1955 State Department Cable — Senator Russell Soviet UAP Report
Date
September 1955
Document Type
Gov. Report
Pages
Authentication
Official PublicationIssuing Authority
U.S. State Department / U.S. Embassy (Soviet Union)
Summary
A U.S. State Department cable from September 1955 documenting Senator Richard B. Russell Jr.'s report of observing two disc-shaped objects near a Soviet military installation in the Georgian SSR while on a congressional delegation trip. The cable was transmitted by the U.S. Embassy following the delegation's return and formally entered Russell's account — corroborated by aide Col. E.U. Hathaway and interpreter Ruben Efron — into the diplomatic record. The document was classified and held for decades; it was released publicly via PURSUE Release 1 on May 8, 2026, alongside a companion CIA intelligence report on the same incident.
Significance
The 1955 Russell State Department cable is historically significant as the diplomatic-channel documentation of the most politically senior UAP report ever formally recorded by U.S. intelligence. Senator Russell was Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time — responsible for oversight of U.S. military and intelligence programs. His report being taken seriously enough to generate both a CIA intelligence document and a State Department cable establishes that two separate institutional channels of the U.S. government formally acknowledged the incident. The cable's 70-year classification period and release via PURSUE Release 1 represent the first unrestricted public access to this diplomatic record.