Documents / FOIA release
This 1967 Central Intelligence Agency information report, distributed 18 August 1967 and marked unevaluated, describes conversations with Soviet scientists about unidentified flying objects in the USSR. Astronomers mention sightings in the Caucasus and northern USSR, a reddish object seen by several astronomers, and ball lightning reports in Kazakhstan explained as headlight reflections. The report concludes that no official Soviet treatment of UFOs exists, that Menzel's book is widely cited, and that Soviet astronomers might embrace research more readily than US counterparts.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
COUNTRY USSR REPORT NO. OO-B-221/23490-67 SUBJECT Report on Conversations With Soviet Scientists on Subject of Unidentified Flying Objects in the USSR DATE DISTR. 18 AUG 67 NO PAGES 2 REFERENCES (351) 2. He visited who was noncoexalted on the subject of UFO's. The scientist who served as translator, a radio astronomer, emphatically stated that he knew of no sightings of UFO's in the USSR and added with a laugh that if they were only seen in the US, they must be of Soviet origin. 3. At the astronomers sectioned that she had heard of some sightings of unidentified objects near the Caucasus. She was unaware of any study being made of them but was open-minded on the subject. 4. The main visit was to who was very interested in the problem. He had read Menzel G book (which has been translated into Russian) but did not accept his conclusions. knew of some sightings in the northern part of the USSR, but said that reports of such sightings are not printed in Soviet newspapers because they are not regarded as scientific observations. (Comment: this is interesting in view of the readiness of Soviet newspapers to print rather fantastic reports of hypotheses and "observations" suggested by the more imaginative members of the scientific community. Apparently some official sanction is needed.) has been interested in US reports of UFO's and readily accepts their reality. In fact, it is his personal opinion that the UFO's may originate on Venus. He is well aware of the negative affect of "enlightened" scientific opinion on the interpretation of questionable observations as he has had personal
Not linked to a story yet.
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. 3 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.