Russian leader says aliens in yellow spacesuits abducted him: Why Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's abduction story is viral again

(FILES) World Chess Federation (FIDE) president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (Photo by Yuri KADOBNOV / AFP)

A former Russian regional leader and global chess official is once again at the centre of an unusual online debate, after old claims about an alien abduction resurfaced and went viral on social media.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the former president of the Republic of Kalmykia and a past head of the world chess body FIDE, has repeated his long-standing claim that he was abducted by extraterrestrials in the late 1990s. The renewed attention follows his recent appearance on the American Alchemy Podcast hosted by Jesse Michaels, where clips from the interview have spread widely on X.

Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov was born in 1962 in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia. He developed an early interest in chess and won the Kalmykian national championship at the age of 14. His early career followed a conventional Soviet path. He worked as a factory mechanic, served in the Soviet Army, and later studied at Moscow’s MGIMO institute.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ilyumzhinov entered business and built his fortune in the early 1990s. In 1993, at just 31, he became president of Kalmykia. He ruled the region for 17 years, often in a strongman style, and pushed ambitious projects, including making chess compulsory in schools.

In 1995, he rose to global prominence after becoming president of FIDE. His time at the chess body expanded the game worldwide but was also marked by controversy. His tenure ended in 2018 after he was sanctioned by the United States following his visit to Syria, where he played chess with President Bashar al Assad.

Ilyumzhinov first publicly spoke about his alleged encounter in 2010 during an interview on the Russian television programme Pozner on Channel One. He claimed that in 1997, while standing on the balcony of his Moscow apartment, he was taken by humanoid beings wearing yellow spacesuits and transported to a spaceship.

“They put a spacesuit on me, told me many things and showed me around. They wanted to demonstrate that UFOs do exist,” he said.

He said the beings communicated without spoken language. “I am often asked which language I used to talk to them. Perhaps it was on a level of the exchange of the ideas,” Ilyumzhinov added.

In his latest interview, he repeated and expanded on these claims. He said the extraterrestrials presented themselves as peaceful observers and told him that Earth had hosted several civilisations before humans. He also claimed they said human civilisation was still at an early stage and that chess was an extraterrestrial invention.

The original 2010 interview sparked widespread disbelief in Russia. Media outlets treated the story as a curiosity, while comedians and tabloids mocked the claims.

One politician, however, reacted with concern. Andrei Lebedev, a member of Russia’s parliament, wrote to then President Dmitry Medvedev asking that Ilyumzhinov be questioned by the state. Lebedev reportedly feared that sensitive information could have been shared with aliens.

Despite the ridicule, Ilyumzhinov has never withdrawn his story. Over the years, he has repeated the same account across Russian and Western media.

With his latest podcast appearance now circulating online, the story has found a new audience. In the age of social media, even the most unlikely claims can quickly capture global attention, especially when they come from someone who once sat at the top of both politics and world chess.