Santa Fe, Argentina, August 1961August 1961

On the evening of August 18, 1961, a man driving on a rural road near Santa Fe, Argentina reported an extraordinary encounter. According to his account, his car suddenly stopped and went dead about 60 kilometers from the city, near a stretch of road lined with trees on one side and water on the other. His headlights, portable radio, and flashlight all failed at once. When he tried to find help, he discovered what he believed was a spacecraft approximately 200 feet long and 100 feet high, shaped like a flying saucer.

The witness described seeing about 15 beings near the craft who appeared to be forcing a laborer or vagrant up a ladder into the ship. He said the beings wore yellow or cream-colored sealed suits with helmets topped by two antennas surrounded by substances resembling snow that shone like glass. The spacecraft itself had roughly a dozen openings around it, which the witness believed were engine exhausts. The crew members looked like pale, blonde humans and spoke in high-pitched sounds. Once the laborer had been brought aboard, the beings entered the craft, the ladder retracted, the engines started, and the ship took off, leaving behind a trail of light that changed color as it departed. After the craft left, the witness reported that his car, radio, and flashlight worked normally again.

The account reached the U.S. Air Force through an unusual route. A radio station in Santa Fe had broadcast a public request for flying saucer sightings, and the witness sent in his story anonymously through a letter. An Argentine correspondent then forwarded the account to the U.S. Air Force in June 1962, requesting the agency's opinion and offering to collaborate on future reports received by local radio.

The Air Force's official evaluation, noted on the case record card, was simply "unknown." The agency's written comments on the report were direct: it dismissed the account as second-hand, full of inconsistencies, and completely unreliable, with no tangible evidence to support any part of it. The full case file, reproduced below as held by the National Archives, spans 8 pages.