State Department UAP Cable 001, Papua New Guinea, January 28, 1985
This document is a U.S. Department of State diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea to USCINCPAC (United States Indo-Pacific Command) at Honolulu, HI on January 28, 1985. The cable reports that the U.S. Embassy to Papua New Guinea received an inquiry from the host nation’s intelligence services regarding reports of high-altitude, high-speed aircraft in Papua New Guinean airspace on the evening of January 24, 1985. The cable refers to a representative of the local intelligence services as “NIO,” or National Intelligence Officer, throughout. The NIO relayed to U.S. diplomatic personnel that residents had been “frightened by overflights, which led to the provincial premier’s calling of a public meeting on the subject.” The NIO also stated there had been “various reports of unidentified aerial phenomena the night of January 24, including fast-moving objects with lights, contrails, and noise.” The NIO assessed these reports as credible based upon the testimony of an Air Niugini pilot who said that their radar had “picked up aircraft flying south to north at high altitude and high speed.” The cable concludes by characterizing the information provided by the NIO as “very sketchy.” It also sought clarification from U.S. INDOPACOM on the presence or absence of U.S. military aircraft within Papua New Guinean airspace on the night in question.
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 346 words from pages 1, 2 of 3.
PAGE 1
From: AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY Action: USCINCLANT ROUTINE TAGS: MARR, PP Subject: PAPUA NEW GUINEA INQUIRY RE OVERFLIGHTS LIMITED OFFICIAL USE FM AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY TO USCINCPAC HONOLULU HI IMMEDIATE INFO 43SW ANDERSON AFB GU IMMEDIATE SECSTATE WASHDC 1694 AMEMBASSY CANBERRA LIMITED OFFICIAL USE PORT MORESBY 00199 USCINCPAC FOR J3 AND POLAD STATE FOR EAP/PIA AND PM/RSA TAGS: MARR, PP SUBJECT: PAPUA NEW GUINEA INQUIRY RE OVERFLIGHTS 1. EMBASSY JANUARY 28 RECEIVED INFORMAL INQUIRY FROM PNG NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATION (NIO) CONCERNING REPORTED SIGHTINGS OF HIGH-ALTITUDE, HIGH-SPEED AIRCRAFT OVER PNG DURING EVENING JANUARY 24. MATTER CAME TO NIO'S ATTENTION WHEN ITS OFFICER IN WEWAK REPORTED LOCAL RESIDENTS HAD BEEN FRIGHTENED BY OVERFLIGHTS, WHICH LED TO THE PROVINCIAL PREMIER'S CALLING OF A PUBLIC MEETING ON THE SUBJECT ATTENDED BY THE PRIME MINISTER WHO WAS WEEKENDING IN HIS ELECTORAL DISTRICT. Released in Full IJohn Powers, Acting-Director US Department of State UNCLASSIFIED Pagel of 3
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2. NIO SAID THERE HAVE BEEN VARIOUS REPORTS OF UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 24, INCLUDING FAST-MOVING OBJECTS WITH LIGHTS, CONTRAILS, LIMITED OFFICIAL USE LIMITED OFFICIAL USE AND NOISE. THE REPORT IN WHICH NIO PLACES SOME CREDENCE ORIGINATED WITH AN AIR NIUGINI PILOT WHO HAD JUST TAKEN OFF FROM WEWAK ENROUTE PORT MORESBY. PILOT SAID HIS RADAR PICKED UP AIRCRAFT FLY ING SOUTH TO NORTH AT HIGH ALTITUDE AND HIGH SPEED WHEN HE WAS OVER ANGORAM (VIC 4 DEG S, 144 DEG E). SEVERAL VISUAL SIGHTINGS OF CONTRAILS WERE ALSO REPORTED FROM VARIOUS POINTS AROUND PNG, OF ONE AIRCRAFT MOVING NORTH TO SOUTH AT 1900 LOCAL AND OF SIX-EIGHT AIRCRAFT TRAVELING SOUTH TO NORTH AT 3. BASED ON OUR RECORDS AND TELCON WITH 43SW, WE HAVE TOLD NIO WE KNEW OF NO B-52 OVERFLIGHTS AND NO U.S. AIRCRAFT IN PNG AIRSPACE ON JANUARY 24. 4. ALT HOUGH INFORMATION PROVIDED US ON THESE SIGHTINGS IS VERY SKETCHY AND SOURCES WERE UNSURE OF THE DIRECTIONS IN WHICH AIRCRAFT WERE FLYING, WE WOULD MOST APPRECIATE CONFIRMATION OF PARA 3 ABOVE AND ANY LIGHT YOU MIGHT THROW ON THESE REPORTS. LIMITED OFFICIAL USE UNCLASSIFIED Page 2 of 3
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 #5 of 9 by Anomalousness Index. Across the entire 450-file archive it ranks #440 of 450.
That places it in the lower-scoring band of the archive (440 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
DOS-UAP-D002, Diplomatic Cable, Brazil, November 20, 1963
State Department UAP Cable 002, Kazakhstan, January 31, 1994
State Department UAP Cable 003, Tbilisi, Georgia, October 30, 2001
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 →
Source: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/dos-uap-d1-cable-1-papua-new-guinea-january-1985.pdf