By JOHN IAMS Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW (AP) -- The official Tass news agency said today that scientists have confirmed the landing of an alien spaceship carrying giant people with tiny heads.

The report was the latest strange tale in the official Soviet media, which under the policy of glasnost, "or openess," have recently told of other sightings of unidentified flying objects and alien creatures.

"Scientists have confirmed that an unidentified flying object recently landed in a park in the Russian city of Voronezh," Tass said in a dispatch from the city, 300 miles southeast of Moscow. "They have also identified the landing site and found traces of aliens who made a short promenade about the park."

Tass said Voronezh residents saw a large shining ball or disk hovering over the park. They reported that the UFO landed and up to three creatures similar to humans emerged, accompanied by a small robot, Tass said.

"The aliens were three or even four meters (9 to 12 feet) tall, but with very small heads," the news agency quoted witnesses as saying. "They walked near the ball or disc and then disappeared inside."

The report was similar to a story last summer in the daily newspaper Socialist Industry, which told of a purported "close encounter" between a milkmaid and an alien in Central Russia's Perm region.

In that report, Lyubov Medvedev was quoted as saying she encountered an alien creature "resembling a man, but taller than average with short legs." The creature, she said, had "only a small knob instead of a head."

The Tass report, which did not give the date of the purported landing in Voronezh, said onlookers were "overwhelmed with a fear that lasted for several days."

Genrikh Silanov, head of the Voronezh Geophysical Laboratory, told Tass that scientists investigating the UFO report found a 20-yard depression with four deep dents as well as two pieces of unidentified rocks.

"At first glance, they looked like sandstone of a deep-red color. However, mineralogical analysis has shown that the substance cannot be found on Earth," Tass quoted Silanov as saying. "However, additional tests are needed to reach a more definite conclusion."

Silanov said the landing site and path taken by the aliens were confirmed using the "biolocation" method of tracking, but Tass didn't explain what that was.

Further confirmation came from witnesses, who were not told of the experiments and whose accounts matched precisely the scientific findings, Tass said.

The Tass report said residents also reported recent sightings of a "banana-shaped" object in the sky.

In July, Tass disputed a report in Socialist Industry quoting a UFO specialist, A. Kuzovkin, as saying a 26-foot-wide patch of burned ground near southern Moscow was probably caused by the landing of a UFO.

Tass said firefighters believe a haystack simply caught fire and scorched the ground.