Declassified US government files describe a 1963 investigation into a reported alien crash in Bahia, Brazil. The reports claimed a metal sphere containing a deceased pilot plummeted into the town of Conde.
The 13-foot crater in Conde
On November 8, 1963, a report surfaced claiming a large metal sphere had slammed into the municipality of Conde, creating a hole roughly 13 feet deep. according to the declassified files, the object featured glass-covered windows and housed a human corpse dressed in heavy gear with undecipherable inscriptions. This sensational account first gained traction via a Portuguese-language broadcast by Radio Tupi in Rio de Janeiro.
The details providd by Radio Tupi were specific enough to cause immediate alarm. The broadcast described the occupant as a "dead crewman" wearing a uniform or spacesuit with strange markings. While local authorities in Bahia were reportedly informed, the original reports lacked photographs, named witnesses, or any tangible physical evidence to support the claim of an extraterrestrial or foreign arrival.
NASA and the State Department's six-day scramble
The claim triggered an immediate reaction from the US government, with the State Department, Department of Defense, and NASA all reviewing the details. On November 14, the US Embassy in Rio sent a telegram to the State Department and the American Consulate in Salvador seeking clarification on whether the reports were entirely false. For six days, American officials attempted to reconcile conflicting reports that oscillated between a manned spacecraft, a dead crewman, and a simple weather balloon.
This reaction reflects the high-tension atmosphere of the 1960s Space Race, where any unidentified aerial phenomenon was treated as a potential national securiy event.. the fact that the Department of Defense and NASA were looped into a diplomatic inquiry about a Brazilian radio report underscores the era's anxiety regarding orbital capabilities and the potential for clandestine aerospace technology to fall into the wrong hands.
Harold Midkiff's findings in Salvador
The mystery dissolved when US diplomats conducted on-the-ground verification in Brazil. As the report indicates, Harold Midkiff, the American consul in Salvador, concluded that the story had been "apparently fabricated in Rio." Midkiff reported that investigators and newspaper reporters who rushed to Conde found no witnesses to the event and no evidence of a crash site.
The debunking was further supported by official Brazilian channels. Brazil’s Ministry of Aeronautics issued a categorical denial that any strange object had appeared in Conde. Local media eventually mirrored this skepticism, with one Bahia newspaper running the dismissive headline, "The Airship that wasn’t there." Ultimately, the only verified extraordinary event in the town was a reporter using an old Morse code machine at the federal telegraph office to transmit a dispatch.
The mystery of Radio Tupi's original source
Despite the debunking, the files—released as part of the Trump administration’s fifth tranche of UFO records—leave several gaps regarding the origin of the hoax. It remains unknown who first fed the story to Radio Tupi or why the fabrication was so convincing that it prompted a multi-agency US investigation. The documents do not identify the individual or organization that originated the claim.
Additionally, the records contain a curious clerical error, listing the incident as occurring in November 1964, despite the cables being written and referring to reports from November 1963. this discrepancy, combined with the lack of a named source for the original broadcast, suggests that while the US government was diligent in its debunking, the actual mechanism of the hoax remained a mystery to them.
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