From the book, "UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union - A Cosmic
Samizdat" by Jacques Vallee. ISBN 0-345-37396-0 - Ballantine
Books, 1992.

=================================================================

A PRELIMINARY CATALOG OF SOVIET UFO SIGHTINGS

In the body of this book I have highlighted some forty cases that were specifically discussed during my stay in the Soviet Union in 1990.
However, many other Soviet UFO incidents-such as the following
events extracted from Professor Felix Zigel's works-have found their
way into the literature and deserve to be mentioned, if only in
summary form. Those researchers with an interest in digging further
will also find good translations of Russian reports in the pages of
the "Flying Saucer Review," whose editors are in regular contact with
various Soviet investigative groups. The selection given below
emphasizes the early years of the phenomenon, notably the 1967 wave,
with a sample of reports prior to 1947.

July 1923. Dawn. Sosnovka

M. Volosnikov, who was on a steamship sailing along the Vyatka river
in the vicinity of this village, saw an object resembling a flying
moon. He followed its course for two or three minutes. The object
turned to the right and disappeared. The witnesses compared notes
and concluded it must be an "evil spirit."

Summer 1927. Early afternoon. Solovyevka

In this town which is located about thirteen miles south of Lipetsk,
I.V. Surkov, an engineer, saw a white, milky disk in the northern sky.
It was twice as large as the moon, flying slowly to the east. The
weather was hot, with many cumulus clouds. When the disk approached a
cloud, the latter gradually disappeared, returning after it had
passed. This happened with every cloud along the disk's trajectory.
The observation lasted for at least half an hour.

August 1933 or 1934. Kranye Chetay

V.N. Bronyukov and other children were playing in the street when they
saw a "star" moving in the sky to the south, on an east-west
trajectory, with the approximate speed of one of today's satellites.
It changed course and flew to the northwest. It was observed for a
total of ten minutes.

September 1935. Evening. Moscow

A. Ignatveya twice saw a strange phenomenon near the Petroskiy Gate.
It was an illuminated sphere which flew low from north to south, fast
and silently, on a horizontal trajectory.

Summer 1938. Early morning. Malakhovka oil station

N.A. Gosteva saw an object rushing close to him as he felt a light
breeze. The phenomenon was a grayish white cloud, dense with diffuse
outlines, oval in shape, larger than a zeppelin. The object emitted a
distinct whistling sound.

September 1949. At night. Suzdal

A man who lived in a village about fifteen miles north of Suzdal, and
many members of the collective farm where he worked, saw an object
resembling an automobile head-light hovering above the village. On
one occasion it came close to the ground. Three people, including G.A. Podoshivin, saw this phenomenon independently on the road between
Suzdal and Gavrilovo-Posadskiy. It was yellowish green, about half the
lunar disk in apparent size, and it was spinning. It seemed to be
located about one mile away. It vanished and reappeared several
times, at ten-minute intervals.

November 1958. Sunset. Otyasskiy forest, Sosnovskiy rayon

Boris S. Khmyrov saw an object flying at high altitude from west to
east. As it approached the zenith a disk suddenly appeared near it and
it began to move fast in the opposite direction. Khmyrov saw the same
disk again over the next several days.

January 1959. 07:00 Tobilsk

V.A. Golenkov saw a brightly twinkling greenish star with sharp beams
or "rays" radiating from it. It became surrounded with bright fog,
forming a spherical cloud, no larger than the full moon. It moved with
constant speed and direction and it emitted a small star that went
through a similar maneuver. The phenomenon lasted twenty minutes.

April 25, 1959. 06:00 Salizharovo Station near Kalinin

Aviation engineer Alexander B. Kadachev and his father were hunting at
dawn when they saw an elliptical object with an aspect ratio of one
third between its vertical and horizontal axes. It was dark, opaque
but not completely black. Its lower edge was purple, perhaps because
of its illumination by the rising sun. Its apparent diameter was
approximately that of the moon. It was observed for several minutes.
The witnesses lost sight of it as they walked through the forest but
saw it again later, hovering higher in the sky.

July 6, 1960. 90 minutes after sunset. Teli (Tuvinskaya oblast)

A bright disk similar to the moon was observed in the west. It moved
up and to the north with a speed of ten degrees in fifteen minutes, at
an angle of forty-five degrees to the horizon. Its diameter increased
and its surface brightness decreased as it did so. The observation
lasted thirty minutes. A group of eight people, including A.D.
Danilov, senior scientist of the institute of applied geophysics in
Moscow, saw the phenomenon.

July 8, 1960. Kamchuk River, 27 miles west of Teli

The same group of people involved in the July 6 observation saw a
luminous disk again. It appeared from behind some mountains in the
west. The weather was clear and cloudless. The region is unpopulated
taiga.

Summer 1960. 17:00 Moscow

Many people, including a scientist named Golubov, saw a rectangular
yellow object hovering above the city in the clear, windless, dark
blue sky. It seemed to be at an altitude of several miles and "what
held it there was completely incomprehensible." It was observed for
over fifteen minutes.

Mid-August 1960. 22:00 Kuybyshev

V.N. Govorona was in a park when she saw a disk moving slowly across
the sky. Its apparent size was smaller than that of the moon.

August 16, 1960. 23:00 Barakhudzir River

At a field camp situated eleven miles north of Koktal a party of
geologists (including Nikolai A. Voroshilov, geochemist, Yevgeniy A.
Sizov, geophysicist, Nikolai N. Sochevanov, geophysicist and Viktor N.
Tulin, geologist) saw a luminous body moving from north to south above
the mountains of the eastern slope. Its diameter was 1.2 times to 1.5
times the apparent diameter of the moon. It disappeared behind one of
the peaks and reappeared on the other side before it was hidden from
view again. It was white in color and very bright, round with some
vertical elongation. There was no trail or afterglow. The sky was
clear with only a few clouds.

October 1960. 23:00 Berk-Eisk, Biyal River

Engineer Y.M. Novikov was with a group of fifty people when they saw a
lone dark cloud in a clear sky. The cloud was illuminated by a weak
reddish light and a beam of light slowly emerged from it. It came from
a solid body that separated from the cloud but continued to illuminate
it with its beam. The phenomenon was observed for five minutes.

October 26, 1962. 23:40 Tula

Artist Y. Krivtsov and his companions were returning from a concert in
Laptevo when they suddenly saw "eight or ten" objects flying north at
an attitude of about 3,000 feet. They were of large size, hiding
portions of the night sky. They flew horizontally in silence.

March 1964. 23:00 Petropavlovsk

Air Force reserve officer S.N. Popov was with three other men when he
saw two strange disks moving one behind the other, then re-forming and
moving as a pair. Passing almost over the witnesses, the disks emitted
an intense bluish violet light. When they were caught in the
illumination from the disks, Popov and his companions felt oppressed,
"as if some natural calamity had occurred, a very unpleasant feeling
..."

July 27, 1964. 22:00 Ulan Bator

Bold Khaserdzne, a worker with the Mongolian Chamber of Commerce,
accompanied by a group of students, was travelling in a truck when
they saw a moon-shaped object rising in the northwest. It climbed very
rapidly for several minutes, getting larger in the process. It made a ninety-degree turn and flew north along the horizon for ten to
fifteen minutes. After that it went down and disappeared.


November 30, 1964. 15:00 U.T. Shamakhinskiy Observatory, Azerbaijan

Astronomers M. Gadshiyev and K. Gusev saw an object moving from west
to north at about one degree per minute. The head of this object was
about twice the diameter of the moon. It looked like a ring with a
sharp internal edge and a diffuse outer edge. In the center was a star
like object which was a point even when seen through a telescope. It
left a tail that was visible for over fifteen minutes. No sound was
heard.

August 12, 1965. 14:00 Liepaya, Latvia

V. Y. Leya, a glider pilot (later chief engineer on an aviation
project) and several other pilots saw an oblate sphere, brilliant
white, about half the size of the moon. It went through an arc of one
hundred degrees.

February or March 1966. 08:00 Saranpul

At a place located some twelve miles northeast of Saranpul, at about
4,200 feet altitude, geologist I.N. Almazov and his coworkers observed
two luminous objects practically over-head against the background of
a cloudless sky. The first object was round, bright, yellow-white in
color. The second object resembled the moon but was half the moon's
apparent size. It became cloudy and smokelike, then changed to a
bright illuminated disk. On two occasions this second object emitted
divergent beams like those of a car, for about half a minute each
time. Both objects moved to the northeast and disappeared behind a
mountain.

April 4, 1966. Night. Region of Odessa

During night flights a radar operator checking his equipment
discovered blips moving at approximately 500 miles per hour at 150,000
feet, dropping to 90,000 feet in fifteen minutes, then to 75,000 feet
in thirty minutes, then to 54,000 feet in forty minutes, after which
the phenomenon dropped to ground level. The data was confirmed by a
ground radar station in Tiraspol, according to N.A. Baydukov.

June 16, 1966. 21:45 Elista

A detachment of scientists from the Volgograd oil and gas research
institute saw an object somewhat larger than a satellite, reddish in
color, moving from the northeast to the southwest. Suddenly it dropped
along a helical trajectory, taking a bright blue color. Something like
an explosion occurred and a bright blue round cloud formed in its
place. There was no sound, no other clouds and the stars were visible
through the object.

Late July 1966. Midnight. Near Voronezh

Mr. and Mrs. Nikiforov saw a pulsating red disk moving at low altitude
and at relatively low speed for five minutes.

Summer 1966. 09:00 Yuchka

A witness named N.Y. Marsov was bathing in the Kubek River when people
called his attention to a shining ball in the sky. Clouds dissipated
when they came in the vicinity of the sphere. It remained fixed in the
sky for three hours.

July 18, 1966. 03:00 Rechport

Lidia Pavlovna Iliana, a senior spectroscopist of the central
laboratory of the Berezovskaya expedition, and a bulldozer operator
named F.A. Chesnokov, saw an orange disk in the sky. It was less
bright than the moon but comparable to it in size. It was accompanied
by several strange clouds. The phenomenon was observed for thirty
minutes.

October 20, 1966. 15:00 Kherson

Walking back from the stadium to the bus station after a volleyball
game, V.I. Duginov noticed that all the people in line were watching
something in the sky. It was a round disk directly overhead, about one
third the diameter of the moon. It had a soft silvery color and looked
like a pearl or a bead but did not resemble a radiosonde or a balloon.
It moved steadily to the east.

May 11, 1967. 21:10 Near Sheremetyevo airport

M.A. Selavnya and his father were walking the dogs on a sunny, warm
evening with excellent visibility when they heard a sound like a
rustling that turned to a whistle and a rumble that passed over as if
coming from an invisible flying object.


May 17, 1967. 02:30 Chapayevka

I.S. Rybak saw a round spot, about four times larger than the moon,
with a faint luminous appearance like the Milky Way. It moved from
west to east and was observed for thirty minutes.

May 17, 1967. 03:S5 Ust'kamenogorsk

An engineer named T.N. Kanshov saw a bright body twice as large as the
moon moving across the sky from south to north for over two minutes.
It first appeared as a flame so bright he could read the time on his
watch by its light. The night was quiet, cloudless, moonless. The
object had "fiery arrows" extending parallel to its sides. It expanded
to three times its original size before disappearing.

May 17, 1967. 22:00 Kamyshin

Major Y.B. Popov, of Novosibirsk, together with Junior Lieutenant A.S. Nikitenko and several local residents saw a cascade of lights rushing
across the night sky from the northeast in even rows. The lights were
located on the surface of a very large cigar-shaped object, the
impression was that an ocean-going vessel was flying across the sky
with absolute silence at an altitude of about 0.6 mile. It was
observed for two or three minutes. It passed almost over-head and
took off into space.

May 17, 1967. 22:05 Bakhrushev

By a warm, quiet evening several witnesses including S.V. Ostrovskiy
saw a bright point descending in the western sky. It flew down to an
altitude estimated as about one mile, when it changed to a horizontal
course. At that point it appeared as a dark body of impressive
proportions, with a compact, well-defined light at the rear. It flew
off silently at less than 200 mph, with a dark orange tail behind it.

Early June 1967. 23:00 Khoper River

While walking along the banks of the river M. Gavrilyuk and his wife
saw a luminous object shaped like a half moon. The weather was clear
and the real moon was shining in the sky. The object moved from the
west to the south, passing above the moon and accelerating until it disappeared, leaving a faint trace.

July 4, 1967. 21:15 Shakhty

Docent Y. Krasuntsev and his son were resting near the Don River when
they saw a half moon shaped object. They first noticed two luminous
points that looked like artificial satellites. They moved to the
southeast, making no sound. A shower of orange sparks flew out of one
object and turned into a moon shape that went on flying.

July 8, 1967. 23:00 Volgograd

Dr. Boris Dikhedeyev and a companion were talking outside when they
saw an orange object in the form of a half moon. It moved from west to
east, leaving a trail that disappeared in the rear and appeared in
front of the object as it flew toward the forest. The moon was shining
and the sky was clear.

July 8, 1967. 21:30 Romny

By a quiet evening S.V. Zazulya and his wife saw an object flying from
north to south. It looked like an ordinary cloud but flew very fast
and above the few high fleecy clouds that were in the sky.

July 10, 1967. 23:00 Krugloye, Shakhterskiy

A.A. Podgorny was coming back from the movies when he saw an object
shaped like a half moon flying from south to north. Three days later
he saw the same phenomenon again.

July 16, 1967. 21:00 Kudepst

V.N. Chernyavski and his wife, with N. Ognevoy and S. Voronov, were
close to the shore when they saw a yellow-rose disk-shaped object
moving from west to east in the sky from the direction of the sea. It
passed behind some clouds. The witness had the time to take a
two-kopek coin from his pocket and he observed that the coin covered
the object exactly when held at arm's length.


July 17, 1967. 23:00 Sukhumi (Agudzeri)

L.V. Antonova, an editor with the publishing house "Thought", and
T.I. Dantseva, fellow of the Kurchatov scientific institute,
observed a strange object along with four other people. The weather
was clear at the time. The object looked like a flat disk with
shining edge, flying at an altitude of some 350 feet at the speed of a propeller aircraft.

July 18, 1967. 14:47 Amvrosiyevka

Student Y. Divak and a friend were fishing when they saw the
reflection of a strange flying object in the water. Looking up, they
saw a lusterless craft in the sky. It seemed to affect the sounds from
the trains and from the nearby town.

July 31, 1967. 21:15 Privilny farm, Kavkazkiy

I. Kosov, his wife and farmer P.I. Marchenko saw a dark red disk
flying from the southwest to the northeast. The witness had time to
count to forty-two before the object disappeared.

August 2, 1967. 23:30 Norwegian Sea

A Soviet vessel, the Izhevsk, was sailing west with Captain Markov,
senior engineer Ivanov and first assistant captain Bazhanin in the
cabin when the navigator, Sysoyev, reported a strange phenomenon in
the sky. Going to the bridge, they all saw a white sphere moving
south. Several minutes later another bright spot was seen high in the
sky, increasing in size and emitting bright colors in which yellow
was dominant. This phenomenon was repeated several times.

August 5, 1967. 20:50 Perm

Y.G. Solovyev, his wife and his son observed a ring-shaped object
flying across the sky. An airliner flying at an altitude of 1,200 feet
would have fit inside this ring. It was observed for over ten minutes
in the western part of the sky.

August 8, 1967. 20:40 Kislovodsk

An object shaped like a sharply outlined asymmetrical crescent flew
over the mountain astronomical station of the Academy of Sciences. The
object was slightly smaller than the moon, about twenty minutes of
arc, with a color described as reddish by some observers, yellow for
others. It flew from west to east about twenty degrees above the ho-
rizon, moving from the Big Dipper to Cassiopeia in about thirty
seconds, at a uniform speed. The witnesses were A.A. Sazonov, a
specialist in the ionosphere; V.A. Tsion of the Leningrad
Polytechnical Institute, and seven members of a biological expedition.

About August 9, 1967. 15:00 Belye Krinitsy

Mr. Lytkiny and his wife were on vacation resting by the shore of a
lake, when they saw a fast-moving oval object. It was milky white,
with some small black rods arranged randomly on its surface. It
suddenly moved sharply to the right and up, then to the left and
downward. It then resumed its continuous path toward the
Carpathians. A few minutes later a second object appeared and went
through similar evolutions.

August 30, 1967. 20:50 Dneprodzerzhinsk

A round, bright, uniformly illuminated light yellow disk was seen
describing a wide arc in the sky. It disappeared to the
north-northeast. Mr. V.M. Chernov saw it through binoculars for a
while as it went behind some clouds and reappeared, fainter and
looking like a greenish star. There was no sound.

September 2, 1967. 23:35 Pechora

Four people, including physicist Mikhail F. Zherebin, saw a
"mistiness" in the north-northwestern part of the sky. Suddenly it
changed into a clear yellow disk comparable in size to the full moon
(which was also in the sky). A yellow flash occurred and the disk
turned orange. The phenomenon was observed for twelve minutes.

September 4, 1967. 21:17 Yevpatoriya

N.N. Pronin, senior editor with the "Mysl" publishing house in Moscow, accompanied by his wife, saw a white, crescent-shaped object fly over
from the northeast to the southwest along a straight line at an
altitude of about 2,500 feet. The object moved with the convex part
facing forward. The weather was clear.


September 9, 1967. 20:20 Donetsk

A witness reported a concave flying object, the color of molten metal, accompanied by a bright "star." The phenomenon moved from south to
east.

September 19, 1967. 19:40 Belgogradskaya

A witness named A. Serdyukov, who was traveling with a group of
communications technicians, observed a luminous half-moon rising high
in the sky directly in front of them. It descended rapidly, leaving a cone-shaped tail. The men stopped their vehicles to watch it. After
about forty seconds the half moon appeared to swing in the sky,
becoming smaller in size, as its color turned to red. It assumed a
drop-like shape and stopped, hanging in the sky for a minute, after
which it seemed to dissolve.

Early October 1967. Noon, Sukhumi

Engineer V.N. Chechyanov and his coworkers saw a strange object in the
clear blue sky for half an hour. It hovered for a while, then moved
along the shore, rose and disappeared. A man who watched it through
binoculars reported that the object was shaped like a triangle, with
no fuselage and no tail, and was the color of aluminum.

October 18, 1967. 21:00 Dzhubga

A Moscow physician who was visiting this town saw a bright object with
the shape of a sphere moving evenly from the sea toward the east. The
crowd attending an open-air movie projection witnessed the occurrence
as well.

October 18, 1967. 18:00 Pyatigorsk

Astronomer Z. Kadikov, from Kazan Engelgardt observatory, saw a
bright object in the northwest. It was a crescent with sharp edges and
pointed horns, yellow in color with a pale bluish tail, moving at
about 1.5 degrees per second. It became smaller as it flew and was
eventually reduced to a point. Finding other witnesses, Kadikov was
able to triangulate the phenomenon. He estimated it may have been
about fifty miles above the earth and some 1,800 feet between the
"horns," flying at about three miles per second.

October 25, 1967. 16:05 Otradnoy Stanista

Witness N. Savrasov, an advanced geography student, and his
mother-in-law were able to observe two spherical objects flying from
the northwest to the southeast. The largest object was yellowish,
cloudy. The smaller one, which seemed to be pulling it, appeared
metallic.

November 6, 1967. Night. Kazan

Mr. and Mrs. Masgutov saw an object shaped like the planet Saturn, a
luminous reddish sphere with a flat ring of the same color, which
hovered for some seven to ten minutes, spinning on its axis. It
gradually increased its speed and disappeared.

November 9, 1967. Miass, near Chelyabin

A white cigar-shaped object with some black dashes at one end was seen
moving through the sky by I.S. Lunyanov. It was flying toward
Zlatoust.

November 14, 1967. Liepaya

A large, luminous object shaped like a hemisphere hovered low over the
ground. It moved away quickly with a fiery light that was painful to
the eye. There were several witnesses.

November 15, 1967. 04:30 Sasnava

V. Treychis observed a round object in the sky for thirty-five
minutes, twenty degrees above the northeast horizon. It seemed to
measure 300 feet in diameter. It was very bright and tongues of flame
were visible.

November 25, 1967. Midnight. Mikhaylovka

V. Rogov was listening to the radio inside his home when a bright
green light called his attention outside. He saw an object flying at
great speed across the sky. It disappeared like a meteor but it then
reappeared on the same trajectory. It was round and flat, with bright
edges. The phenomenon lasted ten minutes.

** End **

John,
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