Person
Boris Sokolov
Also known as Boris Aleksandrovich Sokolov, Col. Sokolov
- Colonel (ret.), Soviet Ministry of Defence; coordinator of anomalous-phenomena research for the Ministry of Defence and USSR Academy of Sciences, 1978–1989
Boris Aleksandrovich Sokolov is a retired Soviet colonel and candidate of technical sciences. From 1978 to 1989 he coordinated research on anomalous phenomena for the Ministry of Defence and the USSR Academy of Sciences, the programme known as Setka. He investigated the October 1982 incident at a Strategic Rocket Forces division in Ukraine.
He gave his account to George Knapp in the early 1990s. Knapp relays it as UFOs triggering the missile launch system. In his own 2000 paper with Yuli Platov, however, Sokolov explained the lights as flares and called the panel fault a chance coincidence.
Sources: Platov & Sokolov, Vestnik RAN 70(6), 2000; George Knapp, written testimony, 9 September 2025
Facts and claims
- documented Co-author with Yuli Platov of the 2000 Vestnik RAN history of the Soviet programme, which attributes the 1982 missile-division lights to illumination flares over a range 400 km away and calls the control-panel fault a coincidence. Source: Platov & Sokolov, "Study of unidentified flying objects in the USSR", Vestnik of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2000
Connected files
Documents
Programs
Incidents
Videos
- Byelokorovichi 1982: George Knapp's 1994 field report with Lt. Col. Vladimir Platunov (discussed in)
- Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection (discussed in)