Case File · FBI · Cold War / Blue Book Era (1953-1969) Declassified May 8, 2026 · PURSUE Release 01

Africa UFO Sighting (May 22, 1962) — FBI Files (D1P109)

UFO Visual Sighting

A cold war / blue book era case from Africa. According to the informant's source, an antimissile missile was fired at a UFO over Africa, but the UFO was protected by a 'force field'.

May 22, 1962
Africa
Source document: 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_10
Source document: 65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_10 · Source: declassified document

Background

On May 22, 1962, in Africa, U.S. government investigators recorded an unidentified-object incident later released to the public on May 8, 2026 as part of the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE). The incident is a Cold War-era case investigated under the Air Force’s Project Blue Book or its predecessors. The case was filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose Knoxville, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and other field offices routed UFO reports to headquarters under the Bureau’s standing protocols for the protection of vital installations.

What the document records

According to the informant’s source, an antimissile missile was fired at a UFO over Africa, but the UFO was protected by a ‘force field’. No further details were provided.

The number of witnesses is not specified in the released document.

Verbatim from the file

“An antimissile missile was fired at a UFO over Africa on May 22, 1962, but the UFO was protected by its “force field.""

Type of case

The case is a visual sighting reported by ground or air observers.

Status

All records released under the PURSUE program are designated unresolved by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) by default. The federal government has not concluded that the events were anomalous, has not concluded that they were conventional, and has not ruled out either possibility. Conventional candidates for sightings of this period include experimental aircraft, weather balloons (especially the Project Mogul series in the late 1940s), atmospheric optical phenomena such as sundogs and lenticular clouds, and astronomical objects including Venus, the Moon, and meteors near the horizon.

Sources