Document · 16 January 1958 · Trindade Island, South Atlantic (Brazil)
Project Blue Book file: Trindade Island, Brazil, 16 January 1958
Also known as Trindade Island case file, ONI Information Report 39-58, Saldanha photos
A Project Blue Book file on the photographs taken from the Brazilian Navy ship Almirante Saldanha off Trindade Island on 16 January 1958. It holds the Project 10073 record card (conclusion: hoax), the U.S. Naval Attaché's Office of Naval Intelligence Information Report 39-58 of 11 March 1958, which carries the Brazilian Navy Ministry's official statement and the attaché's comments, the 1960 correspondence prompted by a citizen's protest against the hoax label (with a reply from the Air Force and a letter from the CIA's legislative counsel to Rep. Gordon Scherer), an internal memo on whether to release the ONI report to NICAP, a galley proof of the Trindade chapter of Menzel and Boyd's The World of Flying Saucers, and the APRO Bulletins of March and May 1960 with Olavo Fontes's case for the photographs.
Our copy is the one published by The Black Vault in its “From the Desks of Project Blue Book” collection (pages stamped with Rob Mercer's name), not the National Archives microfilm. The scans are poor: pages 2, 26, 28–30, 34–36, 44 and 47–52 of our text were re-OCR'd at 300 dpi; the rest is the PDF's own text layer.
Sources: Project Blue Book file, Trindade Island, 16 January 1958, via The Black Vault; ONI Information Report 39-58 (U.S. Naval Attaché, Rio de Janeiro, 11 March 1958)
Facts and claims
- documented The Project 10073 record card for 16 January 1958, “Trinidade, Island”, gives the source as military, one object, photos, and the conclusion “Other”, hoax. Its comment says that upon investigation the Brazilian Navy refused to make an official statement, that the Center had been unable to obtain copies of the photos, and that ONI's analysis was that they were a hoax (p. 2). Source: doc-blue-book-trindade-1958.pdf
- documented The U.S. Naval Attaché in Rio de Janeiro reported (ONI Information Report 39-58, 11 March 1958) that on 21 February 1958 two leading Rio newspapers printed photographs of an alleged flying saucer taken from the Brazilian naval ship Almirante Saldanha at about midday on 16 January 1958, while it was anchored off Trindade Island on International Geophysical Year research (p. 48). Source: doc-blue-book-trindade-1958.pdf
- documented The report quotes the Navy Ministry's official statement: the ministry “has no motive to impede the release of” the photographs taken by Almiro Barauna, a guest of the Navy, in the presence of many of the crew, but it could make no pronouncement on the object because the photographs “do not constitute sufficient proof for such purpose” (p. 49). Source: doc-blue-book-trindade-1958.pdf
- documented The attaché's preparing officer, Capt. M. Sunderland, USN, saw two explanations, Brazilian Navy suppression, which he did not believe, or a “fake publicity stunt” by the photographer that the Navy fell for, which he thought most likely; he found the photographs unconvincing: the land sharp but the disc hazy and without shadow, the object apparently inverted in photo 2, and no lateral blurring despite the reported speed (p. 51). Source: doc-blue-book-trindade-1958.pdf
- documented In August 1960 the Air Force's Public Information Division answered a protest about the “hoax” label: the Navy had evaluated the picture as a hoax, and “No witnesses were present while the photographer developed the” negatives (p. 35). Source: doc-blue-book-trindade-1958.pdf
Connected files
Programs
- Project Blue Book (case file of)
Incidents
Organizations
- Office of Naval Intelligence (cites) — Office of Naval Intelligence Information Report 39-58, from the U.S. Naval Attaché in Rio, 11 March 1958
Mentioned in this file
- Donald H. Menzel (Person)
- The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age (Book)
- National Archives and Records Administration (Organization)
- Central Intelligence Agency (Organization)
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