The Crater at Baltichaur

Seven entries, four pages

The report is four pages long, headed “INFORMATION REPORT” and marked “NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE”. It was distributed on 11 April 1968. Its country line reads “India/Nepal/Bhutan/China”, its date of information “February - March 1968”. The subject begins with words that are blacked out and continues “Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan”. The introduction is blacked out too, except its last words: “sightings of unidentified flying objects in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan during the period 19 February - 25 March 1968.”

Then comes a table, headed “Particulars of Bright Objects Seen Over South Ladakh, North East Nepal, North Sikkim and Western Bhutan.” It is reproduced below in the report’s own order and spelling. The report gives “Local Time” and no time zone. Square brackets mark letters the scan has lost, and [?] a digit that cannot be read. In the last three entries everything is typed in the direction column and the particulars column is left blank; the table keeps that.

Date, local time	Area over which seen	Direction of flight	Particulars of the object
4 March 1968, “1300 hours”	“Chang La, Fukche, and Koyul” (Ladakh)	“East to West”	“One white light and simultaneously two blasting sounds were heard. Also, one reddish light followed by white smoke.”
19 February 1968, “Between [21]00 & [211]5”	“Walungchung-Gola and Ghunsa area” (north-east Nepal)	“North-East to South-West”	“A fast-moving object, long and thin, emitting red and green brigh[t li]ght, as bright as to cause day-light. Thunder sound heard after few seconds of sighting of object.”
19 February 1968, “Between [2]100 & [2]115”	“Lachung, Lachen, Thangu, Muguthang and Chholhamu” (Sikkim)	reported both ways; see below	“[Brig]ht object giving [li]ght from tail. It [was bri]ght enough to b[ri]ghten the entire area. [Th]under sound was heard […]olhamu after sighting the object.”
21 February 1968, “2130”	“Thimpu” (Bhutan)	“East to West. However since due east of Thimpu there is nothing but Indian terr[it]ory the direction o[f] flight could well be fro[m] North-east to South-west, that is, from the direction of Tibet.”	“A bluish colored object moving at high speed with-out any noise. It was bright enou[g]h to brighten the area.”
4 March 1968, “1300”	“Ane La area” (Ladakh)	“Object was following a circular path. Left a trail of smoke behind it.”	blank
25 March 1968, “2150”	“Fukche, Koyul, Demchok” (Ladakh)	“Appeared from Chang La side and was seen moving towards Demochok, i.e. from north to south. Rocket-lik[e] [ob]ject leaving white-yell[…]ite trail about 20 y[…] long at a height of 20-25,000 feet.”	blank
[2]5 March 1968, “2[?]15”	“Kaski region in NW Nepal.”	“Appeared to be north to south. A blazing object, flashing intermittently, accompanied by big [th]under sound disinte[gr]ated over Kaski region.” The entry goes on with the crater, below.	blank

Two Ladakh entries carry the same date and hour, 4 March at 1300: one for Chang La, Fukche and Koyul, the other for the Ane La area. The report does not say whether they are one event. The last entry does not fit the heading of the table either: the heading names north-east Nepal, the entry itself says “NW Nepal”, and it stands alone on the last page. The report spells the same place “Demchok” in one column and “Demochok” in the next.

The crater at Baltichaur

After the blazing object over Kaski, the last entry goes on:

“A huge metallic disc-shaped object with a six-foot base and four feet in height was found in a crater at Baltichaur, five miles NE of Pokhara. Portions of a similar object were found at Talakot and Tur[?]pasal.”

That is everything the report says about it. It names no finder and gives no date for the find. It does not say who saw the object, whether anyone measured it, what was done with it or where it went. The paragraph after the table, numbered 2, is blacked out in full, and its edge cuts through the last place name; the nearest reading is “Turepasal”.

The map pin for this case stands five miles north-east of Pokhara, computed from the report’s own words with Pokhara at 28.21 N, 83.99 E; it is not an established location of Baltichaur.

We searched the text of every PDF we hold from the six releases, 265 files and 11,244 pages, for Baltichaur, Pokhara, Sikkim, Bhutan and Ladakh, allowing for OCR errors. Apart from this report, the only hit is “Bhutan” in a list of least developed countries in an AAWSAP solicitation of 2008 (DOW-UAP-D111). The search reads only the text layer. Thirty-eight files have none, and the OCR of the scans is poor: this report’s own layer turns Pokhara into “Polchara”. The result means that no other text layer in the release names these places, not that no other released document does.

Nepal and Sikkim, 19 February

Two entries share a date and a time: north-east Nepal and Sikkim, both on 19 February, both between 2100 and 2115 as far as the faded digits can be read, and the report itself says that “the date and timing” coincide. Both describe a light bright enough to light up the area and thunder heard after the sighting. The Sikkim entry is the one place where the report argues with its own material:

“This information is rather confusing. Direction was reported as being from South-east to North-west over Th[…]gkarla, Lachung, La[che]n & Muguthang. Over Ch[o] Lhamo and Sese La, the direction was reportedly from North-east to South-west. The latter direction coincides with the one over Nepal and is likely to be more correct since the date and timing of the flight of object also coincide.”

So of two directions reported from Sikkim, the report prefers the one that matches Nepal. That is a check made inside one list by whoever compiled it. The report does not say whether the two entries came from different people or through different channels.

The Bhutan entry of 21 February reasons the same way from geography rather than timing: since due east of Thimpu “there is nothing but Indian terr[it]ory”, the direction could have been north-east to south-west, “that is, from the direction of Tibet.” It goes no further than direction.

What the blacked-out lines hide

• The report number, on the first page and beside the page count of the others.
• The first words of the subject, before “Sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects”, and the same words at the start of the title in the 1974 index.
• The acquisition and source fields, in one block of about ten lines.
• The introduction, except its last line.
• Paragraph 2, in full. The distribution box on the first page says “(For Field Distribution see final paragraph)”, so paragraph 2 carried at least the field distribution.

Without them we do not know who supplied the list, where or when the CIA obtained it, whether its entries are first-hand or gathered from the press or from local reports, who saw anything, or who found the object at Baltichaur. The report carries no evaluation, and nothing else in the release gives one.

A clipping and an index

The file opens with two pages that are not part of the report.

The first is a press clipping: two portrait photographs from a printed page numbered 3, with no title or date. One caption reads “He is convinced UFO’s are intelligently controlled from Outer Space—Donald E. Keyoe, director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena”, with Keyhoe’s name misspelt. The other reads “He will try to find out—Dr. Edward Condon, former head of the National Bureau of Standards and recently named director of the Air Force-sponsored civilian investigation of UFO’s with headquarters at the University of Colorado in Boulder.” Nothing in it concerns Asia or 1968.

The second is a sheet of computer printout, “CIRCOL OFFLINE OUTPUT - HQFTD/NIIB, WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, OHIO”, dated 18 June 1974 and addressed “CIA ATTN: CRS/ISG/U/” followed by a blacked-out name. It reports that “152 DOCUMENTS SATISFIED THIS SEARCH FOR LINDA”. The search terms are not printed. The sheet holds pages 14 and 15 of the output, and on them one legible record: this report, dated 68, classified confidential, with “AUTHOR NONE” and the topic tags “UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT, AIRCRAFT ADDIDENT” [sic]. Nothing of the other 151 results is legible in the file.

Why this scores where it does

Witnesses score 1. Nobody is named or counted; the report lists places, and its source is blacked out. Where it says that sounds “were heard”, it implies people without saying who they were.

Radar and optics score 0. No instrument, photograph or film appears anywhere in the file.

Physical trace scores 1. The report says a metallic object was found in a crater, and portions of a similar one in two more places, but it names no finder, gives no date for the find and records no examination, photograph or custody. That is a claim of a trace, not a trace, which is why the case lists visual observation as its only kind of evidence.

Multi-channel scores 1. Everything comes through one report from one source, and the source is blacked out. The 1974 index is a catalogue entry for the same report, not a second channel, and the agreement between Nepal and Sikkim is a check the compiler made inside the list.

Documentation scores 2: dated entries with local times, places and directions, distributed seventeen days after the last of them, but with the source, the introduction and paragraph 2 blacked out, marked not finally evaluated, and followed up nowhere in the release. Anomaly scores 2: bright, fast lights, thunder a few seconds later, a disintegration and trails of smoke, and one sentence about a metal disc that nothing else supports. 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 report without its redactions. The source, the introduction and paragraph 2 would say who compiled the list and from what, and whether anyone asked about the object.

The other 151 documents from the FTD search of June 1974. The printout says 152 documents satisfied the search, and only this report is legible in the file. The rest may include other reports of the same sightings, or the same list through another channel.

A record of the find at Baltichaur. Anything written when the object was found, by whoever found it or took it away, would turn one sentence into evidence.