In 1967, the censorship blockade of UFO reports for some reason weakened to almost zero. Either there was too much evidence of observations of something strange in the sky, or the "thaw" of the 1960s reached this topic, but stories about "plates" began to be printed from time to time in Soviet newspapers. At first, journalists published only stories about the appearance of "plates" abroad, but then descriptions of cases that occurred in the Soviet Union appeared in the press.
In November, a huge UFO appeared over the coast of the Baltic Sea, near Liepaja. Employees of the newspaper "Kommunist" decided not to miss their chance, and soon an article appeared in it with the intriguing headline "What if they are Martians?"
“Some residents of Liepaja have witnessed a mysterious picture,” said J. Kalei. - A luminous body was moving in the sky, which could not be confused with a cloud, an airplane or a satellite. According to eyewitnesses (one of whom is a worker of the hydrometeorological service), it was a large hemisphere hanging low above the ground, which then, stirring up, quickly disappeared beyond the horizon, carrying away with it the fiery light, which was painful to look at with unprotected eyes …"
The article was interested in the correspondents of the Latvian Telegraph Agency (LTA), who hastened to find eyewitnesses.
“It happened in the middle of November,” the head of Liepaja hydrometeorological station P. O. Litava told them. - At that time, our workers, who observed this phenomenon, did not attach much importance to it, regarding it as an optical illusion of sight caused by the refraction of the rays of the rising sun. But when we learned about the UFO sighting over Sophia, we thought that he gave and, perhaps, too hasty interpretation of what he saw. Here is a detailed description of this event.
An entry in the journal of the hydrometeorological station says that on November 14, at about 6 o'clock in the morning, against the background of the still dark sky, a hemisphere of large size, shining with a bright crimson light, appeared, which hung motionlessly low over the sea. A few minutes later, the blinding hemisphere moved from its place, floated through the air in a northwest direction, and disappeared over the horizon.
The entry in the journal was made by AM Pankratova, an employee of the hydrometeorological station who observed the mysterious phenomenon. Other residents of the city are also eyewitnesses. Interestingly, after the disappearance of the hovering hemisphere, the horizon above the sea again plunged into darkness. The sun rose after eight o'clock."
Ufologists managed to find Y. Kaley, the author of the very first note, without much difficulty.
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“A kilometer from the coast near Liepaja and about a hundred meters above sea level, two observers saw a bright hemisphere that hung motionless and then disappeared to the northwest,” he said. - It was at 6 o'clock in the morning, I specially went to the eyewitnesses and talked with their neighbors. The hoax seems to be eliminated, for this is how it happened. The husband rode his bike to work, saw a fiery red glow, returned home and called his wife, since she is a weather station technician. The wife and husband went to the seashore, and so far alone they saw all this directly from the coast. The rest, including their neighbors, saw only the glow, they (husband and wife) claim that the size of the object was about the size of a four-story building, the outlines are clear. My wife reported to the head of the weather station, and he told me the same day.
This glow was observed by a guard, who reported it to his superiors. It came to military intelligence. It seems that the subject was "seen off" by an air defense tracking system [See note 44}.
Alarmed citizens demanded an explanation. Soon in the main newspaper of the republic "Soviet Latvia" there was a commentary by the head of the radio observation station of the ionosphere and artificial earth satellites Robert Vitolniek.
“The last season of increased UFO activity began in the summer of 1965, when mysterious phantoms were seen over parts of Europe and America, as well as in Australia,” he said. - Many times "flying saucers" appeared over the territory of the Soviet Union (Fig. 22). Quite recently, an unusual phenomenon was observed in Liepaja. Eyewitness reports suggest that this is not a mirage, that in this case we are talking about a real "flying saucer" …
As for the hypothesis considering UFOs as messengers of other space civilizations, this question remains in great doubt, although there is no compelling reason to categorically reject such a version. One thing is certain - science is faced with a completely unknown phenomenon hitherto. Deep and thorough research is needed, study of the properties of mysterious flying objects."
The astronomer knew about UFOs firsthand. Two years ago, on July 22, 1965, he had a chance to observe them with his own eyes at the observation station in Ogre:
“The body was a lenticular disk about 100 m in diameter. In the center, one could clearly see a thickening - a small sphere. Near the disk, at a distance equal to approximately two of its diameters, three spheres were moving, similar to the one in the center. They slowly revolved around this disk. At the same time, this entire system was gradually decreasing, probably moving away from the Earth. 15-20 minutes after the start of observation, the spheres began to move away from the disk, scattering in different directions. The sphere in the center of the disk also flew off to the side. At 22 o'clock, all these bodies were already so far from us that we lost sight of them. They were greenish pearl, matte."
Vitolniek was not the only astronomer to see a UFO in 1965. On September 24, in Novy Afon, the lecturer of the Moscow Planetarium L. S. Tsekhanovich witnessed the flight of an unusual apparatus:
“In the evening I swam in the sea, the weather was amazing, the air was clean and transparent. It took about 20 minutes after sunset. I swam to the shore and was 100 meters away from it. Then a black dot that suddenly appeared high in the sky in the west caught my attention. After a few seconds, it was already possible to see the oblong body of the object. Naturally, the thought arose that it was an airplane. But then I noticed that there is no sound and no wings.
The object, which seemed almost black, flew over the sea parallel to the coast from west to east. Not reaching me 300-400 meters and dropping to the sea 100 meters, the object abruptly, at an angle of 90 degrees, turned towards the coast and flew north, gaining altitude. At this time, he began to unfold along the longitudinal axis. A strip of light flashed in the middle, revealing the object's disc-like shape.
The turn continued, the light intensified, and after a few seconds the object's plan was as follows. The shape is a circle. In the center, a "illuminator" glowing with a yellowish light, the diameter of which was half the diameter of the entire disk. The object continued to fly with a climb already over the coast, its apparent dimensions were decreasing all the time, finally it turned into a point and disappeared. minutes, maybe a little more."
In neighboring Lithuania, astronomers did not see UFOs, but they received many letters from citizens who were more fortunate.
“The observatory received reports describing flying objects that are very similar in their features to the famous“flying saucers”, - said the head of the astrophysics sector of the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences Vytautas Striizis. - For example, on December 19, 1967, the head of the technical control department Of the Vilnius Counting Machine Plant A. Dzenkauskas said:
“On the evening of December 17, the three of us were driving along the road near Gedraiciai (Širvint region). It was about 19.30. The moon shone brightly in the sky - high rare clouds hardly hid it. Suddenly, a dark, moving disc caught our attention. We saw him at a distance of about five diameters of the Moon from the Moon itself. We stopped. The disk was as large as the diameter of the moon and moved fairly quickly. He soon disappeared into the clouds."
Another message in December 1967 was sent by the teacher of the Saldutiskis secondary school K. Lukoševičius: “Residents of Saldutiškis, the husband and wife of Yatautasa, on December 15 or 17 (they don’t remember exactly), at about 6 pm, saw 4-5 bodies moving from the west in the sky round in shape, occasionally stopping and motionless, which in a few minutes suddenly rose vertically and disappeared."
The authorities, who were complacently observing what was happening, finally realized that together with stories about really mysterious objects, the press could "light up" the military secrets of the Red Empire. In order to scold the “saucers” and discourage citizens from telling something about strange things in the sky, they used the same weapon as in 1961 - the newspaper Pravda and academician Artsimovich.
"… No one has any fundamentally new facts in favor of" flying saucers ", - the main newspaper of the country said. - They are not seen by astronomers who carefully observe the sky day and night. Scientists who study the state of the earth's atmosphere do not meet them. They are not observed by the country's air defense services, which means that there is no reason to revive the ridiculous, long-buried rumors about any secret excursions to our planet by Martians or the inhabitants of Venus …
All objects flying over the territory of our country are identified either by scientists or by people guarding the security of our homeland. And if there really were some "unidentified flying objects", then it would be the scientists who would first of all receive the necessary information from them and start studying their nature.
In connection with the appearance of reports about "unidentified flying objects" on the pages of our press and in television broadcasts, the issue of the propaganda of "flying saucers" became the subject of discussion at the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Bureau of the Division of General and Applied Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR recently at its meeting heard a report by Academician L. A. Artsimovich on this propaganda and noted that it has the character of an anti-scientific sensation and that “these conjectures have no scientific basis, and the observed objects have good known nature ".
The devastating article was signed by the Chairman of the Astro Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences E. R. Mustel, President of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodetic Society D. Ya. Martynoven, Scientific Secretary of the National Committee of Soviet Physicists V. Leshkovtsev.
During the "anti-food campaign" the authorities even remembered the old thesis, having taken it out of the naphthalene: they say, reports about "plates" are nothing more than bourgeois inventions. In a widely circulated article by the scientific commentator of the Novosti press agency Villene Lustiberg, the Soviet reader was taught:
“… When the circulation falls, when the reader gets bored with economics and politics, when it is necessary to distract him from“irrelevant”questions, three trouble-free,“evergreen”sensations come to the aid of Western businessmen: Flying Saucers, Sea Serpent and Bigfoot … It is much more interesting to read about mysterious ships from Venus than thinking about tomorrow, about freezing wages, rising prices or unemployment. The statesmen of the imperialist countries use this "information" quite deliberately. For them, "flying saucers" are not a myth, but a rather well-disguised means of misinforming the masses …"
The success of the attack was reinforced by the reinstatement of a complete ban on positive UFO publications. Since then, only occasional material has been printed that discredits the problem.
From the ban on publications, however, UFOs did not fly less. Despite the loud statements of Pravda, they were still seen not only by civilians, but also by the military, including from the air defense forces.
“It was in 1968,” said test pilot, retired colonel Alexander Akimenkov. - From the territory of Iran, balloons rise, which in one stream, at the same height, go to the territory of our country, and then, on command, the cargo is dropped, they occupy a different height, enter a different stream and go to the territory of Iran, where intelligence is taken from them. Kyzyl-Arvat airfield. At that time there was a regiment "MiG-17", which did not fly to such heights, more than 15,000 meters. I then served in Mary. They put the three of us on the MiG-21 so that we would shoot down this stratospheric balloon. I have on-board armament - two B-16 blocks with unguided missiles, 16 in a block. My colleagues, Slava Zvezdin and Kostya Zhuravlev, had guided missiles of different types.
The difficulty of the assignment was that the stratospheric balloon is filled with hydrogen, if you blow up the hydrogen, you will not have time to dodge. The task was to knock down the suspension. The flight was a course of 90 degrees, the sun was behind, it was in the evening. And this gray colossus of stratospheric balloon hangs somewhere at an altitude of 17.5-18,000 m. I see, on the side of it to the left visually - like a balloon from a car, comparable in size to a stratospheric balloon, but if this is gray in color, then that is bluish, without shine, hazy so blue. My task was not to get lost, not to fly into the burning hydrogen. I did not realize then that it was a UFO. All attention was focused on the suspension. When I opened fire, I was not looking at the UFO. I knocked down this suspension, the ball immediately jumped up. After the turn, I started looking at what I had done and saw that the UFO flew about 10 kilometers. Previously, it was 300-500 m, that is, it was close. Such is the case …"
Alexander Veniaminovich met a UFO by accident, having flown out with another mission, and the air defense of the North Caucasian Military District in those years had a chance to specially send planes to intercept the "saucer". Dmitry Urazakaev saw all this from the Dagestan village of Terekli Mekteb:
“Many years have passed since then, and now I am very sorry that I did not write down my observations before, when they were still fresh in my memory,” he wrote. - I studied in the seventh or eighth grade, in the summer I disappeared with a friend, whose father Vasily Ivanovich Sotnikov was the commander of a military unit, which is still located on the outskirts of our village. In the Sotnikovs' apartment in the afternoon, at five o'clock, the phone rang, they called from the village. My friend's father listened to the message, ran outside and stared at the sky. We followed him and saw almost at the zenith a milky-white disk about twice the diameter of the moon. Kolka, my friend, ran into the house and brought a powerful artillery compass, but only the disc was visible in it. Vasily Ivanovich, meanwhile, had already changed into uniform and ran to the unit.
The military unit was somehow truncated. There were only enough soldiers for one shift in alarm, and this time everyone was at their posts. The antennas of the locators turned around, and my friend and I turned to the command post and caught one thing: the locators cannot “take the thing.” Vasily Ivanovich was nervous, then he ran out to make sure that the disk was in place, then he ran to the station - he adjusted something there, we got under his feet, and he sent me and a friend to a device by which it was possible to visually determine the azimuth and angle above the horizon. He knew that we were able to use it. We transmitted the measurements over the telephone hanging there to the command post.
After some time, Vasily Ivanovich himself came running and said that an interceptor flew out from near Grozny and that he was … But the plane passed by, not even seeing the object, then turned around and, corrected from two points - from ours and from the city Kizlyar, went on the return course, but again saw nothing. Meanwhile, the disk was slowly shifting to the east and disappeared from sight when it was already dark on the ground, at about eleven o'clock. Then Vasily Ivanovich told us that it was an American reconnaissance balloon, and in general there was an order to forget everything and out of harm's way to destroy all the records on this case …
There are 70 kilometers between my native village and Kizlyar on the map, and we saw a UFO at both points simultaneously. I indicated the approximate angular dimensions above. The sun stopped illuminating it at 11 am (it was mid-July). The position at that time was 80 degrees above the horizon, shifted to the southeast. What size was it and how high was it? I get something unimaginable."
The senior instructor of the Vilnius airport V. A. Gusev served in the air defense radio-technical troops in 1968. The unit was located in the Murmansk region, near the village of Kachalovka. Approximately 20-22 August at 4.10 am, he and his wife went fishing to a river in the tundra.
“The sky was clear, dawn, the morning dawn was visible,” he recalled. - There was no wind. Suddenly a flying object appeared in the sky, leaving behind a fan-shaped trail, similar to a contrail from an airplane. The object flew from south to east across the southeast side of the sky. The speed was very high, which caught my attention. The movement of the object at the initial moment was horizontal, and then there was a sharp change in course by almost 90 degrees, and with the climb, the object headed almost to the zenith along a helical trajectory. He himself was not visible because of the great height, but the trail was clearly visible - illuminated by the sun, silvery. No sound was heard. The object quickly faded and disappeared; in total, it was observed for about one minute.
Airplanes did not fly at that time. Locators did not register the phenomenon. No missile launch was announced in our area at that time.
After about 10-12 days, I saw a similar case, but three objects were moving. They walked with a climb in a wedge. The speed was unimaginably high, and they left in a helical manner. There was an impression that a cone of the correct shape seemed to be drawn over the head”.
Even to military observations, the system reacted extremely strangely. When Major Boris Kononenko in 1972 sent a description of his observation to the newspaper “On Guard” of the Baku Air Defense District, the editorial board replied: “We cannot print your material, because what you write about does not happen, because it cannot be. And all the rumors about UFOs, aliens and so on. is nothing but the “canard of“bourgeois propaganda.”Then he could not understand in any way: if he himself saw and saw the comrades with their own eyes and in his homeland, what does“bourgeois propaganda”have to do with it?..
Mikhail Gershtein
