File / conde-1963
The Conde Sphere
A Rio radio report of a metal sphere with a body inside, in a Bahia town that, by the U.S. consul’s account, had seen nothing
On 8 November 1963 Radio Tupi in Rio de Janeiro reported that a large metal sphere with windows had fallen in the centre of Conde, in Bahia, gouging a hole four metres deep, with a human body inside. The Foreign Broadcast Information Service took the report down, and a note on its transcript dated 13 November records a request to the State Department to say whether the embassy had anything more. The embassy in Rio asked its consulate in Salvador. On 20 November it sent the Department an airgram titled “Negative Report on UFO”: the consul wrote that no one in the area had seen such an object and called the story “apparently fabricated in Rio”, and two Salvador papers had carried a denial by the Ministry of Aeronautics and a piece called “The Airship that wasn’t there”. The Department marked the airgram “NOTED - NO ACTION” and filed it.
Official position
The consul in Salvador, Harold Midkiff, in his telegram 157 of 14 November 1963 as the embassy quotes it in airgram A-628: “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.” The embassy titled the airgram “Negative Report on UFO (Unidentified Flying Object)”. The Department marked it “NOTED - NO ACTION” on 26 November and filed it. The denial by the Ministry of Aeronautics is known only from the airgram’s summary of a newspaper.
Alternative hypotheses
- A story made up in Rio. The consul in Salvador, in his telegram of 14 November 1963 as the embassy quotes it: “Story of strange object descending in region of Conde Bahia apparently fabricated in Rio”. The documents do not say who made it up or how it reached Radio Tupi.
- A weather balloon. The embassy’s telegram of 14 November understood that “an object had been sighted aloft in that vicinity around that date” and that it “had been tentatively identified as weather-type balloon”. In the consul’s reply it is only a speculation: the Secretary of Public Security “speculated object might be weather balloon but no such sighting verified.”
- Nothing fell in Conde. The Diario de Noticias of 9 November, as the airgram summarises it, “states that the Ministry of Aeronautics categorically denies that there was any ‘strange object’ in Conde”, and the Jornal da Bahia of 11 November “is entitled ‘The Airship that wasn’t there’”. The embassy had recorded on 14 November that “no repeat no such object had been found aground”.
- A real crash. It rests only on the Radio Tupi report, as FBIS took it down, and on a local newspaper report that the embassy paraphrases without naming the paper. No document names a witness, and by the consul’s account the newspaper reporters and others who went to the area found no one who had seen such an object.
What the file holds
The whole file is three documents from the fifth PURSUE release, four pages in all: the Foreign Broadcast Information Service’s transcript of a radio report from Rio de Janeiro, with handwritten notes (EOP-UAP-D001); a telegram from the American embassy in Rio of 14 November 1963 (DOS-UAP-D001); and an airgram from the same embassy of 20 November (DOS-UAP-D002). We searched the text of all six releases for Bahia, Brazil, Salvador, Conde, Itaparica and November 1963, allowing for scanning errors; no other document is about this episode.
The broadcast
The transcript is headed “FBIS 03” and “RIO DE JANEIRO RADIO TUPI IN PORTUGUESE 2330 8 NOV 63 W”. Its whole text:
“(TEXT) REPORTS FROM THE MUNICIPALITY OF CONDE, IN BAIA, SAY A LARGE METAL SPHERE FELL IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY, GOUGING A HOLE FOUR METERS DEEP. THE MYSTERIOUS SPHERE HAS WINDOW SHAPED OPENINGS COVERED WITH THICK GLASS. INSIDE IS A HUMAN BODY DRESSED IN HEAVY CLOTHING BEARING INSCRIPTIONS WHICH CANNOT BE DECIPHERED. THE POPULATION OF CONDE IS INTRIGUED, AND THE AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN INFORMED.”
It ends “9 NOV 111A RWS/GY”. The report names no witness and no official, and it does not say when the sphere fell.
Who asked, and who answered
Someone wrote on the transcript. At the top: “SHELDON”, struck through; below it “a Curious report. Please return to me.” with initials we read as ECW; then “CSS” and a scribble. In pencil, across the middle: “asked State (Nesbitt) to let us know if Embassy follows with any info”, signed with a name we cannot read and dated “11/13”.
The embassy’s telegram went out the next day. It is addressed for action to the consulate in Salvador as number 94 and repeated to the Department as 1054, dated “141522Z”, “FROM SCIATT SIMONPIETRI” and signed “GORDON”:
“SINCE RADIOTELEPHONE CONNECTION LAST NIGHT WAS WEAK, PLEASE CONFIRM OR CORRECT MY UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR UNQUALIFIED NEGATIVE ON LOCAL NEWSPAPER REPORT TO EFFECT THAT LARGE METAL MANNED BALLOON HAD BEEN FOUND VICINITY SALVADOR APPROXIMATELY NOVEMBER 8, DEAD CREWMAN ABOARD WEARING UNIFORM OR SPACESUIT WITH STRANGE MARKINGS, THAT FOUR-METER-DEAP CRATER FORMED UPON IMPACT.”
“I UNDERSTAND FURTHER THAT AN OBJECT HAD BEEN SIGHTED ALOFT IN THAT VICINITY AROUND THAT DATE, THAT SAID OBJECT HAD BEEN TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS WEATHER-TYPE BALLOON, BUT THAT NO REPEAT NO SUCH OBJECT HAD BEEN FOUND AGROUND.”
“DEAP” is in the original. The Department’s note on the telegram: “PASSED DEFENSE AND NASA AT 2:20 PM 11/14/63”. Its action copy went to SCI, was marked “NOTED” the same day and filed.
The consul in Salvador, Harold Midkiff, replied on 14 November by telegram 157. The release does not hold it; the embassy quoted it six days later in airgram A-628:
“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.”
He also sent by pouch two clippings “from Salvadoran journals”, the Diario de Noticias of 9 November and the Jornal da Bahia of 11 November. The airgram: “The first of these states that the Ministry of Aeronautics categorically denies that there was any ‘strange object’ in Conde. The other is entitled ‘The Airship that wasn’t there’.” It closes on the Jornal da Bahia reporter, for whom the only newsworthy aspect of the episode was “an astounding by-product: he sent a telegram to his paper from the federal telegraphic office in Conde - by an old morse code transmitter - and five minutes later he had a reply from Salvador.”
The airgram was drafted on 20 November by “SA:ACSimonpietri”, approved by John Gordon Mein, cleared with “AA:RDKalb (in substance)” and “POL:CCCarson”, and signed “For the Ambassador” by André C. Simonpietri, Scientific Attaché. The Department stamped it “1963 NOV 24” and, in International Scientific Affairs, “NOV 26 1963”; a hand added “NOTED - NO ACTION”, “11/26/63” and “FILE”.
What is explained, and on what grounds
The status of this case is “explained”. What is explained is that nothing fell in Conde, and that the story, in the consul’s words, was “apparently fabricated in Rio”.
It stands on three things:
- The consul’s inquiry. He reports what “newspaper reporters and others who rushed there” found: no one in the area had seen such objects.
- The ministry’s denial. It appears in a newspaper, the Diario de Noticias of 9 November, as the airgram summarises it.
- The embassy’s note. On 14 November it recorded that “no repeat no such object had been found aground”.
All three reach us through the embassy’s airgram and telegram, that is, at second hand. The consul’s telegram 157 and the two clippings are not in the release, so we have his words and the papers only as the airgram gives them.
What the documents do not explain is where the Rio story came from, and they leave the weather balloon a speculation: in the consul’s words, “no such sighting verified”. The only object in the air in these documents is the one the embassy understood to have been “sighted aloft in that vicinity around that date” and “tentatively identified as weather-type balloon”. That is why the case is filed under visual observation.
A date that does not fit
The subject line of airgram A-628 reads: “Negative Report on UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) Reportedly Sighted Near Salvador, Bahia on November 8, 1964.” Every other date on the same page is 1963: “DATE: November 20, 1963”; the reference, “Embtel 94 to Amconsul Salvador (to SecState 1054) of November 14, 1963”; the drafting line, “11-20-63”; the stamps “1963 NOV 24” and “NOV 26 1963”; and the note “11/26/63”. Our reading is that 1964 is a typing slip for 1963.
What the publisher adds
The publisher’s listing behind the release page, uap-data.csv, titles EOP-UAP-D001 “NASC Inquiry into Bahia, Brazil Incident, November 13, 1963” and says it is “excerpted from the files of Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC)”. The page itself names neither NASC nor Welsh; that attribution comes only from the listing.
The listing’s descriptions of the two cables go wrong in two places. For DOS-UAP-D001 it has the embassy trying to “verify that the Department had assessed certain content published in a local newspaper as inauthentic”; the telegram asks the consulate in Salvador to confirm “YOUR UNQUALIFIED NEGATIVE”. For DOS-UAP-D002 it relays “the findings of the scientific attaché at the American Consulate in Salvador”; the attaché was at the embassy in Rio, which sent the airgram, and the findings are the consul’s.
Where it was
The radio report puts the sphere “IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY” of Conde, “IN BAIA”; the consul writes of the “region of Conde Bahia”, and the Jornal da Bahia reporter telegraphed from “the federal telegraphic office in Conde”. The embassy’s telegram of 14 November places the find “VICINITY SALVADOR”. The pin is OpenStreetMap’s point for the town of Conde (relation 20674014), rounded by us to 11.81° S, 37.61° W; by our calculation it lies about 160 km from OpenStreetMap’s point for Salvador. Our search of the map also returns São Francisco do Conde, closer to Salvador; that name appears in no document.
Why this scores where it does
Witnesses: 0. No witness is named in any of the three documents. The radio report cites “reports from the municipality of Conde”, and the consul wrote that no such objects were “seen by anyone in the area”.
Radar and optics: 0. No instrument recorded anything, and no photograph is mentioned.
Physical trace: 0. A sphere, a body and a crater were reported, and none was found: the embassy recorded that “no repeat no such object had been found aground”, and the Ministry of Aeronautics denied that there was any “strange object” in Conde.
Multi-channel: 1. The event itself rests on the Rio media, a radio broadcast and a newspaper report that the embassy paraphrases. What is independent of them, the consul’s inquiry and the Salvador papers, speaks against it.
Documentation: 3. Three dated documents of November 1963, with telegram numbers, stamps and the Department’s disposition, show who asked whom and what came back. The consul’s telegram, the two clippings and the Rio newspaper report are not in the release.
Anomaly: 0. No verified observation remains to be measured.
Data today: 2. The three documents can be read today. The Rio newspaper report, the clippings and any Brazilian record are not in the release.
The overall is 0.7: class D, testimony only.
What would settle it
- The consul’s telegram 157 of 14 November 1963 and the two clippings he sent by pouch.
- The Rio newspaper report that the embassy paraphrased, and the Radio Tupi broadcast itself rather than its FBIS summary.
- Any record of the Ministry of Aeronautics, or of the Secretary of Public Security, on the episode.
- Any answer to the request noted on the transcript on 13 November.
← All case files