UFO attack - the crew commander dead

Occurrence-date: september 07th, 1984, 04-10 a.m.
Observation-place: Talinn, Sovjetunion (USSR), Russia
Eye witnesses: > 14 plus documentation


Consider one of the most sensational UFO stories in Soviet history—a story that has been enshrined in the most high-quality data files of world UFOlogy as a classic that cannot be explained in any prosaic terms. It really is an important case study, because the tale of the Minsk UFO sighting can teach a lesson about the irremediable vigor of unidentified flying objects as a cultural phenomenon.
Første pilot døde ved UFO angrebet
A passenger jet is flying north on September 7, 1984, near Minsk, in present-day Belarus. Suddenly, at 4:10 am, the flight crew notices a glowing object outside their forward right window. In the ten minutes that follow, the object changes shape, zooms in on the aircraft, plays searchlights on the ground beneath it, and envelops the airliner in a mysterious ray of light that fatally injures one of the pilots. Other aircraft in the area, alerted by air traffic control operators who are watching the UFO on radar, also see it.

Respected British UFOlogist Jenny Randles, in The UFO Conspiracy (115) described it this way:

A radar visual case from the USSR began on an evening in 1985 at 4:10 AM when Aeroflot flight 8352 observed a strange yellow light while cruising at 30,000 feet in clear conditions. A “blob” shot out and downward from the light, and projected a cone of brilliant (greenish?) light at the ground below. Two additional beams appeared, and features on the ground could be seen to be illuminated.

One beam then swung around and illuminated the aircraft cabin. The light appeared to approach and resolved into a greenish luminosity as much as several degrees in extent, which then paralleled their course. There were multiple lights of different colors and fiery zigzags that crossed the vapor.

At this point, the aircraft was coming within range of the ground controller, who could then also see the object. The object seemed to change shape, [and according to a quoted report] “it developed an ‘appendage’ and then ‘became’ a wingless cloud-aircraft with a pointed tail (the spike?). The yellow and green glow, like phosphorescence, was eerily intertwined.” A second aircraft was vectored nearby and also could see the object near the first aircraft. Talinn approach radar detected the aircraft and the object, and also experienced unusual radar interference.

The incident also figures prominently in UFO Chronicles of the Soviet Union (Ballantine, 1992, pp. 128-9), a 1992 book by Jacques Vallee, who was the real-life inspiration for the fictional UFOlogist in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Valle reports in the book that “Two military pilots saw an object that hit them with a beam of light. One of the pilots died; the other managed to land the plane, although he had also suffered psychological effects from the light.” Vallee said that he learned the story from Yevgeniy Kolessov in January 1990 during a visit to the “Kosmos” pavilion at the “VDNKh” exhibits park in northern Moscow.

On page 201 he categorizes the case as an “encounter” in which “witnesses suffer significant injury or death—one of only three in Russian UFO history.” The story is based on a “firsthand personal interview with the witness by a source of proven reliability,” with the “site visited by a skilled analyst,” and the conclusion was that “no natural explanation [was] possible, given the evidence.”

A leading Russian UFO expert, Vladimir Azhazha, reported in “UFOs: Space Aliens?” in Soviet Soldier magazine, December 1991:

Any meeting with or even sighting a UFO is fraught with danger. Let us consider the following case. On December 7, 1984, a liner flying from Leningrad to Tbilisi came across an unidentified flying object.

For some time the plane accompanied the alien craft, illuminating it with a searchlight. The outcome of the contact was tragic. Half a year later, V. Gorridze, the crew commander, died of cancer; Yu. Kabachnikov, the second pilot, had a serious mental derangement. The encephalogram of his brain was not of an “earthly” character, as he lost memory for long periods of time. Now he is a “first group” invalid; naturally, he cannot fly. The hostess, who was in the control room [i.e., cockpit] at the moment of the UFO “attack,” fell ill too. She developed a heavy skin disease of unknown character. Perhaps somebody of the passengers was also affected. Regrettably we have no information to this effect.


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