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successful diving. The depth of the water at the spot is 12 feet, but where the water stops the silt begins, and the mud layer on the bottom is about 15 feet thick and is mixed with clay. The disc had struck the top of a palm tree next to Mrs. de Souza's house before it had moved over the river. The police observed that something had freshly gouged a chunk out of the tree about fifteen feet above the ground. Whatever the object's identity, it had been very substantial, heavier than water, and in trouble before it plunged into the river. The incident caused an immediate sensation in Brazil. UFO investigators had waited for years for a saucer to land or crash in order to establish their claims to the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity. The craft had sunk in a river, but it had not fallen on military property. It seemed to be just a matter of recovering it where it had fallen. The first attempt to retrieve the disc was made by a diving instructor, Caetano Germano lovanne, with two companions, Peter Runger and Manoel Batista Andrade. They spent four hours searching the bottom in several efforts, but they were hampered by the mud. Although the exact spot of descent into the river was marked, exactly what had happened to the disc-shaped object once it had passed under the surface was a matter of speculation. One possibility is that it had sunk straight down into the mud and silt layers on the bottom. Yet, if it had not moved immediately into the mud, the current might have pushed the object toward the ocean. It also could have moved under its own power underwater before finally coming to rest on the river bottom. Another attempt to recover the disc was made by a second team of divers led by a man named Gigi del Maschio. Although much special equipment was brought in by the determined group of men, they had as little luck as the first team. Once again the mud on the river bottom was the biggest obstacle to More than one try to find the disc has employed sensitive mine detectors and other probes, in the hope that such metal detectors could penetrate the veil mud coating the river bottom. Yet each attempt has gone unrewarded, and the mystery surrounding the disc that passed under the surface of the Peropava River has become as thick as the mud on the bottom.