In the winter of 1985, the Trud newspaper made a real world sensation. In the issue of January 30, on the third page, a small note "Exactly at 4.10 …" was published, which literally blew up the information space.
The newspaper then had a circulation of 20 million, but by lunchtime it was gone. The next day, the material was reprinted by the largest news agencies and leading media around the world. And those Soviet readers who were fortunate enough to hold the coveted issue of Trud in their hands to this day keep the yellowed newspaper as a relic.
Recognize the fact as erroneous and harmful
The note dealt with no less than the visit of aliens. Deep at night, the Tu-134A aircraft of the Estonian Civil Aviation Administration, piloted by the crew of commander Igor Cherkashin, met a UFO in the sky over Belarus.
An unidentified flying object in a bizarre way changed its outlines, turning into a multi-colored cloud, then into the semblance of an unknown aircraft, a dazzling bright beam alternately illuminated the night sky, the earth, the cockpit of the liner. As it turned out later, a similar picture was seen by the Georgian crew of an oncoming aircraft en route Leningrad - Tbilisi, the object was observed on their radars and by ground services. The information about the meeting with the UFO was immediately classified, everyone who had anything to do with the mysterious story signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Today, the tabloid press now and then presents stories like these that no one has taken seriously for a long time. But in Soviet times, the reader believed in the printed word, and even in the most circulated newspaper in the country. The higher authorities strictly monitored that only reliable information was printed in the newspapers - verified and approved for publication. That is why the fact of the appearance in Trud of the material based on the story of the pilots of the Estonian plane produced the effect of a bomb exploding.
And the first blast wave covered everyone who was involved in the preparation of the material. The author Vostrukhin, the editor of the science department Belitsky, the editor on duty Yemelyanov, and the editor-in-chief Kravchenko received strict penalties. "Trud" was then a trade union newspaper, and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions secretariat, gathered for an emergency meeting, issued a resolution: "To recognize the fact of publication of the article" Exactly at 4.10 "in the newspaper" Trud "by special correspondent V. Vostrukhin as erroneous and harmful."
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And yet, let's not jump to conclusions. Even decades later, it is too early to put an end to that mysterious story. We were convinced of this when we tried to find the heroes of the long-standing publication and those who were associated with them.
Folk remedy for stress
We found traces of the Tu-134 crew in the former Soviet, and now independent Estonia. Father Boris, the rector of the local Orthodox Church, helped. Among the benefactors of the temple was a businessman Gennady Lazurin, a former co-pilot of the liner. That night, he turned out to be the coolest on board and even left documentary evidence - he managed to sketch the outlines of the UFO on several sheets of notebook.
We asked about the fate of the crew after that amazing flight.
- We flew together for another seven years, - replied Gennady Ivanovich, - until in 1991, after Estonia declared independence, our civil aviation department was closed. Commander Igor Cherkashin wandered around different companies, now he is the chief pilot on a jet in the Tallinn Panaviatik. Yura Ognev retired, as navigators simply no longer work in the air. He started trading in real estate, and quite successfully. I was one of the organizers of the pilots union. We even managed to join an international association, but then in the industry trade unions were a foreign body - we, activists, were the first to be asked to leave. At first I organized the air taxi company Avies, which is still alive today. And in 1994 he created the airline Enimex Ltd. Until 2007 we flew Il-76 and An-72,until Europe closed the skies to these planes due to noise and ecology. Now I am engaged in everything that comes to hand, including "Combat" vehicles.
And that publication in Truda almost put an end to his career. In our squadron there was a closed debriefing of the flight, we all told in detail about the meeting with the UFO. And when the information leaked to the press, the crew began to be dragged to the KGB for interrogations. For disclosure they threatened with reprimands and organizational conclusions. Thank you, the ministry and the first department of the KGB, where our case was being examined, did not go to extremes: the crew was disbanded, but we were all allowed to work in peace.
I know that the UFO encounter had tragic consequences for the Georgian pilots. The crew members received serious illnesses, the commander died a year later. Why did it happen? I can express my version. Our plane did not change the route, we just reported to the ground everything that we saw. And the Georgian plane, at the command of the Minsk air traffic controller, went towards the object. Maybe the aliens interpreted this as a signal of danger?
Although there could be another, much more prosaic reason. We had two days off ahead. Well, upon arrival in Tallinn, the entire crew, in order to relieve stress, went to the deputy hall. We immediately took a solid dose of cognac on our chest, and then, when the stores opened, we added more. Maybe it saved? And the Georgians definitely could not relax, because they immediately went on another flight.
Department of Extraterrestrial Civilizations
We could not find the crew of the Georgian plane. I would like to hope for the best. It is reliably known that at least three crew members fell seriously ill after meeting with a UFO. To the commander
V. Gotsiridze was diagnosed with bone marrow damage, he was written off to the ground and died a year later. The flight attendant received a serious skin disease as a result of radiation. The second pilot, Yuri Kabachnikov, was also soon suspended from flights. But he had to pound the doorsteps of medical institutions for a long time to prove that he had lost his health in the performance of professional duties.
In February 1985, the candidate of medical sciences Vladimir S. personally examined the co-pilot of the Georgian Tu-134. Here's what he told us:
- At that time I was doing my residency at a civil aviation clinic. Kabachnikov spent two weeks in our flight crew examination department. He said that the crew received a dispatcher's command to fly in the direction of the UFO, and immediately after the plane turned, the object directed a blinding beam at them.
The pilot believed that they all suffered from this radiation.
In the conclusion of the Tbilisi doctors, we read that Kabachnikov was subjected to a very powerful electromagnetic influence. The form of the cardiogram turned out to be absolutely incredible: usually it is jagged, and in his case it was sinusoidal, that is, it took the form of electromagnetic oscillations. The encephalogram looked about the same. We sent a pilot to the Kurchatov Institute, where it was discovered that he was also a source of ionizing radiation.
Thanks to his acquaintances at the Academy of Sciences, Kabachnikov made his way to the highest authorities. He told me that in one important body there is a special department for the study of extraterrestrial civilizations, and there he was registered. And in the end he was given a disability as an injured in the line of duty.
The doctor still has a copy of Yuri Kabachnikov's explanatory note:
“The flight was carried out at a given flight level of 10.100 m, there was no cloud cover. After entering the ATC zone of the Minsk RC, while listening to the radio communications of the oncoming Tu-134 with the dispatcher, I realized that to his right he was observing a luminous object located above. The dispatcher contacted us, but I replied that I was not observing anything. However, after 1–2 minutes of flight, a luminous object of bright green color was found in the direction indicated by the controller. At that moment he had a cigar-shaped form, three bright rays of light were leaving him. At the same time, two more expanding light beams of lower intensity went up from the object. As instructed by the dispatcher, the aircraft approached the object, which after 2-3 minutes turned sharply to the left and stopped. The front beam focused and then briefly illuminated our aircraft with a very bright light. After that, the beam sharply descended again to a vertical position, expanded to 10-15 °, focused again, quickly drew a rectangle on the ground, after which it illuminated the entire area of this rectangle with sharp zigzag movements. The plane was located slightly north of the settlement of Pleshchanitsy, 70 kilometers from Minsk. The area illuminated by the object was at a distance of 25–35 kilometers - near the town of Borisov.
When diverging from the oncoming Tu-134, the object was at the same height, and while we were able to observe it, it followed parallel with the oncoming side and was somewhat to the right. The object was observed until 5.10.
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These are not stories, but a reason for reflection
Perhaps, the main discovery that we made while preparing the material: there are many authoritative specialists who are convinced of the existence of other civilizations and UFO visits to our Earth. Here are some testimonies from people who cannot be classified as chatters.
Marina Popovich, military test pilot:
- I am fully convinced of the veracity of what I am writing about … In the post-war period alone, hundreds of thousands of people in different countries observed UFOs. The same hallucinations? Mass mental disorders? Judging by the statistics of psychiatry, this simply cannot be! The amount of information on UFOs collected by scientific organizations and groups of enthusiasts is enormous. And it's time for the state to seriously study it.
Valery Khairyuzov, former civil aviation pilot, writer:
- Our Irkutsk squadron recalled how an An-12 truck crashed in the 50s. Before the catastrophe, the commander told the dispatcher that the oncoming board was heading straight ahead, although nothing was observed on the radars. The crew tried to dodge a collision with an unknown object, lost orientation and crashed into the ground.
Svetlana Omelchenko, cosmonaut-researcher:
- In 1989, I met with Murman Gvenetadze, the only member of the Tu-134 Tbilisi crew who was not injured after a meeting with a UFO. He explained his miraculous rescue by sitting to the side when a blinding beam passed through the commander's head, the flight attendant's arms and the co-pilot's chest. They then did not think about the danger, they just sincerely admired the incredible maneuver of an unfamiliar aircraft.
Alexander Akimenkov, test pilot:
- In the winter of 1985, we were practicing missile launches on the Su-27. In the front cockpit I am, behind - Viktor Afanasyev, the future cosmonaut. They took the target to a given area, but it suddenly lost control and fell to the ground. And at this moment the flight director reports on the radio: "Above you an object with a diameter of 600 meters. Act carefully and gain altitude."
We go up steeply by 10, 15, 20 thousand - and all the time we feel that the object is near. Then they turned around and went to the base - out of harm's way …