The Grave Of The Devil Case – UFO Crash And Retrieval In Russia

Following the Glasnost agreement of the 1980s coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union, a surge of UFO reports would enter the wider public domain, some of which are as intriguing as they are startling.

One particular account alleges that a UFO crashed in the Shaitan Mazar (which translates as Grave of the Devil), located in the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan near the Chinese border. Not only did the incident feature a dramatic chase and intercept mission involving multiple MIG fighter jets, but it would result in several search and retrieval missions of various successes.

The incident is perhaps one of the best-documented cases of both a UFO sighting and crash. And what’s more, as we shall see later, it is just one of several such claims of a crashed vehicle of another world to come out of Russia in the final years of the Cold War and the Soviet Union. Was this perhaps due to the imminent collapse of the communist regime behind the Iron Curtain? Did these apparent visitors from another world have an interest in such matters?

The account comes to us specifically from Russian ufologists, Nikolay Subbotin and Emil Backurin, and it is from their research that the following is based.

A Suddenly Appearing Object Over The Caspian Sea

According to the account, at around 5 pm on 28^th August 1991, a huge unknown object was spotted over the Caspian Sea. ^[1] It was tracked by radar operators at the tracking station on the Mangyshlak peninsula, with estimates that were around 2000 feet long and around 300 feet wide and was at an altitude of 21,000 feet. Of more concerning it was moving at an approximate speed of over 6,000 miles per hour.

After issuing the standard “Friend or Foe” request and receiving no reply, the tracking station notified the cosmodrome at Kapustin Yar. They would confirm they too had the object on their radars and that no other aircraft from their facility was in the region. It was at this point that a military alert was sounded.

Moments later, two MIG 29 fighter jets – that were already airborne on a routine mission – were sent toward the region in an attempt to intercept the invading object. At the same time, two further MIGs were scrambled from the ground to join them. Their orders were simply – have the unknown craft land, and if they refused, shoot it.

A short time later, all four of the jets were over the Aral Sea and soon had radar followed by visual confirmation. They would describe the unknown aerial vehicle as being metallic gray and elongated.

At this point, the leader of the MIGs issued another “Friend or Foe” request before ordering it to fall in behind so they could guide it to the ground. Once more, they received no response. The MIGs, flying around 2500 feet from the object, began to close in.

Orders To Close In And Fire Warning Shots!

The closer the MIG fighters got to the object, the more detail they could make out. For example, there appeared to be some writing or symbols on the exterior (colored green) but the pilots claimed these were an “unknown language”. They also noticed what appeared to be two portholes at what they assumed was the front of the object.

With the object, or at least their occupants seeming little concerned about the MIG fighters all around it, the flight leader radioed to ground control for further instruction. Rather than open fire at this stage, they were ordered to close in on the craft a little tighter. Once they were parallel to the vehicle, they were ordered to fire warning shots in front of it.

The MIGs reduced their distance from the object from 2500 feet to around 1500 feet, two on each side. However, when they went to fire the warning shots there was no response. In fact, all of the electrical systems suddenly went down. Even worse, the planes’ engines started to fail. Forced to head back to base as best they could, the object soon took off into the distance. Incidentally, the planes’ controls and engines recovered once the object had moved away from the fighters.

In the meantime, radar operators continued to follow the object’s progress, noting that it appeared to be heading back to the Aral Sea. And what’s more, operators calculated its speed at an unbelievable 42,000 miles per hour. They warned other military and civilian airfields in the approximate flight path of the object of its presence, now worried that a collision with another aircraft was a distinct possibility.

They watched the object for around 45 minutes. Then, without warning, it simply vanished from the radar screens. It wasn’t, however, the end of the incident.

A First Unsuccessful Search Mission

Over the following weeks, there was much discussion and military briefings regarding the incident, as well as preliminary investigations. It would soon come to light that according to local rumors, on the day of the incident several members of the local population witnessed a huge object crash into the Shaitan Mazar mountain region.

By the end of September, an expedition team was formed with a view to locating the downed craft. This unit was made of a combination of UFO researchers (from the UFO organization SAKKUFON led by Anton Bogatov), several locals who knew the area well, and several experienced mountain climbers. The environment of the Tien Shen Mountains they were about to enter could be far from forgiving.

The search was two weeks old but no sign of the crash site or the wreckage was found, however, rumors reached the team through local messengers that several local residents had indeed found the site. Of concern was that they appeared to have suffered burns shortly after venturing there and bizarrely their watches all ceased working.

The group eventually headed to the Sary Dzhaz River valley, determined to visit the location of the apparent crash. However, after a further two weeks in the harsh, snowy environment, and with several members of the search team suffering from frostbite, they made the decision to head back to their base camp. Ultimately, the search mission was unsuccessful.

The rumors and local gossip of the crashed UFO, though, continued. And so did talk of the event among high-ranking Russian officials.

The Discovery Of A Vehicle From Another World

Despite the fact the first team had failed to locate the crash site, even after a month of searching, Russian authorities were looking to launch a second attempt. ^[2] When the Russian Air Force claimed to have located the wreckage in November 1991 it appeared their fortunes had turned. However, as the unit attempted to hoist a piece of the wreckage it caused the helicopter to crash. All those on board were killed.

SAKKUFON was informed of the incident, as well as the fact that a new search was to be arranged for the late spring or early summer of 1992. This time, though, the unit would be much larger, and under the overall leader of a retired Russian Major, German Svechkov. What’s more, rather than just set out for the crash site, all of those involved had to undergo training and pass multiple examinations and tests.

Ultimately, when the second search mission set out in June 1992, they did so as three units, each covering a different area around the location of the discovery of the helicopter crew the previous November. Within several weeks, after combing much of the area, they discovered what appeared to be the site where the UFO had come down.

The huge object had broken in two and sat on a plateau in the Grave of the Devil region. Many of the crew would recall how there appeared to be an energy of sorts coming from the object, and energy that was almost palpable, even when at a distance of around 5000 feet. As they moved closer to the downed otherworldly vehicle, however, the feelings of jubilation began to turn to sudden and unexplained feelings of anxiousness and fear. And the closer they got, the stronger these feelings became.

As they got closer still, various electronic devices and equipment began to malfunction. At the same time, there was an “electrical” feel to the air, which now appeared very humid. Even stranger, when they checked their compasses, all of the needles were pointed directly to the monstrous craft. Due to many of their devices malfunctioning, most of the planned tests had to be abandoned. Despite not being able to get any closer than around 2500 feet to the crippled craft, they could take in plenty of details visually.

A Truly Strange A Scene

As the unit looked around the scene around them, they were able to work out a likely scenario as to what had happened to this futuristic vehicle. Above where they stood was a large overhanging cliff. It appeared to those present that the object had crashed into this overhang which had caused it to break in two and come crashing to the ground, skidding around 5,000 feet before stopping.

It was also clear that an explosion – likely to have happened as a result of the impact with the overhang – was the cause of the craft having broken in two. The resulting gaping holes in the two sides of the object allowed the search unit to see inside. Although they could see no sign of a crew, they could see strange beams and the flooring of the craft. There was also considerable damage to the front of the vehicle where it had seemingly hit the ground.

The symbols reported by the MIG pilots on the day the object appeared were also clearly visible. Copies were quickly drawn and all those who studied them attested they had not seen anything like them and so could be matched to no known language.

Incidentally, the search unit managed to capture multiple photographs of the downed craft. However, it would appear that the energy field ruined the films as all came severely darkened and blurred. This was much the same for the attempts to video the find, with the video cameras not working at all.

The unit also discovered the remains of the wrecked helicopter, now theorizing that the strong electromagnetic fields could very well have caused the helicopter’s equipment to malfunction and ultimately send it crashing to the harsh terrain below. They did find it a little perplexing, and perhaps unnerving, that there was no sign of any of the bodies. As Nikolay Subbotin and Emil Backurin ask, might it be that the military secretly recovered the bodies? If so, why?

Although a third mission to the site was in the planning almost immediately after the discovery of the crashed craft, it would not go ahead until six years later in August 1998. And even then, it was a severely depleted effort. Not least as they failed to secure the services (and funding) of German Svechkov, who had led the successful second mission. As the Russian economy was in a severe downturn, he declined to become involved with the third attempt so he could concentrate on his already struggling business.

They would find the site once more, however, all that remained were the markers they themselves had left to mark points of the craft. The wreckage itself was nowhere to be found. They suspected that the military had discreetly returned following the discovery of the craft and retrieved it successfully. Perhaps the fact that the ground had seemingly been planed so as to take away any evidence that an impact had happened backed up this suspicion.

An Intriguing Case With Much To Contemplate

There is perhaps much to contemplate from this apparent case of crashed UFO. It is certainly an intriguing account. And one that has details that arise in other such cases of downed UFOs (such as strange energies and equally strange symbols).

However, while the credibility of the source here is not in question, there are several sticking points that are perhaps worth examining.

The fact that no photographs or video footage were captured, for example, perhaps falls very nicely into the hands of skeptics. After all, if we assume that the electromagnetic energy did ruin the films and caused cameras to stop working, we might assume that the authorities would have dispatched a plane on a photographic mission, or even sent another unit to the area and have them photograph it from much further away.

And what should we think of the third search mission? Did the military remove the wreckage of the craft in the time it took to organize it? And might his concerns of his business not be the only reason that Scheckov declined to set out to the site a third time? Might it be, given his military background, as speculative as it might be, that he was fully aware that the craft was no longer there?

Ultimately, the incident remains of interest to UFO researchers today three decades later. There is, however, another UFO crash in the former Soviet Union that is also of interest to us here. And it is there we will turn our attention to next.

UFO Crash Near Nizhniy Chegem

According to an account written by B J Booth which was relayed to him by researchers, Anton Anfalov, Lenura Azizova, and Alexander Mosolov, a UFO crashed on 10^th August 1989.

At around 11 am on the morning in question, an anomalous object was spotted by Soviet military radar operators near the city of Prohladnyi, with all attempts to communicate with it receiving no response. Several MIG fighters were scrambled into the air to intercept the object, while surface-to-air missiles were put on standby. What’s more, with the vehicle heading north, one of these missiles was launched and seemingly hit the object and causing it to crash somewhere in the Caucasian Mountains.

An M1-8 helicopter immediately carried a retrieval team to the location where the craft was shot down. They would soon locate the remains of what appeared to be a disc-shaped craft just outside of Nizhniy Chegem. They landed nearby and quickly secured the area putting it off-limits to all but those with official military clearance to be there.

They would estimate the object was around 20 feet wide and around 10 feet high and had seemingly dragged along the ground for a considerable distance before coming to a stop near some large rocks. As the team studied the object, they could clearly see the damage inflicted by the missile strike.

After an initial assessment of the scene, a team dressed in protective equipment moved toward the craft to investigate further. As they did, though, extremely high levels of radiation were detected, which some of the unit had undoubtedly been exposed to.

Retrieval And Study

The object was successfully transported from the crash site to Mozdok Air Base where a team was assembled to study the apparent otherworldly craft in more detail.

Wearing fully protective clothing, the research team entered the craft through a door that was partially open, likely from the missile strike. Once inside, they would make some remarkable discoveries. Not only did they find two dead alien entities (seemingly killed by falling equipment during the crash) but discovered a third, wounded alien. They would attempt to keep the alien alive but ultimately, it died a short time after.

The aliens themselves were described as being around three feet tall with “whiteish-gray” skin, although it appeared this skin was actually an “outer cover” such as some futuristic clothing. When they examined underneath this outer cover, they discovered skin that was of a blue-green cover that appeared to have a “reptilian texture” to it.

They would further describe the creatures as having extremely large, black, round eyes and particularly large, hairless heads, as well as three webbed fingers. These details should alert us to many other descriptions of apparent aliens in other cases around the world. Perhaps of particular interest, given the descriptions match those of a typical gray alien, is the detail of the reptile-like skin underneath the outer layer. This is something mentioned more often than we might think. Does that suggest that the notion of reptilian aliens is not as preposterous as some might have us believe? And perhaps more intriguing, might gray aliens and reptilian entities be one and the same?

The interior of the craft itself was adorned with multiple control panels and buttons, with numerous other pieces of equipment strewn around the wrecked cockpit. While these investigations were taken place, according to the account, a cover-up was put into action by the KBG.

Many UFO And Alien Encounters In The Last Days Of The Soviet Union

However, the two encounters that we have examined here are far from the only ones to have unfolded in the final days of the Soviet Union. The reasons for this apparent increase in UFO activity are perhaps open to debate. They are, though, extremely intriguing and share details with other similar cases around the world. And it is to some of those other encounters that we will turn our attention to next.

Another UFO Crash Near Vladivostok

According to an account in the book Alien Liaison by Timothy Good, another crashed UFO incident occurred several months earlier in the spring of 1989 just outside Vladivostok. The case was investigated by Valeriy Dvuzhilnyi and further documented by Anton Anfalov. ^[3]

The report states that on the day in question, Soviet Navy personnel witnessed a glowing object enter the waters off the coast of the Dalniy Vostok region. It wasn’t certain whether this was a planned dive or whether the object had crashed into the sea, but a retrieval mission was put into action. What’s more, the unit was almost immediately successful in their mission, quickly locating an egg-shaped object, approximately 20 feet long, resting on the seabed. They would bring the object to the surface and back to shore.

The strange device was described as being a dull, matt gray color with a “gradual” dome on top. It also had what appeared to be six oval portholes around the lower part of the object, although they were not transparent. There appeared to be slight damage to the underside of the craft, with a crack being clearly visible. A team was then put together to examine the object and, if possible, gain entry into it, but without success.

The object was eventually secretly transported to Moscow by train to the Central Material Research Institute where further, more intense study of it would get underway. Once more, though, the team assembled struggled to break into the devices, despite using a range of methods and cutting devices. They did, though, have more slightly more success with the large crack on the underside of the object, managing to expand it slightly using laser technology. They would find that the outer exterior itself appeared to be made of four separate layers.

Although it would take almost three weeks, they eventually succeeded in creating a gap that would allow scientists to enter the craft. Wearing specially designed protective equipment, a small team did just that.

They would find that the vehicle was separated into three separate levels – the engine on the bottom level, the main control room on the second level, and the top-level acting as some kind of docking room. The main power reactor in the engine room appeared to have exploded and was the possible cause of the crash. In the control room, there were multiple screens, panels, and many different colored buttons.

Several alien bodies were also discovered in the control room. Two of the deceased crew remained sat in their chairs, while another lay on the floor. They were approximately four feet tall with large, hairless heads (upon which sat a helmet) and large, round eyes that appeared to be covered by large, black lenses. Their skin was a gray-brown color and they each had six fingers on each hand. Each was also dressed in a tight-fitting metallic, silver suit with belts around their waists and silver-green boots.

Ultimately, the alien bodies were transported to a secret underground facility just outside of    Solnechnogorsk. So secret was this relocation that only four officers even knew of it. The object itself was taken to a mountain base on Novaya Zemlya Island, beyond the Polar Circle.

The Kopansky Lake Humanoid Entity Incident

Just under six months before the apparent crash in Nizhniy Chegem, and only several weeks before the above incident, on the evening of 13^th February 1989 near the Kopansky Lake in the Leningrad region, an encounter with a humanoid entity unfolded. The encounter is documented in the Independent Ufological Newsletter (number 1) January 1991 in an article by K. Wolf titled Contact at Kopansky Lake.

According to the article, three men from the Leningrad auto park – Yuriy Vasilievich, Sergey Yurevich, and Alexander Viktorovich – had decided to embark on a fishing trip on the Kopansky Lake, around 25 miles outside of the town of Sosnovy. As they were during the early evening, Viktorovich noticed a strange object overhead, at least three to four times larger than the stars that were already visible in the sky. He alerted his two companions who saw it also.

At first, it appeared the object was headed in their direction. However, it then made a sudden turn and continued on its way. The men watched it for around 15 minutes before they eventually settled down in the camp to make dinner.

After they had eaten, Vasilievich went into the nearby trees in search of wood for the fire. He walked around 30 feet into the woodland along the shore when he witnessed something that stopped him in his tracks. There, around 100 feet in front of him, was a “flat disc-shaped object” that was made from some kind of dark material. It was “beautifully” round with windows around its middle, out of which emanated a “soft matt light”.

He approached the object, only slightly, in order to get a better look. He noticed how it appeared to be completely smooth with no seams, joints, hatches, or doors anywhere to be seen. He remained where he was studying the object for around 20 seconds when he noticed a figure of some kind moving to the left of the object. A moment later he noticed a second figure on the other side, and then a third.

For the first time during the incident, he began to feel slightly unnerved and backed off slightly into the trees. He watched them move, noticing how they made no sound. He remained silent and still until they were around 30 feet from them, at which point he spoke aloud and made gestures with his arms hoping to indicate that he was friendly and not about to attack them. The figures remained silent but began to approach him.

He would later describe them as looking similar to humans but with no hair on their heads and a tightly closed mouth with no lips. He noticed how they had a look on their faces of “severe concentration”. Each also wore a tight-fitting grey suit.

Suddenly, a sudden flash, like from a camera, appeared and Vasilievich felt a sudden pressure in his head. At the same time, a “metallic voice” sounded out, only it appeared to be coming from inside his head. It asked him “what are you doing here”, to which he answered as best he could that he was on a fishing trip.

The voice then spoke again, asking him if he wished to go with them. Before he could answer, the voice spoke again saying, “you will not return…we need to know what your inner structure is”. He declined the offer to go with them and began to back away more. The voice returned inside his head. This time, much more threatening in its tone, telling him that if humans started a nuclear war “we will destroy you”.

Then, Vasilievich heard a loud buzzing sound that he would later liken to a “high voltage wire”. Then, he saw another figure appear, again humanoid but with shaggy hair on its body and a head that appeared similar to an ape. He would estimate that it was at least 10 feet tall, perhaps taller.

This detail, incidentally, is particularly interesting as it matches several other close encounters that feature a high buzzing sound – often described as being like angry bees – that coincides with the appearance of a Bigfoot-like creature. Is this matching detail so trivial that it suggests a certain amount of credibility?

As it stood in the clearing, the three aliens scuttered back to the ship. The craft then began to rise into the air before a blinding flash was emitted. The next thing Vasilievich realized, the craft and the Bigfoot-like creature had vanished.

The 1989 Kapustin Yar Nuclear Test Site Incident

Another apparent UFO incident in Russia around this time comes from the files of researcher Michael Hesemann. At around midnight on the evening of 28^th July 1989 at a military base near Kapustin Yar two Russian soldiers noticed a strange object hovering overhead.

Communications officer, V. Voloshin, who was on duty on the night in question would state in his report that he had climbed up the watchtower after first spotting the object and watched it from around 18 feet above the ground. He would recall that he could clearly see a “glaring blinking signal” which was “as bright as a camera flash”.

He further noted that the object headed out toward the missile units, at one point flying at an altitude as low as 60 feet. At this low height, Voloshin could see that it glowed a “phosphorescent green” and was approximately 15 feet across. Furthermore, there was a “semi-spherical dome” on the top of the vehicle.

As it hovered over the weapons depot, a bright light appeared on the underside and performed several circular movements, almost as if scanning the buildings below. After this, it headed out toward the rail track where it remained for a short time before heading back in the direction of the missile units, although this time it was at a height of around 200 feet.

He watched the object for around two hours before it moved off into the distance, heading toward the town of Akhtubinsk.

Another officer, named in the report as G. Kulik noted that he witnessed a “fireball which arose from the earth” and headed in the direction of the strange craft. He further added that as the strange vehicle approached him he could “physically feel its approach”. It would suddenly shoot into the sky leaving Kulik to watch from the ground. He recalled that he saw an airplane that appeared to be attempting to close in on the otherworldly vehicle but it simply accelerated off and disappeared.

The witnesses would write in-depth reports following the incident, right after an intense interrogation by KGB officers.

Humanoid Encounter On The Coast Of The Black Sea

Just over a week earlier, at around 2:40 am on the 20^th July 1989 in Sochi region of Caucasus, according to an article in the 5^th August edition of the Kurortnaya Gazeta, a strange object and two humanoid creatures were reported.

The witness, Tatyana Vasilievna Goloveshko, along with her husband, Vladimir, and their daughter, Anyuta, was on vacation on the coast of the Black Sea. On this particular night, with the windows open due to the heat, Tatyana lay awake in bed. However, when she heard footsteps outside, she suddenly felt a sudden urge to turn and look toward the window. Outside of the property, she could clearly see two humanoid entities, each with green-gray skin and approximately three or four feet high.

Then, things turned even stranger and more surreal. One of the creatures walked right through the wall and started in her direction. She literally blinked and in that instant, the creature was stood by the bed looking down at her. Bizarrely, rather than being frightened she only felt a sense of curiosity about the creature.

As the figure continued to stare down at her, she noticed how large and truly deep black its eyes were, also noting that it had no eyebrows or eyelashes. Its skin was extremely pale and described by Tatyana as looking “bloodless”. She also had a “feeling” that the entity was extremely old, for reasons she couldn’t explain.

Of more concern to her, though, was the realization that she was somehow paralyzed and unable to move, or even speak. At this point, she began to become agitated and frightened. Eventually, the two entities moved away from the bed. The next thing she realized, after hearing a strange “muffled” sound, the two entities had vanished.

Just when she thought the strangeness was over, however, a strange tennis-ball-sized object flew into the room, reminding Tatyana of ball lightning, although much more controlled. As it moved around the room it made an electronic cracking sound. As she watched the glowing orb, it moved into another room of the apartment before disappearing back out of the window.

As soon as it disappeared, she leaped out of bed and rushed to shut all of the previously open windows. Hearing another strange sound, she rushed to close the door to the other room before returning to her bedroom.

Interestingly or not, when the family awoke the next day, they discovered their television set no longer worked. Even stranger, every clock and watch in the house were stopped at 2:55 am.

Sky Battle Over Zaostrovka

An account by Russian investigator, Nikolay Subbotin is also worth examining here, not least as it tells of a battle of sorts over the city of Zaostrovka. According to the account, on the evening of 16^th September 1989, with multiple witnesses on the ground, a large “golden saucer” was appeared in the sky followed shortly by six smaller, silver disc-shaped crafts which appeared to attack it with a strange “beam of light”.

All of the objects would move through the sky during this apparent battle, with some of them coming down as low as 5000 feet and performed maneuvers that were completely beyond the capability of any known aircraft.

A report of the incident appeared in the Semipalatinsk newspaper and claimed that during the incident a local power grid went down blacking out the entire city. Witness statements in the newspaper article claimed that the golden disc was eventually overpowered by the six smaller crafts and appeared to make an attempt to land. However, in doing so it disappeared from view behind a large house, appearing to crash into the ground. Shortly after, their objective was seemingly achieved, the six smaller crafts disappeared into the distance.

According to Subbotin’s research, the craft had crashed on land that was used by the military as a test range. Consequently, the area was not open to the general public. It appeared that a retrieval mission was launched by the military and the craft was ultimately recovered. According to the research of another Russian UFO investigator, Emil Bachurin, military medical records suggested that several of the personnel involved in the recovery suffered various injuries during the recovery mission.

Incidentally, by the time that investigators were allowed access to the area, all signs of any crash had been covered over. Also of interest is the report of an airplane that attempted to fly over the region in an attempt to capture pictures from the air of the site. However, as it approached the area, all of its navigational equipment malfunctioned causing it to abandon the mission. The test range was eventually – at least officially – shut down altogether but remained under strict military guard.

Strange Lights Over St. Petersburg

Although it happened several years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, an incident on the evening of 19^th February 1997 over St. Petersburg is also of interest to us. According to an article written by Geoff Richardson, at around 7 pm on the night in question, multiple residents of the city, including air traffic staff and pilots, witnessed a “cluster of lights hovering overhead”. What’s more, several residents managed to capture video footage of the event.

It was radar operators at the local airport that first noticed the strange aerial anomalies on their radar screens. When they looked to the region of the sky these objects were they could visually see the strange lights. One witness, Victor Laxtushin, watched the vents for several minutes, recalling how the lights appeared to disappear and then return. They would eventually form themselves into a triangular formation.

It wasn’t long before the switchboard of the airport was swamped with calls from local residents regarding the lights. They remained visible for around 20 minutes before finally disappearing.

An official Navy investigation was unable to determine what the lights were. And while some suggested that they were, in fact, secret military vehicles, many would counter as to why they would test such vehicles over such a heavily populated part of the city, especially given the various stretches of largely unpopulated land.

It is also perhaps interesting to draw comparisons with the Phoenix Lights incident that occurred around a month later in the United States. Might this object, witnessed by the residents of St. Petersburg be the same object witnessed by hundreds of American citizens only weeks later?

You can see more details of the incident in the video below.

UFOs Maintain A Presence Over Russia

We have only examined an extremely small number of sightings that have unfolded over Russia in those final years of the Soviet Union, the fact is there are multiple incidents on record during this period of time, and many, many more that have occurred afterward and since. That there has been a presence of strange aerial vehicles over this part of the world is surely without a doubt.

One of the more recent sightings occurred on the evening of 29^th September 2007 over Moscow. According to the witness – who made a report of the sighting on an online reporting site – they were walking home after leaving the subway when they happened to look up to the sky. As he did, he noticed a strange “red or orange dot” overhead. He would recall that the object was “as bright as Venus” but that it was definitely not a star or a planet.

The witness would suggest that the object was simply stationary at an approximate altitude of 2000 to 3000 feet. After a minute or so, though, it began to move toward the east. He would describe this movement as “smooth” and lasting for around 10 seconds before it simply faded from sight.

With the Cold War now over three decades behind us this UFO presence remains over Russia, much like it does over the United States and other countries around the world. And if even some of the accounts of downed UFOs in Russia are true, where might these vehicles be now? Are they still being studied by Russian scientists today in a secret location somewhere? There is, it would appear, much study of UFOs in this part of the world, both present sightings and those from the past is still to be done.

The video below examines the possibility of UFOs and alien life a little further.