Saul Janusas, an electrical engineer from Sea Cliff, New York, was in Brazil on business in June 1978. After completing work at the International Airport of Rio de Janeiro, he caught the 5:00 p.m. Paranapuan Bus Company bus to Copacabana. Approximately one mile out from the airport, Janusas observed an object through the bus window at approximately 10° to 15° toward his front from an imaginary line perpendicular to the broadside of the bus.
Not believing what he saw, Janusas reached for his camera and captured a photograph. He estimates that approximately 20 seconds elapsed while he changed film frames and reoriented the camera on the object before taking a second photograph. Almost immediately after the second frame was taken, the bus made a right turn, which caused the object to be obscured from view.
After completing work at the International Airport of Rio De Janeiro that day of June 20 or 21, 1978, Mr. Janusas caught the 5 p.m. bus to Copacabana for home. About a mile out from the airport Mr. Janusas observed an object through the bus window at approximately 10° to 15° toward his front. Not believing what he saw, Mr. Janusas grabbed for his camera and snapped a picture. Mr. Janusas estimates that the time to change frames and reorient the camera on the object took about 20 seconds before the second picture was taken.
— Saul Janusas, witness account · APRO Bulletin, November 1978The Saturn-shaped profile of the object — distinguished by its flattened disc body with a ring through the midsection — is identical in morphology to the object photographed by Almiro Baraúna at Trindade Island in January 1958, and to the object photographed by Joshua da Silva near Passo Fundo, Brazil in May 1976. The APRO Bulletin noted explicitly: "It is interesting to note how closely the Janusas and da Silva photos resemble the Trindade photos of 1957." Janusas himself suspected that the second photograph may have captured a second object, as he had briefly taken his eyes off the object while changing frames.
Whether any other passengers on the bus observed the object is not known. Janusas noted that the few other passengers on the bus at the time were Portuguese-speaking, which caused him to refrain from alerting anyone else to the sighting at the time.
The photographs were forwarded to the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), where they were reviewed and published in the November 1978 APRO Bulletin. The report was compiled by Sal Giamusso of New York, who interviewed the principal witness. The photographs were included as part of a broader analysis of two Saturn-shaped objects photographed in Brazil within two years of each other — the Janusas photographs from Rio de Janeiro and the da Silva photographs from Passo Fundo — alongside the historical benchmark of the Trindade Island photographs of 1957.
The APRO Bulletin noted the striking morphological similarity between the object in the Janusas photographs and the Saturn-shaped discs documented at Trindade (1958) and Passo Fundo (1976). This convergence — the same specific object profile appearing in three independent photograph sequences across three different locations and spanning two decades — represents one of the most structurally significant patterns in the Brazilian UFO photograph record.
Three independent photograph sequences, three witnesses, two decades, one morphology. The Saturn-shaped disc profile — a flattened disc with a ring through the midsection — appears consistently across:
1. Trindade Island, January 16, 1958 — Almiro Baraúna photographed a Saturn-shaped metallic disc over the South Atlantic. 48 witnesses aboard the Almirante Saldanha. Brazilian Navy authentication; Ground Saucer Watch (1978) unanimous authentication.
2. Passo Fundo, Brazil, May 12, 1976 — Joshua da Silva and Gesareo Goncalves photographed a Saturn-shaped disc near Jacui River. Object estimated 6-8 meters in diameter. El Globo technicians found no evidence of hoax.
3. Rio de Janeiro, June 1978 — Saul Janusas photographed a Saturn-shaped disc from a bus near Rio de Janeiro International Airport. Two photographs, 20 seconds apart.
Three independent witnesses in different locations, two decades apart, producing photograph sequences with identical object morphology — a convergence that cannot be readily explained by coincidence or common misidentification of any known aerial phenomenon.
The Janusas photographs from Rio de Janeiro, June 1978, represent one of three documented Saturn-shaped disc photograph sequences from Brazil spanning 1958 to 1978. The morphological consistency across all three cases — independently documented, by witnesses with no connection to each other, in different locations, and separated by two decades — is among the most significant structural patterns in the global civilian UFO photograph record.
The object profile is distinctive and specific: a flattened disc body with a ring through the midsection, resembling the planet Saturn in silhouette. This is not a common misidentification profile — lenticular clouds, conventional aircraft, and weather balloons do not produce this morphology consistently across multiple independent photographs. The convergence of three such sequences in the same geographic region across two decades is a pattern that warrants systematic analytical attention that it has not yet received.
No conventional explanation has been advanced in the peer-reviewed literature for the specific Saturn-shaped disc morphology that recurs across these three Brazilian photograph sequences. The APRO Bulletin's documentation of the pattern, and the Ground Saucer Watch's authentication of the Trindade photographs, together establish that at least one of these three sequences represents a genuine unidentified aerial phenomenon — which, given the morphological identity across all three, substantially strengthens the evidentiary weight of the other two.
- Q.01Was there a second object in the second photograph, as Janusas suspected? He noted that he briefly took his eyes off the first object while changing film frames, raising the possibility that the second photograph captured a second object appearing at a different position in the sky. Analysis of the original negatives would help clarify this question.
- Q.02Are the original negatives or transparencies from the Janusas sighting preserved, and could they be subjected to modern digital scanning and photogrammetric analysis? High-resolution digital analysis would permit more precise estimation of the object's distance, size, and flight characteristics than was possible in 1978.
- Q.03What is the specific physical mechanism that produces the Saturn-shaped disc profile across three independent cases in the same geographic region? No conventional aerial phenomenon consistently produces this specific morphology, and no propulsion system known to 1978 aerospace technology would produce this configuration. The recurrence of this specific morphology across two decades of Brazilian sightings suggests a consistent object class warranting dedicated analytical treatment.
- Q.04Were there any other sightings of Saturn-shaped discs in Brazil or the broader South American region during the 1958-1978 period that did not result in photographic evidence? The three known photograph sequences may represent the visible fraction of a more continuous phenomenon whose full extent is undocumented.
The Janusas photographs are one of three documented Saturn-shaped disc photograph sequences from Brazil spanning 1958 to 1978. All three cases share identical object morphology — a flattened disc body with a ring through the midsection — across different witnesses, locations, and two decades. The APRO Bulletin noted explicitly that the Janusas and da Silva photographs "closely resemble the Trindade photos of 1957."