Case file · Sighting
Tulli Papyrus
In 1953 the Fortean magazine Doubt printed a 'translation' of an Egyptian papyrus in which Thutmose III's scribes saw 'circles of fire' in the sky.
1953 CE · 30.05, 31.23 · status: hoax
The account
The text came from Prince Boris de Rachewiltz, who said he had found it among the papers of Alberto Tulli, a Vatican Egyptian Museum director who had supposedly bought it in Cairo in 1933. It became a staple of ancient-astronaut books.
The sceptical view
No papyrus has ever been produced, the Vatican says it never had it, and Egyptologists found the 'hieroglyphic' text was a patchwork lifted from known sources with errors. It's regarded as a hoax.