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PURSUE - DOSSIER

PURSUE/cia-ussr-sary-shagan-1973  /  1973  /  PURSUE / CIA

CIA-UAP-D001 — Green Circular Object Over the Sary Shagan Weapons Range (USSR, Late Summer 1973)

CLASSIFICATION PUBLIC RELEASE  /  CONFIDENCE LOW  /  PURSUE Release 02

Summary

A CIA Intelligence Information Report on the Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range in the Soviet Union, sourced from a former Soviet citizen who had worked at the range. The bulk of the report is conventional Cold War technical intelligence: facility layout, security fencing, the regional headquarters and a warhead checkout unit, and details on System-75 (SA-2) and System-300/Aldan (ABM-1/GALOSH) warheads, plus rumored laser research. Buried in paragraph 14 is an unidentified aerial phenomenon observation.

The document is stamped “Approved for Release 2026” and carries a CONFIDENTIAL classification with a sources-and-methods warning. The reporting period (DOI) is November 1972 through November 1973; the source acquisition point was Germany. It is filed in PURSUE Release 02 as CIA-UAP-D001.

Verbatim — The Observation (Paragraph 14)

“On one evening in late summer 1973, Source observed an unidentified phenomenon at Site 7. While watching a sport competition between Canada and the U.S.S.R. on television, he stepped outside for some air and observed an unidentified sharp (bright) green circular object or mass in the sky. The object was situated west of the site at an angle of sighting of approximately 70 degrees. The altitude of the object was undeterminable. … Within 10 to 15 seconds of observation, the green circle widened and within a brief period of time several green concentric circles formed around the mass. Within minutes the coloring disappeared. There was no sound, such as an explosion, associated with the phenomenon.”

Field comments attached to the report note that the sky was cloudless that evening, that the source believed the green mass was higher than cloud level, that he could not estimate the object’s diameter, that he had no opinion as to what it was, and that there were no resultant rumors.

Why This Document Matters

  1. Agency and provenance. This is a CIA HUMINT product, not a sighting report from a hobbyist. The source is a former Soviet citizen with direct access to a strategic Soviet missile and ABM test range. The UAP note rides inside an otherwise routine technical-intelligence report, which is exactly the kind of incidental, low-incentive-to-fabricate observation that tends to be evidentially clean.
  2. Sensitive-installation pattern. The observation occurred over Site 7 of a top-tier weapons range. That places it in the same recurring pattern as the New Mexico green-fireball file in this same release (Sandia green fireballs) and the FBI atomic-installation overflight reporting in PURSUE Release 01: anomalous aerial activity clustering near nuclear and missile infrastructure.
  3. Phenomenology. A bright green circular mass that expands into several concentric green rings and then fades, silently, over 10-15 seconds is not an obvious match for aircraft, flares, or a conventional meteor. The “expanding concentric rings” detail is unusual and specific.

Caveats

  • The UAP observation is a single line in a multi-page technical report. AARO/DOW filed the whole document; the anomalous content is one paragraph.
  • The source could not estimate altitude or diameter, so the object’s scale and distance are unconstrained.
  • The OCR text of this scan is degraded in places (the header and classification block are partially garbled); the observation paragraph itself transcribes cleanly. The verbatim above is taken from the cleaner passage and lightly corrected only for obvious OCR artifacts.
  • “Green circular object expanding into concentric rings” has prosaic candidate explanations (high-altitude release, atmospheric/auroral effect, missile-test plume illuminated at altitude) that the report does not rule out. The source himself offered no opinion.

Cross-Reference

The expanding-green-mass phenomenology echoes the New Mexico green fireball descriptions in DOW-UAP-D017, also in Release 02 — bright green, silent, observed near a sensitive weapons installation. The two documents are separated by 24 years and an ocean, which makes the descriptive overlap worth flagging without overreading it.

Provenance

Connections

Open Questions

  • What was the actual phenomenon over Site 7? The report offers no resolution and the source offered no theory.
  • Was the observation ever cross-checked against US tracking of Soviet missile/ABM tests at Sary Shagan in late summer 1973?
  • Why did this 1970s CIA HUMINT report surface in a 2026 UAP release? Which agency holding flagged the paragraph-14 observation for inclusion?
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