Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency record carries an estimated publication date of 1963. It abstracts an article by F. Zigel of the Moscow Aviation Institute, who argues that UFOs deserve serious scientific study and that the hypothesis of craft from other planets merits examination. The article describes the UFO Section of the All-Union Cosmonautics Committee, formed in October 1967 and chaired by Major General Stolyarov. It also argues that the Tungusky body may have been an artificial craft that maneuvered before exploding.
“Cooper”1 page
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
AUCHER: Zigel, F. (Doctor of technical sciences, Assistant professor) TITLE: Unidentified flying object ABSTRACT: The author (Moscov Aviation Institute) presents several striking and reliable UFO observations and refutes the theory of U. S. astrophysicist Menzel and others that until recently no scientific study of UFOs has been made in the Soviet Union. He claims that the prevailing view that UFOs are common optical phenomena in the earth's atmosphere is wrong and due to the fact that there was no collection of UFO observations. The general impression was that flying saucers are fantasies. This situation is beginning to change. In 1968 the Nauka Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences is scheduled to publish a book entitled Populated Outer Space, edited by Academician Boris Konstantinov, Vice President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and written by distinguished Soviet and foreign contributors, including Americans. In May 1967 a sponsoring group of scientists, the military, writers, and public figures met to form an unofficial body whose purpose would be to conduct a preliminary scientific investigation of UTOs. The organization, set up in October 1967, is called the UFO Section of the All-Union Cosmonautics Committee, with headquarters at the Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Moscow. Air Force Major General Fortifizi Stolyarov was elected chairman of the section. The hypothesis that UTOs originate in other worlds, that they are flying craft from planets other than earth, merits the most serious examination. Observations show that UFOs behave "sensibly." In a group formation flight they maintain a pattern. They are most often spotted over airfields, atomic stations, and other very new engineering installations. On encountering aircraft, they always caneuver so as to avoid direct contact. A considerable list of these seemingly intelligent actions gives the impression that UFOs are investigating, perhaps even reconnoitering. Curiously enough, the number of UTO observations increases as Mars approaches the earth. Is this pure coincidence?
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.