Air Defense Forces Shoot Down Balloon Over Kola

This document, an excerpt from the FBIS Concatenated Daily Reports dated 6 September 1990, details an incident involving an unidentified aerial object over the Kola Peninsula in the Soviet Union. According to the report, which cites an article from the newspaper KRASNAYA ZVEZDA, residents of Murmansk reported seeing a UFO on 2 September 1990. Simultaneously, Soviet air defense forces were tracking the object. The object was described as a spherical craft that hovered over Murmansk and Severomorsk at altitudes reaching 29,000 meters without emitting radio signals. Although the object came within range of surface-to-air missile complexes, military command ordered that it only be observed rather than destroyed, due to the risk posed to the heavily populated area below. By the morning of 3 September, the object had moved deeper into the Kola Peninsula. Fighter squadron commander Captain First Class I. Sdatchenko was then ordered to intercept and destroy the target. The mission was successful, and the object was destroyed at 0806 hours north of the town of Kovdor. Post-destruction analysis revealed the object was not a UFO, but an enormous balloon measuring 40 to 50 meters in diameter, which carried containers that deployed automatically upon the balloon's rupture.