Case · explicacion_oficial
The Conde sphere with a 'dead crewman' (Bahia, Brazil, 1963)
On November 8, 1963, Rio de Janeiro's Radio Tupi broadcast that a large metal sphere had fallen in the center of Conde (Bahia), gouging a 4-meter crater: it supposedly had window-like openings covered in thick glass and, inside, a human body in heavy clothing bearing undecipherable inscriptions. U.S. radio monitoring (FBIS) picked up the broadcast, the White House's National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC, chaired by Vice President Lyndon Johnson) requested information, and the embassy in Rio verified on the ground — all in the week before Kennedy's assassination. The three documents were declassified in August 2026 (PURSUE, Release 05): the first from the State Department and the Executive Office of the President in that archive.
What is claimedThe original broadcast claimed a sphere, a crater, windows, and a dead crewman with 'undecipherable inscriptions'. The NASC inquiry (Nov 13, 1963) and the cables being passed to Defense and NASA show Washington took it seriously in the first days — the description fits a space capsule (and a possible downed cosmonaut, at the height of the space race) better than a 'saucer', though no official source states that motive.
Skeptical viewVerification took 12 days to bury the story: the U.S. Consul in Salvador, Harold Midkiff, reported it was 'apparently fabricated in Rio' — no one in the area saw any object, not even the reporters who rushed there; Brazil's Ministry of Aeronautics categorically denied it (Diário de Notícias, Nov 9) and the Jornal da Bahia headlined it 'The airship that wasn't there' (Nov 11). The hoaxer was never identified. Notably, the case appears nowhere in classic UFO literature (APRO, NICAP, crash-retrieval catalogs) — it died so fast nobody picked it up, until the 2026 declassification revived it.
Related: Operation Prato (Brazil, 1977) · Varginha Case (Brazil, 1996) · Trindade Island (Brazil, 1958)
Sources — here nothing is invented: EOP-UAP-D001 · transcripción FBIS / consulta NASC (13-nov-1963, PURSUE R5) · DOS-UAP-D001 y D002 · cables de la embajada en Río (14 y 20-nov-1963, PURSUE R5) · Poder360 / CNN Brasil (ago 2026) · Unknown Country: 'declassification is not verification' (ago 2026)