When you select candidates for astronauts, as you know, they test not only in physical, but also in psychological parameters. Therefore, there is no reason not to believe the stories of astronauts about strange and unusual phenomena that they happened to encounter in space. One of the most reliable testimonies about UFOs is theirs.
To find themselves in space, these people undergo a thorough selection, including psychological, and still do not smoke and are not addicted to alcohol, so it’s impossible to attribute the observation of strange objects to the above-mentioned (as often happens in reality).
It is also often believed that all the UFOs they saw are nothing more than space debris, that is, fragments from the upper stages of rockets or the remains of satellites. But not everything is so simple.
Some of the most unusual objects were seen by astronauts from the boards of Soviet and Russian space stations. At least if you believe the media in which this information was published, supposedly accidentally leaked, despite the secrecy.
On September 29, 1977, the Soviet space station Salyut-6, the first second-generation station, which operated until 1982, was launched into Earth’s orbit. Over the years, 26 astronauts visited it, some twice each, and it is believed that they regularly observed UFOs, but this information was not strictly disclosed.
In the 1990s, when the USSR collapsed and a real mess occurred in Russia in all areas, including those with classified documents, some of them “flowed” abroad, including to the United States.
Several of these documents, which reported the observation of UFOs by the Salyut-6 astronauts, fell into the hands of journalist George Knapp in unknown ways in 1992 and were published in the journal Faith.
The documents described that on June 17, 1978, astronauts Vladimir Kovalenok and Alexander Ivanchenkov were observing for a full day a strange object that flew around the station and moved so proportionately and logically that it looked like it was trying to examine Salyut-6 from all sides.
“On the right, at an angle of 30 degrees, there is a small object flying above us. It looks like a tennis ball and is bright as an expanding star. Its speed indicators are lower than ours,” Kovalenok reported to the MCC.
On May 6, 1981, Kovalenok again noticed a UFO from the side of Salyut-6. This object pulsed and moved randomly, while not lagging behind, but persistently flew behind the station. Kovalenok spoke about this years later in an interview with various journalists. Also, this observation was recorded in the logbook.
“On May 5, 1981, we were in orbit (in Salyut-6). I noticed an object that did not look like all the space objects I had seen before. It was a rounded object, like a melon, slightly elongated. In front of it was something that revolved. “
Kovalenok immediately called his colleague Viktor Savinykh, who decided to film the object on camera, but barely managed to point the eyepiece at him, as if the object had exploded, and only a cloud of smoke remained from it. Kovalenok then decided that they saw a plasmoid, and Savinykh was sure that it was a UFO or even an explosion of a nuclear bomb in space.
In 1980, astronauts Valery Ryumin and Leonid Popov allegedly saw strange objects aboard Salyut-6. They claimed to be observing a “cluster of white shiny spots” that soared into space from the Moscow area. These objects rose so high that they were higher than the orbit of Salyut-6. The astronauts supposedly even managed to take photographs of these objects, but everything was immediately classified.
An article about this case was published for the first time in 1991 in the newspaper Rabochaya Tribuna, and then was distributed by foreign media. The mentioned photographs, alas, were not attached to the article.
In April 1982, the USSR launched the new Salyut-7 space station into orbit, which worked until 1986, when it was urgently removed from service, and in 1991 it burned down when it was put out of orbit into the atmosphere. While astronauts were on it, they also regularly reported UFO sightings.
On July 12, 1982, during the docking of Salyut-7 with the Progress transport ship, the astronauts Beregovoi and Lebedev saw a drop-shaped UFO flying right between the station and the ship. The object was observed from about 200 meters and in size it was no smaller than the space station.
The following story looks particularly fantastic and completely unrealistic. Nevertheless, some sources are convinced that it actually happened:
In July 1984, when Salyut-7 was on the 155th day of its mission and the usual work was going on at the station, the astronauts Oleg Atkov, Vladimir Solovyov and Leonid Kazim noticed a blinding orange light through the windows. When they began to look outside, trying to figure out what it was, they saw something strange.
There in space, not far from the station, seven winged humanoid creatures soared, each of which was about 27 meters high. They had calm, bright, smiling faces, and the orange light was a glow that emanated from their bodies. These creatures exuded peace and tranquility, so the astronauts did not feel any fear, they were simply very amazed.
According to an unspecified source, all three were later convinced that they saw angels, while this vision lasted at least 10 minutes and all this time the station flew in orbit at the usual speed, and the “angels” continued to stay close to it. Then they gradually “died out” and disappeared.
There were assumptions that the whole crew became a victim of overwork and they had hallucinations, but the same crew of Salyut-7, who worked on it on the 167th day of the mission along with the first three astronauts, Svetlana Savitskaya , Igor Volk and Vladimir Dzhanibekov, seemed to also seen the same “angels”.
At some point, all six suddenly noticed a bright light, and when they clung to the portholes, they saw several large “angels” hanging in the blackness of space with the same friendly smiles.
In 1986, the Mir space station was launched into orbit, which was finally assembled only in 1996. This station later gave way to the International Space Station, but over the years of its operation there have also been several UFO sightings.
On September 27, 1990, astronauts Gennady Manakov and Gennady Strekalov saw a huge silver sphere that floated in the region of the northern regions of the Earth. Later, in an interview on radio, Manakov explained in detail about this incident.
According to him, a huge sphere hovered somewhere near the island of Newfoundland and it was clearly visible, because the sky was very clear. The object hung above the ground at a distance of 20-30 km and was very large. Manakov observed it for only 6-7 seconds, after which the sphere suddenly disappeared.
