Case File · National Security Agency · Cold War / Blue Book Era (1953-1969) Released December 2025 · National Archives, Record Group 615

The 'Tunisian Firefall': Embassy Tunis Cables on Glowing Clouds, 1969

UFO Government Report

On 13 July 1969 many people in Tunis, embassy staff among them, watched a greenish-blue glowing cloud and a 'star' that exploded into a spreading cloud. It was the second such display, and the Embassy asked the Smithsonian why.

13–14 July 1969
Tunis, Tunisia

What this record is

This two-page record contains State Department telegram copies from the American Embassy in Tunis, catalogued as “Department of State Memoranda from American Embassy Tunis: Tunisian Firefall, July 14, 1969.” The first page is the routing sheet and opening of an unclassified telegram. It is dated 141205Z July 1969 and addressed to the Secretary of State, with action to the science office (SCI) and information copies to NASA among other offices. Most of its text is illegible in this copy. The second page carries the substance under the subject line “Tunisian Firefall,” referring to an earlier Embassy telegram, Tunis 3222. The files come from the National Security Agency’s holdings. The same series also contains a brief 1975 Tunis cable on unidentified flying objects, described below.

What it says

The legible telegram reports: “Phenomena almost identical that of reftel seen by many observers Tunis evening July 13 including Embassy officials.” In other words, this was the second display of its kind, and the earlier one had been reported in Tunis 3222, which is not in the file.

The display again had two parts. The first was “one greenish-blue circular cloud about size of full moon appearing a few degrees to west of polar star and well below it with respect to horizon.” The second appeared a few degrees to the right of the pole star and higher above the horizon. It looked at first like a star, “which then exploded forming greenish circular cloud which quickly became misshapen and spread out across sky” before it disappeared. Some observers reported short-lived bright lights in the cloud phase of the second phenomenon.

The telegram closes: “Would appreciate knowing explanation which Smithsonian may have found for these phenomena.” The Embassy apparently expected that its first report had been passed to the Smithsonian Institution, which at the time ran a Center for Short-Lived Phenomena to collect prompt reports of transient natural events around the world.

The 1975 item (catalog 596347889) is a single limited-official-use telegram from Tunis to the Embassy in Algiers, dated 11 March 1975. It was copied to the Secretary of State, the Embassy in Rabat and American military commands in Europe and the Mediterranean, and its distribution list includes NSA. It answers messages from Algiers and Rabat about unidentified flying objects in one line: “There have been no repeat no recent reports in Tunisia of UFO sightings and Embassy can shed no light on phenomena described reftel.” The Algiers and Rabat messages are not in the file, so what was seen in North Africa in early 1975 is not recorded here.

Context

The 1969 description is detailed and consistent, and it came from several observers, including trained embassy staff. It points toward something high in the atmosphere lit by the Sun after sunset. The objects appeared in the northern sky, near the pole star, in the evening. They appeared as sharply defined greenish clouds that expanded and changed shape. This is how observers usually describe rocket exhaust plumes, propellant vents or deliberate chemical releases seen from far away in twilight. The telegram names no launch, and this file contains no reply from the Smithsonian. No explanation is established here.

Status

Unexplained in the file, with a high-altitude artificial cloud as the most likely class of explanation. The documents reached the National Archives in 2025 as part of the NSA transfer.

Sources

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