Former FIDE President Ilyumzhinov Spoke About His Contacts With Extraterrestrials

• 22.09.2026, 8:56

A former Russian official claims that in 1997, aliens took him aboard their ship.

Former President of the International Chess Federation Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has once again raised the topic of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. In an interview with Ksenia Sobchak, he stated that those around him are showing unexpected interest in this topic.

According to Ilyumzhinov, dozens of his acquaintances have been asking him the same question: when will they come to pick him up again, and is it possible to go with them. Some, he claims, justify this by saying that their everyday lives have become boring, even despite their considerable wealth. “You have a billion—why do you need to go there?”—“I’m just sick of it all; at least I’ll get to see what it’s like there,” he recounted the conversation with Sobchak.

Ilyumzhinov also touched on the topic of foreign leaders who allegedly had contact with unidentified objects. He refused to name names, but when pressed, he pointed to South Korea. According to him, the politician’s wife—who knew the details—told him about the incident. The former FIDE president claims that the couple discussed this experience with him, and the politician himself warned his wife against making public statements due to the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Ilyumzhinov also linked his statements to his willingness to sacrifice his career. He called a public admission “political suicide” and stated that he was ready to step down from his posts as FIDE president and head of Kalmykia so that humanity would realize it is not alone in the universe.

This is not the first time Ilyumzhinov has made such a statement. Previously, he spoke of an alleged encounter in 1997, when he was supposedly taken aboard a spaceship by aliens wearing yellow spacesuits.