The media still reports from time to time about unidentified flying objects. In 2009, a UK Department of Defense report cited nearly six hundred UFO sightings. Participants in the Soviet program for the study of the anomalous analyzed about 13 thousand such episodes. RIA Novosti talks about why all UFO study programs were closed and what eyewitnesses of mysterious atmospheric phenomena actually see.
How and who studied UFOs
The term UFO (in English - UFO) was invented in the West in the middle of the 20th century to refer to strange phenomena that could not be rationalized. In the USSR, anomalous phenomena were carried away in the 1960s. Information about them more and more often got into the press, astronomers and physicists became interested in them. The founder of Russian ufology is considered the famous Soviet popularizer of astronomy, teacher of the Moscow Aviation Institute Felix Siegel. And the official study of UFOs was initiated by the "Petrozavodsk miracle" that occurred in 1977. The following year, the country launched a state program dedicated to mysterious events.
The UFO study program was described in detail in the article by its leaders, Yuliy Platov and Boris Sokolov, "History of State UFO Research in the USSR", published in 2009 in the bulletin of the RAS Commission for Combating Pseudoscience. The program worked with employees of several military and civilian institutions, trying to find out the reasons for the appearance of UFOs. The version of extraterrestrial civilizations was not considered a priority, but it was not discarded either.
Over the 13 years of the program's work, it was closed in 1990, about three thousand messages were received from residents about various mysterious phenomena. After careful verification, about 300 cases were recognized as worthy of attention. Of these, approximately 90 percent turned out to be associated with launches of space rockets, tests of aircraft and military equipment. The rest is usually balloon launches.
“The results obtained in the framework of this work showed that the studies of“anomalous phenomena”are of undoubted both scientific and applied interest, but the“hypothesis”, more precisely, even the legend of UFOs as a manifestation of the terrestrial activity of extraterrestrial civilizations, turned out to be completely untenable”, - write the authors of the article.
In 2006, the UK Department of Defense released a report prepared in 1996-2000, which clarified cases of UFO sightings and rejected the myth of space aliens. British intelligence stopped analyzing information about UFOs back in 2000. The latest report on the anomaly on the military department's website is dated 2009.
Promotional video:
The famous astronomer and popularizer of science Vladimir Surdin, an employee of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute, dedicated the book "UFOs: Notes of an Astronomer" and a series of public lectures to this topic. In his opinion, the observed UFOs can always be explained scientifically. For example, glare in the camera, noctilucent clouds and an unusual shape of clouds in mountainous areas, meteors, planets, various optical phenomena in the atmosphere, balloon launches, rockets from cosmodromes, weapons tests.
Greg Eghigian of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (USA) associates the popularity of ufology in the world with the Cold War. He analyzed newspaper articles about UFOs and noted that they were not there until the late 1940s. When the confrontation between the superpowers began, the atmosphere of secrecy gave rise to various rumors in society. Competing intelligence agencies encouraged citizens to report anomalous phenomena to them, and then analyzed all collected facts for signs of enemy influence. It was then that ufology took shape as an independent direction. Once the Cold War ended, UFO reports dropped dramatically.
Seagulls over Milwaukee
A group of bright lights that flew synchronously over the American city of Milwaukee were filmed by the journalists of the Fox 6 News channel. Residents were at a loss: what is it? Drones, fireflies or UFOs? The answer turned out to be rather unusual. It looked like a flock of seagulls, from which the light was reflected.
"UFO" by Elon Musk
Hundreds of calls were made to the California State Rescue Service (USA) at the end of December 2017. People reported an "alien invasion" of bright, spaceship-shaped, glowing objects moving rapidly across the sky. It soon became clear that such an optical effect was produced by the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg cosmodrome.
Rocket stage over Canada
In November 2017, many in Canada filmed a fireball moving rapidly across the night sky. Moreover, some pieces fell off the ball. Of course, they immediately started talking about UFOs. In fact, it was a stage of the Antares cargo launch vehicle launched to the ISS on November 12, 2017.
Exhaust over Salekhard
In October 2017, glowing balls were seen in the sky over Salekhard and other cities of Siberia. Alien ships? No, these were the exhaust of rockets launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. In the airless space of space, gas exhausts expand, forming an almost perfect circle. The sun illuminates it and it is visible from the Earth.
Drone in Novosibirsk
Director of the Novosibirsk Planetarium Sergei Maslikov, speaking on July 2, 2013 at the International UFO Day, said that UFOs are often seen in the sky over the city. He himself noticed the mysterious glowing balls. In fact, these are atmospheric phenomena, something intermediate between ball and ordinary lightning. In addition, Novosibirsk is located on the flight path of rockets from Baikonur, and therefore different optical effects are observed.
Indeed, already in September, Novosibirsk residents noticed a luminous object flying over the city. Eyewitnesses published a video on YouTube titled "UFO Novosibirsk". However, astrophysicist Alfiya Nesterenko explained that it was just a drone that someone launched in the evening.
UFO in Voronezh
Residents of Voronezh have observed bright golden balls in the sky for more than a dozen years since 1967. All cases and their interpretations are described in the brochure "UFOs in Voronezh". A wide variety of people, including factory workers, pilots, police officers, and engineers, became eyewitnesses to suspicious bright balls, rays, poles and even "flying saucers". The series of anomalies ended at the end of September 1989, when children witnessed the landing of the "spaceship" right in the city park. They said that “aliens” and “robot” came out of the “ship”. Even ufologists saw mass hypnosis as the most likely explanation for what happened.
Petrozavodsk miracle
One of the most famous UFOs was observed during the Soviet era by residents of the northwestern regions of the country and Finland on the morning of September 20, 1977. A powerful explosion was reported in the atmosphere, after which melted holes appeared in the window panes of some houses. Vyacheslav Zhvirblis, a correspondent for the Chemistry and Life magazine, conducted an investigation and calculated the point of departure of the exploded balloon. She ended up where the secret Plesetsk cosmodrome was located. Despite the lack of official explanations, it was established that on that day at four in the morning a rocket was launched there with the Kosmos-955 satellite on board.
Tatiana Pichugina
