Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency compilation, dated 5 August 1977, reproduces translated Soviet TASS news items from 22 September 1977 on national and scientific affairs. The central item reports that on 20 September residents of Petrozavodsk, Karelia, saw a huge star that moved over the city like a medusa, showered it with fine rays and then headed toward Lake Onega. The local observatory director called it an unexplained riddle. Other items cover the Prognoz-6 launch and a women's Il-62 flight record.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
PROGNOZ-6 AUTONATIC SPACE STATION LAUNCHED LD221216Y Moscow TASS International Service in Russian 1140 GMT 22 Sep 77 LD [Text] Moscow, 22 September, TASS--The automatic station "Prognoz-6" was launched in the Soviet Union today at 0351 Moscow time in accordance with the space research program. It is intended to continue the research begun in 1972 by the "Prognoz" automatic observatory. Like the previous five stations in the series, "Prognoz-6" will conduct research into the corpuscular and electromagnetic radiation of the sun, solar plasma flows and magnetic fields in the space surrounding the earth with the aim of determining the influence of solar activity on the interplanetary medium and on the earth's magnetosphere, and also research into galactic ultraviolet rays, X-rays and gamma rays. Scientific apparatus built in the Soviet Union, the CSSR and France has been installed on board the station to conduct this research, in accordance with the program of international cooperation in the field of space research. The station weighs 910 kilograms. The "Prognoz-6" station has been put into a highly elliptical orbit as an earth satellite, with the following parameters: maximum distance from the earth's surface 197,900 km, minimum 498 km, period of rotation round the earth 94 hours 48 minutes, inclination of orbit 65 degrees. The station was put into its designed trajectory from an intermediate earth satellite orbit. Apart from scientific apparatus, the station also has on board: a radio transmitter operating on frequency 928.4 megahertz, a radio system for precision measuring of orbit elements and a radiotelemetry system for transmitting data on the operation of the instruments and scientific apparatus to earth. According to telemetry information, the systems and apparatus on board are operating normally. The coordinating and computing center and institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences are processing the incoming information. 'UNUSUAL' NATURAL PHENOMENON OBSERVED IN KARELIA LD221326Y Moscow TASS International Service in Russian 1210 GMT 22 Sep 77 LD [Text] Petrozavodsk 22 September, TASS--The inhabitants of Petrozavodsk, capital of the Soviet Republic of Karelia, have witnessed a usual natural phenomenon. On 20 September, at about 0400 a huge star suddenly fired up in the dark sky, impulsively sending shafts of light to the earth. This star moved slowly toward Petrozavodsk and, spreading out over it in the form of a medusa, hung there, showering the city with a multitude of very fine rays which created an image of pouring rain. After some time the luminescent rays ceased. The "medusa" turned into a bright semi circle and resumed its movement in the direction of Lake Onega, the horizon of which was shrouded in gray cloud. A semicircular pool of bright light, red in the middle and white at the sides, then formed in this shroud. This phenomenon, according to the testimony of eyewitnesses, lasted 10-12 minutes.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.