AIRLINER CREW REPORTS UFO SIGHTING

This document is a press report from the Soviet newspaper TRUD, dated January 30, 1985, detailing a UFO sighting by the crew of a Tu-134 airliner. The aircraft, flying from Tbilisi to Tallinn, was approximately 120 kilometers from Minsk when the crew observed a stationary object in the sky. The crew, led by commander Igor Alekseyevich Cherkashin, described the object as a black, glass-like entity that emitted beams of light toward the ground. The object subsequently began to move, displaying advanced flight characteristics, including vertical and horizontal maneuvers, and eventually escorted the airliner at an altitude of 10,000 meters and a speed of 800 kilometers per hour. The object changed shape from elliptical to quadrangular and developed a tail-like structure. While ground controllers in Minsk reported seeing nothing on their radar, the Tallin Airport surveillance radar detected two blips following the aircraft. The sighting was investigated by the Estonian section of the Commission on Aerodynamic Phenomena, led by N. A. Zheltukhin. The commission concluded that the crew had encountered a genuine UFO, rejecting explanations involving standard atmospheric or geophysical processes due to the object's immense size and atypical behavior. The report emphasizes the need for further public reporting of similar sightings to the commission.