"So they came across Medusa?" — Netizens react to declassified CIA file suggesting aliens turning 23 Soviet soldiers into stone in the 80s

A declassified CIA file from the Cold War era recounting an alleged alien encounter that turned 23 Soviet soldiers into stone recently went viral on X. According to The New York Post (dated April 14), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allegedly acquired the 250-page KGB report after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The one-page report recounted the alleged altercation between KGB soldiers and aliens sometime in the 80s. However, the exact date of the supposed incident is unclear. On April 13, 2025, X account @nojumper uploaded a photo of the KGB report, which read:

“In a few seconds, the spheres grew much bigger and exploded by flaring up with an extremely bright light. At that very instant, 23 soldiers who had watched the phenomenon turned into… stone poles."

The declassified file was met with mixed responses from X users. While some were skeptical about the alleged event, others wondered about the powers the supposed aliens possessed, with one user questioning:

"So they came across Medusa?"

Some questioned why the Central Intelligence Agency was hiding information from the people. Here are some user reactions regarding the situation.

"@CIA why are you always hiding so much from us?" one person said.

"I remember reading about this. Apparently they shot down a craft with a small missile and the aliens came out and pulled some Ben 10 s**t, merged into a light and petrified everyone except 2 survivors who hid behind shade. It was more retaliation if anything," one X user posted.

"Damn I can’t wait to confirm if this is true at the ufo hackathon," another person added.

However, most people were skeptical about the report, offering other theories that explained the alleged incident.

"I actually don’t believe this s**t and I’m a conspiracy theorist," one person tweeted.

"The source is a Ukrainian newspaper citing “Canadian Weekly World News,” which was known for tabloid-style content. Even if this was a real CIA file, it doesn’t verify the event, it just confirms that the CIA collected and translated this report for analysis," another person added.

"This might’ve been a dummy report to see if they had any loose lips see if it leaked," one person speculated.

"They were Eviscerated and the carbon shells were mistaken for black stone and not the actual charcoal they had become," another user said.

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Exploring the declassified CIA file about the alleged alien incident in the Soviet Union

According to The New York Post, the declassified file contained a report from the KGB that detailed an alleged altercation with aliens. The report included eyewitness statements and pictures of the alleged encounter, which one CIA agent described as “a horrific picture of revenge on the part of extraterrestrial creatures, a picture that makes one’s blood freeze.”

As per the report, KGB soldiers encountered an unidentified flying object (UFO) flying over Siberia, and someone unexpectedly fired a "surface-to-air missile" at it. The UFO, described as a “low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer”, crashed down to the ground after being hit, with the report claiming:

“It fell to Earth not far away, and five short humanoids with ‘large heads and large black eyes’ emerged from it."

The beings “merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape” and "exploded by flaring up with an extremely bright light", which allegedly turned 23 Soviet soldiers into "stone poles." The report also claimed that two soldiers who "stood in the shade" survived the alleged encounter.

Soviet scientists who examined the "petrified" soldiers at a secret base near Moscow claimed that their living cells were transformed into a substance similar to limestone.

“If the KGB file corresponds to reality, this is an extremely menacing case. The Aliens possess such weapons and technology that go beyond all our assumptions. They can stand up for themselves if attacked,” the file added.

In the wake of the declassified file making waves on social media, a former CIA agent claimed the one-page report detailing the alleged alien encounter was not originally written by the agency. According to a News Nation report published on April 4, former agent Tracy Walder claimed that while the report was part of a CIA file, it was not written by the agency.

Furthermore, Walder claimed the report originated from the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which takes open source information and distributes them to intelligence agencies. The Foreign Broadcast Information Service report recounted the Soviets' alleged encounter with aliens, previously covered by the Canadian Weekly World News magazine and the Ukrainian paper Holos Ukrayiny.

Walder claimed that the mention of the unnamed CIA agent in the story, who had described the alleged event as "a horrific picture of revenge," could be why the Foreign Broadcast Information Service passed on the report to the agency. It is unclear whether the incident is true or not. However, the report can also be seen on the official Central Intelligence Agency website.