1989: UFO hovers over Russian nuclear test site of Kapustin Yar

THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: July 28, 1989

Sighting Time:

Day/Night: Night

Location: Kapustin Yar, Russian Federation

Urban or Rural: –

Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter I) Observation of an object in close proximity to the witness (i.e. within 500’)

Duration: Two hours

No. of Object(s):  1

Height & Speed:

Size of Object(s): 12 to 15 feet in diameter

Distance to Object(s):

Shape of Object(s): Disc

Color of Object(s): phosphorescent green

Number of Witnesses: Multiple

Source: Michael Hesemann, 1998

Summary/Description: In 1989, at a military base near the nuclear test site of Kapustin Yar, members of two army units noticed a UFO which hovered for hours over the arsenal of the base. The KGB files contained the handwritten reports of the sighting. It flew over the stores of the unit and moved in the direction of the missile arsenal. When it hovered over the arsenal, a bright ray appeared on its underside. 

Full Report

Drawing (above) by Ensign Voloshin of UFO with beam seen over a Russian missile base in Kapustin Yar in July 1989. (credit: Hesemann)

Reconstruction of the event published in the Moscow magazine Aura-Z. (credit: Hesemann)

KGB document on the Kapustin Yar case.

This case] occurred on July 28, 1989, at a military base near the nuclear test site of Kapustin Yar in the Astrakhan region (Caspian lowlands).

It was about midnight when members of two army units noticed a UFO which hovered for hours over the arsenal of the base. The KGB files contained the handwritten reports of the sighting, which 4 of the witnesses wrote after being interrogated by agents of the KGB. The report does not say what kind of missiles were in the arsenal, nor whether there had been any nuclear warheads.

“I climbed up to the watchtower and watched the object at a height of 18 feet. I could clearly make out a glaring blinking signal, bright as a camera flash. The object flew over the stores of the unit and moved in the direction of the missile arsenal, about 1,000 feet away. It floated at a height of only 60 feet above the depot. The UFO glowed in a kind of phosphorescent green. It was a disc 12 to 15 feet in diameter with a semi-spherical dome on it.

While the object was hovering above the arsenal, a bright ray appeared on its underside where the light had been flashing before, and drew 2 or 3 circles. Then the object moved towards the railway station, still flashing. Soon, however, it came back to the missile depot and hovered at a height of 180-200 feet above it. Two hours after the start of the sighting, the object flew in the direction of the town Akhtubinsk and disappeared out of our sight,”

wrote the communications officer on duty, V. Voloshin.

And the soldier G. Kulik added: “Near the object in the sky I saw a fireball which arose from the earth and approached it. When the UFO moved towards me, I could physically feel its approach. Then it shot off into the sky. I saw an airplane that attempted to get close to the object, but the object accelerated so fast that it soon left the airplane behind”.