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succeed in the attack. But to my surprise, the object ascended once again at a high speed and placed itself next to me in parallel formation! This left me without any possibility of attack. Flying at Mach 1.2, I continued with my ascent, still hoping to pass above it in order to initiate the attack I had planned. But I couldn't. We reached an altitude of 63,000 feet (19,200 meters or 19 kilometers), and suddenly the thing completely stopped and remained stationary. I adjusted the wings of my plane to 30 degrees and extended its slats so that the plane would be able to maneuver at that height, and I thought I could still attempt to target the object in order to fire. But it was impossible. I could not remain as still as this "balloon." At that moment the warning light for low fuel went off, indicating that I had just enough to get back to the base. Under those conditions, I could not continue the attack, so I flew closer to the hovering object to observe it and try to determine what it was. The Su-22s had no onboard radar, but the sighting equipment had well-marked gradations that communicated the distance from a target and its diameter. This technology ec radar, but the I got as close as about 300 feet (100 meters) from it. I was startled to see that the "balloon" was not a balloon at all. It was an object that LAR we ran : N measured about 35 feet (10 meters) in diameter with a shiny dome on top that was cream-colored, similar to a light bulb cut in half. The bottom was a wider circular base, a silver color, and looked like some kind of metal. It lacked all the typical components of aircraft. It had no wings, propulsion jets, exhausts, windows, antennae, and so forth. It had no visible propulsion system. At that moment, I realized this was not a spying device but a UFO, something totally unknown. I was almost out of fuel, so I couldn't attack or maneuver my plane, or make a high-speed escape. Suddenly, I was afraid. I thought I might be finished. After recovering from the impact of seeing this, I began my return to the air base and explained to the control tower exactly what I had seen. When I had calmed down, I radioed for another plane to come and continue the attack, trying to hide my fear. They said no, it's too high, just come back. I had to glide partway down due to lack of fuel, zigzagging to make my plane harder to hit, always with my eyes on the rearview mirrors, hoping it wouldn't chase me. It didn't. I had been flying for twenty-two minutes. As I was touching down, I was very excited and couldn't wait to tell my people about the extraordinary thing I had flown against. It was so fascinating that I had really wanted someone else to come up and take a look. I had described this object as flying, even though it had no visible equipment for that—nothing to make it fly! When I stepped out of my plane, my squadron was waiting and asked me lots of questions. The maintenance person was there and checked was based on the use of laser beams. jets, exhausts,