CIA-UAP-D020, Memorandum on Unconventional Aircraft Sightings, 1955
- Date
- Memo dated Oct. 31, 1955 (cover sheet Nov. 1, 1955); sightings Oct. 4, 1955, 1910 hours
- Location
- About ten minutes by train beyond Alyaty, on the Baku–Tiflis line, Azerbaijan SSR
- Agency
- CIA
- Release
- Release 04 (July 10, 2026)
- Type
- document
Summary
A Top Secret memo to the Director of Central Intelligence from Herbert Scoville Jr., Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, summarizes debriefings of four travelers on a Baku–Tiflis train, taken at Senator Russell's request, who saw objects about ten minutes past Alyaty at 1910 hours. Russell saw a small greenish-yellow glowing ball rising rapidly; Mr. Efron saw two lights like eyes; Col. Hathaway saw a shadowy object with a light on top and rotating lights like exhausts at the base; Mr. Gros reported a triangular object with three lights ejected from a launch site; all agreed it rotated as it rose, and Hathaway and Efron said it turned sharply to horizontal flight. The memo concludes that only Hathaway's testimony supports flying saucers, that the other observations "can probably be explained as steep climbing aircraft or missiles," and that the evidence is not firm enough to conclude the Soviets had a radically new type of aircraft.
Note
The CIA's own read of the famous Senator Russell sighting: probably aircraft or missiles. Same event as CIA-UAP-006 and 341_110677.