Russia’s secret UFO files reveal fighter jet was buzzed by strange lights & 600mph craft moving like ‘no human aircraft’

RUSSIAN pilots encountered strange lights in the sky and soldiers witnessed objects moving in ways like no human aircraft, secret documents reveal.

Newly uncovered Cold War-era files reveal that it was not just the US who was experiencing encounters with strange objects in the sky - but the same phenomena was being seen in the Soviet Union.

KGB documents show scores of reports by Russian soldiers, airmen and pilots as they observed eerie shapes, huge objects, glimmering lights and mysterious flashes.

Some of the most striking reports include a Russian colonel who reported a shape-shifting object which fired a "beam of light" towards the ground.

Others include a MiG-21 pilot who was baffled by a mysterious object, and a witness who saw an object that did not move like any known human machine.

The Sun Online can reveal these documents as Russia waded into the UFO debate - which has become a hot topic in Washington DC.

Dmitry Rogozin, the chief of Roscosmos - Moscow's answer to NASA, confirmed Russian pilots have also encountered mysterious craft and said Moscow is investigating UFOs.

And the KGB files on UFOs have been uncovered after they were first sent to Major General Pavel Popovich , one of the first Soviet cosmonauts and the first Ukrainian to fly into space.

The documents were provided to The Sun Online by UAP Media UK, a campaign group dedicated to investigating and working towards a more serious discussion & transparency about UFOs.

Graeme Rendall, from UAP Media UK, a researcher who has written books on the UFO topic and aviation, told The Sun Online: "These translated reports may not provide a nice, neat answer to UFOs but they do provide a counter to the often-repeated suggestion that strange objects and lights were simply an American-centric phenomenon.

"Mysterious craft have been seen everywhere around the world, even in a country run by a regime known for hiding inconvenient truths – and we now know that UFOs were another one of them."

Major General Popovich was one of the first 20 cosmonauts - and only just lost out to Yuri Gagarin for the honour of becoming the first man in space.

Popovich commanded spaceship Vostok 4 which flew into space for four days in August 1962 - and went on to train the Soviet's next generation of space men.

And his wife Colonel Marina Popovich, was also an avid UFO hunter as well as being a legendary supersonic test pilot known as "Madame MiG".

She wrote a book on the topic, campaigned for disclosure, and claimed Moscow was in possession of at least five fragments of UFOs.

Both of them called for more disclosure on the subject until their deaths in 2009 for Pavel and 2017 for Marina - with "Madame MiG" planning to lobby the US government over UFOs before her death.

The Soviets were clearly searching for answers to the phenomenon

Graeme RendallUAP Media UK

After first being released to Pavel on October, 24, 1991, the more than 100-pages of documents known as "The Blue Folder" eventually surfaced in the West.

The documents were released to him just 63 days before the total collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Major General was sent the documents by the KGB who said while they did not "systematically" investigate "so-called unidentified flying objects" - they did receive information from our sources.

So the representative for Vadim Bakatin - who was the final chairman of the KGB until its eventual disintegration - sent him the files.

Striking reports include the accounts of witnesses in Burkhala, Magadan, who saw a "red shining" object appear for 30 minutes on October 21, 1989.

One of the witnesses, who is said to have worked at the Baikonur cosmodrome space centre, estimated the object was moving at around 600mph.

"[He] remarked that no one of the flying apparatuses known to him could perform such movements," the document reads.

The object was described as being shaped "like a cigar or a fish" and was surrounded by nine lights.

And the shape was reportedly observed by two groups of eyewitnesses from two separate points in the area.

Another reported from a pilot named as Lieutenant-Colonel Konov described MiG-21 pilots encounting an object on September 9, 1989.

"We observed a small accumulation of flashing lights, looking like the signal lights of car trains," the officer said.

He said the one of pilots described the object as an "interesting truck" as they observed the it twice across three flights near Volgograd.

Chief pilot Sergei Petrovich Sachkov also described the same encounter, describing seeing "two violet red shining lights" while Lieutenant Aleksander Alekseyevich Selyutin described a "red pulsating point" hanging in the sky.

And in one of the most striking accounts, Lieutenant Valerii Voloshin described observing an object for two which was shaped like a "disk with a half sphere on top" on July 28, 1989.

Soviet commanders scrambled a fighter jet to intercept - but the pilot could not get close enough to the UFO.

He described witnessing the flashing object flying low over the ground and appear to fire out a "beam" towards the ground taking particular interest in "rocket weapon stockpiles".

Voloshin claimed his captain had sent word of a "flying saucer" - and even provided a sketch of the object showing an unmistakable disc shape.

"The movements of the object were somehow irregular, at times it moved rapidly sideways or vertically," he said.

Other accounts include a witness who described seeing "an object was bigger than any aircraft and resembling a fast flying rocket" and commercial airline pilots encountering "shining objects" while flying out of Moscow.

And a hunter claims to have spotted a UFO with a ";floodlight beam" which left the motor on his boat unable to start, while an exchange between air traffic control and a plane is included in the files described an encounter with a craft shaped like a "lozenge".

Mr Rendall told The Sun Online: "Whilst the accuracy and truthfulness of these KGB reports of UFO sightings in the 1980s may never be 100% verifiable, they constitute a treasure trove of information that lifts the lid on an otherwise dark secret of the Cold War.

"Military personnel, Aeroflot crews and ordinary Russian citizens saw UFOs too. In many cases, the original Cyrillic letters and statements are included, complete with drawings and sketches of the objects seen.

"Ignoring the difference in written alphabets, they closely resemble the reports found in the old USAF Project Blue Book UFO investigation program documents from the 1950s and 1960s.

"The Soviets were clearly searching for answers to the phenomenon."

It comes as the topic has stepped from fringe conspiracy theories into a full on national security discussion.

Washington DC has been abuzz with talk about the unexplained encounters - now more commonly called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).

And it appears the discussion has now hit Moscow.

Vladimir Putin's space chief Rogozin told Russian state TV that he believes in the existence of alien life - and said extraterrestrial civilisations could be more advanced than humans.

He confirmed Moscow is "collecting facts" on UFOs - and even claimed to have liaised with NASA.

US lawmakers last month grilled intelligence chiefs about the encounters as they confessed over the last year they have probed 400 sightings and 11 near misses.

It was the first hearing of its kind in 20 years.

The intelligence bosses attempted to explain how difficult it is to track these objects, and showed congressmen two videos.

And while they did not mention aliens, they did admit there are some of the 400 encounters they have on their books which are truly unexplained.

It came off the back of a landmark Pentagon report in 2021 following the leaking of three videos showing US Navy encounters with unexplained objects.

UFOs are now being discussed by former intelligence officials, former servicemen, lawmakers, NASA, and even former president Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

NASA have even revealed their own plan to study UFOs - but remained clear they were not explicitly connecting it to aliens.

While it's unclear what the phenomena actually is, it appears there is something in the skies which cannot be explained.