CIA Document Doesn't Prove Aliens Turned Soviet Soldiers To Stone — And It Was Never Classified...

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In April 2025 , rumors spread on social media about an allegedly declassified CIA document that proved a story about aliens turning 23 Soviet soldiers to stone after a UFO was shot down.

One X post ( archived ) with the claim reached more than 11.1 million views, as of this writing. The text on the image attached to the post read, "DECLASSIFIED CIA DOCUMENT CLAIMS ALIENS TURNED 23 SOVIET SOLDIERS TO STONE AFTER UFO WAS SHOT DOWN."

In short, although the document at the center of the claims was genuinely available on the CIA's website, it was not an official agency report. Rather, it was a translation of a Ukrainian newspaper article based on a fictional story originally published in the tabloid Weekly World News. Additionally, the document was never classified and therefore never declassified. As such, we have rated this claim as false.

We contacted the CIA for comment on the document's classification status, credibility and source, and will update this article if we receive a response.

The document circulating online appeared on the official CIA website under the title, "Paper reports alleged evidence on mishap involving a UFO." 

It opened with a line crediting the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which the agency established to "monitor, record, transcribe, and analyze foreign broadcasts," according to records in the National Archives. The third line of the document contained the label "UNCLAS," indicating the page was never classified — meaning it was also never declassified, despite what some social media users claimed. The fifth line suggested the document was supposed to be passed to the BBC.

Additionally, the top section of the document stated that the source was an article that appeared in the March 27, 1993, issue of the Ukrainian newspaper Holos Ukrayiny, on Page 5. Further down, however, a note in the document explained that the story was a reprint of an article, titled "Cosmic Revenge," that ran in another newspaper, Ternopil Vechirniy (see image below). Ternopil is a city in western Ukraine. 

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