UFOs,
Astrophysicists and the MIR Space Station Aside from being an experienced webmaster for his own site, "Expedientes Secretos" and for Spain's highly popular "Mundo Misterioso", Rubén Sobrino is a noted ufologist and a member of SEIP-La Coruńa. This is his first contribution to INEXPLICATA.
On
January 16 of this year, almost all the newspapers in our country echoed
the same remarkable news item from Moscow, carried by the prestigious EFE
news agency. The
agency in question disclosed certain controversial statements made by
Russian astrophysicist Boris Rodionov to Moscow's Komsomolskaya Pravda, in which he
claimed to have proof of the existence of "a highly developed
extraterrestrial civilization on one of the satellites of the planet
Jupiter. The
astrophysicist also claimed that the enigmatic "flying saucer" phenomenon
which has stimulated popular imagination worldwide could well be
"outriders for this civilization." Wielding
a vast amount of scientific data and photographs transmitted by NASA's
"Galileo" probe, Rodionov, a tenured professor of Microphysics and
Cosmophysics of the State Institute of Physical Engineering, stated that
Europa, smallest of Jupiter's four main satellites, "was inhabited by an
ancient and technologically advanced civilization." Through the use of a
high-powered computer and sophisticated photographic analysis technology,
the scientist managed to obtain a close-up with a record-breaking
resolution of nine kilometers from the satellite's surface, enabling him
to make out the contours of what he calls pipes, tunnels and spherical
domes. The photo clearly shows--according to Rodionov--that the lines
formerly considered as mere fissures by the scientific community actually
cross over each other like a knot of expressways. According
to Rodionov, the variety of "pipelines" and "tunnels", having a diameter
similar to the "Chunnel" that crosses the English Channel, is surprising.
"There are 100 kilometer segments, as well as other pipelines having
immense junctures or orifices between them." Anyone
may join the controversy, since the image in which Rodionov claims to see
the aforementioned pipelines and tunnels is available to anyone having
Internet access and a simple photo retouching program capable of analyzing
it. This photo, which is available from the NASA/JPL net server that
provides images for the "Galileo" mission, in fact portrays a number of
lines (fissures, in fact) which cross each other but never at different
elevations, as the scientist has claimed. Having a width of 20 to 40
kilometers and thousands of kilometers in length, it is believed that the
fissures are attributable to a period of global expansion on Europa,
caused by volcanic eruptions or geysers under its frosty surface, creating
a series of fractures on the ice crust. This
news item would not go beyond being an amusing anecdote, were it not for
the fact that it is the first time that a person related to the armed
forces or the Russian Space Agency made similar statements to the
press. On
December 23, 1998, another news item pertaining to the UFO phenomenon
appeared in a number of papers. As with the preceding one, it also came
from Moscow, but in this event, the source was cosmonaut Alexandr
Baladin. Baladin
stated that "flying saucers" have come into close proximity to the MIR
space station as well as the Baikonur Cosmodrome, further adding there is
sufficient evidence in existence to warrant a scientific study of the
phenomenon, and that it is time that world governments officially
acknowledge the UFO phenomenon's existence. "General
Vladimir Ivanov, former commander of Russia's Military Space Forces,
recalls that three objects flew at a considerable altitude over the
Baikonur Cosmodrome and were picked up on radar. There is no way they
could have been airplanes." insisted the cosmonaut. Baladin
also disclosed at Brazil's First International Ufology Forum that he
himself had been the protagonist of a disturbing experience (along with
fellow cosmonaut Musa Manarov) during his second space mission. While the
docking operations between his space capsule and MIR were underway,
Baladin became aware of a glowing object gyrating a short distance
away. Manarov
managed to capture the strange phenomenon on videotape, which was also
shown during the UFO congress in question. Baladin claimed that the
recording, along with other evidence presented during the Congress, "must
be studied by an international scientific
commission." Baladin
insisted that the Russian military has a great contribution to make to UFO
research, giving as an example the multiple-witness case at the Kaputsin
Yar missile base, whose personnel sighted a semi-circular object flying at
low altitude and lighting up all of the base's depots and magazines with a
powerful searchlight in June 1989. "Many of my old comrades, who are now
working at top-secret military facilities, acknowledge having seen
unidentified flying objects over manufacturing centers, gunnery ranges and
military facilities." In
any event, Baladin made it clear that "not all that can be seen should be
taken for a UFO, since it is very possible that we may be facing natural
phenomena which have not been properly studied." All
of these explosive and unexpected statements should at least cause us to
ask many questions about what is happening in the former USSR on the
ufological level. Questions which shall invariably remain unanswered...or
will they? |