As Indonesian warplanes flew overhead, they dropped something many in Timor-Leste had never seen.
But Jose Bareto de Jesus recognised the rounded objects floating to the ground and sounded the alarm to his friends that day on December 7, 1975.
"I was shouting that the plane dropped a parachute," he told the ABC.
When Indonesian paratroopers landed in Dili, it became clear what was happening, and people fled the Timorese capital.
"It was abandoned … 90 per cent of Dili was empty," Mr de Jesus said.
Survivors still have clear memories of the invasion by Indonesia, as Timor-Leste this week commemorates the events that marked the beginning of a brutal 24-year occupation.
The invasion came only days after Timor-Leste, then known as East Timor, declared independence following the departure of its longtime colonial master Portugal.
It is estimated more than 100,000 Timorese died in the next few years as conflict and famine gripped their land.
More died in the two decades that followed, but Mr de Jesus said he was never afraid.
"My only principle is that you have to fight against the invaders. I didn't think about anything else," he said.
"I lost wealth, lost people, lost family."
'There must be justice'
Marta Ribeiro dos Santos was 33 when Indonesian aircraft filled the skies of Timor-Leste.
"I saw dead people around my house," she said.
"More and more planes were flying around … the Indonesian warplanes were coming.
"We were afraid and wondering where we could go. We wanted to run and hide in the clinic near the house."
Indonesia had launched the invasion during a period of political turmoil and instability in the region after Portugal's withdrawal in 1975.
In the days following the onslaught, observers working outside Timor-Leste tried to piece together what was happening.
An Indonesian-government radio station broadcast propaganda from across the border advising Timorese that its forces would kill them if they resisted, according to news reports at the time.
"Indonesia's overriding aim is now the swift integration of Portuguese Timor into Indonesia," one ABC report said.
"The message from Jakarta is clear, even if the outcome of military intervention is a costly guerilla war and the cooling of relations with Australia, then that's the price Indonesia is willing to pay."
The pro-independence Fretilin forces withdrew to the jungle hills and took radio transmitters with them so they could .
Soon after the invasion, Jose Ramos-Horta, then-spokesperson for Fretilin and a future leader of independent Timor-Leste, made a plea to the United Nations for help in the face of Indonesia's advance.
The UN condemned the invasion and demanded Indonesia's withdrawal.
Back in Timor-Leste, the suffering had only begun for Ribero dos Santos.
"Children had difficulty finding food, and there was no water to drink. Life was very difficult," she said.
Now 83 years old, Ms dos Santos said Indonesia must acknowledge the atrocities its soldiers committed if the wounds of the invasion were to heal.
"I want to tell the Indonesian government that there must be justice," she said.
"The places where they killed many people must be identified so that we can recover their remains and bury them properly."
Indonesia has never issued an apology over the invasion.
'Struggle, learn, produce'
Timorese activist Amandina Helena da Silva said women paid a heavy price from the Indonesian occupation.
"A lot of women faced severe and systematic structural violence. Not only the physical violence, but also emotional violence, and also sexual violence," she said.
"Right now, [the survivors] are getting old. And some of them have already passed away."
Ms da Silva was not born when Indonesian forces took control of Timor-Leste.
Like many of her generation, she is grateful to those who persevered through the occupation and fought for independence.
"I describe this as a sacrifice," she said.
Today, those in Timor-Leste's gen Z, born after 2002, have only known an independent nation.
But for Timorese young people, the signs of the conflict remain obvious.
Fernando Ximenes, a researcher on Timor-Leste's history and economy, said trauma was still prevalent.
He said some institutions were yet to escape the generational impacts of violent occupation.
But 50 years after Timor-Leste first declared its independence, Mr Ximenes said the struggle that followed carried a message for the nation's younger generations.
He summed up the meaning of the milestone with a popular Timorese motto from 1975: "Struggle, learn, produce."
"Timorese people are a very heroic people. We need to keep that spirit," Mr Ximenes said.
"We are people coming from a brave historic struggle."
