UFO. Western Sahara

Alexander Vladimirovich Golotykin writes to the Commission on AI:

In 1980, I worked as a 4th mechanic at the BMRT Diamond LPO Lenrybprom. In January, it was fishing in the Western Sahara region about 20-30 miles from the coast. The weather was excellent - the air temperature was +25-27 degrees, there was no wind, the sea was absolutely calm, visibility was about 10-12 miles. At 13 o'clock ship time (16 o'clock Moscow time) I went on deck to sunbathe. The ship was working in a group, there were a lot of ships around us, so maybe the same thing was observed with it. A little ahead, the plane crossed the course - its silver body and contrail were clearly visible, but then our attention (there were 5 people off duty) was attracted by a black object shaped like a cigar flying towards us on a parallel course.

None of us have seen anything like this before. The object flew much slower than the plane, absolutely noiselessly at an altitude of about 1.5-2 km. Its surface was matte, it did not shine, it did not have any identification marks or numbers, I mean aircraft accessories. Its surface was absolutely without protrusions, wings, etc. We observed it for 5-7 minutes, of which 3 minutes with binoculars. But they couldn't find anything on it with binoculars either. But the most amazing thing was that this object disappeared completely unexpectedly, it seemed that it simply disappeared into thin air. Visibility and weather did not change, the aircraft and ships around were also clearly visible. It couldn't have been a hallucination, because I repeat, there were 5 of us and all of this object was observed until its disappearance. There was no consensus on the nature of this object. The only thing that everyone agreed on was that we had never seen anything like it. And one more observation. I don't know if this has any connection with what I saw, but that day almost all the crew members who worked and sunbathed on the upper deck received sunburn, and not from prolonged exposure to the sun. I remember that I did not sunbathe for more than 40 minutes that day, and now, finishing this letter, I remembered the exact date - January 24, 1980.