The Conde, Bahia "metal sphere with a body inside" report

Conde is a municipality on the northern coast of Bahia, near the lower Itapicuru River. In November 1963 its name went out over the radio in a story that would travel all the way to Washington. The story did not begin in Conde. It began more than 1,000 km away, in Rio de Janeiro.

November 8, 1963. Rádio Tupi went on the air with "reports from the municipality of Conde." One account puts the broadcast at 11:30 PM. A large metal sphere, the station said, had fallen in the centre of the town. It had opened "a hole four meters deep." It had "window shaped openings covered with thick glass." Inside was "a human body dressed in heavy clothing bearing inscriptions which cannot be deciphered."

The people of Conde were said to be intrigued. The authorities had been informed. Someone else was listening too. The Foreign Broadcast Information Service, then part of the CIA, monitored the Portuguese broadcast and rendered it into English.

On November 13 the National Aeronautics and Space Council asked the State Department to verify the report. The next day a telegram was routed to the Department of Defense (Air Force) and NASA. Quoting press reports, it described a "large metal balloon with a crew" and a "deceased crew member" in a "uniform or spacesuit with unusual markings."

The answer came the same day. Harold Midkiff, the U.S. Consul in Salvador, wrote: "Story of strange object descending in region of Conde Bahia apparently fabricated in Rio no such objects seen by anyone in the area according to newspaper reporters and others who rushed there before investigation reports were received." On November 20 the Embassy in Rio sent airgram A-628 to the State Department, relaying his findings with two Bahian newspaper clippings attached.

No one in Conde had seen anything. There were no named witnesses, no photographs, no crater and no debris. The Ministry of Aeronautics "categorically" denied that there was any "strange object" in Conde.

The Bahian press was unimpressed. Diário de Notícias reported the denial. Jornal da Bahia ran the story under a headline the Americans translated as "The Airship That Wasn't There." Its reporter wrote that the only newsworthy thing about the trip was a telegram. He sent it from Conde to Salvador on an old Morse transmitter. The answer arrived within five minutes.

Bahia's Secretary of Public Security guessed it might have been a weather balloon, "but no such sighting was confirmed." The official verdict was simpler. Rio's radio coverage was the only point of origin, and Midkiff's "apparently fabricated in Rio" stands as the last word. The broadcaster and journalist behind the story were never identified.

No earlier books or documentaries on the case have been found. Then, on August 7, 2026, the cables surfaced in the fifth batch of the PURSUE release, 41 files in all. Outlets across Brazil picked them up, and the story reached Argentina, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. Some retellings garbled the details. USA Herald drew the lesson in a headline: "Declassification Is Not Confirmation."