Wait for the Signal

The note was short. No explanation. No names. No warning.

Just a sequence of instructions.

Investigators found it among the belongings at the scene. Written in Portuguese, it appeared to lay out a schedule—two specific times followed by a series of commands.

The first time was 16:30.

The second was 18:30.

And what the men were instructed to do next turned an already bizarre death scene into something else entirely.

Read those instructions again.

At 16:30, they were supposed to be at a predetermined location.

At 18:30, they were supposed to ingest capsules.

Whatever was inside those capsules, the note anticipated an “effect.”

Then came the instructions involving metal, a signal, and a mask.

Now look back at the scene.

The men were found on the hill with lead masks made specifically to cover their eyes.

That means the note and the objects beside their bodies were not simply two strange details discovered in the same place. At minimum, the word “mask” in the instructions existed alongside actual masks the men had brought with them.

But the note never says what the capsules contained.

It never identifies the signal.

It never explains what the metal was supposed to be protected from.

And it never says who—or what—they expected the signal to come from.

The obvious question was poison.

If the men followed the note, they may have swallowed something at 18:30. If that substance killed them, toxicology should have been one of the best chances investigators had of identifying it.

That chance was compromised.

The original autopsies did not establish a cause of death. Years later, authorities interviewed about the case said the crucial toxicological examination had not been performed in time because the internal organs had deteriorated at the forensic institute.

The bodies were eventually exhumed in 1967 and additional examinations were performed. But by then, investigators were trying to answer a chemical question with evidence that had already been badly degraded.

The result was devastatingly simple:

No established cause of death.

And no definitive answer to the question sitting inside that handwritten instruction:

What was in the capsules?

The capsules were only one part of the instructions.

Because after whatever “effect” the men expected came another command:

Wait for the signal.

That raises a different question.

A signal from whom?

Miguel and Manoel were not simply men who repaired televisions.

They worked with electronics, transmitters and television signal equipment. But according to accounts gathered after their deaths, their interest in signals extended beyond ordinary electronics.

They had become involved in experiments that mixed electronics with Spiritist ideas.

Months before the deaths, Manoel conducted a strange experiment in the yard of his home. It involved a homemade device and an explosive charge. The resulting blast frightened the neighborhood.

This was not internet folklore created decades later. Manoel's father spoke about his son's experiments, and Brazilian television's later investigation of the case also documented the earlier explosion.

Whatever Miguel and Manoel believed they were doing, the trip to Morro do Vintém was not the first time experimentation, electronics and unusual phenomena had intersected in their lives.

And the backyard was only the beginning.

Two months before Miguel and Manoel were found dead, another experiment shook the region.

On June 13, 1966, a powerful explosion occurred near the beach at Atafona, outside Campos. Miguel, Manoel and other men connected to their circle were later associated with the event.

The blast was powerful enough to alarm local residents. A police investigator in São João da Barra reportedly felt the building shake and went to investigate.

Near the beach, he found something strange.

A mark had been left in the sand. There was also a strong smell described as sulfur.

Whatever the group had been attempting, this was no quiet séance conducted around a table.

Something had exploded.

And according to the surviving accounts, Miguel and Manoel were connected to it only two months before they climbed Morro do Vintém carrying lead masks and instructions to wait for a signal.

After the Atafona explosion, stories began circulating about what had happened near the water.

Some accounts claimed that a strange luminous object had been seen in the area. Other versions went further, eventually connecting the incident to a supposed unidentified object over the sea.

Those claims are not established with the same certainty as the explosion itself.

And that distinction matters.

There was an explosion.

Miguel and Manoel were associated with the group conducting unusual experiments.

Two months later, they traveled to Morro do Vintém.

They carried lead masks.

Their note instructed them to ingest capsules.

And then:

Wait for the signal.

Whatever they believed that signal would be, the evidence suggests the men arrived on that hill expecting something to happen.

And there was another detail investigators couldn't ignore.

Put the pieces together.

Miguel and Manoel were electronics technicians with an interest in unusual experiments.

Two months before their deaths, they were connected to an experiment at Atafona that ended in an explosion.

Around that period, unregistered radio transmissions were detected in the area.

Then, on August 17, the two men traveled to Niterói.

They climbed Morro do Vintém carrying lead masks.

They brought instructions containing two specific times.

16:30 — be at the designated location.

18:30 — ingest the capsules.

Then came the effect.

The metals.

The mask.

And the instruction that refuses to disappear:

WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL.

There is no evidence proving that the unauthorized radio transmissions at Atafona were the signal mentioned in the note. There is no proof that the reported lights were connected to what happened on Morro do Vintém either.

But there is something harder to dismiss.

Miguel and Manoel did not arrive on that hill behaving like men who expected nothing to happen.

They arrived with equipment.

They arrived with instructions.

They arrived on a schedule.

And whatever they expected at the end of that schedule...

they were prepared to cover their eyes for it.