In 1986, an unidentified flying object crashed in Dalnegorsk, researchers managed to collect its fragments. His secret has acquired many versions, but scientists have not come to a consensus.
At the end of January 1986, hundreds of Dalnegorsk residents observed a luminous object flying over the city and crashing into the mountain. This incident became one of the most famous in the history of UFO sightings in the USSR, and in the West it became known as the "Russian Roswell". What the townspeople actually saw on the evening of January 29 has not yet been established.
UFO crash
On January 29, 1986, many residents of Dalnegorsk noticed an unknown object in the evening sky. It was a small glowing red ball. Its size did not exceed half of the full moon. The object was moving parallel to the ground at a speed of about 15 meters per second. At the same time, he did not leave a trail of fire or light behind him and flew absolutely soundless. The flight of an unidentified object ended on Mount Izvestkovaya, also known as Hill 611. The glowing ball crashed into the mountain, after which, for an hour, a glow, typical of a strong fire, was observed over the accident site.
The testimony was divided as to sounds. Some claimed that the luminous ball collided with the mountain and exploded completely silently, which surprised them. Others did hear the sound of the collision, which they described as a slightly muffled impact.
The next day, a group of local residents visited the accident site. They expected to find wreckage of some kind of aircraft on the spot, but they did not find anything except pieces of lead, small black balls ranging in size from 2 to 5 millimeters and several fragments of an unusual shell, the so-called. "Grids". There was a chemical smell at the site, but the background radiation was normal, which was confirmed by further research.
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Research
A few days later, Valery Dvuzhilny, a well-known researcher of anomalous phenomena in the Far East, arrived at Height 611. He carefully examined the crash site of the object, and also interviewed those who were present at the crash site the next day. From these people, he received the wreckage of the fallen apparatus, and the researchers themselves also managed to find something. In total, about 70 grams of lead droplets were collected at the crash site, almost half the size of black balls and only 5 grams of fragments of an unusual "grid".
Dalnegorsk. PhotoD Photo chronicle TASS / Sergei Kozlov.
The found materials were sent for examination, which established their composition. The tiny black balls were made of silicon, iron, and lead. The investigated fragments of the "grid" contained gold, scandium, samarium, lanthanum, praseodymium, and sodium.
The era of glasnost soon began, and the Dalnegorsk phenomenon hit the newspapers. This led to a real pilgrimage of ufologists (at that time the UFO theme experienced an explosion in popularity in the USSR) to the Far East. In subsequent years, sightings of unidentified objects in the area of Height 611 were repeatedly reported, but this evidence is not as reliable as the incident on January 29. Since in this case hundreds of eyewitnesses observed the flying ball, in addition, the researchers received physical evidence of the existence of this object.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the story of the incident at Height 611 leaked into Western countries and gained such a cult status that it was nicknamed "Russian Roswell". Several documentaries have been filmed about the Dalnegorsk phenomenon; there are tourist routes in the city to the place where the ball fell. However, for 34 years, it was not possible to unequivocally find out what actually crashed into the mountain on the evening of January 29.
UFO or alien probe
For obvious reasons, this version is especially popular with ufologists. The accident in Dalnegorsk is the only case in Soviet history (and one of the few in the world), when undeniable physical evidence of the existence of an unidentified object was obtained.
Given the initially small size of the object and the absence of crew bodies and traces of organic matter, it is more likely that it could be something like a reconnaissance probe.
Experts' opinions on the origin of the debris (especially the "mesh", which, according to the researchers, had the finest gold threads in a quartz shell 17 microns thick) were divided. Some believed that these technologies were not available to earthlings, while most experts believed that all the debris was of earthly origin. The weak point of this version is the absence of any reliably proven extraterrestrial technology or materials that could serve as a strong argument in its favor.
Foo fighters
The descriptions of the witnesses of the Dalnegorsk phenomenon very accurately coincide with the description of the so-called. foo fighters. This designation was given to unidentified luminous objects, which were often observed by pilots of all warring parties during the Second World War.
Pilots who saw them described them as glowing balls half the size of the full moon. Sometimes they moved in a straight line parallel to the ground. In some cases, they performed complex maneuvers and pirouettes.
All the belligerent countries considered these objects to be some kind of secret weapon of the enemy, but after the war it turned out that no one had such a weapon. It was not possible to explain the phenomenon of foo fighters. They tried to interpret it as optical illusions, ball lightning, some poorly studied atmospheric phenomena, but a single hypothesis was never formulated.
Meteorite or ball lightning
The version of the meteorite fall was not very popular from the very beginning, because the testimony of the witness too strongly contradicted the characteristic behavior of the meteorites. Their fall is most often accompanied by loud explosions, sometimes noticeable for tens of kilometers. In addition, in this case, neither a condensation trail in the atmosphere nor seismic shocks were observed. The falling velocity of the object was also many times lower than that typical for fragments of a cosmic body. Debris found at Altitude 611 is not typical of meteorites.
The description of the Dalnegorsk phenomenon is much more consistent with ball lightning than a meteorite fragment. It is most often described as a ball of light moving horizontally through the air. As a rule, the disappearance of lightning is accompanied by an explosion (sometimes it happens silently) and, in some cases, a fire.
However, it should be noted that most of the observations of ball lightning refer to the summer period and are usually associated with thunderstorms, which are extremely rare in the winter season.
Foreign reconnaissance balloon
The most popular version among those who are skeptical. According to this hypothesis, the unknown object was in fact an automatic drifting balloon that self-destructed as it approached the ground. This version is shared by some ufologists, for example, Mikhail Gershtein, chairman of the Ufological Commission of the Russian Geographical Society.
Drifting balloons have been launched by the Americans for reconnaissance purposes since the 1940s. Spy balloons could rise to a height of 30 kilometers, which for a long time protected them from interception by Soviet fighters. In the early 80s, the M-17 aircraft, capable of fighting spy balloons, entered service with the Soviet air defense. Officially, the ADA flight program was curtailed in the early 60s, but in reality, these vehicles were launched until the end of the Cold War.
Such balloons most often appeared on the western and eastern borders of the USSR. At the same time, the Far East and Primorye have traditionally been objects of close interest for American intelligence, since many top-secret industries and military bases were concentrated there.
To be less noticeable for air defense, the envelope of the balloons was made of materials that did not contain metal. The "mesh" found at the crash site could have been burnt-out remnants of the carbon fabric from which the balloon's shell was made. Lanthanum is used in specialized optical glasses. Praseodymium is used to create infrared radiation that can be used for nighttime filming. Lead balls might be part of a height control device. The speed of movement of the apparatus, which was observed by witnesses, is not typical for fragments of a meteorite or any flying objects, but it coincides with the speed of the wind (which is logical if it was really a balloon).
Since the latest technologies were used to create such spy balloons, it was important to prevent these items from falling into the hands of Soviet specialists. Therefore, the vehicles were supplied with a self-destruction program, which was automatically activated under certain conditions (lowering to a certain height).
It is also worth noting that the largest boron ore deposit in Russia is located in the Dalnegorsk region. And the city's backbone enterprise since the 50s is the boron processing chemical plant. Until the early 90s, it remained a classified object and was clearly of greater interest to American intelligence than to aliens.
Not a single alien material or technology could be found in the crashed vehicle. And the fact that the enthusiasts-ufologists took it for extraterrestrial, can be explained by the fact that they were simply not aware of such technologies and methods of intelligence.
Evgeniy Antonyuk