a notable similarity with old stories of imps and gnomes.

LB: Look at the number of times we’ve been to Punta Piedra, to the “El Descanso” wilderness, where there’s talk not only of UFOs and USOs emerging from the water, strange lights…but also about the famous “forest of the imps” spoken of by so many. We never had the chance to go there and have no witnesses, or we would have added it to the case histories.

NP: The “forest of the imps” is where we always stop when were at El Descanso. The property belongs to the Casteles, and it’s a little forest of scrub vegetation and bushes…

LB: That’s right, there’s a wire fence that leads to another property belonging to the Casteles, and well…the presence of imps is always associated with the UFO subject here. It’s so hard to separate one subject from the other.

NP: Exactly.

LB: There’s a fine thread separating one thing from another.

NP: You’ll remember another famous writer and researcher – Jacques Vallée – who wrote a book called Passport to Magonia, I must have it somewhere, where he discusses the link, the connection, between these imps and gnomes with UFOs and CE-3Ks , and the creatures that we could classify as this new subspecies.

LB: It’s not exactly new, but we’re recovering this classification that was scattered all over books. We can now collect it and feature it as a new UFO classification.

NP: Yes, exactly.

LB: Well, Nelson, let’s close this broadcast and leave room for the next installment. You have two very interesting cases that I’d like to hear about.

NP: Yes, thank you, Luis, Bye.

[Transcription and translation © 2022 Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology, with thanks to Luis Burgos and Nelson Polanco]