Bigfoot Collectors Club – BCC Classics: “The Voronezh UFO Landing” with Michael Moreci

Date: December 31, 2025
Hosts: Michael McMillan (actor), Riley Bray (musician & sound designer, guest co-host)
Guest: Michael Moreci (sci-fi writer and comic book author)
Theme: “A classic trip into High Strangeness: the 1989 Voronezh UFO landing in Russia, and talk of personal paranormal history, geeky favorites, and the universal nature of weird encounters.”

Episode Overview

The Bigfoot Collectors Club revisits a fan-favorite: the famous Voronezh UFO Landing case. Sci-fi and comics writer Michael Moreci joins host Michael McMillan and, for the first time, Riley Bray as a co-host. The episode explores Moreci’s geeky roots, brushes with the paranormal, and delves into the bizarre and internationally significant story of glowing orbs, three-eyed aliens, and disappearing children in late-Soviet Russia. Along the way, the conversation touches on the cultural lens of strange sightings, collective mythologies, and collecting the unexpected.

Key Topics & Highlights

1. Meet the Club: Paranormal Geek Outs

• Bryce Johnson’s absence: Riley Bray is promoted from sound engineer to full co-host, leading to camaraderie, joking about a clubhouse “coup” (03:17–04:10).
• Guest intro: Michael Moreci’s sci-fi credentials—recent DC Comics work, new novel Black Star Renegades, and writing on the Star Wars universe. (04:10–06:47)

Moreci’s Sci-Fi & Fantasy Origins

• Influenced by Star Wars movies, Timothy Zahn’s “Heir to the Empire” trilogy, and classic sci-fi authors like Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut. (07:03–09:49)
• Riley Bray chimes in: “I definitely grew up on the...on the nerd side of life” (09:19) and admits a more Middle Earth than space opera leaning as a kid.

2. First Brushes with the Paranormal

• Michael Moreci recalls being a huge X-Files fan and co-creating the comic Hoax Hunters (Mythbusters meets X-Files), exploring creatures like the Jersey Devil, Wisconsin’s Haunchyville, and Mothman. (12:00–14:19)

• Personal Paranormal Encounter:

  • Recurring vision, as a child, of a ghostly, old-time carnival barker in his uncle’s house:

    “Like almost like an old-timey carnival person. …a beard, kinda tannish sepia color, just standing in the doorway…every time I stayed there.” (15:46–17:30)

  • Never told anyone until this podcast:

    “I think this is the first time I’ve actually even talked about this.” (16:28)

• Club’s reaction:

  • Speculation about haunted carnival burial grounds and the oddness of spectral presences “out of context” (18:09–19:06).

• Michael McMillan shares his own ghostly encounter in a haunted upstate NY farmhouse, seeing a woman in a Victorian dress and snapping a photo with a mysterious orb:

  “…out of the corner of my eye, I saw a...woman with dark hair in a red Victorian dress…snapped a photo…and when I looked there was a glowing orb where I saw the woman.” (21:19–23:08)

3. Beliefs: Ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs

• Moreci is open to all three:

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah.” (23:37–23:40)

• Discussion: why people tend to believe in ghosts more than Bigfoot, the anthropocentric “supremacy” of humans, and why life elsewhere is almost a statistical certainty (23:40–26:00).

4. High Strangeness: The Voronezh UFO Landing

Main Segment Begins: 30:21

The Story, Step-by-Step

• Setting: Voronezh, Russia, September 27, 1989, just as the Soviet Union is collapsing. Multiple pink and red orbs are seen in the skies for a week.
• Incident:
  • Three children playing in “South Park” see a pink orb, approx. 9 meters wide, rippling the grass below it. (31:21–32:48)
  • 40–50 townsfolk gather to investigate. The orb returns, opens a portal; a three-eyed creature peeks out.

    “...a strange, strange three-eyed creature peered out, scanned the crowd, then slipped back inside the craft.” (33:58)

  • The orb turns red, extends legs, lands. The being—9 feet tall, silver jumpsuit, bronze boots, disc on chest, two white eyes and a single red eye—emerges with a small boxy robot.

    “He’s cool and tough…looks like a Jack Kirby comic book character.” (36:53–37:08)

  • The being seems to do “magic tricks” for the crowd: glowing shapes on the ground, fiddling with a robot.
  • A boy screams; the creature turns, beams light from his eyes, and the craft, robot, and giant vanish—then reappear wielding a silver rod.
  • The rod is pointed at a teenager, who disappears; when the aliens depart, the boy reappears. (38:52–39:32)
• Witnesses:
  • 40–50 people, including children and at least one police lieutenant

    “This is what’s insane—this is like a mass sighting.” (33:56)

• Aftermath:
  • Police take statements, physical evidence: “depressions in the grass...ground beneath allegedly turned to stone…strange rocks not of this earth.” (40:57–41:49)
  • Soviet media freely reports the case due to collapsing government control.
  • Discussion: “It’s significant...because as communism started to collapse, state control over the press and the media loosened. And this was one of the first UFO stories that came out.” (41:50)
  • Eyewitness interviews can still be found on Russian TV.

Notable Moments & Quotes

• Michael McMillan on Russian sightings:

  “We tend to think of UFOs and flying saucers as a big American phenomenon. This was one of the first big stories to come out of the Soviet Union that showed similarities…” (31:34)

• On the being’s appearance:

  “The monster was described as being 9ft tall, wearing a silver jumpsuit with bronze boots and a disc on his chest…” (36:30)

• On cultural influence and truth:

  “It almost feels like the alien encounter itself is taking place in a foreign language…The symbology and the alien and stuff are designs that are not of our American culture, which kind of to me lends some credence...” (48:08)

5. Discussion: Interpretation & Analysis

Segment: What the Hell Was That? (45:01–57:32)

• Moreci’s take:

  “I mean, undoubtedly true. …It’s weird. You get so many of these different sightings and occurrences…but…it’s always a singular point of view. This was a mass sighting.” (45:11–47:28)

• McMillan:

  “It almost feels like…the encounter is shaped by the people witnessing them, like some type of psychic phenomenon…whatever comes out of the orb materializes in a way that is recognizable to the sensibility of the culture…” (48:00–48:14)

• Riley Bray on recurring motifs:

  “That’s a theme we keep returning to…It's viewed through the lens of the time and culture.” (48:14)

• Moreci:

  “...there’s a sort of crossbreeding collective consciousness…shared iconography, ideas…” (49:35–50:53)

• On physical evidence and skepticism:

  “Well, too, there’s physical evidence left behind, verified by government scientists…not to be overlooked.” (51:20–51:35)

• Conclusion:

  “Are all the details totally right? Probably not. But something happened…There’s a thousand of these stories…but it just takes one to be right…” (56:17–56:44)

6. Collector’s Corner: Show and Tell (58:48–66:18)

• Moreci collects Star Wars Black Series figures, books (especially sci-fi, Star Wars, RPGs), and talks “shelf porn.” (59:03–60:47)
• McMillan gifts his copy of Black Star Renegades to be autographed.

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 03:17 – Riley Bray steps in as co-host
• 04:10 – Michael Moreci intro
• 07:03 – Sci-fi/fantasy childhood favorites
• 12:00 – Moreci’s X-Files & Hoax Hunters
• 15:46 – Moreci’s ghost story (carnival barker)
• 21:19 – McMillan’s Victorian ghost story
• 23:37 – Discussion on belief in ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs
• 30:21 – High Strangeness: Voronezh UFO Landing story
• 36:30 – Detailed description of the three-eyed alien
• 38:52 – The “disappearing boy” moment
• 41:50 – Soviet/social-political context of the incident
• 45:01 – “What the Hell Was That?” Reflection & analysis
• 58:48 – Collector’s Corner

Memorable Quotes

• On paranormal encounters:

  “...a lot of these stories frustratingly have no endings. The sighting will happen. People are encountering it and then you never get any answers, which is why they’re so appealing in the first place.” — Michael McMillan (14:57)

• On the Voronezh entity:

  “He literally just kind of came down and started entertaining people. I kind of think that this guy was like some weird intergalactic magician…” — Michael McMillan (37:47)

• On belief and skepticism:

  “It just takes one [story] to be right…that blows the whole thing wide open.” — Michael Moreci (56:42)

Tone & Style

Playful, geeky, and open-minded with plenty of ribbing, pop-culture references, and genuine curiosity about the universe’s weirdest happenings. The conversation veers between nostalgia, speculation, and moments of genuine awe.

Summary for New Listeners

This episode is a perfect representation of Bigfoot Collectors Club: equal parts nerd-culture banter, personal ghost stories, and deep-dives into true tales of the unknown. The Voronezh UFO Landing’s unique details—mass witnesses, a three-eyed alien magician, Soviet intrigue—make for a captivating case study in high strangeness. The crew and their guest bring context, analysis, and a sense that, whatever the truth, our world is a lot weirder—and more fun—than we like to admit.

Further Reading:

• Voronezh UFO landing – Wikipedia
• Michael Moreci – Twitter (@MichaelMoreci)
• Bigfoot Collectors Club – Instagram