Minsk, U.S.S.R.
September 7, 1984

On a routine flight from Belorussia to Estonia, while over Minsk the pilots of a Soviet Aeroflot airliner were started to see a strange, brightly glowing shape that appeared to their right and followed their path closely for several minutes. The glowing object changed shape repeatedly, appearing first as rays, then concentric circles, then as a cloud, and finally as an amorphous mass. While co-pilot Gennadli Lazurin sketched the object, Captain Igor Cherkashin contacted air traffic officials, who reported that radar showed a strange 'double' object, believed to be the airliner and the unidentified object. Years later, reports surfaced of a second flight crew traveling in the opposite direction who also saw the glowing object.

At the same time the pilots in the first craft noticed the mysterious object, a Soviet missile was being launched from a military site called the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Lazurin's sketches of the object closely parallel sketches made by other witnesses at rocket launches, including amateur observers of the Soviet missile launch watching in Finland.

UFO enthusiasts claim the second aircraft was dispatched by the Soviet government to intercept the alien aircraft, and bolster their claim that this was an authentic UFO sighting by alleging that the entire crew of the second aircraft died soon after from accidents and various health problems: the pilot reportedly of cancer, the copilot from heart problems, and the flight attendant of a mysterious skin disease. Skeptics dismiss the deaths and health problems as coincidence and exaggeration.

Cold War politics, however, contributed an interesting twist to the controversy. In order to protect military secrets, Soviet officials denied the existence of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, which fueled the fire of those arguing against the missile launch explanation. Instead, Soviet officials asserted that the sighting was caused by refracted light on floating space garbage.