JAPANESE COSMONAUT'S OBSERVATIONS FROM SPACE

This document is a TASS press release dated December 6, 1990, reporting on a press conference held at a mission control center near Moscow. The conference featured the crew of the Soyuz TM-11 space mission, including Soviet cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, and Japanese television reporter Toyehiro Akiyama, who had recently docked with the Mir space station. During the event, cosmonaut Gennadiy Strekalov, who was already aboard the station, was asked about sightings. He reported that the crew had observed a 'huge ball of light' for a duration of seven minutes on September 26. Strekalov characterized this observation as 'probably an unknown natural phenomenon.' The document also notes the presence of the stand-by crew, Anatoliy Artsebarsky, Sergey Krikalev, and Riyoko Tikuti, and includes comments from Akiyama regarding his initial experiences with weightlessness and his observations of the Earth's atmosphere.