Paul Stonehill Still Touts Pathetic "Soviet UFO Stories"

Russian emigre Paul Stonehill is still promoting Soviet-era "UFO stories" around the internet, most recently here:

Pilot and Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich and UFOs
Posted by: Paul Stonehill June 12, 2014

I'm having trouble getting this URL to properly set.... My browser, I suspect. sorry.


www....(nolink)/pilot-cosmonaut-pavel-popovich-ufos/28257

http:
//www.openminds
.tv
/pilot-cosmonaut-pavel-popovich-ufos/28257

What's amazing is how lousy even the cases he think are 'best' really are, and also how bitter he is at 'debunkers' who, he writes, infiltrated and betrayed even the in -country Russian UFO research groups, by -- get this, now -- actually finding the prosaic explanations of many of his favorite cases.

I posted a comment, now awaiting moderation:

Nothing could better illustrate the bankruptcy and uselessness of 'Russian ufology' than the 'best cases' trumpeted here by Mr. Stonehill.

First, he shows how all reported facts from detailed investigation are highly uncertain: "On May 29 1984, Trud newspaper published an article where Popovich told the author about a case that took place on March 27, 1983, in Gorky (and investigated by the Commission’s Gorky section). It was an object that flew in the area of the city’s airport. The airport’s radars registered but could not identify the object. The object flew at the altitude of no more than one kilometer, and the speed approximately 180-200 kilometers per hour. The witness (Flight Controller A. Shushkin) who had observed the object said that the object’s size was similar to that of the IL-14 aircraft fuselage. But there were no wings. It was a “cigar”. Its color light gray, steely, and it moved slowly across the sky. The phenomenon lasted around forty minutes. At the distance of 30 to 40 kilometers NE from the airport the radars lost it. Shushkin later corrected Pavel Popovich and said the UFO actually appeared over the city on March 28, 1983; flew at an altitude of 400-600 meters, and disappeared ten seconds after it was sighted."

Then he highlights a supposedly unsolvable story in which even fundamental information such as date, time of day, direction of object motion, shape, location of witnesses, etc., are all conveniently absent: "A more dramatic, episode took place in January of 1978, and Popovich described it to Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya newspaper on August 6, 1984. During the flight of a YAK-40 over the area between two settlements Medvezhye and Nadim, the crew noticed something round; a very bright foreign body that approached rapidly and sometime later appeared straight in front of the aircraft. Every minute the size of this body increased. When the crash appeared to be imminent, the object soared right in front of the aircraft’s nose, not causing any harm." A flight between those two locations -- if Wikipedia identifications are correct -- passes right across the Plesetsk space center range, during a period when a dozen rockets were launched towards the east -- parallel to the airplane's flight path. The critical data needed to nail down an identification is conveniently omitted.

Sneers at 'debunkers' may reflect resentment at the inexorable process of good research with good witness data being again and again indicative that secret space and missile events were behind most of the spectacular UFO reports in the USSR. The point worth making is that the supposedly "top ufologists" were repeatedly incapable of recognizing this and acknowledging this. This is despite the availability, even in pro-UFO publications, over the last THIRTY YEARS OR MORE, of detailed reports proving this:

10/1982 - MUFON UFO Journal: The Great Soviet UFO Coverup
www.debunker.com...

FATE [1983]
www.debunker.com...

OMNI [1994] www.debunker.com...
www.debunker.com...

Skeptical Inquirer, Jan-Feb 2009 -- Classic Soviet 1984 UFO was Top Secret Sub Missile Launch
www.jamesoberg.com...

Join in the discussion there, or here, as you wish.

Its fascinating how this stuff works. Thanks a lot for the material Jim.

Are there any sightings that point towards Soviet black projects? There are stories of some pretty interesting drones showing up during the Romanian Revolution in '89.

a reply to: 1ofthe9

A few come to my mind. The "Oz X-Files" have a report where the witness claims to have knowledge of a 10,000km/h aircraft which the Soviets supposedly looted from the Third Reich during WW2. I don't know if there is any truth to it but the report in question is highly fascinating.

There was an incident at Pyyvaara, Finland in 1967 where a group of people saw an utterly bizarre flying device which was like a kettle with a rotor and some long, thing antennea sticking out of it. The incident was actually investigated by the border guard though they didn't really comment on it. It was a weird incident and the object in question was most likely some very odd early soviet surveilance drone or such. One of the people who saw it reported feeling a "electric shock kind of throbbing sensation". Some have said that the original transcript about what he felt in the presence of the device was really vague and could be indicative of adrenaline shock instead of the device literaly zapping him.

I remember that in one documentary (unfortunately I don't remember which...) there was a claim that the Soviets were building a kind of a orbital nuclear bomber which was crescent/boomerang shaped and the Soviet intelligence apparatus used UFOs as a cover for the project as it was seen by astronomers and so on.

Not really all that black project-ish but some back-then (possibly now too?) secret soviet missile and nuclear tests triggered UFO reports across the border here in Finland. I've read that the (in)famous Petrozavdosk phenomenon was also witnessed by a finnish airline pilot.

originally posted by: JimOberg
I'm having trouble getting this URL to properly set.... My browser, I suspect. sorry.


www....(nolink)/pilot-cosmonaut-pavel-popovich-ufos/28257

Unfortunately, links to that website (the openminds tv website) have been banned on ATS for quite a while

Personally, I hope that ban is reviewed. I find that website a useful resource for some material and find it a bit of a pain that I can't post links on ATS to those resources.

Being able to post those links would help improve the quality of discussion on ATS.

a reply to: JimOberg

Oberg writes:
["...First, he shows how all reported facts from detailed investigation are highly uncertain: "On May 29 1984, Trud newspaper published an article where Popovich told the author about a case that took place on March 27, 1983, in Gorky (and investigated by the Commission’s Gorky section). It was an object that flew in the area of the city’s airport. The airport’s radars registered but could not identify the object. The object flew at the altitude of no more than one kilometer, and the speed approximately 180-200 kilometers per hour. The witness (Flight Controller A. Shushkin) who had observed the object said that the object’s size was similar to that of the IL-14 aircraft fuselage. But there were no wings. It was a “cigar”. Its color light gray, steely, and it moved slowly across the sky. The phenomenon lasted around forty minutes. At the distance of 30 to 40 kilometers NE from the airport the radars lost it. Shushkin later corrected Pavel Popovich and said the UFO actually appeared over the city on March 28, 1983; flew at an altitude of 400-600 meters, and disappeared ten seconds after it was sighted." - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...]

I'm always looking up when I'm outside and I've seen many unusual aerial objects but, aside from my various true UFO sightings, none struck me as much as the "giant" silver/aluminum cigar-shaped object I saw. After I got over my amazement, I rotated my head slightly back 'n' forth and the airplane's wings appeared and disappeared. The reason: I wear Polarized sunglasses and only the airplane's body was reflecting light and the wings' undercarriage did not reflect as much. The height and the angle contributed to this "mystery".

Not saying that this is what happened at Gorky but it is something to consider when others report similar "phenomena".

originally posted by: Uggielicious
a reply to: JimOberg

'''.....
I'm always looking up when I'm outside and I've seen many unusual aerial objects but, aside from my various true UFO sightings, none struck me as much as the "giant" silver/aluminum cigar-shaped object I saw. After I got over my amazement, I rotated my head slightly back 'n' forth and the airplane's wings appeared and disappeared. The reason: I wear Polarized sunglasses and only the airplane's body was reflecting light and the wings' undercarriage did not reflect as much. The height and the angle contributed to this "mystery".

Not saying that this is what happened at Gorky but it is something to consider when others report similar "phenomena".

When I used to fly a lot more often, I carried polarized filters in my appointment book, kept looking out windows hoping for good stuff like this, never saw anything. Don't mourn -- I saw more than my fair share of cool sky stuff. We're still catching on how human perception works. UFO reports help. Another important reason to do them properly.

a reply to: JimOberg

I wouldn't have that mindstate - because to lift up a rock means to uncover a waterfall.

What I mean is that something comes out of nothing, but you have to have something in order for that to happen. Psychology turning into reality.

Curiouser and curiouser -- without actually addressing the substance of my criticisms, a poster now claims I am an imposter for myself:

P.s. I am loving this idea that everyone (ufologists) are now pretending and posting as known ‘skeptic’ Jim Oberg in favour of Ufo cases, this I find as ironic as previously this man somehow has managed to appear in comment sections every hour of the day on many different forums ‘debunking’ Ufology cases.

Thanks Jim! The Pyyvaara case sure sounds familiar to the weird Romanian UAV shenanigans. Makes me wonder if the Ka-137 has a weird hush hush ancestor. The kettle shape also turns up in the Brazilian cases where folks were getting zapped by something... I love stuff like this.

The Third Reich claims could be related to Stalin's interest in Sanger's concepts, and the Keldysh bomber proposal.

a reply to: 1ofthe9

It's a shame that there is so little known about the Soviet equivalent to black projects. The only things I remember reading about are the boomerang-shaped nuclear warhead delivery vechile and some claims that the soviets had built some kind of electromagnetic WMD. I also understand they were interested in some kind of plasma stealth technology. If they had put up some working tests I'm pretty sure that it would have been a nice lightshow. Who know what we could find from there?

I had totally forgotten about Sänger and that bomber he planned. Sure could be so. I had this thought that perhaps the Third Reich had managed to construct some kind of a nuclear aircraft engine. I've read that they did research on them and technologicaly speaking they weren't that far off from late-WWII level.

Anyway, so perhaps they build one and find out the same limitations as the US and Soviets later on did. You'd have to have heavy radiation shielding. Now, what if a very unethical regime had stumbled upon such technology? Would they have chosen output over safety, especialy in a desperate war they were losing? What if another unethical regime captured that technology? I think the Soviets under Stalin would have at least experimented with such technology...and perhaps even wrecked one or two of those things somewhere.

originally posted by: phantomflier
a reply to: 1ofthe9

It's a shame that there is so little known about the Soviet equivalent to black projects. The only things I remember reading about are the boomerang-shaped nuclear warhead delivery vechile and some claims that the soviets had built some kind of electromagnetic WMD. I also understand they were interested in some kind of plasma stealth technology. If they had put up some working tests I'm pretty sure that it would have been a nice lightshow. Who know what we could find from there?

Well I think I found the EM WMD. The Russians apparently have been doing some really fascinating stuff with compact pulsed power devices. I don't know much about them, but the Russians intend on using them as penetration aids, aerial countermeasures, and they've even got 30mm EMP cannon rounds. The radius of action on their HPM bombs also seems to be superior to the American model - kilometers instead of meters.

There is very little information available in English, but what I did find was really interesting. I'm watching the Ukraine and wondering if we aren't going to see these things used in a show of force. Also makes you wonder if this stuff could be applied to screwing with people via EM...

They did build a nuclear aircraft off a Tu-95 airframe, but they had shielding problems and the crew got a dose.