UFO Case Files of Russia by Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle

To my knowledge there are very few books that have been written on UFO sightings over Russia from British authors so it was a great pleasure to be given this book to review.  Like most British UFOlogists, I was aware, as we all are, that Russia too has been touched by the UFO presence and has probably seen more UFO sightings than any other country.  This book, dot’s the I’s and crosses the T’s Big Style.  It is an enormously researched book which comprised of all you need to know about UFO sightings over Russia from the very early day’s right through to present day.

The authors have put a lot of work into this book, segmenting their case work into specific easy to find chapters.   Of course writing a book of this nature does rely heavily (for both authors) on the information coming through their Russian counterparts and both Philip and Paul have had to rely on their many Russian contacts in their little black diary.  Sceptics may question the reliability of UFO information coming through from their Russian counterparts, is it reliable, could it not have been better researched, how do we know for sure that the information imparted is truly factual?  Well I’ll tell you this, if even a tiny fraction of this book is real in the sense that all the reports happened as reported, then boy we really do have a UFO presence to ponder.

The authors themselves do accept the above, they also are well aware that quite a fair percent of these Russian UFO sightings may well be down to secret Russia Military rocket tests.  However, there are enough meaty cases in this book which go way beyond what would appear to be any rocket tests that certainly made me sit up.  For me though what makes this book a cracker is definitely the KGB Files of UFO & USOs (Unidentifiable Submersible Objects). Then there are the specific regions of Russia which hold mysterious areas where strange things happen.  Let us take a quick look at some of the interesting bits of the book that I came across whilst doing this review.

The Tunguska event of 1908 is carefully looked at and quite a diverse series of explanations are pondered over.  Whatever it was, it surely was the biggest event of its kind in the world.  But was it a flying saucer or something more mundane?  As I said, a wide variety of explanations are looked at.   Leonid Kulik was one of the main researchers who actually visited the Tunguska event and we learn about his expedition and the problems they faced.   We also learn that in the autumn of 1944 a Soviet Yak-40 aircraft flew over the area of the Tunguska event, its instruments failed and the plane crashed.  What could be an early example of animal mutilation occurred in the 1860’s (reported in the 1950’s), a man witnessed humanoid ‘beings’ standing next to a cow which had its belly slit open.  They seemed quite curious at the stomach of the cow; could this be Russia’s, if not the world’s, first reported animal mutilation?  Well if we believe in this report then maybe so.

The book moves onto the early years of UFO reports over Russia and we learn that under Stalin’s brutal regime, the occult and paranormal related subjects were all banned (although surprisingly Stalin himself had an interest in such matters, so what was the crack there!)    There was little if any material on UFOs and the paranormal during Stalin’s reign, it wasn’t until many years later that Russian citizens started to learn what was in their skies wasn’t all their own technology!

A quite incredible tale of a chest which contained drawings of orbital stations, hangers for spaceships etc, was found in Kiev in 1953 what was going on here?  Then there was the Petrozavodsk phenomenon of 1977 where a strange pulsating luminance fell on Karelia. Windows in houses melted and loads of UFO reports were reported in the area, all this and much more occurred in this Russian town.  Most people will have heard about Chernobyl and the terrible nuclear accident that occurred there, what some people might not know is that this area has a high concentration of UFO reports.

Probably one of the more stranger things that I found in this book was what the authors refer to as anomalous zones where weird things happen.  Take for instance the Dalnegorsk crash.  Three years after the crash of a strange object in this area, we learn that insects avoided the place; people’s bodies were affected in a whole manner of ways.  The area also affected mechanical and electrical equipment.  Again I ask, was it a UFO/Flying Saucer of something from the Russia Air force?

One of the biggest UFO cases that I was aware of coming from Russia was the Voronezh Incident where not only UFOs were sighted, but strange creatures as well!  Yet another strange anomalous area where strange things happen is the M Triangle and the authors go to great lengths to tell us all about it, believe me, this is really really bizarre.

There is so much info in this book that I seriously cannot get it all into this review.  The authors look at strange explosions, UFO hotspots, and buried UFOs (The Tallin Object). Another BIG chapter is the one on UFOs over Soviet Nuclear Installations, wow what an amazing chapter that is.  Triangular UFOs are also discussed as are Soviet Military encounters with UFOs.  Again, what an important chapter that is.  UFOs over Soviet battlefields are also discussed.  MIG jets chasing UFOs are also looked at.  There is no shortage of amazing UFO Incidents in this book.

Co-author Paul Stonehill

Another belter of a chapter was the one on USO’s (Unidentified submersible objects). This chapter contains some amazing cases most of whom were witnessed by high standing academic people.  Then there were the Soviet nuclear submarines who encountered strange sounds which they couldn’t account for.  Soviet Naval observers of UFOs are mentioned and several tales by them are looked at.

Yet another classic chapter was the one on the KGB and its UFO Files, again, what can I say?  This chapter really shows us that there clearly is something strange going on.   As if the book couldn’t get any better, IT DOES.  Soviet Cosmonauts and ‘their’ UFO sightings are looked at, and just like the American astronauts, their Russian counterparts have also seen their fair share of UFOs.  Russian astronomers and their UFO sightings are looked at, again these astronomers know their skies and yet what they have seen defies explanation.  The authors put together a chapter on some of Russia’s UFOlogists and we see how busy they have been over the years in trying to find out the truth as to what is in their skies.

At the end of the day, there is no denying that this book will be a classic in the annals of world UFOlogy, I say this because when you read this book you soon discover that it contains a mountain of research, the ground it covers is extensive.  These are not wily nilly wee lights in the sky, the vast majority of these cases are complex, they are above nuclear installations, and they have been followed by MIG jets and a whole lot more.  Russia as we know is a massive country there are undoubtedly thousands of UFO reports that we will probably never know as they may not have been recorded.  Thankfully UFOlogy in Russia has grown extensively over the years, those Stalin years are well behind them and people are not frightened any more to report these strange aerial devices.

Yes a fair percent of these UFO reports may well be down to secret Russian Military/Air Force testing of prototype devices, that goes without saying, but when all is said and done, this wonderful book will show you that the sheer volume of UFO reports in Russia is simply incredible.  One thing’s for sure, when you finish this book your scepticism (if you had any in the first place) will surely have gone, such is the masterful research by both authors in providing us with a book that is destined to be a classic.

The author (Come Carpentier) addressing a seminar on the world's future in New Delhi (image credit: www.ComeCarpentier.com).

James Cameron’s Avatar may well be one of those symbolic milestones. As the hitherto most sophisticated result of the technologies of virtual reality and computerized design, it takes place in an already long line of wondrous special effects extravaganzas which include George Lucas’ Star Wars, Steven Spielberg’s ET and Close Encounters, Cameron’s own Terminator and sequels, the Harry Potter series, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings’ trilogy and so many others.

Yet, the message of Avatar synthesizes some of the most powerful calls that mankind is hearing nowadays: the appeal for a new communion with nature on the cosmic scale, the yearning for disclosure about the reality of other life forms from outside our planet, and the eternal nostalgia for legends and mythology which formed civilization from its origins.

The Avatar Movie Poster

Cameron situates himself in the sphere of mythology when he creates his heroic saga on the imaginary planet Pandora -“all gifts” in Greek, but also the name of the Goddess (Mohini) who brought them to Prometheus. The name hints at the pantheistic worldview that prevails on it and that the author advocates – inhabited by the peaceful and empathic Na’vi, cat-like, slender, blue-skinned humanoids who live in symbiotic communion with the magnificent but dangerous ecosystem of a primeval forest.

It is this ecstatic communion that the film’s hero, a paraplegic former Marine called Jake Sully, sent by the RDA corporation to help explore Pandora through the bio-engineered Avatar created for his late brother, learns from them and gradually becomes one of them. Though the story is set in 2154, Cameron seems to assume that little will change in America or on Earth by then. Our planet has been presumably turned into a biological wasteland by our industry, the economy is still in very bad shape, the US is still fighting wars in many poor and hostile lands on behalf of giant corporations dedicated to exploiting natural resources, but wounded US soldiers are still neglected and financially unable to undergo reconstructive surgery for the injuries incurred in the line of duty.

The contrast between the penniless, paralyzed and depressive discarded mercenary of the earth’s richest nation and the boundlessly free and luminous Na’vi is one of the many ontological antitheses presented in the film.

In building Pandora’s fictional world, the author borrows from the legends and traditions of many “primitive” cultures, as most myth-makers have from the dawn of humanity, to create monuments as diverse as the Book of Gilgamesh, the Ramayana, the Iliad and Beowulf or Cuchulain. The Na’vi remind us of all bow and arrow wielding tribal peoples of warm climes, but they particularly evoke images of the blue-green divine heroes of ancient India, Rama and Krishna, whose wisdom and omniscience reflected their profound union with the Cosmic Whole which Cameron calls Eywa, the universal mother who embraces and comprises all creation, according to a concept embedded in Tantric philosophy.

Those people of the Pandoran forest will also remind people familiar with Indic culture, from Mongolia to Indonesia, of the Monkey people or Vanaras met by Rama and his companions in the deep woods of Central India, and who became his allies under the leadership of their king Sugriva and their champion Hanuman. However, the alien people created by Cameron are not modeled on a single historic or mythical race, but are inspired by many diverse shamanistic and pantheistic cultures.

The fact that in order to roam on Pandora freely and meet the Na’vi on their own terms, humans have to go into a state of conscious dream through the medium of a biological Avatar identical to the natives (contrary to the homonymous Internet creation, Cameron’s Avatar, like its Indic archetype is physical and alive) reminds us of the Dreamtime described by Australian aborigines or of the parallel worlds evoked by South American tribals and to which one can accede in sleep, with the help of hallucinogenic drugs such as the Ayahuasca just as Vedic Hindus and Avestan Iranians used the Soma or Haoma plant.

Like the Vedic peoples, but also like many other ancient races on all continents, the Na’vi are said to go through a ritual process of second birth (samsrkt dvija) which ushers them in as full members of the social and universal community of life and soul.

The metaphysical question raised by the cosmology of the Invisible has occupied much of Buddhist and Hindu thought over millennia since there is reason to question the “rational” assumption that only the facts experienced in our waking state are real. Many ancient religious systems relied on the opposite conclusion, which the Spanish writer Calderon de la Barca expressed in five words: “La vida es un sueno”: life is a dream! Other traditions teach that the other worlds we sometimes visit in trance or sleep are as material and actual as our sphere of familiar awareness.

Until we accept and integrate fully the parallel universes that we can visit only in the various subtle and psychic dimensions of our selves, we are doomed to living tragic lives in blindness and “quiet desperation”. For the Na’vi, becoming aware of this transcendent reality is “seeing” the truth of another person’s being. The reference to the symbolism of darsana in Indian psychology and philosophy is transparent.

Avatar dares to proclaim defiantly what many people in the West, and especially in the USA, are still afraid to admit. Cameron squarely points to the American military forces and the associated “private security companies” as the major agents in today’s world of uncontrolled corporate greed in all its brutal destructiveness. The film builds towards a cathartic massacre of the Pentagon’s robotic mercenaries and the utter annihilation (history repeats itself many a time!) of its space age war machine, personified by a Colonel whose face and gait mirror those of the many warlords who regularly appear in the news, from Odierno and Petraeus to McChrystal, just as his corporate army represents Blackwater, Triple Canopy and other such outfits created to privatize war and occupation. The polar opposition between the gracefulness of the native people of the Planet Pandora, the luminous and willowy Na’vi and the mechanical ugliness of the human killing machines is as striking as it is expected to be in a myth which is made up of allegories and signs.

The humanoid natives of Pandora look more than a bit like some of the Aliens described by several witnesses from the 1947 Roswell incident until recent times. Their four-fingered hands seem modeled after the tetradactyle extremities that at least some of the Greys or Zetas are reported to have. Such evocations are hardly surprising in ET-aware Hollywood, all the more from a director who authored the film Aliens in 1986.

The sort of  intuitive intelligence that the Na’vi demonstrate in their collective, beehive-like harmony, reminded me of a striking observation made by Whitley Strieber once about the “visitors” who have appeared to him at various occasions in his life: “animals far more intelligent than us”. The Na’vi’s fusional connection with the horse-like quadruped and the flying dragons they ride – as the bluish God Vishnu flies on the giant bird Garuda – through the merger of the tips of their respective capillary appendices is at once technologically inspired (fiber-optics and hints of David Cronenberg’s Existenz) and related to the Indian and Chinese belief that the brain is rooted in the cosmic oversoul through the pituitary seventh cakra at the crown of the head and also through the Kundalini coiled at the base of the spine as a vestigial tail.

As the polar opposite those fluid, intuitive life forms, Colonel Miles Quaritch, commander of the Company’s private army, the SecFor, is a mixture of Nietzsche’s “beast” and of a ruthless, calculating and emotionally deaf and dumb weapon of mass destruction. He uses the well worn Pentagon jargon which has become so recognizable during the last decade of “pre-emptive” wars: “killing the hostiles”, “minimizing casualties”, “winning hearts and minds”. He is unquestioningly committed to carrying out his mission, which is to allow “free market access” to the corporation to extract the precious mineral Unobtainium (a metaphor for oil or any other coveted mineral) from Pandora’s soil, and he regards all unfamiliar life forms as dangerous nuisances that must be “domesticated” or eliminated at any cost if and when they cannot be simply ignored.

That very attitude is made manifest in the policies enforced by the US and many other governments which consist in systematically ignoring and denying the presence of “Alien” life, especially that which strikes us as being far more evolutionarily advanced than our own. Those who are minimally aware of the Ufological reality realize that Cameron, like most in Hollywood, is not duped by the current political-scientific-military consensus and is making in his film an appeal for disclosure.

Quaritch reports to a wimpish, self-absorbed and infantile corporate boss of RDA, Parker Selfridge – a George W Bush to Quaritch’s Cheney or Rumsfeld – and they both have a conflictual rapport with the scientist, Grace Augustine, played by Sigourney Weaver, who serves the operatives of the military-industrial complex in her research on Pandora in spite of her moral reservations. Yet, they finance her work so that she needs them to carry out her investigations. The ambiguous role of scientists as handmaidens of their corporate paymasters (somewhat like the missionaries of the colonial ages) is illustrated quite tellingly.

Another parallel is drawn between the wondrously strange and intensely alive but somewhat ethereal world of Pandora and the high tech, ugly and depressing artificial habitat in which the earthly invaders are imprisoned. Where is reality? In the scientifically controlled, drably military environment of the occupiers (where the only entertainment available is the mini-golf used by the corporate boss) or in the fantastic wilderness of Pandora, inaccessible to humans outside their heavily insulated and armored aircraft and “exoskeletons” (dubbed AMP for “Amplified Motion Platforms”).

The reference to the US bases set up in many countries and thoroughly cut off from the outside world, making the American soldiers and administrators the real aliens for the rest of mankind, is obvious, and the Na’vi are virtual icons of all the native peoples subjugated and massacred by colonizers, from the Aztecs, Incas and Patagonians to the Bantus, the Red Indians, and the aboriginal Australians.

The analogy with the Vietnamese, Iraqis or Afghans is not so transparent because those martyred people are not “pristine” children of Nature, though the attitude of the US occupiers towards them is similar to that of most conquistadors of yore, but as the hero of the film points out, those alien people cannot be won over with baubles or “light beer” or even by giving them American education and teaching them English. The endeavour of the conquerors is tragically flawed and is bound to fail, but not without causing immense destruction.

Predictably, the target of Colonel Queritch after he has destroyed the “tree of voices” (“first, cut off the target people from their source of traditional wisdom” seems to be the rule followed by colonialists and missionaries) and the “hometree” of the Na’vi (which disintegrates in a manner intentionally reminiscent of the World Trade Centre’s destruction in 2001 and happens to stand on the largest deposit of Unobtainium), is to “preemptively” take out the soul tree, Cameron’s allusion to the Aswattha of Indian mythology (and to the Nordic Yggdrasil) which, as Augustine tries to explain to the dismissive colonel and the bemused corporate executive, lies at the core of the planet’s bio-botanical neural network. She provides thereby a graphic image of the phenomenon of non-locality explained by quantum entanglement in contemporary physics as it applies to the eco-sphere, but such a holistic perspective is predictably beyond the grasp of her mentally autistic listeners, bent on quick territorial conquest and financial profit.

Cameron makes it clear that the only option for survival and for the preservation of our environment is to overthrow the tyranny of finance and technology enforced by the warlords of the Pentagon and their soldiers of fortune and misfortune. His film is a rousing call for defiance and rebellion that many in the US civilian and military sectors may eventually heed, and it is symbolically enlightening and also inevitable that he should conceive an iconography reminiscent of the Hindu sacred epics in order to convey this radical and apocalyptic message. What splendid depictions of the Indian myths and legends could be made nowadays by using the stereoscopic and virtual camera “motion capture” techniques, aptly called “3D Fusion Camera System”, pioneered in Avatar!

For more information about Come, visit: www.ComeCarpentier.com

The film was primarily based on the panel that Fox, and journalist Leslie Kean of the Coalition for Freedom of Information, assembled at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 12, 2007. The 14 speakers included two retired generals and several other military officers, a former governor, civil pilots and government scientists from seven countries (Belgium, Chile, France, Iran, Peru, U.K. and the U.S.). It was one of the most credible UFO panels ever assembled.

James Fox and the panelists en route to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Nov 12th, 2007. (image credit: www.iknowwhatisawthemovie.com)

James Fox, who already made a name in the field with his previous “Out of the Blue” documentary, begins “I Know What I Saw” with the famous Phoenix Lights of March 13, 1997. The latest film’s title, in fact, comes from one of the witnesses.

Fife Symington, the Arizona governor in 1997, was also a witness of the huge, structured craft that crossed the Phoenix metropolitan area that March evening. Symington, who served as moderator for the NPC Panel, reveals in the documentary why he took the questionable decision of ridiculing the incident publicly. He says he was afraid the incident could lead to panic and distract the conduct of state government and business. Former presidential candidate and current Arizona Senator John McCain, in a radio interview and a written letter, also stresses in the documentary that the explanation for the Phoenix Lights has not been established.

The film then moves on to the equally famous incidents at the Rendlesham Forest and Bentwaters Air Force Base in Suffolk, England, in late December, 1980. Col. Charles Halt, the deputy base commander, and U.S. Air Force Sgt. Jim Penniston appeared on the NPC Panel. And, the film also includes interviews with Sgt. Nevills (who was on the patrol with Halt) and others. While the Bentwaters case is well known and was already discussed in “Out of the Blue,” Fox takes the original witnesses back to the Rendlesham Forest and then asks an expert in cryptology to try to decipher the symbols that Penniston jotted down in a small notebook on the first night when he and airman John Burroughs witnessed a UFO land in the forest. The expert can’t specifically decipher the alien symbols, but his comments are thought-provoking.

Among the number of important cases discussed by “I Know What I Saw” are the famous Iranian dogfight of September, 1976, the Belgian wave of 1990, the Japan Airlines radar-visual case in Alaska in November, 1986, as well as other airliner sightings in England and France. The more recent sightings in Stephenville, Texas, in January, 2008, are also discussed.

Two scientists who participated in the French Space Agency (CNES) UFO investigation,  doctors Claude Poher and Jean-Claude Ribes, attended the NPC Panel. Fox and Kean also traveled to Paris to interview the current director of that program, Jacques Patenet, as well as Ret. Gen. Denis Letty, who coordinated the semi-official COMETA Report. This last group of retired French military and intelligence officers and government scientists issued in 1999 a very strong report endorsing the reality of UFOs, and the resulting defense implications.

Leslie Kean with General Letty of COMETA and James Fox in Paris, Jan 2008. (image credit: www.iknowwhatisawthemovie.com)

Some critics may object that most of the cases presented by Fox were already well known and have been treated in his previous documentary, and other productions. Others may say that he didn’t go far enough because there were no discussions of Roswell, abductions, crop circles and many other issues. But these criticisms miss the point.

What Fox intended to do, both with the 2007 National Press Club Panel and in his new documentary, was to nail once and for all the issue of credibility and UFOs. He succeeded very well in his endeavor. Presented on camera were retired generals Wilfred De Brouwer from Belgium and Parviz Jafari of Iran, space agency officials from France, military and civil pilots, radar controllers and government scientists (there were also brief interviews with Jimmy Carter and astronaut Gordon Cooper).

These people were all involved with UFOs either as witnesses or investigators in an official capacity, and all the cases presented defy any explanation other than the fact we are dealing with an advanced technology and presence of unknown origin and purpose. If you believe that there is a lack of credibility to prove the UFO phenomenon, then you will have to revise your thoughts after seeing James Fox’s powerful “I Know What I Saw” documentary – unless you have a completely closed mind.

Note: You can purchase the unrated “I Know What I Saw” DVD on the History Channel’s website at www.shop.history.com.

“Mr. Baiata, can you give us a moment please?”

“Sure, how can I help?”

“Well, we don’t know. Maybe you can help. We are concerned about the strange dreams our son Tommy is having. He is four years old, and he dreams that he goes out to play with his friend in our backyard, and that his friend is a cute, white rabbit.”

“Oh, I see, they play, and what else?”

“The rabbit is kind of funny. He has big, black eyes and talks to our son gently, and our kid is so happy… he has no other friends to play with… But we don’t believe that his little friend is a rabbit at all, or that Tommy is dreaming, because in the morning, Tommy’s slippers are dirty with mud. Are they taking him? Where are they bringing him? Can we stop them?”

As we know, it’s tough to provide all the answers. And if you happen to be looking for answers about the abduction phenomenon, you surely should not expect too much from the new abduction thriller “The Fourth Kind.” Olatunde Osunsanmi’s movie is based on real-life experiences of alleged abductees, yet it provides poor insight into the phenomenon.

Image Credit: Universal Studios

Just as in the abduction literature, the Grays utilize their typical strategy to enter the mind of their chosen subjects and click into their time/space reality in an unnoticeable way. They induce images and situations familiar to that person, often including the appearance of animals. In this case, the “victims” saw visions of owls instead of Tommy’s rabbits.

A second pattern emerged, which was one of the few intriguing points of this faux docudrama. For the first time ever (documentaries included), the psychologist/therapist who is leading the hypnotic regression sessions is an abductee also – an equal in the experiences of her patients. But in terms of piquing the viewer’s interest, that’s it.

The plot of “The Fourth Kind” was apparently conceived on real abduction stories. In reality, since many abductees are isolated in their lives and striving for clues, in their quest they end up in the wrong human hands and they can face worse treatments than what the aliens perform on them. By the mass, and in this movie, actual abductees are still viewed as emotionally unstable and deserving of banishment to horrible places such as jail (since they are liars and a criminals), asylums (because they are so mentally distraught they must be removed from “normal” society), or the exorcism room (because the church’s priests must expel the demons).  In Mr. Osunsanmi’s work, the apparent effort to relate to these episodes is evident, but he is telling only one part of the story – that the aliens are mean and malevolent.

Image Credit: Universal Studios

This is all too bad, because Milla Jovovich does a superlative job in her role as the psychologist who is forced to cope with the terrifying abduction reality. One last note: this movie is not a “reenactment.” It is mere fiction of The Fourth Kind.