by Nick Redfern
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. “The more I observed these objects the more upset I became”
2. “The achievement of national objectives”
3. “Russian writing” and Roswell
4. “Some sort of psychological warfare operation”
5. “The Exploitation of superstitions”
6. “Powerful images become permanent fast-breeders”
7. “Russia Will Dominate the World”
8. “Mass hysteria and greater vulnerability”
9. “A possible communist menace to saucer enthusiasts”
10. “A subversive element”
11. “It crusades for the suspension of the H-bomb tests”
12. “There is some communist influence in the bureau”
13. “British-Russian cooperation in observation of UFOs”
14. “The Soviets and the KGB were using U.S. citizens and UFO groups”
15. “Some form of toxin or a highly contagious disease”
16. “How covert agents infiltrate the Internet”
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PHOTO SECTION
UFOs, Russian Meddling,
Soviet Spies & Cold War Secrets
Flying
Saucers
from the
Kremlin
Nick Redfern
Published by Lisa Hagan Books 2019
www.lisahaganbooks.com
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Copyright © Nick Redfern 2019
ISBN: 978-1-945962-18-9
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holders, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
Cover design and interior layout by Simon Hartshorne
Introduction
Russian meddling: they are two words that just about everyone has come to know very well in the last few years. Only a fool – or someone with an agenda of a sinister kind – would deny that such meddling occurred. And on a large scale. It clearly did. The outrageous, almost flagrant, ways in which the Russians unfortunately succeeded in manipulating the United States’ political arena in 2016 are out there for one and all to see. Without the hacking, without the Russians’ widespread use of social media to influence the mindset of the American public, and without the shameful “no evidence of meddling” assertions of certain factions of the right-wing media, the United States would be in a far better shape than it is right now. And, there’s little doubt that the Russians were practically in a state of glee when President Donald Trump chose not to take any significant action against the Russians for their intrusive activities. As CNN noted on July 16, 2018:
“U.S. President Donald Trump, in a stunning rebuke of the U.S. intelligence community, declined on Monday to endorse the U.S. government’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, saying he doesn’t ‘see any reason why’ Russia would be responsible. Instead, Trump - standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin - touted Putin’s vigorous denial and pivoted to complaining about the Democratic National Committee’s server and missing emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal account.”
Still on the matter of Putin, let’s not forget that from 1975 to 1991 he was employed as a foreign intelligence officer in the KGB. History.com states, “The KGB was the primary security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its collapse in 1991. The KGB served a multi-faceted role outside of and within the Soviet Union, working as both an intelligence agency and a force of ‘secret police.’ It was also tasked with some of the same functions as the Department of Homeland Security in the United States today, safeguarding the country from domestic and foreign threats.”
What all of this tells us is that the Russian government is not our friend, it’s not our buddy. It’s a threat to our nation – and to the West as a whole. Short of a nuclear war (which neither side could ever possibly win), the Russians have done whatever they could to try and ensure military superiority over the United States and its allies. There is, however, nothing new about all of this. For decades – and particularly so when the Cold War was at its height – the Russians have sought to find more and more ways to erode our way of life. In the latter part of the 1940s, the Soviet Union embarked on a program designed to use the UFO phenomenon as a dangerous weapon. Not by attacking us with real flying saucers. But, by using the lore, the legend, and the belief-systems that surround the UFO subject. And, in the process, hoping to provoke hysteria and paranoia in the western world.
It’s vital to note that Flying Saucers from the Kremlin is not a skeptical look at the UFO mystery. Just because, for years, the Russians planted and circulated numerous bogus stories of UFOs, doesn’t mean there isn’t a real mystery to be solved. As I personally see it, there certainly is a genuine puzzle to figure out. It remains steadfastly unresolved. It’s important that I make that distinction: there are real UFOs and there are deliberately-crafted lies concerning UFOs. Maybe, the saucers are the products of government agencies. They could be the creations of extraterrestrials. Possibly of interdimensional creatures. Or, the work of something even stranger (time-travelers, maybe?). There could be multiple origins, rather than just one. That’s an issue that we can ponder on forever and a day. But, trying to figure out what UFOs are, is not the goal of this book. I’m here to demonstrate to you how a real strange presence in our midst became entangled in the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union.
Come with me now as we go on a wild and controversial ride into both the past and the present. You’ll see how the Russians tried to use the Contactee movement of the 1950s to their distinct advantage; spread tales of crashed UFOs and alien autopsies; recruited American UFO enthusiasts – who also had connections to the U.S. government - into their strange games; created bogus “government documents” (including at least some of the much-debated Majestic 12 papers); forged links with saucer-seekers in both the U.K. and Australia; and even incorporated the history of the AIDS virus into their disturbing agenda. And there’s much much more.
No such thing as Russian meddling? Don’t make me laugh.
1. “The more I observed these objects the more upset I became”
Before we get to the matter of how and why the U.S. Government was so concerned about a Russian-UFO connection, it’s important to understand the fraught climate that existed in the United States in the post-Second World War era and beyond. And, also how it allowed for UFO-themed shenanigans of a truly weird form to nurture and soon expand –into the 1950s and onward. We’re talking about the “Reds under the beds” scares that had a decisive grip on elements of the populace. In many ways, they were driven by one man: Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy. He, more than anyone else, seeded in the minds of many the notion that there were Soviets, and Russian sympathizers, here, there and just about everywhere in the United States. For the best part of a half a decade, McCarthy hammered home what he saw as a dangerous communist plot to undermine the United States and to destroy the fabric of American society. In McCarthy’s mind, they were everywhere. Americans needed to know that. Time was running out for the land of the free, as McCarthy saw it.
It’s very easy to understand how and why such fears of the Russians began to surface – and quickly too. There was widespread relief when the All
ies won the Second World War in 1945. But, then, not long after Hitler and his cronies were thankfully gone, the world was faced with yet another potential enemy, one that was just as dangerous to national security as the Germans: the Soviet Union. Four years after the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were turned into rubble and ash, and their citizens were killed in six-figures, the Russians well and truly flexed their muscles by detonating their very own atomic bomb. The world collectively shuddered. Fears of a looming, civilization-ending, Third World War understandably grew.
It was also during this state of flux and fear that the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) – which was created in 1938 - was busily trying to dig out Soviet agents and U.S. citizens who had pro-Russian beliefs. The sponsor and first chairman of the HUAC was Martin Dies, Jr., a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. As we’ll soon see, in a strange way, Dies, Jr. had a tie to one of the key players in the early years of Ufology. That same player was suspected of being a communist, as we’ll also soon see.
The Freedom of Information Act has shown that the FBI, working with the HUAC, targeted movie-stars, writers, poets, musicians, and just about anyone who seemed to be anything less than a full-on, patriotic American. Often, the accusations were completely bogus. One year after Russia showed the world that it, too, now had the bomb, Congress initiated the McCarran Internal Security Act. It allowed the government to keep a careful and even closer watch on anyone in the United States who might be considered not exactly one hundred percent kosher.
Famously – or, maybe, infamously would be far more correct – in February 1950, McCarthy spoke at the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club. In a raging bull style, he claimed that hundreds of communists were actively working within the U.S. Department of State. The claim became big news, despite the fact that McCarthy wouldn’t – or possibly couldn’t – provide the goods to support his eye-opening claims. Nevertheless, the tidal wave of unsupported statements continued to make big, nationwide news. Three years on, McCarthy was put in control of the Committee on Government Operations. Still a senator, McCarthy now had even more power to root out what he saw as a vast number of closet-communists. He even maintained that the U.S. military had been infiltrated, too – and to a major degree. It was, however, when McCarthy’s hearings were broadcast on television that entire swathes of the population saw McCarthy as someone seemingly attacking those he had in his sights, but without much in the way of evidence.
The whole thing left a very bad taste in the mouths of many, to the extent that nearly all of McCarthy’s supporters finally walked away from him, effectively leaving him weakened and, finally, ineffective. But, the memories of McCarthyism proved to be both powerful and enduring, to the extent that even with McCarthy largely gone, there were fears that Russia was still working hard, and secretly, to destroy the fabric of American society. From the summer of 1947, those same concerns related to all-things of a flying saucer nature.
It should be noted that the Russians’ UFO program was far from being the only strange operation designed to create fear in the United States. As the Freedom of Information Act has shown, in 1951 the FBI – to its grave concern – heard fear-inducing rumors that the Soviets had secretly managed to smuggle an atomic bomb into the United States. Worse still, the Bureau’s source – an unknown figure in Brazil – claimed that the bomb was primed and ready to go. Right in the heart of New York City. Hundreds of thousands could be dead in seconds, vaporized; maybe even millions. FBI special-agents spent several years chasing down just about every lead possible. Eventually, however, they gave up the chase, suspecting strongly that the whole story was a fabrication, one that was specifically designed to ignite terror. For a while, it did exactly that. Moving on, in 1952 the Soviets had their agents spread bogus tales claiming that the United States’ cattle-herd had been infected with a deadly virus. It wasn’t true. But, it, too, reached the eyes and the ears of the FBI. As with the story of the smuggled atomic device, this tale also had certain agencies in a state of consternation, but, eventually, it too fizzled out. I mention this to show that all manner of strange operations were afoot in that early Cold War era, and their creators were all intent on causing mayhem in the minds of the U.S. government, intelligence agencies, and the military.
The UFO program, though, was surely the strangest of them all.
There’s absolutely no doubt that had pilot Kenneth Arnold not encountered a veritable squadron of strange-looking aircraft near Mt. Rainier, Washington State on the afternoon of June 24, 1947, there would never have been an opportunity for the Russians – and for the United States, too, as we’ll soon see – to exploit a very real phenomenon of mystifying origins and nature for psychological and military gain. But, as history has shown, Arnold most assuredly did have that now-legendary encounter. Whether Arnold encountered a number of extraterrestrial craft, advanced creations of the Soviet Union, or the then-latest developments of the U.S. military, remains unknown. The theories are many. Hard answers are scant. Let’s take a look at what happened to Arnold on that particular day which changed the world. Arnold said…
The following story of what I observed over the Cascade Mountains, as impossible as it may seem, is positively true. I never asked nor wanted any notoriety for just accidentally being in the right spot at the right time to observe what I did. I reported something that I know any pilot would have reported. I don’t think that in any way my observation was due to any sensitivity of eye-sight or judgment than what is considered normal for any pilot. On June 24th, Tuesday, 1947, I had finished my work for the Central Air Service at Chehalis, Washington, and at about two o’clock I took off from Chehalis, Washington, airport with the intention of going to Yakima, Washington. My trip was delayed for an hour to search for a large marine transport that supposedly went down near or around the southwest side of Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington and to date has never been found.
I flew directly toward Mt. Rainier after reaching an altitude of about 9,500 feet, which is the approximate elevation of the high plateau from which Mt. Rainier rises. I had made one sweep of this high plateau to the westward, searching all of the various ridges for this marine ship and flew to the west down and near the ridge side of the canyon where Ashford, Washington, is located. Unable to see anything that looked like the lost ship, I made a 360 degree turn to the right and above the little city of Mineral, starting again toward Mt. Rainier. I climbed back up to an altitude of approximately 9,200 feet. The air was so smooth that day that it was a real pleasure flying and, as most pilots do when the air is smooth and they are flying at a higher altitude, I trimmed out my airplane in the direction of Yakima, Washington, which was almost directly east of my position and simply sat in my plane observing the sky and the terrain.
There was a DC-4 to the left and to the rear of me approximately fifteen miles distance, and I should judge, at 14,000 foot elevation. The sky and air was clear as crystal. I hadn’t flown more than two or three minutes on my course when a bright flash reflected on my airplane. It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other aircraft. I looked every place in the sky and couldn’t find where the reflection had come from until I looked to the left and the north of Mt. Rainier where I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from north to south at approximately 9,500 foot elevation and going, seemingly, in a definite direction of about 170 degrees.
They were approaching Mt. Rainier very rapidly, and I merely assumed they were jet planes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or three of them every few seconds would dip or change their course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane. These objects being quite far away, I was unable for a few seconds to make out their shape or their formation. Very shortly they approached Mt. Rainier, and I observed their outline against the snow quite plainly.
I thought it was very peculiar that I couldn�
��t find their tails but assumed they were some type of jet plane. I was determined to clock their speed, as I had two definite points I could clock them by; the air was so clear that it was very easy to see objects and determine their approximate shape and size at almost fifty miles that day. I remember distinctly that my sweep second hand on my eight day clock, which is located on my instrument panel, read one minute to 3 P.M. as the first object of this formation passed the southern edge of Mt. Rainier. I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed airplanes flying so close to the mountain tops, flying directly south to southeast down the hog’s back of a mountain range. I would estimate their elevation could have varied a thousand feet one way or another up or down, but they were pretty much on the horizon to me which would indicate they were near the same elevation as I was.
They flew like the many times I have observed geese [sic] to fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together. They seemed to hold a definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks. Their speed at the time did not impress me particularly, because I knew that our army and air forces had planes that went very fast. What kept bothering me as I watched them flip and flash in the sun right along their path was the fact that I couldn’t make out any tail on them, and I am sure that any pilot would justify more than a second look at such a plane. I observed them quite plainly, and I estimate my distance from them, which was almost at right angles, to be between twenty to twenty-five miles. I knew they must be very large to observe their shape at that distance, even on as clear a day as it was that Tuesday, In fact I compared a zeus [sic: it should be “Dzus”] fastener or cowling tool I had in my pocket with them - holding it up on them and holding it up on the DC-4 - that I could observe at quite a distance to my left, and they seemed smaller than the DC-4; but, I should judge their span would have been as wide as the furtherest [sic] engines on each side of the fuselage of the DC-4.
