🤴🏿 The King’s legacy

In 1996, three sisters from the small Minas Gerais town of Varginha claimed they saw an alien, describing a debilitated brown creature with red eyes and horns. The story gained such nationwide traction that, 30 years on — and despite official inquiries concluding the horned figure was a mentally unstable homeless man known locally as “Mudinho” — the city is known around Brazil as the country’s ET capital.

There are kitschy alien statues all over town, and Varginha’s bus stops (and central water reservoir) are designed to resemble flying saucers. Despite initial unease, the city has fully embraced its supernatural reputation, leveraging it to bring in tourism money.

However, tourists don’t flock to the neighboring municipality of Três Corações — and that is despite the fact that the city gave birth to a real extraterrestrial…

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