Documents / FOIA release
This is a Foreign Broadcast Information Service cable dated 20 April 1988, released by the CIA in 1997. It carries a Xinhua report from Beijing about a UFO that passengers on airliner No. 2606 saw on 18 March near Hami, Xinjiang. They described a glowing, basketball-sized object that flew alongside the plane, split in two and had a green ring of light. Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Atmospheric Physics concluded that it was a high-frequency discharge plasma fireball.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
INQUIRE=DOC5D ITEM NO=00291188 ENVELOPE RTTUZYUW RUEKJCS3206 1112357-UUUU--RUEALGX. ZNR UUUUU HEADER R 202357Z APR 88 FM JCS WASHINGTON DC INFO RUHQHQA/USCINCPAC HONOLULU HI RUEALGX/SAFE R 202334Z APR 88 FM FBIS OKINAWA JA TO RUCWAAA/FBIS RESTON VA RHHMBRA/CINCPACFLT PEARL HARBOR HI RUADJNA/DET 4 FTD YOKOTA AB JA RUCLACC/CDR4THPSYOPGP FT BRAGG NC//SB// RUDMNOP/NAVOPINTCEN SUITLAND MD RUDOMKB/FBIS LONDON UK//BBC// RUDOMKE/FBIS LONDON UK RUEBHAA/STORAGE CENTER FBIS WASHINGTON DC RUEKJCS/DEFINTAGNCY WASH DC RUETIAM/NPC FT GEO G MEADE MD RUHQHQA/COMIPAC HONOLULU HI RUHQHQA/USCINCPAC HONOLULU HI RUMJHK/FBIS HONG KONG ACCT FBOW-EWDK BT CONTROLS UNCLAS 1T/LD BODY SUBJ REF LD201354 ANSWERIN PRC: SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY XINJIANG UFO AS PLASMA FIREBALL OW202334 BEIJING XINHUA IN ENGLISH 0548 GMT 20 APR 88 ((TEXT)) BEIJING, APRIL 20 (XINHUA)--THE UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT (UFO) SPOTTED IN XINJIANG LAST MONTH WAS A "PLASMA FIREBALL SPINNING AT HIGH SPEED IN THE ATMOSPHERE", ACCORDING TO SCIENTISTS AT THE INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS OF THE CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. IT WAS REPORTED THAT AT 21:35 ON MARCH 18, AS THE NO. 2606 AIRLINER FROM BEIJING TO URUMQI WAS APPROACHING THE QIJIAOJING AREA IN HAMI IN THE XINJIANG UYGUR AUTONOMOUS REGION, ## UNCLASSIFIED Approved for Release Date AUG 1997
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.