Colombian Air Force Cali Encounter 1975

On May 3, 1975, Colombian Air Force Mirage 5COA pilots scrambled from FAC Base Marco Fidel Suarez near Cali encountered a disc-shaped object at 25,000 feet over the Andes. Cali ATC confirmed the radar contact. American DEA air surveillance assets operating in the Colombian skies — at the time targeting drug trafficking operations — also tracked the contact and noted its performance was inconsistent with any known aircraft. The FAC pilots described a classic metallic disc performing maneuvers the Mirage 5 could not follow before accelerating to the north. The Colombian Air Force classified the incident report and shared it through the US-Colombia military cooperation channel that had been established for counternarcotics operations. The dual documentation — FAC and DEA assets both tracking the same object — made the Colombian 1975 case unusually well-corroborated for a South American incident. The case was incorporated into the broader Latin American military UAP database maintained by DIA's JICPAC.