Official UFO Study Programs in Foreign Countries

 

 

SOVIET UNION
News stories appeared in the American newspapers in early December 1967 stating that the U. S. S. R. was establishing a governmental project to study UFOs (New York Times 10 December 1967).

According to these reports, the study was already under way under the direction of Prof. Feliks Zigel of the Moscow Aviation Institute and a retired Major General, Porfiry A. Stolyarov, of the Soviet Air Force.


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Condon wrote to Zigel to explore the possibility of cooperation between the reported Soviet and Colorado projects. Condon's letter was transmitted to Prof. Zigel as an enclosure with a letter from Dr. Frederick Seitz, President of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, to Academician M. V. Keldysh, President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences for subsequent transmittal to Zigel. The letter was mailed on 16 January 1968; as of 31 October 1968, no answer had been received. One attempt was made to stimulate a reply be discussing the matter with a Soviet member of the staff of the Outer Space Affairs Group at United Nations headquarters. He said he would write informally to a member of the Russian space research team to find out what is being done. Nothing further has been heard from this source. The U. N. official was of the opinion that no UFO study was being conducted in the Soviet Union.

Low met with Mr. U. Bogachev, First Secretary of the Information Department of the Soviet Embassy in Washington to express additional interest in cooperation in the study of UFOs and was courteously received; no further contacts were initiated in view of the lack of a reply from Zigel.

Pravda for 29 February 1968 carried an article on UFOs signed by E. Mustel, corresponding member of the A. N. U. S. S. R., D. Marynov, president of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodetic Society, and V. Leshkovtsev, Secretary of the National Committee of Soviet Physicists. The article emphasizes that study of American sightings in the past has provided natural explanations for most of them.

It concludes with these statements:


No one has in his possession any new facts that would substantiate the reality of ''flying saucers. They are not seen by astronomers who attentively study the skies day and night. They are not encountered by scientists who study the state and conditions of earth's atmosphere. They have not been observed by the Air Defense Service of the country. This therefore means that there are no grounds for reviving the nonsensical long-buried rumors about secret trips to our planet by Martians or Venusians...

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Because of the high incidence of reports on "unidentified flying objects" on the pages of our press and in television broadcasts, the "flying saucer" question was discussed at the U. S. S. R. Academy of Sciences. The Bureau of the Department of General and Applied Physics of the Academy heard a report by Academician L. A. Artsimovich at a recent meeting about current UFO propaganda. It was characterized as "anti-scientific" and Artsimovich noted that "these fantasies do not have a scientific basis at all; the observed objects are of a well-known nature."