CIA-UAP-018, Report of Unusual Flying Object Sightings and Attendant Scientific Activity
A 1955 report on a UFO sighting in Hungary. The information came from a letter between Hungarian relatives, living in the USA and Budapest. A more redacted version of the 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 327 words from pages 1, 2 of 3.
PAGE 1
Approved for Rel ease 2026 Und er Se ction 1842 of t he National Def ense Authorizat i on Act for Fi scal Year 2024 ---------s""E""E"'""B.,.,~OT""r""o.,.ill torPAGE roR ADDITIONAL SPECIAL CONTBOLS; IF ANY this inalerictl cootatns. !Dformat.it>ll athactl.a.q the PREPARED AND DISSEMINATED BY Seca. 793 and 794, the trCIIISD1l,aloa.. or re -,!r.ttou COUN:TRY RtPORT NO, NO, OF PACES l THIS IS UNEVALUATED IMFORMATION the people in a nervous state. These very raet spe!Nllllg t~~eyt m:i.d SU11,Pected course of the above obJects: 3. ~s :i,_s the first t:lme iq .niece has mentioned such obJeets in her J;etters. NoFORN ,: NO DISSEM-ABROAD ~
PAGE 2
Dear Uncl I don't J:r.nm;r whether the letter I sent before will arrive. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Here, the children are preparing for Christmas. "rhe shops are full of toys and Christmas trees . • The streets are crowded with window shoppers. The three of us are spending the holidays in Pest fhe childre~ will have a vacation from 20 December through 17 January, took a d~y off on All Souls' Dayl~---------------------~ you write so little. How are your· Has the family grown7 Are you all well? ~---~is having a lot of trouble with her back.ohas been sent off for a week to do some work in the province, he won't return till the evening of the 24th. A famous German circus is on tour here now with many animals and artists .. They say it is very good. We are planning to see it with the children~ Ev.eryone has been ·excited by the so-called saucers for the past few weeks. These fast-rushing heavenly phenorna have been and still are keeping scores of scientists busy -~I_____~ras surely seen them or read about them; these amazing ~liers moved at a speed of 12,000 kilometers per hour. We wish you all good health and send our regards and affection to mother and the children. Much love and many prayers,
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 #17 of 23 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 450-file archive it ranks #228 of 450.
That places it in the lower-scoring band of the archive (228 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 The CIA's Budapest Saucer Letter (1955) - the CIA's three Hungary files - a 1955 saucer report drawn from a letter between relatives in the USA and Budapest, and the related Budapest sighting reports. The cluster page walks through all 3 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-006, Sighting Of Unconventional Aircraft
Verification
SHA-256:
This hash is the SHA-256 of the file body war.gov served on the verification date above. War.gov has re-processed some file bodies since first release (re-compression + OCR, no content removed - see /changes); we re-verify and record the change rather than silently serve a stale hash. How to check this yourself →