Event Description
The Tulli Papyrus is a claimed ancient Egyptian document said to have been copied from an original in the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III, one of ancient Egypt's most powerful military rulers, who reigned approximately 1479–1425 BC. The document was reportedly discovered by Alberto Tulli, director of the Egyptian section of the Vatican Museum, at an antiquities dealer in Cairo in 1933. Tulli could not afford the asking price and allegedly had a handwritten copy made. This copy was subsequently translated by Egyptian scholar Prince Boris de Rachewiltz and circulated among UAP researchers in the 1950s and 1960s, eventually being cited in Desmond Leslie and George Adamski's Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953) and other foundational texts.
The translated account describes a remarkable aerial event in which scribes reported to the Pharaoh that 'a circle of fire' had appeared in the sky — an object brighter than the sun, without noise or smell, traveling in a southward direction with the heart of the scribes becoming confused and they 'fell upon their bellies.' The event reportedly recurred over multiple days, with the objects becoming more numerous until they 'shone more than the brightness of the sun.' Fish and winged animals then reportedly fell from the sky. After several days, the king ordered the army to stand at attention while he burned incense and prayed for the objects' departure.
The authenticity of the Tulli Papyrus has been extensively debated. The original papyrus has never been definitively located — Tulli's nephew stated that the original was among Vatican effects that could not be found after Tulli's death. Prince de Rachewiltz's original translation has also been questioned by professional Egyptologists, some of whom have noted that his rendering of specific hieroglyphic terms may have been influenced by his interest in the UAP subject. Dr. Willy Ley, a respected science writer, investigated the document's provenance in the 1960s and concluded that the original source was unverifiable.
Despite these authenticity questions, the Tulli Papyrus occupies an important place in UAP history as an example of the type of ancient document that, if authenticated, would fundamentally alter the known timeline of organized human response to aerial anomalies. Even in its current ambiguous status, it represents the kind of ancient Egyptian administrative document — a court scribe's record of an unusual event reported to the Pharaoh — that the structure of ancient Egyptian bureaucracy would have naturally produced in response to a mass aerial phenomenon observed by the royal court.