Jaime Rodríguez

Jaime Eduardo Rodríguez Tanguay is an Ecuadorian ufólogo, journalist and TV presenter, born in Cuenca. His birth year is not given in the sources reviewed. He is one of the country's most visible UFO researchers, and his career sits at the point where a private obsession met a brief period of official interest in Ecuador's military.

Background and early career

Rodríguez has spent several decades lecturing on flying saucers, abductions and what he calls alleged extraterrestrial diplomacy across Latin America. He has also lectured on the archaeology of the Cueva de los Tayos, a site long associated with fringe claims. He has written several books, including seven by his own count, and runs a website, a Facebook page and a weekly live program (El Universo, 2023).

He has also worked in television. He hosted Evidencia OVNI on Ecuavisa Internacional, and by 2015 Ignotum had run for three seasons on the state-backed CNT Play channel, covering sightings reported in Ecuador. Ecuadorian daytime programs have also featured him discussing alleged extraterrestrials near Pichincha. According to his Spanish Wikipedia biography, he first wrote to the Ministry of Defense in 1982 asking for an official investigation, and he says sightings in Ecuador began to be recorded in 1979 (Wikipedia, es).

CEIFO and the declassification effort

In 2003, during President Lucio Gutiérrez's administration, Rodríguez submitted a proposal to Defense Minister Óscar Ayerde calling for declassification of UFO files and the creation of a commission (El Universo, 2003). The Comisión Ecuatoriana para la Investigación del Fenómeno Ovni (CEIFO) was authorized in 2005 and attached to the Air Force. Rodríguez presided over it. Its members were drawn from civilians and from the armed forces. Reporting on the commission describes it as active until 2007.

The commission reportedly considered 44 cases from all three branches of the armed forces, drawn from 412 photo and video records (Expreso, 2025). Military accounts cited in that reporting include a 1995 close encounter reported by Colonel Eustorgio Pacheco at the Tigre detachment in Loja, and a 1998 report by Air Force Major Leonidas Enríquez of two rhomboid objects over Crucita, Manabí. The commission was unable to determine whether the cases were atmospheric phenomena, unregistered air exercises or optical illusions.

In June 2007, according to Rodríguez, President Rafael Correa asked the National Security Council (COSENA) to declassify the material. He says the military did not comply and that officers acted on their own account. Rodríguez also says CIA personnel obstructed CEIFO's work and that the commission ended because of this. Neither claim has been independently confirmed, and no official statement on either point appears in the reporting reviewed.

Case for and against

The existence of CEIFO is not in dispute. It was reported in the Ecuadorian press and the Air Force has listed it among its institutional antecedents. What is disputed is the content. Almost every specific claim comes from Rodríguez himself: the 44 cases, the military witness accounts, the "Comandante Vanjhú" who allegedly visited the Ecuadorian embassy in Lima, a claimed underwater base off Crucita, and claims about 40 soldiers who saw craft land at a helipad near El Tigre. Reporters have repeatedly noted that the Ministry of Defense holds photographs and video but no physical evidence, and that independent access to the files has been limited.

Skeptics would point out that the record is a mix of documented institutional facts and self-reported testimony, with no independent archive confirming the case files. Supporters would argue that the commission's existence and its closure without public findings are themselves worth explaining. No published CEIFO final report was found in the sources reviewed.

Current status and legacy

Rodríguez remains active. In 2023 he told El Universo that he had studied UFOs for 44 years and that he had never been allowed to take testimony inside military units. He has discussed David Grusch's 2023 congressional testimony and has said Ecuadorian officials "know" that UFOs exist (Expectativa, 2016). In 2026 he continued to promote his claims about a submerged base off the Manabí coast.

His lasting significance is as a bridge between Ecuador's official UFO history and its popular culture. CEIFO is the only formal, government-linked UFO commission in the country that the press has covered in detail. Whether its records ever yield a clear account of what the Air Force saw depends on release of documents that have not been published.