PURSUE-01/kazakhstan-1994-747 / 1994-01-27 / State Department
State Dept Cable 2 — Kazakhstan 1994 747 Encounter (Jan 27, 1994)
US Department of State diplomatic cable from January 31, 1994, sent from the US Embassy in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) to the Secretary of State in Washington. Documents a January 27, 1994 UAP encounter by a Tajik commercial pilot and three American citizens flying a 747 at 41,000 feet over Kazakhstan. Photos taken.
PURSUE / U.S. Department of State (1994). State Dept Cable 2 — Kazakhstan 1994 747 Encounter (Jan 27, 1994). The UFO Files. https://the-ufo-files-site.netlify.app/dossier/kazakhstan-1994-747
"State Dept Cable 2 — Kazakhstan 1994 747 Encounter (Jan 27, 1994)." PURSUE / U.S. Department of State. 1994. https://the-ufo-files-site.netlify.app/dossier/kazakhstan-1994-747.
State Dept Cable 2 — Kazakhstan 1994 747 Encounter (Jan 27, 1994) Case ID: PURSUE-01/kazakhstan-1994-747 Agency: PURSUE / U.S. Department of State Date: 1994-01-27 Source: https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/release_1/dos-uap-d2-cable-2-kazakhstan-january-1994.pdf Retrieved: Thu May 07 2026 20:00:00 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Mirrored on The UFO Files, an archive by Dead Pixel Design. The file is the file. Anything in question is one click from the original.
Summary
US Department of State diplomatic cable from January 31, 1994, sent from the US Embassy in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) to the Secretary of State in Washington. Documents a January 27, 1994 UAP encounter by a Tajik commercial pilot and three American citizens flying a 747 at 41,000 feet over Kazakhstan. Photos taken. Object reportedly performed 90-degree turns and corkscrews at high altitude. Contrails visually estimated at 100,000 feet.
Verbatim AARO Description
“On January 27, 1994 one Tajik pilot and three American citizens encountered an UAP flying a 747 jet at 41,000 feet over Kazakhstan. Object was a bright light of enormous intensity and approached over the horizon to the east at great speed and a much higher altitude. Several pictures were taken of the craft making 90 degree turns, doing corkscrews and maneuvering in circles a great rates of speed. Object was reported as resembling a bullet in flight. Visual estimation of the contrails were at 100,000 feet, which was too high to leave contrails by ordinary aircraft.”
Why This Case Is Substantive Among Historical Cables
- Multi-witness, multi-nationality. Tajik commercial pilot (technical witness) + three American citizens (independent witnesses) on the same flight deck.
- Photographs exist. “Several pictures were taken.” The photos themselves are referenced in the cable but not necessarily in this PDF.
- Altitude estimate. 100,000 ft is roughly 19 miles up — Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird operational ceiling territory. The cable notes correctly that “ordinary aircraft” do not leave contrails at that altitude. If accurate, this is genuinely anomalous behavior by 1994 atmospheric standards.
- Maneuvering. “90 degree turns, doing corkscrews and maneuvering in circles a great rates of speed” exceeds known fixed-wing aerodynamic envelope.
Caveats
- All observations are visual. Pilot vision, even from a wide-body cockpit, is bounded by available reference frames — altitude estimates from pure sight are notoriously unreliable.
- “Resembling a bullet in flight” is a lay shape descriptor, not a technical sensor classification.
- The State Department cable summarizes a debrief; the underlying flight crew interview is not in this release.
- The Kazakhstan + Tajik airspace overlap with the southern reach of the former Soviet flight test areas. Soviet/Russian advanced-aircraft programs are a candidate explanation that has not been ruled out in the public record.
Connections
Open Questions
- Are the photos referenced in the cable also in the PURSUE release, or did they stay in classified channels?
- Have AARO or any successor analyst office attempted to identify the object using the photos against known Soviet/Russian flight test inventory?
- Is the 100,000 ft contrail observation supported by any independent sensor / radar record (Tajik or Kazakh civil aviation, US INR, NSA/SIGINT)?