In September 1997, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, then president of Kalmykia (a Buddhist republic within Russia) and president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), says he was invited aboard an extraterrestrial spacecraft while staying in his Moscow apartment. He describes being summoned by a glowing translucent tube, entering a vast ship, communicating telepathically with tall beings in yellow garments, and being told humanity is not yet spiritually advanced enough for open contact. His chief of staff, Vasily, corroborates the event, recounting how he searched the apartment for over an hour, found Kirsan’s belongings but no trace of him, only for Kirsan to suddenly emerge from a bedroom they had checked repeatedly.
The 1997 Encounter
Kirsan was in Moscow preparing to return to Kalmykia for a youth self-government experiment, where power was temporarily handed to people under 25 after a year of training.
Around 10 p.m., he returned to his top-floor apartment, turned on the television, and lay down to sleep. He heard a sound and saw a glowing translucent tube extending to his open window.
He entered the tube and found himself in a massive interior space, “several football fields large,” populated by tall beings in yellow clothing who resembled humans.
One being instructed him to press something on his chest, after which breathing became easy and the air smelled like the sea or forest.
Communication was entirely telepathic. Kirsan compared it to how the blind Bulgarian prophet Baba Vanga answered questions before they were fully translated, and to the ancient civilization of Atlantis, which also communicated through thought.
He asked to be shown around and requested they connect to Earth television (CNN, Russia Today, Al Jazeera) to announce their presence. They refused, saying humanity had not reached the necessary civilizational level.
They told him: “Your only achievement in civilization is that before you used to eat them raw and now you kill and cook them and eat them in restaurants by candle light.”
They said they had created intelligent life on Earth, gave humanity a beautiful planet, but humans pollute it, destroy forests, and direct all science toward inventing weapons to kill each other, citing over 117 armed conflicts happening at the time.
Kirsan asked about time dilation (whether centuries might pass on Earth during his absence). They assured him he would be returned to the exact moment and place.
He was led to a porthole and observed what appeared to be a fiery planet giving off heat. Beings were loading box-like containers into the ship, possibly collecting samples from another planet or dimension.
The ship seemed to move freely through different times, spaces, and dimensions, possibly originating from the fourth dimension.
When he returned, his driver, assistant, and a friend had been searching his apartment for over an hour, had called the police, checked security cameras (which showed no one entering or leaving), and were baffled. Kirsan emerged from the bedroom that they had entered and exited at least ten times. His slippers and phones were in place. The balcony door was open.
Corroboration and Immediate Aftermath
Vasily, Kirsan’s chief of staff and friend of over 40 years, arrived at 11 a.m. with a mutual friend to take Kirsan to the airport for a 1 p.m. flight to Elista, the capital of Kalmykia.
Vasily used his own keys to enter, found Kirsan’s clothes and two mobile phones on the nightstand, but no Kirsan. After about an hour, Kirsan appeared from the bedroom.
When asked where he had been, Kirsan laughed and said, “Well, aliens took me.” Vasily and the others initially thought he was joking.
Kirsan described communicating with the beings at a subconscious, telepathic level. Vasily noted that Kirsan’s mental state appeared completely normal, not surprised or shaken, which he attributed to the aliens possibly having a stabilizing effect on the human mind to prevent insanity.
Kirsan later met with NASA representatives (he cannot recall specific names but has business cards) during a visit to the U.S. Congress. They invited him for a friendly lunch after hearing his statement. He also interacted with space research centers in France, Japan, China, and India.
He met with many world leaders and NASA officials in the 1990s, and for them, extraterrestrial contact was “a known thing, self-evident.”
Why Kirsan Was Chosen
Kirsan believes he was chosen because, as a sitting president, his testimony would carry more weight than that of an ordinary person. He reasoned that if a farmer or doctor claimed alien contact, they would be dismissed as drunk or on substances, but a president might be taken more seriously.
He initially hesitated, weighing the pros and cons on two sheets of paper. The cons (10–20 points) included being seen as mentally unfit, losing business relationships, and being removed from his positions. The cons heavily outweighed the pros.
He was pressured by figures like Garry Kasparov, who said Kirsan should be removed as FIDE president if he claimed to have met aliens, and by opposition groups in Kalmykia who called for his removal and psychiatric evaluation.
After hearing a voice in a dream asking, “What are you afraid of? Why aren’t you speaking?” he decided to go public, reasoning that someone had to be the first to speak up.
Even after going public, people laughed, mocked, and joked about it. Almost 30 years later, he says people still don’t understand.
He believes the aliens are following an evolutionary path, taking more and more people to create a “critical mass of understanding” so humanity will realize it is not alone.
Ancient Artifacts and Evidence of Alien Influence
Kirsan argues that ancient texts (Vedas, Quran, Bible, Talmud) and figures like Leonardo da Vinci (who sketched submarines, helicopters, and airplanes in the 15th century) received information from extraterrestrial sources.
He cites the precision of ancient construction (Egyptian pyramids, buildings in Peru and Lebanon) that modern technology cannot replicate, including 100-ton stone blocks that today’s largest cranes cannot lift.
The iron pillar in Delhi is 99.9% pure iron, a level of purity no modern metallurgical plant can achieve.
In Brazil, metallic clock parts and gears have been found inside marble that took millions of years to form.
He believes these artifacts prove that advanced civilizations visited or influenced Earth in the past.
Chess as an Extraterrestrial Gift
Kirsan, who led FIDE for 23 years, believes chess was brought to Earth by an extraterrestrial civilization to help humans develop their minds.
He notes that chess sets have been found in archaeological sites in Mongolia (burial mounds over 5,000 years old), Peru, China, India, and Japan, despite no communication between these civilizations at the time.
The chessboard has 64 squares, matching the 64 codons in human DNA. The black and white squares represent yin and yang, good and evil, the law of unity and struggle of opposites.
He presented the host with a traditional Kalmyk felt chess set (Kalmyks are nomads descended from Genghis Khan’s Mongols), with pieces carved from animal bones.
Kirsan’s favorite piece is the knight. He played a brief game with the host, agreeing to a draw after the opening moves.
Other World Leaders’ Encounters
After Kirsan went public, dozens and even hundreds of politicians and presidents told him they had also encountered extraterrestrials.
An unnamed president of a large sovereign country (part of the G7) told Kirsan that he and his wife saw a spacecraft descend while they were on a fishing trip on the coast. He saw the beings up close but refused to go public, saying, “I have elections coming up. I am the president of this country, the leader of the party. I’m not yet as crazy as you are.”
The Italian billionaire businessman Zampirini (owner of the football club Sicilia) claimed to have met aliens and invited Kirsan to his wheat field, where a spacecraft had landed multiple times, leaving distinct circles. He gave Kirsan golden plates with imprints of the spacecraft’s landing.
Vasily Smyslov, the world chess champion, told Kirsan at a Kremlin banquet that in 1974 (or 1972), before a match against German player Hübner, a translucent alien entity appeared in his hotel room and moved chess pieces on a board, showing him the entire match. The next day, the game unfolded exactly as the alien had shown. Smyslov’s wife advised him not to speak of it, fearing he would be institutionalized. When Kirsan spoke up, Smyslov said, “Well, you’re the president. They probably wouldn’t risk taking you there just yet.”
Conversations with Global Leaders
Boris Yeltsin: At a meeting, Yeltsin asked Kirsan to stay behind and asked, “It’s been reported to me that you’ve been up there on a spacecraft.” Kirsan confirmed it briefly. Yeltsin asked if his mental state was okay, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “All right, then carry on with work.”
Vladimir Putin: Putin invited Kirsan to discuss Kalmykia and a chess championship, then asked him to recount the alien encounter in detail. He asked if Kirsan was drunk or in his right mind. Kirsan explained he felt compelled to speak the truth. Putin took the matter seriously, writing everything down. Kirsan has known Putin since 1993, when Putin was vice governor of St. Petersburg.
Mikhail Gorbachev: Gorbachev told Kirsan about a folder that U.S. President Nixon showed to Leonid Brezhnev during their first meeting (with KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov present). After that meeting, all lunar research and flights from both the U.S. and Soviet Union abruptly stopped. Gorbachev indicated the folder contained information about extraterrestrial contact.
Henry Kissinger: Kirsan met Kissinger multiple times. During a visit to Moscow with Gorbachev, Kissinger asked Kirsan about his encounter, saying, “I read, I heard about it.” Gorbachev urged Kissinger to share what he knew, but Kissinger only smiled. In a later meeting, Kissinger was more talkative and demonstrated deep familiarity with classified materials on UFOs held by the U.S. President’s Administration, CIA, and NASA.
Pope John Paul II: The pope told Kirsan, “We are not alone in this universe.” In the late 1980s, the pope signed a decree establishing a special observatory inside the Vatican, appointing a bishop as director to research extraterrestrial civilizations and UFOs. The department still exists and its research is classified.
Dalai Lama: Kirsan, a close friend of the 14th Dalai Lama, says the Dalai Lama also believes humanity is not alone. Buddhism views the question broadly, emphasizing that humans should first study their own brains (which operate at only 3–5% capacity) before looking to the stars.
Baba Vanga: The blind Bulgarian prophet, recognized by the Academies of Sciences of France and Belgium as humanity’s number one phenomenon, told Kirsan he would become president of Kalmykia and later head of a global organization of “the smartest people” (chess players). Both predictions came true within months. She told Kirsan, “It’s all around you. There it is. There it is. It’s absolutely everywhere. It’s here and it’s there on the ground and underneath the ground and up in the sky.” She communicated with invisible beings and souls, which Kirsan believes may be materialized entities from past lives or extraterrestrials.
Underground Civilizations
Kirsan is certain that underground civilizations exist, citing Baba Vanga pointing downward and saying, “They live there.” He references the Kalmyk epic “Jangar,” passed down for millennia, which describes the underworld and its creatures.
He notes that scientists have found traces of habitation in caves in the Caucasus, India, Tibet, and the Altai, and that living microbes have been discovered in volcanic lava, proving life can exist in extreme conditions.
He contrasts humanity’s ability to send spacecraft to Mars with the inability to build a submersible that can withstand depths beyond 10–11 kilometers, suggesting vast unexplored realms beneath the Earth’s surface.
U.S.-Soviet Cooperation on UFOs
Kirsan served in Soviet special forces communication troops and witnessed dozens of unidentified craft flying over the Black Sea during exercises in 1981. A commission from Moscow confiscated and destroyed all cameras and photographs, and everyone was forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.
He learned that both U.S. and Soviet naval forces detected massive unidentified underwater objects in the Pacific Ocean, Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. Each side initially believed the objects were advanced weapons of the other.
Intelligence agencies and defense ministries from the U.S., UK, and USSR began exchanging information to prevent a potential nuclear confrontation triggered by misidentification of these objects.
Kirsan’s Political Philosophy
As president of Kalmykia, Kirsan introduced “ethno-planetary thinking” into the school curriculum, teaching students to think beyond national borders and feel responsibility for the entire planet.
In 1994, Kalmykia adopted a constitutional norm (Article 10) stating that all citizens are responsible for everything happening on Earth, including hunger in Africa, the ozone hole, and asteroid threats, with the goal of passing the planet to future descendants in the same condition it was received.
He proposed to Putin in the early 2000s that Russia join NATO, arguing that with the Warsaw Pact dissolved and a common enemy in terrorism, the West and Russia should unite. After 9/11, Putin was the first world leader to call the U.S. president to express condolences and proposed uniting against common threats, including cosmic ones like asteroids.
He believes chess should be taught in schools worldwide because it trains both brain hemispheres, teaches forward thinking, and could redirect humanity’s focus from military spending (trillions of dollars annually) to healthcare, brain research, and curing diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.
The Battle of Light and Dark Energy
Kirsan describes the universe as a struggle between light energy and dark energy, with the universe existing within dark energy. He connects this to the Buddhist and chess concept of yin and yang, black and white, good and evil.
He believes thought is material and that if 8 billion people simultaneously thought about kindness, love, and compassion, the Earth would “glow from within” and attract the attention of God (or the universal consciousness), which oversees billions of planets and only notices those that emit a spark of positive light.
He sees the current era as the “Buddha of suffering” transitioning to the “Buddha of compassion” and eventually the “Buddha of love,” suggesting humanity is on the threshold of a spiritual transformation.
Advising Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi
Saddam Hussein: Kirsan met Saddam frequently starting in 1993 under a mandate from Yeltsin. In the final days before the U.S. invasion, Kirsan flew to Baghdad and advised Saddam to open all weapons warehouses to journalists at the al-Rashid hotel, film everything, and prove there were no chemical weapons. Saddam was stunned and refused. Kirsan left Iraq just hours before the bombings began.
Muammar Gaddafi: Kirsan was friends with Gaddafi, who wrote poetry and became interested in Buddhism and reincarnation. When Gaddafi disappeared from public view for a month amid rumors of his death or institutionalization, Kirsan visited him on Russia Day (June 12). He brought a chess set, played a draw with Gaddafi, and suggested the game be broadcast on Libyan television to prove Gaddafi was alive and mentally sound. Gaddafi predicted his own death, saying his adopted daughter and 10-month-old granddaughter were buried in Libyan soil and he would remain with his people. He was killed shortly afterward.
The Ukraine Conflict
Kirsan believes Putin is doing everything to end the war and that the conditions for peace have been on the table since the beginning, including proposals from the Istanbul negotiations. He says both Putin and Zelensky want peace, but Zelensky must listen to both the Russian and American presidents.
He notes that Zelensky is now considered illegitimate by Russia because elections were not held during wartime, but also acknowledges that elections cannot be held during war.
He believes every armed conflict in history has ended with peace and hopes this one will too, emphasizing that politics and diplomacy are fundamentally a constant struggle of compromises.
The Future of UFO Disclosure
Kirsan believes the paradigm is shifting and that more people at high levels in the U.S. are taking the subject seriously, citing the UAP disclosure bill presented by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that mentions non-human intelligence 65 times.
He calls for a unified United Nations program to gather all UFO contact information, summarize it with artificial intelligence, and develop a common approach, including a “common constitution” for humanity.
He does not believe there are secret human space programs beyond what NASA and SpaceX do publicly, but suggests that other civilizations on Earth may be working on such programs.
He emphasizes that the most important step is not sending spacecraft farther into space but studying the human brain, which operates at only 3–5% capacity, which could unlock telepathic communication and space travel without physical vessels.
He has not communicated with the extraterrestrials since 1997 and does not try to, believing that “it is written up there” and that events unfold as predetermined.
