UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 05 · AUGUST 7, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · DOCUMENT · DOS-UAP-D002Diplomatic Cable, Brazil, November 20, 1963
This airgram, sent by the American embassy in Rio de Janeiro and dated 20 November 1963, closes the file opened by DOS-UAP-D001. Its subject line calls it a “negative report” on a UFO said to have come down near Salvador, Bahia (the subject line misprints the year).
What the consulate found
The embassy quotes a telegram from Harold Midkiff, the U.S. consul in Salvador. The story of a strange object descending near Conde, Bahia, was, he said, apparently fabricated in Rio; newspaper reporters and others who rushed to the area had found no one who saw anything. The state public security secretary had speculated it might have been a weather balloon, but no such sighting was confirmed.
The consul also sent two clippings from Salvador newspapers. One reported that Brazil’s Ministry of Aeronautics categorically denied there had been any “strange object” in Conde. The other, headlined “The Airship that wasn’t there,” joked that the only newsworthy result of the episode was the reporter’s chance to send his story from Conde’s federal telegraph office on an old Morse transmitter.
Why it is in the release
The cable is a clear example of a crash story falling apart under local checking: the claim spread from a big-city newspaper rather than from witnesses near the supposed site, and later local reporting contradicted it. Copies went to the Defense Department, for the Air Force, and to NASA, which shows the original rumor had briefly drawn attention in Washington. Similar claims are explained in our glossary.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released August 7, 2026, quoted in full
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.”