Schoolgirl, 12, Reports Half-Hour Flight With Trunk-Nosed Beings in Orsk

ORSK, U.S.S.R. — A Reddit user posting to r/Humanoidencounters has revived a case from April 16, 1990, in which a sixth-grader named Vera Potapenko, then 12, says she was taken aloft in a craft from outside School No. 21 in Orsk. The post cites Oleg Obyedkov's catalog, UFOs over Orsk, as its source.

According to the account, Vera set out for school at about 7:40 a.m. with three classmates. On the fourth floor, minutes before English, she was seized by dizziness, nausea and an urge to leave. Her teacher refused permission to go downstairs. She went anyway, collected her blue jacket and stepped outside, where she reportedly saw a gray, cup-shaped craft with colored lights and two antennae descend silently on four supports.

A man's voice, which she said seemed to come from inside her head, asked whether she would like a ride. She agreed, though she later said she did not feel fully in control of herself. Inside, she reports, were three humanoid figures over two meters tall, in black ribbed suits, with gray skin, four-fingered hands, a left eye twice the size of the right, and a straight, trunk-like nose of ten to twelve centimeters.

The beings, she said, spoke to one another in sounds like cat meows and high whistles, yet she understood them directly in her mind. One touched her red Pioneer scarf, which frightened her. She felt no acceleration in flight, and saw screens that appeared to show Earth and a vast vertical object.

After at least half an hour, she says, the apparent commander offered to deliver her to her classroom. She declined and was returned to the landing spot. The commander reportedly said they might come back for another ride. Vera told of finding about five minutes left in the first class.

The post adds that, according to the investigation, children at a kindergarten across from the school also reported an unusual object that morning. The post offers no independent corroboration or mundane explanation.