It was 4:05 a.m. on Sept. 20, 1977. Something serious was happening over the skies of Petrozavodsk .  A group of dockworkers on the early shift that morning say they saw a blinding light emerge from the direction of Lake Onega in northwest Russia. As it approached Petrozavodsk, the light took on the appearance of a glimmering jellyfish, before slowing to a hover and unleashing a salvo of ultra-thin beams of light.  The dockworkers were left wondering what they had seen. Some were concerned they were witnessing a nuclear attack: This was, after all, the height of the Cold War.  But that did not explain what came next. After 12 puzzling minutes, the shining object transformed into a bright semicircle and jetted off back toward Lake Onega. Rather than disappearing over the horizon, it appeared to veer upward, before punching a burning red hole in the clouds, and disappearing into the abyss.   No one died, and the United States, it seemed, was not involved.  The Petrozavodsk jellyfish was not the first time a UFO had been spotted over the territory of the Soviet Union, but few sightings had ever been corroborated by so many people. Policemen, sailors, an ambulance crew and even a reporter for the TASS news agency all claimed to have seen the object. The TASS reporter filed his story three days later under the headline: “A strange natural phenomena over Karelia.”  Neighboring governments became alarmed, suspecting the Soviets had tested a new type of weapon. They demanded an explanation from Moscow, but Soviet leaders were apparently just as baffled. Officials even turned to the Academy of Sciences — the highest collection of scientific minds in the communist bloc — for an explanation. The Academy had no satisfactory answer, concluding that the UFO was a real physical phenomenon that required further study.  As Soviet UFO enthusiasts began promoting their own interpretations, the Kremlin convened an unprecedented meeting of military and scientific experts. They all agreed the UFO issue was too big to ignore, and resolved to launch a state investigation into the phenomenon.  Managed by the Defense Ministry and Academy of Sciences, the secret investigation began in 1978 and would run to the end of the Soviet era. Read more at Little Green Men: A Look at the Official Soviet X-Files Investigation.  NOTE: The above image is a depiction.