The Harare Alert

Forty-seven addressees and a printout from 2009

The cable is dated “031710Z CIA WASHINGTON DC 455482”: 17:10 UTC on the third of the month, and its distribution line gives the month, “DIST: 3 JULY 2008”. It went to forty-seven named addressees, from the White House Situation Room and the Director of National Intelligence to the FBI, the Secret Service, the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA NATIONAL HQ WASHINGTON DC”) and the Transportation Security Administration (“TSA HQ WASHINGTON DC”), and on to US military commands in Europe and the United States, the last of them “HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE”. One more line of addressees is blacked out, and below it stands “PASS: DIA FOR TERRORISM .” The cable is headed “INFORMATION REPORT, NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE”, with “COUNTRY: ZIMBABWE”, “TOPIC: DEPS/FMCC” and “DOI: EARLY JULY 2008”.

What was released is not the cable as sent but a printout of it. Every page carries a browser header, “Trident” and “https://www.trident.cia/DisplayDocument.do?documentView=original”, and a footer with the page number and “6/15/2009 2:05 PM”. The copy was printed from an internal CIA system on 15 June 2009. It bears no FOIA marking and no release stamp except the one of 2026, and nothing in it says why it was printed.

What the unredacted lines say

Paragraph 1 is blacked out in full. Paragraph 2 begins “As of early July 2008,” and the rest of that line, followed by a block of about ten lines, is blacked out. The text resumes in the middle of a sentence; “[…]” marks each blacked-out passage:

“[…] was reporting from Zimbabwe […] regarding an unidentified object hovering at high altitude over the Harare International Airport. This object was observed, possibly by both radar and optical means, in the skies above Harare during the afternoon of 2 July 2008. Reporting […] indicated that the object hovered at an undetermined altitude directly over the Harare airport. At one point during observation, ‘beams’ were observed emanating from the object […]”

Paragraph 3 reads:

“Individuals […] who were aware of the incident had debated whether the object was an advanced reconnaissance device belonging to a foreign government, or whether the object was an unidentified flying object of extraterrestrial origins. According to observers […] the object was disc-like in shape with a hollow center, and had a series of rotating lights on the underside of the airframe. After a period under observation from the ground, the rotating lights under the object shifted colors and the object quickly ascended to higher altitudes and out of visual range. Regardless of the origins, this incident, […] had resulted in the decision to place the Zimbabwe […] on high alert.”

Everything after that is blacked out down to “END OF MESSAGE”: about twenty lines on the second page and about seven on the third.

We found no other mention of Harare or Zimbabwe in the text layers of the released files; 38 of them have no text layer.

Radar, possibly

The one sentence that mentions an instrument hedges it: “This object was observed, possibly by both radar and optical means”. “Possibly” governs both. The report does not say that a radar held the object, gives no track, range, height or time, and does not say whose radar it would have been. Even the height shifts within the paragraph: first the object is “hovering at high altitude”, a few lines later it “hovered at an undetermined altitude directly over the Harare airport”.

Every description reaches the report second-hand: someone “was reporting from Zimbabwe”, “Reporting … indicated”, “According to observers”. The reporters, the observers and their number are blacked out. The observers were on the ground: the object climbed away “After a period under observation from the ground”.

Whose alert

The subject line reads “PLACEMENT […] ON HIGH ALERT DUE TO PERCEIVED AGGRESSIVE FOREIGN POSTURING”, with about thirty characters blacked out. The last legible sentence of the text ends on the decision: “this incident, […] had resulted in the decision to place the Zimbabwe […] on high alert.”

What is left says the forces were Zimbabwean. After “the Zimbabwe” comes a blacked-out word or two, about nine characters wide, which would have named the unit. The report does not say who took the decision. Nor does it say that the incident was the only cause: about a line and a half is blacked out between “this incident,” and “had resulted”, and the subject speaks of “perceived aggressive foreign posturing” without saying whose. No foreign government is named anywhere in the legible text.

Two thirds blacked out

This is an estimate, made from the height of the blacked-out blocks against the line spacing of the text, not a count of words. By that measure about 46 of some 72 lines of the message body are blacked out, roughly two thirds. The blacked-out parts are:

• one line of addressees on the first page;
• about thirty characters of the subject line;
• a block of about five lines between “DOI: EARLY JULY 2008” and “SUMMARY: NONE”;
• paragraph 1, about four lines;
• the rest of the first line of paragraph 2 and a block of about ten lines after it;
• shorter passages beside “was reporting from Zimbabwe”, “Reporting”, “observers” and “Individuals”;
• about a line and a half after “this incident,” and about nine characters after “the Zimbabwe”;
• about twenty lines after “on high alert”, and about seven on the last page.

Why this scores where it does

Witnesses score 1: the observers and the reporter are blacked out, and every account reaches the report second-hand. Radar scores 1, not more, because the only mention of an instrument is the report’s own “possibly”, with no data behind it; it would be 0 if only documented measurements counted. Optics and physical trace score 0: no photograph, film or material.

Multi-channel scores 1: one cable, from one line of reporting. Radar and eyesight would be two channels if the report confirmed the radar, and it does not. Documentation scores 2: dated to the minute and distributed the day after the sighting, but marked not finally evaluated, two thirds blacked out and followed by nothing else in the release. Anomaly scores 2: a hover over an airport, a disc with a hollow centre, rotating lights that changed colour, “beams” and a fast climb out of sight are unusual as described, but every detail is second-hand and none was measured. Data today scores 1.

That puts the case at 1.0 overall, class D, testimony only, with the status insufficient data.

What would settle it

The cable without its redactions. Who reported the object and how, who debated it, which unit was placed on alert, and everything after “on high alert”.

The radar data, if there were any. A track from Harare would turn “possibly” into a measurement, or remove the word.

Zimbabwean records of the alert. An order or a log from the unit would say who decided, when, and whether the object was the reason.