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MEXICO
WATCH I
am writing to inform you about what transpired here a few months
ago. Since
April of this year (1999), persistent rumors made the rounds regarding the
fact that a worker at the IMSS (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social--the
hospital at which I work) had discovered a being with uncommon
characteristics. One Sunday during the month of June, this person, whose
name is Jesús Rivas, reported to said hospital bearing with him the
"entity" in question, causing an uproar among physicians, nurses, staff,
etc.. The man had brought the alleged creature to the Emergency Room in
order to have it "examined". The commotion was such that I was called in
along with biologist Arturo del Moral, another person named Daniel Monge
and even TV Azteca to have the situation aired over
television. Fortunately,
I wasn't home at the time and it wasn't until the following day (Monday)
that I received the news. Personally, I believed absolutely nothing about
what I was being told. Three weeks went by until Don Jesús appeared with
the "extraterrestrial" in the department in which I work. We spoke for a
while about how his son had found the being in a coffee plantation not far
from his house and took it. Without any hesitation on his part, he said it
was an "extraterrestrial" and further added that the "being" had so much
energy within it that it was "able to engage in telepathic
communication...". Furthermore, strange sounds could be heard in the
house. Upon
examining it, I found myself looking at a crude foam rubber doll, made of
the same material employed in making balls, certain types of gloves, etc..
Out of sheer courtesy I refused to tell him that it was phoney, but I did
make it clear that it was terrestrial and manmade. In spite of
this, the collective psychosis gripped the hospital in such a way that
many "rationalist" physicians who had always held critical views of the
UFO phenomenon suddenly involved themselves in the event, claiming that
the doll moved, had a light in its chest (sic), was endowed with an aura,
and so forth. We
still don't know who "blew the whistle", as we say in Mexico, but on the
last Monday in June, National Security and Mexico's Interpol agents
descended upon the hospital, interviewing hospital director Dr. Joel Vela
Sáenz and the medical assistant director, Dr. Rubén Torres. Finally they
interviewed the chief of personnel, Dr. Roberto Hernández. After long,
gruelling interviews with these physicians, the agents went out looking
for Jesús Rivas, apprehending him and forcibly removing him to the Centro de Inteligencia del Estado de
Veracruz (CIEV), where he was subjected to interrogation. I reported
to said center to tell them that they were dealing with nothing more than
a foam rubber doll, pure and simple. This apparently settled the
situation, but on subsequent days, I found people with cellular phones
monitoring my arrival and departure from the hospital; my phone calls were
being intercepted and above all, correspondence was being monitored. It
was for this reason that my mail to a number of places was so unreasonably
delayed. Subsequently
[UFO TV personality] Maussán
visited to Jalapa and...headed for Mr. Rivas's house. The latter claimed
that he was offered money and the opportunity to have the entity
"analyzed" to determine its origin. The analyses took place and my
original explanation was confirmed. It was nothing more than a paltry foam
rubber doll. Even so, the public insisted on its strangeness and that's
when contradictory information appeared on the Internet. What is most
humorous about the case is that a doll having the same exact
characteristics and called "Teocelo" was found near Jalapa, and there was
the possibility that other similar ones might appear in other places. At
one point, reporters for the Política newspaper interviewed me,
elaborating on the points discussed earlier in this letter. This led to
controversy and bad feelings among Mr. Rivas's family. The reporters still
consider this case to be "open" (open, but to
what?). In
short, I am sending you some documentation on the case as well as photos
of the corpus delicti. Your
comments on this are always welcome. [It
is worth noting that Dr. Lara's correspondence is apparently still under
surveillance: his envelope arrived in the U.S. opened with a sharp
instrument on two sides and the photographs had been
removed--Ed.] |