The Soviet Union had its own "men in black" - an organization that was investigating cases related to visits to Earth by aliens and UFOs. True, unlike Hollywood ones, our "agents" were not secret, but quite official, they were called the UFO Commission, and instead of fantastic technologies in each individual case they relied on rationality and a scientific approach.
FOR ADMINISTRATIVE USE
Despite all the ostentatious materialism, interest in paranormalism in the USSR was not weak. So, back in the 1970s, under Brezhnev, a commission on anomalous phenomena appeared on the basis of the Russian Geographical Society in Leningrad. Her sphere of interest included everything that could not be explained by "traditional" science - from UFOs to poltergeists.
- The commission consisted mainly of military people, and almost all of them with high ranks, - says the ufologist, former chairman of the Leningrad Ufological Commission Mikhail Gershtein. - And the activities of the "anomalists" are not that classified, rather, they simply were not brought to the attention of the general public.
One of the reports of the Commission on Anomalous Phenomena, formerly marked * for official use *. Photo: from the personal archives of Mikhail Gerstein.
Meetings were closed to outsiders, and reports were often labeled "For Official Use". Scientists - academicians, professors, candidates of sciences - also worked in the commission.
“For nearly thirty years, we have conducted several hundred expeditions and interviewed, probably, thousands of eyewitnesses,” recalls the ufologist. “Nine times out of ten, nothing really strange was found in their stories. People could mistake anything for a UFO - from an airplane flying with headlights on to the planet Venus.
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But still, there was always the same one - one in ten! - Lucky case. And sometimes it happened that the impressions of a collision with the unknown were redeemed by everyone, and even with interest.
“In 1989-1993, in the Frunzensky district of Leningrad, in the village of Farforovsky post, people met huge - two, and sometimes three-meter - black figures without faces,” says Gerstein.
Everyone, as one, said that the figures were moving: either they walked, but as if their legs did not bend at the knees, or they floated through the air. They did not show any hostility towards people. As a rule, they were just nearby.
- For five years we have received, probably, eight or ten messages about meetings with them. Moreover, from people who not only were not connected with each other, but did not know each other at all, - says the ufologist. - And once one of the eyewitnesses saw how these creatures come out of a flying saucer that landed on a vacant lot near the village. I myself went to the place, walked along the route where black figures were most often seen, tried to find a tree, a bush or some kind of pipe, which in the dark could be mistaken for a human silhouette. But I never found anything.
Other specialists were often involved in the work - for example, dispatchers at Pulkovo airport *. Photo: from the personal archives of Mikhail Gerstein.
CHIPS FOR TRACKING
Gerstein also knows firsthand about the so-called extraterrestrial implants - foreign objects that were inexplicably found in human bodies.
- One scientist injured his hand in the country, and when he went for an X-ray, a foreign metal body was found in his hand. The doctor thought it was a splinter from some kind of mine or shell. However, it turned out that no mines or shells near our scientist, of course, exploded either recently, or ever at all. Yes, and this something did not look like a splinter - more like a metal seed, smooth and with rounded edges.
Such stories, according to Gerstein, have been encountered in the media for at least the past several decades. Almost always, the people who talk about this have ever had a blackout. So our scientist, many years before all these events, was traveling on a train and at some point seemed to lose consciousness, and woke up two hours later in a completely different carriage. Money and personal belongings remained in place.
“Ufologists believe that such implants can be used as tracking devices,” the specialist said. - Unfortunately, this scientist categorically refused to remove the strange object from his hand, and soon passed away.
Working in the pre-computer era was not easy: for example, reports had to be typed on a typewriter. Photo: from the personal archives of Mikhail Gerstein.
UFOs in Crimea and Karelia
Of course, the commission's powers extended not only to Leningrad and the Leningrad Region. So, in a report dated March 12, 1984, a case was reported in the village of Karasan-Utes in Crimea. Three boys discovered a three-meter metal disc with a black spot in the center, resembling a rocket nozzle, in a bush-covered hollow. Outlines of some instruments and flashing red lights were visible through the transparent "cover". The schoolchildren tried to get closer, but a few meters away they seemed to run into an invisible wall. In the evening of the next day, the boys told about the find to two familiar cadets. They had an educational conversation with the "dreamers" on the subject of materialism and rationalism and decided to visit the place where the "alien guest" was standing.
The cadets did not find the apparatus itself, but they stumbled upon deep dents in the ground left by its telescopic support legs, bushes broken by some massive object and a circle of burnt daughter grass, located exactly in the place above which the nozzle was located. Immediately, the materialism of the cadets cracked: the experts of the Commission on Anomalous Phenomena were summoned to the scene. They could not find a rational explanation for what they saw, and therefore decided to consider the incident a manifestation of a UFO.
Measurement of the background radiation at the site of the alleged UFO landing. The background is normal. Photo: from the personal archives of Mikhail Gerstein.
- Another case with the "participation" of UFOs occurred in Karelia, - recalls Mikhail Gershtein. - In 1928, a local resident observed in the area of Lake Vedlozero a presumably wreck of an alien ship. The object went over the edge of the forest, but did not climb back. Since then, strange creatures have been seen on the shores of Vedlozero. Locals called them aquatic and described them as miniature copies of the snowmen. At some point, the military became interested in this.
According to Gerstein, an entire expedition was equipped to Vedlozero and tried to find something at its bottom with the help of radio-acoustic buoys. Unfortunately, this did not give any results, or maybe it did, they were just immediately classified.
INSTEAD OF AFTERWORD
Already by the beginning of the 2000s, the UFO Commission came up pretty shabby by time. Most of the scientists of the "old guard" had died, and there was practically no fresh blood supply either.
One of the main methods of work was going to the place where the UFO was seen, taking analyzes of soil, water and air, and talking with eyewitnesses. Photo: from the personal archives of Mikhail Gerstein.
“By 2013, there was only one member left on the commission - myself,” admits Mikhail Gershtein. - Of course, it was insulting. But, perhaps, there will be enough anomalous and paranormal phenomena in my life. For thirty years of work, I clearly understood one thing: there are many unknown, strange, incomprehensible things for the human mind in the Universe. But I am sure that sooner or later we will reach a level of development that will allow us, if not to study these things inside and out, then at least come closer to understanding them.
