DOS-UAP-D002, Diplomatic Cable, Brazil, November 20, 1963
This document is a U.S. Department of State diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to the Office of the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., on November 20, 1963. This cable relays the findings of the scientific attaché at the American Consulate in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, that a widely reported incident allegedly involving a crashed unidentified object was unsubstantiated, characterizing the reports as a fabrication originating in Rio de Janeiro. The Consulate cites a lack of contemporary local reporting regarding the alleged incident, as well as contradictory reporting from local newspapers after the fact, as evidence that the published claims are unsubstantiated. The Consulate also cites a statement from the Brazilian Ministry of Aeronautics categorically denying that there was “any “strange object” in Conde [Bahia].” This correspondence follows a previous exchange between the Embassy and the Department of State, included in this collection under the title “DOS-UAP-D001.”
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 263 words from page 1 of 2.
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DEPARTMENT OF STATE FOR RM USE ONLY EUR FE NEA CV INR NO. Amembassy RIO DE JANE:mO Negative Report on UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) INT LAe TAR SUBJECT: Reportedly Sighted Near Salvador, Bahia on November 8, 1964. : Embtel 94 to Amconsul Salvador (to SecState 1054) of r Information copies of the above Embtel were sent to the 7 Department with the request that they be passed to Defense (for the Air Force) and NASA. Mr. Harold Midkiff, the Consul in Salvador, replied by telegram No. 157 of November 14 to the above cited Embtel; as "Story of strange object descending in region of Conde Bahia apparently fabricated in Rio no such objects seen by anyone in the area according to newspaper reporters and others who rushed there before investigation reports were received Secretary Public Security speculated object might be weather balloon but no such sighting verified." In addition, he forwarded by pouch also on November 14 two newspaper clippings from Salvadoran journalswhich substan tiate the above message, respectively Diario de Noticias of November 9, and the Jornal da Bahia of November 11. The first of these states that the Ministry of Aeronautics categorically denies that there was any 11strange object" in Conde. The other is entitled "The Airship that wasn't there". According to the Jornal da Bahia reporter, the only news worthy aspect of the episode is that it produced an astounding by-product: he sent a telegram to his paper from the federal telegraphic office in Conde - by an old morse code transmitter - ""FOR DITT USE ONLY AA:RDKalb in substance
Where this file fits in the PURSUE archive
This file is one of State Department's 9 files in the Trump PURSUE disclosure. Within the State Department agency block it ranks #4 of 9 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 450-file archive it ranks #438 of 450.
That places it in the lower-scoring band of the archive (438 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 Diplomatic UAP Cables - the 9-file State Department PURSUE cluster spanning 1952-2004 embassy cables and policy memoranda, including the two 1963 Bahia, Brazil cables added in Release 05. The cluster page walks through all 9 member files with regional grouping, sensor breakdown, and standout analysis.
Anomalousness Index: 50/100
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 State Department.
Civilian witness whose report entered the federal record through investigative channels. The rubric weights civilian credentialed witnesses below uniformed personnel because the report enters the federal record at a remove rather than directly from a mission context.
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 50/100 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 State Department
Other PURSUE files in the same category, ranked by Anomalousness Index.
59_214434_SP 16 [7.18.1963]
59_64634_711.5612[7-2852
DOS-UAP-D001, Diplomatic Cable, Brazil, November 14, 1963
State Department UAP Cable 001, Papua New Guinea, January 28, 1985
State Department UAP Cable 002, Kazakhstan, January 31, 1994
State Department UAP Cable 003, Tbilisi, Georgia, October 30, 2001
Verification
SHA-256:
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