Flying Saucers from the Kremlin

by Nick Redfern

  Parrott was, as the staff who run the website of the Arlington Cemetery, note: “…a former official with the Central Intelligence Agency and a member of several hospital boards and citizen group. Mr. Parrott spent 24 years with the CIA and was Assistant Deputy Director for National Intelligence Programs. Early in his career, he was Deputy Chief of the Soviet Division of the Clandestine Services Unit, a base chief in Germany and an assistant to CIA Director Allen Dulles.”

  As far as Lansdale’s mind-blowing idea is concerned, Parrott had this to say to the Select Committee in 1975: “I’ll give you one example of Lansdale’s perspicacity. He had a wonderful plan for getting rid of Castro. This plan consisted of spreading the word that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent and that Christ was against Castro who was anti-Christ. And you would spread this word around Cuba, and then on whatever date it was, that there would be a manifestation of this thing. At the time – this was absolutely true – and at the time just over the horizon, there would be an American submarine that would surface off of Cuba and send up some star-shells. This would be the manifestation of the Second Coming and Castro would be overthrown.”

  For those who may not know, star-shells are powerful flares used by military agencies, chiefly to light up the night-skies. Lansdale didn’t just bring star-shells to the table, however. His plan was to recruit a crack-team of U.S. Navy personnel who would be integral players in the operation. They would approach the coastal areas in fleets of small submarines, which would then project huge pictures of Jesus onto the clouds over Cuba, and as close as possible to the capital city of Havana. Lansdale was still not finished. He also planned to have compact aircraft fly with their engines muffled and hidden by those same clouds – and then broadcast the “voice of Jesus” via a number of powerful loud-speakers. The message was going to be clear and to-the-point: renounce Castro and embrace the West. The operation, however, proved to be too difficult to successfully execute and it was ultimately shelved. The plan, though, does show one important thing when it came to national security-based issues: that during the Cold War, UFOs were not the only high-flying, supernatural phenomena that intelligence agencies deemed ripe for manipulation.

  12. “There is some communist influence in the bureau”

  It was not just the intelligence services of the United States and the United Kingdom who were concerned by the activities of certain controversial figures in Ufology with provable ties to communism. The Australian government did very much likewise. The situation was spreading and spiraling. Like a bad rash, too. A red rash, of course. Previously-classified documentation placed into the public domain by the Commonwealth of Australia demonstrates that more than a few characters in the flying saucer scene of the fifties, sixties and seventies had links to the menacing commies. But, were those links purely innocent in nature? Or, incredibly, were Australia’s UFO sleuths – or, at least, some of them – in league with sinister figures operating right out of the very heart of the Kremlin itself? For national security reasons, the answers to those questions were sorely needed. And they were found.

  Australia’s Freedom of Information Act has revealed that the vast majority of all the spying on the nation’s alien-seekers in the early days of the Cold War was undertaken by the ASIO: the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. Imagine the CIA meets the National Security Agency meets the U.K.’s Special Branch, and you’ll have a good idea of the structure and work of the ASIO. Not to mention the overwhelming secrecy surrounding it. The ASIO state of their long-running organization that its creation was directly driven by the unsettling fact that, as far back as the late 1940s, Soviet agents were already prowling around Australia: infiltrating, machinating, and doing all they could to cause problems for the people of Australia and its government.

  The ASIO’s staff state the following of the agency’s creation and early history:

  When Prime Minister Ben Chifley established ASIO by charter in 1949, Australia and other Western nations had emerged from the Second World War and were grappling with a different kind of threat - Soviet interference.

  These were the early days of the Cold War. A series of decoded Soviet cables—known as the Venona intercepts—confirmed Soviet spies were active in Australia, prompting the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) to suspend the sharing of intelligence with us. Great Britain sought Australia’s commitment to establish a more rigorous internal security intelligence regime.

  David Horner, author of The Spy Catchers: the Official History of ASIO 1949–1963 explains: “American and British cryptanalysts deciphered the encrypted cabled messages between the headquarters of the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, and its resident intelligence officers in embassies around the world. This Venona intelligence, as it was known, revealed the existence of a Soviet spy ring in Australia, and ASIO was then set up to try to catch the spies. The Venona program was extremely secret and over the succeeding years ASIO spent much effort in trying to protect knowledge of its existence.”

  The Australian Government was urged to establish a security service modelled on the UK’s MI5, and so Australian military intelligence chiefs and the senior politicians of the day worked to establish ASIO. Prime Minister Ben Chifley appointed Justice Geoffrey Reed, a Supreme Court judge from South Australia, to establish the service, and in early 1949 oversaw the drafting of a charter to specify the role and functions of the Organization. ASIO’s Charter empowered this new organization to undertake intelligence activities for the protection of the Commonwealth against espionage, sabotage and subversion. The first ASIO officers—only 15 in July 1949—set about investigating a number of people suspected of spying for the Soviets.

  In light of all the above from the ASIO, it’s hardly surprising that, from the 1950s onward, its personnel took a very close look at what UFO enthusiasts were saying and doing in Australia. And, most important of all, why. The outcome was that a handful of Australians were flagged as what, today, we would call “people of interest.” It scarcely needs noting that no-one should aspire to become one of them. As in ever. We’ll begin with the strange saga of a man named Stan Seers. UFO authority Timothy Good states: “In 1959 Stan Steers, President of the Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau [which was created in 1956] at the time received a phone call from a man requesting a meeting in a large car park in Brisbane, hinting that Seers might learn something to his advantage about UFOs.”

  Seers, by his own admission, at first thought that this was someone’s idea of a not too amusing practical joke. All thoughts of pranks went quickly out of the window, however, when – after a couple more phone calls with the mysterious man at the other end of the line – Seers was finally able to meet the clandestine character at that aforementioned car park. He was nothing less than an employee of the ASIO. “Mr. D,” as Seers tantalizingly termed the man, was seemingly intent on playing a game of “bad-cop”-“good-cop,” but all on his lonesome. The ASIO agent began in somewhat hostile fashion and “dangled the Communist bogey,” as Seers succinctly put it. The man then proceeded to reel off significant background information on both Seers and two of his colleagues in the QFSRB. In an instant, Seers realized something amazing and more than a bit alarming: I’m being watched. Closely. By the Government. Shit.

  Mr. D’s tone soon changed, though, when he suggested to Seers that perhaps the ASIO could provide significant UFO-themed data to Seers and his friends – if and when the circumstances were deemed to be right; whatever that meant. The Australian government handing its UFO files over to a group of ufologists? It sounded way too good to be true. No surprise: it turns out that’s exactly what it was. Mr. D carefully, skillfully and ultimately ruthlessly wormed his way into the UFO group, causing major dissention in the ranks, and fracturing friendships as he did so. This is what Seers astutely came to believe was the entire point of the operation: to infiltrate the QFSRB, to weaken it, and to ensure that the ASIO was able to keep a careful watch on it and
its members at all times – and particularly so those in the group who had what was referred to as by the ASIO as having “some Communist influence.” A declassified ASIO document, titled The Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau, and dated August 4, 1959 – the very same time-frame in which Stan Seers was approached – reveals that the ASIO had undertaken a wealth of background data on the UFO group, as the following extract shows:

  The Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau is an organization with a present membership of 163 that meets regularly on the second Wednesday of each month in the Canberra Hotel and conducts a discussion group on the first Wednesday of each month in…Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. The members are of great diversity in outlook, politics and religion but all have a common purpose in endeavoring to establish the authenticity of unidentified flying objects which have been sighted throughout the world, including Australia, particularly in the last ten years.

  There is some Communist influence in the Bureau due to the presence of the Secretary, Gordon Leslie Jamieson, and members of the Souwer family of Slacks Creek, to whom he is related by marriage.

  Recently an announcement appeared in the daily papers that stated a difference of opinion had arisen amongst two groups of eminent Soviet physicists concerning the origin of an explosion which took place in Siberia in 1908 [the controversial “Tunguska” affair.] For the past fifty years, it was accepted as the landing of a giant meteorite. A difference has arisen due to the fact that a small group of scientists have now put forward the theory that due to the unnatural nature of the explosion and the fact that a large number of persons in the area suffered from leukemia, the explosion could have been the destruction of some space vehicle, possibly trying to land or in some mechanical trouble.

  At the May meeting of the Bureau, Gordon Leslie Jamison had prepared for dispatch to the Soviet Union a letter asking for any additional information that may be available from the scientists. To date, no reply has been received but it is quite possible that with the re-introduction of the Soviet Embassy to Australia this could easily afford an avenue for contact between the V.O.K.S. representative and the Bureau with offers from the Soviet Embassy to assist in the supply of information.

  The ASIO’s concerns about VOKS - Vsesojuznoe obschestvo kul’turnykh svyzei s zagranitsei - liaising with the QFSRB were completely valid and warranted. DocumentsTalk.com states that VOKS was, and I quote, “a Soviet organization that promoted cultural contacts with foreign countries from 1925 to 1958. Established in 1925 as an important Soviet propaganda vehicle abroad, VOKS was formally a public association involving the participation of Soviet scientists, writers, artists, musicians, actors, educators and sportsmen…By 1957, societies for friendship with the USSR had been established in 47 nations.”

  All well and good. Or, so it seems. There is, however, the following from DocumentsTalk.com, which should be noted carefully: “…VOKS also often served as a convenient ‘roof’ for operations of both branches of Soviet intelligence, whose residents and operatives used opportunities provided by VOKS to establish and maintain contacts in intellectual, scientific and government circles. These contacts were, for the most part, unaware that they were dealing not with ‘cultural representatives’ and diplomats, but with intelligence officers [italics mine].”

  The ASIO was fully aware that VOKS was filled to the absolute brim with agents of the Soviet Union, and not just with cultural representatives. And, although the VOKS program was shut down in 1958, the QFSRB had been in existence since 1956. Two years was an ample amount of time for the UFO group to have cultivated a chain of communication with VOKS, something that the ASIO feared just might already have happened. It’s not surprising then that the ASIO became very concerned that those same Soviet agents could have tried to “turn” one or more QFSRB members. And, in a worst-case scenario, did turn them. Such a grim picture was seen as being disturbingly all too possible. For example, although Stan Steers was described by the ASIO as being “the most level headed and rational member of the Bureau,” the QFSRB’s secretary, Gordon Jamieson, and his family were referred to bluntly and concisely as “pacifists and communists.”

  Also of some concern to the ASIO was one Ricky Royal. He was a pilot during the Second World War. UFO Research Queensland note the following: “In 1944, while flying over Bass Strait in a Beaufort Bomber, Ricky saw a dark shadow, belching flame from its rear which then flew parallel to his plane while remaining at a distance of 100-150ft. This object paced him for approximately 18 minutes then accelerated to 3 times the speed of Ricky’s plane, emitting 100 feet to 150 feet of flames while doing so. Ricky estimated its speed to be 235mph flying at an elevation of 4500ft. Soon after he submitted a report to The Australian Flying Saucer Research Society describing what must have been a terrifying experience for a 29 year old during wartime. This incident inspired Ricky to spend the next 25 years of his life involved in UFO research during which time he, along with other interested members of the public, established the Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau in Redcliffe, Queensland in 1956.”

  Regarding Royal, the ASIO was fully aware of the fact that as late as 1959 he retained significant numbers of contacts in the Australian military. The ASIO’s personnel, whether justified or not, came up with a fascinating theory: that Soviet intelligence agents just might consider hanging in front of Royal’s wide eyes a bunch of amazing - but completely fabricated - tales and documents of UFOs seen in Russia. And what might those Soviet operatives want in return? Australian military secrets, that’s what; secrets that Royal just might be willing to try and secure from friends and former colleagues still in the Air Force. And all so that Royal could get his hands on a bunch of material on UFOs in the Soviet Union; material that had been ingeniously crafted by disinformation specialists in Moscow. It’s very important to stress that while the ASIO did not find any wrongdoing on Royal’s part, they noted in the 1959 files that Royal was, when it came to UFOs, someone who “would resort to any means to obtain information concerning them [italics mine].” From the perspective of the ASIO, that did not bode well in the slightest. This nightmarish scenario of “faked-UFO-tales-in-return-for-real-military-secrets” would resurface on the other side of the world – the United States, specifically - in the late 1970s, as we’ll see later.

  And then there was Sonja Lyubicin.

  One of the more intriguing, but lesser known, of the 1950s-era Contactees, Sonja Lyubicin was a woman who had a background and a life filled with mystery, adventure and intrigue. In 1956, she claimed to have been taken on a trip to Saturn by the Space Brothers. To her eternal delight, Lyubicin found that the people of the huge, ringed planet were highly “sexually active” and particularly liked hosting swinging parties, which is a far cry from the grim encounters that people report with today’s small, black-eyed “Grey” aliens! She also had a connection to George Adamski. The whispered word on the galactic grapevine was that during a wild orgy in Australia, Lyubicin got nailed by none other than Orthon himself! UFO historians Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop say of this entertaining saga that the party “…was arranged by free swinging Orthon and involved 32 other spacemen for whom…the women performed ‘their sexual bidding.’” Beats the grim scene at the site of the Roswell crash, right?

  A close encounter or several of the sexual kind? To be sure! If we are to take Lyubicin’s at her word, that is. Lyubicin also claimed deep contacts within the very heart of the U.S. government, even maintaining that she had spent time attending top secret meetings on UFOs at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. How much of Lyubicin’s story was true is anyone’s guess. It’s notable, though, that the ASIO decided to open a file on her. In part, that dossier provides these words:

  A member of the [Queensland Flying Saucer Research] Bureau who was extremely active during the visit of George Adamski was a Sonja Ljubicin [sic], a naturalized Australian of Yugoslav origin, who previously resided at…Ann Street, Valley. This person was carried
away to the extent that she believed she had travelled in a spacecraft to other planets. On the 16th July 1959 she left her employment and travelling on an Australian passport No. K235116 issued on the 29th June 1959 at Brisbane travelled by Qantas Flight EM. 742 from Sydney on the 21st July 1959 to the United States of America to join George Adamski.

  UFO investigator Hakan Blomqvist, said of Lyubicin that she, “...continued living in California and on July 12, 1979 married William Paul Appleton. She then changed her name to Sonya Appleton. They eventually settled in Honolulu, Hawaii where the marriage ended. Sonya died in Honolulu, just before her 63rd birthday, July 2, 1989.”

  It should be noted that the primary reason why the ASIO had Lyubicin in their sights – and kept abreast of her activities – was because of her background. Namely, that she was born and, until the age of twenty, lived in Yugoslavia; a country that in 1946 became the communist Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. While Lyubicin and her family fled Yugoslavia in 1947, there were some agents of the ASIO who pondered on the possibility that she might have had Communist leanings. Whether or not this was a case of the ASIO reaching just a bit too far, we’ll likely never know. But, that the QFSRB was an organization which had a number of Communists in its ranks – and who may very well have had communications with Soviet agents via the VOKS system – meant it was all but inevitable that Lyubicin would become the subject of deep surveillance. How deep, exactly? Well, put it like this: we can see from the now-available material on Lyubicin that the ASIO knew all about her plans to fly to the United States; they had the names of the relevant airlines. They even knew the flight-numbers and had her Australian passport number on file. Whatever the truth behind Sonja Lyubicin’s controversial claims, they were certainly enough to make the ASIO sit up and take notice. And that’s exactly what its agents did.