With the publication this month of Nick Redfern's Pyramids and the Pentagon, another in his series of UFO and ancient mystery conspiracy books based on U.S. government documents released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), I've decided to examine some of the CIA and NSA files Redfern cites in his many books as important evidence for piecing together the story of government involvement in the exploration of ancient astronauts and other extraterrestrial mysteries. This is the third piece in my series on the U.S. government's FOIA files. Government UFO files are fun, but context is important. Somebody must have been having a laugh back in 1965 when writing the opening paragraph to a nearly-illegible report on a UFO in the Republic of Congo; at any rate, the NSA thought so little of the report that they let the file rot to the point where many of the words can no longer physically be read. The opening paragraph reads:
Intriguing, huh?
I should note that Kerekere is now in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), known officially from 1960 to 1971 as the “Republic of the Congo,” or more popularly as Congo-Leopoldville, in contrast to neighboring Congo-Brazzaville, also known officially and confusingly from 1958 as the Republic of the Congo. This confusion led many ufologists to mistakenly believe that the crash happened in the current Republic of the Congo rather than the current Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s as far as most ufologists read in the document. The NSA, however, did not feel that this unidentified flying object was an alien spacecraft. Though difficult to decipher, the third section of the report, Conclusions, clearly states that the object was identified as “an electrical component” made of terrestrial materials (silicon steel laminate) and that the condition of the object “prevent[s] determination of exact origin (country).” Unless the aliens are in charge of a country here on earth, it sure sounds like the NSA’s interest in this object was more terrestrial than cosmic. The fragment was exposed to temperatures in excess of 2500 degrees. Admirably, Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte report all of this in The Other Roswell (2008), though they pass silently over the key use of the word “country,” ignoring its clear implication that this object was terrestrial in origin. Similarly, they fail to note that the exploitation analysis turned up no isotopes, elements, or other signs of any extraterrestrial origin. And why was the American government investigating this? Good question. No discussion of this event that I have reviewed in any ufology book has mentioned anything about the context of the event, or why the NSA or CIA would be marching around in the jungles of the Congo randomly in the fall of 1965. The CIA was active in the Congo in the 1960s, responsible for political assassinations and waging covert actions to counter Soviet influence in the country. In the fall of 1965, the CIA was actively working to secure Mobutu Sese Seko at the head of the Congolese government as a counterforce to the former, pro-Soviet president (he would formally take office in November but had been in power since 1960). The former president had received assistance from Soviet military advisors before the CIA convinced Mobutu to expel the Soviets, who continued backing rebel factions in the east. As might be suspected, the CIA was looking at these metal fragments because of the, probably justified, suspicion of covert Soviet action in eastern Congo in opposition to the CIA’s anti-Soviet efforts in what was essentially a proxy war between America and the Soviet Union. It is only with this background that we can really understand why the U.S. government was searching the jungles of the Congo for scraps of metal at the start of the rainy season in the Congo. They weren’t looking for alien spaceships. They were looking for Soviet weapons.
5 Comments
terry the censor
6/12/2012 06:42:08 am
> they pass silently over the key use of the word “country,” ignoring its clear implication that this object was terrestrial in origin
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Jeff K
3/20/2014 04:57:32 pm
I have a different theory, which i think fits:Corona. Corona spy satellites. The siting could easy be describing a Corona satellites film drop container. One was known to be found by Venezuelan farmers. Maybe one went down in the Congo. It would also make perfect sense why the CIA was interested. They were the ones operating the Corona program.
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Dorothy M.
4/3/2014 10:02:02 am
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/exploitation_report_congo.pdf
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Mihail Hramov
7/24/2015 11:50:18 am
I've always loved astronomy and ufology. So I was and ufology. So I was interested in the article. I also read an article about downed UFO military air forces of South Africa in 1989. But I think it is an invention of journalists. invention of journalists
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Withheld
5/21/2016 03:09:12 am
For the record the individual most likely to have written the document would have been my father who was responsible for Air Navigation Communications maintenance coordination in the Congo at the time of the Documentation stated above. Given his future positions and responsibilities on behalf of World Governments, long after his retirement I asked him directly whether he had ever seen anything during his career which would lead him to believe that he had knowledge pertaining to UFO's. Since he has never passed any information to me that could ever be proven false, when he responded 'No', I can only conclude that any evidence of extraterrestrial UFO's either never existed or the 68 Countries within which he worked (at the highest levels) never had any physical evidence to support their existence. I can only offer these words on his behalf as he would likely simply ignore anyone who could not support claims which might be put forward, and also since he was willing to share with people that I had physically saved his life on at least one occasion, I can rest assured that he could never mislead me.
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AuthorI am an author and researcher focusing on pop culture, science, and history. Bylines: New Republic, Esquire, Slate, etc. There's more about me in the About Jason tab. Newsletters
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