In 1955, Russell was chairman of the Armed Services Committee and was on a study tour of Russia with his military assistant, Lt. Col. Hathaway and translator Ruben Efron.
On October 4, 1955, they were traveling by train through a remote region of Transcaucasia when Russell looked out the window and noticed two disc-shaped UFOs taking off from the ground near the railroad. He immediately called his assistant and translator, who also saw this strange sight.
Colonel Hathaway would later say about this incident:
“I doubt you will believe it, but we have all seen it. Senator Russell was the first to see this flying disc,
the same “flying saucer” about which we have been told for years that this does not exist and cannot be, but we have all seen it.
One disk rose almost vertically at a relatively slow speed, and its outer surface slowly rotated to the right around its axis. It climbed to a height of about 2 kilometers, and then leveled off and flew to the side.
His speed increased dramatically as he headed north. After about a minute, a second flying disc was seen doing the same. The take-off zone was about 3 ki south of the railway line. ”
They reported what they saw to the US Air Force. Colonel Thomas Ryan, who was the air attaché of the US Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia, said shortly after the incident: “Three witnesses were firmly convinced that they saw real flying saucers.”
They were also interrogated by the CIA, which also interrogated a fourth unnamed witness, who said the objects had a “small dome” and a “white light” at the top.
The CIA found that three witnesses described the visibility at the time of the incident as excellent, that they did not see any trace of the trail or hear any noticeable noise from these UFOs, which had a pinkish glow, and that the objects “rose vertically with a moving glow. slowly around the perimeter clockwise, giving the impression of a spinning top. ”
Then the US Air Force, like the Soviet government, completely covered up the incident, and it was declared top secret.
Senator Russell later said that this UFO encounter was concealed: “I did not disclose it publicly at the time because the government, the Air Force and the CIA insisted on complete secrecy. ready for this “”.
What happened then in 1955 was forced to declassify only in 1985, after numerous inquiries from the public on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act.
Belatedly, researchers of the UFO phenomenon were able to study secret documents that are of great importance, because they show for the first time that one of the most influential US senators witnessed and reported a UFO.
These documents provide startling new evidence for the existence of UFOs.
