In 1457 BC, Egyptian scribes recorded “circles of fire” over Thebes. The account survived for over three millennia, but its provenance remains one of Egyptology’s most debated puzzles. First published in 1953 from a translation by Italian scholar Boris de Rachewiltz, the text describes luminous objects moving erratically over the capital of Pharaoh Thutmose III, one of Egypt’s most powerful rulers. Fish and birds reportedly fell from the sky during the event.
This video from History Unearthed examines the Tulli Papyrus story, from its alleged discovery in a Cairo antique shop to its publication by the Fortean Society and ongoing debate about its authenticity.
TL;DR: The Tulli Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian text that describes luminous objects appearing in the sky over Thebes during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III, approximately 1457 BC. The account was allegedly discovered in a Cairo antique shop by Alberto Tulli, director of the Vatican Museums’ Egyptian collection, in 1933. After Tulli’s death, Italian scholar Boris de Rachewiltz found a handwritten copy among Tulli’s papers and published a translation in 1953. The original papyrus has never been located, and its provenance is debated by Egyptologists. The text describes scribes observing “circles of fire” that moved erratically, departed southward, and produced a foul odor. Fish and birds reportedly fell from the sky during the event. Sources linked below.
Timeline
c. 1457 BC (Year 22 of Thutmose III): According to de Rachewiltz’s translation, scribes of the House of Life observe “a circle of fire that was coming in the sky” during the sixth hour of the third month of winter. The objects appear again several days later, increase in number, rise toward the south, and depart.
c. 1933: Alberto Tulli, director of the Egyptian collection at the Vatican Museums, allegedly discovers a fragmentary papyrus in a Cairo antique shop. The dealer asks a high price. Tulli reportedly makes a copy but cannot afford the original.
1933-1934: Étienne Drioton, a prominent French Egyptologist, reportedly assists Tulli in understanding the papyrus and arranges for its acquisition by the Vatican. The original document subsequently disappears.
1953: Boris de Rachewiltz finds a handwritten copy of the papyrus among Tulli’s papers after the curator’s death. He publishes a translation in Doubt, the magazine of the Fortean Society, under the editorship of Tiffany Thayer.
2004-2007: Anthropologist R. Cedric Leonard locates a copy of de Rachewiltz’s original transcription in an American library and produces a revised translation of the hieroglyphic text.
Thutmose III and the House of Life
To understand the Tulli Papyrus, the reader needs context on the period it describes. Thutmose III, who ruled Egypt from approximately 1479 to 1425 BC, was one of the most powerful pharaohs in Egyptian history. Military commanders called him the “Napoleon of Egypt.” His campaigns expanded the Egyptian empire to its greatest territorial extent, stretching from modern Syria to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in Sudan.
The Battle of Megiddo in 1457 BC, the same year the Tulli Papyrus places the aerial event, was one of Thutmose III’s most significant military victories. His forces defeated a coalition of Canaanite and Syrian city-states, and the campaign is documented in detail on the walls of the Karnak Temple. The year 22 of his reign was a period of active military expansion, administrative consolidation, and temple construction.
The House of Life, mentioned in the Tulli Papyrus as the institution where the scribes worked, was a scriptorium attached to Egyptian temples. These facilities served as centers for copying sacred texts, producing religious manuscripts, and recording astronomical observations. Scribes assigned to the House of Life held specialized roles and were trained in hieratic script, the cursive writing system used for administrative and literary texts alongside the more formal hieroglyphic system.
Ancient Egyptian scribes recorded celestial observations with some regularity. The ceiling of the tomb of Seti I (approximately 1279 BC) contains detailed astronomical charts, and various papyri record observations of star positions, eclipses, and unusual atmospheric phenomena. The practice of documenting celestial events for the pharaoh’s records was standard procedure. A report of anomalous aerial objects, if authentic, would fit this established tradition of celestial record-keeping.
The hieratic script in which the Tulli Papyrus was reportedly written was the standard cursive writing system for administrative, literary, and religious texts throughout the New Kingdom period. Unlike the more formal hieroglyphic system carved on temple walls and monuments, hieratic was written on papyrus with reed pens and was used for day-to-day documentation. A celestial observation record, as the Tulli Papyrus purports to be, would naturally have been written in hieratic rather than hieroglyphic.
What the Text Describes
De Rachewiltz’s translation, as published in Doubt magazine in 1953, describes two separate appearances of luminous objects over Thebes during the 22nd year of Thutmose III’s reign. The full text, as reproduced in Jacques Vallée and Chris Aubeck’s Wonders in the Sky (2010), reads in part:
“In the year 22, third month of winter, sixth hour of the day, the scribes of the House of Life found it was a circle of fire that was coming in the sky. Though it had no head, the breadth of its mouth had a foul odour. Its body was one rod long and one rod wide. It had no voice.”
The account continues, describing how the objects reappeared several days later in greater number: “They went up higher and to the horizon, directed to the south. Fishes and volatiles fell down from the sky. It was a marvel never occurred since the foundation of this Land.”
The scribes record that Pharaoh Thutmose III ordered incense brought “to pacify the hearth” and directed that the event be recorded “in the book of the House of Life” so that it would be remembered “for the Eternity.”
The 22nd year of Thutmose III’s reign corresponds to approximately 1457 BC. The capital was Thebes (modern Luxor), where the royal court was based. The sixth hour of the day in the Egyptian timekeeping system corresponded to approximately midday, and the third month of winter fell in roughly January or February.
The description includes several specific physical characteristics: the objects were circular or disc-shaped (“a rod long and a rod wide”), emitted a foul smell, produced no sound, moved erratically, and departed toward the south. The account also describes fish and birds falling from the sky, which some researchers have associated with electromagnetic or atmospheric disturbances.
The measurement “one rod long and one rod wide” deserves examination. In ancient Egyptian measurement, the rod (khet) was a unit of approximately 52.5 centimeters or roughly 20.7 inches. If the translation is accurate, the objects described would be roughly half a meter in diameter. However, de Rachewiltz noted that the original papyrus had lacunae, and the exact term used for the unit of measurement may have been corrupted in transcription. Without the original document, the precise dimensions cannot be verified.
The Tulli Papyrus is not the only ancient text describing unusual aerial phenomena. Similar accounts appear across cultures and time periods. The Roman historian Livy recorded “phantom ships” in the sky in 218 BC. The Nuremberg broadsheet of 1561 depicts a “sky battle” with spheres and cylinders. The Ezekiel’s Wheel account from approximately 593 BC describes a complex aerial structure. What distinguishes the Tulli Papyrus is its specific Egyptian context and the detailed physical description it provides, including dimensions, odor, and biological effects.
Modern researchers approach the Tulli Papyrus with caution. Without the original document, its authenticity cannot be definitively established. The translation by de Rachewiltz, while detailed, has not been verified by independent Egyptologists. The Fortean Society’s publication context introduces potential bias toward anomalous interpretations. Yet the account persists in ufological literature as one of the earliest documented cases of aerial phenomena, a testament to both the enduring mystery of the text and the human fascination with unexplained events in the sky.
The Provenance Question
Several aspects of the papyrus’s provenance have never been resolved. Alberto Tulli was a real figure at the Vatican Museums. He held the position of director of the Egyptian collection and was a known collector. The story of his 1933 discovery in Cairo appears in multiple accounts, though no independent confirmation of the antique shop transaction has been produced.
Étienne Drioton was one of the most prominent Egyptologists of the 20th century. He served as director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and later as director of the Louvre’s Egyptian department. His involvement in the Tulli case is cited by several sources, though the nature and extent of his role is not fully documented.
Boris de Rachewiltz was not a trained Egyptologist. He described the original fragment as written in hieratic script, faded, and containing several lacunae (gaps). His translation has been the basis for all subsequent discussions of the text, but no independent professional Egyptologist has confirmed or reproduced it.
After Tulli’s death, the original papyrus reportedly passed to a family member and has never resurfaced. The Vatican has not publicly commented on whether the papyrus was ever in its possession. In 2004, anthropologist R. Cedric Leonard located a copy of de Rachewiltz’s transcription and produced a revised translation in 2007. Leonard’s version differs in some details but preserves the essential content.
Jacques Vallée and Chris Aubeck include the account in Wonders in the Sky (2010), their catalogue of 500 pre-modern anomalous aerial cases. They present it as their earliest case, dating it to approximately 1457 BC, and rate it under their “Traditional” confidence level, acknowledging the debated provenance.
The Translation Debate
The two translations of the Tulli Papyrus, by de Rachewiltz and Leonard, broadly agree on the essential content but differ in specific details. Both describe luminous objects appearing in the sky, a foul odor, objects of defined physical dimensions, and biological effects including falling fish and birds. Both place the event in the 22nd year of Thutmose III’s reign.
The key difference is in the translation of specific terms. De Rachewiltz, working from what he described as the original hieratic text, rendered certain phrases in ways that emphasize the anomalous nature of the objects. Leonard, working from de Rachewiltz’s published transcription rather than the original, produced a translation that hews closer to literal renderings of hieratic terms.
Neither translator was a professional Egyptologist in the academic sense. De Rachewiltz was a scholar of African history and art who had studied Egyptian texts but was not trained in formal Egyptological translation methods. Leonard was an anthropologist with an interest in ancient civilizations. Their translations have not been independently verified by academic Egyptologists, which limits the weight that can be placed on specific word choices.
Opposing Perspective
Several scholars and Egyptologists have expressed serious doubts about the Tulli Papyrus, and these concerns have not been resolved.
The original papyrus has never been independently examined by Egyptologists. No one other than de Rachewiltz claims to have seen the original. The document’s history relies entirely on accounts by Tulli and de Rachewiltz, neither of whom was a trained Egyptologist.
The phrase “circle of fire” in the translation has been interpreted by ufologists as describing a structured aerial object. However, similar descriptions appear throughout ancient Egyptian literature and religious texts, often referring to celestial phenomena, divine manifestations, or ritual objects. Without the original document and independent scholarly analysis, the ufological interpretation cannot be confirmed or ruled out.
The papyrus was first published in Doubt, the magazine of the Fortean Society, which was dedicated to documenting anomalous phenomena. The Fortean Society was founded in 1931 to continue the work of Charles Fort, an American writer who compiled thousands of reports of unexplained phenomena from newspapers and scientific journals. Tiffany Thayer, an actor and novelist, led the Society and edited its magazine from 1937 until his death in 1959. The Society’s membership included literary figures such as Dorothy Parker and Booth Tarkington. While the Society served an important role in preserving accounts that mainstream institutions ignored, its editorial stance favored anomalous explanations, and some scholars argue that the context of publication influenced the ufological interpretation of the Tulli text.
No scholarly consensus exists on the Tulli Papyrus. Egyptologists generally do not cite it as an authentic ancient document. UFO researchers include it in their catalogues, usually with the caveat that its provenance is uncertain. Some researchers have suggested that the account may describe a meteor event, volcanic activity, or a ritual vision recorded as literal observation. The falling fish and birds are consistent with unusual atmospheric events such as tornadoes or waterspouts, though no tornado has been documented in this region during this period. Others note that “circles of fire” appear in Egyptian religious texts as descriptions of solar disks, divine manifestations, or ritual objects, suggesting the account may be theological rather than observational.
Additional Videos
This video from The Lore Library examines the Tulli Papyrus as part of the ancient aliens hypothesis, exploring the possibility that the “circles of fire” described in the text represent extraterrestrial visitation in ancient Egypt.
This shorter documentary from CITY11 Productions provides an overview of the Tulli Papyrus mystery, summarizing the key debates about its authenticity and the translation controversies.
Sources
FOIA Documents
No FOIA documents exist for this topic. The earliest surviving account of aerial phenomena described in the Tulli Papyrus predates modern record-keeping by over three millennia. Declassified government records on UAP investigations begin in the 20th century with projects like Project Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book.
Source Links
Fortean Society (Encyclopedia.com): Entry on the Fortean Society, which published Boris de Rachewiltz’s translation of the Tulli Papyrus in its magazine Doubt in 1953.
“Il Papiro Tulli: un affaire egittologico tra storia e leggenda” (Academia.edu, 2017): Academic paper tracing the provenance of the Tulli Papyrus from its alleged discovery through de Rachewiltz’s translation.
Tulli Papyrus (Wikipedia): Overview of the document’s history, provenance debate, and scholarly reception.
R. Cedric Leonard: Revised Translation of the Tulli Papyrus (2007). Second translation produced from de Rachewiltz’s transcription. Originally hosted at atlantisquest.com (site no longer available).
Books
Vallée, Jacques and Chris Aubeck. Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times (2010). The Tulli Papyrus appears as their earliest catalogued case.
De Rachewiltz, Boris. Translation of the Tulli Papyrus, published in Doubt (Fortean Society magazine), 1953.
Related Reading
Scientific Explanations for UAP Sightings: Prosaic and scientific analyses applied to unidentified aerial phenomena.
UAP Evidence: Declassified Government Documents: What official records reveal about government UAP investigations.
Best UAP Documentaries to Watch in 2026: Curated list of UAP and UFO documentaries available for streaming.