On 29 January 1986 a reddish sphere crossed this town in the Russian Far East and struck the rock of a hill the locals know by its elevation — Height 611. Dozens of people watched it come down; there was no impact and no explosion, and it moved slowly and almost without sound. A burnt patch was found on the rock, and in it mesh-like fragments of an iron, chromium and nickel alloy, glassy spheres and beads of lead. The samples were carried round Soviet institutes for years; the results diverged, and some researchers concluded the composition was industrial and terrestrial. Dozens of expeditions have examined the site since. Dalnegorsk remains the best-known place in the subject in Russia after Molyobka.

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Hakui, the Town That Chose UFOs

A town on the Sea of Japan coast whose local chronicles record sorabune — sky boats — and which has built a municipal strategy on it. In 1996 it opened Cosmo Isle Hakui: a museum where a genuine Voskhod descent module, a lunar module mock-up and a display on unidentified objects stand side by side. The space hardware is real, bought from Russian and American organisations; this is not a theme park. The town deliberately keeps the two lines next to each other — the documented history of spaceflight and the undocumented stories — and the visitor walks from one into the other through a door. As an approach it is more honest than most places on this list.