UFOS--WHAT ARE THEY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B00752A000300090001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 1, 1967
• Content Type: REPORT

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UFOs--WHAT' ARE THEY?
(F.Yu. Zigel')
Source: Smena .(Change,) , ' No} 7, February 1967, pages 27-29
(Prefatory Note. The publishing house of Hayka (Science) is
preparing for publication a collection of scientific articles
Naselennyy Kosmos (The Inhabited Cosmos) chief editor, B. P.
Konstantinov,ice President Academy of ciences USSR) in
which along with consideration of such problems as the dis-
tribution of life in space, the habitability of the planets,
communications with extraterrestrial civilizations, the mastery
of the cosmos by mankind, space law, and other subjects, it
is intended to five attention to the problem of unidentified
flying objects UFO). In the present article the dditor-
compiler of the collection Naselennyy Kosmos, Docent F. Yu.
Zigel' discusses various UFO observations and attempts at ex-
planation of them.)
Figure 1. This photograph was made in a park in New York
of the object which you see in the center of
the photograph a few seconds before it vanished.
It is unidentified. According to sighters it
was grayish-orange in color and, in addition
emitted a yellow light. While the object was
suspended in the air the man who took this pic-
ture, a professional photographer, was able to
take this photograph.
The history of science covers thousands of year. During
this period human consciousness has many times experienced
deep shock as a result of a fundamental discontinuity in ideas.
How many centuries were required for the now-evident idea of
the sphericity of the Earth to win general acceptances What
scandalous absurdity did Copernicus endure from his contempo-
raries because of his hypothesis that the Earth moves. And
the thoughts of Giordano Bruno about the limitless of space,
and the geometry of Lobaehevskiy, and Einstei i s theory of re-
lativity, the quanta nature of radiation and the fantasies of
cybernetics? This is not all but no further examples are ne-
cessary since readers themselves can easily continue the list
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of great discoveries which shocked the world-view of mankind.
Make an effort and imagine that all this very long his-
tory of science has suddenly been compressed in time and, so
to speak, passed through human consciousness in the course of
10-15 Tears. But this example is not an abstraction but a rea-
lity. This is what will happen to us who live through the next
decade in which the volume of scientific information, achieved
in the process of cognition, will double. Our minds should be
prepared for a fundamental break in many well-established no-
tions.
Need we say that the lion's share of the coming disco-
veries will probably have to do with space, with that hidden,
illimitless area which mankind has only begun to master? Let
us put aside prejudice and so-called "healthy thought" which
in the well-justified words of G. I. Naan, Academician of the
Estonian Academy of Sciences"is the embodiment of the experi-
ence and prejudices of one's own time. It is a very unreliable
guide when we are dealing with a completely new situation."
It is just such a situation which has developed in connection
with the problem of unidentified flying objects (UFO), often
called "flying saucers."
First of all, does the problem actually exist? Are there
really indisputable facts pointing to the existence and reality
of UFOs?
More than two decades ago, in May 1946, evidence first
appeared concerning strange disc-shaped objects, called sau-
cers, which were seen both from planes and from the surface
of the earth. Observers noted that many UFOs displayed enor-
mous speeds and accelerations unbearable by terrestrial or-
ganisms. To the category of UFOs were assigned slab puzzlings
fires in the night sky and mysterious illuminated spheres of
various colors.Observers also reported flying saucers which
changed intensity in color. It was noted also that in some
cases the UFOs caused local magnetic fluctuations; in their
presence the needle of a compass fluctuated wildly.
In the book of the American astronomy D. Menzel '0 Le-
ta ushchikh tarelkakh (On Flying Saucers) (Publ House of For-
eign Literature, 1962) there is a detailed descriptions of
many UFO sightings and from the factual point of view one can
easily inform himself about this matter from this book. Ne-
vertheless we will present several undeniable facts in order
that the reader may understand clearly about what we are talk-
ing.
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Curious are the observations of Menzel himself who twice
was able to see this puzzling phenomenon. On the f rst occasion
during a trip by auto Menzel noted over Sacramento wo strange
hazy saucers with faint pale-blue illumination. The saucers
rapidly disappeared and reappeared "Unfortunately, I was forced
to acknowledge," writes D. Menzel,"that I could not exactly
explain this phenomenon." The second time Menzel and several
astronomers at the Sacramento Peak Observatory "how suddently
in the sky there appeared a clear-yellow fiery sphere. It was
at an altitude of about 100-130 km. Its identify has remained
unknown.
Here is one of the first reports, made in August 1947. Two
American pilots saw "a large dark cigar-shaped body, the shape
of which was clearly outlined against the background of the
night sky...It moved toward us and the plane barely avoided
colliding with it by a sharp change of course. The dark object
passed by. Attempts to pursue it were unsuccessful and after
4 minutes the mysterious object vanished. Other American pi-
lots in July 1948 encountered a wingless "airplaine" of
cigar-shaped form. "This object," one of them reports," flew
straight at us, and we sharply veered to the left..Then the
"pilot" of it, as though having suddenly noticed us and wish-
ing to escape detection, pulled up the nose of his craft and
vanished into a cloud, emitting backwards a tremendous shaft
of alme such that our DC-3 shook from this powerful exhaust."
Several times American pilots attempted to attack UFOs
but these invariably put on tremendous speed and, maneuvering
strenuously, excaped pursuit. In some cases the pursuit ended
with the crash of the pursuing plane as happed with Capt T.
Mantel on 7 January 1948. Before the crash Mantel hastily re-
ported by radio: "I am coming up to it...This thing is metal-
lic in appearance and of enormous dimensions."
The famous American astronomer Claude Tombo (who in 1930
discovered the planet Pluto) late on the evening of 20 August
1949 together with his family observe the flight across the
sky of strange rectangles illuminated with a pale greenish-
yellow light. In Tombo's words "in all the several thousand
hours of my life which I have passed in observing the night
sky, I have never seen anything stranger or more surprising."
In 1965 and 1966 the numb er of UFO observations again
increased sharply. Here are some examples of recent reports.
In January 1965 observers at the Antarctic research sta-
tions of Qhile and Argentina noticed in the air a mysterious
lighted object, the color of which changed from red to ?allow
than back to yellow, blue, white, and, finally orange. hese
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color changes, extending over several minutes, were accom-
panied by radio interference, though no magnetic storm was in
process at the time.
In the same year UFO reports were received from England,
France, Portugal and other countries. In the summer of 1965
above the airport of Canberra there appeared a soaring object
th ich duty personnel at the field in'lthe control tower saw
perfectly clearly. It hung over the airport for about 40 minutes
and disappeared only when a plane was sent up to identify it.
Near Canberra, where is located the Tinbinbillskiy space track-
ing station, a mysterious object was noted not long before
the station began receiving signals from Mariner 4. But with
the appearance of the object unusual difficulties arose in the
reception of the signals. It has been noted also that UFOs
are most often observed in areas near the poles, the cosmic
space over which is free from radiation belts.
For two decades UFOs have been observed not only visually
but also on radar screens. In 1965, according to a United Press
report, radar sets in Oklahoma recorded on the evening of 1
August four unidentified objects flying at great height. They
passed over into the atmosphere over the states,,6f Kansas and
Colorado.
In Moscow in June 1965 an international colloquium was
held on the microstructure of the atmosphere at which there was
discussion ,df-"_the -natur'6f "angel-echo"--strange objects seen
on radar screens. These are regularly observed by Soviet scien-
tists working at the Central Aerological Observatory near Mos-
cow. According to the report of Cand Phys-Math Sciences A. Gorelik, UFOs have been recorded on radar screens not only in
the USSR but also at stations in the US, Australia, India, and
Japan. It has been established that the mysterious flying ob-
jects cannot be insects, plant seeds, flights of birds, which
sometimes show up on radar. They frequently moved against the
wind and were observed in places where they are no birds or
insects. The nature of these objects remains unknown to this
day.
The reader is probably already wearied by the listing of
facts and is waiting for generalizations, explanations, and
conclusions. Let us attempt to provide them.
In the last two decades there have been many thousands
of factually irrefutable reported sightings of UFOs. Reports
have come twenty countries and the "UFO phenomenon" must today
be considered a worldwide one. Evidently this circumstance was
- one of the reasons why recently, for example in the US, as
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well as in several other countries, the riddle of UFOs has be-
come a scientific problem and highly-qualified specialists (as-
tronomers, physicists, mathematicians, sociologists, and others)
have been called upon to solve it.
The American profess J. Valley, who took part in the In-
ternational Mathematical Congress in 1966 in Moscow, rece tly
published three detailed scientific monographs on UFOs. hese
comprise a complete investigation of this interesting problem
and although the author does not come down in favor of any
particular explanatory hypothesis, the idea of a foreign-
planetary origin of UFOs appears to him worthy of attention.
The well-known American astrophysicist and director of the
Dearborn Observatory, Prof. J. H aynek{?) writes in a preface
to one of Valley's books that he personally, as an astronomer,
"has long been convinced that UFOs cannot be waved aside as
senseless... The UFO phenomenon is a global one and is attract-
ing the attention of many intelligent persons. At private con-
veraations many scientists told me of their interest in this
problem and desire that it be thoroughly studied...The reports
are not only strikingly similar to one another; they continue
to come from perfectly respectable individuals and this re-
quires the conduct of scientific investigations."
So, let us proceed to several explanations for UFOs.
First Explanation.
All reports about "flying saucers" and other UFOs are
complete nonsense, fabrications and concoctions of careless
individuals.
This point of view is a very convenient one because it
requires no intellectual effort and nips the problem in the
bud. However there is some truth in it notwithstanding.
In the clamor which was raised after 1947 around "fly-
ing saucers" were heard the voices of mystics and simple ad-
venturists seeking to profit from a passing sensation. It is
sufficient to recall the notorious Adamskiy who maintained
that he had succeeded in travelling in one of the "flying
saucers"--to Venus& Unscrupulous individuals by a simple
photographic trick transfroemd a discarded cap into a secret
"visitor from space." Rumors were spread to the effect that
"pilots" from the "saucers" had been seen to land on the earth..
But none of this has anything to do with the matter.
Unfortunately, at almost all the turning points in the
history of science new facts and ideas have been denied, as a
rule, and declared to be nonsense. For example, before 1803
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the fall of stones from the sky was denied by such great sci-
entists as Lavoissier. According to the pronouncement of
French academicians (1772) "the falling of stones from the
sky is physically impossible," and this phenomenon "can in
no way be reasonably explained." The objections of those who
demonstrated the reality of meteorites were to be explained
by anti-scientific delirium and stupidity, "unworthy even of
refutation."
Second Explanation.
UFOs exist but actually they are not what they seem. An
UFO is only an optical illusion connected with anomalous dif-
fusion of light in the earth's atmosphere like a rainbow, or
halo, caused by the sun or patches of light over water.
This point of view, sincerely put forward by 1~. Menzel in
his book On Flying saucers, has been widely accepted among
scientists in the Soviet Union and abroad. But we must point
out that the reading of Menzel's book involuntarily results
in a feeling of deep disappointment since the author provides
po convincing and scientific discussion of the phenomena.
therefore when Menzel's book is represented as a solid scien-
tific work, as a circumstaa tial optical theory of explanation
of UFOs, the opinion must be rejected as erroneous. The my-
stery of UFOs cannot be explained by means of atmospheric
o1btics; the nature of these phenomena is clearly more complex
than that.
Third Explanation.
UFOs are new secret flying craft of one of the terrestrial
powers.
At first this point of view was very commonly held and
militaristic circles in the USA hastened to spread rumors to
the effect that secret Soviet craft were flying over the coun-
try. This absurd explanation, based on natural causes, later
collapsed and no longer has any advocates.
Figures 2 & 3. Last summer passengers on an air liner
flying between London and Manchester look-
ing out the plane window saw a strange
shape very close to the plane. One of the
passengers was able to record the object
on his movie camera. The film showed how
against the background of the blue sky the
unknown object changed its shape after a
few seconds and then seemed to dissolve in
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(Picture caption cont'd)
the air. In the opinion of British spe-
cialists the possibility of an optical
illusion is practically excluded.
Fourth Explanation.
The UFO is an unknown natural phenomenon. The material
world rich surrounds us is endlessly diverse and complex.
there is no doubt but what the non-understood phenomena of
nature are immeasurably more numerous than those which have
been studied and understood. Perhaps UFOs represent something
new and unprecedented just as, let us say, radioactivity was
to us at the end of the last century?
This position is unquestionably worthy of attention. It
is a stimulus to the study of UFOs, and this is its greatest
value today. Recently there was a report of a hypothesis to
the effect that an UFO is plasma consisting of ionized par-
ticles of air and charged dust particles. The plasma hypo-
thesis, clearly would explain the fluctuations of the magnetic
needle of a compass upon the appearance of an UFO, and also
the fact that persons who have seen UFOs have noted also the
irritation of their eyes as though under the effect of ultra-
violet light. But this new hypothesis can hardly be a full
explanation of UFOs. You see, there are cases of UFO observa-
tions in clear weather also, when there were no electrical
particles and plasma in the atmosphere. The shapes of UFOs,
their strange movements, their many-colored illumination
are in no way similar to the behavior of natural clusters of
plasma.
Figures 4.-& 5. These photographs were taken near Namur
(Belgium) on 4 June 1955. The man who took
them noted a grayish-colored object glis-
tening in the sun and approaching at great
speed but then suddenly slowin down. At
that moment the first picture (Figure 4)
was taken.
When the object had stopped a cloud of
steam appeared around it. jhen it raised
itself above this cloudy patch, speeded
up and quickly disappeared completely.
Experts have concluded that the mysterious
object was at an altitude of not less than
1,500 meters and that it had a diameter of
at least 12 meters.
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Fifth Explantion, Bordering on the1antastic.
UFOs are flying craft from other planets rich are sur-
veying the Earth.
Obviously, the hypothesis of a foreign-planet artificial
origin of UFOs is an extreme point of view and at first glance
completely improbable. Therefore we have placed it last, as
a sort of antipodes to the first -explanation--unsubstantiated
denial. However, since the problem of UFOs has still not been
solved, various, including fantastic, points of view are pos-
sible.
"We are far from the outright rejection of the interpla-
netary hypothesis," so writes even such a convinced opponent
of it as D. Menzel, "but before accepting it, we wish to con-
sider other more natural speculations."
Protagonists of this point of view call attention to the
enormous speed and acceleration of the UFOs, not achievable by
comtemporary terretrial flying craft and beyond the ability of
terrestrial organisms to endure. The fact that UFOs never
land is tat n as possible evidence of the availability of some
extraterrestrial bases for UFOs. It is curious that the number
of UFO observations increases regularly with the approach of
Mars to the Earth. And this fact is considered an argument in
favor of the foreign-planetary hypothesis.
Protagonists of the foreign-planet origin of UFOs have
worked out detailed "theories" concerning the range of UFOs,
the utilization by them of the energy of the Earth's magnetic
field or the energy of ions in the upper layer of the atmos-
phere. But all such discussions still seem extremely specula-
tive. And even the "foreign-planet" hypothesis itself, of
course, required more solid confirmation.
The conclusion is clear: there exists almost everywhere
a definite type of phenomenon, known under the name of the UFO
phenomenon. The nature of this phenomenon has still not been
unravelled and not one of the existing hypotheses can pretend
to be the final answer to the problem. In such a situation the
only correct course is clear--to subject the mysterious UFO
phenomenon to thorough and careful scientific study.
From nature should be wrested still another of her secrets.
You see, the epoch of the "applied" study of the sky has ac-
tually arrived.
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