UFO. Russia

We will talk about a phenomenon that in early Soviet reports was called "the phenomenon of September 20, 1977". Later it became known as the "Petrozavodsk phenomenon", "Petrozavodsk incident", "Petrozavodsk miracle" and, of course, the most common - "Petrozavodsk phenomenon".

On the territory of Russia and in the countries of the former USSR, the "Petrozavodsk phenomenon" usually includes events that occurred in the north-west of Russia not only directly on September 20, 1977, but also in the period from September 1977 to February 1978.

In the rest of the world, the "Petrozavodsk phenomenon" is called only a number of celestial events that occurred directly on September 20, 1977. These events were recorded not only on the territory of Petrozavodsk, but also on the entire mainland, from Copenhagen and Helsinki in the west to Vladivostok in the east.

So, on September 20, 1977, from about 4:00 a.m. to 4:10 a.m. (Moscow time), an object was observed in the northern part of the sky over Petrozavodsk and its surroundings, from which fairly long luminous stripes departed, because of which it resembled a jellyfish.

An abridged version of the message was published in the newspapers Izvestia (see Fig.) and Rural Life on September 23, 1977, and the full version was published in the newspaper Socialist Industry.:

Residents of Petrozavodsk witnessed an unusual phenomenon of nature - on September 20, around four o'clock in the morning, a huge "star" suddenly flashed brightly 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 jellyfish, hung, showering the city with a multitude of the thinnest ray jets that gave the impression of torrential rain.

After a while, the ray glow ended, the "medusa" turned into a bright semicircle and resumed moving towards Lake Onega, the horizon of which was shrouded in gray clouds. In this shroud, a semicircular washout of bright red color was formed in the middle and white on the sides. This phenomenon, according to eyewitnesses, lasted 10-12 minutes.

The director of the Petrozavodsk Hydrometeorological Observatory, Yu. Gromov, told a TASS correspondent that Karelian meteorological service workers had not previously observed analogues in nature. What caused this phenomenon, what is its nature, remains a mystery, because no sharp deviations in the atmosphere not only over the past day, but also on the approach to them were registered by weather observation posts. We also know, stressed Yu. Gromov, that no technical experiments have been conducted in our region at this time. However, it is also impossible to attribute everything to the category of mirages, because this unusual phenomenon has many eyewitnesses whose testimony is largely identical, although they happened to observe a rare phenomenon that left no physical evidence about itself from different parts of the city.

N. Milov. Petrozavodsk.

The Leningrad correspondent of TASS asked the director of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the USSR Academy of Sciences, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences V. Krat to express his point of view on this issue.

"A bright fireball," said the scientist, "rapidly streaking the sky from south to north over the Leningrad Region and Karelia in the early morning of September 20, was also observed by Pulkovo astronomers. Now it is still difficult to explain its origin with certainty, since the information of eyewitnesses and observers continues to be received and analyzed."

A. Solovyova, N. Egorychev, L. Abramenko - aerologists, S. Bebenina - meteorologist of the Sortavala hydrometeorological station ("Red Banner", Sortavala, October 8, 1977):

In the early morning of September 20, 1977, an interesting phenomenon was observed on the firmament over the city of Sortavala, which began at 4:10 a.m. and lasted for 15 minutes. Bright stars shone in a cloudless sky. But in the northeast, about 60 degrees above the horizon, a small star appeared, which at first moved rapidly from the northeast to the southwest. Then its movement slowed down, and soon the "star" seemed to hang in one place.

As it approached, it increased in size and emitted a bright white glow, which formed an ellipse around this "star", its area rapidly increased. It gave the impression of a blurring spot of regular shape, having veins or rays resembling the tentacles of an octopus.

Increasing in size, the ellipse unfolded, leaning towards the ground. The glow shone and shimmered. At the edge of the spot on the right side, three yellow dots appeared, resembling the side lights of an airplane. These dots flashed, forming a spot similar in color to a large spot, and disappeared, leaving behind a yellow glow.

Meanwhile, the glowing spot stopped growing, a bright neon beam appeared, and the "star" began to move north. The glow began to fade and decrease. It seemed that the "star" was sucking in a glowing spot, and as it moved away to the north, this spot took the form of a fish tail of bright neon color. The "star" disappeared, leaving a dull ball that paled and turned into a circle, and then disappeared over the horizon.

Two and a half hours before this phenomenon, a weak aurora borealis was observed in the northwest, and after the disappearance of the "star", a bright rainbow aurora was observed in the northeast.

 Translation of the article "Soviet UFO due to secret launch" (Science News, Vol. 112, October 8, 1977) by Mikhail Gerstein:

A spectacular, star-like fireball, which was seen on September 20 [1977] over Petrozavodsk in the northwestern part of the Soviet Union "spread out over the city like a jellyfish" and emitting streams of light, was last week identified by an American researcher as the contrail of the spy satellite Kosmos-955.

The observation of a strange phenomenon, which was also seen over Finland, was widely covered by the Soviet TASS agency and other agencies around the world. "A huge star suddenly lit up in the dark sky, sending sheaves of light to the Earth," TASS reported. "The star was slowly moving towards Petrozavodsk and, spreading out over it in the form of a jellyfish, hung, showering the city with a multitude of the thinnest ray jets that gave the impression of torrential rain." There were no explanations in the press reports.

As it turned out, the phenomenon was due to the fact that in the pre-morning hours there was a launch from a top-secret military space center located north of Moscow. Despite the fact that this base - the Plesetsk Cosmodrome - was known to Western observers almost immediately after it was put into operation in 1966, Moscow never recognized its existence. Apparently, this is due to Moscow's sensitivity towards its military facilities. Soviet officials continue to hold the view that all Russian space launches are carried out from the Baikonur cosmodrome, near Tyuratam in Central Asia, and several additional small satellites were launched from a small test site in the lower reaches of the Volga. But American observers say that Plesetsk is the busiest cosmodrome on Earth, from which about 40% of the world's launches are carried out. TASS put itself in a notoriously difficult position by reporting a UFO: to explain the phenomenon, it would be necessary to declassify the existence of this base.

The identification of the Soviet UFO as a spy satellite "Cosmos-955" was made by James E. Oberg, a space specialist from Houston, who is a well-known authority on the Russian space program and a researcher of UFO reports. He is also a member of the newly created sub-commission on UFOs under the civil organization "Committee for the Scientific Study of Claims about the Paranormal", which last week released a report explaining the phenomenon.

"As soon as I read the newspaper reports, I thought about launching a rocket," Oberg said. - I called a friend on the phone who registers Russian satellites. It turned out that two satellites were launched that morning."

Calculations carried out by the NASA Space Flight Center. Goddard in Greenbelt, give Oberg sufficient reason to determine that the rocket was launched a few minutes before 4 a.m. local time. A message from Petrozavodsk, which is located about 200 miles southwest of Plesetsk, indicated the time of 4 a.m. The satellite was launched in a north-easterly direction, so, says Oberg, the shocked eyewitnesses had an amazing opportunity to observe directly in the direction of the nozzles spewing a fiery plume.

"The identification," he added, "was carried out with absolute certainty."

At night, space rocket launches in the United States were often mistaken for UFO flights, because in the dark, the glow of the gases released could take strange forms.

Oberg said that this is only the fourth time that the launch was made from Plesetsk in such conditions that the azimuth, altitude, features of the launch vehicle and darkness created such an impressive picture. In one case, when the Meteor-2 weather satellite was launched in October 1969, dozens of eyewitness reports from Finland and Sweden were received. The Society of Amateur Astronomers from Helsinki summarized the reports and later published drawings and a description of this phenomenon. Live descriptions of the latter phenomenon are almost identical to reports from Finland about the launch of Meteor-2 8 years ago.

The mysterious "tentacles" or "streams of light," Oberg said, were actually separate plumes emanating from the four parallel nozzles of the launch vehicle when it was still connected to the main stage. "The films depicting the launches of Soviet missiles show this effect of "streams of light" very clearly."

The village of Polova (25 km east of Petrozavodsk)

Here, at about 4 o'clock in the morning, we saw in general the same thing as in Petrozavodsk. Observers noted that the "glow" flowed out of the object, as from the center, and the light cloud around the object spread impulsively ("like a ripple will run"). The observations lasted about an hour, and the object was stationary for the first 15 minutes.

There can be little doubt that we are talking here about the same UFO as in Petrozavodsk. But at 4 : 40 min . a second bright object appeared in the east. He colored the clouds, which seemed to glow from the inside.

Leppyasyurya (150 km west of Petrozavodsk)

A local resident, a former artilleryman V. E. Tikhomirov, saw a bright object in the form of a hat hanging in the sky for half an hour on the night of September 20. Hanging over Leppyasurya, this UFO flew to the east. In this case, as in the following, another object was observed, not at all similar to the one that hovered over Petrozavodsk.

Kurkijoki settlement (western shore of Lake Ladoga)

Engineer A. P. Novozhilov from the Institute of Lake Science of the USSR Academy of Sciences told the following (K. K. Polevitsky's entry):

"I was late for the steamer to Lahdenpohye, I decided to get by bus to Priozersk. I was on the highway in the village of Kurkijoki waiting for the bus. It was about 4 a.m. on September 20th. He stood facing the highway and with his back to the lake — looking to the northwest. At first it was raining, then it cleared up, the stars became visible. Novozhilov saw a shooting star, which he took to be a meteor, but the "meteor" did not fall, but stopped and began to move in the direction of the observer, rapidly increasing in size and taking the form of a body resembling an airship and clearly outlined about The body had a six- or octahedral shape, was elongated and limited in front and behind by brightly glowing spots. These. the light sources were connected by six or eight edges, symmetrically arranged. The ribs shone brightly with a white light, somewhat weaker than the spots. The faces bounded by the edges also shone uniformly with white light, their light was weaker than the light of the faces, and the faces resembled windows illuminated from the inside, as if curtained from the inside with double tulle curtains. The body moved at an altitude of 300-500 meters, had a diameter of 12-15 meters. The approach of the body caused the observer a feeling of anxiety and panic, he said: "It was creepy, I crouched down to the ground."

The body length was 100 meters. On the approach of the body to the observer, a brightly glowing ball flew out of the aft part of the body and went north perpendicular to the direction of movement of the "airship", which was moving from west to east. The ball initially moved horizontally, and then descended behind the forest and reached the ground. The landing of the ball caused the appearance of a bright glow, against which the forest was clearly visible.

At the moment of the approach of the big body (4.15) took a camera out of his backpack and took three pictures at a shutter speed of 0.1 sec., aperture 2.0 and a film of 65 units. At this time, two more people came up, who also observed the phenomenon. All three of them climbed the hill and looked at the glow at the place where the separated body fell.

The bus to Elisenvaara came up, got on it. In Zlisenvaar, I took the train going to Leningrad. I lost consciousness on the train. The following days I felt bad, lost consciousness on the second and third days. The body was moving at the speed of a helicopter, the duration of observation was 10-15 minutes. Everything happened in absolute silence. The body was many times bigger than the moon. The photos didn't work out.

It was compiled on October 30, 1977 by Konstantin Konstantinovich Polevitsky, Candidate of Technical Sciences, from the words of A. P. Novozhilov. Address of K. K. Polevitsky: Leningrad, 42 Zagorodny Prospekt, apartment 45. Phone 211-34-73.

Namoevo village (55 km northwest of Petrozavodsk)

Here, the candidate of philosophical sciences writer Yu. V. Linnik (a resident of Petrozavodsk) in his country observatory on September 20 observed a UFO through a telescope. But it was not the UFO that was in Petrozavodsk. And Yu. V. Linnik observed it an hour earlier, i.e. about 3 o'clock in the morning. In the eyepiece with a magnification of 80 times, a lentil-shaped lens of dark amethyst color was visible, surrounded by a matte, translucent ring. On the edges of the disk, Yu. B. Linnik noticed 16 dots (as he writes, "nozzles"), from which pulsating rays of ruddy color emanated in the direction of the earth, without touching the matte ring. Bending, they resembled the "tentacles" of some organism. The main body was comparable to the Pleiades in angular dimensions. It was not possible to distinguish any details (except for the "nozzles") on the surface of the object.

Moving against the background of the night starry sky, the UFO finally stopped for about fifteen minutes in the constellation Cepheus. At this time, Yu. V. Linnik's dog, Charlie's spaniel, woke up and howled desperately — a typical reaction of animals to UFOs.

After hovering, the UFO changed the direction of flight by 30-35 degrees and soon disappeared over the horizon.

The city of Primorsk (the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland)

Here N. A. Korsakov noticed a very bright "star" in the east at 4:07 a.m. There was a light circle around her "with a noticeable selection of rays." Over Primorsky, the flying object made a "smooth turn" to the north. A pale red tail was visible behind the object. According to N. A. Korsakov, "the flight took place in dense layers of the atmosphere, because ragged small clouds were lower." In other words, the height of the UFO did not exceed several hundred meters.

In the same area when departing from the pier of Primorsk about 3.30 hours. in the morning, the crew of the fishing vessel Primorsk saw a bright dot approaching from the east, emitting glowing gas around itself. In the Primorsk area, she abruptly turned north at a right angle and when the UFO disappeared from sight, the gas trail from it shone for a long time. Then there was "a descending object in the form of a ball, periodically illuminated from its lower part." Fishermen observed this object with binoculars, but they could not see any details. In the north, a bright glow could be seen until dawn, possibly the former aurora borealis.

Thus, three more UFOs were observed in the Primorsk area.

The city of Petrodvorets (the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland).

After a heavy downpour Z. L. Stein at 4.05 saw a bright spot that turned into something resembling a lampshade with stripes. A black spot appeared inside the "lampshade" and a body appeared at the depth of the spot, which, leaving behind a trail of pale blue color, disappeared from view. Strange glowing clouds appeared over the bay, resembling contrails of aircraft.

The city of Pyltemaa (central Estonia).

Here at 4.08 we saw a star-shaped object, which gradually turned into a "lampshade", and then flew away to the north. A similar pattern was observed in Tartu and other Estonian cities.

Liiva village, Pylva district (Estonia)

On the morning of September 20, 1977, at 3.55 a.m., milkmaid Linda Hermann went to work. At about 4 o'clock or a few minutes later, she noticed that a very bright star was rising from the corner of the cowshed, glowing like a 250 watt electric bulb. The star was rising and a ray of light came out of it. It is impossible to say how far this ray of light penetrated because of the bushes covering the area. There was a forest not far from the cowshed, it was unclear how far the beam went and whether it passed in front of the forest or behind the forest. The star was rising all the time, the beam disappeared at some point. Instead of one ray, six rays appeared, between which there were gaps, then the rays expanded and formed a circle like a flower. This flower hung motionless in the sky.

Linda Hermann went into the cowshed to call other workers from there. She immediately came out of the cowshed with two workers. All three saw the object flying away at high speed to the northwest.

The object itself was like a luminous dot, two rays rose up from this point and the object illuminated the whole sky with them. A rainbow appeared above the rays, and it seemed to them as if it was spinning. The colors of this "rainbow" were paler than an ordinary rainbow. The object flew away behind the forest at high speed.

Linda Hermann described to her son what she had seen and made a sketch of the phenomenon on paper. Her son, 22 years old, made a drawing according to these data. Linda Hermann's son is a professional artist. We have received the drawing.

Yandeba Station (south of Petrozavodsk)

At 4.10 — 4.30, a bright ball was observed, from which a white flickering circle radiated. The object, leaving a gas trail, flew away at high speed to the north, to Petrozavodsk.

Leningrad

Flight attendant of the Leningrad Air squadron V. G. Lazarev from the ground at 4.06 saw a bright dot flying from the east to Leningrad. At an altitude of 40 °, it hovered for a minute and a half and released a spiral-shaped luminous cloud. Then, hanging in place, the object began to move north, and the gas trail from the object in the form of an eight hung over Leningrad for a long time.

All this was also seen by airport staff and airplane passengers.

V. G. Lazarev reported that the crew of one of the planes flying to Riga, at an altitude of 10 km, met a UFO that was moving towards the plane. The pilot asked on the radio — "who is in the air?" — but I didn't get an answer from the UFO. Then, to avoid a head-on collision, the pilot maneuvered sharply and bypassed the UFO.

Leningrader M. V. Bakman about 3 a.m. in the northeastern part of the sky for 20 minutes observed through binoculars a brightly glowing cylindrical object slowly descending to the horizon. Sheaves of rays radiated from the object in all directions. Then the UFO disappeared behind the roofs of buildings, and a strange "mini-dawn" appeared in the northeastern part of the sky at about o'clock in the morning.

Many other testimonies came from Leningrad as well.

Lomonosov City (southern coast of the Gulf of Finland)

Here, around 4 o'clock in the morning, a bright "star" was seen to emit rays and become like a jellyfish. Then "the star separated from the center of the jellyfish and fell down for a while." After that, "turning into an orange hemisphere," she stood still, and then flew east to Leningrad.

Lekhta settlement (northern part of Karelia)

The IZMIRAN expedition saw three strange objects in the northern part of the sky around 4 a.m. The first UFO turned from a star into a ball and disappeared after 15 minutes. After that, a second ball appeared in the same part of the sky, which turned into a dome and divided into three large stripes. The third object repeated these transformations. All this lasted about 10 minutes.

The city of Kem (White Sea)

A large fireball flying from south to north was observed here, during flight it made sharp turns by 90 °, emitted rays, after which it turned into a rectangle with a lattice structure.

Louhi village (North Karelia)

Residents of the village around 4 a.m. saw several strange objects, the first of which appeared around 2.30 o'clock. morning.

To all that has been said, it can be added that on September 20, the Georgian writer Guram Panjikidze and other passengers of the plane returning from Singapore to Moscow observed a strange phenomenon from the plane. Here is a letter from one of the eyewitnesses:

"I was flying by plane, which took off from Singapore at 20.05 on September 19 and arrived in Moscow on September 20 at 4.45 (flight SU-558).

Approximately between 2 and 3 hours. at night, on the right side, at some distance from the plane, I noticed a strong glow, which I first took for sunrise, and then for the northern lights.

The intensity of the glow varied depending on the density of the clouds, because the light source was under them. This was clearly seen by the shadows cast by the clouds.

The contours of the glowing object were not clearly visible. But one day a bright mass, similar in color to steel melted in open-hearth, flashed between the scattered clouds.

I would define the contours of this mass as a low triangle with a wide base. The glow lasted for 30-40 minutes, gradually fading.

This phenomenon was seen by some passengers sitting on the starboard side.

Engineer V. Rudoy".

Geophysicist, Candidate of Sciences Bartenyeva O. D. during an expedition in Karakum, 70 km from Chardzhou, on September 18, 1977, at 23 o'clock, together with 27 members of the expedition, she observed how a large glowing red ball the size of the Sun appeared from the horizon in the north-northwest. Rising, the balloon rapidly increased in size and moved silently straight to the Repetek station. The observers experienced an anxious feeling, were excited, shouted. When the UFO was at its zenith, the sky lit up so much that the stars became invisible. The huge glowing spot continued to move in a straight line and after 10 minutes disappeared over the horizon. (Reported by E. K. Stolyarova, Leningrad, Zagorodny ave. 42, sq. 45).

V. T. Gorun (Moscow, Streletskaya str. 44):

One of our employees Viktor Pavlovich Miroshkin, returning from a business trip (Demyanka station, Sverdlovsk railway, 403 km from Tyumen towards Surgut) at the end of September, said: "September 19 or 20, 1977 (there was a lot of work and all the days merged into one, so I don't remember the exact date), at about 20 o'clock local time (18 o'clock Moscow time) in the west, a bright red body appeared from behind the horizon, from which rays of light came down, as if about a dozen powerful searchlights were directed downwards. As the body approached, something smaller separated from it, and the body itself became even brighter and took the form of a jellyfish on a finger. The size of the "medusa" was slightly larger than the Moon. After the separation of the second body, the first began to decrease and turned into a star that began to move across the sky. 8-9 people stood and watched the flight of this body. The entire flight time was no more than 5 minutes. The next day at work they said that in another place, but not far from the Demyanka station, they observed the flight of three bodies."