The Soviet Ufo Files: Paranormal Encounters Behind the Iron Curtain

by Paul Stonehill

Presents details of UFO sightings and unexplained phenomena in the former Soviet Union, reveals the Soviet authories' fear of an alien invasion, and offers corroborating interviews with KGB officials and cosmonauts

Genres: Nonfiction

123 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1998

Reviews

[Little Sheepling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Truthfully I was rather disappointed by this book.

With the USSR being such a technological advanced and therefore secretive country as it was, it makes sense that the USSR would be just as interested in peculiar aerial phenomena as any other nation, but this collection of incidents and stories definitely doesn't feel like the best-of USSR UFO reports, as quite frankly, a lot of these sightings range from probably very-Earthly in origin, to truly outlandish that it defies credibility.
The accompanying UFO photographs really are no better, as nearly all of them are given very limited information and look very fake, and many are not even associated with the stories on the same page as them, totally bizarre and not helpful.

There is some stuff you'd expect to find discussed here, such as the Tunguska mystery object, Lake issik kul swimmers and the Yuzhni Park entities, although most stuff in here was new to me, but some of these could just as easily fall into another category of the paranormal rather than Aliens.
But regardless, all the stories are given very little room and the descriptions are bare minimum, even for some of the more famous incidents.

By far my favourite parts of this book was the stories & experiences of the cosmonauts, although this section in particular seemed partially still classified, as some names of the cosmonauts were not given strangely? but it was very interesting to note how similar their experiences with unknowns in Space were with NASA astronauts, but if UFOs really do exist then that's a given isn't it?

It was nice also that Ufologists and others interested in UFOs were given space in the book, as the USSR seemed to be a difficult place to document and study the phenomenon, so credit to them.

This book is still a keeper for reference to me, but I suspect there's better books about soviet UFOs out there.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent coffee table book, many cases to get acquainted, and some nice pics, but the book does not offer any depth in any of the cases, and some of them may be spurious, as an introduction it is great, some of the cases can be found in the internet, so you can have a more satisfactory experience afterward, the book can be bought cheaply if so I recommend it.

[JL Mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting book, not always factually accurate with many creative leaps taken. I was expecting a full novel length book, but it's actually more like a 12 year old's nonfiction book loaded with lots of pictures and infographics. 2⭐ for novelty's sake, but nothing groundbreaking or particularly scholarly useful.