Tunis green objects
In July 1969 observers in Tunis, reportedly including US embassy officials, saw a greenish-blue object about the size of the full Moon, then a star-like light that seemed to burst into a greenish circular cloud.
1969 CE · 36.80, 10.18 · status: official
The account
The sighting is known from a US State Department report that the NSA later released among its UFO documents.
The sceptical view
A green expanding cloud is typical of a rocket venting fuel or a re-entry, and July 1969 was a busy month for launches.
The researched reading
A multi-witness sighting whose description matches a rocket fuel cloud or a fireball. The exact launch or meteor has not been found, which is why it stays on file.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 40% | A star-like point that bursts into a greenish circular cloud spreading across the evening sky is the classic signature of a rocket stage venting fuel or a chemical-release experiment lit by the sun at altitude; no launch has yet been matched to the evening of 13 July 1969, so the identification is by pattern. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 18% | A large greenish-blue disc the size of the Moon fits a bright fireball, whose green colour comes from metal emission; some witnesses saw only brief bright lights, as with a bolide. |
| Undetermined | 12% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
| Secret human technology | 10% | An unannounced military rocket or upper-atmosphere test in the Mediterranean region would look exactly like this and might never be publicly matched. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 10% | Without a matched launch the event is formally unidentified, but its appearance is so close to known rocket effects that little is left over. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 6% | Reports disagree on whether there was a cloud at all, the usual spread in brief, unexpected sightings. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 3% | Nothing points to an unexplained luminous phenomenon. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 1% | Embassy officials reported it in a routine cable; no sign of invention. |
Official position: The US Embassy reported the sighting and asked the Smithsonian for an explanation; no official answer has been published.