Russia: Air Force Dismisses Reports on UFO Sightings

This document, a transcribed text from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) dated November 17, 1998, details a reported UFO sighting in the Dagestan region of Russia. According to a report from the Russian Interior Ministry, guards stationed at two frontier posts near the villages of Kazmalyar and Novy Filya observed an unidentified object at 1:45 A.M. on Tuesday, November 10, 1998. The guards described the object as having three lights spaced two meters apart, flying at an altitude of approximately 100 meters for a duration of two minutes. The object was observed moving from the direction of local mountains toward the Caspian Sea. The guards noted that the configuration of the lights suggested the object was not a missile fired from neighboring Chechnya. Following the report, General Yevgeny Bolkhovitin, the North Caucasus Border Guard Chief, claimed that the Central Air Defense Control Post had identified the object as a Russian space vehicle. However, this assertion was subsequently dismissed by Russian Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky, who stated to Interfax that the claim regarding a Russian space vehicle was not true to fact.