Get ready for one of history’s most bizarre and brutally physical UFO cases. In this episode, we revisit the wild 1954 wave in Venezuela, where a Cuban businessman named Gustavo González attempted—with his bare hands—to kidnap a small, hairy alien from a glowing orb. His plan backfired spectacularly when the three-foot-tall creature threw him 15 feet through the air. Over the next 40 days, multiple independent witnesses encountered the same aggressive, rock-collecting “dwarves”—creatures with rhino-like skin, paralyzing rays, and a surprising vulnerability to thrown stones. Backed by police reports, medical exams, and credible testimonies, this isn't a story of lights in the sky, but of mud, blood, and cosmic indifference. What were they doing here? And what does it mean when the universe responds not with wonder, but with a literal slap? Join us as we explore the case where humanity learned the hard way: don’t grab things you don’t understand.

Kick back, relax.

It's time for the Unconventional ufologist.

Foreign.

Hi, I'm Steve Yarwood, and welcome to the Unconventional Ufologies Podcast.

In this episode, I'm not only digging up a brilliant archival case, but one of my favorite archival cases.

This episode is called the Little Men who Are Definitely Not Asking For Directions or On the Surprising Difficulty of Kidnapping an Extraterrestrial in Venezuela and Other lessons in cosmic impertinence.

1.

A modest proposition Involving hair, rocks and Unlicensed Space travel It's a profoundly underrated feature of the human condition that when faced with something utterly inexplicable, say, a glowing orb hovering six feet above a quiet country road in the dead of night, gently bobbing like a boy in the cosmic bathtub, most people will default to one of two impulses, either a run like hell, or b try to take it home.

Gustavo Gonzalez, a 25 year old Cuban businessman then residing in Venezuela, belonged firmly, if fatefully, to the second camp.

Now, to be fair, Gustavo was not entirely without excuse me, he was by all accounts a serious, hard working man.

Every morning at 2am he and his assistant Jose Ponce, drove their van along Buena Vista Road in Patare, a suburb just outside Caracas, to collect meat from the Industria Nacional de Embutidos ca.

I apologize for the pronunciations.

This was not the life of a man prone to flights of fancy.

Nope, this isn't a metaphor.

He really did it with his bare hands.

He didn't do this because he was drunk.

No, Gustavo acted, one presumes, out of a combination of entrepreneurial spirit, machismo, and that peculiar human conviction that if something small and hairy is standing in the middle of your delivery route, it is probably your problem to solve.

And so he lunged, wrapped his arms around the nearest extraterrestrial and hoisted it off the ground.

At which point the universe, in its infinite and slightly exasperated wisdom, responded with what can only be described as a cosmic face.

Palm 2.

An inventory of things that did not go according to plan.

Now let's mention a few things for clarity's sake.

The assumptions Gustavo likely made in that fateful moment and how each was swiftly and violently disproven.

Assumption number one.

The creature is light, like a child or a small dog.

Reality.

The being weighed approximately 50 kilograms, or 110 pounds.

Dense, muscular and surprisingly heavy for its three foot stature.

Gustavo later described it as solid as a sack of wet cement.

And this is not the weight of a creature that spends its days sipping herbal tea and collecting wildflowers.

This is the weight of something that bench presses boulders for fun.

It'll be docile, perhaps frightened.

Reality.

The alien, hairy, noseless, barefoot, cloaked in what generously might be called a loincloth, reacted with the kind of fury usually reserved for telemarketers who called during dinner.

It broke free with preternatural agility, spun around and delivered a blow so forceful that Gustavo was flung 15ft through the air and onto the pavement.

This was not a slap.

This was not even a punch.

This was the kind of kinetic reprimand that suggests the alien had once taken martial arts lessons from a disgruntled anvil.

Assumption 3.

If worse comes to worst, a knife will do the job.

Reality Gustavo, ever the pragmatist, produced his Boy Scout knife and stabbed the creature in the shoulder.

The blade skittered off its hide like rhinoceros skin, leaving no mark, no blood, no impression whatsoever.

Except perhaps the fate sensed that the alien was mildly insulted by the attempt.

That there is only one of them.

Reality Two more emerged from the shadows, one one clutching dirt, the other brandishing what looked like a flashlight.

And then, perhaps sensing the humans growing panic, a fourth appeared near Jose Ponce, arms full of rocks, eyes gleaming with what can only be interpreted as territorial resolve.

Assumption number five.

They're here to talk.

Reality.

One of them blinded Gustavo with a searing beam of light.

Another zapped Jose with a paralyzing vibration.

They didn't speak, they didn't gesture.

They simply collected soil samples, fought back with terrifying efficiency and retreated into their glowing orb like interstellar commuters who had just realised they'd missed the stop.

In short, Gustavo's plan, which may have involved selling the creature to a carnival, presenting it to the Venezuelan government, or simply keeping it as a very unusual pet, crumbled faster than a stale cracker under the weight of cosmic indifference.

3.

The supporting cast, witnesses, bureaucrats and a very confused doctor.

What makes the November 29th incident particularly compelling, aside from the sheer audacity of trying to shove an alien into a meat van, is the sheer volume of corroborating testimony.

This was not a lone drunk stumbling home and mistaking a raccoon for a Martian.

This was a coordinated multi witness event that rippled through the Caracas valley like a poorly timed fireworks display.

Within minutes of the encounter, Gustavo and Jose arrived at the Petare traffic office, breathless, bruised and babbling about hairy dwarves and flying orbs.

The officers on duty, Manuel Moreno and E. Dominguez, later confirmed that the men were neither intoxicated nor delusional.

They were in fact packed with details that seemed real enough.

Gustavo's left side was bruised and swollen.

An X ray later that afternoon revealed muscular distention, not broken ribs, but enough trauma to suggest he had indeed been launched through the air by something with a serious grievance.

Meanwhile, a lab technician named Dr. Julio Garces reported hearing a scream of terror issued by a squealing voice while nearing near Buena Vista around the same time.

He saw nothing, but the sound alone was enough to make him stop his car in fear.

Further afield, residents described a bluish intense light rising skyward, accompanied by a sharp whistling sound and something resembling an explosion, though no crater, no fire, no debris was ever found.

Mrs. Elsa Dudestat, gardening in Los Palos Grandes, watched the orb descend, change color and vanish.

A son, Rodolfo, swore it was real.

So did a niece, Ursula.

Entire neighborhoods were awake, standing in their yards debating whether this was a secret government weapon, a meteor, or or God forbid, something else.

Even more remarkably, the manager of Shelpa, Antonio Kerce, vouched for Gustavo and Jose's character.

They were reliable, punctual, never late with their pre dawn pickups.

If they said they'd fought off spaves dwarves, well, maybe they had.

This is the point at which most UFO stories dissolve into anecdote, psy and grainy photographs.

4 the sequel Nobody ordered, but the universe delivered anyway.

If this had been an isolated incident, a one off cosmic hiccup, we might chalk it off to mass hysteria, sleep deprivation, or unusually aggressive troupe of howler monkeys.

But the universe, never fond of encards, wasn't done.

Hunters Jesu Gomez and Lorenzo Flores, deep in the woods, stumbled upon the same three foot glowing orb.

Four hairy dwarves emerged and attempted to abduct Gomez Flores, weapon in hand, but Gun not loaded, because of course it wasn't clubbed the creatures with his shotgun.

The weapons shattered on impact.

The aliens, unharmed, fought back briefly, then retreated into their orb and vanished.

Both men returned home torn, scratched and deeply unsettled.

His friends heard a scream.

They found him unconscious, clothes shredded, body marked with scratches.

As they rushed to help, a small hairy figure bolted from the bushes, leaping into a waiting orb and shot in the sky.

Before he could flee, one zapped him with a purple ray that paralyzed him instantly.

When he recovered, the aliens were gone.

But police later found anomalous footprints at the scene and then retroactively unearthed way back seven months.

Emilio Martinez, hunting near Caracas, was chased by two monkey like humanoids.

One tackled him, bitten, scratched him until Martin had struck it with a rock.

The only thing that seemed to hurt them rocks.

It bled, screeched and fled.

Both creatures then beat on his car windshield before he sped away.

This was not a pattern, this was a spree.

5.

The great monkey debate or how to explain the inexplicable with local wildlife.

Naturally, skeptics have had a field day here.

Venezuela has howler monkeys, large, loud, aggressive primates that stand about 3ft tall, sport black or reddish brown fur and are known to attack if provoked.

Could Gustavo have mistaken a foraging monkey for an alien?

Could the glowing orb simply have been headlights reflecting off fog?

Possibly.

But how?

The monkeys do not.

1 operate silent self propelled orbs of light, 2 carry rocks with apparent purpose, 3 wear loincloths, 4 possess rhinoceros hide skin impervious to knives, 5 emit paralyzing rays or blinding beams and 6 vanish into spherical vehicles that ascend vertically at impossible speeds.

Furthermore, the sheer consistency of the descriptions across multiple independent witnesses hairy, noseless, three to four fingers, glowing eyes, barefoot, loincloth clad suggests something more than misidentified fauna.

And the clustering of incidents within a 40 day span or within the Caracas region speaks to either a very localised outbreak of mass delusion or a very localised extraterrestrial field trip.

6.

The folklore angle where myth meets matted hair.

But let us not forget South America's rich tradition of small, hairy forest dwelling humanoids.

Long before UFOs, the region whispered of Tata Duende, Thumbless, mischievous goblin like beings from Mayan and Caribbean folklore.

Known to lure children into the woods.

Alux, tiny elfin guardians of the Yucatan, said to protect sacred spaces and occasionally throw rocks at intruders.

Baklu, a child sized hairy dwarf from Brazilian legend.

Shiru, a 4 to 5 foot tall hairy humanoid from Colombia.

And finally DD Anguayatsi, rock throwing imps from Guyana.

Notice anything?

Small stature, hairy, aggressive, fond of rocks.

No thumbs.

Well, at least reduced digits.

Could these encounters be modern manifestations of ancient cryptid lore projected into the new mythical framework of flying saucers?

Perhaps the human mind seeks patterns and when faced with the incomprehensible, it reaches for the nearest story that fits.

Even if that story involves interdimensional leprechauns.

7.

The cosmic irony of Rock Based defence Perhaps the most delicious detail in this entire saga is the apparent vulnerability of these hyper advanced beings to rocks.

Emilio Martinez struck one with a stone and he bled.

Lorenzo Flores shattered his shotgun on their bodies.

But rocks, blunt and primitive, seem to be the one thing that hurts them.

Meanwhile, they're also seen to be collecting rocks, loading them onto their craft with evident purpose.

It's possible they're not invaders, but scavengers.

Archaeologists, geologists.

Or more alarmingly, are they removing Earth's only natural defense against them?

If that's the case, they're going to need a bigger ship.

Picture it.

An alien species, technologically superior in every way, yet evolutionary vulnerable to silica based blunt trauma.

Their solution?

Quietly remove all loose stones from key landing zones.

A geological disarmament.

It's absurd.

It's brilliant.

And exactly the kind of logistical oversight you'd expect from a civilization that can fold space time but forgets to bring gloves.

7.

Why?

Gustavo's mistake was also humanity's.

Gustavo's fatal error wasn't just grabbing an alien.

It was assuming the universe operates on human terms.

We like to believe that intelligence implies communication, that technology implies benevolence, or at least curiosity.

That small things are harmless but nature by extension the cosmos is under no obligation to be polite.

A scorpion small.

A box jellyfish is elegant.

But neither cares whether you meant well or.

The hairy dwarves of Venezuela exhibit no interest in dialogue.

They don't wave, they don't scan for water, they don't ask us for directions.

They arrive, they collect soil and rocks, they defend themselves with brutal efficiency and then they leave.

They're not here to teach us.

I don't think they're here to conquer us.

They're here to.

Well, do a job, and if you get in the way, they'll punt you across the road.

We're just background noise, wildlife to be avoided, and nuisance near the rock pile.

9 the aftermath Silence, stigma, and national security.

Following the incidents, Venezuelan authorities, specifically national security, reportedly swept the area, questioning residents, searching lots and discouraging public discussion.

Many witnesses stayed silent, fearing ridicule or worse.

The press barely covered it and scientists ignored it.

And so the story faded, passed down in UFO circles, revisited by bloggers, dissected by podcasters, but never integrated into the mainstream.

Why?

Because it doesn't fit.

It's too messy, too physical, too violent.

Most alien encounters involved lights in the sky, missing time, implants, telepathy, clean, clinical, almost sterile.

But this?

There's mud, blood, torn shirts, shattered shotguns, a man getting slapped into next week by a three foot tall space goblin.

It's embarrassing, it's undignified, and Therefore, it's probably true.

10.

A final thought the universe is not your friend, but it is occasionally entertaining.

In the end, the edwarf aliens of Venezuela teach us a simple, almost childlike lesson.

Don't grab things you don't understand.

The universe is full of glowing orbs, whispering forests, and small, hairy beings with unclear motives.

Some of them collect rocks, some of them paralyze joggers.

Some of them vanish into lights that change colour like mood rings.

And while it's tempting deeply humanly tempting to reach out, to touch, to capture, to own, perhaps the wiser course is to sit in your van, roll at the windows, and drive very, very quietly away.

Because the cosmos has a sense of humor, and it finds it hilarious when humans try to put aliens into the back of a meat truck.

Epilogue A Modest Defense of Howler Monkeys.

In fairness to Venezuela's native primates, no howler monkey has ever been credibly accused of operating a spherical ufo, emitting paralyzing rays, or even wearing a loincloth.

They are, however, excellent at making noise, climbing trees, and looking profoundly unimpressed by humanity.

If they were behind this, they'd deserve an Oscar.

But until a howler monkey is caught loading rocks into a glowing orb while wearing a tiny fig leaf with must concede something else was in those woods.

Something small, something hairy, and something that really, really, really didn't appreciate being hugged.

Thanks for listening.

I'm the unconventional ufologist.

See you next time.

You take care.

And remember, keep watching the skies.

Sam.