CIA-UAP-006 is a Central Intelligence Agency information report, designated Report Number 00-13-9202.20, released in PURSUE Release 03 on June 12, 2026. The record originates with the CIA and covers an incident that occurred on October 4, 1955, near Baku, Azerbaijan, in the Soviet Union. It describes a US national's eyewitness account of a triangular object with wing lights being launched at a steep angle from an airfield adjacent to a Soviet railway line. A redacted version of this report has previously been available on CIA's public website.12
Provenance and Classification
The document is classified as containing SECRET material affecting the national defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws, Title 18, U.S.C., Sections 793 and 794. It is explicitly labeled "Unevaluated Information" and serves as a Supplement to Report 11. The distribution date is November 15, 1955, approximately six weeks after the incident itself.
Distribution was tightly controlled under a NO FOBN (Not for Dissemination Abroad) designation. Circulation was limited to full-time employees of the CIA, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and FBI. Within State and Defense Department channels, access was restricted to intelligence components, NIS-producing offices, and higher echelons with immediate supporting elements. The PURSUE release represents the first public disclosure of the unredacted version of this report.3
The CIA's own "Unevaluated Information" caveat is significant: the agency did not attempt to assess the object's nature, origin, or affiliation at the time of distribution. The report records what a witness described; it does not reach conclusions.
The Witness
The source is identified as a 41-year-old US national employed as vice president of publicity and advertising at a large US corporation. His educational background includes a degree with a major in political science and Phi Beta Kappa membership. The CIA explicitly notes that he lectured extensively on current affairs. Equally important is what the CIA flags as a limitation: the source possessed no technical training or experience in aviation matters. That caveat is woven into the document itself, not added as an afterthought, indicating the CIA considered the absence of aviation expertise relevant to how the report should be weighted.
The source had traveled to the USSR as a tourist at the invitation of a senior Soviet official. He was accompanied by three other US nationals: one shared his Wagon-Lit sleeping-car compartment, and two occupied the adjoining compartment. These travel companions served as potential corroborating witnesses to the incident.
The Sighting: October 4, 1955
The train departed Baku for Tiflis on the afternoon of October 4, 1955. The train was slow, traveling at an estimated overall speed of 20 miles per hour and stopping at every station along the route. Approximately two hours and forty minutes after departure, placing the train between 50 and 65 miles south of Baku, a companion alerted the source to something visible from the left-hand side of the train, on the side facing the Caspian Sea coast. The Caspian remained visible from the window, confirming the train's proximity to the coastline.
At an estimated distance of two miles from the train -- the source initially said five miles but revised his estimate upon reflection -- a large airfield was visible. On that airfield, a massive searchlight was already active and focused on a stationary object. The object was described as triangular, specifically in the form of an equilateral triangle, squat in shape, and comparable in overall size to a US jet fighter. It displayed three lights, one at each point of the triangle, which the source interpreted as two wing lights and one tail light.
What followed is the core of the report. The source describes the object being ejected from its launching site rather than taking off in any conventional sense. His exact words as recorded in the report draw a direct comparison: he stated he wished to emphasize that the event was no ordinary takeoff but a launching procedure more like a missile ejection. The object then climbed at approximately 45 degrees, ascending rapidly and executing not fewer than three and not more than seven fast spirals before reaching a high altitude. The searchlight tracked the object throughout the entire ascent. A companion from the adjoining compartment reported to the source that this was the second such launching in rapid succession, meaning at least one prior event had already occurred during the period the group was observing the airfield.
Soviet Intervention
The observation was cut short by active Soviet measures. While the witnesses were still watching the object ascend, the train steward entered the source's compartment and pulled down the window blinds. When the source began to protest, the steward walked toward the rear of the car and shook his head, indicating through gesture that an MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) officer -- who had boarded the train at the moment of departure from Baku -- had ordered the blinds to be drawn.
The timing of the MVD officer's boarding is noteworthy: the document records that he joined the train at the precise moment of departure from Baku, before the airfield came into view. Whether the MVD presence was routine or specifically tied to activity at the airfield cannot be established from the document. What is recorded is that Soviet internal security personnel exercised control over what foreign tourists could observe from a moving train in the vicinity of the installation.
The Flight Discrepancy
The document includes a detail that sits outside the sighting itself but adds context to the overall picture. The source's party had originally intended to travel from Baku to Tiflis by air. Soviet tourism agency personnel in Baku informed them that no flights existed between the two cities. However, upon arriving in Tiflis, INTOURIST personnel there expressed surprise that the group had traveled by train and stated that several flights a day operated between Baku and Tiflis. The document records this discrepancy without explanation or resolution. It may reflect compartmentalized knowledge among Soviet tourism officials, deliberate misdirection aimed at routing foreign tourists away from air travel, or some administrative inconsistency. The CIA did not adjudicate between these possibilities in the report.
The practical effect of the discrepancy was that the source's party was on the train rather than on an aircraft when the airfield activity occurred.
What The Record Supports
CIA-UAP-006 preserves a contemporaneous, single-source civilian eyewitness account of an unconventional launch event near a Soviet installation in 1955. The CIA distributed the report to a restricted intelligence audience within six weeks of the incident. The agency's own "Unevaluated Information" designation means the report carries no official assessment of what was observed.
The record establishes: a triangular, three-light object was observed on a Soviet airfield near Baku; the object was launched in a manner the witness explicitly distinguished from a conventional takeoff, comparing it to a missile ejection; the object climbed steeply in a spiral pattern while tracked by a ground-based searchlight; at least two such events occurred in rapid succession; and Soviet MVD personnel actively intervened to end the observation.
The record does not establish: the identity or nature of the craft; whether it was a Soviet experimental aircraft, a missile system, a test vehicle, or something else; the name or formal affiliation of the airfield; or any causal connection between the flight-booking discrepancy and the sighting. The witness lacked aviation technical training, which the CIA itself flagged. No sensor data, photography, or independent corroboration beyond the companions aboard the train is included in the report.
The PURSUE release makes the unredacted version publicly available for the first time, providing additional detail beyond what was previously accessible through CIA's own declassification releases.