If you read books on the subject of KAL007 all bar one of them have the cover photograph of a crashing 747, Soviet interceptors, missiles, blood etc. One book stands alone as its cover is a grainy photograph of what appears to be a young school girl of Asian appearance over a silhouette of a aircraft tail descending.
Inside the book there is a better but still grainy image.
At the time of the incident the commander and political commissar of the border post town of Pereputye, south of Nevelsk was Lieutenant Belov. He was interviewed by French investigative reporter Misha Lobko who visited Sakhalin in June 1993.
Belov recalls: “The orders were straightforward: destroy everything and confirm by a report. Then, shut up. Never give out any information. They came with a big ten-ton truck, a ZIL 131- They were sailors. They asked, “Where is the hole?” I showed them. They discharged the ZIL 131 truck into the hole with the help of my soldiers. They brought a forty-four-gallon drum of gas-oil, which they poured over it. Then they set fire to it. It burned for two hours. When everything had burned down, we brought in a bulldozer to crush and disperse what was left. Then we covered it with soil. I telephoned to higher-ups at Nevelsk and reported. I am sure the names and grades of the higher-ups I reported to were phony, but anyway I said, “It is destroyed. ” That’s all.
Misha also found out that this hole was opened in Nov 1992 where all metal pieces with an identification number were removed and the hole recovered. It was opened again in January 1993 and debris stored in a hanger in Kholmsk where the KGB sorted it and sent some items to Moscow. In March 1993 the remaining items were again buried in the hole. Whilst Misha was there in June 1993 the hole was opened for a third time. Before items were sent to Moscow, Misha was allowed to film some of this debris. There were apparently passports but he was not allowed to film these. However because Misha was of Russian descent and spoke perfect Russian he made friends with some of the officials who showed him the picture which had somehow escaped the fire by being inside a thick leather wallet. They allowed him to take a picture of the photograph of the little girl. The girl of Pereputye.
On sept 1, 1993 on the 10th anniversary of the incident, a ceremony was held and a black marble marker was unveiled just south of the port town of Nevelsk. After the ceremony the relatives were taken to this hole in Pereputye and allowed to dig for themselves to search for their lost ones.
At this point it is probably worth pausing for a moment. Originally when I started researching this story using google and various AI’s (for the record all paid versions of ChatGPT, Grok and Claude) plus Google AI, I was told that other than the paragraph in Brun’s book there is no record anywhere of Pereputye and of holes that were uncovered and victims relatives shown wreckage of a crashed plane. The firm opinion of AI was this was a conspiracy theory, or at best no way to verify any of the information so this information is speculative at best and better not to be trusted. At this point, most people would assume this is the truth and dismiss the story.
However, simple direct searches of newspaper records for Sept 2 (the day after) easily bring up widely publicised articles on at least the Sept 1, 1993 anniversary. These articles are not behind paid firewalls or on physical archives. There are also numerous records predating the event announcing that the event would be held at Nevelsk on Sept 1 and that victims relatives and reporters were to be in attendance. These articles clearly show large numbers of locals, reporters and TV camera crew (over 3000) showing the event was real and was broadcast worldwide. The articles specifically state that after the unveiling of the granite monolith near Nevelsk the relatives and reporters were taken to Pereputye, south of Nevelsk and shown the hole with the remains of an aircraft. It is only when these articles are fed to AI showing that multiple independent sources document the same event with the same people in attendance that it starts acknowledging the existence of Pereputye is real and that aircraft wreckage was shown publicly at this place.
This is direct evidence that google and AI are biased to the status quo or at least misleading at best. They are certainly not truth seeking as Elon Musk’s Grok claims to be. Surely AI should easily be able to find any number of newspaper articles on the web referencing the 10th anniversary that all clearly note much of what is presented here. Yet the first answer they all give is that Pereputye does not exist. One must ask why this is? This is a common theme when researching anything to do with KAL007. The first answer is always along the lines of the official story and deviating from that is labelled as conspiracy even if presented with factual information discrediting the official narrative.
This event at Pereputye was widely publicised by Associated Press of which one article is shown below. The link to the whole newspaper is https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f6a9212c-a6c7-4745-a202-88ff878f0e25/content The local Yuzhno paper also ran the story https://morningislands.ru/file?objectId=2259312&attributeId=1191&sn=1&fileName=MG_1993_09_03.pdf
The last paragraph of the Russian article translates as:”In the second half of the day, relatives and journalists visited the settlement of Pereputye, where they were shown the remains of the downed aircraft.“
They were also handed a small amount of items previously uncovered from the hole. However, the photo of the school girl, or the passports were not amongst the items. Misha wondered why.
Misha was working for Japanese broadcaster TBS and because of the human appeal they broadcast the little girls photo during prime time news in both Japan and Korea. Someone recognised the girl and phone the television station. They knew the girl by name and that her father worked for the Korea intelligence service, the KCIA and had gone missing in 1983. After that TBS and Misha were stonewalled everywhere and no further information could be obtained.
The implication of a Korean intelligence person’s wallet being in a hole in the ground in Pereputye and that wasn’t handed to relatives is of course he wasn’t on KAL007 but of another aircraft that crashed at Pereputye.
Misha was also told that the story that the hole at Pereputye was dug to dispose of debris from KAL007 was false. Initially they said an RC-135 aircraft crashed there.
I started looking for Pepeputye but no map has any reference to this name. Перепутье, in Russian translates as: CROSSROADS, -я, genitive plural -тий, neg. A place where roads cross and diverge. At a crossroads (also figuratively: the same as at a crossroads). This is odd as there are no roads south of Nevelsk. Is it possible the Russians are hinting at something deeper?
The only google related search I could find was one on ocean currents. At least this showed roughly where the location was. It is roughly in line with the northern tip of Moneron.
Finally, when searching Russian Topomaps I found a map with the village marked with enough detail to accurately identify the location.
Now I had the coordinates I then visited google maps to see satellite photographs. When I zoomed in to full magnification I was surprised to see a small mask over the image at the exact spot. I zoomed out, then zoomed in again and the mask disappeared.
There was not much to see anyway. A hole covered 32 years ago is unlikely to be very exciting.
The location of Pereputye is odd. If KAL007 crashed where ICAO said it did, why would the Soviets take parts of the plane to the nearest port of Nevelsk, then down a rough road to the most Southern Village of Shebunino then down the beach another 12 km crossing 3 large rivers and dig a hole in the ground in what is a essentially a sandbank in full view of any overflying satellites. If they wanted destroy or hide any evidence a far more logical place would just store it in a warehouse in Nevelsk, or, dig a hole in the huge expanse of forest where the trees would provide ample camouflage from any passing satellites. Further, why not simply burn any personal belongings.
The logical reason they did this was another aircraft crashed here and the Soviets wanted to hide evidence of this quickly. So they dug a hole, made an attempt to burn the contents then covered it.
For a long time I wondered why the Soviets, who openly stated they shot down a “spy plane” would choose not to just show real evidence of this and post pictures of the shot down aircraft at Pereputye just like they did with Gary Powers. This would prove their story right.
It is my belief that they chose not to expose a shot down “RC135” or other military aircraft as they were genuinely terrified of nuclear war. Reagan (and his war hawks) at the time was looking for any opportunity to escalate conflict. The Soviets were pacifists and an open sign that they had shot down a US military aircraft would make the US feel they needed to respond in some way…i.e. basically an act of war. The Soviets chose the lesser of two evils…end of the world vs entire world against them. This decision shows how strong the will to survive is in Russia and their wish for peace.
So I decided to visit the location to get an idea of the topography and search for any signs. On arrival to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk the capital of Sakhalin I went about trying to get a guide to take me there. No one had any knowledge of Перепутье. Once I gave them the coordinates no one wanted to take me there due to very swollen rivers that required crossing. It was roughly 10km from the last road so I contemplated walking. Finally I found a guide who agreed to take me but on the condition I hired two 4WD’s for safety so one could tow the other out.
On arrival at Pereputye it was as expected very underwhelming. My plan was to fly my drone over the area in order to get high resolution imagery to search for any signs of where this hole was. This of course was a bit risky, flying a drone over a sensitive Russian military site during the special operation. However there was no one about so I took the risk. I did fly the drone but unfortunately DJI makes you log into your account every few months. I hadn’t recently so tried to login…total failure to log in using Russian internet so I was limited to a 100m x 100m x 30m flight space. Bit of a fail but still I was here. An extremely remote spot on Sakhalin that was hard to get to.
