KEY FACTS
- Case: The Lead Masks Case / Caso das Máscaras de Chumbo
- Location: Morro do Vintém, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil
- Date: August 1966
- Discovery: the bodies of two men found on an isolated hillside
- Central mystery: handmade eye shields and a note setting out an unexplained procedure
Two Men on a Hillside
In August 1966, two men travelled to Niterói, across the bay from Rio de Janeiro. Days later, police were told that two bodies lay high on Morro do Vintém. The hillside was difficult to reach. When officers finally climbed it, they found no obvious sign of a struggle and nobody who could explain the men’s final hours.
The objects recovered with them suggested that this had been a planned journey. There were papers, a bottle and two handmade pieces of lead. A short note set out times and instructions. Taken together, these things pointed towards a procedure — and towards something the men expected to happen on the hill.
Related Reports
See also USS Cyclops, The Flannan Isles Lighthouse Mystery and the Archive’s other Unexplained Events.
THE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES
What were the men expecting on Vintém Hill?
The full dossier follows the last journey, examines the notes and handmade equipment, and weighs the surviving police reports against the story that grew around them. The Archive Vault opens a closer reading of the evidence and its unresolved questions.
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