SPUTNIK: TIME TO STUDY THE FACTS

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SPUTNIK1.TXT - "Time To Study The Facts"

             - by Mark Milchiker, a biophysicist

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 Note:  The following article was excerpted from the October, 1989

        edition of "SPUTNIK", the monthy digest of the Soviet Press.

        It is published in the Soviet Union, and translated into

        several languages, with of course English being one of them.

        The following article was "abridged" from the Soviet language

        magazine, "Priroda I Chelovek".  If someone is interested in

        the full text of this article, perhaps they could try to

        obtain a copy of the above magazine and have it translated.

        The following article also contained about a half-dozen photos

        of various UFOs pictured over the Soviet Union.

   - Tom Mickus 11/20/89

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        TIME TO STUDY THE FACTS

        -----------------------

  The above epigraph, which belongs to an outstanding scientist

 of our time and the founder of world cosmonautics, clearly shows what

 he thought of the fairly mysterious and debatable problem of the

 possible contact between earthly, human civilization and intelligent

 beings from extra-terrestrial worlds.

Indeed, have non-earthmen ever visited our planet?  Are contacts

 with them maintained today?  Are such contacts possible in the future?

 These questions stir many people, especially enthusiasts researching the

 problem.  I will try to answer these questions and outline the appropriate

 little-known views of Tsiolkovsky.  This great schooteacher of Kaluga

 not only foresaw mankind's egress into outer space, but also, long before

 the commencement of the Space Age and the huge growth of interest in

 "visitors", declared that extra-terrestrial civilizations could exist

 and make contact with mankind.

Unfortunately, there is no telling what facts collected by "people

 whose judgement may be relied upon" Tsiolkovsky had in mind.  The

 scientist did not specify them.  But the phrase itself is highly significant,

 suggesting that appropriate facts existed even in his days, that people

 collected and tried to analyse them over half a century ago!  And what

 is the situation now?

It is known that twenty years ago groups of researchers all over

 the world collected about two hundred and fifty thousand stories about

 flying objects, tales of other unorthodox phenomena, and of contacts between

 humans and extra-terrestrial beings, referred to as hominoids.  If all

 these were falsifications or hallucinations, it would suggest that the

 world is full of lunatics, wouldn't it?  Shouldn't these stories be

 carefully studied?

Here is what Tsiolkovsky wrote in 1928 in his work "The Will of the

 Universe. Unknown Intelligent Forces:"

"A mass of inexplicable phenomena have been recorded in history and

 literature.  The majority of them can undoubtedly be classified with

 hallucinations and other delusions, but does this apply to all such

 phenomena?  Now that the possibility of interplanetary travel has been

 proven, man should show greater consideration for such 'incomphrehensible'

 phenomena.  I believe that some such phenomena are not illusions, but real

 proof of the presence of unknown intelligent forces in outer space."

Tsiolkovsky categorized as such phenomena, in particular, images

 of a geometric figure and a man which had observed in the sky in the spring

 of 1886 and the word "ChAU" which he had seen spelled in Russian letters

 on the horizon during the sunset on May 31, 1928.  Thus, Tsiolkovsky

 observed what is known as anomalous phenomena himself.

It all shows that obscure phenomena do exist.  Moreover, researchers

 have found evidence of possible contacts between humans and extra-terrestrials

 in the distant past.  I will make bold to say that in our days, too,

 thousands of people have seen objects which I call ALO (astra-levitating

 objects or objects flying from the stars in the sky).

The eye witness accounts of such phenomena are fairly numerous a

 well documented.

A group of enthusiasts in the West has even set up an international

 organization for coordinating the study of UFOs - ICUFON (Intercontinental

 UFO Galactic Space-craft Research and Analitic Network).

For instance, one of the most recent eyewitness accounts came from

 Mozambique.  On February 11, 1988, thousands of people in the city of Beira

 witnessed an ALO flight.

The object appeared in the sky at approximately three o'clock in the

 afternoon local time, hanging over the city.  Workers at the local

 meteorological station said that the object, which looked like a parachute

 and had two powerful sources of light aboard, remained at a height of about

 three kilometres and could be very well observed through field-glasses.  It

 continuously revolved around its axis.  From a short distance the object

 was observed by the pilots of a passenger plane of the Mozambiquean LAM

 Air Company, which, having taken off from the city airport, was then

 gaining altitude.  Only three hours later did this gleaming object fly away

 southwards.  Incidentally, this unorthodox phenomenon was also watched by

 APN's and Izvestia's own correspondents in Mozambique (see Izvestia,

 February 18, 1988).

How can we, scientists, classify the multitude of similar facts?

 They are either well-presented falsifications or true stories.  Everyone

 is free to interpret them as he wishes.

Of course, it would be simple to laugh off all these stories.  But

 I am not an advocate of such an approach.

It is known that during the first meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev

 and Ronald Reagan in Geneva, the US President said that if the Earth was

 threatened by an extra-terrestrial invasion, the United States and the

 Soviet Union should pool their efforts to rebuff any attack.  Was this

 just a casually dropped idea, a hyperbole geared to emphasize the importance

 of this meeting of the top leaders of our two countries?  However, it is

 quite possible that President Reagan was not joking at all, that he had

 serious reasons for making such a statement.

Possibly, efforts to decipher the ALO structure and manufacturing

 technology are being made in the United States, and Americans are working

 seriously on the problem of contact with messengers of extra-terrestrial

 civilizations.  Back in 1981 Dr.Colman S. von Kevietzky, Director of above

 -mentioned ICUFON, a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and

 Astronautics (Aerospace), and a former military man, sent to President

 Reagan two packages of materials containing proofs of the military activity

 of UFO's ("flying saucers"), demanding that the government prevent a fatal

 war between the United States and galactic forces.  This brings to mind

 H.G.Well's "The War of the Worlds", doesn't it?!  Von Kevietzky received a

 reply from the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in

 the US National Security Council, Major-General Robert L.Schweitzer, saying

 that the President was fully aware of the threat so competently outlined

 in Kevitzky's document.  Soon afterwards, General Schweitzer was dismissed

 - in the opinion of US researchers, under an all too clearly fabricated

 excuse.  It seems as if the real reason for his dismissal was Schweitzer's

 indirect admission of the development of problems connected with contacts

 with UFOs in the United States.  That cost him his position.

The most curious fact, however, was that long before this happened

 the "National Enquirer Magazine" published extracts from statements of

 official representatives of the US State Department about a possible threat

 posed by extraterrestrial visitors.

In view of the hushing up of this problem, Dr. von Kevitzky made

 public all information about UFO activity he had in a Memorandum intended

 for the government and peoples of all countries.  A press release which

 was then circulated warned that the pursuit of UFOs by earthly military

 forces could provoke a global Pearl Harbor.  The Memorandum said that

 instead of the insane slipdown, with all its nuclear arsenals and secret

 military missions, towards a war in space, man should realize that he was

 not an isolated entity living on a planet isolated in the Universe.

Another press release, issued by the ICUFON jointly with the

 Planetary Professionals Citizens Committee in 1982, said that the time

 has come to lift the iron curtain of the secrecy surrounding the global

 UFO problem.  All available documents regarding UFOs should be granted

 to interested individuals and institutions.

So that is where the wind blows from.  And, as I see it, it was

 no fortuity that the US President should suddenly have raised the question

 of visitors from outer space.  This subject was too serious for high-

 level jokes.

I am profoundly convinced of the objectivity and authenticity of

 much ALO data, having done fifteen years' research myself jointly with

 specialists in various fields.  Our research has a public service basis.

 We have collected a vast body of information on the sites of presumptive

 ALO Landings - eyewitness accounts, photographs, and the data of various

 psycho-chemical analyses.  At the places of putative ALO landings and

 contacts of earthmen with non-earthmen aided by biological detection and

 ranging frames measurements were taken of the residual fields induced by

 the extra-terrestrial visitors on the ground and in the atmosphere.  It

 was established that these fields survived for seven to nine years.

Furthermore, we closely questioned those who claimed that they had

 been in contact with non-earthmen.  The questioning was done under hypnosis

 (hypnotesting), the conversations being tape-recorded.  To our way of

 thinking, such a method made it possible to establish the authenticity of

 the contactor's story, to reconstruct forgotten facts, and to specify

 details.  Of the twelve contactors, four were interrogated using this

 method.

  The most incredible case of contact was an encounter by driver

 V.P.B. with extra-terrestrials near the village of Polushino in the

 Mozhaisk District of the Moscow Region.  The meeting, it was claimed,

 took place on July 28, 1980.  The visitors studied the contactor using

 a ring-shaped cap placed on his head and connected by cables to a panel.

 Then they talked with him.  Finally, they told the man that he would

 forget about their encounter.  And indeed he only recalled it following

 a period of great stress.  A detailed study of a map depicted by the

 contacter which he had seen over the panel aboard the extra-terrestrial

 vehicle and which had consisted of nine stars that had formed a hoof-shaped

 figure led us to draw the conclusion that this particular ALO had arrived

 from the southern constellation of Vela (Sails).

I realize that any sober-minded reader might be persuaded that all

 these stories are a mere send-up.  Another surprise is the abundance of

 proofs of encounters with ALOs and ALOnauts.  Such a profusion of facts has

 a double explanation: either the earthmen are susceptible to collective

 psychosis or extra-terrestrial civilizations really are studying our planet.

 There are no other possibilities.

  Now let us return to the views of our great dreamer, whose works are

 still only poorly known.  In many of his writings, Tsiolkovsky tries to

 convince his readers that life does exist on other planets, that outer

 space is populated by highly intelligent social beings and predominantly

 highly developed civilizations.  In his "Scientific Ethics" he wrote:

 "Since life has appeared on Earth, why shouldn't it have appeared on

 billions of other planets having the same conditions as our own?  The

 presence of life in the Universe is an incontestible fact.  To assume that,

 apart from man, the Universe is unpopulated and lifeless because we cannot

 see its life is a gross delusion."  According to Tsiolkovsky, when

 civilization spreads from one area of outer space to another, it "creates

 a wide variety of breeds of perfect beings -- capable of living in different

 atmospheres, at different gravity, on different planets, in a vacuum or

 in rarefied gas, living on food and without food - exclusively on sunrays,

 beings which resist cold, and beings which resist abrupt and considerable

 temperature fluctuations".

But a question arises, why have representatives of extra-terrestrial

 civilizations to this day failed to present themselves to mankind with full

 visual clarity?  As if anticipating this question, in 1933 Tsiolkovsky wrote

 on a letter from student A. Yudin of Tomsk: "Attempts of higher beings to

 help us are possible, because they continue to be made to this day.  We,

 people, do not try to convince animals of the irrationality of their life.

 The distance between us and perfect beings is hardly any less."

But if we concede that people may encounter probes and ALOnauts, we

 should think about making psychological preparations for such contacts.

 The importance of such psychological readiness goes far beyond the confines

 of cosmonautics proper.  Man must form a clear idea of what he wants of

 the possible contacts with extra-terrestrial civilizations.  Perhaps in view

 view of such contacts he should at least cease to silence the problem and

 talk about it openly?

It is clear that the problem of searching for contacts with extra-

 terrestrial civilizations must pass from the field of purely academic

 speculations to the field of scientific research and practical actions not

 limited to radioastronomy.  It appears that searching for and studying

 emergence of ALOs and the presumptive "contact" with representatives of

 other worlds should change from a semi-legal gratuitous occupation into

 work of serious research teams, which, most importantly, would strive not

 to disprove eyewitness accounts, but to search for proofs of such contacts.

 Methodologically, such an approach would be more fruitful.  The only way

 to solve this problem is by using integral methods and by drawing on the

 achievements of various branches of science - natural, engineering, and

 social.  This requires laboratories fitted with special equipment for

 searching for, confirming, and meticulously analysing "contacts".  This

 should be done if only to make the problem cease to be an object of

 speculation, science fiction, send-ups, and mystification, so that science

 could, with full confidence, declare its findings on the subject.

Incidentally, it should be recalled that Tsiolkovsky was against

 any limitation of the sphere of scientific research.  Speaking, with his

 friend Alexander Chizhevsky, one of the founders of cosmobiology, he mae

 indignant remarks about people who regarded as scientific only what they

 already "hold in their hands", excluding obscure phenomena from the sphere

 of science:

"Man is yet to study the entire Universe, a place which abounds in

 unknown and simply obscure phenomena.  And yet he is already putting up

 fences between the possible and the impossible!  Study this, but don't

 dare touch that!"

What an apt and absolutely correct summing up of the question!

 The entire history of the formation of many scientific disciplines,

 including cosmonautics, shows that unorthodox ideas were first denied

 acceptance.  Research connected with the quest for ALOs is presently at

 an embryonic stage.  In fact, it is being rejected as absurd because it

 "contradicts science".

And how good it would be if the scientific search for extra-

 terrestrial civilizations were always keynoted by the words of another

 pioneer of Soviet cosmonautics, Friedrich Tsander:

"Who, fixing his gaze on the sky on a clear autumn night, at the

 sight of the stars glimmering in it, has not thought that distant planets

 are perhaps inhabited by intelligent beings like ourselves but are

 culturally thousands of years ahead of us?  Innumerable cultural values

 could be delivered to the Earth and multiply the treasury of science if

 man could transport himself there.  What negligible expenditures this

 great scheme would require compared to what man squanders!"

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