In the last Soviet decade, there were two special groups at once, which had official powers to investigate any anomalous phenomena.
At the beginning of October 1977, a meeting of the scientific and technical council of the military-industrial complex was held, at which a decision was made to create a group in the USSR that would study anomalous phenomena and the UFO phenomenon. This group (later divided into two networks), formed the very next year from highly respected and prominent specialists in various scientific fields, existed until the collapse of the USSR.
How the "classified materials" appeared
In September 1977, thousands of residents of Karelia and Finland observed an unusual object in the sky called the "Petrozavodsk Phenomenon". This was one of the first such cases in the USSR, and it caused considerable resonance. A couple of weeks after this incident, on the initiative of the President of the Academy of Sciences Anatoly Aleksandrov, an urgent meeting of the scientific and technical council of the military-industrial complex was held. This council brought together the country's leading specialists who worked in the defense sector or in related fields.
Although Alexandrov is officially considered the main inspirer of the event, there is an assumption that the real initiator of the urgent meeting of the country's best minds was the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov.
The meeting discussed the fact that lately Soviet science has faced an increasing number of reports of anomalous phenomena, including from the military. It is no longer possible to ignore such a situation, so it is necessary to create a special organization that will study these phenomena.
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As a result of the discussions, the NTS supported the need for such studies and decided to include them in the research plan with the involvement of specialists from the Ministry of Defense.
Who headed
In 1978, two special groups were formed, which were engaged in research in parallel to each other, and in the case of some extraordinary cases, they united and worked together.
One group was created along the military line and operated at the NII-22 base in Mytishchi. This closed institute was subordinate to the Ministry of Defense and was engaged in development in the field of radar. The head of the military group was appointed the head of the research institute, Lieutenant General Viktor Balashov, who was one of the largest specialists in the field of radar technology. This group was called the "MO Grid" (ie the Ministry of Defense).
The second group was formed of scientists and researchers at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation (IZMIRAN). Specialists from various institutes of the Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Space Research, the Institute of Physics of the Earth, etc. were also involved in the work. The head of this group was Vladimir Migulin, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, Director of IZMIRAN. This group was referred to as "Grid AN" (Academy of Sciences).
The fact that distinguished specialists with a name were involved in work in both organizations indicates that this topic was taken extremely seriously in the USSR. After all, UFOs could be the latest developments of potential adversaries from NATO, and there was a cold war in the yard. It was also possible that UFOs and other anomalous phenomena may be of extraterrestrial origin.
How it worked
Each of the groups worked in its own field. Specialists at NII-22 investigated only the information they received from the military and pilots. All Soviet military units, garrisons, airbases were informed about who to report all unusual incidents to.
Specialists at IZMIRAN worked with information coming from witnesses (as a rule, eyewitnesses wrote letters to newspapers and magazines, which they passed on to specialists), with data from meteorologists and other services. Both groups worked independently of each other, unless otherwise indicated.
So, if the military reported the observation of some anomalous phenomena, unidentified aircraft, and these observations were accompanied by malfunctions in the operation of equipment, both groups immediately went to the site for investigation and combined their efforts.
The military group had the primary task of confirming or refuting the effect of anomalies on equipment and people. The scientific group first of all had to explain this or that phenomenon from the point of view of modern science.
The employees who went on expeditions to the field were supplied with special mandates, in which the local party, scientific and any other organizations were ordered to provide them with all possible assistance.
The research program was called "Comprehensive study of anomalous atmospheric and space phenomena."
Anomalies
For 13 years of activity, both "networks" have investigated about 3 thousand messages. And only 10% of them could be called truly anomalous. But they usually had a scientific explanation, although in the strict sense they were anomalies - a consequence of a rare confluence of factors.
In most cases, it was about launching rockets or satellites, observing meteorological balloons, and rare combinations of natural phenomena. The most unusual cases were described by some of the program participants already in the post-Soviet period. In particular, the incident in October 1983 in Khmelnytsky. Then, a significant part of the Strategic Missile Forces division stationed in the area observed extremely unusual phenomena: bright luminous objects hovering in the distance above the horizon. At the same time, the equipment began to fail. The command post received a signal about a malfunction in the missile launch system.
Specialists from both groups urgently arrived at the scene. According to the results of the investigation, they still managed to find an explanation for what happened. It turned out that exercises were carried out at a training range 400 kilometers from the unit using air bombs, parachuted down. Such exercises were common at this training ground, but had not been noticed before. This time, they became visible at such a great distance due to the rare super-refractive effect. As for the problems with the missile launch system, they were recognized as a coincidence.
But not all incidents were so harmless and understandable. The anomalous phenomenon observed in the Voronezh region confused the researchers and became one of the few not investigated by experts. We are talking about the so-called. Borisoglebsk aviation hub - an area where a number of military airfields were located close to each other.
In the period from 1984 to 1987, unidentified objects were observed in this territory several dozen times. They were recorded by both the pilots of the aircraft, observing them from the cabins, and the dispatchers of ground-based radar stations, who detected unknown objects on the radars. In some cases, the appearance of the object led to accidents.
However, the specialists of the "grids" have not been able to unambiguously explain this phenomenon and identify it.
Conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories simply could not help but appear around the classified structure involved in UFO and anomaly research. Astronomer Felix Siegel, an assistant professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute and the first popularizer of UFOs in the USSR, became a pioneer in this matter.
Since MAI was involved in the work of the AN Grid, Siegel knew the people involved in the work, and even participated in the meetings several times. He did not hide his skepticism towards some specialists, for whom "everything that does not fit into the category of atmospheric phenomena is the malicious invention of sensationalists." Siegel concluded that the grid's leadership was not interested in studying the UFO phenomenon.
In the post-Soviet era, some Russian ufologists assumed that the "grids" existed in order to hide information about UFOs and prevent uncontrolled ufologists from researching. In particular, they referred to the recollections of the participants of the "grids", who categorically denied that for 13 years of work they had ever received a message about the landing of an unidentified object or observations of aliens. However, this was not entirely true. According to ufologists, at least one such case was hidden. We are talking about an expedition to the Kazakh Derzhavinsk in May 1980. There, according to local residents, they observed the landing of a luminous ball, scorched footprints on the hill and "very tall humanoid figures." It is known that several employees of the Institute of High Temperatures, which was part of the research program, went there on an expedition.
Local residents were reassured by announcing that these were the tricks of local hooligans who decided to have some fun. However, supporters of the version of the contact believe that it was, but the researchers, having collected all the evidence, purposefully concealed it.
The anomaly research project lasted 13 years. After the collapse of the USSR, both "grids" were disbanded and were no longer restored.
Evgeniy Antonyuk