* 24 Hour Operation * Sysop - Tom Mickus * Toronto * FREE=================================================================== SOVIET1.TXT - "UFOs And Security"
by Alexsandr Kuzovkin and Alexsandr Semyonov==============================================================
Note: The following article was excerpted from the No.6, June, 1989 issue of "Soviet Military Review", which along with English is translated into about a dozen other languages. - Tom Mickus 11/20/89============================================================== UFOs AND SECURITY
DEAR EDITORS, I HAVE READ MANY ITEMS ABOUT UFOS IN THE PRESS. DO THEY
REALLY EXIST? IF SO, ARE THEY A DIRECT THREAT TO PEACE ON EARTH?
WHAT HAS SCIENCE TO SAY ON THIS SCORE?
-Benjamin S. Mapurisa ZIMBABWE
Since 1947, when American citizen Kenneth Arnold saw from his plane
strange glimmering objects in the mountains, the world has been
talking about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). The appearance of
UFOs is from time to time reported in newspapers and magazines, radio
and television. They are all analysed by scientists. On August 25,
1966 a USAF officer working on Minuteman missile in North Dakota saw
that his radio had stopped functioning. He was 18 metres down in the
concrete silo. The ground crew reported that they saw a UFO which was
alternately descended and climbed and interference disappeared. And
then it started to land. When a group of soldiers dispatched to the
landing site 16 kilometres from the silo, interference broke its
radio contact with command. It was suggested that during the
1966-1967 period of UFO activity, the UFOs visited also the Titan
silos. Experts were concerned over their electromagnetic effects,
that might be capable of influencing the electric equipment of combat
missiles.
In the autumn of 1974, a metal disk some 100 metres across approached
a South Korean anti-aircraft shore battery. The commander launched a
Hawk guided missile which was immediately shot down by a "white ray"
from the UFO. The second ray was directed at the battery, melting
the remaining two Hawk missiles into an unrecognisable mass. The
investigation of the UFO problem was launched in the US by the
military. In 1974, (sic) on orders from the Air Force commander,
they started Project Sign. The Air Technical Intelligence Centre was
responsible for research. Back in February 1953, head of the anti-
aircraft committee of the continent General Benjamin Chidlow stated:
"We have a great mass of reports about flying saucers. We regard
this very seriously, because we have lost many people and many
aircraft which have attempted to attack UFOs." Project Sign was
subsequently renamed Grudge and then Fang. But it is better known
under the name Project Blue Book.
In 1954 the French Ministry of the Armed Forces established a
department to collect information about UFOs. In 1977 the French
National Space Research Centre created a group of experts to study
unidentified aerospace phenomenon, GEPAN.
In 1960-1970, public organisations studying UFOs mushroomed throughout
the world, notably in Bulgaria, Denmark, West Germany and Mexico.
Later UFO fever spread to Canada, Britain, Japan, China and other
countries.
In the autumn of 1978, the First Committee of the 33rd UN General
Assembly discussed the question of launching international UFO
research. The discussion was based on ICUFON Memorandum, a public US
organisation studying UFOs. It provided a wealth of information on
the military-technical and military-political aspect of the problem.
Afterwards, though, information on UFO research in the West dwindled.
The press published only distorted and superficial information about
UFOs. At that time, the US launched the Strategic Defence Initiative
(SDI). The study of UFOs in the Soviet Union started in 1958 by a
group of enthusiasts led by Feliks Zigel, assistant professor at the
Moscow Aviation Institute and the founder of UFOlogy in the Soviet
Union. In the mid-1970s, information about UFOs was collected by the
Institute of Earth Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Waves, led by
Vladimir Migulin, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of
Sciences. In 1984, a commission to study anomalous phenomena, led by
Vsevolod Troitsky, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of
Sciences, was established at the national scientific and technological
society of nature protection. In April last year, Tomsk hosted a
conference on sporadic instant phenomena, which rallied more than
300 scientists and experts from major scientific centres of the
Soviet Union. The conference recommended that the Siberian branch of
the USSR Academy of Sciences draft a comphrehensive programme for the
study of the problem.
Many Soviet and foreign scientists tried to present the UFO phenomenon
as a natural thing, such as optical atmospheric effects, flocks of
