Television documentaries about UFO's have become popular attractions on cable TV. The quality varies, as some are generic, rehashing the same well-known photos, videos, interviews, and stories. Some are very professionally produced and offer new insights into the UFO phenomena. One in particular, while of itself was admittedly a poorly directed hodgepodge still provided a new and extremely compelling piece of evidence for the existence of "flying saucers." On September 13, 1998, TNT Network aired "The Secret KGB UFO Files."

Purportedly smuggled out of the former USSR and obtained on the black market for $10.000 was a segment that showed the recovery of a downed flying saucer by elements of the KGB and Soviet military personnel. According to a plethora of documentation that came with the film footage, the crash occurred in late 1968 with the recovery being made in March of 1969. The doomed craft was driven, on-edge, halfway into the ground at the edge of a forest tree-line.

Extensive study of both the film and the related documents has continued to withstand investigation. The vehicles and uniforms of the people in the video match what was in use in 1969. The unit patches of the military personnel are accurate and conform to the branch that would be most likely involved in such strange recovery operations. The civilian clothing of the KGB agents are consistent with that organization's operatives. The letterhead and other features of the documents prove consistent with the time period and the organizations that issued them.

The reports indicate that part of a body was also recovered from the wreckage. This was subsequently delivered to the Semashko Hospital in Moscow where it was autopsied. In the film footage of this procedure, three doctors, Kamyshov, Savitsky, and Gordeenko undertook the work with KGB stenographer O.A. Pshonkina taking notes.

During this period of Cold War history the Soviet Union took the official stance that UFO's were an American nonsense and considered belief in such as a mental disturbance worthy of institutionalizing. As a tragic footnote to this investigation of a seemingly extraterrestrial body, the Death Certificates of all three of the attending physicians showed they died in different locations around Moscow of cerebral hemorrhages on March 24, 1969, just one week after the autopsy was performed.

Despite the film becoming public through a movie studio's production, none of the debunkers have ever been able to come up with a single shred of proof that the film was anything but authentic. The cost of hoaxing the film and authenticating documents and film canister would be both prohibitive and possibly impossible. A number of film experts have verified the authenticity of the film and its terrestrial components and showed no sign of tampering of any sort.

Unlike the undocumented crash that supposedly took place in Roswell, New Mexico, the crash and recovery in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia was well documented, however secret the Soviet government kept it. The disbanding of the USSR allowed many secret things to come to light. Among them is this film which has continued to demonstrate the veracity of the event where they in fact recovered the craft and body of some alien visitor to our planet.

Roswell, New Mexico is one of the most famous locations with regard to UFO crash sites. Also, in the same vein, Area 51 might be the most famous military base in the world that doesn’t officially exist. Other places around the globe also have crash sites that are quite famous. One such crash site being Zhitkur, colloquially referred to as the “Russian Roswell.”

The Zhitkur crash occurred over 100 years ago. It was around 7:17 AM local time on the 30th of June in 1908. What was initially thought to be a meteor or fragment of comet entered the atmosphere in Siberia somewhere above the lower region of the Stony Tunguska River. The explosion it created was as much as 1,000 times the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb; it caused trees to become laid out like matchsticks in a huge circular pattern. Where there was supposed to be a huge crater, none was found, this meant that it could not have been a meteor or comet fragment. The object, whatever it was, had to have exploded high above the ground.

A popular theory which still sparks imaginations to this day is that a UFO crash-landed in the area. Since then there have been numerous reports and claims of UFO sightings and crashes where the wreckage was secretly transported to a highly shrouded Russian air force base for reverse engineering research. This base, Kapustin Yar is the Russian equivalent of our Area 51. Because of the highly sensitive secrets that the underground Russian base was purported to research, the nearby town of Zhitkur was emptied of its population and then leveled.

Less than a year after the famed Roswell incident in 1947, radar operators at the base picked up on an unidentified object. This silver-colored, cigar-shaped object was also witnessed by a fighter pilot flying in the area. After reporting of being blinded by the UFO, the pilot was ordered to engage it. After a dogfight that lasted about three minutes, a missile brought down the unidentified craft. The UFO was reported to have been firing some kind of energy beam or weapon, and subsequently both aircraft crashed.

Soviet recovery teams are reported to have scooped up all of the wreckage and transported it to the underground military base which, ironically enough was named Zhitkur. The reason that MiGs were ordered to engage and bring down any extraterrestrial aircraft was because Russia was desperate to find any advantage over the Americans.

The Zhitkur facility is located about a quarter mile beneath the Earth’s surface. People who have been there have described in detail what can be found inside. Inside there are dark, dank corridors. Numerous offshoots lead to chambers in which there are alien craft in various stages of disassembly. There were also areas where alien autopsies would take place and other sections where unidentified objects were being built.

Ongoing research at Kapustin Yar has been reported as recently as 1997. UFO wreckage is said to be transported into Zhitkur regularly. With the new Russian freedoms, perhaps we can get to know more about Zhitkur and if the UFOs brought there for research were really extraterrestrial in origin. It sure does beg the question of what secrets the Russians may still be hiding.