The Plane in the Forest
In the summer of 1961, a group of Soviet Soldiers were deployed from Valek Airfield on what could be best described as a recovery mission in a remote region of Siberia.
A few days prior, the crew of a recon aircraft had reported discovering a lone aircraft sitting in the forest near Mount Kamen. As a result, a paratrooper team was assembled to locate and, if possible, recover the plane, but for those who were involved in the operation, the whole mission felt off.
The Unexplainable Sighting
For one thing, this sighting came just days after another aircraft had been reported missing while on a training mission. But that aircraft, an Antonov An-2, had gone missing hundreds of miles away from Mount Kamen and there was no way a small plane like that could have made it all the way out there. It just didn’t have the range and the location of this supposed crash site was well outside any established flight path.
Sure enough, the recovery team soon found themselves face to face with an Antonov An-2 sitting all alone among trees. But what was really strange was that the aircraft itself was in perfect condition. There were no signs of damage of any kind, not to the fixed landing gear or the propeller. Need I remind you, the plane was surrounded by trees and there was no way it would have been in such good condition if it had made a forced landing. Nor were there any signs of damage to the surrounding foliage; it was as if someone or something had just placed the aircraft on the ground.
The Eerie Discovery
But things got even stranger when the recovery team attempted to enter the aircraft. The doors were locked from the inside. When they did gain access, though, the Paratroopers found no one on board, nor were there any signs that anything troublesome had taken place. In the cockpit, the controls were set as if it were still in flight, nor were any of the electrical systems working. Even more disturbingly, the safety belts on the pilot’s seats were still locked in place.
Also found were a number of weapons, packs, and webbing, much like what the recovery team carried with them, but their owners were nowhere to be seen. By this point, the recovery team and its commander were rightfully unsettled by the whole thing. After recovering all relevant documents and taking numerous photos of the site, the team made their way back to their LZ and were flown back to base via helicopter.
The Unsolved Mystery
Obviously, the entire team was told not to discuss what they had found. But loose lips are a thing, and eventually, the story spread. As the story goes, the recovered documents revealed that the An-2 had taken off from Vorkuta Severetsky airbase several months prior, on what was supposed to be a simple transport flight. Nowhere near where it was finally found and well out of the range of what it was capable of, nor could it have landed and still been intact. But to this day, no one knows just how the aircraft ended up where it did, or what happened to its occupants.
Now obviously, this is just an urban legend that has been shared among Soviet military personnel for years, and more than likely, it was just something made up to scare new, wide-eyed recruits. But every legend has a hint of some truth behind it, and a similar incident was said to have taken place less than a decade later.
This time, in the jungles of southeast Asia, it would be an American Special Forces Team who would make an even more unsettling discovery. So stay tuned for that story.
~NC
