CIA-UAP-D001: A 1973 CIA Report on a Bright Green UAP Over the USSR

CIA-UAP-D001 is the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's first contribution to the Trump PURSUE disclosure - released on May 22, 2026 as part of Release 02. The document is a 1973 CIA Intelligence Information Report (IIR) describing human-intelligence-gathering activities in the Soviet Union. In section 14 of the report, a HUMINT source describes a summer-1973 observation of an airborne, luminous, bright green unidentified object in the USSR with concentric circles forming around it over several minutes before it dissipated.

File ID: CIA-UAP-D001 Document type: Intelligence Information Report (IIR) Document date: 20 December 1973 Observation date: Summer 1973 Released: 22 May 2026 (Release 02)

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Read the file page (CIA-UAP-D001) Released summary, source link to war.gov, SHA-256 verification

What an Intelligence Information Report is, and what it isn't

The first thing to know about this file is what the document type means. An Intelligence Information Report (IIR) is the CIA's standardized form for transmitting raw human-source intelligence into the federal intelligence system. The released metadata is unusually careful about this point:

"This report characterizes its content as informational, not as finally evaluated intelligence."

That single sentence in the released summary is doing significant work. It is the CIA's standard caveat for IIR-class documents: the report transmits what a source said into the system, but the agency is explicitly not endorsing the observation, not finalizing analytic judgment, and not vouching for accuracy. The HUMINT source is reporting; the CIA is recording the report. The format dates to the Cold War and has been used continuously through the present for raw-source material that has not yet been processed into finished intelligence.

For readers approaching this file expecting "the CIA confirms a 1973 UFO over the USSR" - the released metadata does not support that framing, and the document's own form does not. The CIA confirms that a source said this in 1973. That is a different and more limited claim.

The observation, as described in the released metadata

The released summary describes what the HUMINT source reported in section 14 of the document:

"In section 14 of this document, the source describes an incident occurring in summer of 1973, where he allegedly observed an airborne, luminous, bright green, unidentified object. The source described concentric circles forming around the phenomenon over a period of several minutes, before it dissipated. The source also stated that no sound attended the observation. The source offered no opinion on the nature of the phenomenon and was unable to provide further details regarding the incident."

Four observation elements appear in that paragraph, each with a useful caveat already built into the released summary:

"Airborne, luminous, bright green" - shape descriptor and color. The summary says "bright green," not green-tinted or chartreuse. The released metadata preserves the specific color rather than abstracting it.
"Concentric circles forming around the phenomenon over a period of several minutes" - this is the most distinctive descriptor. The release summary does not characterize the circles as physical structures, as reflections, or as visual artifacts; it preserves the observer's terminology.
"Before it dissipated" - the object's end-state. "Dissipated" is the observer's word for how the observation ended, suggesting visual fade-out rather than departure under power. The released summary preserves the term.
"No sound attended the observation" - explicit negative observation, often noted in UAP reports because sound or its absence speaks to propulsion and distance estimates.

And two important meta-statements from the source:

"The source offered no opinion on the nature of the phenomenon" - the source did not characterize what it was. This is honest reporter behavior; the CIA's release-metadata note that the source did this is itself worth noting.
"Was unable to provide further details regarding the incident" - the source had no more information. The agency-level summary does not supplement what the source said.

Why this file scores 50 on the rubric

CIA-UAP-D001 default-scores to 50 on this site's six-axis open rubric, which is the floor for "single-witness eyewitness-only" reports of this profile. The rubric scores it at sensor_quality: eyewitness_only (the document is a written transmission of an oral observation, not an instrumented capture), witness_credibility: federal_agent (the CIA HUMINT source - though the source itself is described in the document as a non-U.S. person operating in the USSR, the document enters the federal record through CIA channels under federal-agent handling), corroboration: single_witness_instrument, kinematic_anomaly: no_kinematic_data (no measurements published), mundane_explanation_available: weak_mundane_candidate, and official_disposition: open_after_review.

The 50 is appropriate. The rubric is being conservative because the underlying record genuinely is conservative: a single source's observation, characterized by the source's own description, transmitted into the federal record with explicit agency caveats about evaluation status.

What this file does NOT establish

It does not establish that the observed phenomenon was extraterrestrial, advanced military hardware, atmospheric phenomenon, or anything else specific. The source did not characterize the phenomenon, and the CIA did not finalize evaluation.
It does not establish that the CIA investigated the observation further. The released summary describes a single IIR; whether the report led to follow-on analysis is not in the released metadata.
It does not establish where in the USSR the observation occurred. The released summary says "in the Soviet Union" but does not name a city, oblast, or installation.
It does not name or identify the source. HUMINT-source identification is the kind of detail that would never appear in a publicly-released IIR even after declassification, and the released summary respects that.
It does not establish that "bright green concentric circle" UAP phenomena have been observed elsewhere in CIA records. This is one report.

How this file fits the broader PURSUE archive

CIA-UAP-D001 is one of 5 PURSUE files from federal agencies outside the original FBI / DoD / NASA / State Department lineup that anchored Release 01. The other four are ODNI-UAP-D001 (the senior intelligence officer's helicopter UAP narrative, late 2025) and the three DOE files tied to the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. CIA-UAP-D001 is the only CIA file in the disclosure so far, and it is the only HUMINT-source IIR in the entire 294-file archive. Its document type is unique.

Among the broader 1973 historical context: this was the year before the 1974 establishment of the Defense Mapping Agency, three years after the closure of Project Blue Book (1969), and during a period of active Cold War intelligence collection against the Soviet Union. CIA HUMINT operations in the USSR were extensive in this period; the existence of an IIR with a UAP-relevant section is consistent with the volume of reporting from the era and does not require special framing.

How to verify everything on this page

The file's dedicated page on this site is at /files/cia-uap-d001-intelligence-information-report-ussr-1973. It links to the war.gov source PDF and includes the released metadata.
The block-quoted "informational, not as finally evaluated intelligence" line and the four-element observation description are reproduced verbatim from the released file summary.
The IIR document-type background (CIA's standardized form for raw HUMINT, used continuously through the present) is publicly-known standard intelligence-community context, not site interpretation.
The December 20 1973 document date and summer 1973 observation date are both from the released file metadata.
For the broader intel + DOE category, see /intel-and-doe-uap-files/. For the methodology, see /methodology.

Bottom line

CIA-UAP-D001 is a real CIA Intelligence Information Report from December 1973 in which a HUMINT source described a summer-1973 observation in the Soviet Union of a bright green airborne luminous object with concentric circles forming around it over several minutes before it dissipated. No sound. The source offered no opinion on what it was. The CIA transmitted the observation into the federal record under standard IIR caveats explicitly noting the content is informational rather than finally evaluated intelligence. That is the entire substance of what the released summary establishes, and reading the file accurately means staying within those boundaries rather than expanding them. The file is unique in the PURSUE archive both as the only CIA contribution and as the only HUMINT-source IIR. Its inclusion in Release 02 is a structural event - CIA enters the disclosure system - more than it is a singular evidentiary one.