MiG-21 Fighter Pilot's Chilling Encounter
Captain Petar Petrov accepted the journalist's invitation to talk and began to remember his most unforgettable night duty.On a cold December evening, dozens of people observed a strange picture in the sky, a UFO seemed to be escorting our MiG-21 fighter jet as it landed at its base.
Behind this fact lies an extremely interesting case of an unusual meeting in the air, which the pilot will remember for a lifetime.
The journalistic chance brought me to this story 29 years later, writes journalist Iva Sapundjieva, quoted by Trud.
The presence of UFOs on Earth is shrouded in secrecy.
The topic is conveniently glossed over so as not to raise public questions.
And they are inevitable because the whole world is watching them.
And if satellites in Earth orbit do not have the ability to detect a UFO entering the Earth, then the first to see it are the radars of the military.
The case is well known within the ranks of the army but unknown to the public.
The only one who agreed to speak was Brigadier General Bozhin Gavrilov.
This is how I learned that a Bulgarian MiG-21 from the Graf Ignatievo air base had a close encounter with a UFO in the sky in 1994.
The general revealed little to me, but enough to satisfy my curiosity and motivate me to seek more information.
I already knew that there was an encounter between a UFO and our MiG-21, during which the fighter lost radio contact with the command posts.
The pilot is left alone in direct contact with the alien mind.
When the unknown object disappears from the radars of Radiotechnical Troops, the connection with the fighter is restored.
I was ready to do anything to learn the details of this case.
I needed the pilot and set out to find him.
Captain Petar Petrov accepted my invitation to talk and began to remember his most unforgettable night duty.
In the late winter evening of December 14, 1994, radio engineering troops detected an unknown aerial object entering our territory through Vidin.
The body moves slowly, at about 8 mph.
It flies downwind and pretends to be a reconnaissance balloon.
It passes over Lovech, Troyan and reaches Cherven Bryag, where it reverses the direction of movement.
Then the military realizes that they are not dealing with a balloon.
The central command post in Sofia decided to raise the duty fighter, despite the reduced visibility and bad weather conditions.
The commander of the Air Force at that time was General Miho Mihov.
Around 9:00 p.m., Captain Petar Petrov took off with a MiG-21 from the Graf Ignatievo Air Base.
As soon as he crosses Stara planina, he decides to descend below the clouds and approach at a distance of less than 2½ miles.
When the fighter and the intruder converge at a point, the military warns of a collision, but the Captain assures them that it cannot happen because there is no one in front of him.
At this time, the unknown object is either in the clouds or above them.
The Captain decides to look for the object visually and starts circling in the Red Beach area.
At that moment he notices the passing of a civilian plane, but hears on the radio that the object is different and the task continues.
After a few more maneuvers, the Captain notices a dark silhouette above Stara Planina with a bright light and a lighthouse pointing towards the mountain.
At first he thinks he sees a helicopter, but he notices the lights, which are 5 or 6 in number, arranged in a circle.
He realizes that it can't be a helicopter because one has no place that high up in the mountain.
Captain Petrov approaches the target, and when he reaches the object, he calls the radio station and reports that there is a flying saucer in front of his eyes.
At the same moment, the UFO turns its light on the MiG and the radio link is lost.
The bright light blinds the Captain and he cannot see the dashboard in front of him.
It stays like this for a few minutes.
He feels the fighter tilt down.
Then he instinctively does something surprising, turns off the armament.
Missiles that are ready to launch are retracted.
In this way, he wants to show the object against him that he has no intention of attacking.
He told me that he got an understanding from whoever was piloting the flying saucer, because immediately after that the UFO turned its headlight back towards the mountain.
So the Captain manages to bring out the fighter, which falls seriously down.
There is a problem of how he will get back to base because none of the command posts he is flying over can hear him and the weather conditions are bad.
He has to fly all the way to Romania.
Then, luckily for him, one of the connections is restored, which surprises him even more.
At the Danube, he hears the air traffic controller from the Graf Ignatievo airbase.
And that's amazing because he can only hear it in the immediate area around the base.
The Captain suggests that maybe someone relayed the signal to him to help him.
Radio communication with all other command posts in the country is silenced.
Thus, in these tense minutes, he does not understand the most important information, that the flying saucer is right behind him.
The UFO accompanies the fighter all the way to the Graf Ignatievo air base, and the Captain does not suspect.
He learned this later from the people on the ground who saw the flying saucer come behind him and remain hovering over the base while he landed the MiG.
Shortly before landing, he was asked if he could immediately make a second flight of the reserve fighter.
2 more strange objects have entered from Vidin and are moving in the direction of Cherven Bryag.
He agrees.
When he lands, he is informed that the 2 newly arrived UFOs are leaving the country.
I asked him what happened to that flying saucer over the Count, and he said it had evaporated into thin air.
The Captain speculates that she may have attached herself to a transport plane and that's why she mysteriously disappeared from radar.
The mystery continues with regard to the technique:
The photo film from the radar station is blank.
He didn't record anything the whole time.
The phototape from the fighter scope also shows nothing.
And she didn't record.
These strange facts are further evidence that on that extraordinary night the MiG-21 really had a close encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence.
Captain Petar Petrov writes a report about his extraordinary duty, but the only one who believes him is his direct supervisor.
The older superiors sneer at his words.
He is offended, but admits that this is how they were instructed to react.
Towards the end of our meeting, Captain Petrov told me that there have been other cases in which military pilots, as well as civil aviation pilots, have seen UFOs.
His fellow pilots have shared stories of such encounters, but for fear of being thought crazy, keep their experiences quiet.
In the end, I calmed him down by passing on the words of Brigadier General Bozhin Gavrilov, who told me in the interview that the case was discussed at a meeting of the Military Council.
So in 1994, The Ministry of Defense makes a decision not to act on a UFO if there is another similar case of detection, tracking and convergence.