UFO. Russia

100 years ago, in April 1902, the newspaper Nizhny Novgorod Leaf published a letter from a certain L. Smertin:

"On March 29, at 8:25 p.m., an object lit from the inside resembling a balloon slowly flew over the city in a northwesterly direction. The illuminated part of the ball was a kind of electric light bulb, that is, it was spherical from below, and ended with a high pipe from above.

Under the illuminated spherical part, the likeness of a boat could be discerned with a simple eye, but it was extremely unclear, because it was already dark at that time. The balloon was moving extremely slowly and was well below the clouds... And we immediately realized that we were not dealing with a meteor.

The flight of the strange object was observed by us for about five minutes, before it disappeared over the horizon. It should be added to what has been said that the air was completely quiet that evening, and a reddish light emanated from the ball, similar to the light of a burning furnace."

Besides Smertin himself, baker Afanasyev, his wife and son, as well as railroad workers Semenov and Krestyaninov saw the "flight of the ball".