UFOs in Ladakh? CIA files detail ‘sightings’ in ’60s
NEW DELHI: The study of crashed UFOs and alien autopsies are part of one of the most popular conspiracy theories about the CIA but the spy agency kept a close watch on sightings of flying saucers over India and its neighbours.
A report from April 1968 — part of the 930,000 declassified documents recently posted online by the Central Intelligence Agency — details six sightings of unidentified flying objects over Ladakh, Sikkim (then a protectorate of India), Bhutan and Nepal in preceding months.
Though the US security establishment has largely debunked the issue of UFOs in recent years, the CIA and the US Air Force took reports of flying saucers in the 1950s and 1960s so seriously that the spy agency’s Office of Scientific Intelligence formed a scientific advisory panel to study the phenomenon.
The CIA report, originally not meant to be shared with foreigners, contains “particulars of bright objects seen over south Ladakh, north-east Nepal, north Sikkim and western Bhutan”.
One sighting — over Kaski in Nepal on March 25, 1968 — involved a “blazing object, flashing intermittently” that “disintegrated”. The report said, “A huge metallic disc-shaped object with a six-foot base and four feet in height was found in a crater at Baltichaur, five miles NE of Pokhara.”
In clinical and precise terms, the report mentions an object was spotted moving from east to west over Chang La, Fukche and Koyul in Ladakh at 1 pm on March 4, 1968. “One white light and simultaneously two blasting sounds were heard. Also, one reddish light followed by white smoke,” the report said in its description.
There were two more sightings over Ladakh, one on March 4 and another on March 25, 1968. The object seen on March 25 was spotted moving towards Demchok and was “rocket-like” with a “white-yellow-white trail about 20 yards long at a height of 20-25,000 feet”.
On February 19, 1968, there were reports of a fastmoving and bright object being spotted over northeast Nepal and north Sikkim at 9 pm. The object, seen over Lachung, Lachen, Thangu, Muguthang and Chholamu in Sikkim, was bright enough to light up the area at night. A “thunder sound” was heard at Chholamu after it was sighted.
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