Many people believe that U̳F̳O̳s are just a phenomena observed by Americans, however Russian cosmonauts indicate that this phenomenon is known by all cosmonauts worldwide, but not everyone is willing to discuss it.
Viktor Afanasyev
Viktor Mikhailovich Afanasyev was a test cosmonaut for the Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and a colonel in the Russian Air Force.
Serving in the Air Force as a pilot, senior pilot, and aircraft flight commander from 1970 to 1976. From 1976 to 1977, he was a member of the Test Pilot Training Center. From 1977 until 1988, he worked at the State Research/Test Institute named after Valery Chkalov as a test pilot and senior test pilot. Viktor Afanasyev is a certified military test pilot in Class 1. He has over 2000 hours of flight time in over 40 different airplanes.
Hev described his experience with a U̳F̳O̳ just after the Soviet Union fell apart. Afanasyev was only able to share his account after that.
He launched into orbit in April 1979 to dock with the Soviet space station Salyut-6. However, something unusual occurred throughout the journey. He noticed an unusual object approaching his ship and following him across space.
“For half of our circle, he followed us. We saw him on the light side, and when he switched to the dark side, he vanished totally. It was a 40-meter-long technical construction with inner hulls made of some type of metal.
“The thing had small windows and was narrow in one area and broader in another. There were protrusions that looked like tiny wings in some locations. We were extremely near to the thing. We photographed it, and our photos revealed that it was between 23 and 28 meters away.
Afanasyev also stated that they photographed the item and reported its size, form, and location to the Mission Control Center on a regular basis. When the astronaut returned to Earth, he was interrogated and told not to tell anybody about what had happened. His photos were taken away from him. These images, as well as his audio communications from orbit, were never made public.
Vladimir Kovalenok
From the window of the Salyut-6 spacecraft on May 5, 1981, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Kovalenok witnessed something incredible.
According to Kovalenok, an elliptical object soared alongside the ship as it passed over South Africa on its way to the Indian Ocean about 6 p.m. It appeared to spin in the direction of flight when viewed from the front.
“The item had the appearance of a barbell. I saw how it turned translucent, as if there was a “body” inside. I observed something that looked like a gas discharge or a reactive item on the other end. Then something happened that is tough for me to express from a physics standpoint,” Kovalenok explained.
“I have to say, it wasn’t staged in any way. It couldn’t have been created that way because an artificial item couldn’t have such a form. I’m not aware of anything that might cause such motions… pulse, shrink, then expand.”
“Then something occurred, two explosions, while I was watching. One explosion, followed by a 0.5-second delay before the second portion exploded.”
“I would not have been able to observe the item unless it was travelling on a suborbital trajectory. A boom was created by two clouds of smoke forming a boom. It approached me, and I stood there watching.”
Following the event, they spent some time in the darkness (twilight zone). The two orbs never returned after they departed this zone.
A soft conical shape with an interior tube emerged in the form of two balls linked by this rod, according to Kovalenok. Then, with a line linking them, these two balls drifted away from each other, and the one, then the second, disappeared.
“I don’t understand other astronauts who claim they haven’t seen anything strange in orbit,” he says, adding that he’s personally seen a lot of U̳F̳O̳s of all forms and sizes.
“In 1981, we saw a weird thing that I will never forget. It was a tiny space. When I spotted him, I contacted my colleague Viktor Savinykh, who was able to record him using a video camera’s ocular. However, just as Savinykh was about to fire, the object burst, leaving only a cloud of smoke in its wake. Our sightings were promptly relayed to the Mission Control Center. We don’t know what transpired that day, but this item was most obviously not a product of my mind, ” he explained.
MCC afterwards reported that something unusual was happening in space on that particular day. “Experts verified to us once we returned to Earth that they detected an exceptionally high radiation emission exactly at the time of the U̳F̳O̳ explosion,” he added.
Kovalenok advised his colleagues not to keep their own U̳F̳O̳ sightings a secret.
V. Kovalenok was twice given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his bravery and heroism displayed during space missions. V. Kovalenok is the President of the Russian Cosmonautics Federation at the moment.
