Welcome to the second episode of season one of Learn with Me. Over the remaining six episodes, we will be talking about mysterious disappearances in history. Some you may have heard of, some you will be hearing about for the first time, but either way, I assure you that you will be captivated by these stories.
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Voló como Matías Pérez
That’s a phrase that every Cuban child learns when an object or a person disappears. Translated into English, this popular saying means “Flew like Matías Pérez.” I remember hearing this phrase often as a little kid.
The question you may be asking yourself is, “who in the world is Matías Pérez?” I certainly asked that question when I first heard of this popular refrain.
Before the Wright brothers took flight on their Kitty Hawk Flyer, the desire to conquer the skies had been a burning one in the mind of our species. By 1856, when the subject of our story disappears, manned hot-air balloons had been around for nearly 75 years.
Pérez, a Portuguese-born businessman had immigrated to Havana and started a business selling canopies and awnings. However, his real passion was for flying. Unfortunately, not much is known about his life. No one really knows when he was born, or where exactly in Portugal. However, as I mentioned earlier, we do know when he disappeared.
Before his infamous flight, Matías Pérez had successfully attempted an earlier one, where he safely explored Havana for a few miles and landed without issues. In preparation for his second flight, he bought a hot air balloon from notable French pilot Eugène Godard. Godard gained popularity in 1850 after constructing and flying his balloon Ville de París, from Paris, France, to Gits, Belgium. That’s a distance of over 172 miles!
Pérez’s balloon was also called Ville de París, but no one knows whether it was this same balloon or if it was just named the same as an homage of sorts.
On July 28th, 1856, Matías Pérez had gathered a crowd of thousands, including the Captain General of Cuba (A Spanish appointed leader). Despite the fanfare, the weather was unfavorable and only kept getting worse as the un began to set. Pérez should have postponed the flight, but possibly the pressure from the crowd who had been waiting for hours to see the spectacle got to him. Shortly after 7 p.m., Pérez’s balloon took off.
He headed north-west, passing by a local garrison and then headed out over the sea. He was never seen again. He vanished into thin air and almost instantly became part of Cuba’s folklore.
No one really knows what Matías Pérez looked like, but a Cuban illustrator let his imagination run wild and in a series of comics, Pérez ended up flying into outer space and being recruited by friendly aliens to fight an evil empire.
I remember reading one of those comic books as a kid and being fascinated by them. “Could a hot air balloon really go to space?” I asked my dad, who promptly told me this was impossible. Still, for a while I secretly believe that Matías Pérez was somewhere out there fighting evil aliens and protecting the Earth.
I had a pretty vivid imagination as a kid and I loved reading science fiction.
I actually found a website that has an entire comic book digitized. That’s quite a surprising throwback for me. It’s in Spanish. But even if you don’t understand the language, you could probably still understand a lot of what’s going on due to the illustrations. Check out the cover below!
You can find the whole thing here.
Although this wasn’t your typical mystery, like the one I shared last week, I hope it was still fascinating in its own right.
Stay tuned for more mysteries this season. Thanks for reading.