The Vela Incident: primary documents
Key primary source documents from the Vela Incident compiled and transcribed in searchable HTML for the first time. The Carter diary entry. The CIA 90 percent plus assessment. The State Department cable documenting the White House panel conclusions. The NSC records on independent corroborating data. The documented list of reports that remain classified. What each document says, in its own words.
Jimmy Carter Presidential Diary, September 22, 1979. Jimmy Carter Library. Obtained through National Security Archive archival research. The entry documents Carter's knowledge of the Vela detection and his immediate assessment of the three scenarios under consideration.
There was indication of a nuclear explosion in the region of South Africa , either South Africa, Israel using a ship at sea, or nothing.
Context: This diary entry was written on the same day as the Vela detection, after Carter had been briefed. The three possibilities he lists , South Africa, Israel operating from a naval vessel, or "nothing" , reflect the immediate intelligence community assessment. The phrase "or nothing" documents the political reality the administration faced: if naming a treaty signatory as having conducted an illegal nuclear test carried unacceptable diplomatic costs, the official conclusion might be that nothing had occurred. The Camp David Accords with Israel had been signed six months earlier. SALT II negotiations with the Soviet Union were ongoing. A confirmed Israeli nuclear test would have required sanctions under U.S. law and threatened both diplomatic frameworks.
Source: Jimmy Carter Presidential Diary, September 22, 1979. Jimmy Carter Library. Via National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 686 (September 2019).
CIA interagency intelligence study. Titled "The 22 September 1979 Event." December 1979. Released in partially redacted form through FOIA to the National Security Archive. The document was written under the working assumption that the event was a nuclear explosion.
The probability of a nuclear test: 90% plus. [From the CIA assessment as described in National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 686, September 2019, citing newly obtained Carter Library documents.]
The study examined the possibilities that either South Africa or Israel , or both jointly , were responsible for the September 22 event. [The study] considered these possibilities but its conclusions implied a South African test, although leaks to the media suggested that the CIA was looking very closely at Israel. [National Security Archive summary of the released document.]
[Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner, in a subsequent interview]: I believed Israel and South Africa were behind the explosion. [Cited in National Security Archive analysis, corroborated by Foreign Policy investigation, September 2019.]
FOIA note: The CIA assessment has been released in different versions over the years, with varying levels of redaction. The February 1980 report by the Nuclear Intelligence Panel to CIA Director Turner, which would represent the most authoritative CIA conclusion, remains classified. The NSA has submitted this document to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel for declassification review. As of this writing it has not been released.
Source: CIA, "The 22 September 1979 Event," December 1979. Partially declassified via FOIA. National Security Archive.
State Department telegram from Cape Town to Washington. Secret. Documents the White House science panel's conclusions and the administration's instructions for communicating those conclusions to the South African government and allies. Source: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume XVI, Document 370. history.state.gov.
A team of US scientific experts under the guidance of Dr. Frank Press, the President's Science Adviser, has completed its review of all available data on the September 22 suspected nuclear explosion in the South Atlantic. [...]
The panel was unable to determine whether the light signal recorded by the satellite was generated by a nuclear explosion or some other phenomenon.
The panel reviewed a number of alternative natural phenomena which might have caused the signal and, with one exception, ruled them out. This exception is the possible reflection of sunlight from a small meteoroid or a piece of space debris passing near the satellite. [...]
Our judgment of the SAG's willingness to move promptly toward a satisfactory nuclear settlement will be a major factor in our continuing review of the sanctions issue. [...]
Note on the meteoroid hypothesis: The Vela satellite had been operational for 16 years and had successfully detected 41 confirmed nuclear explosions without a single false positive. No meteoroid reflection had ever produced a bhangmeter double-flash signal with the characteristics of the September 22 event in the satellite's operational history. The meteoroid hypothesis was disputed within the intelligence community. One senior U.S. intelligence official described the White House panel's conclusion as a whitewash influenced by political considerations. The supplemental Ruina report that specifically addressed acoustic evidence , evidence not covered in the original panel report , remains classified.
Source: FRUS 1977-1980, Vol. XVI, Document 370. State Department telegram from Cape Town. history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v16/d370.
From National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 686 (September 2019), citing newly obtained documents from the Jimmy Carter Library and NSC files. Documents the independent ionospheric data and the White House science team's response to it.
On 22 September 1979, the [Arecibo] observatory captured data on an ionospheric disturbance that Department of Energy officials believed was associated with a nuclear detonation. [The signal corresponded to] similar evidence from Soviet nuclear tests in the early 1960s. [National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 686, September 2019.]
[Documents from the Carter Library reveal that] White House scientists agreed to hear out the intelligence community's case for a nuclear event specifically so "we can more safely ignore them later." [National Security Archive, citing newly obtained Carter Library documents, September 2019.]
[Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski] seemed to admit that the Carter White House found the Vela issue awkward and that the result was a deliberate effort to avoid a comprehensive investigation. [Foreign Policy, September 2019, citing Brzezinski statements and NSC documents.]
Source: National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 686, September 22, 2019. Citing Carter Library documents and NSC files. nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2019-09-22/vela-flash-forty-years-ago.
The following assessments on the Vela Incident remain classified as of this writing. Their existence is confirmed through declassified documents that reference them. Their contents are unknown. Source: National Security Archive documentation of pending FOIA requests and ISCAP submissions.
February 1980: Report by the Nuclear Intelligence Panel to Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner. The most authoritative CIA assessment of the Vela detection. Status: classified. Under declassification review at ISCAP.
June 1980: Defense Intelligence Agency report on the Vela Incident. Status: classified. The substance of this report is unknown.
June 1980: Naval Research Laboratory report on the Vela Incident. Status: classified. The Naval Research Laboratory had specific expertise in nuclear explosion detection relevant to evaluating the bhangmeter signal.
Supplemental Ruina Committee report: Addresses acoustic evidence not covered in the original 1980 White House panel report. Its inclusion of acoustic data , data that some researchers believe supports a nuclear event , was specifically noted as a reason it should be declassified. Status: classified. Before ISCAP.
The Vela Incident is the only event in the operational history of the Vela satellite program that produced a bhangmeter double-flash signal and was never subsequently identified as either a confirmed nuclear test or a confirmed instrument malfunction. The satellite detected 41 nuclear explosions during its operational life. The September 22, 1979 detection is the 42nd candidate event. It remains in a category of its own: detected, investigated, and officially unresolved. The documents that would most directly answer whether it was a nuclear test remain, 46 years later, classified.
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