Aeroflot Tu-134 over Minsk — the light that became a cloud

7 September 1984 · Over Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, on the flight to Tallinn · Aviation encounter
DISPUTED
Explanation proposed but contested
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At about 4 a.m. on September 7, 1984, the crew of an Aeroflot Tu-134 flying from Tbilisi via Rostov to Tallinn saw a bright yellow light appear to their right over Byelorussia. It threw out beams strong enough, by one account, to light up the houses and roads below, changed into concentric circles and then into a glowing green cloud that seemed to follow the airliner. Co-pilot Gennady Lazurin sketched it, and Captain Igor Cherkashin called air traffic control, which reported a “double” return on radar; a second airliner flying the opposite way also saw it. The newspaper Trud published the story in early 1985, a rare UFO report in the Soviet press. Rumours that crew members of the second aircraft later died of illnesses caused by the encounter have never been substantiated. Western analysts matched the sketches to the plume of a missile launched that night.

Explanation

Western analysts tied it to a Soviet missile launch that night, whose rising plume and glowing exhaust cloud look much like the crew’s sketches: Jonathan McDowell’s launch catalogue lists a submarine-launched R-29R test on September 7, 1984, with a note (after James Oberg) naming it as the source of the sighting. The Soviet army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda suggested light refracted by floating space debris.

What was seen

Shape: A yellow light that threw out rays, became concentric circles and then a green cloud
Witnesses: Captain Igor Cherkashin and co-pilot Gennady Lazurin of an Aeroflot Tu-134, and the crew of a second airliner
Duration: Several minutes; the cloud is said to have stayed with the aircraft for hundreds of kilometres

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