Incident · 27 January 1994 · Over Kazakhstan (45°N 55°E)
Tajik Air 747SP sighting over Kazakhstan
Also known as Kazakhstan 1994, Tajik Air UFO
On 27 January 1994 the crew of a Tajik Air Boeing 747SP, flying at 41,000 feet over western Kazakhstan before dawn, saw a light of enormous intensity come over the eastern horizon at great speed and well above them. Captain Ed Rhodes, the airline's American chief pilot, and his two American colleagues watched it for about forty minutes as it circled, corkscrewed and made sharp turns, then sped off horizontally. Rhodes took photos with a pocket camera. In the dark they could not make out a shape; they compared the light to a high-speed photograph of a bullet in flight, with a small source and a large trailing wave.
About forty-five minutes after the first sighting, as the sun rose, the aircraft passed beneath contrails that followed the same loops and corkscrews. Rhodes put them at about 100,000 feet, too high for ordinary aircraft. The U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe, which reported the account to Washington, Moscow and the CIA and DIA, suggested a meteor; the crew insisted it was nothing like the thousands of meteors they had seen, and Rhodes said he believed it was extraterrestrial.
The altitudes and manoeuvres are the crew's visual estimates, not measurements, and the embassy expressed no view. The cable was released in 2026 among State Department UAP records in the PURSUE programme.
Sources: State Department UAP Cable 002 (PURSUE, local copy)
Facts and claims
- documented A U.S. Embassy Dushanbe cable of 31 January 1994 reports that Tajik Air chief pilot Ed Rhodes and two American pilot colleagues said that on 27 January, flying a Boeing 747SP at 41,000 feet at 45°N 55°E over Kazakhstan, they watched a bright light of enormous intensity approach from the east at much higher altitude and manoeuvre for some forty minutes in circles, corkscrews and 90-degree turns before leaving horizontally. Source: State Department UAP Cable 002 — Kazakhstan, January 31, 1994
- claimed Rhodes estimated the object's contrails, which the aircraft later flew under at sunrise, at about 100,000 feet, and he and his crew rejected the embassy's suggestion of a meteor skipping off the atmosphere; Rhodes said he believed the object was extraterrestrial and under intelligent control. — Ed Rhodes Source: State Department UAP Cable 002 — Kazakhstan, January 31, 1994
- documented The embassy added no assessment: "We have no opinion and report the above for what it may be worth." Source: State Department UAP Cable 002 — Kazakhstan, January 31, 1994
Connected files
Official records (PURSUE)
- State Department UAP Cable 002 — Kazakhstan, January 31, 1994 (documented in)
Organizations
- Department of State (reported by)
People
- Ed Rhodes (witnesses)
Mentioned in this file
- Boeing (Organization)
- PURSUE — Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (Program)
- Central Intelligence Agency (Organization)
- Defense Intelligence Agency (Organization)