Height 611, the "Russian Roswell"
The account
A red sphere crashed into a hill, leaving burn marks and fragments of unusual material.
What investigators found
The samples never received a conclusive independent analysis; a meteorite and an electrical phenomenon are among the explanations.
The story
Early in the evening of January 29, 1986, residents of the mining town of Dalnegorsk, in the Soviet Far East, saw a reddish ball cross the sky and strike the slope of a hill known as Height 611. At the site, investigators found scorched rocks and small fragments, such as tiny metal beads and thin threads, described as having a strange composition.
The case was studied by local researcher Valery Dvuzhilni and became famous in the following years as the "Russian Roswell." There is, however, no independent study confirming anything out of the ordinary in the samples. The explanations discussed range from a meteorite to an atmospheric electrical phenomenon, and for ufologists the mystery remains open.