 Satellite image of Voronezh |
The Voronezh UFO incident was an alleged UFO and extra-terrestrial alien sighting reported by a group of children in Voronezh, Soviet Union, on September 27, 1989. [1] [2] The area has been popular with UFO-hunting tourists. [3]
According to TASS, boys playing football in a city park "saw a pink glow in the sky, then saw a deep red ball about three metres in diameter. The ball circled, vanished, then reappeared minutes later and hovered". The children claimed to have seen "a three-eyed alien" wearing bronze coloured boots with a disk on the chest, and a robot, exiting the object. [4] [2] According to the children, the alien used a ray gun to make a 16-year-old boy disappear until the object departed. [5]
Though the children were the only ones claiming to have witnessed the aliens, Lieutenant Sergei A. Matveyev of the Voronezh district police station claimed to have seen "a body flying in the sky". [6] The Interior Ministry said they would dispatch troops to the area should the object reappear. [6]
On October 9, 1989, TASS reported [4] that a correspondent had spoken to "10 or 12 youths" who claimed to have seen a flying saucer. The original article quoted Dr. Silanov, of the Voronezh Geophysical Laboratory, as confirming the location of the landing using "biolocation". According to Paul Kurtz, "the method of "biolocation" they used was "a form of ESP dowsing" — whose effectiveness most Westerners question". [7] [8] The report was the most publicized of a series of UFO claims made by official government media, and were promoted as part of the government's new "openness". [9] [10] It was noted that, unlike in America, the reported beings were completely apolitical and did not even speak during their 'visit'. [11] In the immediate aftermath of the alleged incident, hundreds of UFO reports began appearing, with a reporter from Komsomolskaya Pravda even claiming to have an exclusive interview with alien beings from Red Star. [12]
In addition to TASS, Sovietskaya Kultura , a Communist Party paper, publicized the children's claims, with the Communist newspaper defending its decision, saying: "[I]ts coverage was motivated by 'the golden rule of journalism: the reader must know everything." The newspaper was repeatedly asked whether the report was in jest and repeatedly assured it was not. [6] [13]
Following the initial publicity, a private company was formed to sell tours of Voronezh, billed as "land of the aliens", for 59 rubles ($95) per person. [7]
The description of the incident was very similar to stories that appeared in the American magazine Saga, but TASS reporters stated that the witnesses "probably haven't read it." [13] Outside of print media, the U.S. show A Current Affair also sent a crew to report on the alleged event. [14]
A. Kuzovkin, a UFOlogist, told Socialist Industry he thought a 26-foot wide patch of scorched ground near to south Moscow was caused by UFO landing, however TASS reports said firefighters considered the scorched ground could have been caused simply by a haystack which was caused to ignite. [9]
The Soviet Scientific Commission ordered an inquiry into the alleged incident. According to Paul Kurtz writing in a 1990 volume of Skeptical Inquirer, the scientists in the Soviet Union who had studied the evidence included members of the "Voronezh Amateur Section for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena", who visited the site a week after the alleged event and used "a form of ESP dowsing". Regarding claims made in initial TASS reports of extraterrestrial rock found at the site, Genrikh Silanov of the Voronezh Geophysical Lab later stated it was a form of hematite commonly found in the Soviet Union, and told Socialist Industry , "don't believe all you hear from Tass. We never gave them part of what they published." [7]
Though the area was found to have an above-average presence of the radioactive isotope cesium, vice-rector of the University of Voronezh Igor Sarotsev stated it was insignificant, saying that "the presence of a larger than normal quantity of the radioactive isotope cesium in the area of the alleged sighting did not constitute proof of a landing", noting that "after Chernobyl, this kind of phenomenon has been found in many areas". [7]
Kutz noted a French Press Agency report of October 28 stated, "...There exists no verifiable proof of a landing by aliens in Voronezh. Sixteen radiometric analyses, 19 checks of the ground, 9 tests for micro-organisms, and 20 spectro-chemical measurements failed to uncover "any anomaly either in the earth or surrounding vegetation". [7]
Kurtz reported that Soviet evening news correspondent Vladimir Posner sent a film crew to Voronezh "but they could find no other "witnesses" except the children", leading Posner to suggest "that the creative imagination of young children was perhaps at work. If so, this is not unlike many UFO cases in the United States". [7]
Regarding the wave of paranormal and UFO claims issuing from the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s such as those from Voronezh, Kurtz cited a Time magazine October 23, 1989 issue that quotes a disillusioned Soviet party member who said, "They've been feeding us rubbish about the dreams of communism for years" and viewed the state sponsorship of psychic and UFO claims as "a new opiate for the masses". [7]
The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims." Paul Kurtz proposed the establishment of CSICOP in 1976 as an independent non-profit organization, to counter what he regarded as an uncritical acceptance of, and support for, paranormal claims by both the media and society in general. Its philosophical position is one of scientific skepticism. CSI's fellows have included notable scientists, Nobel laureates, philosophers, psychologists, educators, and authors. It is headquartered in Amherst, New York.
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Notable paranormal beliefs include those that pertain to extrasensory perception, spiritualism and the pseudosciences of ghost hunting, cryptozoology, and ufology.
UFO conspiracy theories are a subset of conspiracy theories which argue that various governments and politicians globally, in particular the United States government, are suppressing evidence that unidentified flying objects are controlled by a non-human intelligence or built using alien technology. Such conspiracy theories usually argue that Earth governments are in communication or cooperation with extraterrestrial visitors despite public disclaimers, and further that some of these theories claim that the governments are explicitly allowing alien abduction.
Majestic 12, also known as Majic-12, and MJ-12 for short, is a purported organization that appears in UFO conspiracy theories. The organization is claimed to be the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. The concept originated in a series of supposedly leaked secret government documents first circulated by ufologists in 1984. Upon examination, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists consider them to be an elaborate hoax. Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared in popular culture including television, film and literature.
Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism, sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence. In practice, the term most commonly refers to the examination of claims and theories that appear to be beyond mainstream science, rather than the routine discussions and challenges among scientists. Scientific skepticism differs from philosophical skepticism, which questions humans' ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how they perceive it, and the similar but distinct methodological skepticism, which is a systematic process of being skeptical about the truth of one's beliefs.
The Roswell incident is a collection of events and myths surrounding the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon, near Roswell, New Mexico. Operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field and part of the top secret Project Mogul, the balloon's purpose was remote detection of Soviet nuclear tests. After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines but was retracted within a day. Obscuring the true purpose and source of the crashed balloon, the Army subsequently stated that it was a conventional weather balloon.
The Kecksburg UFO incident occurred on December 9, 1965, at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, United States, when a fireball was reported by citizens of six U.S. states and Canada over Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Astronomers said it was likely to have been a meteor bolide burning up in the atmosphere and descending at a steep angle. NASA released a statement in 2005 reporting that experts had examined fragments from the area and determined they were from a Soviet satellite, but that records of their findings were lost in 1987. NASA responded to court orders and Freedom of Information Act requests to search for the records. The incident gained wide notoriety in popular culture and ufology, with speculation ranging from extraterrestrial craft to debris from the Soviet space probe Kosmos 96, and is often called "Pennsylvania's Roswell".
The Travis Walton incident was an alleged alien abduction of American forestry worker Travis Walton on November 5, 1975, while he was part of a logging crew in the Apache–Sitgreaves National Forests near Heber, Arizona.
The Pascagoula Abduction was an alleged UFO sighting and alien abduction in 1973, in which Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker claimed they were abducted by aliens while fishing near Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Philip Julian Klass was an American aviation journalist and UFO researcher, best known for his skepticism regarding UFOs. In the ufological and skeptical communities, Klass inspires polarized appraisals. He has been called the "Sherlock Holmes of UFOlogy". Klass demonstrated "the crusader's zeal for what seems 'right,' regardless of whether it brings popular acclaim," a trait he claimed his father instilled in him. "I've found," said Klass, "that roughly 97, 98 percent of the people who report seeing UFOs are fundamentally intelligent, honest people who have seen something—usually at night, in darkness—that is unfamiliar, that they cannot explain." The rest, he said, were frauds.
Jon-Erik Beckjord was an American paranormal investigator, photographer, and cryptozoologist interested in UFOs, crop circles, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot. Throughout his life, he owned three separate, small-scale museums that featured displays, mostly photographs, of alleged UFO, Nessie, and Bigfoot sightings. He made guest appearances on national radio and television shows, but was criticized by skeptics and fellow cryptozoologists alike for not providing substantive evidence to back up his claims of the existence of paranormal beings.
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...Salinov, who said he belonged to the group, cast doubt on the Tass report the quoted him as saying that the aliens left behind two rocks resembling sandstone of deep red colour that cannot be found anywhere The rock they described as extraterrestrial is in fact iron oxide which could have easily originated on Earth...
In July, Tass disputed a report in Socialist Industry quoting a UFO specialist, A. Kuzovkin, as saying a 26-foot-wide patch of burned ground near southern Moscow was probably caused by the landing of a UFO. Tass said firefighters believe a haystack simply caught fire and scorched the ground.
