Pilot Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich and UFOs
By Paul Stonehill and Philip Mantle
On September 30th 2009, General-Major of Aviation, Pilot-Cosmonaut Pavel Romanovich Popovich, the first Ukrainian cosmonaut in history, passed away. Always proud of his ethnicity, twice Hero of the Soviet Union award, he had many other awards and medals.
Pavel Popovich was greatly respected; a kind, nice and decent person, always ready to help others. His life was intertwined with the turbulent history of UFO research in the Soviet Union after 1978.
Popovich was born in Soviet Ukraine on October 5, 1929. A young engineer and amateur pilot, Popovich joined the Soviet Air Force; in 1960 he was enrolled in the first team of cosmonauts. Popovich was the Number "Four" Cosmonaut in the history of manned spaceflights. He underwent a full course of training for space flights on board "Vostok” spacecraft.
Pavel Popovich (as a boy) lived under the Nazi occupation for several years, and this fact could sink his chances to become a Soviet cosmonaut. The KGB took several months to study biographies of each of the future cosmonauts; someone must have had the courage to overlook that fact, and let him continue his training.
His first spaceflight was aboard the “Vostok-4" spaceship in 1962. Later, Pavel Popovich was trained for the Soviet Moon research program. After the program was cancelled, Popovich underwent training for flights aboard “Soyuz” spaceships. His second mission into space was as the chief pilot of the Soyuz-14 spaceship in 1974. The flight was part of the Soviet program of military use of space exploration technology. Popovich’s call name was Berkut-1 (Golden Eagle). Having docked with the Salyut 3 orbital station (this was a cover name for the secret battle station Almaz-2), Popovich and his engineer, had conducted military intelligence operations. They had infrared and powerful optical equipment, 14 special cameras, and even one thirty millimeter cannon. One of the tasks was to capture the American Skylab station with three astronauts aboard. The Americans had a special nickname for Popovich: “Aggressor”. But the program later was shut down.
Between the years 1980 to1989 he served as the Deputy Chief of the Y. Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center.
PRESIDENT OF THE UFO ASSOCIATION
In 1990, OYUZUFOTSENTR, the very first official public UFO research organization of the Soviet Union was formed. Its director was V. Ajaja, a former naval officer, a submariner, a long-suffering independent UFO researcher and lecturer. Its president, Pavel Popovich clearly stated in interviews that he headed SOYUZUFOTSENTR on behest of his friends, UFO researchers. Popovich never considered himself to be an expert in the field of ufology. He did help those who tried to research it independently, or as part of the secret Soviet program. His authority and reputation had greatly helped Ajaja’s efforts to keep his organization viable in post-1991 Russia.
POPOVICH AND SETKA: A SECRET SOVIET UFO RESEARCH PROGRAM
In 1978, the powerful Military-Industrial Commission created two UFO research centers, one in the USSR Academy of Sciences, the other in the USSR Defense Ministry. The anomalous phenomena research in the USSR Academy of Sciences became the subject of a special scientific research program designated as SETKA-AN. The Soviet Ministry of Defense embarked on a similar program, the secret SETKA-MO. Both centers aided each other’s UFO research and exchanged information. The first act of the SETKA-AN resulted in official sanction of "anomalous atmospheric phenomena" as a descriptive term, instead of the forbidden "UFO."
The SETKA-AN debunkers did its best to prove there are no UFOs, only errors in observation of rocket launches, or at the very least, ball lightning. But there had been occasions when "anomalous phenomena" had led to the unauthorized launches of mobile missiles, and on other occasions, the appearance of UFOs during military training exercises had resulted in the breakdown of radio communications and equipment malfunctions.
The program ended in 1991, but a group of experts remained in the Department of General Physics and Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences where they analyzed incoming reports until 1996.
Scientific arguments regarding the nature of UFOs had been the least of the military researchers' concerns; they did, however, pay close attention to the hypothesis that UFOs are manifestations of an ET civilization. They had been concerned with UFOs' quite unpredictable impact on military technology and on personnel. They wanted to know how they could use UFO properties for their own pragmatic military needs.
In 1984, by the decision of VSNTO (All-Union Council of Scientific Technical Societies), a Central Commission for Anomalous Phenomena in the Environment was created. Its Chairman was Soviet academician V. Troitsky, one of his deputies was General-Major of Aviation, Pilot-Cosmonaut P. Popovich.
The Commission was born because those in charge of the academic research of the SETKA program basically got rid of independent UFO researchers, leaving only the debunkers together with military specialists from secret military institutes in the program.
