Vadim Alexandrovich Chernobrov, head of the Cosmopoisk research center, one of the leading experts in various kinds of anomalous phenomena, besides organizing research expeditions to mysterious places in Russia and abroad, is publishing a twelve-volume encyclopedia. Three volumes have already been published: "Anomalous Phenomena", "Ufology", "Archives of UFO Visits". One of the encyclopedic sections will be called “Anomalous places in Russia” …
- So, what are anomalous phenomena, do they pose any danger, can they be of interest to tourists?
CHERNOBROV: Let's try to abstract from irony - this is not really a conversation about "little green men". Why is the publication of the encyclopedia undertaken? In order to summarize our knowledge: what we know, what we don’t know, and what we know is not true, but is nothing more than delusions and myths. By the way, the "little green men", like much of what we have heard about ufology, are actually born of our imagination. Of the many thousands of observations (and not all of them are considered true and proven), there is not a single real observation that speaks of little green men. Nevertheless, such a stable idea of some creatures from outer space has sunk into our heads, and nothing can shake these ideas.
- But what about the famous film, later exposed as a fake, when American researchers dissect some little green (or yellow) little man? Isn't that where it all started?
CHERNOBROV: By the time the film was concocted, this stable idea had already taken shape, so the audience got what it expected to receive. If we talk about anomalous places in Russia, then the situation is about the same. There are "anomalies", the mention of which breaks off the lips of any person, if you touch on the topic, but which at the same time are not. And vice versa, there are many places that almost no one has heard of, and the story about which causes surprise and envy of researchers all over the world who dream of getting to these places, trying to unravel from the riddle.
What is an anomaly? This is any deviation from the norm, if there is no reference to the cause of this deviation. Of course, one should not think that any anomaly is related to aliens. If, say, a chemical plant produced and threw away some nasty thing, then we can also talk about an anomaly: birds do not sing, flowers do not grow, and so on; this is also a deviation from the norm. But we are interested in unexplained anomalies, where there are no direct traces and indications that the cause of the anomaly is some well-known phenomenon, phenomenon or human activity. If there are no such reasons, then this is a direct challenge to our conceit, a good reason to go to research the phenomenon.
There are about two thousand recorded, archived anomalous places in Russia. There are eight dozen regions in the country; it turns out that in each area there should be several dozen anomalous places. In fact, somewhere more, somewhere less, but this is not a reason to worry or rejoice. For example, in the Moscow region the largest number of anomalous places has been rewritten, but I think this number does not mean that our ancestors located the capital in the most mysterious place. Although why not count it like that?..