Date: 1936

Sighting Time: Daytime (initial encounter); subsequent contacts at unspecified times

Day/Night: Daytime (first encounter); not recorded for return encounter

Location: Pacific Ocean (en route from Leningrad; specific coordinates not recorded)

Urban or Rural: Open ocean

No. of Entity(‘s): Multiple (exact number not recorded)

Entity Type: Frogmen — aquatic humanoids

Entity Description: Strange entities dressed in dark shiny suits resembling frogmen. Extremities similar to human but with small webbed membranes between the fingers. Communicated exclusively by apparent telepathy and gesture — no verbal communication observed. Exchanged glances between themselves as apparent telepathic communication method.

Hynek Classification: CE-IV — Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind. Note: Page lists CE-III. Two sailors were taken and did not return (voluntary retention); three sailors were held aboard the anomalous vessel against their will for approximately two days before being returned. The involuntary detention and the sailor who jumped into the sea and was lost constitute CE-IV elements. Recommend updating classification to CE-IV.

Duration: Initial encounter — vessel departed rapidly, search lasted several hours. Sailor detention aboard anomalous vessel — approximately two days (by survivors’ estimation). Total event span — several days.

No. of Object(s): 2 (one large anomalous vessel that ascended from the ocean; one small transparent boat used to return the three survivors)

Description of the Object(s): Primary vessel — large, resembled a vessel that had ascended from the ocean; no conventional markings, no response to radio; transparent or partially transparent construction suggested by the smaller return vessel. Secondary vessel — small boat made entirely of transparent material, no visible attachment points; sank back into the ocean when the Maria departed.

Shape of Object(s): Vessel-like (primary); small boat (secondary, transparent)

Size of Object(s): Primary vessel — large enough to board by rowboat and accommodate the five sailors plus crew; secondary vessel — small boat size

Color of Object(s): Transparent material (secondary vessel)

Distance to Object(s): Close enough for rowboat approach and boarding

Height & Speed: Departed the initial encounter at very high speed, disappearing into cloud or fog

Number of Witnesses: Full crew of the steamer Maria (multiple); five sailors (of whom two voluntarily remained, two were recovered, one was lost at sea)

Special Features/Characteristics: USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) — ascended from the ocean; crew communicated by telepathy; offered tablet-form food to detained sailors; two sailors voluntarily chose to remain; one sailor became erratic and jumped into the sea on recovery; watch journal documented the events contemporaneously; Soviet Ministry interrogation followed; captain was pressured to recant and transferred; transparent secondary vessel sank on its own when the Maria departed

Case Status: Unexplained

Source: Engineer Lev A. Popov, quoting the Files of Felix U. Zigel and Anton Anfalov

Summary/Description: In 1936, the Soviet civilian transport steamer Maria encountered an anomalous vessel in the Pacific Ocean. The captain launched five sailors to investigate; the vessel departed at high speed with the sailors aboard. Days later, three sailors were found in a small transparent boat on the same route. One jumped into the sea and was lost. The surviving two described being held aboard the anomalous vessel by webbed-fingered telepathic beings who told them there was no return. Two sailors chose to stay; three were eventually returned in the transparent boat with tablet food. The transparent vessel sank on its own after the Maria departed. The captain filed a contemporaneous report and watch journal entry; he was subsequently interrogated by the Soviet Ministry, pressured to recant his testimony, and transferred to another vessel.

Related Cases: 1982 Trans-Baikal/Issyk Kul USSR — Soviet frogmen vs. underwater humanoids (Shteynberg/ANOMALIYA 1992) | 1938 Pacific Ocean West Yaroslavl — same Zigel/Anfalov source chain | 1936 Tordenskiold Norway maritime CE-I (Rogerson/MUFOB — same year maritime encounter)

DETAILED REPORT

The 1936 Pacific Ocean Maria encounter is the most elaborate pre-modern maritime USO/CE-IV case in the compiled Soviet literature, and its source chain — Engineer Lev Popov citing the files of Felix Zigel via Anton Anfalov — places it within the most credentialed body of Soviet anomalous research available to the Western record.

Felix Zigel was a Soviet aerospace engineer and UFO researcher whose manuscript files, compiled between the 1950s and his death in 1988, represent the most systematic pre-glasnost documentation of Soviet UAP cases. Zigel worked within the Soviet scientific establishment, taught at the Moscow Aviation Institute, and collected case files with the methodological rigor of an aerospace professional constrained by state censorship. His manuscripts were not publishable in their time; they circulated in samizdat form and were transmitted to Western researchers after 1991 through intermediaries including Anton Anfalov and Lev Popov. This is the source chain for the Maria case, and it is among the most credible available for Soviet pre-modern material.

The event unfolds in two distinct phases. The initial encounter — a large vessel ascended from the ocean, unresponsive to radio, approached by rowboat, departed at high speed with five sailors — is a multi-witness event observed by the entire crew of the Maria. The captain’s contemporaneous watch journal documented it. This is the evidentiary backbone of the case: an official ship’s log entry describing an anomalous vessel encounter in real time, not a retrospective report. The captain was a professional maritime officer whose career and legal standing depended on the accuracy of his ship’s log. His subsequent refusal under Ministry interrogation to abandon his testimony — insisting on the watch journal as documentation before finally being forced to recant — speaks to the conviction with which he held his account.

The sailors’ testimony from inside the anomalous vessel adds the case’s most structurally significant elements. The beings wore dark shiny suits — the frogman designation used by the source refers to the suit appearance, not necessarily an aquatic origin, though the vessel’s ascent from the ocean suggests subsurface operation. They communicated by exchanging glances — apparent telepathy without vocalization. The proposition delivered to all five sailors — “there is no return” — was apparently non-coercive in tone; two accepted it immediately and voluntarily remained. This is one of the most unusual features in the pre-modern CE literature: not an abduction in the standard sense but an offer, and two individuals accepting it. The three who did not accept were held for approximately two days, provided with tablet food, and eventually returned in a small transparent boat. The transparent construction of that secondary vessel is notable — it appears nowhere else in the 1930s maritime UAP record and is consistent with advanced materials technology.

The Soviet institutional response is the case’s final analytical layer. The Ministry’s interrogation of the captain and two remaining sailors, the labeling of one as psychotic, the other’s refusal to cooperate, and the captain’s eventual forced recantation followed by transfer to another vessel — this is a documented pattern of Soviet UAP suppression that Zigel’s files record across multiple cases. It does not prove the event occurred, but it is consistent with how the Soviet state handled credible anomalous reports from professional witnesses throughout the pre- and post-war period.