Valeriy Burdakov

Valery P. Burdakov (died circa 2013) was a Russian aerospace scientist, professor at Moscow Aviation Institute, and UFO researcher with over 60 years of study in the field. He worked 32 years in Sergey Korolyov's design bureau, contributing to ballistic missiles, satellites, and the Energiya-Buran shuttle. Author of over 400 works on engineering, he co-authored a pioneering Soviet textbook on cosmonautics with Felix Ziegel. In UFOlogy, Burdakov rejected pseudoscience, estimating 97% of cases as hoaxes but 3% as genuine extraterrestrial signals. He revealed Stalin's 1947 order to Korolyov to analyze Roswell-like UFO intelligence and probed the anomalous failure of the Phobos 2 probe in 1989, questioning official accounts after consulting designers.