Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency memorandum, dated October 1955 and approved for release in 2010, records a sighting of an unusual flying object from a train. A traveler on a sleeping car describes how a companion saw a flying saucer, and how he then saw a glowing searchlight on the horizon and an object with two white lights rising vertically and passing over the train in silence. The file also contains interrogation notes and interview notes on the same sighting from other witnesses, with names redacted.
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seen it, and went to the window of the department, saying, "Turn off the lights." He also went to the window, and I looked over their shoulders and said, "I just saw it coming up." When the lights were off, I saw through the window, to the south of the train, an object resembling a searchlight at the end of the horizon, perhaps a little above the horizon. It did not throw a beam but instead glued with a rocotic light, scathing like the gloring of an electric hot plate. It looked like a circular light standing on edge, facing the train, and perhaps tilted slightly downward. I had the impression that the searchlight was at a distance of perhaps four to six miles. The land was flat and without buildings, installations, or special vegetation. At the time of observation, twilight had fallen and the first few stars were out but it was still light enough to see for some distance. The sky was clear, with no clouds. 4. At this point I said, "I don't see it." The porter said, "Zare, it's coming again"; and the others said, "Yes, it's coming up. It's whirling." I then noticed an object slightly to the right of the searchlight. It had two shining eyes and seemed to be rising vertically. It then seemed to change course and to approach the train on more of a horizontal course but still ascending slightly (traveling northward). I am not certain whether the body of the object changed position, but the eyes, which seemed to be fixed on the side of the object facing the train during the ascent, continued to face toward me. The eye on the left was brighter than the other but both gave a white light, glowing like a firefly rather than casting a beam. On the horizontal course, the object gave the impression of gliding. No noise was heard and no exhaust glow or trail was seen by me. When the object appeared to be about to pass over the train, I ran to the other side of the train in order to look out the window on the aisle side, but I saw nothing. The observation lasted about six or seven seconds, maybe less. The porter was standing in the corner of the aisle, forward, near Department 6, but did not seem to be looking out the window at the time. 5. After the object had passed, we turned on the lights in the compartment, and said, "We saw a flying sensor. I wanted you boys to see it so that I would have witnesses." Everyone in the compartment was convinced that we had seen something real and unusual. I asked if it could have been some kind of airplane and the others replied, "No, there was no resemblance." 6. A few minutes later, returned to his department. He suggested that I, an interpreter, ask the porter the name of the last station which we had passed. I was reluctant to do so for fear of arresting the porter's suspicion. However, he insisted and, about five to seven minutes after the observation, I approached the porter in the alcoa and in a roundabout way approaching the question of the name of the last and next stations, whether they were large, and how long we
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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. 11 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.