The Romanian Defense Ministry has officially confirmed that a MIG 21 Lancer fighter plane engaged in a check flight on October 31, 2007 was hit by four unidentified flying objects while near Gherla, Central Romania while flying at 6,500 meters from the ground. The Ministry also issued a video depicting the event, Romanian news station Realitatea TV reported on Friday.
The plane was one step away from crashing but eventually landed safely with the pilot suffering an injury.
Cameras planted at the board of the plane recorded images with unidentified flying objects at an extremely high speed, according to Realitatea TV.
Lt.-col. Nicolae Grigorie was quoted by the news station saying that "one can see in the images two solid bodies, which are not translucid and were recorded by the camera installed in the plane".
Experts have been eliminating all "credible" hypotheses about the event one by one. Grigorie said possibilities such as rocket launches, ground artillery fires were considered but no such activities were occurring during the flight. "They couldn't be birds because there are no birds in Europe able to fly so high. And they couldn't be ice bodies because it was a clear sky - neither could they be pieces of another plane or a meteor", according to Grigorie.
The glass protecting the pilot's cabin was broken by one of the four objects. The pilot was hurt and pieces of glass hit the oxygen mask very close to his eyes.
The incident and the video images recorded by the camera are now studied at some of the best reputed universities in the world.
Images with the plane hit by unidentified flying objects:
