Investigating the Anomalies: Mysteries from Behind the Former Iron Curtain

INVESTIGATING THE ANOMALIES

Mysteries from Behind the Former Iron Curtain

Edited by Vladimir V. Rubtsov, Ph.D.

Published by Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena (RIAP)

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena (RIAP)

Postal address: RIAP, P.O. Box 4542, 61022 Kharkov-22, Ukraine

E-mail: riap@safe-mail.net

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Book design and composition by RIAP

Cover design by Valentin Andreev

Contents

To the Reader

Introduction: Science and Anomalous Phenomena, by Vladimir Rubtsov

1. Trying to Learn the Lessons of History…

2. Flying Saucers are Real… Now What?

3. Paleovisits: a Knight at the Crossroads

4. Looking for Ideas

5. In Search of the Tunguska Nozzle

6. Anomalies Found

7. On the Way to the Ultimate Union

Notes and references

A Thousand Years of Russian UFOs, by Mikhail Gershtein

1. Introduction

2. Annalistic Period

2.1. Early Centuries

2.2. Anomalous Aerial Phenomena in the 17th Century

3. Naturalistic Period

3.1. Star Wars of the 18th Century

3.2. Other Phenomena of the 18th Century

4. Aeronautical Period

4.1. The Wave of 1892

4.2. An Interlude

4.3. The Flap of 1899

References

History of State-Directed UFO Research in the USSR, by Yuly Platov and Boris Sokolov

References

The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon, by Lev Gindilis and Yury Kolpakov

1. General Outline of the Phenomenon

2. The Area of the Observations

3. The Time of the Observation

4. Description of the Phenomenon Based on Visual Observations

5. Instrumental Observations

6. Conditions Surrounding the Development of the Phenomenon

7. Discussion

References

UFO Landings on the River Mzha, by Pyotr Kozub, Pyotr Kutniuk, Vladimir Mantulin, and Vladimir Rubtsov

1. The Events

2. Preliminary Conclusions

3. Future Trends

The Russian Roswell: a Legend Under Examination, by Yury Morozov

1. Introduction

2. Variants of the Legend

3. Analysis of the Legend

4. Hypothesis of a Balloon with a Parachute

5. Prospects of the Legend’s Verification

Acknowledgments

References

On the Development of the Idea of Paleocontacts in the USSR at the Beginning of the 1960s, by Matest Agrest

Notes and References

The Mystery of the Black Ball, by Valentin Fomenko

1. Introduction

2. Results of the Studies

2.1. Configuration of the Ball

2.2. The Ball Surface

2.3. Transparency of the Ball’s Shell

2.4. The Ball’s Structure

2.5. Density of the Ball and Core

3. Discussing the Results

3.1. Characteristics of the Ball’s Shape and Dimensions

3.2. The Age of the Ball

3.3. Possible Versions of the Ball’s Origin

4. Conclusions and Some Suggestions

References

Tracking the Alien Astroengineers, by Vladimir Rubtsov

1. The Cosmogony of the Dogon

2. From Mythology to Astrophysics…

3. …And Back to Mythology

4. These Were Star Crashes, Where Intelligence Was Dawning and Growing Up…

References

The Cosmic Sword, by Nikolay Vasilyev

The Geomagnetic Effect of the Tunguska Explosion and the Technogeneous Hypothesis of the TSB Origin, by Victor Zhuravlev

1. Introduction

2. The History of the Question

3. Description and Interpretation of the Geomagnetic Effect

4. The Heliophysical Hypothesis

5. Conclusion

References

About the Contributors

About the Editor

Other Books by Vladimir Rubtsov

List of Suggested Keywords

To the Reader

In September 1992, a group of people gathered at the Kharkov office of the aerospace company Vertical, thinking that under the new economic and social conditions that had formed by that time in Ukraine, it had become at last possible to proceed from purely amateur investigations of anomalous phenomena – which had been scarcely tolerated by the state – to investigations that would be professional, open, and financed.

Thanks to the active support of Dr. Vladimir Tupalo, President of Vertical, this idea was quickly put into practice. Under the aegis of the company, the Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena (RIAP) was established, whose staff worked out a program of investigations in several highly topical directions and started publication of RIAP Bulletin: probably the only periodical in the entire post-Soviet region to treat the subject of anomalous phenomena both open-mindedly and responsibly. The number of real enigmas in this sphere is large enough to concentrate attention on them, without the need to invent anything. Truth is far more interesting than fiction – and results of serious studies of anomalous phenomena are much more thought-provoking and exciting than are dreamt of in your media.

The past 20 years for RIAP were not that easy. Yes, this field became completely free from any ideological bans. Yes, thanks to the Internet and open borders, researchers from Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries can now communicate with the whole world. But while ceasing to ban such studies, the state is in no hurry to support them in any way. What is even worse, since the collapse of totalitarianism, anomalistics in this country has very quickly rushed into the arms of the yellow press, although not totally. In general, at least in this area, we have at last overtaken and surpassed the West. (To overtake and surpass was a very popular official slogan in Soviet times.)

Under these conditions RIAP’s survival is also an anomalous phenomenon of a sort. …A human-made anomalous phenomenon still existing thanks to our colleagues and supporters, both from this country and from abroad – the members of RIAP Advisory Board, RIAP Associates, and just sincere friends – such as Dr. Alexander Bagrov, Ian Dubin, Dr. Joseph F. Dundovic, Hilary Evans, Dr. Lev Gindilis, Robert Gray, Dr. Richard Haines, Isabela Herranz, Margaret Kichline, John Knowles, William McNeff, Paul Norman, Ted Phillips, Susan Reardon, Dr. Jacques Scornaux, Dr. Mikhail Shevchenko, Dr. Peter Sturrock, Dr. Kazuo Tanaka, Dr. Jacques Vallee, Gerry Zeitlin, to name just a few. We should also mention with appreciation the subscribers to RIAP Bulletin, whose contribution to its active life is really crucial.

To all of them we express our heartfelt gratitude.

Difficulties or not, but 25 issues of RIAP Bulletin have been published by now – containing about a hundred papers, letters to the editor, reviews, and other material. With the years, the value of many of these has even increased, instead of diminishing – since they reflect the contents of that relatively small part of the problem of anomalous phenomena that may be characterized as the sphere of reliable knowledge and rational hypotheses.

That is why we decided to select ten papers for a small anthology – quite representative, however, in relation to the material that had been published in the bulletin, and to those true enigmas that are studied by RIAP – and to issue it as an ebook. Being not expensive, it may be purchased by as large a number of interested professionals and amateurs as possible. The role of the latter in our field of investigations cannot be overestimated. A more complete anthology, containing 31 papers, is now under completion as well. It will be published, as we hope, in both electronic and print forms.

As our readers, you are of much value to us and any comments that you may have on this book will be most highly appreciated. We do hope that the community of serious anomalists will grow steadily, and it will continue its search for truth only – whatever the truth will happen to be. Join us in this fascinating trip to the unknown!

RIAP Scientific Council

SCIENCE AND ANOMALOUS PHENOMENA

Vladimir V. Rubtsov, Ph.D.

Papers selected for this anthology deal with three subjects: the UFO problem, the enigma of the Tunguska meteorite, and the problem of paleovisits – ancient ET visits to the Earth.

The main common trait of these themes is their off-mainstream position in science, even if not identical in every case. The Tunguska explosion of 1908 has produced a lot of publications in scientific journals; the theoretical possibility of paleovisits is generally admitted by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) researchers; physical models of anomalous atmospheric phenomena that can be mistaken by inexperienced observers for flying saucers have from time to time been proposed by specialists in atmospheric optics. At the same time, each of the above-listed problems has an essential anomalous component, especially where concrete empirical investigations (and not just theoretical considerations) are concerned. It seems as if mainstream science deliberately pushes them out, carefully forming a gap between itself and uncomfortable questions to which scientists have no definite answers. In this way another sphere of human thought is however enriched, namely anomalistics.

Generally, anomalistics is an open expression of doubt (and sometimes of irony) in respect to constantly renewing pretensions of man to learn the final truth. But what is it from the viewpoint of the philosophy of science? Certainly, anomalistics cannot be called a scientific discipline. The lack of common methodological standards (apart from doubt) prevents it from being named even as an interdisciplinary area of scientific research. As a matter of fact, it is rather a loose field of cognitive interest, whose foundations were laid by Charles Fort, and which has gradually evolved, due to work of many enthusiasts all over the world, into something substantial. Just as the scientific community is the heart of real science, the anomalistic community with its researchers, associations, periodicals and data arrays (even systemized, particularly, in the works by W. R. Corliss¹) constitutes anomalistics as an actual socio-cultural system in its own right. Of course, this system cannot be compared with science as far as its influence on society is concerned, but nonetheless it dares to criticize some sides of the scientific picture of the world.

However, there exist not only negative interrelations between science and anomalistics, but positive ones as well. The latter pay attention either to those (intra-scientific) anomalies which science tends to neglect, rating the safety of a current paradigm above these minor problems, or those (extra-scientific) anomalies which are not incorporated into science at all. Anomalistics tries, with varying success, to have these facts absorbed by science, not worrying too much about the possible results... In other words, serious anomalists are not inclined to substitute science for anomalistics. The latter is rather meant to be a mirror for scientific drawbacks, a reproaching gaze and a moralizing sermon from the empyrean of the epistemological ideal of science (where the only aim is scientific truth) to the bottom of its social reality, where the scientist not only perceives the laws of nature, but maintains thereby his family and himself.

It is significant, however, that a response to this reproach comes rather from off-mainstream (alternative) science than from normal science. This fact hardly can be enigmatic, though. When compared to normal science, the alternative one does look much more altruistic. It has to be more altruistic – conducting investigations in spite of the lack of necessary funds. It is therefore alternative science that preserves under current social conditions the early ideal of the disinterested quest for truth placed by mainstream science at a literally unattainable height.

1. Trying to Learn the Lessons of History…

These lessons are instructive indeed. Looking closely, say, at the 60+ years of history of the UFO problem it only remains to be astonished at the level of social dependence of modern science in its everyday life. Both in the USA and in the former USSR the academic and governmental circles have done their best to make an unbiased scientific study of the UFO problem impossible. Both ufology and science were damaged by this unscientific attitude to the problem.

Ufology in Soviet times was essentially non-cumulative. One can discern in its history an evident wavy pattern: at first, a UFO pioneer, with a small group of adherents, tries to open society’s eyes to real significance of the UFO problem; then, for a short time, the State and Party authorities look at this attempt in rather dull bewilderment; and finally, they realize their mistake and give instructions to stop immediately this violation of common sense. During the short periods of half-tolerated existence of ufology in the USSR, there arose a small ufological community, and some pieces of empirical information on UFO sightings and theoretical considerations accumulated in Samizdat manuscripts and a very few printed publications. Between the waves, the community quickly, though not totally, dissolved, and by the next wave practically everything had to be built anew.

Well, this was a sort of external non-cumulativeness, with an evidently social background. But the ufological movement which had existed in the rest of the world for the last 60 years under quite different social conditions, is also noted for its non-cumulative (if not just anti-cumulative) character. In this case – internal.

One can disagree: the set of UFO reports (together with reports about contacts and abductions) is constantly growing; if this is not a cumulative effect, what is it? ...The lack of any final solution does not prove anything either: the problem itself is just too difficult and the resources allocated for this work are utterly inadequate to its real scope.

Yes, this data set does grow rather swiftly. But the ratio of anecdotal evidence (stories) relative to objective data, as well as the ratio of ufological entertainment relative to ufological studies, grows even more quickly. And the proportion of reliable information in this set swiftly tends to zero.

Until the early 1980s, the prevailing tendency in mainstream ufology was the desire to objectivize its empirical basis, that is to move from stories to facts. Emphasis was placed on CE-II – Close Encounters of the 2nd Kind (landings with material traces) and RV (radar-visual) UFO cases, as well as on searching for statistical regularities in the set of UFO reports.

True, even then a peculiarity of these regularities was detected: their falsifiability. Not a principal one, which is, according to Karl Popper, a necessary feature of good science, but, alas, a factual falsifiability. In this connection, Pierre Guerin has formulated the only law of ufology. It states: In Ufology, any law is immediately falsified by subsequent sightings just as soon as it is formulated. Aimé Michel, whose brilliant mind did not tolerate any established truths, amended this law with a few words: ... including Guerin’s Law – but did not falsify it, nonetheless.²

Whether this peculiarity of ufology is related to the not-so-mature state of its methodology, or to the not-so-regular nature of the UFO phenomenon, or to something else, it is hard to say, since nobody – to the best of my knowledge – tried to analyze this question in sufficient detail. But the failure of all attempts to solidify the empirical basis of ufology has greatly contributed – directly, or indirectly – to turning mainstream ufology towards principally soft data – that is towards stories as such, first of all the stories about abductions and UFO crashes.

Is this principal deviation from hard data just an accident, or not? To what extent ufology may be considered as science in any definite sense of the word? Strict models of science, developed by philosophers and methodologists, are in fact not applicable to many established sciences, except for physics and some other advanced (and mathematized) disciplines. But if we turn to the somewhat old-fashioned and a little bit too broad (but nevertheless quite reasonable) division of sciences into two types: natural and historical (which goes back to the work of W. Windelband), then we can find that ufology is much nearer to the latter, than to the former. It deals with phenomena non-reproducible in experiment, which can be investigated only indirectly, post factum, via eyewitnesses’ reports (which from time to time happen to be supplemented with radar data, photographs, video records, and supposed landing traces). In relation to the investigator, a UFO event is always a past one (whether it occurred 10 days, or 10 years ago, is not a principal question). Attempts to find in these events any regularities (not to mention laws) are even less successful than attempts to find such regularities in the history of human civilization (one should probably think about a version of Guerin’s Law for the latter as well).

The immature state of contemporary ufology shows itself, among other things, in the constant renewal of its empirical basis. Any old case, lesser in scale than a saucer crash, gradually falls into oblivion, even if well-documented and unexplained. For a historical research discipline, it is a principally incorrect approach. As an example, let us consider the so-called Petrozavodsk phenomenon that is discussed in the paper by Dr. Lev Gindilis and Yury Kolpakov, included in our anthology. In 1977 it was a really epoch-making event, for two main reasons.

First, by an oversight of Glavlit (the Soviet censorship) it was published in a few all-Union newspapers and hence became widely-known.

Second, it made the authorities of the former USSR understand that the UFO phenomenon is not just an invention of irresponsible saucer buffs. As a result, the military and science bureaucrats were charged to look into the question.

This decision did not make life easier for Soviet UFO amateurs; quite the reverse – it aggravated censorial prohibitions, making almost impossible even low profile ufological activities. But this (even relative and half-secret) officialization of the UFO problem has partly broken the then-dominant tendency of superficial and incompetent negation. The waves have stopped; the level of analysis of the UFO problem has radically altered.

It is important to remember that the Petrozavodsk phenomenon, as one can conclude from the paper by Lev Gindilis and Yury Kolpakov, is essentially anomalous. Absolutely anomalous? Of course, not. We cannot rule out the possibility of some rare (but explainable in terms of modern physics) large-scale atmospheric processes, triggered by ordinary technical experiments. But to treat this phenomenon just as a misinterpreted launch of an artificial satellite would be at least naive. The Petrozavodsk phenomenon is a significant part of the ufological jig-saw puzzle (this metaphor was very popular in the early years of ufology, and it is still quite meaningful).

Elements of this puzzle are dispersed through space and time, and spread all over different countries and historical periods. A Thousand Years of Russian UFOs – Mikhail Gershtein’s survey of the history of UFO observations over Russia – enables us to estimate the true scale of the UFO phenomenon as such – not necessarily flying saucers, but definitely enigmatic objects. In particular, as it happens to be, the Russian reports about mysterious balloons of the 1890s do also contain an anomalous component – that hardly can be explained away by socio-cultural factors alone.

Being – I would like to repeat this once again – essentially a historical discipline, ufology does need to know its prehistory – the more so that some data of this sort may direct us to the tangible evidence so longed for both by UFO investigators and debunkers. Such chances seem to emerge, particularly from the paper The Russian Roswell: A Legend Under Examination by Dr. Yury Morozov, published in our anthology. Its author is considering a story about the landing of a strange (air? space?) craft that appears to have occurred in the Stavropol province of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. This craft was piloted by strange people who soon died, since they could not breathe with our air.

Typologically this story resembles more the Aurora incident than the Roswell one, but the former is, as competent ufologists are certain, an established hoax, whereas everything seems to indicate that the Stavropol story is no hoax at all. Trivial explanations cannot certainly be ruled out here – as is stressed by the paper’s author. But at least, one can outline a methodologically correct scheme of possible verification of the story: first, we should try to determine, based on its contents, the most probable place of the incident, and then try to find there its material traces (say, parts of the craft, or the remains of the pilots). The scheme does look simple – just as any scheme may look. To put it into practice will not be that easy, however. But an attempt seems to be well worth while.

Of course, one should not understand the historic character of ufology too literally – otherwise it becomes very easy to concentrate one’s attention completely on historical sources, forgetting about the actual subject of ufological studies, i.e. the physical UFO phenomenon existing in the atmosphere of our planet here and now. Some symptoms of such an escape into the past may already be noticed. A number of serious western ufologists, being in despair due to the elusiveness of unidentified flying objects and seeing the complete lack of inclination of big science to be in any way involved into the matter, not to mention to provide the funds and