International UFO Day is celebrated on July 2 - in 1947, near the American town of Roswell on this day, an apparatus crashed, which was mistaken for a flying saucer. The official version says that then a secret probe with military equipment on board crashed. We tried to find out which celestial objects Siberians most often mistake for UFOs and how to distinguish an alien ship from a fireball or a rocket taking off.
Rocket or UFO?
According to statistics, 95% of reports about UFOs are erroneous - ball lightning, clouds, Chinese lanterns, flying planes and other phenomena that are quite explainable from the point of view of science are mistaken for alien ships. However, experts cannot explain some observations - they are the ones that attract the attention of hundreds of ufologists.
“The main feature of UFOs is the inability to explain the observation from the point of view of science. We regularly receive messages in which people describe strange phenomena in the sky,”says the head of the Accessible Planetarium project, astronomer Dmitry Semenov. "Most often missile launches are mistaken for UFOs."
According to the expert, Siberians regularly see launches of ballistic missiles from the Baikonur cosmodrome; the trajectory of missile launches from Plesetsk to the Kura test site also passes over Siberia. At the same time, it is quite simple to distinguish the trail of a rocket from a UFO - as a rule, the observer cannot determine the distance to the object, its angular velocity.
“A rocket always leaves a trail in the sky, which often looks contrasting and is colored in the most unexpected colors. At the same time, for an object of extraterrestrial origin, the gas trail should be uncharacteristic, since alien ships are unlikely to use liquid fuel, explains Semenov.
In second place in terms of the number of messages - the flights of cars. The astronomer notes that they often fly by at a slow speed or with a bright glow. However, they also have characteristic features that will help distinguish them from UFOs - rectilinear movement with uniform speed.
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Unusual atmospheric phenomena are in third place in terms of prevalence. “For UFOs, inexperienced people take mirages that appear in the summer at the border of air layers of different density and temperature. As a result, you can see some terrestrial object right in the sky. For example, this is often observed over Lake Baikal,”says the expert.
Stars instead of aliens
UFOs can be seen when observing Arcturus, the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as Jupiter and Venus. Usually, citizens who see these astronomical objects directly above the horizon remain "deceived", as a result, the light from them is bizarrely refracted, creating amazing optical effects.
“Sometimes even the Moon is mistaken for a UFO - it can be of a non-standard color, if a person observes it directly above the horizon and at that moment moves quickly, he may have the effect of a flying flattened object,” says Semenov. "A similar effect is possible with whimsical looking clouds."
It is not difficult for an experienced astronomer to distinguish a planet from a UFO. However, experts struggle with some observations for a long time. “Once the hunters called and described an interesting phenomenon - they saw a bright triangle in the sky, which is mysterious in itself. At the same time, there was a deep taiga in this direction,”the expert shares with unusual cases.
Experts unraveled the secret by chance - after a while they came across a message that told about exercises at a military training ground. Astronomers compared the azimuth and everything came together - it turned out that on that day the military was hanging bombs on parachutes, and the result was an interesting optical phenomenon.
“There are usually two or three appeals a year that describe something inexplicable. Almost everything can be explained from the point of view of science. But some still remain a mystery. However, it is still necessary to assess the adequacy of people - after all, some people simply want miracles,”sums up Semenov.
