A SHAME AND A CRIME!

Anonymous

        Note by the Editor: A typescript of this paper was given to me in 1973 (I do not remember the exact date) by Dr. Felix Zigel. As far as I can judge, he did not know the name of its author — having, at the same time, some doubts about "Smolensk" as his dwelling place. Dr. Zigel believed he (or she) must have been a Muscovite.
        The paper seems to me an interesting relic of the epoch, both simple-hearted and not devoid of sense. Probably it was meant mainly for distribution among UFO amateurs — although some details in the text point to the author's intention to draw the state authorities' attention to the actual situation regarding the UFO problem. The unknown author sincerely and naively wished to help his beloved state to be in the vanguard of human progress not only in orbital space flights, but in ufological studies as well; it's not his fault the Soviet state proved to be deaf to the voice of reason. Other states are hardly more intelligent...

* * *

        
        On October 18, this year [1972,—Ed.], five years have passed since the day when the UFO Department of DOSAAF [The USSR Voluntary Society of Support to the Army, Aviation & Navy,—Ed.] All-Union Space-Exploration Committee was formed. True, it is more properly to say "would have passed"—taking into account the fact that this Department existed for little more than one month. The main task of this public body was to collect UFO reports throughout the Soviet Union, as well as to assess them from a scientific point of view. Some 350 people attended the first (and, as it turned out to be, the only) meeting of the UFO Department that was held in The Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics (Moscow) on October 18, 1967. There were present TV, radio and newspaper people. At this meeting, the Bureau of the Department (headed by Major-General P.A.Stolyarov) was elected, four sections were constituted: historical, theoretical, international, and one for collecting reports, having in total some 200 members, and a program of active investigations of the UFO phenomenon was developed.

        As a first step, on November 10, 1967, P.A.Stolyarov and F.Y.Zigel appeared on Central TV. They informed the audience of the UFO Department's birth and appealed to witnesses of UFO sightings, asking them to send in their reports. Subsequently these reports formed the basis for the first collection of UFO observations in the USSR¹ containing some two hundred UFO reports, printed on an offset duplicator in a very limited number of copies. Unfortunately, this success proved to be the only one. Opponents of UFO studies also became exceptionally active, their activities taking singular forms. No real importance was in fact attached to discussions and lectures, in which the UFO problem was proclaimed to be a fiction. Suffice it to say that these lectures were mainly given by Moscow Planetarium workers V.A.Bronshten and I.F.Shevlyakov... One would hardly dare to affirm that it was the influence of these people that led to the disbandment of the UFO Department at a special session of the DOSAAF Central Committee, convened late in November. Nobody from the Department staff was invited to this session.

        Proponents of UFO studies naively believed that a scientific problem, however strange it could seem at first sight, should be examined by scientific methods only. Therefore they also gave several lectures on the subject matter. Besides, on February 5, 1968, there was held in The Central House of Journalists a discussion on the UFO problem. Some prominent scientists took part in this discussion: the full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences B.N.Petrov and M.A.Leontovich, the corresponding member of the same Academy E.R.Mustel, the member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences E.Kolman, as well as scientific workers from a number of Moscow research bodies and educational institutions. When summing up results of the discussion, Academician Petrov said:

        "Do UFOs exist? I can't object to this. But the question remains: what are they? <...> ...I would like to note that at present scientists do not try to reject obvious things."

        ...But the lot of the UFO problem [in the USSR,—Ed.] was in fact decided not in open dispute, but in machinations having nothing to do with science. Some mighty forces came into operation, for which the question of UFO reality was not a theme of investigation, but a field of the "battle of faith", a clash of "defenders of scientific truth" with "heretics". In so doing, the "defenders of scientific truth" acted, strangely enough, only with administrative methods, not with scholarly ones. A month after the decision of the DOSAAF Central Committee (and a month before the discussion in the House of Journalists), the Branch of General & Applied Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by Academician L.A.Artsimovich, adopted a resolution, condemning UFO studies in the Soviet Union. As the problem a priori could not be considered as scientific, the authors of the resolution did not even attempt to examine any UFO sighting. The good old principle was in use: one should not argue with heretics, one must struggle against them.

        ...Well, the struggle was quite successful. On February 29, 1968, there appeared in Pravda an article, entitled `"Flying Saucers" Again?' signed by the corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Astronomical Council of the Academy E.Mustel, President of the All-Union Astronomical and Geodetical Society Dr. D.Martynov, and the Learned Secretary of the National Committee of Soviet Physicists V.Leshkovtsev. Now it is certainly too late to argue with this article. Its main aim was to authoritatively reassure the public, not to debate anything. One cannot however help but give two or three examples of incompetence of its authors in the subject under discussion.

        If the article begins with the truly remarkable news that the "myth about flying saucers" was disproved by Soviet and foreign scientists a few years ago; if Menzel's books are declared the last word in the UFO problem—as if there never appeared the works of Ruppelt, Vallee, Michel, the collection UFO Evidence and hundreds of other books and papers analyzing various aspects of the phenomenon; if, finally, the whole UFO problem is treated as "absurd, long-buried gossip about secret excursions of Martians or Venusians to our planet"—then one cannot help but to call such a approach a thoroughly cultivated ignorance.

        E.Mustel, D.Martynov, and V.Leshkovtsev allege that no astronomer ever observed a UFO... Being specialists in astronomy, they must know that there exist some phenomena of an inherently sporadic nature that can only be studied from the reports of chance observers. These are, for example, bolides and ball lightning. It is completely impossible to plan an observation of a bolide beforehand, but the phenomenon does certainly exist. The well-known Soviet astronomer I.S.Astapovich wrote in this connection: "Since the phenomenon is very rare, the astronomer and geophysicist must either give up the very idea to study it in detail, or use materials provided by chance observers."² What is more, a bolide cannot return, whereas UFOs can in fact reappear over the same area. Zufar Kadikov, an astronomer of Kazan Station-Observatory AOE [the meaning of these initials is unknown to me,—Ed.], when observing recurrent flights of crescent-shaped UFOs, determined some linear parameters of the latter:³ speed (5 km/sec), altitude (100-120 km) and the size of the crescent (some 600 m). These figures and the shape of the object do rule out such explanations as "an artificial satellite, a booster rocket, a weather balloon".

        Now let's look at another statement of the authors. At the end of the article they wrote that (even!) American scientists, having examined "11000 more or less reliable reports about observations of "flying saucers", ...became convinced these did not contain any evidence of  reality of such objects." Since the "Condon Committee" had not completed its work by the paper's publication, the authors probably meant the conclusions reached by the "Blue Book"... E.Mustel, D.Martynov, and V.Leshkovtsev "forgot" about 647 (from 11000) UFO cases, officially recognized as reliable, informative and inexplicable in terms of conventional theories. They also "forgot" about the dissenting opinion of the former scientific consultant of the US Air Force Dr. J.A.Hynek, who had kept abreast of every American UFO observation during 20 years. "I have studied hundreds of reports that cannot be regarded as mistakes or mystifications,—wrote Hynek,—and had to come to the conclusion that, notwithstanding the lack of physical evidence, the word "fiction" must be deleted from the titles of articles on UFOs...; I think that the scientific community faces a problem that may be equivalent to the problem of Copernicus." [This is a back translation from Russian. Unfortunately, I could not trace the source of this quotation.—Ed.]

        Should one, however, worry about the scholarly integrity of the article's authors, when their simple human honesty does not shine at all? Participating in the UFO discussion in the House of Journalists on February 5, E.Mustel—a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Chairman of the Astronomical Council of the Academy—said: "I can't deny that such objects are observed, but we don't know, how they can be studied."

        Three weeks later, Mustel signed the article in Pravda. What is it, if not hypocrisy?

        Academician L.A.Artsimovich did not sign the article. Nonetheless it was he who played the chief part in "closing" the UFO problem. During the last five years he has been doing his best to maintain a ban on UFO studies in the USSR. It is hardly a mere chance. As far back as the early 1960s, Academician Artsimovich publicly opposed any research work in the field of "flying saucers": "There exist no facts that would have supported the idea that some mysterious material objects, the so-called "plates", or "saucers", are flying over us. All talk on this issue, so popular recently, stems from the same source, namely unscrupulous and antiscientific information contained in lectures made in Moscow by some irresponsible persons."⁴

        In fact, by "irresponsible persons" there was meant mainly one person—Y.A.Fomin, a lecturer of Znaniye Society, who had attempted in late 1960 to enlighten the public about the real situation regarding the UFO problem. The results of this attempt were rather pitiful: Y.A.Fomin was expelled from Znaniye and a series of articles appeared in the press, blaming the "absurd rumors" and appealing "to put an end to the dissemination of these fairy-tales, however exciting they can seem".⁵ To which absurdities sank the "defenders of scientific truth", one can judge from the fact that for several years Moscow Planetarium replied to any UFO report with a standard letter informing the reporter that he or she had seen... a sodium cloud, produced by a Soviet research rocket. ...Not even the American Air Force getting its hand in at explaining away the UFO phenomenon could boast of such a brilliant "solution" of the problem.
        
        For the last five years, as I said before, UFOs are considered in the Soviet Union non-existent. Any paper on this subject matter is in fact personally censored by Academician Artsimovich. Speaking in the "diplomatic" language, it "cannot be published if not permitted by the Academy of Sciences". Such permissions are given by the Branch of General & Applied Physics—that is, in practice it is Academician Artsimovich who makes the decisions. As a result: the last paper objectively treating the UFO problem appeared in the press in January 1968.⁶ As a result: the [Soviet, —Ed.] scientific and popular-scientific press completely twisted conclusions of the "Condon Report", proclaiming the Condon Committee to have proved that UFOs do not exist. As a result: even the book UFOs Identified, by P.Klass, translated and announced for publication by Mir Publishers, was excluded from the plans of this publishing house. The reason was that its author, developing the "plasma" hypothesis [of UFO origins,—Ed.], adduced at the same time a lot of UFO sightings, and any unbiased reader could understand that not all of them were explainable from this point of view. One can recall that it was the Russian translation of the book Flying Saucers by D.Menzel (issued in Moscow in 1962) that—what a paradox!—awakened fresh interest to the UFO problem in this country. It is the more remarkable, since the book was translated with the aim to put an end to discussions around "flying saucers".

        Of course, nobody wished or wishes to forbid activities of private persons in the UFO field. But what can be done by an individual researcher, or even by a research group, when no information on UFO events may appear in press and be analyzed. As a matter of fact, such enthusiasts found themselves in the state of a meteorologist having to study phenomena of nature, not leaving a hermetically sealed room.

        It would be of interest to learn, whether or not Academician Artsimovich is acquainted with [first-hand,—Ed.] UFO materials. Probably not, since in none of his articles did he ascend (somebody would have said: descend) to examination of concrete facts. But if we are wrong, and Academician Artsimovich is in fact acquainted with the existing facts and able to distinguish between the 1959 New Guinea [UFO,—Ed.] flap and the 1967 Donetsk-Lugansk one, as well as between the [UFO,—Ed.] observation of the Honored Navigator of the USSR V.I.Akkuratov (1956) and the Socorro case (1964), then it is permissible to ask: by what can one be guided, rejecting not only separate hypotheses trying to explain the phenomenon, but the very possibility to investigate it.

        Indeed, nowhere in the world is the UFO phenomenon investigated at present by official institutions (at least, we have got no contrary data). But in the USA, as well as in Britain, France, Japan, and many other countries there have been working for a few decades strong groups of UFO enthusiasts, collecting and analyzing information on UFO observations, publishing research reports, books and journals. At the moment, when it becomes evident that the UFO phenomenon does deserve a serious study, all the information collected by these groups of  [UFO,—Ed.] amateurs can be easily concentrated and examined by governmental scientific-research centers. The only country that will find itself completely helpless will be the Soviet Union. Again, as it happened more than once in the past, we will have to "overtake and surpass", but no efforts, no money will suffice to compensate at a short time the lack of systematic observations. This would be the equivalent of trying to understand the patterns of solar eclipses or supernova explosions, using the data for only one year.

        When reminding the reader about the lot of genetics and cybernetics [in the USSR,—Ed.], you take the risk to look boring — but how can we forget so quickly the lessons of history. When the question "who is right?" is transformed into the question "who is guilty?", truth is not born in the debate, but perishes in it. If the opponents of the cosmic origin hypothesis of UFOs had wished to discuss the problem on the truly scientific level, they could have done this freely both in the press and in public lectures; but when one group of scholars has a monopoly of truth, declaring its point of view to be the only correct one—this is infamous and unscientific!

        The energies, devoted in this connection by Academician Artsimovich and his colleagues would have deserved admiration, if we had forgotten about the aim to which they are spent. No wonder that the UFO problem may be kicked by irresponsible journalists (say, in the style: "...the "flying saucer" nonsense has declined. Scientists have said their weighty word; false stories of self-styled "eyewitnesses" have burst like soap-bubbles!";⁷ quite another matter, when an authoritative representative of ruling circles of official science, vested with real powers, is doing the same. The [Soviet,—Ed.] government does not regard itself as competent in strictly scientific questions; it quite rationally awaits a verdict of the scientific community and comes to certain conclusions only after obtaining it. The more responsible must be the scientists; the more unbiased and conscientious must they be when examining the problem. The intentional distortion of facts, deceiving the public, the unjustified ban on developing a problem that may show the greatest promise—all that is a crime against the country!

        In this connection, I cannot help recalling the words by the great founder of cosmonautics Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, said by him in May 1927: 

        "There was much laughing and denial. It is easy and pleasant. There were many murders as well. But what disgrace has been brought upon humanity that strangled great ideas, mutilated and destroyed that which subsequently proved to be beneficial for itself. When will we, the people of today, get rid of this vice, ruinous for ourselves?

        In civilized countries this human defect is already understood; there new ideas are rarely exposed to laughing and persecution. But in less civilized countries both mockery of and more decorous silencing of weak and frail new-born ideas is widespread. Criticize well-established ideas, resounding throughout the world, but encourage new-born ones until their destiny is determined!"⁸

October 1972, Smolensk

         Notes and references by the anonymous author 

         ¹ Zigel F.Y. UFO Observations in the USSR. Vol. 1. Moscow, 1968.
        ² Astapovich I.S. Meteor Phenomena in the Earth's Atmosphere. Moscow, 1958.
        ³ Zigel F.Y. UFO Observations in the USSR. Vol. 1, p. 51, 63.
        ⁴ Pravda, 1961, January 8.
        ⁵ Ibidem.
        ⁶ Dobronravov V.V. To Look for Truth. — Vokrug Sveta, 1968, No. 1.
        ⁷ Eidels L. Review of the Russian translation of the book Flying Saucers by D.Menzel. — Znaniye-Sila, 1962, No. 9.
       ⁸ Quoted in: Rynin N.A. Interplanetary Communications. Installment 7, Leningrad, 1931.

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