WHAT WAS TRACKED
The account comes from two CIA documents released together: memoranda exchanged between the Assistant Director for Special Activities and the Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence, and briefing notes prepared for Walter Elder, executive assistant to CIA Director John McCone. Together they describe a Navy aviator's visual estimate of Mach 3, roughly 2,200 miles per hour, and a corresponding radar track from the guided missile destroyer USS Gyatt at about 3,800 knots, roughly 4,373 miles per hour, sustained over 21 minutes. A second pilot, flying an F-8 Crusader, was present during the incident and is cited in the briefing material.
WHAT THE CIA CONSIDERED, AND RULED OUT
The Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence's office was responsible for assessing foreign technological threats; the Assistant Director for Special Activities managed the CIA's classified reconnaissance programs, including the U-2 and the A-12 OXCART. Both offices weighed the case. They considered a domestic explanation, the classified YF-12A OXCART program then in development, and ruled it out. Their working assessment instead pointed to foreign reconnaissance of the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range, then in active use for missile testing, as the more attractive explanation for the object's presence.
PUERTO RICO AND THE RECORD
Unlike most PURSUE video, this file has hard numbers on both sides of the ledger: a human estimate and an independent instrument track, plus a documented internal debate about domestic versus foreign origin. It was published August 7, 2026 as part of PURSUE Release 05. Umbra indexes it, and every other record in the archive, by agency, date, and location, and renders it natively on iPhone and iPad.
> The declassified file, and the rest of PURSUE Release 05, indexed and readable on your iPhone.
