A quiet fall with clear, blue skies was suddenly awakened by a loud bang. A puff of thick, milky smoke suddenly appeared in the sky over the Ural Mountains. The appearance of the smoke was then accompanied by a whirlwind that whipped up everything in its path. As the smoke and wind slowly subsided, the booming sound gradually diminished and then disappeared. Everything ended in an acute silence, which remains to this day. In Object 817 (2024), Olga Lucovnicova slowly builds one narrative after another to reveal a history silenced by the mystery of aliens from the Ural Mountains.
Archival footage of the discovery of an abnormal body opens this short 22-minute documentary. A montage of satellite images from The National Archive, the Ural Mountains sky today, and the slowly abandoned building facades of a village follows. A narrator sings in Russian, describing the irony of their plight, reconstructing the memories of the past that the survivors of the Kyshtym Disaster have long tried to wipe from their minds.
In 1996, the world was shocked by the discovery of an “alien” from Kyshtym, later called Alyoshenka. News of the discovery spread around the world and reopened the mystery of the arrival of UFOs on Earth. This creature had an unusual shape. It has a 22 cm long skeleton with thin legs, a strange skull that resembles a crown, and 6 pairs of ribs. During its discovery, the creature emitted a pungent odor, similar to epoxy resin.
However, in this footage from 1996, people who attempted to find out about this creature were at a loss to describe what they saw. Some are convinced that the creature in front of them is an alien. However, when they found out that this creature was found not far from the factory site, they realized something was wrong. They realized that this might be a premature fetus that had suffered a genetic mutation due to radioactive contamination. The mystery of the Alyoshenka aliens then opens up a history that was deliberately closed by the government for 30 years. The radioactive disaster that destroyed the village and forced the residents to remain silent.
Together with a driver who guides her to visit “alien” discovery sites and village ruins, Director Lucovnicova tries to investigate a phenomenon that has shocked the world. Along the way, she also attempts to reconstruct and re-present a history that has long been hidden. She conducted interviews with survivors of the terrible tragedy. However, for ethical reasons and to respect the identity of the interviewees, Director Lucovnicova chose to feature only the voiceover with footage of the rooms in the house, the landscape, and the television on.
The Kyshtym disaster was a major radioactive contamination tragedy at Mayak, the Soviet Union’s plutonium production site for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel processing. The incident, which occurred on September 29, 1957, is one of the most serious nuclear disasters, alongside Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl. However, the survivors of the disaster were forced into silence under an agreement not to reveal anything. When the disaster occurred, the village was immediately closed and no one could enter or leave. They were forced to isolate themselves from the outside world until the arrival of soldiers who became liquidators for them, regardless of whether they were children or elderly.
The testimonies of these survivors never surfaced through the mass media. Their voices are muted in the grief and pain they endure to this day. This is where Object 817 (2024) tries to uncover the history that has been written down. Facts are slowly revealed through the story behind the mystery of the aliens from the Ural Mountains.
Montages of archival footage, ruins of village facades, satellite photos, and police archives become the pieces that make up the history that is being represented by Director Lucovnicova and her team. Behind her choice not to show the figures of her sources, Director Lucovnicova displays details symbolizing the radioactive disaster through nonhuman subjects. Starting from cows drinking contaminated water, damaged and untended plants, to a group of flies, which according to scientific research are creatures that are resistant to exposure to nuclear radiation.
The monument to the Alyoshenka aliens still stands today in the form of a statue and a stone pyramid. In another location, the monument marking the 1957 Kyshtym Disaster also stands as a reminder of a tragedy that had gone unrecorded. Today, you can find out more about the alien mystery and the stories behind it through Object 817 (2024) in the Docs Docs Program: Shorts! FFD 2024. (Ahmad Radhitya Alam) (Ed. Vanis/Trans. Naufal Shabri)
Film Details
Object 817
Olga Lucovnicova | 21 Min | 2024 | Belgium
Official Selection for Docs Docs: Short!
Festival Film Dokumenter 2024
Screening Schedule
Nov. 5 | 15:00 WIB | Ruang Seminar, TBY
Nov. 7 | 15:30 WIB | Militaire Societeit, TBY
