Case file · Retrieval claim
The Kapustin Yar 'shoot-down' claim
A story first circulated in the 1990s says that on 19 June 1948 a MiG fighter clashed with a cigar-shaped object over the Kapustin Yar rocket range, both crashed, and the wreck was taken away for study.
1948 CE · 48.58, 45.73 · status: claim
The account
Kapustin Yar, opened in 1946 near the Volga, was the Soviet Union's first missile test range, where captured German V-2s were launched. Its secrecy made it the 'Soviet Area 51' of UFO lore. The 1948 story appears in post-Soviet television and books without documents.
The sceptical view
No archive record or named witness supports it; it is widely treated as a modern legend.