"I Was Taken By Aliens In 1997!" -President of Russian Republic

Summary

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American Alchemy with Jesse Michels

Episode Summary: President of Russian Republic: "I Was Taken By Aliens While President!"

Air Date: December 14, 2025
Host: Jesse Michels
Guest: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)

Main Theme

This extraordinary episode features former Kalmykian President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov—one of the few world leaders to ever claim direct, conscious contact with extraterrestrials during his political tenure. The conversation explores Kirsan's detailed account of his 1997 “invitation” aboard an alien spacecraft, discusses the intersections of UFOs and global politics, and contemplates the implications for science, spirituality, and the future of humanity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background on Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

• President of Kalmykia (a Buddhist republic within Russia), 1993–2010.
• President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) for 23 years.
• Deep personal connections with major political and religious figures worldwide (Putin, Gorbachev, Kissinger, Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II).

2. The “Abduction” Experience (06:00–17:12)

Context:

• September 1997, Moscow: Kirsan describes returning home from work, then experiencing what at first felt like a “half dream” but insists was physical reality.
• "You are constantly using the term abducted. I was invited by them." (00:45)

Detailed Account:

• A glowing, translucent tube appeared outside his penthouse window ([06:00]).
• He entered this “corridor” and was transported to a vast craft occupied by “beings very similar to us” ([06:48]).
• The beings wore yellow garments; communication occurred telepathically.
• “I pressed, and then it was easy to breathe again. The air even smelled like the sea or the forest or something.” ([09:24])
• He was given reassurances that he would be returned safely and at the same point in relative time.
• The extraterrestrials described humanity as “still embryonic” and self-destructive, highlighting global warfare and environmental destruction, and compared humanity’s development to “learning to cook animals instead of eating them raw.”
  • “Your only civilizational leap is that before you used to eat them raw and now you kill and cook them and eat them in restaurants by candlelight.” ([12:20])

Return:

• Kirsan’s staff and driver could not find him for an hour. Suddenly, he emerged in a room that had been searched multiple times.
• Vasily (chief of staff) confirms the disappearance and reappearance ([21:10]).

3. Effects and Reflecting on the Experience (24:12–36:53)

• Kirsan claims no physical or mental side effects, only a deep sense of joy and confirmation that “we are not alone.”
• “Why was my state normal? Not surprised? Well, because I was there. Probably on purpose. They probably have this effect so that a person doesn’t go crazy…” ([24:12])
• He emphasizes that many high-profile figures have confided similar contact experiences after he went public.
• The decision to go public was difficult: “Just the cons list was about 10 to 20 points…there wasn’t a single pro, really” ([30:51]).

4. Governmental & Global Political Reactions (29:00–52:17)

• Kirsan discussed his experience with Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. Both leaders responded with polite skepticism but didn’t dismiss him ([68:35] – Yeltsin, [70:20] – Putin).
• Russian officials and journalists navigated the story cautiously; some close associates probed for more details ([29:38]).
• He notes ridicule and backlash from political opponents and chess figures: “Garry Kasparov immediately began to state...He must be removed and replaced.” ([30:51])

On UFO/Alien Knowledge Among World Leaders:

• Kirsan asserts that major world leaders (Putin, Trump, Xi Jinping, etc.) are certainly aware of UFO phenomena and may even have access to classified material ([50:42]).
• He recounts Kissinger and Gorbachev’s knowledge, including a story of a folder presented by a US President to Brezhnev that abruptly stopped lunar exploration:
  • "The President of the United States had a small folder...after that meeting, all research and all flights to the moon suddenly stopped." ([28:31], [49:30])

5. Global Perspective: The Chessboard, Ancient Knowledge, and UFO Cooperation (56:44–87:49)

On Ancient Knowledge Provided by ‘Them’:

• Kirsan claims ancient civilizations, pyramids, and even chess itself have extraterrestrial origins, citing uncanny technical achievements and the symbolic resonance of chess with DNA and duality.
• “Aliens invented it. Extraterrestrials invented it. Other civilizations invented it. Why does the chessboard have exactly 64 squares on it? 64 squares. Our DNA is made up of 64 DNA codons…” ([56:44])

On International Cooperation:

• He describes US-Soviet exchanges regarding unidentified underwater vehicles, coordinated in the interest of world security ([86:10]).

6. Spiritual and Philosophical Reflections (56:50–56:44; 103:48–124:34)

Dalai Lama & Buddhism on UFOs:

• Both Kirsan and the Dalai Lama believe “we are not alone,” but Buddhism places greater emphasis on understanding our own minds.
• “95% of our brain remains unexplored...if we study the brain more...perhaps without any need for spacecraft...we will be able to move through space, we will communicate with each other…” ([56:50])

Baba Vanga:

• Recounts personal experiences with the blind Bulgarian mystic, who foresaw Kirsan’s dual presidencies and confirmed “we are not alone.”
• “Are we alone here?...She even hit me a little and said, ‘what's wrong with you? Are you stupid or what? Can't you see it's all around you?’” ([95:35])

Underground Civilizations:

• Cites legends, scientific anecdotes, and Vanga’s testimony supporting the existence of advanced underground and underwater civilizations ([100:23]).
• “Even Baba Vanga told me sometimes she would point down with her finger and say, they are talking there. They are there...deep down, all the way to the core of the Earth, there are civilizations there as well.” ([100:23])

7. Iconic Encounters with World Leaders

Henry Kissinger:

• Multiple meetings reveal Kissinger’s familiarity with UFO subject matter and confidential documentation ([45:10]).
• “From our discussion, I understood that he is very familiar with the materials...located at the United States President's administration or CIA or NASA…”
• Kissinger, cryptically: “How are they? How are they feeling? What were they talking about?” ([45:10])

Other Claims:

• Relays an account of another current world president who confided his own UFO sighting on a fishing trip but refuses to go public ([65:47]).

Putin:

• Meticulous, detail-oriented, and takes UFO issues seriously ([72:38]):
  • “He examines every issue in great detail…Vladimir Putin’s memory is truly phenomenal…He takes everything very seriously…”
• Early 2000s, Kirsan claims to have advised Putin to consider joining NATO and unite humanity against not just terrorism but cosmic threats ([79:59]).

8. World Politics, War, and The Human Condition (111:43–124:34)

• Unique perspective on the US war in Iraq (Saddam Hussein) and the fall of Gaddafi, offering chess-like suggestions for peace that were declined ([112:10], [115:35]).
• Reframed the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, asserting Putin’s desire for peace and the need for diplomatic compromise ([118:53–121:43]).

9. The Path Forward: Humanity’s Evolution

• Advocates for “ethno-planetary thinking,” teaching children to see themselves as citizens of Earth instead of just their nation ([79:59]).

• Calls for international cooperation on UFO research and greater investment in understanding consciousness ([109:39]).

• “The paradigm is shifting now...the battle between the light cosmic energy and the dark energy...a battle for our Earth, for our minds.” ([122:48])

• Emphasizes that everyone is an “expert” in their own right through their experiences:

  • “Every person. You as well, the cameraman, anyone at all? All people are experts. All 8 billion. ...In every person's life, there are moments when they saw something unusual.” ([108:06])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You are constantly using the term abducted. I was invited by them.”
  — Kirsan Ilyumzhinov ([00:45], [68:35])

• “I asked to be shown around to see where I was. It was probably a spaceship. A very large open space, like several football fields... No one paid attention to me.”
  — Kirsan Ilyumzhinov ([09:24])

• “Your only achievement in civilization is that we created you, the intelligent beings here... your only civilizational leap is that before you used to eat them raw and now you kill and cook them and eat them in restaurants by candlelight.”
  — Alien message, as relayed by Kirsan ([12:20])

• Vasily (on Kirsan's return): “Some time passed, maybe an hour, and suddenly he appears from the bedroom, even though he wasn't there before. I was so surprised. Where did you come from, Kirson? ... He laughed and said, well, aliens took me.”
  ([21:24])

• Kirsan, about revealing the truth despite stigma:
  “If a farmer had said it... they would probably say he'd had too much vodka... But if the President say it... then they might treat it a little differently. But still, when I spoke about it, everyone just started laughing, mocking and joking... and look, almost 30 years have passed already, and people still don't understand.” ([30:51])

• Chess as Extraterrestrial Legacy:
  “Aliens invented it. Extraterrestrials invented it. Other civilizations invented it. Why does the chessboard have exactly 64 squares on it? 64 squares. Our DNA is made up of 64 DNA codons. … This is the specific code.” ([56:44])

• On Putin and other leaders:
  “Of course they understand as leaders of nations, they must be informed. … People chosen by God or by the universal consciousness.” ([50:42])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 06:00–17:12 — Detailed account of the 1997 encounter
• 21:10–24:12 — Eyewitness account: Chief of Staff Vasily on Kirsan’s disappearance
• 30:51–36:53 — The personal and political cost of going public
• 45:10 — Henry Kissinger and Gorbachev: Insights on UFO dossiers
• 50:42 — Do world leaders know about UFOs?
• 56:44–63:22 — Chess, consciousness, ancient knowledge, and cosmic symbolism
• 70:20–72:00 — Putin’s reaction to the story
• 95:35–103:48 — Baba Vanga: psychic insights, souls, and the omnipresence of “unseen beings”
• 100:23–103:48 — Underground civilizations
• 111:43–121:43 — Reflections on war: Iraq, Libya, and Russia-Ukraine
• 122:48–124:34 — Final philosophical reflections on humanity’s evolution

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Tone & Language

The episode balances awe, curiosity, and skepticism while maintaining a respectful and open-minded dialogue. Kirsan’s own tone is direct, philosophical, often poetic, and at times tinged with a sense of destiny. Jesse Michels asks probing yet respectful questions, seeking clarity and genuine understanding without sensationalism.

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Conclusion

This is a rare, in-depth testimonial from a former head of state—one who bridges the worlds of post-Soviet politics, Buddhism, chess, and claims of contact with “higher” intelligences. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov calls for humanity to overcome egocentrism, expand consciousness, and recognize that “we are not alone.” The episode provides ample material for reflection on the potential for global unity, the intersection of mysticism and statecraft, and the transformative possibility of contact—whether with extraterrestrials, underground beings, or new aspects of ourselves.

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Summary prepared for those seeking the core themes, ideas, and anecdotes in the episode without needing to listen end-to-end.

Transcript

[Host / Interviewer]

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[Host / Interviewer]

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[Host / Interviewer]

1-800-Contacts. You are, to my knowledge, the only leader of a prominent nation who was abducted by aliens and taken up on a spacecraft while you were a sitting President in 1997.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

You are constantly using the term abducted. I was invited by them.

[Co-host / Producer]

The episode you're about to watch is truly historic.

[Host / Interviewer]

I'm here with the great Kirsan Ilyum Zinability.

[Co-host / Producer]

Not only was he president of Kalmykia at the time of his alien visitation, but he was also president of fide, the World Chess Federation. He was in Vladimir Putin's inner circle for decades, has met many world leaders, including American presidents and secretaries of state. He knew some notorious figures like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi very well, but also befriended Pope John Paul ii. And because he was president of the only European Buddhist Repub of Russia, he also happens to be very close friends to this day with his Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

So over centuries, we have some special relations.

[Co-host / Producer]

Kirsan describes his entire experience in full detail.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

There was something like a translucent pipe, glowing, made of some matter. So I went along this tube, and there was something like a fiery. Like a planet giving off heat.

[Co-host / Producer]

In this exclusive interview, we get his chief of staff on record for the first time, saying that he searched Kirsan's penthouse apartment for hours. And then one of the rooms that they had thoroughly scanned, he just walked out of.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

It's so trippy.

[Co-host / Producer]

Beyond that, we discuss Putin and Trump's knowledge of UFOs and aliens.

[Host / Interviewer]

What do you think the Dalai Lama thinks about UFOs and extraterrestrials?

[Co-host / Producer]

Well, Kirsan even gives direct historical examples of the US and Soviets sharing knowledge on UFOs.

[Host / Interviewer]

Thank you. Nice to see you all.

[Co-host / Producer]

He even gives a fascinating anecdote about his longtime friend, American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Henry Kissinger was watching me closely. He was a man of few words. And Gorbachev, sitting next to him, said, come on, Henry, tell him.

[Co-host / Producer]

And if that's not all, Kirsan reveals that the president of a large sovereign nation that happens to be a close friend of his was also visited by aliens while he was on a fishing trip. Because Kirsan courageously went public with his own experience, this president felt comfortable confiding in Kirsan with the full details of his story. A story that's never been told before, but that Kirsan relays here Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping.

[Host / Interviewer]

These world leaders at the highest level, do you think they're aware of the alien presence and UFOs and UFO programs?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

The President of the United States had a small folder like this that he opened and showed to Brezhnev. Something quite interesting was in that folder. But after that meeting, all research and all flights to the moon suddenly stopped.

[Co-host / Producer]

So without further ado, sit back, relax and prepare to ascend into a higher dimensional space with this week's Kalmykian alchemist, Kirsan Ilyum Zinov. This episode is sponsored by Incogni. If you think UFO secrets are wild, you should see what data brokers keep on you. I'm not exaggerating. These companies track every search in every late night rabbit hole you've gone down at 1am they build full files on you and push it around the Internet like it's public information. That's why I personally use Incogni. Incogni goes after those data brokers, more than 250 of them, and forces them to delete your information. Not just hide it, not minimize it, they completely delete it. It's like having a full time private investigator fending off all of your stalkers. If you find your info sitting on some sketchy people finder site, you drop the URL into your dashboard and Incogni handles the takedown. So if you care about your privacy or you just don't want your digital footprint being bought and sold by strangers, get Incogni. Take your personal data back with Incogni. Use code American Alchemy at incogni.com americanalchemy for 60% off an annual plan. Again, incogni.com americananalchemy code americanalchemy.

[Host / Interviewer]

I'm here with the great Kirsan Ilyum Zina. This is an honor. I can't wait to speak to you. Today you were the president of Kalmykia, which is one of three Russian republics that is Buddhist and the only European Russian republic public that is Buddhist. And you were also president of the World Chess Federation. And perhaps most importantly, for the purposes of our show, which covers extraterrestrials and the nature of reality, you are, to my knowledge, the only leader of a prominent nation who was abducted by aliens and taken up on a spacecraft while you were a sitting president in 1997. And so it's an absolute honor to be with you. I want to maybe just start with the abduction itself. We spoke a little bit about this. But what happened to you in September of 1997?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Well, the most ordinary thing happened. Probably what happens to many aliens, that is Earthlings, you know, we call them aliens, and they call us the same because we are the fifth civilization on our Earth. Everything seemed ordinary. It was at the end of September 1997. I was in Moscow on a business trip. At that time, I was getting ready to return to Kalmykia to hold the Youth Self Government Week. In Kalmykia, we carried out an experiment where we handed over all the power in the Republic to young people under 25, from the position of President of Kalmykia to ministers, the Prime Minister and district heads. Before that, they trained for about a year. The idea was to show that everything moves forward, that the new generation must learn and take on responsibility. So it was a regular working environment. And around 10 in the evening, I returned from our Republic of Kalmykia office, which is located in Moscow, not far from my apartment. I got there, turned on the television as usual, and lay down to sleep to get some rest. Later, I kept analyzing the situation. Was it a dream or not? But I had three the driver, my assistant, the Minister of the Republic of Kalmykia, and my friend who came for me the next day. So I turned off the television. And then it was like a vision, like a half dream. But I think it was reality, because I saw someone, or rather, some sound was coming. My apartment is on the top floor, only the roof above. There were no nearby balconies to move from one to another. It was September, and I always sleep with an open window. And now someone is calling me. I approached the window and there was something like a translucent pipe, glowing, made of some matter, or maybe it was some kind of energy. And someone called me to go there. At first I thought about whether to go or not, like any person would, because it was kind of in plain sight. But I decided to go. Everything unknown is interesting to me. So I went along this tube or corridor and found myself in a space, a very large space. There were many people, or rather beings, very similar to us. As the Great Buddha wrote:2,600 years ago, in our solar system there are four more planets, similar to planet Earth, where practically the same exact people live only with different skin color, and therefore it wasn't too surprising to me. You know, in childhood, when we played football, we saw a saucer hovering over the football field, a few dozen boys watching it. Then when I was at the Artec summer camp near Mount Ayudag in the Republic of Crimea, and later when I served in the Soviet army as well.

[Host / Interviewer]

So what did the aliens look like? Their faces and what were they wearing?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I saw them clearly, although there was a bit of a lack of air. They were wearing yellow garments. One of them kind of suggested that I should press somewhere here on the chest. I pressed, and then it was easy to breathe again. I felt pretty comfortable. The air even smelled like the sea or the forest or something. I was pretty calm. I wasn't nervous. I just asked, will we be here for long? They said, we'll be back soon. Then I remembered the science fiction stories I had read about time fluctuation. I said, maybe an hour will pass here and on Earth. A hundred or a thousand years will have passed. And when we will return there, I will not meet my friends, nor my family, nor anyone. Maybe we will find ourselves there in another time, in another millennium. But the one who was escorting me said, it's fine. We'll return you to where we took you from. And at the same time I was a bit surprised at first, because I was speaking and they were not. Reminded me of my meetings with the Bulgarian prophet Baba Vanga, a very famous prophet. She was blind. She was answering before the translator had time to finish asking the question. It was the same situation with those beings who were well on our planet at that moment in time. So I calmly asked a question and they answered through know there was once a state, or rather a civilization called Atlantis, where people also communicated through thoughts. And even now on Earth, there is a tribe in Australia that communicates with each other over distance. I asked to be shown around to see where I was. It was probably a spaceship. A very large open space, like several football fields, large. No one paid attention to me. Everyone seemed to be busy with their own tasks. They were walking around, moving. Something was flickering, like screens, different colors, images. I asked, can you connect to the television from here? There are many channels like CNN or Russia Today, Al Jazeera. I said, why can't you address the people of Earth right now? Let the people of Earth know that you exist, that you have arrived and now observing. Or I can address them instead and say that I have met you. Interesting ones. We have waited for you so long. People like the great Tsiolkovsky and Sergei Korolev. The first person in space, Yuri Gagarin, on 12 April 1961. And when he was sitting in the spacecraft engines, on the first words, he said, with which you started today's interview, let's go.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

And then Gagarin said the words, let's go, and the rocket lifted off from the ground towards the new, the unknown. They looked at me and said, it's still early. You have not yet reached the level in your civilization's development to communicate with us. I said, how come we have television, the Internet, spacecrafts? They asked, do you converse with ants? I no. Well, we haven't learned to talk to ants yet. We live in different dimensions. Your only achievement in civilization is that we created you, the intelligent beings here. Not only humans, but everything that surrounds us like animals. Everything living around us also has intelligence. The same goes for cats, dogs, cows and so on. Your only civilizational leap is that before you used to eat them raw and now you kill and cook them and eat them in restaurants by candlelight. That is your level of development. Every creature that lives in the universe must go through certain stages and you still destroy each other. We kinda created you here, gave you a beautiful land, rivers, lakes, seas, and you pollute it with industrial waste, burn cut down these forests. Right now There are over 117 armed conflicts happening around the world. You are so beautiful. You have two arms, two legs, a head on your shoulders. Yet you direct all your science and efforts towards inventing weapons to kill each other as much as possible. Whether it's bacterial, chemical weapons, atomic weapons or neutron weapons, you are always coming up with ways to kill more people. I recall the words of Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein when he was what will the Third World War be like? What weapons will be used? He said, I don't know about the Third World War, but I know what people will use in the Fourth World War. Sticks and clubs, like our ancestors. And so that's where our discussion ended about whether to connect to television or not. On the other hand, they said they didn't want to disrupt the course of our civilization. You are currently at an embryonic level still. You have a scientist, Charles Darwin. He said that everything evolves evolutionarily. First living beings were in the water, then they came out of it, then there was a monkey. And so humans evolved from monkeys. On the other hand, there are various religious teachings. You have books like the Bible and Christianity and others like Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and others, that talks about something else. So just imagine if we say on television now that we have been here for a long Time, millennia, millions of years, watching. And not only us, but others too. Back in his time, the great scientist, the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, said that not even the whole universe, but simply our own galaxy. The solar system is teeming with different intelligent civilizations. And until we overcome our egocentrism, such contact communication probably won't happen. Official science constantly proves that the only intelligent being is the humans on this planet. If we don't overcome this, then we will never meet anyone and will constantly remain in these three spaces in three dimensions. So we only know three dimensions. Right, but there is a fourth and a fifth. While we are talking here in this beautiful place in the center of Tirana, the capital of Albania. Maybe there are other parallel worlds too. Maybe they are playing chess, having a conversation.

[Host / Interviewer]

And what did the spaceship look like? I know you said it was big, maybe multiple soccer fields. What was the kind of architecture like? And was it metal? Did it look like it was from material not made of this Earth?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I only saw it from the inside because I was immediately there. It was a large space, like several football fields large. Then we walked for a while. There were screens or like glass sheets. But the most interesting thing I noticed when I later analyzed the whole situation, was that they weren't paying attention to me at all. One of them was just telling me something and that was it. I just appeared there and it didn't matter. They were tall, dressed in these yellow outfits. That's it. And they didn't really pay attention to me. One of them led me to a large porthole, like a porthole window. And the reason I realized it was a ship was because it wasn't just hovering over Moscow. It seemed to move freely, shifting through different times, different spaces and different dimensions. Why? Because on Earth you couldn't see anything like that. I was looking and there was something like a fiery well, like a planet giving off heat. And from there they were taking out some kind of cylinders. Or maybe not cylinders, more like boxes. They were loading those into the ship. Maybe they were collecting something, maybe conducting experiments. Maybe they had landed on some planet while I was there. They might have gone down there and taken those boxes with them. We were probably moving through space. Maybe it came from the fourth dimension. Because now, according to quantum mechanics, according to quantum theory, objects can move in a matter of seconds from one end of the universe to another. Well, maybe it was Earth, just on the other side. Maybe it was the far side of the moon. But on the inside it was kinda ordinary. Well, like a room. They resemble us, as I already mentioned. Tall, yellow clothing. They practically did not speak, probably communicated thoughts to each other over a distance. I didn't feel anything unusual. Well, it seemed like I was in some kind of laboratory, a scientific laboratory or a practical laboratory. I realized it was a spaceship, because there were somewhat different people around me. But on the other hand, perhaps they could influence the state of the mind so that a person wouldn't go insane immediately. Because when I returned back to reality, to my apartment in the city of Moscow, I felt normal. My friends were already in the apartment looking for me for over an hour and couldn't find me. And then I came out of the bedroom, which they had entered and exited 10 times already. They even called the police. Everyone was looking for me. They arrived to pick me up at 11 in the morning. My assistant had the keys. He opened the door. They went in, went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Then, my friend, we need to wake Kirson up. We have to go to the airport. The bedroom door was open. They go in and I'm not there. Slippers are in place, phones are in place. They checked the bathroom and every other room in the apartment, but, well, I wasn't there. The balcony door was open and that's it. They went downstairs, asked the security, and he said, well, I didn't see him leave anywhere. The building isn't very big. They checked the video cameras. No one arrived or left, no one flew out. But the camera wasn't looking at the sky, mostly at the entrance and exit. And for a whole hour they were searching, wondering where I was.

[Host / Interviewer]

Vasily, how long have you worked with Kirsanyumzina?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

About 40 years.

[Host / Interviewer]

Wow, 40 years. Amazing. So very long. History. You guys are very close. What happened on the night of September 17, 1997?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

Well, that was a long time ago. The driver, a mutual friend, and I went to his apartment. We were supposed to take him to the airport. He was flying out at one o' clock in the afternoon that day to Ilista, which is the capital of Kalmykia. When we arrived at the house, I called him on the phone, but he didn't answer. So I decided to go up to the apartment. I had my own keys. I ringed the bell first, he didn't open. I unlocked the apartment with my key, went into one room, then another. He wasn't there, not in the kitchen either. Then I saw his clothes hanging. Two mobile phones were lying on the nightstand. I was surprised. Where did he go? So I called my friend up. I said, something weird is going on. We have a situation. His things are here, but he's nowhere to be found. Then some time passed, maybe an hour, and suddenly he appears from the bedroom, even though he wasn't there before. I was so surprised. Where did you come from, Kirson? You weren't here. He laughed and said, well, aliens took me.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

And after a certain time I just came out of the bedroom and went to the bathroom. They followed me into the bathroom and started touching me, like, are you alive or not? I said, alive. Well, where were you? I said I was flying with friends. They were showing me their ship or something like that. Yes, I was in space. Well, that's interesting. They say, no, you're probably joking. I say, no, it's true.

[Host / Interviewer]

When Kirsan came back down on the ship, or however he got back into that room and you asked him what had happened, he said to you, I was taken by extraterrestrials. And then at that point, did you.

[Co-host / Producer]

Ask a lot of follow up questions.

[Host / Interviewer]

And did you learn anything about his interactions with these extraterrestrials?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

I asked him. And how did you communicate with them? In what language? He said, at some subconscious level.

[Host / Interviewer]

Interesting. And did you learn anything else about the exact communication between him and the extraterrestrials? Did he asked them any questions and learn any interesting information that he then relayed to you?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

A difficult question. Well, you see, communication probably happens through thoughts, most likely. But he didn't tell me much. Maybe there were some secrets, secrets from everyone else because he communicated with them privately, you could say.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

So why was my state normal? Not surprised? Well, because I was there. Probably on purpose. They probably have this effect so that a person doesn't go crazy, so they don't take them to a psychiatric hospital. Right. Back in 1997-98, when I talked with one of the NASA representatives, he we officially record about 4,000 cases a year when people notice unidentified objects like saucers and some talk about their contacts. Well, why was I chosen? I think it's because I was supposed to say something about it.

[Host / Interviewer]

Who did you speak to at NASA? Who told you about the 4,000 encounters a year?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I met with many people. I can't remember all the names right now. I have business cards, though. It was very interesting back then, not only with NASA, but also with other space research centers in France, Japan, China and India. After I mentioned that I had a contact, I received many letters and inquiries. At that time I was the President of the Republic of Kalmykia and the President of the World Chess Federation, Fidelity, which Now includes about 200 countries I was also a senator and a member of the Parliament of the Russian Federation. I visited other countries, both officially and unofficially, and I had many friends in the United States of America. I was friends with Henry Kissinger, met with Jimmy Carter, and with many other presidents and representatives of NASA. I interacted with them back then in the 1990s. Well, for them it was a known thing, self evident. And then when we talked with the former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, he also spoke about the fact that there are various civilizations that have made contact with representatives of our Earth. Well, I'm sure you can probably just ask, just call NASA. I'm sure my visit was registered there somehow, or maybe not. But a few people from there invited me for a friendly lunch. When I was visiting as a member of the Russian Parliament in the United States Congress, I received a call. Someone introduced themselves saying, we're from NASA. We heard about your statement and would like to meet. They invited me for lunch. During the lunch, we had a friendly conversation. But it wasn't just representatives from NASA. There were also leaders from other countries. One of the presidents of a country which is part of the Group of Seven leading countries in the world, when I was at a dinner at his home while visiting that country, he started asking about my contacts with them and his wife. Well, you saw it too. We saw it when you were on vacation at the ocean. Tell him. He says, am I stupid or what? I have parliamentary elections in six months. My party is running. They'll say that the party leader, the president of the country, is a bit crazy. The people there will never elect. I didn't say right away that I met them. I thought for a long time about whether to say it or not. After all, at that time, in 1997, I held many official positions. I was also the president of the Russian Chamber of Businessmen and Entrepreneurs. So if I declare that I well communicate or meet aliens on a flying saucer, how will my fellow businessmen, friends like Oppenheimer or Rockefeller, Rothschild, and other businessmen from other countries regard me? How will senators, members of parliaments communicate with me? How will presidents of countries look at me?

[Host / Interviewer]

Do you speculate as to why they took Kirsan? Do you think it affected him in any way, either positively or negatively?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

A difficult question. People are afraid to admit that they believe in aliens, have seen aliens. You see, it takes some courage to talk about it, because it can be interpreted in different ways. You have to understand, he held a really high position back then.

[Host / Interviewer]

Absolutely, I agree.

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

You understand what I'm talking about? Right.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. Do you remember if the Russian government investigated the experience at all? Did they look into it? I know Kirstan spoke with Boris Yeltsin at the time. He also debriefed Putin. Do you know if they looked into it at all?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

Well, actually, he said that he talked with Yeltsin about this story. Whether Yeltsin reported it to Putin, I'm not aware.

[Host / Interviewer]

And did the Russian government come to you guys at all and ask further questions about what happened? Did they investigate it all? Or did they just kind of brush it off and and not think twice about it?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

There were some talks with journalists, you know, some close associates asked around. Government type.

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[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

As a politician, you need to calculate how your action or how your decree or regulation will affect the development of the country. So I took two sheets of paper and started writing the cons. I always start with the cons. If tomorrow I declare to the press that I've met with extraterrestrials or traveled on a spacecraft, what would people think? What would my business associates say? They'd probably how can we possibly conduct business with you? How could we entrust you with a hundred dollars? You'd just hand it over to the aliens and fly away with them. So just the cons list was about 10 to 20 points. Then a second sheet of paper with the pros. If tomorrow I tell journalists and my colleagues that I met with aliens, what would that give me? Some pr? I was already well known in the country and worldwide. I had an audience. Maybe it would bring in more votes. But it's the opposite. People would start talking stuff. And that is precisely what happened. The 13th world chess champion Garry Kasparov immediately began to state. What kind of president of the World Chess Federation can Kherson be if he has met with aliens? He must be removed and replaced. How can he possibly lead the Chess Federation if he's mentally unstable? The opposition, including communists and others within the Republic of Kalmykia, immediately will declare. We absolutely must re elect the President of the Republic. He is clearly not fit for office. He needs to be sent to a mental institution. He needs to be treated. So there wasn't a single pro, really. And so I didn't mentioned it. I was thinking about it, and then, as if in a dream one night while I was sleeping, I. What are you afraid of? Why aren't you speaking? You met with us, didn't you? I thought, what do I have to be afraid of? Perhaps I need to take a bold step or a heroic deed, even. Someone has to be the first to speak up. If a farmer had said it, or, you know, a doctor, or just an ordinary laborer, they would probably say he'd had too much vodka or perhaps took some substances. And now telling stories. So I've been thinking about it quite a bit. What if the President say it, or even twice the President, because I am both the President of the Republic and the President of Chess Federation. Then they might treat it a little differently. But still, when I spoke about it, everyone just started laughing, mocking and joking about it. And look, almost 30 years have passed already, and people still don't understand. To this day, they don't understand me. They think that they are alone in this universe and on this earth.

[Host / Interviewer]

Do you have any alternative explanation for what happened to Kirsan that night? Have you thought of anything else that's possible? Beyond him being taken by extraterrestrials aboard a spacecraft?

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

Well, teleportation, maybe.

[Host / Interviewer]

And you fully trust Kirsan? He would never be dishonest with you.

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

He's a very honest man, an honest person. I've known him for a long time. As I said, I met him over 40 years ago. We've been going through life together ever since.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

It was the year 97. How old was I? 35. 35 years old. And behind me? Well, I was already the President of Kalmykia. By the way, I entered the Guinness Book of Records twice as the youngest president in the world and as the only person who held two official positions at the same time. President of the World Chess Federation and President of the Republic of Kalmykia. And on top of that, I was a Member of Parliament, a member of the Senate. I was also the president of the Russian Chamber of Entrepreneurs and an advisor to many presidents around the world, including the president of South Korea and the president of Mongolia. I had friends in many countries. I traveled a lot. One time, I set a record. In a single year, I visited 108 countries. 108 in one year.

[Host / Interviewer]

That's amazing.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

And, yeah, I wasn't going there as a tourist, not to look around the city or anything like that. I was going there to work. You arrive in the morning, meet with the president, then hold a press conference with the Prime Minister. In the morning, you're in Uruguay. By lunch, you're in Paraguay in the evening, Brazil the next day, New York, Boston, then Canada and so on. It was nonstop. Why am I saying all this? To show that I wasn't some unstable person. Right. I'm not crazy. Because when I said I had met with extraterrestrials, people thought Kirsan had gone khuku off my rocker. Right? Right. I had a lot behind me, a lot of business. Back in the early 90s. I had more than 50 companies. I founded the first trading exchange, Russian paper. So I had business, politics, connections. I was friends with the Rockefeller family, the Henry Kissinger family, the Oppenheimer family, the Rothschild family. I did business with families like that, traveled and so on. But In September of 1997, they came to me. They flew down from the sky, they landed, and they said, kirsten, come with us to the spaceship.

[Host / Interviewer]

Why do you think they took you? Did they tell you why they took you specifically?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

And not only me. Later, after I gave that interview, dozens and even hundreds of politicians, even presidents of countries, told me that they had met them too. A certain critical mass is forming. They took me, and maybe they took some housewife and a pilot and someone else. They keep taking more and more people. So I think they're following an evolutionary path to create a critical mass of understanding so that as many people as possible, as many living beings, humans, would begin to realize that we are not alone. And they told me, you are all egocentrics. I said, when will you start communicating with us, with me, with humanity? And they said that when you reach a certain level of your civilization, your level of civilization does not allow us to speak with you, and your level of civilization does not allow you to understand us. I mean, even if you look at our own history, only about 400 years ago, here in Europe, in Italy, right here, nearby, literally a hundred meters from here in the square, people were being burned. People were taken and burned for Saying that the Earth is round. And that was only 400 years ago, they say. What kind of civilization are you talking about?

[Host / Interviewer]

Did you come back with any sort of marks on your body or any physical effects? Anything change as far as your mentality?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

No. I could easily just make something up, Say they implanted some kind of chip in me, or did something else changed me. But no. The only thing I truly felt was that deep down in my soul, I always believed and knew we were not alone. For me, this was a source of great joy. I was so happy that I, one of the very few, or perhaps many, actually got to see them. It brought me immense joy that I was able to witness them myself. But I didn't discover any mental or physical changes in my body or in my mental state. It simply gave me the confidence that we need to actively try to seek out contact with them. And for that, we must work on our collective soul, humanity.

[Host / Interviewer]

I mean, do you know where the aliens came from? Did they come from another planet or a parallel dimension? Did they tell you specifically?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I did asked, where are you from? That was one of the very first questions. I was really curious, you know, I asked many questions and received a lot of answers. And I can't really talk about all of those questions and answers right now. Well, perhaps the time hasn't quite come yet, But I remember there were formulas, like, not on a blackboard, but like in space. He'd conjure them up one after another. There were various symbols. I don't recall the letters or numbers. Now. I clearly saw it right there in front of me. What I truly regret now is when I returned home to my apartment, the three friends of mine started pushing me, asking, what's up? Where have you been? They couldn't believe where I was, but I just needed to grab a pen and write all of it down, everything that I saw. Because then it just kinda wore off and faded. I mean, you know, one thing I can still clearly recall is that feeling of lightness and pure joy. I was smiling the entire time, and my friends would pinch me, saying, he's alive, he's alive. I told them I was on another planet. And even now, after all this time, was it 97? Yes. Almost 30 years have gone by, but still, when I think back on it, I always get this feeling of joy and a smile appears on my face. It's because I got to see my friends.

[Host / Interviewer]

Do you remember anything else that you learned from the answers they gave to your questions?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

The main thing I'd really like to relay is the same what's written in those holy books, all these ancient texts did not appear out of nowhere. You know, the Vedas, the Quran, the Bible, the Talmud. Or take Leonardo da Vinci for example. He was given information as well. You see, how is it even possible, you might ask 500 years ago, in the 15th century, to sketch a submarine, a helicopter, an airplane, advanced technical devices that would only be invented centuries later. Where did these ideas come to him from? This means they must have come from above. Perhaps aliens were the ones who told him. When you look at the old irrigation systems, the whole water supply, the melioration work in Egypt, things no computer today could really calculate. Or the buildings in Peru or in Lebanon, in Egypt, the pyramids, they built it with such precision right now, no modern technology can, you know, actually recreate that. Even the largest cranes we have today couldn't lift these hundred ton stone blocks, the slabs used in building ancient palaces. Meaning a person today just couldn't build that, couldn't build it now. So it must have been another civilization that built it. And they still stand. Or take the pillar in the center of Delhi in India. It's got 99.9% iron. And in modern conditions, no metallurgical plant, not a single blast furnace can produce iron that pure. You can walk right up to that pillar, touch it, all of that. Or for example, in Brazil, when they're sawing through marble mountains, cutting marble slabs, they find pieces of a clock inside the marble. They even found a gear. How is that possible? This marble took millions and millions of years to form. And how did this metallic thing get in there? Many things like these, these artifacts that people seem to want to explain, but thus far simply cannot. We interrupt this broadcast for a very important briefing. You've been selected, purely at random and definitely not min monitored to attend a routine informational briefing regarding odd happenings across the globe.

[Co-host / Producer]

There's absolutely nothing unusual about this.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

That's right, it's probably nothing. Agents Ramsey and Michaels will embark on a perfectly ordinary North American tour to discuss strange sightings, testimonies and evidence that will force the government to say, it's probably nothing. Each evening sessions will feature expert analysis, audience interrogations, and at least one moment.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Where you turn to the person next.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

To you and whisper, well, but rest assured, it's probably nothing. Should you experience confusion, excitement or sudden clarity during the show, do not worry, it's probably nothing. Whether you're a believer, a skeptic, or simply dating one, your attendance is highly encouraged and statistically safe.

[Host / Interviewer]

So if you're in Austin Texas or in Montreal, Canada.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Go to itsprobablynothing.com to secure your seats today. And remember, crash saucers, mysterious abductions, nuclear flyovers. It's probably nothing. Now back to your regular scheduled programming.

[Host / Interviewer]

You mentioned all these amazing figures that you met. Kissinger, Rockefeller, Rothschild, all these sort of, you know, names. Can you talk about your interactions with Kissinger? You know, I've explored maybe the fact that he knew about extraterrestrials and actually was in charge of some UFO efforts for the United States. Do you think that was the case?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I have met with Henry Kissinger many times. The first time was during my first visit with a parliamentary delegation from the Soviet Union in 1990. Then again in 1991. I visited him at his apartment. He is a chess player, a good one, too. We played more than once back then, in the 1990s when we used to meet, the conversations were usually only about politics. Then a few years later, he was in Moscow. During one of his visits to the city, he was friends with the first President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. I was also friends with Gorbachev. We communicated a lot. So one time Gorbachev called and said, we're coming over. Heat up the sauna. So they both visited me. Henry Kissinger was watching me closely. He was a man of few words. When he was in company like that, he mostly kept quiet, just asking questions. That's how he was. Very thoughtful. Talked about chess. Back then, the world championship was being held in the United States. He asked about the championship, about the world champion. And then he suddenly asked, well, how was it? I didn't understand. He was like, how are they? How are they feeling? What were they talking about? At first I thought maybe he was asking about some political meeting. He said, well, don't be shy. I read. I heard about it. So I told him a bit about everything. He was like, yes, interesting, interesting, and not much else. And Gorbachev sitting next to him. Come on, Henry, tell him. You should tell him everything. He just smiled. But he did not say anything at the time. And then probably a few years later, we met him again. He was visiting Gorbachev and me as well. They stopped by my place again. That time he was a bit more talkative, and we had a bit of a conversation. From our discussion, I understood that he is very familiar with the materials, that he is well versed and very deep in the subject, and that he knows a lot about the materials and the documents that are located at the United States President's administration or CIA or NASA. He was asking about it and talking about it in a professional way. Very interesting stuff. So then during this very meeting, Gorbachev, when the three of us were sitting, reminded us about the folder that KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov had told him about. They were friends with Gorbachev. And so one time, Andropov shared a story about the first meeting between the leader of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev, and the President of the United States. I think it was Nixon at the time. After the meeting ended and only a few people remained, the President of the United States had a small folder like this that he opened and showed to Brezhnev. And Andropov was present at that meeting. He was invited as the chairman of the kgb. Something quite interesting was in that folder. But after that meeting, all research and all flights to the moon suddenly stopped. You know, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race back then, a competition to see who would send more ships to the moon. The United States, NASA sent astronauts, the very first astronaut, Armstrong, and others who landed and walked on the moon. And the Soviet Union, for its part, sent rovers. And significant expeditions from both sides were already being prepared for deployment. However, following this crucial meeting between the two presidents, everything abruptly came to a complete stop. All funding for lunar exploration was entirely halted, both from the Soviet Union and from us. And what it all came down to, just as Gorbachev himself told me, was this very folder that the US President showed to our leader. Back then, there was a special department of administration within the KGB of the USSR for researching these unknown flying, and not just flying, but also underwater objects. They were found deep underwater. Some massive shining searchlights were observed and recorded by English, American, Soviet and Russian sailors. And yet, regardless of everything, the exploration of the moon simply ceased.

[Host / Interviewer]

Do you think Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping these world leaders at the highest level, do you think they're aware of the alien presence and UFOs and UFO programs?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Of course they understand as leaders of nations, they must be informed. Believe in yourself, believe your own mind. That's on the one hand. On the other hand, individuals of such a significant caliber like Putin, Trump, Xi Jinping, Modi, and other leaders of these very large and influential nations are not simply people elected by the populace, but rather, if one were to put it that way, people chosen by God or by the universal consciousness. They say you just cast a ballot, you drop a piece of paper in there. But no, if people like that come to power, then they influence the course of the development of civilization, the course of the development of humanity, whether it is good or bad. They are already influencing things not by themselves, but through something that is given to them. Some kind of force that comes from above, some combined energy that expresses itself in this President and in another president as well. And that is why I always said that a president elected by the people is not only elected by the people, he is chosen by God.

[Host / Interviewer]

Have you ever asked to see a ufo? Assuming that both the Russians and the Americans have them in their possession in different hangars, aerospace, have you ever said, hey, I was taken up on the ship, can I maybe see a ufo?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Well, leaders probably know something about it. I'm thinking of the President of the United States. Do you remember in 1961 or 1960, John Kennedy declared he wanted to declassify some secret files concerning aliens and UFOs. But then a tragic incident occurred and he was killed. They didn't allow him to reveal it. And to this day, everyone is still stirred up by Area 51, located in the United States. Recently, my friends were in the United States and wanted to drive up there to take a look. But when they drove up, the military didn't let them through. It's guarded in a way that makes no sense, like it's the most secret site ever. They don't let tourists in, they don't let anyone in. Nobody can really get close to it. What's there? Maybe it's the remains of a spacecraft. Maybe someone is there. Maybe there are some kinds of technologies stored there. Well, something strange is there if they don't let anyone in. And I was also speaking with one of the leaders of a certain country, a European nation. Back then I had extremely good relations with him. And when I was a guest at his home, we went for a walk.

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[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

We had some tea, then left the house and walked in the park for a while. And he was telling me something very interesting about these things. I said, well, you should tell people. Give an interview if you have the material. He's not the President anymore. That was, I think, 25, 30 years ago. He says, I cannot, I do not have the right to say. I met several times with the previous Pope, John Paul ii. I think it was during his time in the late 80s, the Pope signed a decree and a special observatory was established right there inside the Vatican. They've opened an observatory and appointed one of their bishops as the director for research into all these extraterrestrial civilizations and UFOs. If the Vatican has opened it, then there must be something to it.

[Host / Interviewer]

So the Vatican has a dedicated UFO researcher in the observatory?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Well, as far as I know, their research is classified. But such a department still exists to this day. It hasn't been disbanded. But back then, when I met the Roman Pope in 1994, I didn't quite understand it. He had this phrase. Well, not exactly a phrase, but the idea was that we are not alone. We are not alone in this universe, you know? He was friends with the 14th Dalai Lama, the head of the Buddhists. They would periodically meet and hold debates on the soul's reincarnation. Like how a person dies, how many times they are reborn. Is there rebirth? Is there life after death? In Christianity, a person is born, and then there's the judgment of God. You either go to heaven or you go to hell, right? But in Buddhism, a person is reborn. They live again. They go through a hundred and eight lives, one life, then another, all the way to the hundred and eighth. I'm living my 69th life now. That's what the Buddhist monks told me. So I take this life calmly. If something doesn't work out in the end, if I don't manage to discuss everything, don't get to meet other civilizations. Well. Well, for now, I think humanity isn't ready to communicate directly, to meet with them, because we haven't yet risen in our spiritual and mental development.

[Host / Interviewer]

What do you think the Dalai Lama thinks about UFOs and extraterrestrials?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Well, he also says we're not alone. But the Dalai Lama and Buddhism, they look at it in a much broader way. I see it the same way as well. Meaning you do need to look up there, far into the sky, but we keep looking out there, while we still haven't really studied what's going on right here in our own head. Our brain is right here in our head, but it only works at 3 to 4%. Some use 1%, others maybe a little more, like those who play chess. Perhaps 4 or 5%, maybe more. But 95% of our brain remains unexplored. Perhaps if we study the brain more. For instance, in Russia, there's a Brain Institute. If we delve deeper into brain research, then perhaps without any need for spacecraft or such, we will be able to Move through space, we will communicate with each other, we will become much smarter, and so on. And therefore, while serving as the president, I led the World chess federation for 23 long years. And for me, the guiding principle was 1 billion intelligent people, 1 billion chess players can truly change the world. We must change the world specifically within our own consciousness. And so I tried to introduce chess in schools so children would start playing from childhood. Why? Because chess is the only activity that allows you to train both the left and right hemispheres to look one move ahead, two moves ahead, five moves ahead. And if people, for their own good, learn to look ahead, then I believe there will be peace and people will spend more of their money on science, on healthcare. You know, back in my time in the 90s, I addressed the heads of state at the United Nations. Every single year, we spend trillions and trillions of dollars on creating weapons just to kill one another. And imagine if all 203 countries, the ones in the UN, agreed and said, let's take this year and all those, what, a hundred billion or even a trillion dollars that go into making weapons, rockets, bombs, all kinds of munitions, and instead direct it toward the study of our human brain or for the creation of a new medicine against oncology, against cancer, against diabetes, against Alzheimer's disease. Let's take these funds and direct them towards ourselves, for our health and for the study of our own brains. Then perhaps we would develop much faster. But for some reason, the members of parliament and people elect these parliaments, whether it's in Britain, in America, wherever there's a parliament, in Congo, in different countries, in Argentina. What do those deputies end up voting for? For the military budget. Instead of spending just 3 to 5% of that money on medicine, on healthcare, on inventing new drugs to cure ourselves, to study our own brains. These deputies who are supposed to represent the people, they say, let's just make more weapons. Presidents also elected by the people, sign decrees. Let's keep making weapons. But if they were to play chess, they would realize that the weapons they are inventing will, in the end, kill not only them, but will destroy all of humanity. What is the point of this? It is not needed. So chess, it's something that was brought in from somewhere else. Man didn't invent them, you see, Aliens invented it. Extraterrestrials invented it. Other civilizations invented it. Why does the chessboard have exactly 64 squares on it? 64 squares. Our DNA is made up of 64 DNA coids. This is, you know, like information transfer. Or in all the chess sets that were found in America, in Peru, in China, in India, in Japan. Everywhere there are black and white squares. Black and white, what does that mean? It's yin and yang, good and evil, man and woman. This represents the law of unity and struggle of opposites. This is the specific code. And so I want to take this opportunity to present to you. These are Kalmyk national chess, made of felt, because we Kalmyks are nomads. Genghis Khan is our ancestor, a Mongol. He went from one ocean all the way to the other ocean. The great Genghis Khan and all the nomads, every single one, played chess. And these chess sets were crafted from felt. This is what they actually look like. And this, you see, is the board itself. It's a felt one, as you can tell. And these, of course, are the actual pieces. These figures you can see, they're all made from bones of different animals. And this is how it opens up when you're out on a trip.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Wow.

[Host / Interviewer]

It's beautiful.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Here is a chessboard. And then we'll arrange all the pieces.

[Host / Interviewer]

This is beautiful.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

There you go.

[Host / Interviewer]

What's your favorite piece on the chessboard?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

A knight. Indeed. Here's the knight.

[Host / Interviewer]

You're a master, right? You're a chess master.

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

Yes.

[Host / Interviewer]

So you must be very good.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

First move, please.

[Host / Interviewer]

Yeah. D2.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

D4.

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

D2.

[Host / Interviewer]

D4. Yeah.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I propose we call it a draw.

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

Perfect.

[Host / Interviewer]

The first time I've ever gotten a draw with a master like yourself, and maybe the last time, too. But thank you for taking. Taking mercy on me.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

So when it comes to chess, you see, in Mongolia, there are archaeological excavations, burial mounds, and in one of these burial mounds, they actually found these kinds of figures, some of which are more than 5,000 years old. In Peru as well, in Latin countries, in America. In some other countries, they also discover chess pieces or chess boards that are several thousand years old.

[Host / Interviewer]

So it must be the universal.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Back then, there was no communication, no Internet, nothing at all. So how did chess get here? It must have been brought here by another civilization. For what purpose? In order for a person to become a bit smarter, it's necessary to develop your mind.

[Host / Interviewer]

You've shown a lot of courage in even discussing extraterrestrials and your experience with them. Have you ever met anybody else on your level, you know, who's prominent in business or a world leader, president of another country, who also has gotten abducted and come, you know, gone up on an alien spaceship?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Well, I can speak about some people, but not about the others because they are currently active politicians. But I can Tell you about the billionaire, a very well known businessman in Italy. Zamperini. He claimed to have met with aliens. He himself is from Italy. He was the owner of the football club Sicilia. So when he heard my interview, he called right away and invited me over. And then he showed me a field. He had this wheat field, you see, where a spaceship had landed on several occasions. The very first time it landed, it left these distinct circles on the ground. He invited scientists. They photographed everything. And then he made these golden plates with imprints of the spacecraft's landing and gave them to me. I have one of them at home, framed on the wall. My other friend. Well, I can't name him just yet. He's the president of a country, a very large one. I was visiting him at his place. During dinner, his wife said to him, kirson spoke publicly about the aliens. So, go on, tell the story. They both witnessed it. The president and his wife, the first lady, were on vacation on the coast, fishing. And this ship was descending there. And he says, well, how am I supposed to talk about it? I have elections coming up. I am the president of this country, the leader of the party. I'm not yet as crazy as you are, and I will not reveal it.

[Host / Interviewer]

He said while he was fishing, he met the aliens. Did they come down on the spaceship and come out to him?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

He saw them, yes. He said it happened during fishing, and he saw them quite closely. Another famous person is Vasily Smyslov, the world chess champion. At the opening ceremony of the World Chess Championship in the Kremlin, after it had been officially opened, there was a formal reception followed by a banquet. And at that banquet he came up to me with his wife, Nadezhda. He was quite tall, about 2 meters. He took me aside by the elbow, pulling me away very politely. He leaned in slightly to my ear so no one would hear, and Kirsten, tell me, tell me, did you actually meet them? Did you meet them? Then he leaned back, looking me in the eye. Just answer yes or no. Yes or no? I said, yes, of course. Then he turned to his wife and said, that's it, that's it. Can we publish the recordings now? I say, why? What happened? And he said, In 1974, I've already forgotten whether it was 74 or 72. But in the 70s he played a match in Germany against a German chess player, Huebner. And right before the first game, in his hotel room, he caught a slight cold and had just ordered some hot tea. So he was just sitting in his office, deep in thought, analyzing the game, planning all his moves. And then you could say an alien appeared right before him. He says it was like, well, not a physical being, but more like an image, a translucent entity or something. And it started moving the pieces on the board. So if it was moving the pieces, then it must have been material. And it showed him the whole match. And the next day, the game repeated one to one. The exact chess match that he played against an extraterrestrial documented it in his records. But later, when he returned to Moscow, back to the Soviet Union, his wife strictly advised him not to speak of it to anyone. After all, he was the world chess champion. So I asked, why didn't you tell us back then, in the 70s, 50 years ago? He said, if I had said anything, they would have taken me to a nuthouse. I go. But I did spoke up. And he was like, well, you're the president. They probably wouldn't risk taking you there just yet.

[Host / Interviewer]

At the time of your abduction, Boris Yeltsin was president. Did you call him and did you say, hey, I went up on the spaceship with the aliens? And how did he react?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

You are constantly using the term abducted. I was invited by them.

[Host / Interviewer]

You were invited? You were invited.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

However, there was no dedicated meeting about this subject. The President of Russia regularly holds meetings inviting governors and presidents of republics. And at one of the meetings, we were already leaving. Yeltsin said, kirsten, please stay for a couple of minutes. I thought it was just a question about Kalmykia, so I stayed. He goes, have a seat, have a seat. We didn't sit at the main table where the meeting was, but in another area with armchairs and a sofa. So we moved a bit into another room, another part of the office. So we sat down. He was right in front of me and said, it's been reported to me that you've been up there. He was choosing his words so carefully. Up there on a spacecraft. He was being serious, but also somewhat joking. I said, yes, something like that happened. I briefly told the story. He was like, yes, I know, I heard about it. Is everything okay? He asks me, all good. I said, you mean my mental state, right? Am I thinking clearly? I haven't gone completely mad. He just stood up and gave me a pat. He said, alright then, carry on with work. And so I went on to continue working.

[Host / Interviewer]

Did you ever speak to Putin, who you've had a long relationship with, about Your experience in 1997?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Yes, but there wasn't a specific conversation about that either. It actually took place after our meeting. Vladimir Putin invited Me specifically to discuss issues related to the Republic of Kalmykia, as well as the chess championship. So after the presentation, he took off his jacket and then he said, please tell me exactly how everything transpired, how it all unfolded. It was a very polite conversation. Then he asked, were you in your right mind then? You weren't drunk, were you? Everything was normal. I said, yes, I was completely in my right mind. He asked, why did you decide to speak about it? I said, well, they asked me to share the story. It's interesting for other people. Well, yes, yes, I told him I thought about it for a long time, and of course, it's not really normal for me as a politician, what I'm saying, voters, people, Russians, they won't take me seriously. But on the other hand, for me, this is the absolute truth and I must speak the truth. I'm not a careerist. I don't want to constantly be climbing the corporate ladder or anything like that. For me, the most crucial thing is to convey the truth. If I manage to do that, what more could I possibly say? I thought more people would pay attention. I've long since begun to realize that we are not alone, that science and government need to pay attention, to allocate money and resources, that they shouldn't treat people with irony if they saw a flying saucer somewhere, but rather approach it scientifically at the state level through intergovernmental research, to exchange information. And therefore, as President of the Republic, I officially stated I am of sound mind. And I am saying that we are not alone on this planet and we are not alone in the cosmos. We need to take this matter seriously and dedicate ourselves to it.

[Host / Interviewer]

Do you think Putin takes the issue of extraterrestrials and UFOs seriously? Do you think he's investigated them and really, you know, is interested in that topic?

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

I know for a fact that this is of utmost importance and many presidents and governments, leaders of countries, including Vladimir Putin, are involved. He takes everything very seriously. He examines every issue in great detail. Whenever he sits down to have a conversation with you, he always has a pen and a paper. And no matter what questions are asked, even chess related ones, he meticulously writes them all down. Vladimir Putin's memory is truly phenomenal. He remembers everything with great clarity. We've known each other since 1993. It'd been 32 years now. It was in 93 when I was elected President of Kalmykia. I was invited to St. Petersburg by Governor Anatoly Sobchak. @ that time, we signed the Very first inter regional agreement between St. Petersburg and the Republic of Kalmykia. And I am grateful to Sobchak and Vladimir Putin, who was then serving as Vice Governor. And thanks to this particular agreement, we were able to provide a great deal of assistance to Kalmykia. We also helped the St. Petersburg City hall to restore a Buddhist temple. It was built there in St. Petersburg to commemorate the centenary of the victory over the French. Remember when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812? Then in 1814, Russian forces defeated the French army and Napoleon. And in Paris in 1814, the very first troops to enter the city were the Kalmyk cavalry, Cossack regiments, riding on camels, no less. Yes, they actually rode into Paris on their camels. And among the crowds gathered to greet them, a well known French writer, Honore de Balzac, was standing there observing the scene. And he saw the Kalmyks. He even wrote an essay titled Kalmyks in Paris. And another famous French writer, Alexander Duma, was invited by one of the Kalmyk warriors, our prince. He came to visit. He arrived in the Kalmyk steppes and lived there for three months, watching camel races and horse races. And he wrote a great deal about the Kalmyk people. We are not Buddhists by nature. We are Tengrians. Tengri, translated from Kalmyk and Mongolian, means sky. We Kalmyks believe in the great sky. That is why I love space, why I flew into space, why aliens come here from space? Because all the time my grandmother and the older generations would pray and would tell us to look to the sky. The great sky, the great blue sky. And when Genghis Khan began his great campaigns, the great Genghis Khan always turned to the sky. O great sky. O great Tengri, give me strength. Tengri, give me strength. Sky. We draw our energy from the sky, from space, from the stars. And for kalmyx, our gaze has always been turned upward, always looking there. That is Tengrianism. And then there's another great Kalmyk who influenced the history of one sixth of the land on Earth was our fellow countryman, Vladimir Lenin Ulyanov, the founder of the Soviet State and the Communist Party. The Great October Revolution took place, as you know. And on 1/6 of the land on Earth, which is 22.4 million square kilometers, a socialist system was established. And after that a communist system was supposed to be established. So Lenin was a Kalmyk, his grandmother was Kalmyk, and his grandfather was a Kalmyk named Ulyan. Ulyan is a Kalmyk word. And that is why we Kalmyks are proud that our countryman Lenin Ulyanov influenced the development of all humanity. And when the Democrats came to power in Moscow in the 90s, the conversation began about removing him from the mausoleum, you know, on Red Square, the mausoleum Lenin is lying there. Or rather Lenin's body, the corpse of Lenin. And when the democrats wanted to remove him from there, to rebury him elsewhere, I spoke out in his defense as the president of Kalmykia, I said that if they did not want Lenin in Moscow, I was ready to move the mausoleum to Kalmykia, to Ilista, and let our countrymen rest with us in.

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[Host / Interviewer]

Copilot. You know, there are a couple of different from the US from interviews that I've done a couple of times, the UFOs have come up in the context of Russia. I was speaking to a presidential advisor of jfk, lbj, Nixon and Ford, and he was friends with Anatoly Dobrynin. And Dobrynin once brought up UFOs with him and said he was very interested. And I don't know if you know this, but Medvedev, many years ago, I think he might have even been president at the time, gave an interview and it was on April Fool's Day. But the interviewer asked him a question and he brought up UFOs and he said the UFOs are locked up with the nuclear codes. And he was saying it like it was a joke, but you couldn't really tell. Maybe he was a little more serious than met the eye. And so it was very, very interest. And I know you, you were very close with Putin for a very long time and you advised him very closely, right? Like we were at, at dinner the other day and you said that you advised Putin to join NATO in the early 2000s. Is that.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Correct? As the President of Kalmykia, I was part of the State Council of the Russian Federation, which is headed by the President. When Yeltsin came and then Putin, the communist ideology disappeared. So we declared that we would build a market based state. What I mean is those fundamental principles, things like human rights and so on, were affirmed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. So then the Berlin Wall was destroyed completely. Germany was reunited, the Federal Republic of Germany and the gdr, the German Democratic Republic. Everything came together. Seems like there's no wall between us. We need to stop the arms race. At that time, Gorbachev was told that NATO would not advance further, meaning it would stop. So we were discussing the next steps. And as one of the suggestions, I would say Vladimir Putin made a true chess move. He then suggested to Western countries that Russia could also join NATO. The confrontation was between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Now the Warsaw Pact is disbanded. It's all gone. The Communist idea gone. So now we have a common enemy, terrorism. Osama bin Laden was the face of it. Then when September 11 happened, Putin was the very first President to call the President of the United States of America to express condolences to the American people. And the President of the United States. And so the President of Russia said, why don't we unite together in the fight against a common evil? Yes, terrorism. But on the other hand, there are good and not so good extraterrestrials, right? Some of them might even want to enslave our Earth. So we need to defend ourselves against a cosmic threat. Not in the sense that someone wants to bomb us, but, you know, when a huge asteroid is flying toward us, something like that could wipe out our entire civilization. So we also need to prepare a kind of weapon that could break up that asteroid before it even reaches Earth. That's what our President of Russia meant, that we should unite against a common enemy of humanity. So why aren't we combining our efforts? But back then, they didn't listen to that idea. And if they had followed through, if a dialogue had begun, it would have been good for us ordinary people, for us simple citizens of Earth. I see myself not only as a citizen of the Republic of Kalmaykia, not only as a citizen of the Russian Federation, I feel like a citizen of our Earth, meaning I consider myself a member of earth itself. In 93, when I became President of the Republic of Kalmykia, I abolished the old constitution and we adopted a new one, a new Constitution of Kalmykia. And in 94, we had a new article 10 our article number 10, it states that all citizens of the Republic of Kalmykia, meaning everyone living in Kalmykia, are responsible for everything that happens on the planet on Earth, for hunger in Africa, for the ozone hole, let's say somewhere over Australia, where, because of these greenhouse gases and all that, a hole might be forming if some asteroid is flying toward us. All of that, we actually put that into our constitutional norms, meaning we wrote in there that we are responsible not only for the problems on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia or the Russian Federation, but that we carry responsibility for the continuation of life on Earth so that we pass this planet, our life here, onto our children, our grandchildren, our descendants, and leave it in the same condition in which we received it. And we wrote that into the Constitution of Kalmykia that we must unite. That was the message our president was sending. And what we wrote into the Constitution of Kalmykya in 94 became a constitutional norm, meaning we are responsible for all of this. And thanks to that Constitution. In the schools of the Republic of Kalmykia, students began receiving lectures on ethno planetary thinking. We began developing ethnoplanetary thinking in children, an ethno way of thinking, so that a person's thinking, people's thinking, wouldn't be limited, so that a child's consciousness, a young person's consciousness, wouldn't be confined by the borders of their city or by the borders of the United States or France or Russia, but by the borders of the north and South Poles. Our Earth is our home, our native home, and we have to protect this home and pass it on to others. That's the main message. And the aliens who come here and observe us, they want us to pass this planet on in good condition so that we keep developing and eventually reach their level. This is what Buddhism.

[Host / Interviewer]

Teaches. On that note, when you mentioned Nixon and Brezhnev speaking and Nixon giving information to the Soviet Union in the 70s about what the CIA and the White house knew about UFOs and aliens, was there ever a time where there was a joint space effort, where both the Soviets and the US were working on UFOs and alien technology together? And if not, do you think it's possible in the.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Future? Of course, there were contacts and cooperation between the Ministries of Defense of the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. If these contacts had not occurred, a nuclear war could have started, some major armed conflict. Very large, unidentified underwater craft were discovered and sighted in the Pacific Ocean. The United States Marine Forces believed it might be a new weapon developed by the Soviet Union. And on the other side, our submariners thought it was an American weapon and an incredibly powerful one. And not only there. It was found in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea region, and the Atlantic Ocean, everywhere. After that, despite everything, intelligence agencies and ministries began reaching out to each other. That's how it happened. It is a rare situation, but an exchange was still underway to prevent this collision. And it was recorded, and not only there. Many such objects were recorded in the sky as well. But the public receives this information in small doses. On the one hand, I believe that it is the right thing. If all this information were simply given to a common person, they could lose their mind. Humanity needs to be prepared gradually. Such broadcasts, the interviews you conduct, they help reduce this cosmic illiteracy, I would say.

[Host / Interviewer]

Wow. Where did you learn about the information that the United States and the Soviet Union were coordinating on finding these objects underwater in the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Where did you learn about.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

This? Well, first of all, I served in the army in Special Forces, communication troops. We had classified communications equipment, space stations. During the exercises on the Black Sea, several dozen unidentified craft flew in directly. People even photographed them with simple cameras. This was in 1981. The guys went out with those basic cameras and took pictures. But then a commission arrived from Moscow, from the central headquarters. All the cameras were taken away and destroyed. Everyone was made to sign an agreement that nobody would say anything, that nobody saw anything in the sky, nothing at all. And such agreements still exist to this day. I signed one of those as well. That is why there is military secrecy. But there are journalists who must reveal this secrecy at times in order to preserve, I repeat, humanity. Right now, the question is about preserving our.

[Host / Interviewer]

Planet. Yeah. Well, I hope you inspire the world with this interplanetary curriculum that you were instituting in Kalmykia. Because I do think, you know, if there's a reality, a greater reality to the extraterrestrial presence, I think it's important that young people know and are aware of this. One thing I wanted to ask you is you had some interactions with the great mystic Baba Vanga, who foretold a lot of what eventually happened in your life. And she was famous for being so psychic and so mentally attuned that she could do this with many people. But you experienced it yourself in your own personal life, is that.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Right? It is no coincidence that the Academy of Sciences of France and Belgium officially recognized her back in the 70s, 50 years ago, as humanity's number one phenomenon. And I am truly grateful to fate, to my good fortune, for the fact that I met extraterrestrials and that I met Sai Baba and that I meet with the Dalai Lama and with Baba Vanga. Baba Vanga is a phenomenon of humanity. She was a blind old woman as a child. When she was little, she lost her sight. At 12, she was already blind before the Second World War. And she lived in a simple village. At first, people came to her from nearby villages, then from nearby towns, and later from different countries. And when I met with her, people stood in line for her. They booked appointments a year in advance. English bankers, Arab sheikhs, prime ministers and heads of state all signed up. She and I were friends. I met with her 20, 30 times, maybe 40. I met with her many times, not just because I wanted to learn something about my own future, but simply because sometimes she called, I would fly in. And it was interesting for me myself, to see how she knew things. I asked her how, for her, the present, as it were, simply didn't exist. She calmly moved between the future and the past. She could see. Such a unique gift. I asked her, where did it come from? She said, kirson, I truly don't know. It's as if something just opens up like a channel, you know, like a kind of corridor. And she saw these images. She was able to perceive the information. Well, to put it in modern language, Baba Vanga was like a conductor. She probably connected to this vast, immense cosmic computer. This is what's called a deity, God, right? This is some kind of database, isn't it? Like a hard drive. All information about the past and the future is recorded there on the computer's disk. And she would just access it like an antenna, read the information and say it out loud. I wanted to ask her, where should I go now? Where should I establish my main business in the United States, or should I stay in Europe, in Switzerland or Russia? And I didn't even get to finish the question. She could read minds, you know, like aliens or like the people of Atlantis. And then all of a sudden, she tells me, ah, you'll go back home. You'll be the leader. You'll be president there. I said, well, I'm still quite young. I was only 29 years old at the time. Besides, I'm not planning to, well, return to Kalmykia. I want to continue developing myself. I'm in Moscow now, and then to America. That's what I want. No, she says, you'll be there a long time. You'll work a long time. I say, no, are you kidding me? Just tell me exactly where I'll be working. In Switzerland, in Geneva? Or will I be working in New York? She says, oh, you won't go. You'll be back soon. Soon you'll be going back. And half a year later, I'm nominated as president, a candidate for the presidency of Kalmykia. The elections were incredibly challenging, very intense. My opponents included a well known general, a hero of the Soviet Union, a veteran of the Afghan war, and a deputy of the Soviet parliament. Another one was the first secretary of the regional party committee. And I at that time was only 29, just turning 30 years old. And yet I won. I won. And the day before that, it was still completely unclear. They didn't even count the ballots. But a telegram arrived from Bulgaria. It said, kalmykia to President Kirson, meaning Baba Vanga already knew well in advance, you see, that I would become president then in the spring of 1995, in April of 95, Baba Vanga and her niece call me, saying, kirsan, come here. And the niece briskly asks, kirsan, what happened to you? It's as if Baba Vanga sees two Khersons, two presidents. I arrive at Baba Vanga's place and we sit down. She was having a meal. The weather was warm outside, so she was at the outdoor table with those typical rustic benches. I sat down across from her and Baba Vanga. Then, oh, Kirsan, he's so thin, yet he's sitting on two chairs. That is to say, the bench was like two seats. He occupies two chairs, two presidential positions. I said, baba Vanga, I am just the president of Kalmykia now. There's so much work. What other presidency could there be? She laughed and said, you will lead. You will be the head of a very, very big global organization, the organization of the smartest people, that is to say, chess players. This took place in April of 95, and then on November 24, 95, just six months later, in Paris, I was elected president of Chess Federation. And she calls me. Oh, you've become a double president. Two presidents. And I was entered into the Guinness Book as a person holding two elected posts simultaneously. This is all Baba Vanga. She made many more predictions about ten major ones, and from ten of them, eight predictions came.

[Host / Interviewer]

True. That's amazing. Did you ever talk to her about your going up on the alien spaceship? Did you ever talk to her about extraterrestrials? And do you think she knew anything about those.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Subjects? She knew we weren't alone here. And One time I accompanied her from the small house where she rested and received people. And we walked. She was blind, so she took my hand and we walked quietly. She had so many flowers in her yard. And suddenly she stopped by one flower. How are you? How is he doing? She asked about someone specific. Then she paused by another flower, and I asked, who exactly are you speaking with? She replied, I'm speaking with so. And so. She could see it. A person would die and their souls would remain. So she spoke with invisible beings and with souls and people. Well, extraterrestrials. They might be materialized souls from past lives. In Buddhism, we live 108 lives, and some beings can materialize. She was talking to them all the time. And one time she even told me that it was hard to live. Very hard. She says, kirsten, it's so hard. She would get up at night. Look, just imagine, she lived here in the current time, and at the same time, she lived in the past and in the future. Meaning she talked to people who had already died, who were no longer here, and she talked to those who hadn't been born yet, who would be born ten or a hundred years from now. She moved between realities, but sometimes she couldn't, I guess, make contact for several days. She wouldn't receive anyone. She would say, I don't hear anything. And the people who had appointments would wait another few days. And she kept saying, I don't hear anything. I don't see anything, even though she was blind. And I asked her, I said, so, are we alone here? Or she even hit me a little and said, what's wrong with you? Are you stupid or what? Can't you see it's all around you? There it is. There it is. It's absolutely everywhere. It's here, and it's there on the ground and underneath the ground and up in the sky. Baba Vanga, she saw all of this, and for her, it was a torment because she was constantly among them. And so she always had to return to this reality. We never really talked about, you know, spacecraft or anything like that. We just didn't go into that. But what we did talk about and what she herself kept telling me was this, was that she sees these entities everywhere, these souls. And that's why people went to her. And the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences studied her, the French Academy of Sciences as well. And her predictions, not just some of them, most of them. I forgot the exact number, but around 90%, 95%, even, judging by my own experience, yeah, A lot of the things she told me a year later, 10 years later, 20 years later, they came true. And when I came to see her, my friends, ministers, governors, really important people would ask me to talk to her on their behalf. I can't talk about them. They're a bit shy. And then a year, two or ten years later, what Baba Vanga told them, it came.

[Host / Interviewer]

True. You mentioned an underground civilization. And I just did actually a documentary about Peru where they have these beings that have three fingers, three toes, and they're mummies, and it looks like they're coming out of tunnels underground. And there's even speculation that it's a global civilization. There was a being found in the snow in Siberia. And it was right after actually a UFO appeared in Irkutsk, where a lot of people, the villagers of Irkutsk, said, we see a ufo, we see a ufo. There was a bright light. It seemed to be a crash. And then two of the villagers, these two students, found this Russian, this. This little snow alien is what it's called. And that's. Actually, I wouldn't be with you today if I hadn't covered that story. Because, Marshall, I basically said, if anybody knows these guys who see who saw the alien, get in contact with me because I want to see whether it's real or fake or, you know, what's going on with this being. And because the being looks so much like what I saw in Peru. So I wondered if it's like some global underground civilization. And so my question is, do you think there's some underground civilization that's maybe as advanced or more advanced than human.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Beings? Well, I don't just think, I am sure. I know. Even Baba Vanga told me sometimes she would point down with her finger and say, they are talking there. They are there. And I asked, who is there? I thought she meant the people who had been buried. No, she said they lived there. That was the kind of conversation we had. And I know some scientists who study caves and rocks. When I was in the Caucasus, when I was in India, in Tibet, in the Altai, they found traces there, places where someone lived or where someone still lives and comes out from there. For me, this is natural. In some books and studies, it is written that deep down, all the way to the core of the Earth, there are civilizations there as well. They live there, maybe in some different form. Scientists keep discovering things. There was a volcano recently. I forgot which one. Lava was erupting. And in that magma, they discovered living beings, microbes. So there is life even in that molten mass. If these microorganisms exist there, then other Forms of life exist as well. Fairy tales and legends did not appear for no reason. There is the Kalmyk epic called Djangari. It was passed down from generation to generation. It's not just centuries, but even millennia old. And it was passed down not in writing, but through songs, through these ancient tales. And in the Djangre epic, the underworld is described. How creatures live there, how they communicate, how they come to the surface. Sometimes they don't come out. They get recorded. That's how it is. Well, it needs to be studied. That's why I say governments should seriously pay attention to this and officially allocate funds. But it's not just governments. There are also many businessmen, including American ones I know, who, so to speak, direct money towards studying these extraterrestrial civilizations and civilizations that are underwater. It's quite fascinating to observe. We're launching cosmic vessels, sending satellites to Mars, to Venus, way, way out into deep space, aren't we? Yet we can't construct an underwater device that could descend to a depth of 10 or even 11 km. Quite remarkable, isn't it? Because it's getting torn apart. We fly into space to the stars. But here on Earth, on our own Earth, we go underwater for about 8km. If you take the Earth's crust like an apple, just imagine an apple, Then the Earth's crust is like the peel of that apple, and the rest down to the Earth's core. How many thousands, 40,000 kilometers? Is that right? How many different beings, different civilizations live there? There are many. And they also fight each other. There. They set rules, sometimes coming to the.

[Host / Interviewer]

Surface. When John Paul II said that we are not alone in the universe, do you think he was referring to.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Extraterrestrials? I don't know. If I could go back to that conversation. I would ask him in more detail. Sometimes, when speaking with great people, I feel happy that from an early age, life brought me together with such remarkable individuals and geniuses as John Paul ii, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, Baba Vanga, Sai Baba, and many others. Henry Kissinger, other presidents, unusual people, scientists. Joris Alferov, a Nobel Prize winner, a very strong physicist. You know, these kinds of minds, the greatest minds, real geniuses, all of them said, we are not alone. So how do we understand that? That means, you know, we are a part, it seems, of that grand thing called the universe. And there are energies, but people, well, people, sure, they're beings, but we often look at it too narrowly, as if intelligence can only exist inside a body. Yet take ball lightning. Ball lightning appears out of nowhere. And then disappears as a flash, right? So it comes from another dimension. And lightning, that ball of energy that's also a kind of living being. And our whole universe is made of dark energy and light energy. The universe exists through the interaction, even the sort of struggle between light and dark energy. And our universe exists inside dark energy. What is it that holds the planets, the constellations, the galaxies together? We're sitting in this black, black mass where it's zero, where it's nothing, where this dark energy is, but it's alive too. It kind of breathes. And that whole idea of yin and yang, man and woman, angel and devil, right? The Almighty, all of that. The black and the white, the constant opposition, just like in chess. Black and white squares, black and white pieces, all of it. And we need to see our life as a whole made of light and dark. And like they say in Buddhism and like scientists say, too, thought is material. When you think about something, it can manifest, but it's the energy itself that manifests. And that's why we need to do more positive things, good things. And our thoughts should be good and positive. The more our thoughts are directed towards something positive, something kind, something bright. And what is the light? It's light itself. God is light. God is love. So if we start loving each other more as humanity, loving our planet more, then people will begin to generate more light energy, meaning positive light energy, and will start to shine. So if 8 billion people all at once started thinking about kindness, about love, about compassion for one another, the Earth would sort of glow from within a bit. This white energy would appear. And for God, for the Almighty, he has so many, many, many planets like ours, billions of them. He doesn't really have time to look down at Earth. If suddenly our Earth, through positive thoughts, good thoughts, bright thoughts, gives off even a tiny spark of light for a second, God would glance at it, and that would mean we received God's blessing. When we come to church, we ask for God's blessing. We ask for God to look at us. And when all of humanity thinks about something good at the same time, then God will look at our Earth and will live.

[Host / Interviewer]

Well. Who do you think in the world knows more about this subject than anyone? Is there one person where, if you could interview them or ask them questions, you think they might know more about extraterrestrials than anyone else? Is there a scientist or world.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Leader? Every person. You as well, the cameraman, Anyone at all? All people are experts. All 8 billion. And after I said that I had met them, a lot of people Started reaching out to me. People wrote letters, you know, called me, emailed me from Japan, from America, from Africa, from everywhere. Many thanked me, said thank you, thank you for saying it. Now we will also say that we met them. So in every person's life, there are moments when they saw something unusual. Maybe a craft flew by, or someone slipped in, someone came into the room, walking around, and you don't understand who it is. Is it a little ghost? Or who is it? Right, Some kind of invisible being. So every day we run into some sort of miracle. People don't talk about it because they're afraid of condemnation, of criticism and all that. But in reality, everyone, all kinds of experts and ordinary people, starting from a simple sailor, a farmer, a worker, a scientist, an astronaut, a pilot, a submariner. Everyone has had cases of contact. That's why I'm saying we need some kind of unified program, a program under the United nations, one that would gather all this information, summarize it, work together with artificial intelligence, and then develop, well, probably a common approach. We need to come to the idea that we should have a common.

[Host / Interviewer]

Constitution. You know, the head of the Israeli space force, he's won a lot of national security wards in Israel. His name is Haim Eshed. He said that there's a Galactic Federation and there's a space program involving people on Mars. He said all these amazing things in his biography. Are you aware of that? And do you think that those claims are.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Valid? Well, because of my work, I visited many places and talked to many people. There are different programs, there are research projects and so on. There is certain knowledge that some countries have, some churches have, some institutes have. But maybe the time has not yet come when everyone needs to unite. I also asked them why they take some people like they took me, and tomorrow they might take you and so on. So they want to create a critical mass. The more people who will somehow see them, contact them, talk about this, the faster human consciousness will come to the idea that we are not alone, that we need to unite. We need to work together to create in this direction. We need to look for ways to preserve our.

[Host / Interviewer]

Planet. Do you think there are any human programs where we send astronauts into deep space like other solar systems? Or human programs where anything, you know, paranormal occurs, where, like, we time travel, you know? Do you think there are human space programs that go above and beyond what NASA, SpaceX, you know, rockets.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Do? Well, these programs are known. And as for any secret programs, at least I have not heard of them. I do not know about those programs, so. But Maybe others. The civilizations that are here on our Earth, maybe they are working on this. But the most important thing is not to send a spacecraft farther and farther. The most important thing is to start studying our own brain, our own mind, as soon as.

[Host / Interviewer]

Possible. Yeah, that's beautiful. So you knew Saddam Hussein at the very end of his life, and you tried to advise him in a way that you thought might protect him and prevent the invasion of Iraq, which was, you know, the whole world at the time thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And Washington thought that as well. So what exactly did you tell Saddam.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Hussein? Saddam Hussein. I met him very often, starting from 93. I had a mandate then from the President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. I came there, talked with him many times. We even managed to hold a chess championship there among the Arab countries. And in that last year, when the situation really heated up, for some reason, Saddam Hussein believed they would not attack. But when it became clear, when it was already certain there would be bombings and that Saddam Hussein would be killed, I flew to him. I told him the information from all the services that the attack was coming now and that he could leave the country. If you want, then leave the country. But the best thing I said is to show it to the journalists. At that time, there were many journalists staying at the Al Rashid Hotel. And in front of the entrance, on the floor, there was a mosaic of Bush Sr. And it said, bush is killer. There was one architect there, and during the bombings, his whole family was killed. And he made this so that people would step on it. And I suggested to Saddam Hussein, let's make an unusual move. Let's go to the Al Rashid. The journalists are there. We put all of them on a bus. And on that bus we go to the warehouse. They kept saying that this warehouse was never opened for the UN staff or for the Chemical Weapons Commission. He kept telling me, there is nothing there. I said, alright, do it then. They will attack anyway. They will bomb everything. They will kill you anyway. At least give a chance to your people, to your country. Let's go there, open all the warehouses. Let the journalists film everything with their cameras everywhere. So they see there is no chemical weapon.

[Host / Interviewer]

There. What did he.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Say? He was stunned, shocked by such a move. I said, well, I am a chess player. I look multiple steps ahead. Let's go through this. There's nothing bad here, not in terms of security. You're on a bus. On the other hand, you'll show the world your openness. You're telling me this now? You're Telling your son, your ministers, but tell this to journalists. They're all over the world. Now a discussion will begin. Address the United Nations. They have a Security Council, members of the Security Council. I openly invite you all here to Baghdad. Look, I've opened all the warehouses. Will they still bomb? He said nothing, in shock. Then he took time to think. He didn't answer right away. He said, this is very unexpected. Then we left. And about two hours later, Kousei, the head of security and the younger son with an interpreter arrived. My father refuses. He won't do it. And then just a few days later, they called me and told me that the bombings were about to begin. So I flew out of there. And just a few hours later, Iraq was bombed. Saddam Hussein was.

[Host / Interviewer]

Hanged. And you had a similar experience. You were also longtime friends with Gaddafi and you were also with him towards the end of his life. Do you want to tell that.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Story? He was a very interesting person. He wrote poetry, he got into Buddhism, reincarnation of the soul and all that. And in the last days too, when they were saying that Gaddafi was killed, that he was not alive, that he ended up in a psychiatric hospital, there were all kinds of rumors because for about a month he did not appear on camera. He was nowhere to be seen. And then I arrived. It was the 12th of June, Russia Day. His eldest son Mohammed called. He told me, kirson, please go outside, there's a car waiting for you. Get in that car and don't say a single word. We arrived at the stadium, which was the Olympic Committee building. We went inside. Mohammed met me and we started going up the stairs. And there, standing right there, was Gaddafi. We sat down with him and talked for a long time. And the chess set stood in the corner of the office where we were talking. I went in, took a chess set, set it up and said, shall we play? He said, how can we play chess now? I said, there is the cameraman, he will come in now. Let him film it. And they will show it on Libyan television. In a minute, all the TV channels in the world will show it. First, that you are alive, and second, that you are playing chess. It means your head is working. He looked at me in an interesting way. Lets play. We started playing. We ended in a draw. And literally a few minutes later, all the TV channels in the world would have shown it. Everyone started calling me Kirsan, Kirsan, how is Gaddafi feeling? How is everything? And he became very serious then and said, they will kill me. I can feel it. I said, well, come on, let's fly out. Let's go. There are planes. You can leave the country. So there will not be a big war here? He said no. My adopted daughter is buried here. My 10 month old granddaughter was killed by the bombs, by the air bombs from their planes. And in this very soil, my ancestors are buried. I know that they will kill me and it will be a very difficult death. But I will remain here on my own land with my people. And he says, you, you must go. He escorted me away. Well, but I will remain. And so he remained. And a tragedy happened. They tore him apart and tore apart the country. The Libyan Jamahiria was one country. And now it is war divided with internal conflicts going on. Very sad. Such is the way of.

[Host / Interviewer]

Fate. Speaking of global conflict, now we have Russia, Ukraine. Many in the west are wondering if there's ever going to be an end to this war. I'm sure many in Russia feel the same way. Do you think there's any hope for an end to the war? It seems to be this just long war of attrition. And what do you think the right strategy is like? You know, you are a longtime ally and friend of Putin's. Is there anything he can do? Is there anything Zelenskyy can do to stop.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

This? It may seem strange, but Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, is doing everything, everything to stop the war. So that those conditions, not conditions, but those principles, those principles of agreement between Russia and Ukraine which our President put forward and which the Russian Foreign Ministry, through Sergei Lavrov informs all foreign ministers and so on, it's all on the table. Our principles, they were clear from the very beginning. They were strict. If these principles had been followed, and if the Western countries had followed them too, including the United States of America, there would be no war in Ukraine. It just exists now. We do not call it a war. We call it a special military operation. And it is in everyone's interest, in everyone's interest that this war does not exist and in the interest of the presidents as well. And Vladimir Putin, at the meeting, when they met far away in Alaska with the President of the United States, Donald Trump, he confirmed our conditions. Again, they are on the table. They are all visible. The truth should prevail. Yes, we guarantee security, he said. And now, as a politician, why would I repeat it? They are already on the table. They are clear to everyone. We simply need to sit down and agree on what has already been defined there. And regarding the first negotiations that took place in Istanbul, that is between Russia and the President, we strictly adhere to those principles and the proposals that we put forward, which we offered several years ago, it's elementary. There is nothing else new to be found.

[Host / Interviewer]

Here. So what do you think is the only path forward for Ukraine to give up to cede territory in the Donbas in Donetsk and Luhansk? Is that the only path forward? Is there any other sort of way out of the.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Conflict? Right now, there's absolutely no point in specifically discussing Donbass or any other constituent entity of the Russian Federation. There are proposals. They are all on the table, and they simply must sit down. People often wonder what exactly is politics or what is diplomacy? They are fundamentally a constant struggle of compromises. This means that every single side must make some kind of movement. The history of humanity always tells us every armed conflict stretching back to the most ancient times, even when our ancestors were hunting mammoths, invariably concludes with peace. And I truly hope that peace will ultimately prevail on this.

[Host / Interviewer]

Earth. Do you think Putin wants peace? And do you think Zelensky wants.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Peace? Absolutely, 100%. I am 100%. Certainly, Putin is striving for peace, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy also needs to listen to both the President of Russia and the President of the United States of America and make the right move. But the most important thing is he was once elected by the people, but now he is considered. Well, the elections were not held, and our side considers him illegitimate now, believing that elections should take place there. However, it is widely believed that no elections can be held during a time of war. Well, many questions are already emerging from this situation. I'm not directly involved in this particular process, but the parties always possess the right and the opportunity to reach an.

[Host / Interviewer]

Agreement. What do you think in our lifetime, do you think something much bigger happens with the UFO and extraterrestrial topic? Do you think we could see a paradigm shift on this.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Subject? Everything is changing. The paradigm is shifting now. Ideologies and principles. If there were once Adam and Eve, if there's a man and a woman, then why do some countries claim there are no men, no women, but only it? Maybe they're correct. It's like with God. Some believe in God. But on the other hand, out of 8 billion, 1 billion are atheists. That also exists. We somehow have to come to terms with that. We somehow have to coexist on this earth, on this planet. The paradigm of relationships is changing now. And why is that? Because if you look further into the universe, there's dark energy and light energy. And which one will win? There is currently a battle between the light cosmic energy and the dark energy. A battle for our Earth, for our.

[Host / Interviewer]

Minds. Do you ever still communicate with the extraterrestrials, maybe with your mind? Do you ever try to tap in and speak to them, even now, after your.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Experience? No, we haven't communicated. There haven't been any more such contacts. They don't reach out to me. I don't reach out either. I'm just living my own life. I meet with you, I play chess. Everything keeps going, keeps moving, and somewhere, something is predetermined, as Baba Vanga said, it is written up there, and we must go through suffering, too. Now we have an era, an era in Buddhism called the Buddha of Suffering. And now the Buddha of Compassion is going into the future, and another Buddha comes in his place, the Buddha of love. So we are probably standing right on the threshold of meeting this Buddha of love, a new deity, new.

[Host / Interviewer]

Relationships. That's a beautiful message to the world. And I think we should maybe think about interviewing other world leaders about the extraterrestrial presence. Like, I would love to go with you to the Dalai Lama and speak to him about what he thinks about UFOs and extraterrestrials. And I think if we do that, we can maybe we can cause an.

[Vasily (Kirsan's Chief of Staff)]

Awakening. Thank.

[Host / Interviewer]

You. Thank you very much. It's an honor. Thank.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

You. Let us.

[Host / Interviewer]

Pray. We will. We will. It's been an honor. And I really. I hope that other world leaders and other people at your level have the same courage as you, because it wasn't easy to come out and be public about what you experienced. But I think it's very profound and very important, and I think more people should listen and take note and follow.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Suit. Thank you very much. I think that if after this interview, there are more people who understand it and respond with understanding, then we've done our job. But if they start criticizing it, saying that the respected journalist found some crazy guy, some fool talking about little yellow or green people, then it means we still have a lot of work to.

[Host / Interviewer]

Do. No, I think more and more people in the US at very high levels are taking this subject extremely seriously. And we have a lot of people coming from the government, you know, who come out of these programs who say, I worked on a craft or I retrieved a craft, or I saw a bunch of files or photos and, you know, secure facilities, a ton of people from all sorts of backgrounds that don't even coordinate with each other. So in the US we even have bill. We have a bill that the Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer, just presented to the floor. It mentions UAP and NHI non human intelligence 65 times. So I think it's being taken seriously at the highest levels in the US Government. But the sad thing is you don't have Trump, you don't have the president coming out officially and saying it, even though everybody knows, everybody knows in Washington and everybody knows even in the public. So it really takes a lot of courage. And it's amazing to see you, who you're, you're an actual, you know, former president to come out and say, you know, this is what I experienced. I think it really means a lot. And hopefully we'll continue to push other leaders and other people at your level to also come forward about their.

[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

Experiences. Thank.

[Co-host / Producer]

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[Host / Interviewer]

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[Co-host / Producer]

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[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

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[Host / Interviewer]

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[Kirsan Ilyum Zinov (Former President of Kalmykia and World Chess Federation President)]

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[Co-host / Producer]

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