For 13 years, all the power of the Soviet Union was directed towards one incredible goal: having solved the mystery of UFOs, adapting it to military equipment. The impetus for the start of a large-scale program was another massive observation, this time over Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia.
“The“Petrozavodsk phenomenon”was the formal reason for the launch of the organizational work, - admitted many years later Yuliy Viktorovich Platov, one of the leaders of the“Setka-AN”program. - The very fact that the inhabitants of the city observed an unusual light phenomenon was indisputable and did not raise doubts. It soon became clear that at this time a similar picture was seen in the sky in places very far from Petrozavodsk, even in Finland. It was impossible to simply dismiss such an event."
Meduza, which flashed on September 20, 1977 in the sky over Petrozavodsk, shocked not only those who saw it, but also those who read about it in the newspapers. No, of course, it was possible to dismiss it, but “the bird has already flown out”: on September 23, through an oversight of censorship, the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia, Socialist Industry and Selskaya Zhizn published a note by TASS correspondent in Karelia Nikolai Milov. It was she who became the stone that pushed the whole avalanche.
“Even in the brightest, most fantastic dreams, could I have assumed that one morning the mainstream newspapers would publish detailed reports on one of the most amazing UFOs?” - the ufologist F. Yu. Siegel enthusiastically responded. Today the reaction would be much less violent, but in the years of stagnation, a small note became an all-Union sensation:
“Residents of Petrozavodsk witnessed an unusual natural phenomenon. On September 20, at about four o'clock in the morning, a huge "star" suddenly flashed brightly in the dark sky, impulsively sending sheaves of light to the Earth. This "star" slowly moved towards Petrozavodsk and, spreading over it in the form of a jellyfish, hung, showering the city with many thinnest ray streams, which gave the impression of pouring rain (Fig. 31).
After some time, the ray glow ended, the "jellyfish" turned into a bright semicircle and resumed its movement towards Lake Onega, the horizon of which was enveloped in gray clouds. In this veil, then a semicircular ravine of bright red color to the middle and white on the sides formed. This phenomenon, according to evidence eyewitnesses, lasted 10-12 minutes.
The director of the Petrozavodsk hydrometeorological observatory Y. Gromov told the TASS correspondent that the workers of the meteorological service of Karelia had not previously observed analogues in nature. What caused this phenomenon, what is its nature, remains a mystery, because no sharp deviations in the atmosphere, not only over the past day, but also on the way to them, were not registered by the weather observation posts …”.
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Hundreds of residents who, for one reason or another, did not sleep that night, saw a colorful phenomenon in the sky. Dozens, if not hundreds, of reports were sent to the editorial offices of newspapers, observatories or directly to the USSR Academy of Sciences (Fig. 32). Inquiries came from abroad: what flew over Petrozavodsk? Was it a visit from an alien ship, an unusual northern lights, or a test of new Soviet weapons? Finally, the scientists decided to hold a meeting. It took place on November 1, 1977 at the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was attended by one of the heads of the Department of General Physics and Astronomy (OOFA) of the USSR Academy of Sciences V. V. Migulin, director of the IKI Academician R. Z. Sagdeev and his deputy, Major General, Professor G. S. Narimanov. All those present unanimously came to the conclusion that it is necessary to create a commission to investigate the Petrozavodsk phenomenon.
We have a corresponding document at our disposal:
“Having heard and discussed the message of the candidate of physical and mathematical sciences L. M. Gindilis on the results of the preliminary collection and analysis of data on the phenomenon on September 20, 1977, the meeting considers it appropriate:
1. To recommend the creation of an interdepartmental commission consisting of: V. Migulin (corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, chairman), G. I. Petrov (academician), G. S. Narimanov (IKI), I. M. Efimenko (section applied problems), Makarov A. N. (OOFA), Potapov V. N. (OMPU), Gindilis L. M. (GAISh), Petrovskaya I. G. (IKI), Raspopov O. M. (PGI), Gromov Yu. A. (Karelian Hydrometeorological Observatory), Yu. L. Truce (IFA).
To ask the commission of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military-industrial issues to instruct the Ministry of Defense (Missile Forces, Air Defense, Navy), KGB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MGA), Ministry of the Navy (MMF), Main Directorate of Hydrometeorological Service (GUGMS) allocate their representatives to the commission and provide assistance to its work.
2. Permit the chairman of the commission to involve employees of the USSR Academy of Sciences and other departments in the work of the commission.
3. Instruct the commission to carry out additional data collection and analysis within two months. To report on the findings to the leadership of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences for a subsequent report by the Commission of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military-industrial issues.
Lev Mironovich Gindilis, a well-known astronomer and specialist in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, later recalled this:
“The results of the meeting were reported to the President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Academician A. P. Aleksandrov. It was assumed that he, on behalf of the Academy of Sciences, would send a recommendation to the government on the creation of a commission to study the Petrozavodsk phenomenon. However, Anatoly Petrovich was in no hurry to make a decision …”.
In the end, A. P. Aleksandrov nevertheless signed a letter addressed to L. V. Smirnov, Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, head of the Commission of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers on military-industrial issues (MIC). However, it already contained a request to organize a commission not only to study the Petrozavodsk phenomenon, but also other UFOs "with the broad involvement of organizations of the Ministry of Defense and defense industries." L. V. Smirnov, in turn, instructed Academician A. N. Shchukin, who headed the Scientific and Technical Council of the military-industrial complex, to discuss this appeal at the next meeting.
On December 21, 1977, a fateful meeting took place in the Kremlin. It was opened by Lieutenant General B. A. Kiyasov, one of Shchukin's deputies. He briefly spoke about the letter of the President of the Academy of Sciences, the essence of which fit into one phrase: “The Academy of Sciences can no longer ignore, nor can it explain anomalous phenomena similar to what was observed in September 1977 in Petrozavodsk, and therefore asks to organize complex studies of anomalous phenomena with the involvement of the organizations of the Ministry of Defense and the military-industrial complex”(Fig. 33).
Almost all those present supported the opinion about the need to study UFOs. This was a big step forward. The Scientific and Technical Council recommended that a new topic be included in the state plan of scientific research work on defense topics for 1978: "Investigation of anomalous atmospheric and space phenomena, their causes and impact on the operation of military equipment and the state of personnel."
The recommendation was accepted. In the five-year plan of work on defense topics, the military-industrial complex included two topics with a deadline of 1978-1980: the "Setka-MO" program (Ministry of Defense) - "Investigation of anomalous atmospheric and space phenomena and their impact on the functioning of military equipment and the state of personnel" and "Grid-AN" (USSR Academy of Sciences) - "Investigation of the physical nature and mechanisms of development of anomalous atmospheric and space phenomena."
Coined by L. M. Gindilis, D. A. Menkov and I. G. Petrovskaya, the term "anomalous cosmic and atmospheric phenomena" (AKAF) somehow did not take root, but their other proposals began to be gradually implemented.
“The need for a trip to Petrozavodsk was quite obvious,” recalled Lev Mironovich. - But while there were hesitations on the creation of the Commission, no practical steps were taken. Only by the end of December 1977, after a meeting in the military-industrial complex, did the issue become practical. On December 28, V. V. Migulin, in preparation for our trip, signed letters of gratitude on behalf of the Academy of Sciences to N. P. Milov and Yu. A. Gromov for their assistance in the study of the Petrozavodsk phenomenon. At the same time, he signed letters from the USSR Academy of Sciences to the Karelian branch of the Academy of Sciences and the Karelian regional committee of the CPSU, with a request for assistance to a "group of specialists" in clarifying "the circumstances of observing a rare atmospheric phenomenon." These letters were signed by the Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician V. A. Kotelnikov on January 2, 1978,and in early January we flew to Petrozavodsk (Fig. 34).
We stayed in Petrozavodsk for about a week. We talked with eyewitnesses, which made it possible to clarify some essential details of the phenomenon …”(Fig. 35).
By the time the commission arrived, it turned out that quite recently something mysterious had been seen again over the city, and its description also hit the pages of the newspaper. On December 23, the local Leninskaya Pravda published a note by the director of the hydrometeorological observatory, Yuri Gromov, "False Suns":
“On December 19, at 7:40 am, an experienced meteorologist of the observation department of the Karelian Hydrometeorological Observatory with more than 30 years of experience, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Karpina, observed an unusual natural phenomenon. Leaving the house (Petrozavodsk, Sulazhgorskaya st.), Due to her professional habit, she looked at the sky. It was cloudless, clear, dotted with many stars. When E. M. Karpina turned her gaze to the north, she presented herself with a "fairytale picture": in the sky at an angle of 40-45 degrees to the horizon, she saw two false suns. They did not differ in size and shape from an ordinary sun: only their color was what something "soft", pale salad with a blue tint around the edges, somewhat reminiscent of the color of the northern lights, characteristic of our Petrozavodsk latitudes. Both false suns had great brightness in the middle and were connected by a bridge emanating from their center. The length of the bulkhead, as EM Karpina managed to notice, did not exceed 1 m, and its width was equal to approximately one fortieth of the diameter of the Sun. However, the bar was brighter than the false Suns themselves, and even brighter than their central part. The edges of the lintel had clear outlines. The False Suns did not move, they seemed to hover in the sky, vertically positioned one above the other. The weather at that time was moderately windy - 8 m / s with gusts up to 11 m / s. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared. The length of the bulkhead, as EM Karpina managed to notice, did not exceed 1 m, and its width was equal to approximately one fortieth of the diameter of the Sun. However, the bar was brighter than the false Suns themselves, and even brighter than their central part. The edges of the lintel had clear outlines. The False Suns did not move, they seemed to hover in the sky, vertically positioned one above the other. The weather at that time was moderately windy - 8 m / s with gusts up to 11 m / s. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared. The length of the bulkhead, as EM Karpina managed to notice, did not exceed 1 m, and its width was equal to approximately one fortieth of the diameter of the Sun. However, the bar was brighter than the false Suns themselves, and even brighter than their central part. The edges of the lintel had clear outlines. The False Suns did not move, they seemed to hover in the sky, vertically positioned one above the other. The weather at that time was moderately windy - 8 m / s with gusts up to 11 m / s. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared. However, the bar was brighter than the false Suns themselves, and even brighter than their central part. The edges of the lintel had clear outlines. The False Suns did not move, they seemed to hover in the sky, vertically positioned one above the other. The weather at that time was moderately windy - 8 m / s with gusts up to 11 m / s. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared. However, the bar was brighter than the false Suns themselves, and even brighter than their central part. The edges of the lintel had clear outlines. The False Suns did not move, they seemed to hover in the sky, vertically positioned one above the other. The weather at that time was moderately windy - 8 m / s with gusts up to 11 m / s. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared. During the period of many years of work, the meteorologist Ekaterina Mikhailovna saw many different natural phenomena in the sky, but this is the first time. Thinking about it, she was distracted from what she was watching for a few seconds, and when she looked there again, everything had already disappeared.
Everything would be fine if the newspaper did not put brief information right under the note in the "Weather" section: "Sunrise at 10 hours 4 minutes." What happens: the "false Sun" appeared more than 2 hours before the rise of the real Sun, because it is unlikely that 4 days ago it rose much earlier!
True False Suns are usually seen 22 degrees from the true Sun, to the right and left. They can be connected by a halo ring (in its center is the real sun). Sometimes one can see one false Sun without a circle, brightly colored. The false Sun can be followed by a "tail" directed away from the real Sun, up to 20 degrees in length, a shorter "tail" - pointing to the Sun, and up and down - fragments of a halo (broken ring) move away. The colors of the false Sun are red, yellow or orange, sometimes multi-colored (red side to the Sun). They can also be observed at a distance of 46, 90, 140 degrees from the Sun, but in this case they are much less bright and extremely rare. Other options are known, but they are also not at all similar to what EM Karpina saw.
F. Yu. Siegel commented on the message of "Leninskaya Pravda":
“I had to observe 'false Suns' many times, and therefore I can confidently assert that the phenomenon described in the note does not belong to the known optical phenomena … There is every reason to classify the phenomenon observed in Petrozavodsk on December 19, 1977, as a dumbbell UFO.”
However, the famous ufologist also rushed to conclusions: in the stories of other eyewitnesses it is said that this phenomenon was not stable.
“On December 19, 1977, at 7.20 am (the time is exact, since the SMU-5 bus makes the same trip every day and at the same time makes a stop on Pravdy street), I was standing there in front of the church,” said the master SMU-5 Sergey Petrovich Sorokin, born in 1955. - There were also workers, four people, talking. We look, there is some kind of object hanging over the house - perhaps far above the lake. Not high above the chimney, right above it.
It was a ball, and there was a sense of volume in it. Silver in color, it shone, it looked like the moon was shining with reflected light, but at the same time it was still shining from the inside, and it looked like daylight … The air temperature was about 30 degrees, there were no stars, frost in the air - it it created some kind of chiaroscuro, it seemed brighter in the middle. He hung motionless. The ball was about the size of the disk of the moon, but brighter than it. Light like from a lantern.
10-15 seconds after I saw the ball, a ray of light suddenly crept up from it, and the higher the ray crawled, the more clearly another ball loomed at its end; and the lower sphere, meanwhile, grew dim as the ray moved and the second sphere was formed, and the upper one grew in size and flared up. Finally, both balls became equal in size - the design of the second ball took 10-15 seconds. The upper ball went 10-15 discs of the Moon up the beam from the lower one. The beam was bright, the same luminosity as the first ball at maximum … Then, right before our eyes, everything disappeared - about a minute after the start.
Our people immediately started talking about aliens, someone compared it to the launch of a children's rocket. Someone said that this is a natural phenomenon; I was immediately sure that this was the work of aliens”(Fig. 36).
Another resident of Petrozavodsk, E. Konkov, wrote to reporters:
“In the cloudless, clear sky in the north there was a luminous ball - the light emission was rather weak. A vertical point very slowly separated from the ball, behind it was a trail of the same glow as the glowing ball. The moving point had the brightness of an average star (it could be taken for the lights of an airplane); the brightness either decreased or increased (Fig. 37).
Its movement was rather slow and was fixed by me on the neighboring star. When the point rose above the star, its glow increased … and somehow everything disappeared at once. There was no neighboring "false Sun" nearby. There was a formless small cloud aside, but it remained and did not emit any glow …"
Why did Konkov not see the ball flaring up at the upper end of the beam? Perhaps he saw only the initial phase of the phenomenon? Vasily Varlashkin, assistant cameraman of the Petrozavodsk television studio, and a number of other eyewitnesses for some reason saw only one "spot" at all.
“I left the house and walked along Oktyabrsky Avenue,” Vera Zhivotovskaya said. - On the way to kindergarten, I saw some kind of glowing ball that hung just above the house. I looked towards the lake: The sky was dark blue, there were no stars … The color of the ball was like in electric welding, but the buildings were not illuminated by this light. It was 17 minutes to 8 in the morning, and for another two minutes I watched the ball again. Now he was already hanging over the lake itself. It was, perhaps, not quite a ball, it had an oval shape, the long axis was horizontal. The color and brightness did not change during the second observation. A cone was visible under the oval, the glow is bright, but diffused. The cone was clearly visible. There was nothing like that inside. I don’t remember whether the oval moved across the sky, most likely not … I will also add that the light did not pulsate, and the cone shone as if from the inside”.
The cone, in Konkov's drawing emerging from one "ball" and not crowned with anything, here, on the contrary, emanates from the ball downward. Apparently, in some phase of the phenomenon, the lower ball went out or was obscured by something, and the upper one had already flared up.
As during the sensational events of September 20, 1977, this phenomenon was also observed throughout Karelia, and not only in Petrozavodsk. Messages came from different places, which makes it possible to assess the remoteness of objects and their relative position.
“I, too, witnessed this extraordinary phenomenon,” wrote Lena Usoltseva, a 7th grade student at Pindushskaya secondary school in Medvezhyegorsk district. - On December 19 at 7.40 something amazing appeared in the sky.
As soon as I looked at the vision, I immediately flashed in my head: “Rocket!” Yes, it was very much like a rocket with a brightly outlined outline: it ended with an incomplete point. A light orange stripe on the outline of the “rocket” was clearly visible, which was nowhere was moving.
Immediately below it was the "Sun" or just a ball of pale blue color, behind it was a spot of the same pale color, only white and much larger in size. There was no second "Sun", as the newspaper says.
The glow, so to speak, lasted no more than 3-4 minutes, gradually it began to fade and disappear. Only the blue ball was visible longer. Even before it appeared, I looked at the northern part of the sky for a long time, my attention was attracted by a bright light orange star. When the blue ball began to disappear, it was possible to notice that the star disappeared. It just couldn't seem. Approximately it looked like this (Fig. 38).
The disk of a false sun and a normal sun would have approximately the same radius; the length of the "rocket" and the bulkhead is 1 m. But I do not agree with the way it is written in the note that the bulkhead was brighter than the Sun, and its width was equal to 1/40 of the Sun's diameter, the width was much greater. if the star could be seen, it would be approximately in the center of the blue disk, but it disappeared …"
However, the most detailed message was sent to the Department of General Physics and Astronomy of the USSR Academy of Sciences by the head of the Geomagnetic Expedition of the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation of the USSR Academy of Sciences Yu. Kopytenko. On that day, he was a kilometer south of Belomorsk, along with two more members of the expedition:
“Employees of the IZMIRAN Geomagnetic Expedition observed an unusual phenomenon on December 19, 1977 from 7.30 am to 7.47 am Moscow time.
On the dark sky in the NE part at an elevation angle of 30 degrees, an orange spot (lantern) of the "pear" type appeared. After about a minute, it disappeared from the field of view. After a while (7.33), a small luminous spot appeared in the same part of the sky at an elevation angle of 40 degrees. a vertical cone-shaped pillar with a base at the bottom, which, increasing in size, approached sideways within 1.5 minutes from east to west towards Belomorsk. At 7.36 the object began to maneuver in the northern part of the sky, going slightly up over the city. it seemed to hover over Belomorsk, moving slightly upward. The contours of this object in the shape of a mushroom with its stem downward were clearly visible. The lower part of the object was a long cone-shaped vertical sheaf of clear whitish-yellowish light. The light resembled a powerful beam of a searchlight and came from top to bottom from a blue ball. The length of the light beam was 5 times the diameter of the sphere. Above the ball there was a small dark segment, which separated a kind of dynamic cover of the ball in the form of a sickle of blue with greenish and reddish tints. The ends of the sickle framed the ball and emanated from it, resembling a radiation belt.
The blue ball was no more than 1/4 of the moon's disk. The object hung in the air at an elevation angle of 45 degrees for no more than 1 minute at an altitude of 1.5-3 km (judging by the small clouds). Then the sheaf of light began to fade away. After some time (30 seconds) the entire object was blocked from us by the outer surface of the sickle. A blue cloud the size of the moon's disk appeared at this place. This cloud was decreasing, and the object was silently moving away”(Fig. 39).
Many years later, we decided to plot the azimuths from different points on the map. They all went to the northeast. The two most accurate measurements crossed at Cape Kanin Nos!
For people not familiar with Soviet missile programs, Cape Kanin Nos can only be associated with the famous nursery rhyme about ignorance of geography or Pomors-sailors. For us, everything became clear: a mysterious phenomenon burned in the sky in the area of the Chizha training ground, which is now used as a place where the warheads of sea-based ballistic missiles fall. Usually, missiles are launched from submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk, but the opposite option is also possible - launching missiles from the Barents Sea at the Kura test site in Kamchatka.
So, the asterisk rising up and the cone is, apparently, a sea-launched rocket and its train. With balls, the situation is more complicated. Such balls are usually formed when special containers with chemical reagents are blown up during "active experiments" in the upper atmosphere or the explosion of the rocket itself (in the case of a "guaranteed supply" of fuel, a clear ball is not formed).
Why were there two balls? During the "active experiments" on the night of 23-24 August 1968 over the Barents Sea three "balls" lit up in the sky at once, but, judging by the descriptions, they were delivered by three separate rockets. Here, perhaps, the following scheme was applied: the rocket first separates the stage or warhead with the container, which is blown up (this is the first ball), continues to rise (a trail is behind it - the "jumper"), drops the second container (second ball) and continues its flight (removal of the asterisk seen by the military). We no longer have any doubts that behind the "false suns" were some experiments of the Soviet Navy. It is unknown whether the members of the commission that arrived in Petrozavodsk knew about this - almost no documents about the investigation of the December 19 episode have survived.
Of course, not all mysterious phenomena could be explained so simply. On that day in Leningrad, a pensioner Anna Grigorievna observed something strange:
“On December 19, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I noticed a light disk 3-4 times the diameter of the moon above the roof of a neighboring five-story building. The disk shone with a white matte light, uniform, calm, but brighter than the brightness of the Moon. The disc was in the northwest at an angle of about 45 degrees to the horizon and appeared to be very low above the roof. The disc was round, with a cut off chord, at the upper end of which there was a rectangular projection.
At first it seemed that the disk was motionless, but, looking closely, I noticed that it was moving very slowly to the right and down. After a while, the disk hid behind the houses, and for some time only its rectangular protrusion was visible. Finally, the ledge went behind the house, after which there was a glow from behind the roof for 10-15 minutes. When the object disappeared behind the roof, for a very moment a thin and short ray (about 1-1.5 m) appeared, inside of which glowing threads were clearly visible, emerging as if from one point.
When the disk was visible from below, in a circle, it was surrounded by a red stripe, between which and the disk sparkling of other colors occurred: blue, blue, and maybe others. Then everything went out, but flashes appeared. The phenomenon was accompanied by an indistinct, muffled, even hum."
In the evening of the same day, Doctor of Sciences Lev Nikolaevich Galkin, an employee of the Main Geophysical Observatory, looked out of the window of his apartment on Novo-Izmailovsky Prospekt:
“On December 19, at 22.49, accidentally glancing out the window, he saw three oval luminous objects moving eastward in a triangle formation,” K. Polevitsky wrote 5 days later. - Oval shape, white glow. The size of objects is 1/3 the diameter of the moon, the distance between objects is 3 diameters. The observation was carried out with a cloudless sky over the city. Height - 1-1.5 km. The movement was in a straight line, there was no sound. LN Galkin opened the window to better see and observe the movement of objects together with his wife. The duration of the observation is about a minute. LN Galkin did not see the end of the movement, as he went for the binoculars, and when he returned, the phenomenon disappeared. A clearly visible trail was formed along the axis of movement, like a fog, illuminated from below by the city lights, the trail was opposite to the direction of movement of the object. This jet left by the UFO expanded and after a while reached the observers who continued to look from the open window. When inhaling the "fog", both felt a burning sensation in their chest and something like temporary memory loss …"
These observations remain unidentified to this day.
Mikhail Gershtein