CIA-UAP-D022, Unidentified Flying Object Reported near Puerto Rico, 1965
This file contains Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) memoranda exchanged between the Assistant Director for Special Activities (AD/SA) and the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence (AD/SI) regarding an incident allegedly involving unidentified aircraft in the vicinity of Puerto Rico. The AD/SI was then-responsible for analyzing foreign scientific advancements and technological threats, such as Soviet nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile capabilities. The AD/SA managed the CIA’s classified overhead reconnaissance operations, including the deployment of advanced aircraft like the U-2 and A-12 OXCART. Together, these offices ensured the United States could both gather critical intelligence over contested territories and accurately evaluate the technical capabilities of foreign adversaries during the Cold War. The memoranda refer to an incident on November 19, 1964, in which a U.S. Naval aviator described observing an unidentified object as “delta-shaped, about the size of a jet fighter.” The pilot visually estimated the object’s velocity as Mach 3 (approximately 2,200 mph). A corresponding track from an AN/SPS-49 radar system aboard a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer in the area, USS Gyatt, measured the object’s speed at 3,800 knots (approximately 4,373 mph). The memoranda indicate that, in the opinion of the AD/SI, the object was conceivably associated with foreign intelligence gathering activities, citing active missile testing within the AFWR, or Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range, as being an attractive reconnaissance target. The AD/SA and AD/SI also ruled out domestic experimental aircraft, such as the YF-12A OXCART, as a potential attribution.
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 597 words from pages 1, 2, 5, 6 of 6.
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Approved for Release 2026 RET DENTIAL UNCLASS IFIEO SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF ATTACHED MATERIAL SHOULD BE CIRCLED TOP AND BOTTOM ACTION SHEET DATE REC'D IN IC IC I DESCRIPTION OF ATTACHED MATERIAL: TYPE OF MATERIAL DATED FROM TO DELI VER ED TO DEADLINE DATE FOLLOW-UP DATE DIVISION ROUTING TO DATE ACTION REQUIRED INIT, COMMENTS• INSTRUCTIONS: Under each co~ment a line should • tf comments bear a higher classification than be drawn across sheet and each comment numbered the attached material, the security classifi to correspond with the number in the "TO" column, cation of this sheet be changed. FORM USE PREVIOUS EDITIONS UNCLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL SECRET IOF 31!.CIU!;(
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- coNrRoL NO REFERRED TO RECEIVED RELEASED fsEEN'sv OFFICE SIGNATURE DATE TIME DATE TIME NAME & OFFICE SYMBOL DATE Handle Via Indicated Controls Access to this document will be restricted to those persons cleared for the specific projects; This document contains information affecting the notional security of the United States within the meaning of the espionage lows U. S. Code Title 18, Sections 793 and 794, The law prohibits its transmission or the revelot/on of lts contents in any manner to an unauthori1ed person, as well as its use In any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States. It is to be seen only by personnel especially indoctrinated and authorized to receive information in the designated control channels. Its security must be maintained In accordance with regulations pertaining to BYEMAN Control System, TOP SECRET
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TOP SECRET CONTROL NO. REFERRED TO RECEIVED RELEASED ., SEEN BY OFFICE SIGNATURE DATE TIME DATE TIME NAME & OFFICE SYMBOL DATE Handle Via Indicated Controls Access to this document will be restricted to those persons cleared for the specific projects; This document contains information affecting the national security/ of the United States within the meaning of the espionage laws U. S. Code Title 18, Sections 793 and 794. The law prohibits its transmission or the revelation of its contents in any manner to an unauthorized person, as well as its use in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government ta the detriment of the United States. it is to be seen only by personnel especially indoctrinated and authorized to receive information in the designated control channels. Its security must be maintained in accardance with regulations pertaining to BY EMAN Control System. TOP SECRET
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MEMORANDUM FOR: Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence SUBJECT: Unidentified Flying Object 1. OSI and OSA, we believe; received similar information regarding a UFO in the vicinity of Puerto Rico during period 18-24 November 1964. As you can see by the cable originated by the Commander, Caribbean Sea Frontier, to Commander in Chief Atlantic Fleet, date time group Ol/2048Z December, CINCLANTFLT was informed that UFO identified by CO Ramey as being YF-12A. We think ONI finally convinced, through our efforts, that UFO in fact not YF-12A or similar category Lockheed Aircraft. 2. Navy has provided, at our request, pertinent traffic on this subject, as well as original radar film, Attachment 1, with accompanying prints of same. Request OSI, possibly in conjunction with OEL, evaluate the radar photography to determine if any further information can be gotten through a thorough scientific analysis of the material relative to a high speed, high altitude UFO. 3. Request on completion of OSI study that the attached documents, film and prints be returned to the TCO/BCO/OSA for return to Navy. ssistant Director (Special Activities) As stated above
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 #22 of 23 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 450-file archive it ranks #289 of 450.
That places it in the lower-scoring band of the archive (289 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: 55/100
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.
No sensor, camera, or instrument backs this observation - it is testimony, relayed through the CIA, and scored on the rubric's lowest sensor-quality tier for that reason. That doesn't bear on the witness's credibility (a separate axis); it reflects only that nothing beyond human perception recorded the event.
The witness here is CIA personnel, entering the report into the federal investigative system through standard channels. That's one of the rubric's higher credibility tiers - trained federal investigative staff, weighted level with a trained aviator and below only an astronaut witness - though the posture is reactive (responding to a report) rather than an active operational context.
On corroboration, this file from the CIA - like every single-tier file in the PURSUE archive - is a single-witness or single-instrument capture per the released metadata. The rubric doesn't infer multi-witness confirmation the summaries don't actually establish; this score reflects the honest limit of what was released, not a judgment about the underlying event.
The released file contains no speed, acceleration, or vector data precise enough to score on the kinematic axis - and that's true archive-wide, not specific to this file. The rubric declines to infer kinematic anomaly from a witness's narrative estimate of how fast something moved; that itself says something about what PURSUE actually released: descriptive accounts, not flight-path telemetry.
Every file in the archive, including this one, scores this tier: a conventional explanation was considered in the released record but isn't treated as dispositive. That's a pattern in how war.gov's own summaries are written - they consistently hedge against strong conclusions either way - and the rubric takes that hedging at face value rather than resolving it for them.
This file from the CIA is catalogued as unresolved, with no formal review process having concluded - logged into the system, but not yet finalized by any review. The rubric treats that differently from 'open after review,' because the absence of a completed review is itself part of the file's status, not a placeholder for one.
Bottom line on the score: the Anomalousness Index of 55/100 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:
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