The Mystery of the Third Planet
1981 animated film directed by Roman Abelevich Kachanov
The Mystery of the Third Planet (Russian: Тайна третьей планеты, Tayna tretyey planety, also translated as The Secret of the Third Planet) is a 1981 Soviet traditionally animated feature film directed by Roman Kachanov and produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. It is based on a 1964 novella Alisa's Travel by Kir Bulychev, part of the Alisa Seleznyova children's science fiction book series.
The movie is considered a cult classic in Russia and was included in various lists of the best animated films and science fiction films. A shortened novelization of The Mystery of the Third Planet was written by Bulychev himself, with other adaptations including a diafilm and a number of video games. The 2009 feature film Alice's Birthday is considered a spiritual successor of the work.
Plot
Captain Zelyony, Professor Seleznyov and his daughter Alisa Seleznyova set out from Earth aboard the Pegas (Pegasus) starship, seeking out new animal species for the Moscow Zoo. Visiting the Moon as a resting point, Seleznyov meets his friend, Gromozeka the alien archaeologist, who advises him to turn to the Planet of Two Captains, a huge museum dedicated to Captains Kim and Buran who went around the whole universe on their ship, the Blue Seagull, for useful information on where the rare animals live. Doctor Verkhovtsev, the director of the museum, is seen visiting the moon as well; however, he avoids Gromozeka.
On the Planet of two Captains, the heroes meet Verkhovtsev and ask him to show them the Captain's diaries for directions to find rare animals. But the doctor behaves suspiciously: he refuses to show them the diaries and starts spying on the expedition.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Mystery of the Third Planet” as 1981 animated film directed by Roman Abelevich Kachanov. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1981 animated film directed by Roman Abelevich Kachanov. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2369324. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1964 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Mystery of the Third Planet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.