The 70-page document covers the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s.
American journalist George Knapp, known for his interest in paranormal phenomena, has published documents from the Soviet era that he allegedly secretly brought out of Russia in 1993 — they contain information about secret Soviet projects studying alleged contacts with extraterrestrial objects. The 70-page document covers the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s and reveals details about several programs in which various divisions of the Ministry of Defense, the Academy of Sciences, and other agencies collected information on UFOs.
According to 8 News Now, hundreds of pages of classified documents were taken out of Russia and handed over to the American UFO study program — AAWSAP (Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program) — a secret project of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the United States. One such document came into the hands of George Knapp, who published the text in a translated English version. It remains unknown who compiled the report.
According to the text of the material, the USSR initiated several programs to investigate so-called anomalous atmospheric and aerospace phenomena (AAP). Among them are "Network-AN," "Galaxy-MD," and "Pluton-7." The "Thread-3" program, which became a continuation of previous projects, was approved in 1991.
It is noted that even before the launch of these programs, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Joseph Stalin was informed about registered cases of UFO sightings and ordered an analysis of the relevant data.
The document includes descriptions of close encounters between people and unidentified objects, documented landings of UFOs, and sightings of them in space reported by the first Soviet cosmonauts, as well as analyses of incidents.
"Thin Giants" and Flight with Aliens
According to one report in Knapp's document, dated 1989, hundreds of people witnessed an object about 150 meters long, which moved silently at a speed of approximately 100 km/h at an altitude of about 100 meters above the village of Kenzhe, near Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkar Republic). The object had several rectangular "windows," and at the front were two searchlights. A short light trail was left behind the object.
Another case describes how in 1979 a group of pioneers from the "Beryozka" camp in a small town of Derzhavinsk (now located in Kazakhstan) went for a walk to the burial mound "Bald Mountain." Some of the boys noticed a flash near the edge of the forest at the top of the mound.
Shortly after, they saw a group of people who were later described as "thin giants." They moved easily, with their arms extended forward. The children saw them from a distance of 5-6 meters. The night before the described events, UFOs were allegedly observed flying and hovering in the air.
Another eyewitness in the published text claimed to have had direct contact with a UFO. At the age of 18, Anatoly Malyshev first saw a disc-shaped craft from a distance of about 200 meters near his hometown in the Fergana Valley. Three people in spacesuits emerged from it. Malyshev got scared and ran away.
After moving to the Moscow region, he had a second contact. This time, two men and one woman in spacesuits exited the craft. According to Malyshev, they moved synchronously and smoothly, as if in slow motion. The people in the spacesuits invited him to enter the craft. Inside, everything was illuminated by a uniform light; only the central part was visible, as the rest was obscured by a "light haze."
The man eventually agreed to fly to the aliens' planet. He was told that the journey would take about 40 minutes one way and the same amount back, with a distance of approximately 3 light years. On board, the woman offered him food: a vegetable salad and "Borjomi" mineral water. The aliens' diet was strictly vegetarian, the eyewitness claimed.
Malyshev has repeatedly given interviews to Russian media about the alleged contacts with aliens and began painting based on them. There are also past mentions of two other stories included in Knapp's document.
Who is George Knapp?
American journalist Knapp has been known for UFO television programs since the late 1980s. He works for KLAS (8 News Now) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has interviewed popularizers of conspiracy theories about extraterrestrial civilizations, such as John Olsen Lear and Bob Lazar.
Lazar, in particular, claimed that he experimented with one of the flying saucers that the American authorities allegedly kept in the secret Area 51 in Nevada.
Subsequently, the laboratory denied ever hiring Lazar, but he responded that his records had allegedly been erased. No records of such a student were found at the two institutions where Lazar claimed to have studied.
