Former President of the Republic of Kalmykia and long-serving FIDE president. Claims to have been abducted by alien beings in yellow spacesuits from his Moscow apartment balcony on 17 September 1997 and taken aboard their spacecraft for a day.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov served as President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation and as president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1995 to 2018. He publicly claimed to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings on the night of 17 September 1997, stating that entities in yellow spacesuits appeared on his Moscow apartment balcony, took him aboard a flying saucer, and returned him the following day. He has also asserted that the game of chess was invented by extraterrestrials and that the Earth was previously home to five intelligent civilizations. His claims attracted international media attention given his prominent institutional roles.