Most recently, the Moscow publishing house Stigmarion published the book “NGO. Secrets of Russia”, which was the result of many years of work by the American ufologist Paul Stonehill and the former director of the British UFO Research Association Philip Mantle on researching the UFO / NGO phenomenon in the Soviet Union. Most of the mysterious and unexplained events described in the book have never been published before. We managed to interview Paul Stonehill.
- In collaboration with Philip Mantle, you have written several books about NGOs in the USSR and Russia. What is the reason for your interest in Russia?
- Since the reign of Peter I, the ships of the Russian fleet have plowed the waters of all the seas and oceans of the planet. Many people know the courage, perseverance and awareness of Russian sailors and officers who took part in expeditions around the world and made many important discoveries.
I have been reading books about the history of the Russian Navy and its researchers, which my mother gave me, since I learned to read. Mom is now 82 years old, but she continues to read such books.
During World War II, my relatives served in the USSR Navy and other divisions of the Soviet Armed Forces, fighting against the Nazi invaders. In my youth, I wanted to become a Nakhimovite, but for some reason I was not accepted.
- Your book is called NGO. Secrets of Russia ". Moreover, most of the information, according to the links in the book itself, is taken from open sources and is not a "secret". Please comment on this point.
- For a long time such information was classified in the USSR and was not available in the West. In 1989, with Gorbachev's new policy, a lot changed and a number of information became available. Over the years, Philip Mantle and I have been collecting information from open sources and conducting extensive research on NGO reports. However, most of the research findings on UFO / NGO incidents still remain classified in Russia, the United States and China.
- Is your book aimed at a Western reader, or was it written for those interested in Russia?
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- The book was originally written for Western readers. But, of course, we would like to see it printed in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese and other languages.
- You are referring to some internal documents of Russia. Please clarify whether you had access to them, or are we talking only about declassified materials?
- This exciting information was collected by us from all open sources that were available to us - archives, reports of military and civilian sailors, publications in the media, works and interviews of our fellow researchers from the Soviet Union and Russia.
- The information about UFO / NGOs and incidents that has already been published in the media is often unreliable, and later revelations and refutations appear. How do you assess the reliability of the information you rely on - is it closer to "highly likely" or can you still trust it?
- We conducted research on all available sources and consulted with respected ufologists from Russia and Ukraine.
- Have you personally interviewed eyewitnesses of the events you are writing about?
- Alas, it was impossible. Nevertheless, in the West, I met with several Soviet sailors and officers of the Navy who had left the USSR. We discussed with them a lot of cases of UFO / NGO sightings on the territory of the Soviet Union.
- In which anomalous zones of Russia, described in your book, did you yourself manage to visit?
- Many years ago, I visited several times on the Black Sea coast (Georgia and Ukraine), the Azov Sea and in Belarus.
My father, who served in the Soviet Army in the mid-1950s, spent several years in Siberia, the Far East and Magadan. He was very observant, collecting stories, describing the hard-to-reach areas where he served. Being infatuated and fascinated with Siberia and the Russian Far East, I have read many books about these territories.
I have met with Russian people who immigrated from the USSR to the USA and Brazil through China. They shared their observations of interesting and mysterious phenomena in the lakes, rivers and forests of the North.
- Have you personally observed UFO / NGOs? If yes, what were your feelings and what was the impression left?
- I happened to observe a UFO over the city of Northridge in California, as far as I remember, it was in 1990. A huge fireball flew across the sky. I was not the only one who saw this object. And it was an incredible feeling. I have been studying the history of UFOs for more than one year, but what I saw there, we could not explain.
- In the chapter “NGOs, UFOs and the Arctic Ocean” there is a section “Future conflicts”, which describes only geopolitical moments. This section is not directly related to the topic of the book. Could you clarify how this is related to UFOs?
- In my opinion, the emergence of conflicts in the Arctic Ocean will lead to the fact that more and more UFOs and NGOs will be observed in this region.
There is definitely an "alien" presence in the Russian Arctic, but I don't think it's just someone's espionage. In addition, I am confident that Russia and the United States are aware of incidents with NGOs in the region, as they worked together to adequately respond to the challenge. China is also striving to get to the Arctic and is making clear progress in this direction.
I think that Russia should pay attention to the observations made by military personnel, scientists and ordinary people in regions such as Yakutia, Taimyr, etc. I believe that people from all over the world should visit these places and explore their harsh beauty. The more people from other countries learn about Russia, the better.
I hope that our book will generate interest, as it happened in Brazil. Today I get questions from people from many countries - from India to Argentina, from Israel to Japan, from Canada to Holland. Take a look at the Arctic and you yourself will understand why we talk about this in our book.
- You have studied a large layer of various information and probably came to some kind of opinion about what NGOs really are and who created them. So all the same, these are the previous earthly civilizations, parallel worlds or alien intervention?
- Often, phenomena that seem mysterious and mysterious can have quite rational explanations. I believe that UFOs are the flying machines of ancient advanced civilizations used by people, which have survived to this day and are in working order. In our book, there is an episode describing the similarity of ancient Indian mythical creatures that looked like people and had the characteristics of amphibians, with the "swimmers" from the 1982 incident.
Nevertheless, the hypothesis of the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs is not excluded. It may well be that we are being watched by representatives of highly developed extraterrestrial civilizations. Read books written by Russian supporters of the paleocontact hypothesis. Their ideas were presented in a number of Soviet publications before something like this was published in the West.
It should be noted that Philip Mantle is an experienced and knowledgeable Western explorer contacted by prominent Soviet researchers and UFO research teams in the 1980s. I am a product of several cultures and conducted research not only in classrooms, but also “in the fields”.
Before my family left the USSR for California, I collected a lot of stories and information from all available sources, and continued to work in the USA. While in America, he collected stories of indigenous Indians about the ancient flood, and also, relying on information provided by the Russian immigrant Andrei Tomashevsky (aka Australian writer Andrew Thomas), visited the paranormal zones of California, including Mount Shasta.
Many years ago I spent some time in South Africa, following the information found in the books of Ivan Efremov, a famous Soviet paleontologist, philosopher, social thinker and mysterious person. There I also met another Russian, a hunter and explorer who had left the USSR in the 1930s, who saw forgotten cities in South Africa and much more. We talked, shared information, and I took notes.
While giving a series of lectures in Brazil, I had the opportunity to meet people whose ancestors came from Russia, Ukraine and Georgia. Some of them shared their stories about the phenomena they saw on the Amazon River.
In the early 1990s and in 2008, he visited Yucatan in Mexico, following the ideas of Soviet and Czech archaeologists, supporters of paleocontact. I knew one person who defended the lost cities of Yucatan, Maya and other civilizations from thieves and smugglers. He told me several stories about things hidden in the jungle and about "ancient" foreigners. All this happened even before the creation of the Mexican National Gendarmerie, whose task is to protect the country's cultural heritage.
I had a chance to visit Chichen Itza and Tulum, where I collected stories of Indians about strange "iron fish" and stone slabs in the sea, later comparing what I heard with Yakut folklore and Yakut legends about "iron fish".
Years later, he visited Florida, as he heard the stories of the Seminole Indians that strange NGOs were observed in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico near Marco Island and to the north of it.
Since I turned 19, I have been working hard to visit remote places and do research. So, a few years ago, I finally made a trip to the northwest of the United States in order to check the stories about unidentified objects.
While exploring the mysterious underground tunnels in downtown Los Angeles and the legends of an ancient civilization that existed there five thousand years ago, I talked with people who were in isolated places of the tunnels and saw very strange, eerie footprints. Of course, all my findings and conclusions were compared with what I learned from the Native Americans.
I am almost 60 years old and I hope to visit Russia one day, see Siberia, the Far East, Yakutia and the Kola Peninsula. I hope that Americans and people from other Western countries (Asia, the Middle East, etc.) will learn about the unusual paranormal phenomena that were observed in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asia.
I have a You Tube channel dedicated to my own research. I was also able to contribute to the American television program Ancient Aliens. And yes, I support the Russian paleocontact hypothesis.
We live on a very interesting planet, while we know so little about its depths. I am for cooperation, not confrontation.
- What are your plans for future editions? Should we expect a continuation?
- Yes, Philip and I have collected so much amazing material that we obviously have enough to continue.
Interviewed by Elena Krumbo