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Newspaper reproduction In the last decades of the XX century about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) radio and TV programs are often reported; books and bulletins are dedicated to them, as well as lectures by ufology enthusiasts (from the English, unidentified flying object, or UFO, — " unidentified flying object ").
basically, we are talking about random observations of unusual objects or atmospheric phenomena, about the discovery of incomprehensible structures, their remains, traces on earth, and even about meetings with aliens from outer space.
This is a real photo of ufologists collecting such messages — people are inquisitive, sincerely passionate about the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, but, as a rule, they are not specialists in the field of meteorology or astronomy.
they rely entirely on the stories of eyewitnesses or, even sadder, on the information of journalists, obtained second hand and often greatly distorting real events.
Most ufologists are sure that if it is not possible to give an explanation for the phenomenon seen right away, it means that we are dealing with a manifestation of extraterrestrial intelligence.
ufology In the history of mankind knows many cases of "heavenly signs": in all epochs, people have noted rare and incomprehensible phenomena in the day and night sky — comets, fireballs, halos around the Sun and Moon, clouds of rare shape.
The modern surge and interest in UFOs began immediately after the Second World War, in the heyday of aviation.
American Kenneth Arnold, flying on his small plane near Mount Ray nir (Washington state), noticed nine objects in the air, the size of transport planes.
In shape, one of them looked like a crescent with a small dome in the middle, and the other eight seemed to be flat disks that glittered in the rays of the sun.
In two chains, a group of strange objects moved, as it seemed to Arnold, at a speed of about 2700 km / h.
Outwardly, they resembled "tailless planes", and their movement was "like a skimmer rushing through the waves", or "like a saucer thrown on the surface of the water".
Arnold meant that objects bounced, as if ricocheting off the surface of the water.
this is how the now popular term "flying saucer" (flying saucer), or, as they often say, "flying saucer", appeared.
Arnold's message was published.
Thereafter the editorial offices of many newspapers began to receive information from eyewitnesses of various unexplained celestial phenomena.
in general, the American public reacted to such reports with skepticism, since no real traces of the "saucers" could be found.
the genie was already out of the bottle: interest in flying saucers was growing.
journalists and ufologists use not only the frivolous phrase "flying saucer".
In the mid 50s, E. J. Ruppelt proposed for the designation of all "flying and unidentified" is the term UFO (UFO).
other names, such as AAYA — an abnormal atmospheric phenomenon.
The first steps in the study of UFOs were made by the American military.
Arnold's message coincided with the complications in relations between the USSR and the United States, i.e. with the beginning of the "cold war".
Therefore, the American the military immediately drew attention to newspaper publications about unusual flying objects.
December 30, 1947 Commander of the air Force The US ordered to start studying " atmospheric phenomena that may be of interest from the point of view of national security."
UFOs are secret aircraft created in the USSR.
To check reports of UFOs in 1948, the Air Force The United States has launched the "Blue Book" project.
The conclusion of the official commission on the results of the project stated that UFO reports are caused by various atmospheric and technical phenomena known to science and safe for the population of the country.
But many enthusiasts were not satisfied with this conclusion.
The newspapers even accused the BBC of they hide evidence of the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs and the presence of representatives of other civilizations on Earth.
To justify himself in the eyes of the public, the Air Force command was forced to turn to independent experts with a request for an additional investigation.
In October 1966, a contract was signed with the University of Colorado, under which a group of physicists led by Edward Condon has been studying UFO reports for two years.
In January 1969, Condon's report " Scientific Research of Unidentified Flying Objects "was published.
There were a lot of interesting things on the 1000 pages of the report, however, in conclusion, Condon noted that there is no evidence that UFOs are alien spacecraft or a source of military threat.
Following the recommendations of the Commission, December 17, 1969 The Air Force canceled the Blue Book project and stopped studying UFOs.
Since then, only public organizations have been doing this in the United States.
Who and where is studying UFOs now?
Ufology enthusiasts in many countries are united in various societies and clubs.
The first of them appeared in the United States back in the early 50s: the Organization for the Study of Atmospheric Phenomena, the Universal UFO Network, etc.
Today, the UFO Research Center, established in 1974 in Northfield (Illinois), is actively operating, the first head of which was a well known UFO enthusiast J. A. Heinek.
The Center regularly holds conferences, publishes the bulletin "International Informant on UFOs" and the yearbook "Journal of UFO Research".
In total, there are at least 50 active public organizations for the study of UFOs in the world: they are in many European countries, in China, India, etc.
In our camp, a surge of interest in UFOs was caused by the "Petrozavodsk phenomenon", observed in the north west of Russia on September 20, 1977.
After that, one after another, public organizations of ufologists began to be created.
In 1984, fans of ufology united in the Commission on Anomalous Phenomena (KAYA) under the Committee on Problems of Environmental Protection of the All Union Council of Scientific and Technical Societies (VSNTO).
The KAYA was headed by Vsevolod Sergeevich Troitsky, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a great enthusiast of the search for extraterrestrial civilizations and the study of UFOs, a radio astronomer from Nizhny Novgorod.
At the end of the 80s, several All Union schools and seminars were held on various interdisciplinary problems, among which was the problem of UFOs.
Great interest in UFOs is also observed in France, where the world's only state "UFO service" operates.
In 1977, a small Group was organized at the National Center for Space Research in Toulouse to study unidentified aerospace phenomena.
Later it was transformed into the Atmospheric Phenomena Examination Service (SEPRA).
Its employees collect and analyze information about UFOs coming mainly from state sources: the Air Force, civil aviation and, above all, the gendarmerie, which since 1974 has been charged with reporting all manifestations of UFOs.
In 75-80% of cases reported by the gendarmerie, SEPRA experts identify the observed phenomena with known phenomena.
When this is not possible, they conduct an additional study, sometimes going to the place of observation.
"Petrozavodsk phenomenon" Petrozavodsk phenomenon This happened in 1977 and this is how it was described in the newspaper "Izvestia": "Residents of Petrozavodsk witnessed an unusual phenomenon of nature.
On September 20, around four o'clock in the morning, a huge "star" suddenly flashed in the dark sky, impulsively sending sheaves of light to the earth.
This "star" was slowly moving towards Petrozavodsk and, spreading out over it in the form of a huge "jellyfish", hung, showering the city with a lot of the thinnest ray jets that gave the impression of torrential rain.
After a while, the ray glow stopped.
The Medusa turned into a bright semicircle and resumed its movement towards Lake Onega, the horizon of which was shrouded in gray clouds.
In this shroud, a semicircular washout of bright red color was then formed in the middle and white on the sides.
The whole phenomenon, according to eyewitnesses, lasted 10-12 minutes."
Photo of gas jets This case received a huge public response.
Many scientific and non scientific hypotheses have been put forward.
However, our and foreign experts on these issues confidently identify the " Petrozavodsk phenomenon "with the launch of the Kosmos 955 satellite, made from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region on September 20, 1977 at 4 o'clock Moscow time.
The calculation of the visibility of the rocket flight coincides well with what was observed from Petrozavodsk and its environs.
The pursuit of Venus In the book by D. Goldsmith and T. Owen "The Search for Life in the Universe" describes a curious incident that happened in 1967 in the town of Milledgeville (Georgia, USA).
In the pre morning hours, a policeman saw a "bright red glowing object similar in shape to a football" in the east near the horizon line, and chased it along with his partner in a patrol car for 12 km.
Gradually, the object rose higher, changed its color from bright red to orange, and then to white and began to resemble a star.
According to the police, the object was so bright that by its light they could see the hands of their watches.
The report of the Milledgeville police officers sparked interest in UFOs throughout the state, and in the following days similar reports were received from many places.
The police in their "hunt" for UFOs were helped by a plane, from which another, less bright object was noticed next to a bright object.
When the plane was chasing them in an easterly direction, both objects were moving away and moving upwards.
As it turned out, the bright object was Venus during the morning visibility.
And Jupiter "accompanied" her.
What is taken for a UFO?
Let's list the main phenomena that cause UFO reports.
They can be divided into three classes: astronomical, atmospheric and man made.
The astronomical phenomena of the Moon and Venus are often the "culprits" of UFO reports.
Of course, on a clear night it is difficult to confuse the Moon hanging high in the sky with anything, but there are circumstances that make it difficult to identify it.
Clouds running over the moon are very often clouds that hide the stars, but usually can not completely obscure the moon.
A particularly strong "UFO effect" occurs when clouds run across the sky, there is an illusion that the Moon is moving in the opposite direction, suddenly disappearing and appearing in gaps between dense clouds.
In addition, it is distorted beyond recognition by translucent clouds.
Venus in the evening sky When driving fast at night, a person gets the impression that this luminous object is chasing him.
A particularly strong effect occurs when he sees not the moon itself, but the glare from it in the window of a car, train or plane: its shape is often bizarre, and its movement is very strange, because it reacts to the slightest changes in course.
The moon is quite visible during the day, but many people do not suspect this.
Accidentally seeing the "night luminary" in the daytime, some people are lost and do not recognize the moon.
Images of a bright star Near the horizon, the moon, as we know, seems much larger than when it is high in the sky.
Here, the physiological feature of vision misleads people.
As a result of all the effects described above, the Moon is very often mistaken for a UFO.
Much of what has been said about the Moon also applies to Venus, which is also often mistaken for a UFO.
As a rule, this happens during the evening visibility of Venus.
Not everyone knows that the" morning star " — Venus can be very bright in the evenings.
In the middle latitudes, it is especially clearly visible in the spring, when twilight comes relatively early and Venus remains above the horizon for a long time after sunset.
Closer to the equator, its visibility practically does not depend on the time of year.
Atmospheric phenomena Cumulative clouds There are two types of physical objects that are certainly "involved" in UFO stories: these are clouds and meteors.
In mountainous areas, clouds of a very regular lenticular shape are often found.
Sometimes it is one cloud in a completely clear sky, but there may also be chains- "squadrons" of clouds.
They cause surprise not only in our time: in the paintings of the old masters, saints were depicted on such clouds.
Now their place was taken by UFO pilots.
Cumulative clouds, bright meteors and fireballs have also long caused surprise and become sources of myths and legends.
The car is visible even during the day, and after it flies, you can still observe a smoky plume for a long time.
It happens that the flight of a space "guest" does not end on Earth — it can fly back into space, as it was on August 10, 1972 over the state of Wyoming (USA).
Some materials of "extraterrestrial origin" that are sometimes discovered also turn out to be associated with the fall of meteorites.
Man made phenomena are planes and helicopters, balloons and rockets, satellites and active experiments in the atmosphere and space.
Launches of probes lead to the appearance of unusual objects Few people know that in many countries balloons are regularly launched, mainly to study the atmosphere.
Hundreds of launches a day occur all over the planet.
For the most part, these are uncontrolled balloons, and the wind can carry them almost anywhere on Earth.
So, in 1970, a record was recorded for the duration of a balloon flight: being in the air for more than four years, the device made more than 100 round the world trips at an altitude of almost 35 km.
Balloons have different diameters (from 3-4 to 100 m) and different shapes: in France, for example, they often launch easy to manufacture balloons with a shell in the form of a tetrahedron, i.e. a regular four sided pyramid.
Sometimes cylindrical shells or bundles of several dozen small balls are used.
The appearance of such a structure in the air can cause the most unexpected reaction from unprepared viewers.
The balloons look especially impressive at dusk: brightly illuminated by the sun against the darkened sky, they are visible for hundreds of kilometers.
Recently, lighter than air devices with a solid lens shaped shell have been designed.
In appearance, they can not be distinguished from the classic flying saucer.
And yet, few people observe such rare shaped devices, but rocket launches are visible at a distance of 1000 kilometers or more.
Soviet satellite Echo 2 It is easy to judge the level of competence of eyewitnesses of the appearance of UFOs in the case of mass observation of such phenomena that occur in connection with space launches or experiments in the atmosphere.
I received dozens of messages and every time after experiments in the atmosphere on July 17, September 19 and October 18, 1967 at the Kapustin Yar missile range in the Volgograd region.
At the same time, the errors of different people in determining the time reached 1 hour, and in the direction — 1/4 of the circle (instead of the east, for example, north was indicated).
When describing the "Petrozavodsk phenomenon", such errors led, in particular, to the impression that there were a lot of objects scattered over a large area.
If it is possible to restore an accurate picture of the incident, specialists in many cases easily solve it.
Unsolved UFOs And yet some messages still cannot be "deciphered".
These "classic" cases are usually retold in most books about UFOs.
Here is an example from the book of J.-K.
Rib and G. Monet "Extraterrestrial Life", where several cases from the Condon report are commented on: "A RB 47 jet aircraft of the American Air Force equipped with a RAP system (radio electronic suppression. - Editor 's note), with a crew of six officers, flew at night on July 17, 1957, accompanied by a UFO for an hour and a half, during this time passing 1300 km along the route from Mississippi to Oklahoma, bypassing the states of Louisiana and Texas.
At various times, the crew members who were in the cockpit saw the object as a bright light source.
It was recorded by ground based radar stations and RAP on board the RB 47.
This case is particularly interesting because the instantaneous appearance and disappearance of an object was observed by three physically different methods: visually, radar and RAP.
It is also interesting that the maneuvers of the object were performed at a speed that went far beyond what the crew had ever had to meet."
Another description from the same book, again with reference to the Condon report.
It happened on the night of August 13-14, 1956 in Lakenheath (England): "At least one UFO was recorded by the control control locators of two Anglo American air defense stations.
At the same time, it was observed visually.
It was a round white object that moved quickly and suddenly changed the direction of movement.
An attempt was made to intercept it by an Air Force fighter.
The control radar brought the plane to a UFO, and the pilot reported that the target on his onboard radar was visible and he was ready to open fire.
The UFO, describing a loop, fell in behind the plane and "sat on the tail", despite all the attempts of the pilot to break away.
The incident ended with the fighter returning to base due to a lack of fuel.
The weather was clear, with good visibility."
These and similar cases have not received a satisfactory explanation.
Their descriptions suffer from many shortcomings that make it difficult to identify: angular dimensions and coordinates, exact time, atmospheric conditions, etc. are not given.
Business and flying saucers The small American city of Roswell (49 thousand inhabitants), due to a combination of circumstances, has become a kind of godsend for the entertainment industry.
Reports about the falls of strange apparatuses in the vicinity of the city and about the finds of the remains of humanoid creatures are very effectively used by enterprising businessmen.
There are three museums in the city.
UFO festivals are regularly held, attracting more than 90 thousand tourists here every year.
All kinds of souvenirs are sold: dolls depicting "aliens" ($30 apiece), mugs, T shirts, hats ($20-50), etc.You can buy a whisper of earth from the place where the device fell.
Leshevle — take a photo with a "little alien from another world" ($ 2.50) or buy a badge with the single word "I Believe" ($ 2).
The city's annual income from this activity is more than $ 5 million.
Roswell has become a real gold bearing vein for the literary and film business.
The tape of the XX Century Fox film studio "Laziness of Independence", based on the Roswell incidents, brought $ 160 million in the first two weeks of rental.
In the 70s, after the exposure of the unseemly activities of some senior federal officials, a legend was born about a government conspiracy to hide the traces of extraterrestrials visiting the Earth by any means; this legend is still being exploited, contributing to the increase of scandalous interest in "aliens".
Russian journalist N. Zubkov, who visited Roswell, came to the conclusion: "...the fight against an industry that brings in billions of dollars annually is hopeless."
What if?
Why are scientists skeptical about all kinds of reports about flying saucers and aliens from other worlds?
There are many reasons for this.
The main one is that mysterious lights and objects in the sky are checked in most cases (although not always!) they turn out to be associated with technical human activity or with rare atmospheric phenomena, or even just a figment of imagination.
But I would like to know that we are not alone in the space desert, even if other civilizations prefer not to advertise their presence too much.
It must be admitted that even the biggest skeptic will not be able to prove that such an option is completely excluded.
According to modern ideas, life in the universe should be an exceptionally rare phenomenon, not to mention highly developed intelligent life.
For the emergence of even the simplest self reproducing organism from complex molecules, specific, rarely occurring conditions and the play of many accidents are required.
It only helps that Nature has a lot of time in its reserve.
In any case, we can expect that the centers of life are separated from each other by gigantic cosmic distances and the chances of two civilizations meeting are simply negligible — unless they are specifically looking for each other.
They should diverge not only in space, but also in time — the duration of the technological stage at which civilizations can show interest in contact, carry it out and find a common language is incomparable with the age of the universe.
How photos with aliens are created in the XX century.
aliens have firmly "settled" on Earth.
Photos of flying saucers and aliens often appear on TV screens and on the front pages of newspapers.
Many people claim that they communicate with them constantly, they visit each other.
People willingly accept on faith what they would very much like to believe.
Capital and careers are made on extraterrestrials.
But no completely reliable information about their existence has yet been published.
One of the famous sensations is a film that appeared in the summer of 1996 about a medical examination (autopsy) of the body of a humanoid creature.
It is claimed that this creature died in the accident of a flying saucer that fell in 1947 near the American city of Rosville.
The shooting quality leaves much to be desired.
The Pentagon's reaction to this film was unexpected: the military department said that plastic mannequins were placed in the probes for research purposes.
I must say that of all the reports about alien visits, this film has recently aroused the greatest interest.
If we have a fake in front of us (such a suspicion was expressed), then it will go down in history as one of the most grandiose deceptions.
Otherwise, science should take control of the issue.
What can a long awaited meeting with another mind bring to humanity?
People canot help but think about it, regardless of whether the saucers are flying over us or not.
Let's assume that a plate took and sat down in broad daylight in the center of the city.
What feelings will we experience at this moment?
Joy?
Hardly.
After all, this is one of those events that you prepare for all your life — and you still wonot be ready.
Rather, concern for the further development of our civilization.
Let's imagine a child who grew up in a forester's house.
As a child, he knew only his mother and father, he had a cat — one.
And so his father takes him to the city — to school.
He sees hundreds, thousands of people at once, children and adults.
Everyone is so different, everyone wants something, and suddenly they will offend.
He is interested, but scared, and there is no way back to the lonely forest life.
If at some point it turns out that we are not alone in the universe, humanity will be like this baby.
So, our whole story, which seems so non random, so meaningful, is just one of the possible options.
Our appearance, sung by poets and artists, is only one of many, and for someone's taste, perhaps, quite ugly.
Our Shakespeare will turn out to be a provincial poet on the scale of the universe, and Einstein will turn out to be a village smartass.
Our worldview, despite all the fantastic novels, is better prepared for solitude than for a universe overrun with civilizations.
Even the religions that feed the moral foundations of our civilization have always proceeded from the fact that humanity is unique.
What will our brothers in mind bring us if they have gone far ahead in their development?
Your scientific and technical achievements?
Until now, all the knowledge that we have has been our knowledge, it has been suffered, found, proven.
They contain our portrait, our torments of creativity.
If we are presented with everything new on a platter, the path of knowledge, the joy of discovery, we will lose for a long time.
Science will become worthless: what is the point of spending your life searching for the truth, if everything is already laid out on the shelves with your neighbors.
Will humanity be able to preserve its inner core then?
There is also a frightening question: how do we know that they are kind?
Will humanity be able to protect itself from unscrupulous expansion?
Or "genius and villainy are two incompatible things", and a civilization capable of overcoming huge distances has already experienced "diseases of growth": wars, malice, treachery?
Today, this problem is discussed only by science fiction writers and the mass media (the latter are not in the always with honest intentions).
Serious science does not consider it its own business.
But such questions cannot be crossed out with the words: "This is not a field of science."
After all, in the end, the question is not who the aliens are, but who we are.
"Landing traces" of UFOs In the 80s.
on television and in magazine articles, it was repeatedly mentioned about mysterious circles in the grain fields of Great Britain.
Inside a circle with a diameter of several meters, the ears were pressed to the ground in a strict order, usually clockwise.
As a rule, in their reports, correspondents associated the appearance of these circles with UFOs and did not discuss other hypotheses.
Meanwhile, the mysterious circles really seemed inexplicable for a long time (from 1980 to 1991), and many specialists were interested in them.
Over time, the geometry of drawings in circles became more and more complex: concentric circles and radial lines appeared in them.
But in the end, the hoax was revealed: it turned out that two jokers created these circles at night with a simple device made of a stick and a rope.
For many years, they have been fooling the whole world, giving rise to sensational statements by an army of "skeet specialists".
On July 30, 1989, the newspaper "Socialist Industry" reported that traces of a UFO landing were found in the Moscow district of Orekhovo Borisovo.
A strange circle of 5-6 m in diameter appeared on the side of the Kashirskoye highway; the grass inside it was withered, crushed, and the edges were singed.
On the outside of the circle, not far from its edge, four small pits were symmetrically located.
A survey of local old women and a visit to the nearest fire station quickly clarified the situation: there was a haystack in the clearing; it caught fire, was extinguished, and the remains of it were taken away.
Such "UFO tracks" are often found in meadows or forest clearings where grass is usually mowed and stacked in stacks.
When the stack is taken away, the characteristic circle of withered grass is still visible for a long time at this place.
If the stack accidentally burns down, then the surface of the earth inside the circle is scorched.
And three or four recesses along the perimeter are traces of poles that are used to press the hay.
It is characteristic that reports of such "finds" come, as a rule, from urban residents.
Meetings with UFO pilots The last thing to mention is reports of meetings with aliens.
Ufologists collect such information and classify them: contact of the first kind saw; of the second kind entered into a dialogue, etc.
In appearance, UFO pilots are also divided into types: dwarfs, giants, green, silver.
But for an open minded person, one thing is important in these messages — can they be trusted?
Long stories about meetings and joint trips with aliens on flying saucers, published in large editions, are often associated with the commercial interests of their authors.
They are a kind of genre of fiction.
However, other messages are also frequent from people who are clearly not interested in selling sensational fabrications.
They are sincerely sure that they have observed unfamiliar creatures and even communicated with them.
Here we already come into contact with the little explored depths of the human psyche.
But this topic is more related to medicine and psychology than to astronomy.
It can be concluded that sometimes rare natural (and recently, technical) phenomena are not identified by most people with phenomena known to them and therefore cause special interest and are taken for UFOs.
In each historical period, the ideas about UFOs correspond to the level of public consciousness.
In the Middle Ages, they were considered heavenly signs, and in our time they are mistaken for alien spaceships.
Unfortunately, ufology in its current form is rarely understated
