On September 20, 1977, the skies over Petrozavodsk, a city in the former Soviet Union, became the stage for one of the most intriguing and well-documented UFO events in history. The incident, which came to be known as the Petrozavodsk phenomenon, captivated not only the local population but also scientists, government officials, and UFO enthusiasts worldwide.
The event began at approximately 4:00 AM local time. Viktor Zdornov, a mill worker on the night shift, stepped outside for a cigarette break when he noticed an unusual glow in the pre-dawn sky. At first, he thought it might be the moon, but as he watched, the light grew larger and brighter. Zdornov described what he saw:
“It was like a giant jellyfish, hanging there in the sky. The center was a deep, pulsing red, surrounded by a silver-white halo. From this halo, long tendrils of light reached down toward the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
Zdornov wasn’t alone in his sighting. Within minutes, dozens of people across Petrozavodsk were witnessing the same phenomenon. Lyudmila Petrova, a nurse leaving the night shift at the local hospital, provided a similar account:
“The object was enormous, easily the size of a five-story building. It hovered silently over the city, its lights reflecting off the surface of Lake Onega. The ‘tentacles’ of light seemed to be searching for something, sweeping across the city like spotlights.”
As the object moved slowly across the sky, its appearance changed. Some witnesses reported seeing it transform from a jellyfish-like shape into a perfect semicircle, then into a thin crescent. Throughout these transformations, the object continued to emit bright beams of light toward the ground.
One of the most dramatic accounts came from a group of fishermen on Lake Onega. Anatoly Sokolov, one of the fishermen, recounted their experience:
“We were about to head back to shore when the whole lake lit up like it was daytime. This… thing appeared overhead, massive and glowing. Suddenly, a beam of light shot down from it into the water. Where the beam touched, the lake began to boil and steam. We started our engine and got out of there as fast as we could.”
The incident lasted for approximately 12 minutes, during which time the object was seen by thousands of people across a wide area. Reports came in from as far away as Finland, over 300 kilometers to the west.
In the aftermath of the sighting, strange phenomena were reported across Petrozavodsk. Nikolai Vlasov, a local police officer, described what he found during his morning patrol:
“People were calling in reports of damage all over the city. I saw it myself – perfectly round holes in windows, about the size of a coin. They went through both panes of double-glazed windows, but there was no broken glass. It was as if the holes had been carefully drilled.”
These mysterious holes were found in windows across Petrozavodsk, always circular and always penetrating both panes of glass without shattering them. No conventional explanation for how these holes were created has ever been found.
Another bizarre after-effect was reported by Galina Smirnova, a botanist at the Petrozavodsk State University:
“The day after the sighting, I noticed something strange in the university’s experimental garden. Several of our plants, particularly the tomatoes, had grown significantly overnight. Some had nearly doubled in size. When we tested them, we found their cellulose structure had been altered in a way we couldn’t explain.”
The Soviet authorities, initially dismissive of the reports, were forced to take notice due to the sheer number of witnesses and the physical evidence left behind. An official investigation was launched, led by Dr. Yuly Platov of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Platov and his team conducted extensive interviews and collected physical samples from across the affected area. In his preliminary report, Dr. Platov wrote:
“The evidence suggests an event of unprecedented scale and nature. The consistency of witness testimonies, combined with the physical traces left behind, indicates that something extraordinary occurred over Petrozavodsk. Our current scientific understanding is inadequate to fully explain these phenomena.”
The investigation took an unexpected turn when similar sightings were reported in the following days and weeks. On September 30, just ten days after the Petrozavodsk incident, residents of Kuopio, Finland, reported seeing an object matching the description of the Petrozavodsk UFO.
Matti Konttinen, a Finnish air traffic controller on duty that night, provided this account:
“At approximately 1:20 AM, we received multiple reports of an unidentified flying object over the city. Radar confirmed an object of significant size, moving at speeds and in patterns inconsistent with any known aircraft. Visual confirmation described an object similar to that seen in Petrozavodsk – large, luminous, with descending beams of light.”
The Kuopio sighting lasted for about 7 minutes before the object reportedly shot straight up at an incredible speed and disappeared. As in Petrozavodsk, witnesses reported strange effects in the object’s wake, including electronic disturbances and unexplained marks on the ground where the light beams had touched.
These follow-up incidents added to the mystery surrounding the Petrozavodsk event. They suggested that whatever had been seen over the Soviet city was not an isolated occurrence, but part of a broader phenomenon.
The Soviet military took great interest in these events. General Igor Maltsev, chief of the Soviet Air Defense Forces’ general staff, issued a classified memo that was later declassified:
“The objects reportedly observed in Petrozavodsk and subsequently in other locations demonstrate capabilities far beyond any known earthly technology. They show an ability to move at extreme speeds, hover indefinitely, and potentially interfere with electronic systems. The possibility that these represent a foreign, perhaps non-terrestrial, technology cannot be discounted and must be treated as a potential threat to national security.”
Despite the military’s concern, the official explanation eventually put forward by Soviet authorities was that the sightings were the result of a rocket launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. This explanation, however, failed to account for many aspects of the incidents, including the object’s reported ability to hover and change shape, the physical traces left behind, and the sightings in Finland.
Dr. Felix Ziegel, a prominent Soviet UFO researcher, challenged the official explanation:
“The rocket launch theory is untenable when faced with the evidence. No rocket can hover for extended periods, change shape, or emit focused beams of light. Furthermore, the launch records from Plesetsk do not align with the timing of the Petrozavodsk incident. We are dealing with a genuine unidentified phenomenon that deserves serious scientific study.”
The Petrozavodsk incident and its aftermath had a profound impact on Soviet UFO research. It led to the establishment of Project Setka, a secret program run by the Soviet Ministry of Defense and the KGB to study UFO phenomena. For years, Setka collected and analyzed UFO reports from across the Soviet Union, with the Petrozavodsk case serving as a cornerstone of their research.
Vladimir Azhazha, a former naval officer who worked on Project Setka, revealed in a later interview:
“The Petrozavodsk incident was a wake-up call for many in the Soviet scientific and military establishments. It demonstrated that there were phenomena occurring in our skies that we could neither explain nor control. Setka was our attempt to understand and, if possible, replicate the technologies we believed these objects might represent.”
As the years passed, the Petrozavodsk incident remained a topic of intense interest and debate. Witnesses stood by their accounts, and the physical evidence – particularly the inexplicable holes in windows – continued to defy conventional explanation.
In 1997, on the 20th anniversary of the incident, Yuri Gromov, who had been a young physicist in Petrozavodsk at the time of the sighting, organized a conference to revisit the events. He stated:
“Twenty years on, we still don’t have a satisfactory explanation for what happened that night. The witnesses I’ve stayed in touch with over the years have never wavered in their accounts. Many of them had their lives profoundly changed by what they saw. Some became dedicated UFO researchers, others retreated from public life, unable to reconcile their experience with their worldview. But all of them agree – what they saw was real, and it was not from this world.”
While the Petrozavodsk incident occurred over four decades ago, recent events have brought it back into focus. In January 2024, investigative filmmaker Jeremy Corbell released military footage from 2018 showing a UFO over a US military base in Iraq, drawing unexpected parallels to the events in Petrozavodsk.
The Iraq footage, like the Petrozavodsk sighting, shows a mysterious round object with apparent dangling appendages, leading to its description as a “Jellyfish UFO.” This object, observed floating across the Middle East skies, exhibited color changes from white to grey to black, reminiscent of the transformations reported in Petrozavodsk.
Corbell’s sources claim the object dove into a lake before shooting back into the sky at a 45-degree angle, mirroring the Petrozavodsk UFO’s reported ability to hover, change direction suddenly, and interact with water bodies.
Nick Pope, former head of the UK Ministry of Defence’s UFO investigation unit in the 1990s, commented on the Iraq footage: “This intriguing footage is hard to explain. If the allegation that there’s footage of this object entering a body of water, reemerging and shooting off at high speed with a change of direction is true, then this would rule out such prosaic explanations [as balloons or lens artifacts].”
The similarities between the Petrozavodsk incident and the Iraq sighting are striking:
- Shape and appearance: Both objects were described as round with appendage-like features.
- Color changes: The Petrozavodsk object reportedly changed form and color, while the Iraq UFO shifted from white to grey to black.
- Interaction with water: Witnesses in Petrozavodsk reported the object’s beams causing the lake to “boil,” while the Iraq UFO allegedly dove into a lake.
- Unusual movements: Both objects were said to hover, change direction suddenly, and move at high speeds.
- Military interest: The Soviet military investigated the Petrozavodsk incident, while the Iraq sighting was captured on US military equipment.
These parallels suggest that the phenomena observed in Petrozavodsk may not be isolated incidents, but part of a broader pattern of unexplained aerial activities spanning decades and continents.
Corbell’s release of the Iraq footage has reignited interest in historical cases like Petrozavodsk. As he stated, “The UFO phenomenon is real. Our government knows it. It’s time for the truth to be told.”
The connection between these incidents raises important questions about the nature of these unidentified objects and the consistency of their appearances over time. Are we dealing with the same type of phenomenon separated by decades, or are these similar but distinct occurrences?
As with the Petrozavodsk incident, the Iraq sighting has led to calls for greater transparency from government and military officials regarding UAP. Nick Pope emphasized this point: “All this takes place against the background of congressional interest in UAP, so it’s to be expected that this latest story will increase interest, and lead lawmakers to ask the Pentagon some hard questions about this footage and wider US government research and investigation into UAP.”
The release of the Iraq footage and its similarities to the Petrozavodsk incident underscore the ongoing nature of these unexplained phenomena. As we reflect on events like Petrozavodsk and compare them to modern sightings, we continue to face persistent questions about the nature and origin of these unexplained objects in our skies.
