EOP-UAP-D001, NASC Inquiry into Bahia, Brazil Incident, November 13, 1963
WAR.gov / Department of War PURSUE Release 05
This document is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) wire report dated November 9, 1963, tracking a local Portuguese-language radio broadcast from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, regarding an alleged crash of a “large metal sphere” containing a deceased occupant in Conde, Bahia, Brazil.
Document Highlights
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Short overview
A CIA Foreign Broadcast Information Service wire report of November 9, 1963, from the files of Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council.
Why this is interesting
FBIS monitored a Portuguese-language radio broadcast from Rio de Janeiro reporting that a large metal sphere with a body inside had fallen in Conde, Bahia. What makes the page valuable is the margin: handwritten annotations dated November 13, 1963 record NASC asking a State Department official to have the embassy in Rio verify the story locally. That request is the step immediately before the cable filed as DOS-UAP-D001, so the three records read as one chain from rumour to check to rejection.
Selected passages
- “A LARGE METAL SPHERE FELL IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY, GOUGING A HOLE FOUR METERS DEEP.”
Background
This document is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) wire report dated November 9, 1963, tracking a local Portuguese-language radio broadcast from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, regarding an alleged crash of a “large metal sphere” containing a deceased occupant in Conde, Bahia, Brazil. This FBIS report is excerpted from the files of Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC). NASC was a cabinet-level advisory body within the Executive Office of the President responsible for coordinating U.S. space policy from 1958 to 1973. Handwritten annotations dated November 13, 1963, document a communication between officials at NASC and the U.S. Department of State. The note records a NASC request to a State Department official to query the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janeiro for local verification of the reporting. This inter-agency request precedes a subsequent diplomatic cable sent by the Embassy the following day, cataloged in this collection under the title “DOS-UAP-D001.”