Bizarre Accounts of UFO Crashes and UFO Crash Retrievals In Russia

Russia is, in many ways, still a mysterious land that many in the West consider to be rather murky and misunderstood. Buried within the files of the strange and paranormal, there are numerous cases from Russia and the former Soviet Union that, for whatever reasons, have managed to slip through the cracks and remain forgotten conundrums that few people have ever even heard of, and some of these revolve around UFO crashes. With the famed secrecy of this nation further compounding our understanding, these are cases that are not only bizarre but perhaps doomed to stay behind locked doors forever, the answers eluding us until the end of time. 

An earlier account of an apparent UFO crash into a body of water comes to us from November of 1928, at remote Lake Vedlozero, near Shuknavolok, in Russia’s Yaroslavl province. One evening, an incandescent object spewing flames was seen to crash into the lake, and while this may sound like it surely must have been a meteor, there would be a series of very strange sightings that suggested otherwise. Shortly after this object came down, people would begin to report seeing what they called “water goblins” in the lake or wandering along the shore, described as dwarfish beings with hairless, rounded heads and long, thin arms and legs. In some reports, they were described as wearing metallic shiny one-piece suits of some sort. It is possible that these were misidentifications of the seals that occasionally appear in the lake, but with very little other information on this case, it is hard to say.

One very intriguing and spectacular account supposedly occurred in 1959 in what was then Soviet-controlled Poland. In February of that year, several witnesses in the area of a place called Gdynia observed a glowing light fall from the sky to plunge into the frigid waters of the harbor, which was choked up with ice floes at the time. It apparently created quite a commotion at the time, and thinking that perhaps an aircraft had gone down, there was a search and rescue effort launched with a team of divers. It was there, down through the icy waters in the muck at the bottom, that the divers would allegedly uncover a piece of shiny metal that had not rusted and was assumed to be part of whatever it was that had come down out of the heavens.

According to the account, this metal piece was turned over to the Polish Navy, who made a preliminary examination of it before sending it off to the Polytechnic University of Gdynia, where it vanished into the mists of time. In the meantime, the Navy closed the whole area down and restricted access, but the weirdness was only just beginning. A few days after the object had come down into the harbor, it was reported that several military personnel came across what was described as a “strange silhouette humanoid” that appeared to be wearing a uniform of some sort and was injured, with burns on its face and crawling along the beach in exhaustion, wet and seeming to have crept out of the water. The soldiers tried to communicate with the strange humanoid, which appeared to be male, but they were not familiar with the language he spoke. As he was obviously seriously injured, it was arranged to bring this being to the hospital, where it would get even stranger still.

Once at the hospital, it was immediately clear that this humanoid was weirder than anyone had thought. His uniform was made of some sort of strange metallic material that no one recognized, and no matter what the medical staff did, they seemed to be unable to remove it. The uniform had no discernible buttons, zippers, or any way to put it on or take it off, and the material it was constructed of apparently could not be cut or torn. In overall appearance, he appeared to be almost identical to a human being, although there were anomalies, such as extra digits on his fingers and toes, and other minor differences that marked him as not human. Doctors tended as well as they could to the burns on the being’s face, but when they removed an armband on the uniform, he apparently went into some sort of cardiac arrest and died.

The body was sent in for an autopsy, and they purportedly needed specialized equipment to remove that odd uniform. When the body was examined, the humanoid was purportedly found to have a completely different circulatory system than human beings, as well as different organs. Unbelievably, there was another of these creatures found on the same beach in the meantime, and this one apparently fell into a coma-like state and was placed in some sort of frozen stasis, the body whisked away and hidden somewhere. What happened to these two bodies and that piece of what is assumed to be their crashed ship? No one seems to know. The case has been picked up by UFOlogists over the years and has been written of at length by UFO researcher Arthur Shuttlewood and others, but there seems to be very little to verify the story, no witnesses that have been interviewed, and it has the feel of being almost urban legend rather than anything else. However, one does wonder just what happened here, if anything.

In the summer of 1966, a Russian geologist by the name of Oleg Ivanovich was on an expedition to a thickly forested region northwest of Topolovka. The remote area made progress slow, and they faced their fair share of difficulties. At one point, their horse got badly stuck in the mosquito-infested muck of a swamp, and they decided to camp out for the night, having no idea of the weirdness that was to follow. 

During the night, the entire camp was awoken by a deafening roar that sent them jumping out of their tents into the night to see what was going on. According to the report, all around them, the forest was illuminated and ablaze with fire, producing a wave of heat so intense that the expedition members retreated to a small nearby river to get away from it. The forest continued to smolder and burn all night, with some trees still in flames even when the morning arrived. It seemed like only one area was charred and burning, so they assumed that some sort of explosion had occurred, and they hiked off to see what it might be.

As they walked along, sometimes choking on the thick smoke, they noticed that their compasses and radio were going haywire, and that they all had a sort of brain fog and “sense of powerlessness.” They also noticed that the trees seemed to be bent, leaning towards one direction, and that the tops were missing, as if they had been chopped off with a cleaver. It was all pretty eerie, but they nevertheless continued slogging through the swampy mud until they reached a large, smoldering object that looked like “two washbasins set face to face,” the whole of it colored with flashing lights. They could also make out an opening on the side of the object that was belching out smoke from within, and upon closer inspection, they saw what they claimed to be “a tentacle” protruding out from the gloom beyond the barrier. 

The team tried to get even closer, but the swampy terrain was too unforgiving and dangerous for them to get any nearer, and they also realized that the more they approached the object, the more they were filled with nausea and dread. They would also report that their vision seemed to be getting blurry, so thinking it was perhaps from radiation, they withdrew to a safer distance. It was around this time that the sounds of the night were punctuated by the thumping of what sounded like helicopter blades. This proved to be true when, moments later, they could see five unmarked helicopters come into view over the treetops, seemingly converging on the site where that strange object had been seen. The next morning, they would go back to find no trace of the object, nor any sign of debris at all.

It would later turn out that there were other witnesses to the previous night’s mysterious events. One witness, Anna Egoronovna, had been awakened in the middle of the night by a loud roar and found the walls of the house shaking, and when she had looked outside, it had seemed to be as bright as day. She also had seen “a great glowing light as bright as the sun” hurtling down towards the forest, followed by a boom and a blast of wind. Also a man named Michael Kuzmich, a 79-year old hunter, had been fishing in the area late at night when suddenly he heard a tremendous noise, a sort of “howling,” followed by the trees bursting into flame and a thunderous clap and shockwave that was powerful enough to send him sprawling to the ground. 

It is a curious case, in that it is totally unknown what happened after this, or where that mysterious object had come from, or where it had gone. Another case comes from 1969, from the state of Sverdlovsk, which was formerly Yekatrinburg of the USSR. In March of that year, a fiery object came down to smash into the earth, and allegedly, the site was secured by the Russian military, and one dead alien was found in the wreckage. The remains of the craft and the alien were purportedly brought to a secure location, and the alien's body autopsied. Interestingly, there were supposedly reams of photographs and film taken, not only of the crash site, but also of the alien autopsy. 

The whole case comes from the so-called “Secret KGB Files,” which were reportedly smuggled out of the former Soviet Union for a sum of $10,000, and the photos were aired on a TV program called The Secret UFO Files of the KGB. The special aired on the TNT network and features Roger Moore, veteran actor and former James Bond, who discusses other UFO events as well, along with interviews with UFO experts, CIA agents, and other important people in the field. As far as the footage goes, an analysis on UFOCasebook says of it:

“The footage at the crash site does seem to be authentic at least on several points. The truck in the film is a circa 1950 model ZIS151, which has not been used by the military for quite some time, and the truck would have been difficult to find to stage a hoax with. Other elements of the film do not exhibit any obvious signs of a hoax, as to the movement of the soldiers, the timing of the film as to shadows, and the UFO itself.

There are also several documents shown to verify the event itself, and an eyewitness to the event who swears that the recovery mission did occur. The footage of the autopsy film shows personnel without caps and gowns, which seemed odd to me at first, but after some research I found that this was commonplace for that era in Russia.

The furnishings in the room are acceptable, and in Russia have probably not changed much today. Three men in their 20’s and 30’s are performing the procedure, and one woman is taking notes. The note taker is identified as KGB stenographer O. A. Pshonikina. The alien’s torso and arm are lying together on the table as the autopsy is performed, and there are documents shown to support the autopsy.

Although the USA-Russia relationship is much improved over a few years ago, it still lacks. Any information received is subject to translation, and oftentimes there are problems with interpretation. It is sad there is not more cooperation between the two countries. The case of the 1969 retrieval and autopsy are difficult to assess. Until more information is uncovered, it will remain unsubstantiated.”

From 1986, there is a strange case from the cold wilds. The small mining town of Dalnegorsk, Russia, is a rather bleak, stark, and frigid place. Indeed, the name Dalnegorsk literally means “far in the mountains,” and the unforgiving landscape here is fitting for such a name. It is a remote, rugged place of near-perpetual cold, just a speck on the map and unknown to most of the outside world. Yet this forgotten place has one claim to fame, as it was once supposedly the site of a UFO that crashed to earth, which would then spawn stories of conspiracies and cover-ups, as well as usher in a whole series of UFO phenomena and strangeness.

In the cold, dark morning hours of January 29, 1986, hundreds of locals had their attention drawn skyward by an unusual sight. Streaking across the sky was seen a glowing reddish ball, travelling in a parallel, controlled manner at a speed of around 120 mph, described as being about the size of “half of the moon’s disc” and with a metallic surface like “hot stainless steel.” The object was obviously no meteor, as it appeared to slow down to a speed of only around 50 mph as it approached Izvestkovaya Mountain, also called “Height 611.” It was thought at first that this was perhaps something from the military base nearby, but whatever it was did not make the slightest sound as it flew over at a height of around 700 feet. As the villagers looked on in astonishment, the object suddenly jerked and dipped sharply, before plummeting to earth behind the trees and hitting the mountain beyond in a ball of flame, producing a blindingly bright flash, yet there was oddly no expected boom of an explosion. For several hours, the glow of what looked from a distance like a forest fire could be seen emanating from where the mysterious object had gone down, yet no one dared approach.

It would not be until a few days later that anyone would arrive at the remote site to check it out, when a team from the Academy of Sciences came to investigate the odd reports. They discovered a circular spot in the forest that had been charred, and to their amazement, there were numerous shards of metal, mesh fragments, beads, and an anomalous black film over everything. There were some odd magnetic readings at the site, an unidentifiable chemical odor lingering everywhere, and a certain charge to the air like static electricity, yet no abnormal radiation was detected. Some reports say that those who examined the area experienced various health issues such as nose bleeds, headaches, nausea, and blood pressure fluctuations, and inexplicably, all photos taken of it would later come out completely blank. Samples of the materials were gathered, and things would get stranger still.

Scientists allegedly found that the beads were composed of lead, silicon, gold, nickel, and iron, but when melted down, their composition anomalously changed into such elements as titanium and molybdenum. The mesh-like material was found to also have many oddities. For one, its structure was bizarre to say the least, made of microscopic twisted fibers of carbonic and metal threads only 17 microns wide, beyond anyone's capabilities to make at the time. Some of the fragments featured an incredibly high density of gold, inconsistent with the surrounding area. The mesh also proved to be well-nigh indestructible, unable to be damaged by soaking in strong acids or solvents, and only able to be cut with the hardest diamond cutting tools. Scientists were apparently dumbfounded by all of this, but rather than explain it as aliens, it was thought to perhaps be from an American satellite or aircraft displaying some unknown advanced technology, although the United States would later deny having anything to do with it. In later years, some of these fragments made their way to the United States, and some would even be displayed. One such exhibit of some of these alleged fragments was shown at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, and the description at the exhibition reads:

Three Soviet academic centers and 11 research institutes analyzed the objects from this UFO crash. The distance between atoms is different from ordinary iron. Radar cannot be reflected from the material. Elements in the material may disappear and new ones appear after heating. One piece disappeared completely in front of four witnesses. The core of the material is composed of a substance with anti-gravitational properties.

In the days after the Dalnegorsk incident, the area, and in particular Height 611, would allegedly become ground zero for intense waves of UFO sightings, with dozens of subsequent instances of mysterious objects in the sky. On some occasions the objects were reported as hovering over the mountain and illuminating the forest below with beams, as if looking for something, and such reports would carry on into the following year and beyond, given by people from all walks of life, including traditionally reliable witnesses such as doctors, policemen, officials, and military personnel. In some instances, people even claimed to have found more of the mysterious fragments in the area, as well as patches of a strange oil-like substance.

Although it is all a rather spectacular tale, the Dalnegorsk incident managed to be sort of brushed under the carpet, hidden away by what was then the Soviet Union, and it was not until years later that outside ufologists would begin uncovering the tale and making its existence known through articles and TV shows such as a notable segment on a 1995 episode of Sightings. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much remaining in the way of corroborating evidence, and the vast majority of the supposed material from the crash has gone missing over the decades. While it is all very intriguing and seems promising on some levels, with plenty of eyewitnesses and potential physical evidence, we are forced to relegate it to the files of other cases that have been lost to history, with no way of proving them true or not, one way or the other. What happened at that cold, lonely mountain? We may never know.

In the spring of 1989, Soviet Navy personnel purportedly observed a glowing object enter the sea off the coast of the Dalniy Vostok area, outside of Vladivostok, in Far East Russia. According to the account, a recovery operation was immediately initiated and a device described as egg-shaped and 6 meters long, with a matte grey exterior and 6 oval structures like dark portholes encircled the lower part of the object, which was retrieved from the seabed by divers and brought ashore. There, they tried to open the object with blowtorches and other cutting instruments, but they could not even put a scratch on the surface. 

The object was later transported to Vladivostok and then to Moscow, where they were equally unsuccessful at accessing the interior of the weird object. It was only after they found a minuscule crack in the hull that they were able to use a laser to slowly widen the opening to the point that they were able to penetrate the object. The first of three levels of the object was a disaster area, with exploded consoles and a reactor that had apparently self-destructed or had been destroyed by an explosion. On the second level, they would supposedly find three dead alien bodies, with two of them sitting in chairs and another sprawled out on the floor. 

The aliens were about 1.3 – 1.5m in height, with one being slightly taller, about 1.6-1.7 m. They had large hairless heads encased in helmets, 6 fingered extremities, and gray-brown colored skin, large round eyes, which were covered with black eye lenses, and small ears. They were dressed in tight-fitting metallic silver colored suits with a violet tint, with belts and what appeared to be circles on their chest area. They also wore elbow-length gloves. The suits were removed with extreme difficulty, and also the silver-greenish boots and gloves. One body was grievously damaged, apparently by the hard impact of the crash. An autopsy would later reveal that they had a thick, viscous black liquid for blood. The object was later transported inside a mountain beyond the Polar Circle on Novaya Zemlya Island, and after that, no one really knows what happened to it or its unfortunate crew. Is there any truth to this story at all? Who knows?

Moving into 1989, there is a rather spectacular series of events that played out in the skies of Zastrahovka, which seems to involve a group of UFOs shooting another one down. In September of that year, six circular, silver, flying saucers ganged up and fought a seventh, golden saucer, with all of them pulling incredible aerial maneuvers and exchanging blasts with what appeared to be light beams. This was all seen by hundreds of witnesses in the area, and it would later be claimed that the intense UFO dogfight caused a blackout in the city. The outnumbered golden UFO eventually was overwhelmed by repeated strikes from the energy beams, and apparently lost altitude to come down into a crash as it’s antagonists sped off into the clouds. 

According to the report, the outgunned loser came down right into a bog on a military test range. A military team had then descended on the boggy area to conduct a full search and rescue operation, although it is unclear what they actually found. Eventually, all activities at the military range were shut down and the base put under heavy guard, so it seems unlikely that we will ever know what happened here. 

Also from 1989 is a report from Prohladnyi, Russia, where at approximately 11:00 AM on August 10, 1989, military radar units detected an unidentified flying object. All attempts to communicate with the unidentified object were met with silence, and so the decision was made to label it as hostile. Defense systems were put on the highest alert, with the utilization of surface-to-air missiles, and the deployment of MiG-25s that were ordered to intercept and engage the intruder. A ground-to-air missile reportedly hit the UFO, causing it to veer off over the Caucasian Mountains and come down somewhere in the wilderness. 

When a retrieval team was sent, they supposedly found a disc-like object measuring 6.9 meters long and 3.0 meters high, and “shaped like a cockleshell.” The craft had left a huge rut in the dirt and was very badly damaged, with debris everywhere. More extraordinarily, three aliens were found inside, with two dead and one heavily injured but still alive. A medical team attempted to keep the alien alive, but their efforts failed. All of these beings were described as standing about 1.0-1.2 meters tall, with a whitish gray outer cover that revealed blue-green reptilian skin beneath. The other worldly beings also had hairless heads, large black eyes, almost round, which were covered by a protective lid, and three webbed fingers at the end of their inhumanly long, slender arms. These aliens would be moved into glass cylinders and put away in a top-secret facility east of Solnechnogorsk. Once again, there is no further news on what happened after that. 

These are bizarre cases to be sure, but perhaps not quite as much so as what happened to a Russian submariner and diver named Nikolay M., as he was diving one day in 1997 in the Bay of Finland, in the Saint Petersburg region of Russia. Nikolay allegedly was diving in shallow water when he saw an elongated object on the bottom, which was reminiscent of a cucumber. He at first took it to be a part of some sort of wreckage and tried to get it to the surface by tying some old rope around it, but he was ultimately unable to budge the odd object. Undeterred, he decided to haul it out with his car, which was on shore and not that far away. He retrieved a pneumatic drill to drill holes in the thing to attach a sling to it, but when he started drilling into the object, it began to issue forth streamers of a thick, dark liquid like oil, which crept out into the water. Despite this startling development, he kept pressure on the drill to go deeper, after which it stopped upon hitting something within. At this point, the object reportedly split open to regurgitate a bubble containing a humanoid creature with porcelain white skin and a bleeding wound where the drill had hit it.

The creature did not seem pleased and fixed the diver with a malevolent gaze, after which it lashed out with taloned hands to grab his arm and cut into his flesh. Nikolay then supposedly used the drill to bore into his attacker, after which it let go and he lost consciousness. The next thing he knew, he was being dragged from the water by rescuers. It was found that he had sustained deep cuts on his arm and lost a piece of his hand, but there was no sign of the strange cucumber object or its bizarre, unearthly occupant. What did this man see? Was it some sort of cocoon? If so, for what? Nobody knows.

Secrecy is, of course, the eternal obstacle to getting to the bottom of cases that we have looked at here, and it is not something wholly unique to Russia in that the United States and other countries have also long been said to keep their own UFO crashes under wraps. Yet at times it seems that Russia is an even more impenetrable fortress of secrecy that we will never gain access to on these matters, and we can only wonder about what these cases really entailed.