Crash landing at Devil’s Bridge
There is a report from Russian UFO-logists who claim that a 600 meter long UFO may have crashed in the Tien Shan Mountains, near to the Chinese border.
This claim is based on an incident which occurred in the early hours of the morning one day in August 1991, when an object appeared on Soviet radar screens. It was flying from west to east at just under 1000 km per hour, at an altitude of about 6600 meters. Thinking that the object might have been something launched from the Russian version of Cape Kennedy (Kapustin Yar), the Cosmodrome was contacted and although they denied any knowledge of the object, they confirmed its appearance on their radar screens as well.
Attempts were made to contact the object on a range of radio frequencies, but they were all unsuccessful. As the object was flying near a restricted area, two fighter jets that were already on patrol were directed to intercept it, and a third jet was scrambled. The pilots instructions were: to intercept the object; identify it if possible; try to make contact with it, and to force it to land at the nearest Air Force base. If the object failed to cooperate, they were to shoot it down.
The fighters intercepted the object over the western shore of the Aral Sea in and the pilots described it as dirigible-shaped, 600 meters long by 110 meters wide, of greyish metal dimly shining in the sun with very little surface detail except for two round “portholes” near the front, and some sort of strange, green, markings near the rear. The object did not make any hostile moves, or react in any way to the presence of the jets. When all attempts to contact the object failed, the jets moved into position on either side of the object – at a distance of about 800 meters – with the intention of trying to direct it to the nearest airbase and, if necessary, prepared to fire warning shots to “encourage” the object to cooperate.
When the jets were in position around the object, however, they began to experience problems. When they got to within 800 meters of the object, the on-board weapons systems shut down for no apparent reason. Worse still, as they drew even closer, the engines began to malfunction. The object began to make zigzag evasive manoeuvres and increased speed to almost 7000 kilometers per hour. All this was apparently observed on radars screens at Baikonur, Alma-Ata, and Bishkek.
The jets backed off as it became apparent that their plan to force the object to land was not going to succeed, and the object continued flying east through Alma-Ata airspace, descending slightly. Radar operators at Alma-Ata, fearing a collision with a conventional aircraft, issued a general alert for air traffic to avoid the area.
Then the object disappeared from radar in the area of Lake Issyk-Kul.
The next major development in the story occurred a month later when reports began to trickle back to Bishkek that a huge UFO had been seen to crash into the Tien-Shan Mountains 100 kilometers east of Karakol (or Prezhevalsk as it was then called) near Peak Pobeda. The actual site lay in a gorge known as “Shaitan Mazar” or “Grave of the Devil”, near the Sari Jaz River.
A search party of experienced climbers was dispatched from Bishkek, but the group was unable to reach the site due to heavy snows and the danger of avalanches. An attempt to reach the site by an Air Force helicopter ended tragically with a crash that cost several lives. The search was then called off until after the spring thaws.
In June, 1992, a second expedition was mounted. The expedition set up a base camp about two and a half kilometers from the actual crash site. From their observations it appeared as if the object had slid one and a half kilometers after hitting the ground. It then exploded, blasting it into almost two equal parts and bending its internal structure outwards from the center of the explosion. Witnesses reported that the decks and interior features were visible inside the object through a gap made by the blast.
When approaching the site the team strange events: all film and videotape was ruined by some form of radiation; members of expedition reported that when they got to within about 800 meters of the object they began to experience began to feel unusual anxiety, depression, and exhaustion – their hair stood on end and they experienced radiation burns; compasses and instruments behaved erratically and did not function properly – clocks and watches stopped – no magnetic effects could be registered within a wide radius of the crash site.
In August 1998, another expedition set out to explore the crash site. Beset by difficulties, and being told strange events, (the last aircraft that had approached the site too closely had experienced fatal mechanical problems caused by an intense magnetic field radiated by the object; and an account from a shepherd of a sacred spring at Shaitan Mazar which healed many people of various illnesses), they eventually managed to reach a camp of mountain climbers and rented a helicopter to take them to the otherwise inaccessible site. To their dismay there was no sign of the UFO. There was, however, some evidence of the previous expedition and, it is claimed, some signs that the ground had been cleared.
Despite reports appearing on the web – this account is taken from http://ufo.psu.ru/eng/tian-shan01.html and http://www.vb.kg/eng/2003/01/20/byvaet/1.html – there were no reports of the incident in the media, official or otherwise until 1998 when an account appeared in the Russian newspaper “Trud” (“Work” or “Labour”).
Bishkek