What was the Petrozavodsk phenomenon?
The Petrozavodsk phenomenon was a series of celestial events of a disputed nature that occurred on September 20, 1977. The sightings were reported over a vast territory, from Copenhagen and Helsinki in the west to Vladivostok in the east. It is named after the city of Petrozavodsk in Russia (then in the Soviet Union), where a glowing object was widely reported that showered the city with numerous rays. At the time Petrozavodsk was the capital and a major industrial hub of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, with a population of 203,000 in 1974. The earliest published report of the Petrozavodsk phenomenon was written by TASS correspondent Nikolai Milov, who described the unidentified object over Petrozavodsk as "a huge star", that "flared up in the dark sky" at about 4:00 a.m. local time, "impulsively sending shafts of light to the Earth". Milov's report was published in the mainstream Soviet press (Pravda, Izvestiya, Selskaya Zhizn, ...