KGB Colonel Sokolow Discloses Soviet UFO Program to George Knapp

In spring 1993, investigative journalist George Knapp traveled to Moscow to research the Soviet Union's secret UFO program. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, former government officials began selling state secrets, and Western UFO researchers gained a roughly five-year window to travel to Russia and conduct on-site research. Through an intermediary, Knapp made contact with Colonel Boris Sokolow, a decorated former military officer who had headed a department within the Ministry of Defense dealing with foreign technology and served as director of SETKA, the mixed civilian-military Soviet research program investigating UFO phenomena.

Sokolow confirmed what American researchers already suspected: UFOs had been visiting Earth for a long time, their technology was vastly superior to anything known, and the Russians were certain the craft did not originate from the Americans. According to Sokolow, these objects performed maneuvers impossible for conventional aircraft. UFOs had repeatedly appeared in restricted airspace, and fighter jets were ordered to intercept them. In three documented cases, pilots received orders to fire on UFOs; two of those pilots were shot down and killed.

Knapp sought documentary proof and paid for it. He subsequently obtained top-secret KGB UFO files, which he smuggled to the West for analysis. These documents provided a rare window into Soviet military knowledge of UFOs, including serious interference incidents at military installations comparable to those occurring in the West. Knapp later re-interviewed Sokolow in Copenhagen in 2014.