On the evening of September 27, 1989, an event took place in the city of Voronezh, 300 miles southeast of Moscow in what was then the Soviet Union, which would shock not only the citizens of that city, but people all around the world.
At about 6:30pm, a curious pink light appeared in the sky above a crowded city park. As parkgoers craned their necks skyward to examine it, a deep-red orb approximately 10 meters in diameter suddenly emerged from the light and began circling the park.
Without warning, a hatch opened on the lower part of the orb and a humanoid figure appeared in the opening. The figure was extremely tall, some three meters or more by most accounts, yet had a very small head. It was dressed in silvery overalls and bronze boots, and on its tiny head were three eyes, the central of which rotated like a radar, appearing to look the park over.
After a few moments, the hatch closed and the orb descended further, landing on the ground in the middle of the park. Again, the hatch opened, and the humanoid figure emerged, this time exiting the craft with what appeared to be a small robot.
This was too much for some in the crowd of onlookers. One teenage boy began screaming in fear. But when he did, the humanoid figure turned and looked directly at him, three eyes beginning to shine brightly, and the boy fell silent, unable to move, paralyzed and frozen in place.
This caused others in the crowd to begin to scream, but the humanoid was not finished. Returning into the orb, the humanoid reemerged with “what looked like a gun” and pointed it at the boy, causing him to vanish into thin air.
This only made the screams louder, until finally, the humanoid returned into the orb and took off, disappearing into the evening sky. As it did, the boy reappeared, confused, but otherwise no worse for wear, while all who had witnessed the event were left “overwhelmed with a fear that lasted for several days.”
When the story was reported in the Soviet newspaper TASS the next day, it caused an uproar. This was no ordinary alien encounter, experienced by one or two people in the middle of the night. No, this had taken place in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses.
Immediately, military personnel were rushed to the area to interview witnesses, and what they found was the same unbelievable story, repeated again and again, by witness after witness.
In short order, teams of scientists descended on the park to try to ascertain what had happened. Days later, a report issued by one of these teams proclaimed, “scientists have confirmed that an unidentified flying object recently landed in a park in the Russian city of Voronezh. They have also identified the landing site and found traces of aliens who made a short promenade about the park.”
According to Genrikh Silanov, the head of the Voronezh Geophysical Laboratory, scientists found a 20-yard depression with four deep dents, where landing gear would presumably have rested. Additionally, the entire area was found to possess elevated levels of the radioactive isotope cesium.
More incredibly, two pieces of unidentifiable rock were also recovered. In Silanov’s words, ″at first glance, they looked like sandstone of a deep-red color. However, mineralogical analysis has shown that the substance cannot be found on Earth.”
Scientists and military personnel could not figure it out; it really did look like an encounter had taken place with something from out of this world.
The story was so incredible that it was picked up by media all over the world.
In the US, numerous reports emerged trumpeting “a close encounter of the communist kind.” The Washington Post published an article titled, “Comrades from the Red Star,” while The New York Times ran a headline reading, “U.F.O. Landing Is Fact, Not Fantasy, the Russians Insist.” On NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw led the broadcast by proclaiming, “space aliens are said to have landed in a UFO,” while even Time Magazine ran a report describing the “three-eyed space creature” which “zapped a 16-year-old boy with a gun that made him disappear temporarily.”
In no time, the encounter in Voronezh became one of the most famous UFO incidents in history, known about and discussed all over the world. And yet, what is perhaps most amazing about the encounter is it was not the only one of its kind which took place in and around Voronezh at that time.
In the weeks and months surrounding the September 27th incident, numerous other similar encounters were reported in the area. Many included similar stories of tall humanoids with tiny heads emerging from glowing orbs, often in one of the city’s parks. In fact, a book published in 1990 and appropriately titled “UFOs in Voronezh” recorded dozens of incidents taking place in the area between August of 1989 and January of 1990.
Perhaps the most dramatic of all these incidents took place on the evening of October 2 at a train station only a few miles from the park where the September 27th encounter had taken place. On that evening, about 40 people were getting off the train when they noticed a red orb in the sky executing “jumps” up and down over a nearby field. Eventually, the orb landed, and a tall humanoid figure emerged from it carrying some sort of baton. The figure pointed the baton down to the ground and into the earth, as if it was collecting soil samples, before slowly returning to its craft, and disappearing into the night sky.
What was happening in Voronezh at this time? Who were these alien figures in their mysterious orbs, and what were they doing?
An attempt to answer these questions begins by realizing that it was not just in Voronezh that this was happening. All through the late-1980s, Soviet newspapers across the country were filled with reports of UFO sightings and alien encounters, from ordinary citizens, as well as from pilots, air traffic controllers, astronomers, and military personnel.
In fact, one newspaper – Komsomolskaya Pravda – even claimed it had obtained an interview between one of its reporters and an alien.
“Where are you from?” journalist Pavel Mukhortov allegedly asked the alien.
“The constellation Libra, Red Star, Our Homeland,” the alien replied.
“Your goal?”
“It depends on the center. We are directed by a central system.”
“Can you take me to your planet?”
“There would be no return for you and it would be dangerous for us.”
“Why would it be dangerous?”
“You might bring thought bacteria.”
What was going on here? Why were there so many reports of aliens and UFOs in Soviet media at this time? Did aliens have some sort of specific interest in the Soviet Union?
Some argue that a rise in news reports about UFOs and alien encounters was directly related to the new Soviet policy of glasnost.
Adopted in 1986 by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnost meant an increased “openness and transparency” in the country, including in the activities of state institutions and the freedom of information. According to some, news reports about aliens were media efforts to test how far glasnost would actually go. By presenting something which, according to mainstream thought, was obviously ridiculous, like aliens, the media would test their government and see if they really could talk about anything.
The only problem with this argument is that the Soviet government did not view UFOs and aliens as something ‘obviously ridiculous.’ In fact, a deep interest in the subject extended to the highest levels of Soviet power …
Yuri Andropov's UFO Obsession
Of all the figures in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, there are perhaps none more infamous than Yuri Andropov.
Born June 15, 1914 in Stavropol Krai, Andropov burst onto the national scene when he was named Soviet Ambassador to Hungary in 1954. There, he would play a key role in crushing the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, earning the nickname “The Butcher of Budapest” for his extreme ruthlessness.
A decade later, in 1967, Andropov was named the Chairman of the KGB. While in this position, he earned a reputation around the world for his brutal campaign to eliminate all opposition in the Soviet Union. His goal, quite simply, was “the destruction of dissent in all its forms.” To achieve this goal, Andropov enacted mass arrests of those deemed dissidents, as well as the involuntary commitment to psychiatric hospitals of those considered “socially undesirable.”
After Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev suffered a stroke in 1975, leaving his ability to govern impaired, Andropov used the power he held through the KGB to effectively dominate Soviet policymaking and crush all those who opposed him. After Brezhnev’s death in 1982, Andropov would officially become the leader of the Soviet Union until his own death in 1984.
Without a doubt, Yuri Andropov stands as one of the second half of the 20th century’s great standard bearers for ruthlessly eradicating those with alternative views. And yet, at the same time as he was doing this, Yuri Andropov harbored his own alternative views on an eminently taboo subject – UFOs and aliens.
Really, it was more of an obsession, and it was not even a secret.
From his earliest days as KGB chief, Andropov was known to keep a file of UFO reports from the Soviet Union and around the world directly on his desk at all times. In 1978, Andropov would actually establish two committees, one military and one civilian, to monitor UFOs. As part of this, he ordered the country’s over 4 million soldiers to file detailed reports about any and all UFO sightings. As one colonel at the time put it, thanks to Andropov, “the whole Soviet Union was one enormous listening post.”
The findings of these committees were housed in what became known as the “Blue Folder,” a collection of many thousands of reports compiled between 1978 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.
But in fact, the Soviet Union’s obsession with UFOs and aliens went far beyond just Yuri Andropov and the KGB …
The Petrozavodsk UFO Incident
At 4:05am on September 20, 1977, a strange ball of light appeared in the sky above the city of Petrozavodsk in the northwest of the Soviet Union. It was initially noticed moving towards the city from the east over Lake Onega by dockworkers on an early morning shift, but was quickly spotted by air traffic controllers, pilots and airline passengers, military personnel, fishing boats, and eventually, the ordinary citizens of the city who ran from their homes to gaze at the light in the sky.
At first, the ball appeared to be descending in a spiraling motion towards the earth, causing many to believe it was some sort of meteorite. That was until it began to slow down, ultimately coming to a complete stop in the sky.
As it hovered above the city, the ball began making a hideous noise, described by witnesses as like the “howling of a siren.” People were terrified. At the height of the Cold War, they believed that surely this must be the beginning of an American nuclear attack.
Suddenly, “thins rays of light” began to come down from the ball towards the city, giving the appearance of a “huge jellyfish” with “golden tentacles” some 300 feet across in the sky. At this point, many witnesses ran back into their homes or took cover where they could. Some simply flung themselves to the ground in fear.
As the tentacles descended on Petrozavodsk, a small “bulb-shaped object” detached from the main ball and set out over the rooftops of the city, not unlike a remote-controlled drone on a reconnaissance mission.
But then, just as suddenly as it had come, the ball of light began moving away from the city and disappeared into the clouds, leaving a red hole as if they’d been burnt.
The whole episode took less than 15 minutes …
Immediately afterwards, government bodies and Soviet news outlets reporting on the incident were flooded with thousands of letters from the public wanting to know what had happened. But it was not just the citizens of the Soviet Union who were concerned. The anomaly had been seen across eastern Europe, and foreign governments demanded an explanation, thinking that the Soviets must have been testing some new kind of weapon.
To the surprise of many, the Soviet government was forced to admit they did not have an immediate explanation – they were just as baffled as anyone. Even the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences conceded that they could not figure it out.
Quickly, the Soviet government commissioned an official report into the incident. Unfortunately, the report provided inconclusive findings, stating that “the extent of phenomenon is apparently too big to be explained by technical experiments,” and even cryptically proposing “a possible influence of some cosmic agent.”
Across the world, the United States was just as perplexed, with the CIA asserting at the time that the phenomenon “remains a riddle.”
The mystery of that night in 1977, which became known as the ‘Petrozavodsk Incident,’ provided the impetus necessary for the Soviet government to make an interest in UFOs and aliens official. Only months later, Yuri Andropov, already armed with years of UFO reports on his desk, founded his famous “listening post.”
But it went further than that. The same year, the Soviet government launched an all-encompassing official investigation into UFOs which became simply known as “The Network.” Made up of experts from 20 organizations, including specialists in physics, chemistry, optics, and spectroscopy, The Network would seek to investigate and understand UFO sightings scientifically.
Between 1978 and 1990, they would document and study over 3,000 incidents. For many of these incidents, they were able to provide scientific explanations. However, in some 300 cases, The Network could provide no scientific explanation, only building the mystery further.
At the same time as the government was pursuing its investigations, the debate around UFOs and aliens became popular in the Soviet Union’s scientific and technological communities, with numerous journal articles published on the subject, as well as well-attended lectures at military and government institutions.
Quite simply, it was not glasnost which brought UFOs to the forefront of Soviet thought, but the unexplained events which had taken place and stimulated an interest through all levels of Soviet society.
Disclosure of Secret Soviet Documents Regarding UFOs
Here, we might take a step back and ask how we know so much about the Soviet obsession with UFOs and aliens, particularly at the governmental and military levels. It is not often that authorities advertise their interest in the subject, and in fact, people in many countries perceive their governments to be actively suppressing such information. So how do we know so much about often-classified government investigations and military programs in the Soviet Union?
The answer is that after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, many secret Soviet documents were obtained by government organizations and individuals in the West and around the world. They were smuggled out, stolen, and otherwise recovered and catalogued in the period of instability which followed the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Obviously, organizations like the CIA and FBI closely guard their secrets, only releasing classified documents when they are legally obligated to do so and even then, only in heavily redacted versions. But organizations like these have no problem releasing someone else’s secrets. Subsequently, today, many formerly secret Soviet documents are available in the public domain, including on the CIA.gov website.
Think for a moment about what might be learned if we had access to the US government’s secret documents on the Roswell incident of 1947, or on Area 51. In effect, this is what is now available for the Soviet Union during a time period when they were obsessed with UFOs and aliens.
And as these secret documents have been released, some truly mind-blowing incidents have been revealed …
KGB Footage Showing UFO and Alien Autopsy
In 2017, The Voice of Russia radio station, long considered one of the top five radio broadcasters in the world, produced a story which shocked its over 100 million listeners in 160 countries. It was a story allegedly taken from “secret KGB files” which had been smuggled out of the Soviet Union after its fall, and in fact, it had already been reported in a 1998 TNT special titled “The Secret KGB UFO Files,” before fading into memory.
However, this time, in an age a social media, the story would go viral all over the world.
According to The Voice of Russia, the KGB files contained extraordinary film of a UFO crash and recovery in March of 1969, outside the city of Sverdlovsk, then called Yekaterinburg. In the KGB footage, military personnel are seen rushing to the site of the crash, where they amazingly find a UFO jammed halfway into the ground at an angle. The footage continues as soldiers with AK-47s at the ready keep watch while officers and civilian-clothed agents examine the wreckage.
More unbelievably, additional footage appears to show an autopsy on an alien body found within the craft. The film rolls as scientists measure a small torso next to what appears to be a large arm, before cutting through the tissue of the torso, which scientists describe as “very rigid,” and extracting internal organs.
In many ways, this event reflects the stories told about America’s Roswell crash, however in this case, it appears to be astonishingly captured for all to see in full-color video.
And yet, this is not the only astounding alien encounter recorded in formerly secret Soviet files. In fact, according to the documents, it’s not even the only time the Soviets recovered an alien …
The Gdynia UFO Incident
In February of 1959, witnesses in the city of Gdynia, in what was then Soviet-controlled Poland, reported seeing a glowing object in the sky crashing into the Baltic Sea near the city’s docks. Authorities immediately sent divers into the icy waters to attempt to recover the wreckage and find out what it was, yet all they could return to the surface with was a single piece of shiny metal.
Hours later, a “strange silhouette” humanoid emerged from the water, dragging itself to shore as if injured. The humanoid’s face was badly burnt, unrecognizable, and it was dressed in an unusual uniform, rambling in a language nobody could understand.
Authorities arrived on the scene and took the figure to the hospital, where it received treatment for its heavy facial burns. Oddly, when doctors tried to remove the being’s uniform in order to treat its body, they found it could not be torn. Despite having the appearance and feel or being thin and light, the material was strong as steel.
Eventually, the unusual humanoid died from its injuries, yet officials recognized this was no ordinary death. The body was placed in a frozen container and transported to a secret government location for further examination. There, doctors discovered that the organs and circulatory system of the being were nothing like those of humans. Moreover, the being was found to have six fingers and toes on each hand and foot. Doctors and scientists were stunned; it appeared the creature was not from this world.
Could it really be possible that the Soviet Union recovered and conducted experiments on not one but two separate alien beings? And if so, what did they learn, and what other secrets might exist in still-unreleased documents from that time?
One thing is for sure. After the Soviet Union turned itself into an “enormous listening post” in 1978, stories of alien encounters like these only became more prevalent …
UFOs Over Lake Baikal
Russia’s Lake Baikal in southern Siberia is the world’s largest freshwater lake, and with a maximum depth of over 5,000 feet, also its deepest. But it is more than that. Since ancient times, Lake Baikal has been known by locals as the home of mysterious spirits, and even a flaming dragon which is said to live deep below its depths.
In more modern times, Lake Baikal has become one of the world’s hotspots for UFO sightings, with reports of giant glowing orbs hovering over the water and strange figures in shiny suits emerging every year. Perhaps the most shocking of these reports came in 1982, not from ordinary citizens, but directly from the Soviet military itself.
According to leaked Soviet military documents, that year, a team of seven divers was dispatched to a depth of just over 150 feet under the surface of Lake Baikal, where they were shocked to find what appeared to be some sort of craft.
For several days, they studied the craft, until one day they suddenly noticed giant humanoid figures swimming around it. The figures appeared to be 10 feet tall or more, dressed in tight-fitting silvery suits, with “transparent spheres” on their heads.
Quickly the order came from the surface; the divers were to capture the humanoids.
As they moved towards the humanoids, they were abruptly hit by some sort of “sonar wave” weapon which killed three of the divers instantly and left the other four badly injured. All seven washed up on the shore minutes later.
Could it be that what locals believed to be spirits under the waters of Lake Baikal were really alien beings? Is this why the area is such a hot spot for UFOs? And if so, what remains under the waters to this day? Curiously, modern photographs from the International Space Station appear to show at least two saucer shaped objects deep below Lake Baikal’s waters.
There is another question to ask here.
With stories of Lake Baikal, of alien crashes and autopsies, officially documented in the Soviet Union, it is no wonder than a profound interest in UFOs and aliens became prevalent at the highest levels of Soviet power. One might wonder if the same thing was taking place at the same time in the Soviet Union’s great rival, the United States.
Without the benefit of a treasure trove of formerly secret documents now released, what was going on in the US at that time remains, at best, an incomplete puzzle. However, one thing is for sure; during the 1980s, an obsession with UFOs and aliens had infiltrated the absolute highest level of American power …
Ronald Reagan's Obsession with UFOs
Before Ronald Reagan became the 40th President of the United States in 1980, he was an actor turned Governor of California from 1967-75. It was during this time as governor that Reagan would experience two separate events which would shape his life, his views, and his presidency.
The first occurred in the late-1960s, when Regan was invited to a Hollywood party at the home of actor William Holden. In a story told by both Lucille Ball and Steve Allen, celebrities who were also in attendance, Reagan and his wife Nancy arrived an hour late to the party and immediately began telling the other guests how they had seen a UFO in the sky while driving down the coast highway, and had stopped to watch.
As Lucille Ball later put it, “after he was elected President, I kept thinking about that event, and wondered if he still would have won if he told everyone that he saw a flying saucer.”
The second event took place in 1974 while Reagan was flying on the governor’s plane. As the plane was approaching Bakersfield, California, Reagan noticed a strange light behind it. What happened next was described by Reagan’s pilot after the flight,
“It appeared to be several hundred yards away. It was a fairly steady light until it began to accelerate. Then it appeared to elongate. Then the light took off. It went up at a 45-degree angle-at a high rate of speed. Everyone on the plane was surprised. The UFO went from a normal cruise speed to a fantastic speed instantly. If you give an airplane power, it will accelerate-but not like a hot rod, and that’s what this was like.”
Reagan himself would recount what he had witnessed days later while speaking to Washington bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, Norman C. Miller.
“We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light. We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement it went straight up into the heavens.”
When Miller expressed some doubt about the unbelievable occurrence, Reagan became uncomfortable and realized he was talking to a reporter about a UFO, at which point, he “clammed up.”
But while he may have ‘clammed up’ at that moment, an obsession with UFOs and aliens, brought about by his own encounters, would be something Ronald Reagan would carry with him into his presidency.
Consider, for one, that as President he literally named his seminal nuclear weapons defense program “Star Wars.” This should not come as a surprise, since as President, Reagan would rely upon the Citizens’ Advisory Council on National Space Policy – a private think tank made up of astronauts, engineers, and science fiction writers – for advice on future technology and space policy. In fact, the Council actually helped Reagan draft the speech introducing the Star Wars program to the country.
More pointedly, Reagan is said to have hosted a private screening of the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial at the White House, which was attended by both the director Steven Spielberg, as well as other luminaries, scientists, and even Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. In 2011, Spielberg told the astonishing story of what had happened at the conclusion of this screening.
“[Reagan] just stood up and he looked around the room, almost like he was doing a headcount, and he said, ‘I wanted to thank you for bringing E.T. to the White House. We really enjoyed your movie,’ and then he looked around the room and said, And there are a number of people in this room who know that everything on that screen is absolutely true.”
As incredible as this story is, it is far from the best example of Reagan bringing his obsession with UFOs and aliens into his presidency. No, that took place at the pivotal Geneva Summit in 1985.
The summit was organized so that Regan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev could meet to discuss the ongoing arms race between their two countries, and the possibility of reducing each country’s cache of nuclear weapons.
It was the first US-Soviet summit in more than six years, and even before it started, tensions were running high. In pre-negotiations, representatives from each side rejected the proposals of the other, neither side trusting the other to follow through on any commitments made.
As the summit officially started, Reagan began by laying out the severity of the issue at hand.
“The United States and the Soviet Union are the two greatest countries on Earth, the superpowers. They are the only ones who can start World War Three, but also the only two countries that could bring peace to the world”.
This did not lessen the tension. The first scheduled meeting between the two leaders exceeded its time limit by half an hour, with each side calling the other untrustworthy and paranoid, and the leaders described by those in attendance as “belligerent” and “unyielding.”
Finally, the two sides agreed to break for lunch, and Reagan and Gorbachev decided to go on a private walk accompanied only by their interpreters. There, in a story confirmed by both men, perhaps the most incredible moment of the entire summit took place. As Gorbachev later described,
“From the fireside house, President Reagan suddenly said to me, ‘What would you do if the United States were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us?’ I said, ‘No doubt about it.’ He said, ‘We too.'”
At the moment of the highest diplomatic tension, with the fate of the world at stake, Reagan’s mind was still on aliens.
What is most interesting is that Reagan built his obsession with UFOs and aliens while he was governor of California, yet as President, he would have had access to all of the most top-secret documents on the subject which his country had compiled. Whatever he saw in these documents it did not lower his obsession. Instead, his fervor only increased.
What was in the secret documents which had this effect, which led Reagan to build UFOs and aliens into the very fabric of his presidency? Will we ever know?
USA and Russia's UFO Files
Today, the United States and Russia still closely guard their secrets. However, over the past decade, governments in these countries have begun to come clean about their acute interest in UFOs and aliens.
In 2017, it was revealed that the US Pentagon had been running a secret program to investigate UFOs, known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, since 2007. With the cat out of the bag, government legislation signed in 2020 obligated US intelligence agencies to deliver a report on UFOs to congress within 180 days. When the report was released in June of 2021, it showed that 143 UFO incidents which defied explanation had been recorded by intelligence agencies since 2004. By December of 2021, the US government had established a permanent government agency to investigate UFOs.
Meanwhile, in Russia, the government’s active interest in UFOs has been common knowledge since at least 2013. That year, the Russian government declassified documents describing numerous instances of Russian military personnel coming across UFOs all over the world, particularly under the world’s oceans. From that point forward, the Russian government officially and openly ramped up its UFO research, including in 2022, when they announced that their Roscosmos space program would be conducting a comprehensive study on UFO reports produced by pilots.
We have seen the kinds of unfathomable things Soviet leaders were privy to in the 1980s and earlier, thanks to now-released formerly secret documents. The only question that remains is, with their increased and more open interest in UFOs and aliens today, what secrets are today’s leaders in Russia, the US, and all over the world privy to that we might find out about later?