Russian TV stations recently aired two documentaries about UFO’s, a real treat for the Russian ufologists, a community of enthusiasts studying unidentified flying objects.

The films are particularly notable for the UFO accounts by high-raking Soviet and Russian Navy and Air Force officers.

Information relating to UFO’s was strictly classified in the USSR. Some of the enthusiasts who spread samizdat booklets with articles on the subject compiled from the foreign media were at times taken to the KGB for questioning.

The funniest thing is that the KGB has allegedly had a special unit designed to gather and monitor all pieces of information regarding mystical and unexplained phenomena reported inside and outside the Soviet Union. An article published some time ago by a Madrid magazine Mas Alla probably indicates that the above allegations hold water. The magazine also published several stills from a film by U.S. TV station TNT affiliated with CNN.

Both the magazine and film say that in 1968 the KGB supposedly took possession of an UFO, which had either crashed or been shot down by the Soviet air defense. The Soviet secret police were alleged to have obtained the body of a humanoid in the cockpit. The body was thoroughly examined in an anatomy department of the Semashko Medical Institute in Moscow. The TV station claims that the film was based on a footage of the incident provided by one Pavel Klimchenkov, a former KGB officer. According to TNT officials, the documents are a deliberate “leak” to the media.

Klimcheko flashed his allegedly genuine ID on camera as though he was proving that he really was a retired KGB officer. He did not elaborate on the “leak” and said nothing as to its purposes. Therefore, the mystical story should draw comments on the official level, according to the magazine. There has been no response from the Russian authorities so far.

British actor Roger Moor, one of the two most famous Bonds, was hired by TNT to spike the film with a flavor of sensationalism. He presented the story based on the events that took place near the town of Berezniki in the Urals in 1968.

An eyewitness account printed by Vecherny Sverdlovsk on November 29, 1968 , kick-started an inquiry into the longstanding rumors about some flying object that supposedly fell the earth earlier that year. The eyewitnesses claimed to have seen a “shining object in the shape of a disk” landing or falling onto a steep showy slope. The film shows Soviet soldiers aboard the all-terrain vehicles and APC’s arriving to the scene. The soldiers are seen to be combing the area. Then a general and two plainclothesmen (designated by TNT as KGB agents for some reasons) are seen to be giving orders to personnel in army uniform. The film shows a silvery shining object, a convex disk lying on its side in the show. The landing of an object did not melt any snow in the nearby area, no trees were damaged.

According to military experts interviewed by TNT, these days it would be rather preposterous for the KGB to make public a supposedly fake “intimidation propaganda” film designed for disinformation purposes in the Cold War era some 30 years ago. Pavel Klimchenkov, the owner of the original footage, claims that the KGB operation for the search and apprehension of an UFO was codenamed Mif (‘myth’ in Russia ). The viewer can see numerous KGB documents marked “top secret” saying that the operation was successfully completed.

The weirdiest part of the film shows an autopsy of the humanoid. The body of the extraterrestrial looks small and has grayish skin. His torso is very thin and his head resembles that of a monkey with eyes set deeply in the sockets. Anatomists are confident that the above characteristics are not typical for humans of any race or age.

A photocopy of the order by the Soviet defense minister looks authentic too. Pursuant to the order, General A. G. Ponomarnko, head commander of the Urals military district, was to ensure that KGB agents be involved in the work pertaining to the UFO at all stages. The agents’ reports were promptly forwarded to Colonel A. I. Grigoriev, chief of the KGB scientific department. It is noteworthy that Kamyshev, Savitski, and Gordienko – the coroners who performed a postmortem – all passed away on the same day, on March 24, 1969, one week after completing the examination of the humanoid’s body. The cause of their death is still unknown.

In September 1995, the U.S. media spread a similar story about the UFO allegedly captured by the authorities. The media accused the CIA of concealing the story for many years. The U.S. government officials denied the allegations by calling the whole story a hoax staged by ufologists. The pictures published in U.S. papers show a humanoid looking suspiciously very much like the Soviet creature from outer space.

Some scientists are pretty skeptical about the story told by the TNT film. At the same time, those scientists admit that the story contains too many pieces of information that look plausible. A clearer picture will be available after conducting a complex analysis of the original UFO footage and the KGB documents relevant to the case. Results of a medical inquiry into the cause of death of the coroners should be also taken into consideration.