Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS)

The Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), known as Departamento de Ordem Política e Social in Portuguese, was a Brazilian government agency established in 1937 under the Estado Novo dictatorship. Operating until 1977 as part of the Ministry of Justice, it functioned as a political police force focused on monitoring dissidents, communists, and threats to social order through surveillance, censorship, and repression. DOPS maintained extensive files on over 1 million individuals and was notorious for torture during Brazil's military regime (1964-1985). In UAP/UFO research context, DOPS São Paulo's archive contains declassified documents on UFO sightings from the 1950s-1970s, including military reports and investigations, now accessible to researchers studying Brazil's Operation Prato and other government UFO inquiries. No notable achievements in UFO research; current status: defunct, with records preserved in public archives.