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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would stop at the next station, commenting that we should like to obtain some water or tea. The porter answered in only general terms, not naming the stations, but saying, "The next station will be a longer stop and you will be able to get off to buy something." I returned to the compartment and told the porter that the porter seemed a little reluctant to give any details. A few minutes later the porter came into Compartment 4 and pulled from the window shade, saying (It's better this way). He also pulled the shades on the side windows, but I do not recall his entering the compartment to pull the shades. After the stop at the next station, he gave me the name of the stations (Compartment 5). The porter may have shown some slight excitement when he pulled the shades, but I do not believe that his excitement was connected with our observation. I believe that the cause may have been his failure to follow the standard rule on trains to pull the shades as seen as it became dark. He was late in doing this, and no doubt we were passing through some restricted area where such instructions must be observed strictly. I do not believe that either of the other two passengers in the car tipped off the porter that something important had happened. Before dark, the porter entered in Compartment 5 had asked the porter to prepare his bed because he had to get up at 0200 hours to get off the train. As far as I know, he went to bed quite soon time before the occurrence. The civilian from Compartment 6 was seen in the circle sometime after the occurrence but not at the time of the occurrence. 7. I cannot describe the shape of the object which we observed, in much as I observed no silhouette. I had the impression of a short object, probably shorter than an airplane, but in no way did I obtain an impression of the silhouette of an airplane. Perhaps the object could have had short wings. I am not certain whether it was or was not dis-shaped or circular. It appeared to me that the object at first was further from the train than the searchlight. At all times, the searchlight appeared to be larger than the object and stationary. I cannot estimate the altitude reached by the object, but it was very high. I cannot estimate the speed at which the object traveled. It did not seem to be traveling very fast. On its horizontal course, it seemed to be gliding smoothly, and it seemed to be moving more slowly as it approached the train than when first observed. It definitely did not whizz by at an unusual speed. I did not hear any noise which might have been associated with the object, and I believe that the sound of an airplane engine could have been heard over the train noises. I best observed the eyes of the object when the object approached the train. They were distinctly two in number, set apart at a fixed distance, but I cannot estimate how far apart they were. I observed no other, small lights on the object. I do not recall seeing any military traffic or installations of significance within half an hour on either side of the point of observati 8. Only the principal speaker; I provided only a few supplement
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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.