Hello and welcome to Journey to the fringe where we have the most attractive audience and we’re not afraid to say it, no matter how many emails we are going to receive from our HR for improper workplace behaviour. We are your very interested hosts Taylor and Chelsie. 

USOs in Russia

Intro

Like many researchers in Russia, the authors of this book have been fascinated by USO reports. USO is an acronym for unidentified submersible objects, essentially what we think of as UFOs, but underwater. In this book for the very first time, we will detail accounts of strange phenomena observed at sea, along with mysterious underwater objects, many of which have been reported by sincere and diligent witnesses.

We will take a close look at the work of our colleagues in Russia and the Soviet Union who have studied this remarkable topic for decades. We must add, however, that at times some researchers have been very reluctant to release such information and others have simply refused. Secret files of the Soviet Navy contain a great deal of valuable information about UFO and USO sightings, and researchers of the Soviet military have been very thorough and professional. Unfortunately, the files continue to be largely inaccessible, even after the fall of the USSR. But through years of research, and with the help of our colleagues in the former Soviet Union, modern Russia, Ukraine, and other now independent countries, we have been able to collect a great deal of fascinating and previously unpublished information.

Russian story collector

Yevgeny Litvinov typical of intelligence officers, he has developed a complex method for selecting and classifying cases and has a database contains 10,000 observations and incidents, and he developed a scale of credible authenticity based on 350 criteria. From this, he concluded that around 70% of UFO reports can be explained as either misidentification of known technology, meteorological phenomena, or simple wishful thinking. However, he argued, the other 30% are observations of bona fide UFOs. In his opinion, there are too many of them to wave away. Litvinov added that more often than not, UFOs are observed over military installations, areas of ecological disasters, and geological faults.

Soviet Meteorological Service and UFOs

In the central north of Russia lies Khatanga. Khatanga’s first hydrometeorological station was established in 1934. In the stations archive is a thin file titled UP (unidentified phenomena). According to S. Ignatiyev, head of the Khatanga Airport, Soviet meteorologists had often observed UFOs, frequently in the form of a radiant sphere. One such sphere was observed on October 22, 1979 by Lyudmila Kuz’menko, a weather forecaster, along with flight commander Aleksander Bayazitov and other colleagues. It was northeast of the position, about fifteen kilometers from the village, at the fairly low altitude of 200-300 meters. The sphere moved toward the southeast for ten minutes then faded and turned into a thin cloud, simply vanishing. The same was confirmed by the crew of an IL-62, flying the Petropavlosk-Moscow flight at the altitude of 10800 meters at the time of the sighting. They were 300 kms from Khatanga. Another aircraft, an AN-26, reported the same phenomenon. 

In October 1987, a team of Khatanga meteorologists recorded another unusual phenomenon. To the Southwest, behind the Khatanga river, an unidentified object was seen descending at a 60 degree angle until it disappeared in an area of poor visibility low to the horizon. It was described as metallic looking and of complex shape, primarily cylindrical but with a dome at the top. The objects movements were accompanied by a smoky trail which extended behind. Air traffic controllers confirmed the presence of the UFO. Attack helicopters were dispatched after the UFO was detected, but they found no trace of it. 

Pilots who have flown over the remote Russian arctic regions have tended to observe UFOs more frequently than their colleagues who fly over more heavily populated areas. Several have included close engagements. At other times, encounters involved loss of electronic 
controls of various kinds, whether of airborn sound, or other kinds of malfunctioning. 

The Map story

In the Meditranian in November of 1976 the Coviet diesel submarine project 641 (Foxtrot per Nato Classification) navigated through the Straits of Gebraltar and surfaced inthe mediterranean sea. It was 2:00 AM and the sea was absolutely still. The captain, the watch officer and signal man all came up on the deck to verify the vessel’s coordinates. Suddenly they noticed a bright silver sphere to the left just above the horizon. The sphere dropped rapidly and suddenly they all observed right in front of the sub, on the water, an illuminated map of the Mediterranean. It appeared at precisely the moment when the navigator was trying to determine the sub's location measuring the position of stars. The impression was that someone aboard the sphere read the Russia navigator's thoughts. Moreover, the illuminated map also indicated the sub's position. The sphere flew away and the map disappeared, all to the absolute astonishment of the observers. 


Mother Ship

In the 1970s, reports issued by Rear Admiral Viktor A. Domislovsky, chief of the Pacific Fleet's Intelligence Department, described an unknown, gigantic cylindrical object observed by the Soviet Navy somewhere in a distant region of the Pacific Ocean. The object was 800-900 meters long. When it hovered over the ocean, smaller objects exited from one end of it, like bees from a beehive, and descended into the ocean. Some time later they emerged from the water and reentered the gigantic UFO.

The Croakers

During the late 1960’s, the Cold War was still raging, and dangers for both sides of the ruthless (and frequently invisible) war lurked in the skies, on land, and underwater, During this period, a particularly strange underwater phenomenon attracted the attention of the Soviet Navy's High Command. Soviet nuclear-powered submarines began encountering strange sounds emanating from moving objects at great depths. The process of listening to underwater sounds is known as hydroacoustic monitoring, and these Soviet monitors began detecting strange signals that resembled the croaking of frogs. The objects responsible for these sounds were dubbed the kvakeri, a term which was officially adopted within the Soviet Navy's documents. Kvakat' in Russian means "to croak."

Nuclear submarines, which drove the Cold War's most furious phase of the arms race, seem to have been of greatest interest to the kvakeri. According to Vice Admiral Viktor Patrushev, Chief of Operations on the General Staff of the Russian Navy and professor of the Academy of Military Sciences, the Soviets had built 243 nuclear submarines of various classes as well as over 1,000 diesel submarines. The course and bearing indicators of the Soviet naval vessels demonstrated that the unknown objects would circle the subs and change the frequency and tone of their signals. The Soviets were never able to establish the source of
the sound. They would come from different sides, with constant changes in tone. It was as if the objects were inviting the submarines to engage in conversations of sorts. 

The kvakeri reacted actively but apparently never aggressively to the acoustic dispatches from the submarines. They would accompany Soviet submarines until the latter would exit a certain area. Then, producing the croaking sound for the last time, they would disappear. In April 1970, for instance, the Avakeri accompanied a reconnaissance vessel known as the Khariton Laptev, code-named SS V 503, while it was on a secret mission in the North Atlantic. This was precisely at the time when a Soviet nuclear submarine, the K-8, perished in the area. The reconnaissance ship then stopped its sonar operations, rushed to the submarine, and was able to save many of the crew. 

Even though there was never any known hostile confrontation with the kvakeri in the long years of their interaction, Soviet commanders and submarine crews quite naturally found encounters with them stressful. The Soviet Minister of Defense, Marshal Andrei Antonovich Grechko, ordered the creation of a special research team by the Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet Navy to investigate the kvakeri. Admiral Sergey Georgiyevich Gorshkov spared no effort to research this phenomenon which was obstructing his navy's operations.* He ordered a series of oceanic expeditions to research the kvakeri as well as other unusual phenomena. Soviet officers in the Top Secret naval research program performed their duties eagerly; they were well educated and highly
professional people. They continuously visited different Soviet fleets and collected all available information. Vadim Kulinchenko, a retired Soviet naval officer and submariner who had also been a senior officer in the Main Staff of the Russian Navy, was the first former Soviet Navy officer to reveal details about the kvakeri." He recalled the stir created byreports of strange, unidentified noi, that accompanied Soviet subs in they secret missions in unfriendly water, He considered the kvakeri to be like UFOs: observed by many and yet
Unproven. The kvakeri were encountered mostly in the Atlantic Ocean, but also in northern areas such as the Norwegian Sea and on to the westem border of the Barents Sea."    According DeO Vadim Kulinchenko to other sources, they were also found
to operate as far as away as near the Philippines. Adding to the mystery is that sonar technicians not only detected "croaking" sounds, but other strange sounds, as well
Although the croaking sounds were the most common, no one knew why." Even now, little is confirmed in the way of specifics about the phenomenon or the program. 

Apparently, the phenomenon ceased to bother Soviet ships by the early 1980s, and the kvakeri research program was abruptlystopped. Other former Soviet military officers and researchers have revealed more information about unusual underwater phenomena. Were the kvakeri some kind of American technology? Not surprisingly, opinions are divided.

Admiral Vladimir Nikolayevich Chernavin, for instance, strongly stated that he knew for a fact that the Americans had instructions to collect information about anomalous phenomena, very much like the Soviet Instruction regarding UFOs and USOs written by Ajaja. For this reason, some Soviet military researchers believed that the kvakeri to be genuine USOs, not manufactured by the Americans.

Yet most of the specialists in the research groups who stung the phenomenon have not agreed with this assessment Me, believed America to be the chief suspect behind the kvaken.T surmise from the Soviet Navy was that its vessels when encountering some sort of advanced U,S, submarine trackey, technology, Rear Admiral Vladlen Naumoy, for example
suggested that the kvaker! were U,S, Navy sonic underway buoys. Back in September 1975, as a Captain 1st Rank (MilitaryUnit 63900), Naumov was given command of the K-In.
submarine cruiser." He heard the kvakeri during his missions and after also studying the experience of other Soviet nuclear submarines armed with ballistic missiles, stated that he
established a procedure to evade the kvakeri on the basis that they were sonic underwater buoys. These buoys would have been part of SOSUS, an acronym for Sound Surveillance System: a chain of underwater listening posts across the North Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland, and the U.K. This was operated by the U.S. Navy to track Soviet submarines in the Atlantic and elsewhere. According to Naumov, during its service
history, the K-182 was approached by the kvakeri 72 times and was able to cut contact with them all 72 times. His experience naturally elicited a great interest from the Soviet High
Command. 

Naumov's opinion is shared by an anonymous Soviet submariner, who expressed his opinion in one of the Russian forums dedicated to the kvakeri phenomenon. This person wrote that on a number of occasions he heard sounds emitted by kvakeri through the sound channel of the Soviet MGK-300 Rubin submarine towed-array sonar. He recorded the sounds and analyzed them during the years he served aboard the submarines
of the 3rd Division. This was in the mid-1970s, when the Avakeri phenomenon was in its heyday. At the beginning of the 198Os, he personally observed the phenomenon and became convinced that it was caused by an aerial buoy dropped from U.S, Navy PS or PM aircraft. He heard the familiar Avakeri sounds through the sonar sound channel of a surface vessel. An aircraft would drop the buoy and the Soviets at once would hear the Avakeri sounds from precisely the direction where the buoy had landed. The anonymous writer added that it is significant that the sonar operators of surface vessels had not been given instructions to study the Avakeri. Or, he added, the results of such study could have been so mundane and clear that only the submariners still carried romantic recollections about the Avakeri phenomenon. The writer also mentioned that the Avakeri sounds always reminded him of the typical dry knocking sound of wooden spoons, as made by spoon players in Russian folk music. The Avakeri conduct could be best understood, he argued, if one recalls that the buoys contained water-filled cell batteries; as the batteries discharged, the signals emitted became longer.

The Swimmers

In the summer of 1982, Mark Shteynberg, along with Lt. Colonel Gennady Zverev, conducted periodic training of the reconnaissance divers (frogmen) from the Turkestan and Central Asian military regions. Some of these training exercises took place at the Issyk Kul Lake in Krygyzstan. Quite unexpectedly, the officers were paid a visit by a very important official, Major-General V. Demyanenko, commander of the Military Diver Service of the Engineer Forces of the Ministry of Defense. He informed the local officers of an extraordinary event that had occurred during similar training exercises in the Trans-Baikal and West Siberian military regions.

There, during their military training dives in Lake Baikal, the frogmen had encountered mysterious underwater swimmers, very human-like, except that their size was much larger--almost three meters tall. Despite icy-cold water temperatures and a depth of fifty meters, they were dressed only in tight-fitting silvery suits with neither scuba diving equipment (aqualungs) nor any other equipment- only sphere-like helmets concealing
their heads. The local military commander, who was alarmed by such encounters, decided on a plan to capture one of the creatures. 

To complete the mission, a special group of seven divers, under the command of an officer, had been dispatched. Apparently, as the frogmen tried to cover the creature with a net, some powerful unknown force threw the entire group out of the deep waters to the surface. In those days, the equipment of the trogmen did not allow rapid ascent from such depths without strict adherence to the process of decompression stops. Therefore, all of the members of the ill-fated expedition were stricken by aeroembolism of Caisson disease. The only remedial treatment available consisted of an immediate confinement under decompression conditions within a pressure chamber. There were several such pressure chambers in the military region, but only one was in working condition, and it was only built to contain no more than two persons at any time. Seeing little choice in the matter, the local Commanding Officer forced four frogmen into the chamber at once. As a result, three of the men, including the group leader, died, while the rest became invalids. 

The major-general rushed to Issyk Kul to warn the local military against similar risky operations. Although Issyk Kul Lake is shallower than Lake Baikal (which is the world's deepest lake, as well as the largest freshwater lake in terms of volume), the depth of the former seemed sufficient to contain similar mysterious creatures. Did the major-general know something that Officer Shteynberg did not? We shall probably never know.

 A short time later, the staff headquarters of the Turkmenistan military region received an order from the Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces. The order consisted of reprimands and a detailed analysis of the Lake Bailal events. It was supplemented by an information bulletin from the headquarters of the Engineer Forces of the Ministry of Defense, USSR.  The bulletin listed numerous deepwater lakes where sightings of anomalous phenomena had been registered, appearances of unknown underwater creatures similar to the Baikal type, descent and surfacing of giant discs and spheres, and a powerful
luminescence emanating from the depths of the lake. Such official documents, without exception, were highly classified and "for eyes only" of a very limited circle of military officers. The purpose for such documents was "to prevent unnecessary encounters."

The territory under the military unit jurisdiction where Shiteynberg had served contained an anomalous Water reservoir, Sarez Lake, in the Pamir area. Located deep in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, Sarez. Lake was created in 1911 when a strong earthquake triggered a massive landslide that, in turn, became a huge dam along the Murghob River, now called the Usoi Dam. The area still experiences considerable seismic activity today. It is possible that part of the right bank may slump into the lake, creating a gigantic wave that will top over and possibly breach the natural dam, creating a catastrophic flood downstream reaching all the way to the Aral Sea. Since 2004, the lake has been monitored for surging water levels or other events that might cause the dam to fail. 

The lake is visible from the nearby Pamir Mountains, where a Soviet tracking station during the 1980s monitored American satellites associated with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The powerful instruments, equipment, and devices of this unit had also repeatedly registered disc-like objects coming in and
out of the lake. Indeed, according to a Soviet military report mentioned by Mark Shteynberg, UFOs have allegedly been monitoring Sarez since the early 1980s. 

Here are two observations from the Issyk Kul area in Krygyzstan, both from 1990.

In February, in the Ak Suu Gorge near the Issyk Kul, local shepherds observed a large sphere at the distance of 700 meters. he sphere separated into four parts that flew off in different directions, only to rejoin half a minute later. This was repeated three times, and afterwards the sphere flew toward the lake.

 Later that year, on June 20, 1990, an expedition of the SAKKUFON research organisation was on its way to the Tien Shan Mountains on the Sino-Soviet border. It was comprised of scientists, military personnel, civilians, KGB officers, and ufologists. Two members of the expedition observed a triangular UFO at the Issyk Kul Lake. The object moved at a low-altitude, turned around, and simply vanished. The UFO had bright luminescent lights, its altitude was about 20 meters and later it flew over the main group of the expedition.

These are just two examples of the many UFO/USO sightings that have been reported from the Issyk Kul area, and many of which are similar to observations made in other Soviet lakes and seas.