CIA report on UFO

The CIA recently declassified an intelligence report which throws new light on a nearly
50-year-old mystery. The report uncovers facts collected from an experimental missile range situated
in present-day Kazakhstan (the Soviet Union’s Sary Shagan Weapons Testing Range). It includes
the information about a mysterious UFO sighting and tests with laser weapons from the Cold War
times.

The UFO sighting took place at one of the missile range locations called Site 7 during a summer
evening of 1973. The CIA report describes a witness who lived 50km away from the Sary Shagan
Range. That evening he was watching a Canada vs. USSR sports game on TV. At one moment he took
a break and stepped outside to get some fresh air. Suddenly, a sharp light blinded him. He looked up
and saw an unidentified bright green circular object in the sky. Although the object was flying low,
the witness was unable to give its approximate size.

According to the report, the sighting was really weird: “Within 10 to 15 seconds of observation,
the green object got much wider and several green circles formed around it. A few minutes later the
object disappeared. There was no sound, such as an explosion, connected with it”.
The CIA published a full report on that UFO sighting after a request from the researcher John
Greenewald, who runs a special website about declassified government records. Greenewald
analysed the report and came to the conclusion that the unexplained sighting from Kazakhstan was
the effect of the Soviet Union military tests. He says that in the 1970s the Soviets were launching
many experimental missiles and the flying object at the Sary Shagan Range was probably one of
them.

Greenewald also made an interesting connection between the unexplained sightings from the Cold
War era and other similar “UFO encounters” documented by the US Department of Defence.
The CIA report also shows other details about the Soviet testing range in Kazakhstan. They are
maps of the military facilities, personnel numbers and data about weapon tests. The Soviet secret
weapon tests raised the Americans’ interest in the range long before rumours about the UFO
appeared.

The weapons which were tested there included advanced missiles and warheads. Moreover,
experimental weapons were also under development there. “According to a US source, top secret
military tests with laser weapons were conducted there. Supposedly they involved powerful
antennas,” the American report said. Not surprisingly, the “UFO encounter” happened at Site 7. It
was used as the headquarters for the warhead checkout unit and a garrison of Soviet Air Force
troops.

The 1973 UFO sighting was not a single incident with unidentified flying objects during
the Cold War. In fact, many more similar encounters were reported near military installations both in
the USSR and the USA.

Zadanie 1.

1. The CIA report reveals information about recent Russian laser weapon tests. T F

2. A witness went outside to check a mysterious light. T F

3. The object made a lot of noise as it disappeared. T F

4. John Greenewald believes the object seen in Kazakhstan was a missile. T F

5. Americans got interested in the Soviet range before reports about UFO sightings. T F

6. The Russians tried using powerful antennas to stop American spying. T F

7. During the Cold War UFOs were observed near American and Soviet military areas. T F
Task 2. Read the texts and choose the best answer A, B or C.

Troublesome catch

One spring morning, the crew of the Danish fishing boat Soraya was catching cod in the Baltic Sea
near the Polish territorial waters. As the men pulled their fish on board, the young fisherman, Theis
Branick, went under the net to make sure it was all right and to open it. When the fish spilled out
onto the deck, he found the net had also caught something else – a large, yellow-brown lump of a
strange substance. The Soraya fishermen suspected the additional catch might be a throwback from
the past. And they were right – what Branick found turned out to be a big piece of solidified mustard
gas from World War II.

“It was a huge lump, weighing about 15 kg, and with no traces of metal casing,” says Michael
Jepson, skipper of the Soraya. He realized how dangerous the catch was and immediately followed
the regulations and alerted the military authorities on Bornholm. Soon the navy officers boarded
the boat, inspected the poison and took it away. They were going to throw it back into the sea in
a designated dumping area. Two hours later Branick started to feel strange. “I was fine outside in
the cold, but when I came into the warm cabin it started to itch and burn like hell on my back. I took
off my clothes. The others said I had a red spot the size of a fist on my back.”

Fishing has long been regarded as one of the world’s most dangerous occupations. Many fishermen
around the world die each year in weather-related accidents. But in the Baltic Sea there is another
danger – about 35,000 tons of chemical munitions sunk by the Russians in the late 1940s near
Bornholm and the Swedish island of Gotland, west of Latvia. Even more dangerous loads, sealed in
German warships, were sunk by Britain and the U.S. in the deep waters of the Skagerrak, an arm of
the North Sea, and in the Norwegian Sea. Over time, some of the weapons in the Baltic, e.g.: blister
agents (such as sulfur mustard), and other chemical irritants, which were once the property of Nazi
Germany, have lost their metal casings. As a result, they become solidified and get directly into water
where they are caught in fishing nets. This is another danger fishermen face.

“In the Baltic,” says Commander K.M. Jorgensen of the Danish Navy, “the shells were dumped
over the rails of Russian ships. In the Skagerrak, they were sunk inside ships that are now lying in 500
to 700m of water.” The Helsinki Commission, which works to protect the Baltic marine environment,
has said the toxins should be left on the seabed. That is the general agreement. “It has been there
for so long that it poses the least hazard where it is,” says biologist Henning Karup of Denmark’s
Environmental Protection Agency. Only a few fishermen have been treated for gas-related injuries
since the 1960s, and the long-term environmental impact is unclear.

A Greenpeace Denmark spokesman, Jackob Hartmann, admits that trying to raise the chemicals
“might pose new and even worse problems”. But he also says: “It is not an easy issue, and referring
to a 1994 report by the Helsinki Commission isn’t good enough. We need updated information on
the state and location of the materials.” But there are no plans and funds for a new survey, and
neighboring countries accuse each other of not sharing information.

The Ecology and Foreign Affairs committees of Russia’s Parliament held hearings on weapons,
then recommended a program of evaluation, monitoring and forecasting. “We keep working on
the issue,” says Vladymir Mandrygin, chief of the Ecology Committee. “However, not all our Baltic
neighbors are supportive; they prefer not to talk about it. Russian scientists have been offering
various projects for handling the issue, but there is no financing.” Another Russian expert adds that
old munitions are not only a potential threat to ecology and harm to fishermen, “but most
importantly,they put at risk gas pipes and communication cables lying on the sea shelf.”
The young Danish fisherman was lucky. “I only got hit by the water that had been in contact
with the gas. If I had touched the gas itself, it could have been much, much worse.” Like their
governments, Baltic fishermen are learning to live with the danger.

1. The Danish fishermen …

a) had difficulty pulling the net out of water
b) discovered the fishing net was damaged
c) found something unusual in the fishing net
2. After inspecting the net, the Danish skipper …
a) decided that it was nothing serious
b) acted according to the standard rules
c) dumped the load back into the sea
3. The WW2 chemical munitions are dangerous today because they …
a) get directly into the water
b) lie in too shallow waters
c) are in wrecks which corrode
4. According to the Helsinki Commission, the weapons should be …
a) moved to deeper sea areas
b) left where they currently are
c) monitored by marine scientists
5. The Greenpeace spokesman says removing the chemicals might be difficult because …
a) the new plan for their recovery has to be accepted
b) the details about munitions need to be updated
c) there is too little funding to raise the chemicals
6. Russia wants the problem to be solved because it worries about …
a) the safety of submarines
b) the underwater ecosystem
c) the underwater installations
7. In the final paragraph, the author says that all the interested people …
a) accept the dangerous situation
b) are optimistic about the future
c) try to reduce the existing threat