“On August 8, 1967, at 8.40 pm Moscow time, many residents of the city of Nevinnomyssk observed an extremely interesting phenomenon,” Nikolai V. recalled many years later. “I personally also had the opportunity to observe it, and, despite my higher technical education and constant interest in astronomical phenomena, cosmonautics, radio engineering, I could not explain it … I am sending a draft, which was written just a few minutes after the event …"
It said that the obscure object, or phenomenon, was “seen in the west at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the horizon. A sickle with angular dimensions of up to 1 degree flew in a bulge forward to the northeast. Characteristic, well-defined anterior arch. Damage is indistinct, blurred, reminiscent of a discharge in electric vacuum devices (in a neon lamp). The color is golden. Ahead, at an angular distance of about 15 degrees, 3-5 degrees to the right of the direction of flight of the "sickle", there is a luminous point with the brightness of a star of the first magnitude. The flight speed of both bodies is the same. After one minute, both bodies disappeared in a northeasterly direction, and the angular size of the "sickle" quickly decreased, the color became first light yellow, then almost white. There was no noise from the sky, although the street was relatively quiet."
Nikolai Prokofievich saw something similar twice, but described only the first observation.
“Much time has passed, but everything is fresh in my memory, especially a powerful psychic effect,” he said. - It seemed as if I was witnessing a phenomenon of exceptional importance … I tried to find any connection between the "sickle" and the "leader" while observing, since they were moving together, in the same direction, with the same (by eye, of course) speed. They seemed to be bound by an invisible structure. I very much then regretted that I did not have a camera with me.
It was in the evening, there were many people on the street, and everyone was interested in this phenomenon, but I, I repeat, was shocked and could not recover for a long time. One more circumstance. The sickle appeared to be a projection of a flat figure onto the sky. In other words, the plane of the sickle was horizontal, so I had some difficulties in the image on the draft (Fig. 21).
I well remember the fluttering golden-red fringe of the defective part of the sickle. The model of a sickle could be a wire bent into an arc with a golden-red gas cloth attached to it, or, even better, a large number of silk threads waving in the incoming air stream. The brightness of the "leader", estimated by me as a star of the first magnitude, was clearly underestimated by me. There were no stars in the sky yet, and there was nothing to compare with, and since the "leader" was clearly visible, it was much brighter than the stars of the first magnitude …"
"Leader" (the distance from the "sickle" is not to scale) Nikolai Prokofievich sent a description of the phenomenon to the journal "Science and Life", but the answer he received did not satisfy him at all. This answer was written by F. A. Tsitsin, a researcher at the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg:
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“The excellent book by D. Menzel“On Flying Saucers”says that, apparently, the first real“flying saucer”was the first Soviet artificial earth satellite. Apparently, in the case you are describing, a phenomenon associated with the movement of a "celestial body" of this kind was also observed. Judging by your description, this could be the movement of one of the many hundreds of artificial celestial bodies revolving around the Earth in the last stages of its existence, with a gentle entry into the atmosphere At the same time, due to the appearance of relatively significant dynamic loads on the structure, it could be divided into two parts, the one that experienced less resistance ("pilot") gradually moved forward (or rather, the second fell behind). This assumption is in agreement with the fact that the second body, apparently,during its movement caused a shock wave (luminous "sickle"), that is, quite intensively expended its kinetic energy …
However, it is possible that not the last, but the first phase of the object's existence was observed. However, in this case, it is undesirable to comment widely on this phenomenon."
The astronomer's hint was clear: sometimes a crescent shape with a blurred inner edge and a faint violet-red glow emanating from the end of the "horns" can be taken by a jet emerging from the rocket nozzle at a high altitude - 30-70 km. If we were really talking about the launch of a rocket, and not about the descent of a body from orbit, then the most elementary calculation could "light up" the place of its launch.
A fiery sickle rushing over the Earth was seen that day over the entire south of the USSR. In Kislovodsk, the "sickle" baffled astronomers:
“An unknown flying luminous object was observed from the territory of the Mountain Astronomical Station of the GAO AS USSR near Kislovodsk. It had the shape of an asymmetrical sickle, sharply limited, facing a bulge in the direction of movement. Narrow faint lines stretching back from the sharp ends of the sickle were guessed, which gave the impression of a tail. The angular size of the sickle was slightly less than the lunar one, about 20 minutes of arc, the brightness was an order of magnitude less than the surface brightness of the Moon, the color, according to some observers, was yellow, according to others, reddish. The object flew in the northern part of the sky horizontally from west to east at an altitude of about 20 degrees above the horizon … Distance from the Big Dipper to Cassiopeia, the object flew at a uniform speed in about half a minute. Ahead of the sickle, at a distance of about 7 degrees from it, a stellar object of 2nd or 1st magnitude was moving …"
Astronomer A. A. Sazanov, the author of this description, gave a whole list of other eyewitnesses who were on the territory of the astronomical station. They wanted to photograph the sickle, but nothing came of it. The observatory was designed to study the sun, and all the main instruments are turned in its direction: the north side is inaccessible to them.
Ufologists, scientists and newspaper editors received hundreds of such messages in 1967-1968. I will not intrigue further: in those years it was undesirable to comment on the first version of the formation of the "sickle".
The blazing shock wave was driven in front of it not by a peaceful satellite, burning up in the sky with colorful fireworks, but by the warhead of Mikhail Yangel's "partially orbital bombardment system".
On August 8, 1967, the R-36orb rocket was launched from the 69th platform of the Baikonur cosmodrome, which put the warhead into low-earth orbit. She made an incomplete orbit around the Earth and entered the atmosphere, descending to the intended target - the Kapustin Yar training ground in the Volga region. The military specifically chose the evening time for the tests to make it easier to monitor the fall of the warhead. Nobody wanted to take into account the fact that tens of thousands of civilians would see the sickle.
The development of the R-36orb based on the R-36 intercontinental ballistic missile was started by the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of April 16, 1962. In December, a preliminary design was completed, and in 1963, the development of technical documentation and the manufacture of prototypes of the rocket began.
The rocket had two stages. Its length was 32.6-34.5 m, the maximum hull diameter was 3.05 m. At the start, the rocket weighed 180 tons. The orbital warhead, which distinguished the R-36orb missile from the R-36, consisted of a hull, an instrument compartment, a thermonuclear monoblock charge weighing 1700 kg and a power of 5 Mt, as well as a braking propulsion system, which brought the unit from near-earth orbit and ensured the delivery of the charge to the target.
In 1967, the military carried out 9 launches of the R-36orb: January 25, May 17, July 17 and 31, August 8, September 19 and 22, October 18 and 28. Each launch was a test not only of technology, but also of the nerves of scientists not involved in this, who received whole bags of letters from UFO eyewitnesses. Against this background, evidence of really strange objects literally drowned.
On August 7, 1967, the day before the next flight of the Yangelev warhead, pilot Lev Vyatkin, who was then serving at the Belbek airfield near Sevastopol, met with the UFO. At 6.30 am, when the sun had not yet risen, he sat in the cockpit of a MiG-19p aircraft and checked the operation of the onboard equipment.
“Suddenly, at a distance of about 2 km and an altitude of about 300 m, a large luminous ball about 80 m in diameter appeared,” he said. - Against the background of a clear light blue sky, it was clearly visible, had the color of a burning match, and inside it could be seen a dark blue core, which seemed massive and solid.
The balloon did not float in the air, but flew, moving against the wind at a speed of 60-70 km / h. The trajectory of its flight outlined the silhouette of a distant mountain, and it was noticeable how the trail of heated air left by the ball was fluttering. The flight took place silently and therefore seemed full of mystery and significance. After brief conversations with the KP over the radio, I realized that there was no signal from the object on the radar. Then, on my advice, the officer on duty came out of the command post and, like the mechanics who were busy near my plane, observed the ball visually …
The flight of the ball and our observation of it lasted for about three minutes, when suddenly it stopped, a thin beam cut through from its center and rested vertically on the ground. Then the object swiftly, with incredible speed went up and immediately disappeared. At that moment, an amplifying and then cut off background was heard in the headphones."
5 days later, on August 13, during night flights with Vyatkin, another amazing episode occurred. A UFO hovered overhead and released a bright milky white beam. The plane struck at it with its left wing, and the beam instantly disintegrated into small sparkles, reminiscent of dying fireworks. The plane shook, and the arrows of the instruments powered by the onboard power supply began to go off scale alternately to the left and to the right. Later, technicians noticed that the plane of the wing, which came into contact with the beam, glowed noticeably at night …
On October 31, 1967, the crew of the IL-14 aircraft, consisting of the ship's commander Chernyaev, the deputy squadron commander Karmakov, the 2nd pilot Zhadchenko and the navigator Krasnozhen, performed a night flight on the Khabarovsk-Blagoveshchensk route.
“The flight took place with the visibility of the earth's light cues and the starry sky,” said the co-pilot. - At 14:25 (Moscow time) the crew at a distance of 160 km and at an azimuth of 120 degrees from the city of Arkhara in front-right above saw a round, yellow-red glowing object that was very similar in size and color to the ascending disk of the Moon. Deputy squadron commander Karmakov drew the crew's attention to the fact that during this period of the month only the crescent of the moon should be visible, and not a full disk, since the flight takes place on the last day of the month. The crew continued to observe the unknown object.
At this time, the commander of the ship reported to the "ground" about the situation and asked the radar dispatcher to give the position of the aircraft and see if he was observing foreign objects on the screen. The dispatcher gave the position of the aircraft and reported: “I do not observe foreign objects on the screen.”
After 5-6 minutes after the discovery, the unknown object began to increase in volume and change its color to bright blue (the color of burning gas), and after 3-4 minutes, having reached the triple size of the Moon, the disk began to disappear and soon disappeared. At this time, the crew of the IL-18 aircraft No. 75592 got in touch with the ground, which confirmed the mysterious picture we observed ….
D. Furman, navigator of the Il-14 aircraft, which was flying from Anadyr to Irkutsk in November 1967, spoke about a much more exciting meeting:
“When approaching the city of Nerchinsk at an altitude of 2400 m, I saw a bright star at some distance. Then this star suddenly appeared above the plane. The entire plane was lit up with different colors and shades. I saw all this well, being in the blister located at the top of the plane."
“The navigator burst into our cockpit and shouted:“It is the size of a two-story house!”- confirmed the commander of the crew V. Lobanov. - I contacted Chita, reported on the situation and asked for instructions. Chita replied that, apart from us, there was nothing on the radars No. The unknown object began to sort of press us to the ground. I moved the control wheel away from me, and we rushed downward with tremendous speed. There were great overloads, I still don't understand how the plane did not fall apart. We miraculously survived. We knew that it is dangerous to descend, since there are hills below us. Therefore, at 1.5 thousand I brought the car into a horizontal flight. We look, and the object does not detach from us. We tried to maneuver, but it repeated all our movements and did not lag behind the plane. a strong background appeared, it gradually intensified and reached such a magnitude that it hurt my ears. During all these events "the sky seemed to us like a sheepskin" … After we landed in Irkutsk, we learned that 3 hours before this event there was an accident with the An-24 aircraft, as a result of which people died. there are some flashes of light in the sky”.
Indeed, UFOs in those days not only quietly flew through the air, but also influenced technology. In September 1967, a cigar-shaped UFO dived into the AN-24 scheduled flight from Zaporozhye to Volgograd and flew near the plane. The aircraft's engines immediately stopped, the interior lighting turned off, and the aircraft began to glide. When he was at a height of 100 m above the ground, the UFO soared up and disappeared. The plane's motors started working immediately, and he was able to gain altitude again.
When the "braking" effect was exerted not on the plane, but on the cars, it was also quite unpleasant. Getting stuck in the middle of the road with “something” hanging in the sky is not an easy test for your nerves!
“At the end of the summer of 1967, at the request of a colleague working on the new Moskvich-403 car, I drove to the area of Borovsk,” Rimma Knyazeva wrote to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from the town of Zhukovsky, Moscow Region. “On the way back, as soon as we passed Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the car suddenly stalled. I got out, opened the hood, pumped up the gasoline manually, but the car did not start. It became somehow gloomy, although it was about 15 o'clock, there was not a single car on the highway either back or forth. whom, and then some steel, a huge object, as if painted with hammer paint, hangs over the road, large and motionless. I got into the car, told my companion, and she reassured me: "There are military units here."
The car wouldn't start, we started eating pies. After eating, I went out again. Something rustled slightly, and a huge object, as if one deep plate placed on top of another, began to move away from us, or rather, in the opposite direction from Moscow. I got into the car, turned the key, the car immediately started up, jumped out, lowered the hood and, in joy, even slipped through the Ring Road, and the cars began to scurry back and forth.
We only remembered this with her when we began to write about flying saucers. How I regretted later that I did not examine everything carefully. And there was enough time for that, and the object was hanging quite low ….
How a UFO stops internal combustion engines is still unclear, although there are certain assumptions on this score. The researchers believe that the stalling of the motors is apparently caused by powerful electromagnetic fields. Under their influence, a very high voltage is induced in the ignition system bobbin, and strong ionization occurs in the breaker, causing discharges to breakdowns to all candles at once. The ignition becomes continuous, which leads to the simultaneous ignition of the combustible mixture in all cylinders at once and the unconditional stop of the engine.
An experiment was carried out to study this problem at the Leningrad Hydrometeorological Institute. Above a working engine of a Zhiguli car with an open hood, at a certain distance, a lamp generator with a capacity of 1 kilowatt and a frequency of 50-100 kilohertz was placed, after turning on the engine immediately stopped. In this case, the battery, apparently, does not discharge, since after the removal of the UFO and the cessation of its influence, the engines in the vast majority of cases start normally.
Mikhail Gershtein