Petrozavodsk phenomenon

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A copy of the lost photograph of the Petrozavodsk object

The Petrozavodsk UFO was a series of celestial events of a disputed nature that occurred on 20 September 1977. The sightings were reported over a vast territory, from Copenhagen and Helsinki in the west to Vladivostok in the east.[1] It is named after the city of Petrozavodsk in Russia, Soviet Union, where a glowing object was widely reported that showered the city with numerous rays.

Government officials from northern European countries sent letters to

meteorological data. It concluded that "based on the available data, it is unfeasible to satisfactorily understand the observed phenomenon".[4] The Petrozavodsk phenomenon contributed to the creation of Setka AN, a Soviet research program for anomalous atmospheric phenomena.[5]

Name

In the early Soviet reports the Petrozavodsk phenomenon was referred to as the phenomenon of 20 September 1977.[6] Later it became known as the Petrozavodsk phenomenon. Sometimes it is also called the Petrozavodsk incident[2] or the Petrozavodsk miracle.[6] The phrase "unidentified flying object" in the Soviet Union was substituted by the term "anomalous phenomenon" for research purposes.[6]

Sightings

Most sightings occurred between 1:00 and 1:20 am

UTC, when at least 48 unidentified objects reportedly appeared in the atmosphere.[7] Several sightings occurred before, at 1:00 am local time over Medvezhyegorsk, at 2:30 am over Loukhi and at 3:00 am over Kovdor and Palanga (Lithuania).[1] From approximately 3:00 to 3:25 am an unidentified luminous object was observed by the supervising personnel of the Leningrad maritime trade port.[8] At 3:30 am a flying object, surrounded by a luminous coat, was reportedly seen by the crew of the Soviet fishing vessel Primorsk, which was departing from the Primorsk harbour.[4] The object appeared to move noiselessly from the east, and near Primorsk it abruptly changed its direction to north.[4]

In

Kosmos-955, Teerikorpi believed that the actual distance was "many hundreds of kilometres" and that "such reports probably are due to the well-known fact that it is difficult to estimate distances of unfamiliar phenomena".[10] Ilta-Sanomat also reported a sighting of a glowing object in Denmark, over Copenhagen, by the pilots of a Finnish airline aircraft flying from Rome.[8]

The glowing objects were also observed in various places in the Soviet Union, mostly in the northwest. The appearance of an unidentified object over Helsinki reportedly caused heavy radio traffic in Soviet territory.[8] In the European part of the Soviet Union "bright, luminous bodies surrounded by extended shells and emitting light rays or jets of quaint shapes" were reported.[11] The "shells" reportedly "transformed and diffused within 10 to 15 minutes", while "a more long-lived, stable glow was observed, mostly in the northeastern part of the sky".[11]

The eyewitnesses included paramedics, on-duty

aurora".[8] The object moved ascendantly to the observer, to the south-south-west, then it changed direction to north-north-west and eventually disappeared.[8] All three airport employees failed to identify what they saw.[8]

Further reports in the Soviet Union came from Primorsk (two eyewitnesses), Petrodvorets (one eyewitness), Lomonosov (three eyewitnesses), Podporozhye (three eyewitnesses), Polovina (one eyewitness), Leppäsyrjä (one eyewitness), Kem (several eyewitnesses), Põltsamaa, Liiva, Priozersk, Kestenga, Valday and other places.[4][8] Many reports were accompanied by drawings from eyewitnesses. By 30 December 1978, the Soviet researchers collected a total of 85 reports on the Petrozavodsk phenomenon.[8]

In the settlement of

meteor.[8] After some time the object had stopped and then moved towards Novozhilov, quickly increasing in size and acquiring the well-outlined shape of an airship.[8]

The object was faceted and tipped with brightly shining spots on front and back. The edges were glowing with white light, which was slightly fainter than the spots.[8] The facets resembled windows lit from inside and were evenly glowing with a white light that was fainter than that of the edges.[8] The object reportedly moved at an altitude of 300–500 m, being 100 m long and 12–15 m in diameter.[8] Still approaching Novozhilov, the object, moving from west to east, had released a brightly shining ball from the rear, which flew north. The ball was flying horizontally and then descended behind a forest. The landing reportedly caused the appearance of a bright glow.[8] At 4:15 am. Novozhilov took three unsuccessful photos of the sighting with a 0.1 sec exposure.[8] The object was "much larger than moon" and moved with the speed of a helicopter.[8] The observation lasted 10–15 minutes in complete silence.[8]

Another detailed account of one unidentified object was given by Soviet writer and philosopher

arcminutes.[8]

The object passed near the stars

Psi Herculis, Kappa Coronae Borealis and Delta Coronae Borealis.[8] The object stopped near Gamma Cephei at an azimuth of 220°.[8] Near Kappa Coronae Borealis, at an azimuth of 340°–350°, the object changed its direction to 30°–35° west.[8] It finally disappeared in the north at an azimuth of 340°. The duration of the flight was 15 minutes.[8]

Apart from ground observations, there were also reports from several aircraft. The crew of a

Tu-154 spotted a luminous spherical object at an altitude of 12 km.[13] A bright, luminous object was also observed for a half an hour by Georgian writer Guram Pandzhikidze and other passengers of an aircraft returning from Singapore to Moscow at an altitude of 11 km,[13] at about 4:30 or 5:00 am. Pandzhikidze reported the sighting on 2 October to the director of the Karelian Hydrometeorological Observatory Yuri Gromov, who verified the report's copy.[14]

Petrozavodsk object

At the time, Petrozavodsk was the capital and a major industrial hub of the

Izvestiya, Selskaya Zhizn, and Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya
). A local newspaper, Leninskaya Pravda, also reported the Petrozavodsk object.

The preliminary data analysis by the

Onega Lake.[15]

The object, surrounded by a translucent coat, was initially spotted at about 4:00 am in the northeastern part of the sky below Ursa Major at an azimuth of about 40°.[4][16] The initial brightness of the object was "apparently comparable to that of Venus".[4] The object moved ascendantly towards Ursa Major. The course angle as determined by former pilot and eyewitness V. Barkhatov was 240°.[4] As the object ascended, it was expanding and pulsating,[4] but a decrease in brightness was not noted. The object moved slowly for about three minutes.[8]

Shortly before the object stopped it dispersed a bright "cloud". The cloud was round or oval in shape.[4] Its maximum angular size was larger than that of Ursa Major, about 30° in diameter.[4] The altitude of the object during the formation of the "cloud" was estimated at 7.5±0.4 km (based on eyewitnesses' observations) or at 6.0±0.5 km, based on parallax.[16][a] The linear diameter of the object's core was estimated either at 119 or at about 60 m.[13] The diameter of the object's jellyfish-like cupola was estimated by Felix Ziegel at about 105 m, based on the drawing of eyewitness Andrei Akimov.[13] The object itself was red in color and emitted a bluish white glow.[4] The lighting of the area was compared to that from a full moon.[4]

According to eyewitness V. Trubachev, "the ground was lightened like in the white night".[13] The glowing "cloud" then developed a dark spot around the central core. The spot quickly expanded while the glow was fading away.[4] The object hovered over Petrozavodsk for five minutes and then moved away. Before hovering, the object moved slowly, with the angular velocity of a passenger aircraft.[13] After the hovering its speed had increased. One eyewitness noted that the object's underside resembled a Segner wheel.[13] The entire phenomenon lasted 10–15 minutes.[4] The Petrozavodsk object was also seen in adjacent places, such as Pryazha. In 1978, Tekhnika i Nauka published a color reconstruction of various stages of the object.

In November 1977, clinical psychologist Y. Andreyeva evaluated the mental condition of nine eyewitnesses of the Petrozavodsk phenomenon. She concluded that "one can be confident of complete mental sanity of the eyewitnesses and the veracity of their answers and testimonies".[17] Nonetheless, several reports noted some impact of the phenomenon on humans and environment. According to A. Grakov, who observed a glowing yellow ball the size of the moon, the air above the lake in Petrozavodsk glowed with white light after the ball had disappeared.[13] The glow was more intense than that from Petrozavodsk's lights.[13]

According to Yuri Linnik, after 20 September 1977 there was increased biological activity in the areas where the phenomenon was observed. Noting that that increase might not be related to the Petrozavodsk phenomenon, Linnik nonetheless reported the blooming of roses in his garden and the second bloom of "about 10 species of herbaceous plants".[13] Linnik called it "extraordinary for Karelia's latitude" because "after the autumn equinox the vegetation of herbs almost ceases".[13] He further emphasized the intense bloom of the water in Ukshozero, caused by Ankistrodesmus, shortly after 20 September.[13] Some impact on technical devices was also noted when the engineers in the Petrozavodsk area reportedly observed "huge failures" in computing devices, which then regained normal performance.[18]

Instrumental detection

The unidentified objects over the airports of Helsinki,

UPI the object was detected by the Helsinki airport radar, the airport's traffic controller Ari Hämäläinen claimed it was not.[8] The objects were not spotted by the Soviet air defense system either.[8] Later, however, the glowing objects were reportedly detected by the weather radar of Karelian Hydrometeorological Observatory in Petrozavodsk on 30 September at 5:40 pm, 20 October at 11:30 pm and 20 November at 2:14–2:17 am.[8]

Soviet investigation

A note of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, informing about the dispatch of an expert group to Karelia to study the phenomenon, 1978

The initial analysis of the phenomenon was made by the research fellow of

angular sizes of it combined with the expected distance and prolonged hanging over Leppäsyrjä.[19] On 8 October 1977 a Sortavala newspaper Krasnoye Znamya published a report from a local hydrometeostation, which further confirmed that the Petrozavodsk object moved from northeast to southwest. The suggestion about Kosmos-955 was also criticized by Felix Ziegel, who noted that the space vehicles are launched eastwards, in the direction of Earth's rotation.[20]

Further in 1977, a

Soviet Academy of Sciences (now Russian Space Research Institute
). The findings were also inconclusive.

On 2 January 1978, the vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Kotelnikov, signed a note to the Karelian Department of the Academy, informing them about the dispatch of an expert group to study the phenomenon in situ. There, relying on eyewitnesses' testimonies, the employee of Petrozavodsk University Y. Mezentsev conducted theodolite measurements to determine the approximate location of the unidentified object over Petrozavodsk. In the end of January 1978 the Soviet researchers compiled an appendix to the 1977 preliminary report, which contained updated data on the phenomenon. The appendix further emphasized that the sightings of unidentified objects elsewhere were reported before the launch of Kosmos-955.[8]

One copy of the report was received by the French research group

CUFOS in Evanston, Illinois in the United States. J. Allen Hynek presented another copy to NASA scientist Richard Haines, who then translated the copy to English on a government grant.[21] The Soviet report was met with a mixed reception abroad. Haines, Hynek and others publicly claimed that the report was the key evidence for the existence of unidentified flying objects.[21] James Oberg criticised the Soviet investigation, regarding it as "a ruse, possibly another Soviet attempt to divert attention from the truth about Soviet UFOs".[21]

Proposed explanations

TASS
report on the launch of Kosmos-955

Several proposals to explain the nature of the phenomenon have been argued. The director of the

aurorae.[13] This view was supported by the director of IZMIRAN Vladimir Migulin, whose conjecture was published in the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya on 19 April 1980. Migulin's explanation was rejected by Felix Ziegel, who noted that aurorae cannot occur at an altitude lower than 100 km and that their surface brightness is low, being incomparable to that of the Petrozavodsk object.[20]

Later, Migulin suggested that the phenomenon occurred "due to a rare concourse of various circumstances, that is the launch of the satellite

Kosmos-955, the strong magnetic perturbation due to solar flare and our scientific experiment of influencing the ionosphere with low frequency radio waves".[22]

In the interview, published in 1977 by Kansan Uutiset and Uusi Suomi, the employee of Nurmijärvi geophysical observatory Matti Kivinen assumed that an unidentified object over Finland could be the remnant of a launch vehicle or satellite. James Oberg attributed the Petrozavodsk object to the launch of the Soviet satellite Kosmos-955 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, which took place on 20 September at about 3:58 local time.[15] According to James Oberg, because Kosmos-955 was launched in the north-eastern direction, the residents of Petrozavodsk (located to the south-west from Plesetsk) observed the blaze trail from the satellite's nozzles, which caused the phenomenon.[3] Oberg's view was endorsed, particularly by the IZMIRAN fellow Yuli Platov in 1984. According to Platov, the appearance of a shining spot was associated with the flare of the satellite's engine.[23] The formation of an extended glowing area reportedly coincided with the satellite's leaving the Earth's shadow.[23] Similar phenomena (given the name "space jellyfish") following the launch of satellites near dawn or dusk have been reported multiple times since the Petrozavodsk incident. Platov further linked the development of the radiant structure to the passage of Kosmos-955 through the turbopause boundary, "above which the scattering of combustion products occurs without the damping effect of the atmosphere".[23] In 1985, Platov's view was published by Soviet magazine Nauka v SSSR.[24]

In a later article, Platov noted that "a number of additional effects, that accompanied the Petrozavodsk phenomenon, was associated with the unsuccessful

test launch of a ballistic missile, that was conducted in the same region almost at the same time".[25] Nonetheless, since the inconclusive Soviet investigation, the Kosmos-955 argument remains contested. Referring to his 18-year service experience at Kapustin Yar site, Ukrainian researcher Oleh Pruss said: "I know firsthand, what a spectacle in the sky occurs during the rocket launches – it's quite an impressive view. However, there was something completely different over Petrozavodsk".[26]

In 1978, Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika published an article "'Flashes' in the Atmosphere" by M. Dmitriyev, where a chemiluminescence hypothesis was put forward. According to Dmitriyev, the phenomenon was "neither the result of technical experiments nor a mirage", but a chemiluminescent area in the atmosphere.[18] Concerning that hypothesis, Ziegel wrote that "the energy output of chemiluminescence is negligible", unlike that of the Petrozavodsk object, and that the conjectured chemiluminescent clouds cannot soar against the wind, which the Petrozavodsk object appeared to do.[20]

See also

Note

  1. ^ The 1977 preliminary data analysis by the Soviet Academy of Sciences considered only the altitudes of 10 km and higher to estimate the radiant flux and energy yielded by the Petrozavodsk object. At an altitude of 10 km the radiant flux was estimated at 4×106 W and the yielded energy at 1016 ergs (109 J).[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Колчин Герман Константинович. НЛО, факты и документы [UFO, facts and documents] (in Russian). X-libri.ru. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  2. ^ a b c "A History of State UFO Research in the USSR". Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. December 2000. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  3. ^ a b "Soviet UFO due to secret launch". Science News. 112. 8 October 1977.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Л.М.Гиндилис, Д.А.Меньков, И.Г.Петровская (20 October 1977). Феномен 20 сентября 1977 г. Описание явления. Предварительный анализ данных [The phenomenon of 20 September 1977. Description of the phenomenon. Preliminary data analysis] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 4 September 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ Paul Stonehill; Philip Mantle. "Setka: A Secret Soviet UFO Research Program" (PDF). Archivos Forteanos Latino Americanos. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 November 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  6. ^ a b c Петрозаводский феномен Вместо предисловия [The Petrozavodsk phenomenon Foreword] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  7. ^ Felix Ziegel (25 April 1980). Ложь и правда о петрозаводском диве [Lie and truth about the Petrozavodsk miracle] (in Russian). Miger.ru. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af Л.М. Гиндилис; А.Н. Макаров; Д.А. Меньков; И.Г. Петровская. Феномен 20 сентября 1977 г. Дополнение к отчету от 20 октября 1977 г. [The phenomenon of 20 September 1977 Appendix to the report from 20 October 1977] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  9. ^ Петрозаводский феномен Сообщения, полученные после 30 декабря 1977 г. [Petrozavodsk phenomenon Reports received after 30 December 1977] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  10. ^ Pekka Teerikorpi. "Soviet "UFOS" identified as satellite launchings" (PDF). Ignaciodarnaude.com. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  11. ^ a b "The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon". Science Frontiers. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  12. ^ Петрозаводский феномен Первые сообщения из Петрозаводска [Petrozavodsk phenomenon The first reports from Petrozavodsk] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Felix Ziegel. Главный Петрозаводский Объект (ГПО) [Main Petrozavodsk object] (in Russian). Miger.ru. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  14. ^ Петрозаводский феномен Полная сводка сообщений [Petrozavodsk phenomenon Complete corpus of reports] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
  15. ^
    ISSN 0262-4079
    .
  16. ^ a b Петрозаводский феномен Локализация объекта [Petrozavodsk phenomenon The object's location] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  17. ^ Е.К. Андреева. Петрозаводский феномен Заключение о психическом состоянии свидетелей [The Petrozavodsk phenomenon Report on mental condition of the eyewitnesses] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  18. ^ a b М. Дмитриев (1978). "Вспышки" в атмосфере ["Flashes" in the atmosphere] (in Russian). Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika, via Miger.ru. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  19. ^ a b c Гиндилис Л.М. Предварительный анализ явления 20 сентября 1997 г. По данным на 30.09.1977 [Preliminary analysis of the phenomenon of 20 September 1977] (in Russian). Astronet.ru. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
  20. ^ a b c Felix Ziegel. Петрозаводское диво [Petrozavodsk miracle] (in Russian). Miger.ru. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  21. ^ a b c d James Oberg. "The Great Soviet UFO Coverup". Debunker.com. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  22. ^ Жажда чуда [A thirst for a miracle]. "Неделя", № 33 (in Russian). Miger.ru. 1985. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  23. ^
    ISBN 5020001899
    . Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  24. ^ Аномальные явления: насколько они аномальны?. Наука в СССР (in Russian) (6): 90–96. 1985.
  25. ^ Sokolov, B.А.; Platov, Yu.V. (2000). "The Study of Unidentified Flying Objects in the Soviet Union" (PDF). Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 70: 248. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  26. ^ "За несколько часов до "петрозаводского чуда" два НЛО сопровождали самолет, следовавший рейсом "Киев – Ленинград" [Several hours before the Petrozavodsk miracle two UFOs accompanied an aircraft travelling from Kiev to Leningrad] (in Russian). President.org.ua. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
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