CIA-UAP-006, Sighting Of Unconventional Aircraft
This CIA information report from November 1955 describes a US national's eyewitness account of triangular aircraft with wing lights launch at a steep angle from an airfield near Baku, Azerbaijan on October 4, 1955. A redacted version of this report has been available on CIA's public website.
The summary above is sourced from the released file metadata as published to war.gov. The analysis sections below are original to this tracker.
Text of the document
Machine-extracted from the PDF war.gov published (its text layer or OCR), so expect errors, especially in names, numbers and handwriting; the PDF is the authoritative copy. Lines that did not extract as readable text are left out. Showing about 727 words from pages 1, 2 of 2.
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Approved for Release 2026 SEE BOTTOM OF PAc;i·roR ADDITIONAL SPECIAL CONTROLS, lF ANY INFO~MATION REPORT ~ a tional Defense ol theUnited StalH ,irithln Ille meanillg ol lhe Espionage Laws, Tille 18, U.S. C . of which ID any manner to an unauthorized per• CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY aon la prohiblled by law. COUNTRY REPORT NO. SUBJECT DATE DISTRIBUTED Sighting ot Unconventional Aircraft NO. OF PAGES NU. UI- ENCLS. SUPPLEMEh T TO REPORT 11 PLACE ACQUIRED /Br aourceJ RESPONSIVE TO DATE ACQUIRED /Br •ourceJ OAT£ OF INFORMATION (Dale Of dales, on or .belween which, eveaa oz condiliom de.sc,i.bed la report exialedJ THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION souRcE US national, 41 years old, publicity and advertising vice president o:f' large US corporation. His Mjor education was in the field ot political sci~nce (Phi B~ta Kappa), and he has lectured extensively on current affairs. He has had no technical training or experience in aviation matters. He recently visited the USSR as a tourist at the invitation of a senior Soviet official. l. At 1630, 4 Oct 55, I boarded a train at Baku for Tiflis in the company ot three other US nationals, one of whom shared a Wagon-Lit compartment with . me; the other two occupied the ad.Joining compartment. The train ran very slowly, making evffY stop; I vould estimate its overall speed. at 20 Jll.l)h. Exactly tvo hours and forty minutes out of Baku, one ot our group in the compartment next door entered my compartment and said, "Did you see that out theret I just saw a ny1ng saucer I and my compartment companion vere about to laugh it off wen the man from next door pointed out ot the window again, and then we all saw the following sight. 2. On the letthand side ot the traill, between the train and the Caspian Sea coast, was a large air field The evening we.a dark but clear A huge 1earc:hlir,ht on the tield itselt, shar,e on a triangular obJect on the ground wich :i: would say was probably not more than tvo miles distant from the railroad. [collector' s commenti Source first estimated that the air field was about five miles away but, on further reflection, chansed the distance to the obJect to two mi.l.es;J i'b.e eize ot the object was comparable to that ot a US Jet tighter, vith a squat shape and in the form of an equilateral tmngle. There were three lights on the obJect, one on each point of the triazigle, presumably two wing lights and a tail light. As we watched, it was eJected from its launching site, mak1ng not less than three anti not :more than seven fast spirals in the air, a:tter which it cl.im'bed extremely tut at about a 45 degree angle We watched ·- it climb and saw it reach a high altitude; the •earchlight followed it all the way. I wish to ~haaize that this was no ordinary take-of'f but a launching procedure more like a m.ssile eJection. OUr companion from next door reported that this was the second launchil:Jg in rapid succession. 4. I believe that the train at the time of the ai&}lting vu 'betveen 50 and 65 miles south ot Baku. Thet!Cupian Sea vu still visible. While the and pulled d~e bllnO:s When I bepn to protest, the •tetard ---Jio"fii~etr""toward the rear ot the car and shook his head, 1D41c:ating to me that the MVD man who had boarded the train at the moaent ot departure had ordered the blinds drawno STATE AR MY NAVY FBI NOFOBN ffO DlSSEM ABROAD UMITED: Dinemfnation limited to full•lime employees o/ CIA, AEC and FBI; and, "'"hln Slate and Defense, lo the intelligence components, other offic:.s producing NIS elements. and .higher echelons with their Immediate supporting 1s. Not to be disseminated to consultants, external pro/ects or reser-re personnel oa short term active duty (excepting indi viduals who are normuuy tull-Ume employees ol CIA. AEC. FBI, Stale or Defense) unlu.s the wrUlen permission of I.he odqinatinq olllce has been obtained through the A.ssislanl Director for Collecllon and Dl.s:semlnalfon, CIA,
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5. our party ha4 wished to make this part of the Journey by air, but we were intormed by DTOURIST in Baku that there were no flights between Baku and Tiflis. In Tiflis the Ill'l'OURIST people were surprised that our party had not tlo"Wll and said that there were several flights a
Where this file fits in the PURSUE archive
This file is one of CIA's 23 files in the Trump PURSUE disclosure. Within the CIA agency block it ranks #5 of 23 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 450-file archive it ranks #216 of 450.
That places it in the lower-scoring band of the archive (216 of 450 by score), typical of investigative-record style files where the report is paper-based rather than instrumented.
For the broader cluster context, this file is part of CIA UFO Files - the 23-file CIA cluster, from the 1953 Robertson Panel to the U-2 history and Cold War sightings. The cluster page walks through all 23 member files with regional grouping, sensor breakdown, and standout analysis.
Anomalousness Index: 58/100
Evidentiary weight that this encounter remains unexplained after conventional analysis. Not a probability of extraterrestrial origin - that number is not honestly computable from the released files and this tracker refuses to publish it.
🤖 AI-ASSISTED SCORING · methodology
The six rubric components break down for this file as follows. Each component has a weighted contribution to the final score; the per-component explanation below describes what this file's particular value on that component means in the rubric's framework.
Reported by a witness with no instrumented record. The lowest tier in the rubric's sensor axis. Eyewitness perception in field conditions, even when the witness is highly credentialed, scores below capture by any instrumented modality. This report reached the federal record through the CIA.
Federal agency personnel (CIA investigators or equivalent) recording the report into the federal investigative system. Investigative credentials, but typically operating in a reactive rather than mission-active posture.
Single-witness or single-instrument capture. This is the corroboration tier for the overwhelming majority of the PURSUE archive on the released metadata - the rubric records the honest limit of the underlying record rather than inferring multi-witness corroboration that the released summaries do not establish. A small number of files with an independent second witness or instrument score on the multi-witness/multi-instrument tier above this one.
No kinematic measurements - speed, acceleration, vector - are published in the released file with sufficient precision to score on the kinematic axis. The rubric does not infer kinematic anomaly from narrative observer estimates. Every file in the archive carries this value, which is itself an observation about the disclosure: kinematic-grade telemetry was not part of what was released.
A conventional candidate explanation has been considered but is not dispositive. Every file in the archive scores this way - reflecting that the underlying release metadata systematically caveats strong determinations in either direction. The released summaries warn against reading them as conclusive analytical judgments, and the rubric respects that.
Released as open after formal review by the originating agency. The file passed through a review process and was published in that posture - a stronger disposition signal than 'unresolved with no review,' because review has occurred and the open status is the agency's published conclusion.
Bottom line on the score: the Anomalousness Index of 58/100 reflects evidentiary weight that this specific file's encounter remains structurally unexplained by the rubric's six axes - it is not a claim that the underlying event involved anything non-conventional, and it is not comparable across rubrics that use different weights. For the full per-axis weights and the rubric JSON, see /methodology.
Related files in CIA
Other PURSUE files in the same category, ranked by Anomalousness Index.
ODNI-UAP-D001, USPER Narrative, Senior USIC Official
CIA-UAP-002, Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, Report, 1952-1953
CIA-UAP-003, The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance; The U-2 and OXCA…
CIA-UAP-004, CASE 17708 (CLOSED) and DR. Leon Davidson
CIA-UAP-005, German Scientist's Article on 'Flying Discs'
CIA-UAP-007, Current Status Of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) Project.
Verification
SHA-256:
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