The man who loves flying saucers
Searching for great things among the stars
47-year-old Alfredo is a pure Paulista, or inhabitant of Sao Paolo, the economic capital of the Brazilian federation. Alfredo really loves the mixing of people, ideas and opinions, which is like the DNA of the city. “I love my city, Paulistas are very open-minded people. But the city has expanded so much the last few years that the population has doubled and transportation has become a nightmare any which way you move. That's why I chose to live in a little city in the countryside, close to the office or the airport, which is convenient for me.”
Of his childhood, he mostly remembers the great times his family had staying home or travelling around “Brazil, our so big country”. Above all, he cherishes the holidays memories of Christmas breaks they spent with relatives living in Uruguay. “I had a happy youth. My most lasting memories are the night gatherings under the starry sky out in the nature during the Christmases we spent with my parents. We would sit on the ground for hours watching the stars or telling legends and stories; my Grandpa used to say that looking at the sky is another way of looking at the ground, a way to see the big things around us.” And he definitely committed to connecting with big things.
There are 400 billion stars ( only in our Galaxy ) with maybe nine planets in orbit for each of every one of them, so about 3,6 trillion planets; to me it is evident that there is life up there. The real question is: is there intelligent life?
Psycho-marketing
After high school, he went to study psychology at university, but quit after four years without graduating and without any regrets. “With time, I understood that psychology as a science was not relevant to me. Psychology tries to define people through behaviors and claims to help understand what constitutes people; to me, this is an impossible task. Each human being is unique, some basic psychological understanding is useful, but it is not right to stick to it no matter what. So, I choose to live my life and went into marketing.”
So, with a degree in marketing, he was recruited by Arkema in 2014 and was quickly promoted to National Sales Manager at Bostik in Brazil. His success owes for a part to his psychology awareness and his studies have in fact set him in good stead, as he learns every day from people he meets in his job. “You can learn from anything, from people, business or from the stars”, he resumes.
As National Sales Manager, he spends the vast majority of his working time travelling throughout the states of this gigantic country. So, after spending Monday at the office planning and coordinating sales operations all over the country, he spends Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in planes travelling to visit contacts, supervise action and solve different concerns with local teams. On Friday he is back in the office to debrief the past week in meetings. “I have a very dynamic work schedule” he says.
Alfredo is very dedicated to his job. Could had it been in a different industry to chemicals? “Yes, I would have done this work anywhere but the chemical industry is very attractive to me, it is really amazing to see the ever-mutating complexity of different products, technologies, fixing problems with people. Working in chemicals is definitely very exciting.”
Ufology as a serious matter
And what about UFOs? Questioning the probability of an outer space life came far later than Christmas evenings under the Uruguay skies. It is the logical conclusion of a rational mind: “There are 400 billion stars ( only in our Galaxy ) with maybe nine planets in orbit for each of every one of them, so about 3,6 trillion planets; to me it is evident that there is life up there. The real question is: is there intelligent life?"
Alfredo is fond of space and what might be living out there but the path he chose could not be more rational. “Some might easily mix all the information about UFOs, religion or spirits, saying for instance that spirits are extra-terrestrial beings from other dimension. That is not my way. I chose to use scientific methods”, he argues. “I am a member of a group of scientists from various fields and amateurs; we focus on aerial phenomenon of undefined origin for instance a 300-years-old testimony about flying objects that could be UFOs. To answer the question, we use a lot of scientific criteria.”
Today, Ufology is very popular with the internet, social networks, TV shows. To Alfredo, media prepare people for astonishing revelation as it happened recently with the release of US Navy footage showing an unidentified flying object in 2019. “Maybe we would know in ten years' time that we have had discovered some bacteria, or some animal suspected to be related to aliens.”
Outer space may provide the conditions for alien life; for humankind, on the contrary, it is a new dimension to discover. The idea of journeying to Mars thrills him and he likes to quote Robert Bigelow: “He is the CEO of Bigelow Aerospace, a company working with NASA to create conapts for living on Mars. Bigelow has the strong conviction that we will get there one day and, in the meanwhile, he firmly believes that aliens are already living among us on planet Earth.”
So, if one day mankind lifts off to Mars, Alfredo would be delighted for Arkema and Bostik to be involved in the adventure. “Imagine, we would need new technologies, including chemicals. I have no doubts that the Arkema group would work on them and it would be my greatest honor to sell them.” Make a wish upon a shooting star. But hey, is it a star or…
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