Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency teletyped information report about an unidentified object seen in the sky on 6 December. The source was watching Mars through a telescope when a steady object of magnitude 3 crossed his field of view from north to south. He believed it was Sputnik III. Headquarters comments state that Sputnik III was not visible from the source's area at that time and that the direction he gave does not match computed orbits. Headquarters requested an evaluation from Air and OSI.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY TELETYPED INFORMATION REPORT Unidentified Object Observed in the Sky 6 December 1950 APPROVAL OF CONTENT CERTIFIED On 6 December 1956 between 1635 and 1840 local time source observed, by telescope, an artificial object having a continuous brightness of magnitude 3 (same as the Belt of Orion) cross his position [field of vision] while source was observing Mars. The object traveled north to south. There was no sign of disintegration, smoke, flame, or noise. There was no sign of any fall. Source did not photograph the object, but he is sure that the object was identical with Sputnik III. Subsequent observations proved negative. Headquarters Comment: A preliminary check showed that Sputnik III was not within source's area of visibility at the time indicated, nor is the direction cited in agreement with computed orbits. The carrier rocket for Sputnik III reentered the earth's atmosphere on 3 December 1956 according to a Soviet announcement. Headquarters Comment: Evaluation requested of Air and OSI Field Dissemination: None End of Message TO: ACNL AF, NAVY, JCB, ORD, STATE, NSA,
Not linked to a story yet.
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.