ATLAS OF REMOTE ISLANDS
Trindade

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Trindade and Martim Vaz (Brazil)

Atlantic Ocean

59° 27' S | 27° 18' W

PORTUGUESE Ilha da Trindade ['Trinity Island']

10 km² | 32 residents

THIS PLACE is a topographical disaster. Everything has been arbitrarily hurled into the ocean; the ground is rutted, downward sloping and hostile. Over and over again, someone out on a walk disappears without trace – washed away by waves several metres high, buried alive by a landslide or swallowed up by a crater. In the cemetery, crosses without graves stand memorial to those who have disappeared. // At midday on 6 January 1958, shortly before the research vessel Almirante Saldanha weighs anchor, Almiro Barauna, one of the civilians on board, is taking a few more photographs of the south coast of Trindade, when, at fifteen minutes past twelve, a brightly lit object appears in the sky, moving towards the island, heading for Ponta Crista de Galo in bat-like, wave-motion flight. // The flying disc has a metallic glint and is surrounded by a greenish phosphorescent mist.In uproar, the officers and sailors on deck point at the glittering object. Thirty seconds pass before Barauna finally takes up his camera, looks through the viewfinder and presses the button twice; then the object dips behind the peak of Pico Desejado. A couple of seconds later, the flying object, which has clearly flown in a loop, is visible again. It seems nearer than before, and larger. All is confusion on the navigation bridge. Barauna stumbles in the mêlée, but takes four more photographs before, approximately ten seconds later, the mysterious object disappears into a distant bank of clouds, for ever this time. // Barauna's photographs are overexposed. Four of the six photos show the unknown object in different flying positions. With a ring round its middle, it looks like Saturn pressed flat. Two of his shots have fallen victim to the tumult on board: they show nothing but a slant of rail-ing, water and the dark rock of a coast that rises from the sea in rigid points, alien and sinister, as if from another world.