I recently saw some program about UFOs on Colares Island in Brazil
several decades ago where, unlike other UFO stories, there was
physical evidence of the encounters.  Namely, the beams of radiation
from aircraft above left burns on the victims.  I believe two died
shortly after exposure.  Also, the duration of the sightings is
impressive.  The arbitrariness of the behavior of both the crafts and
alleged beings from them (a colonel claims one hugged him; a woman
claims she was zapped by a radiation gun) suggests a hoax though. 
Could these be flares dropped from planes?  Were people intentionally
burning themselves for attention?  I've searched on explanations for
this (including cross-referencing skeptics like Philip Klass and
CSICOP) but haven't found anything explanatory.  Outside of this
program, the UFOlogy community doesn't say much beyond mentioning the
radiation beams and subsequent deaths, the large number of witnesses
over an extended period of time, and an interview with a retired
colonel who investigated the UFOs.

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Clarification of Question by cwd-ga on 18 Mar 2006 14:16 PST

I didn't really ask a clear question.  My question would be if anyone
can find some explanation or progress in explaining the Colares
events.

Thanks in advance for looking into this.

CWD

The fifties, sixties and seventies produced many thousands of reports
of UFO's  and many of these appeared to defy any simple explanation.

Yet UFO reports in the intervening decades seem to have sharpley diminished.

One explanation is that our alien friends have just got bored with
Planet Earth as a tourist destination and have gone on to more
interesting pastures.

A more mundane explanation is that ALL of these reports could indeed be 
explained as a result of a mis-sighting of natural/man made phenomena
(Bright stars, Planets,sun, moon, strange cloud formations, aircraft,
artificial lights etc.)
or just plain hoaxes invented by people who wanted to cause some mischief.

A truly DIFFICULT case to explain is one where there were a number of
independent witnesses (i.e. people who did not know each other) and
the observations of these witnesses agreed with each other.

Two of the most baffling cases are the Travis Walton Abduction case and
the Barney and Betty Hill abduction case.

However in both these reports there were NO independent witnesses AND
very interesting people in both cases HAD a keen interest in Flying
Saucers
BEFORE reporting the cases.    

Regards

Mongolia