A Letter From Hungary Traced a Possible Route to Moscow

A man who provided information to the CIA received a letter from his niece in Budapest. She wrote about fast-moving objects in the sky and included a drawing of the route they may have taken to Moscow.

The letter described people who had been anxious for weeks because of the objects. It also estimated their speed at about 12,000 kilometers per hour. But it did not say exactly what the people had seen, and the drawing did not solve the mystery.

A Line Between Budapest and Moscow

The man received the letter in November 1955. The CIA report recorded what his niece had told him, along with a drawing of the objects’ shape and their possible route.

The drawing connects Budapest and Moscow. It shows a possible route, not proof that the objects actually traveled along it. The letter does not explain how the route was drawn or whether anyone tracked the objects along the way.

The reported speed is also striking: about 12,000 kilometers per hour. That figure came from the letter, not from a measurement described in the report. The report offers no explanation of how the estimate was reached.

A Family Letter Becomes a Report

The man who provided the information wrote that this was the first time his niece had mentioned objects like these. In other words, according to the report, she had not usually written to him about similar phenomena.

The CIA report was based on information the man provided and included a translated passage from the letter and a drawing that accompanied it. Neither the man nor the report’s author is identified by name in the text. A family letter had become part of the U.S. intelligence agency’s records.

What Remains Unknown

It is unclear what the people actually saw, whether the report was investigated, or how the speed was calculated. The report offers no conventional explanation for the objects and does not identify them.

What remains is the letter, the estimate, and the thin line on the page: from Budapest to Moscow.