Russian Encounters with UFOs and Aliens

Show Transcript

Today, we will look into unusual cases out of Russia concerning encounters with UFOs and non-human intelligences, as well as several other strange mysteries. Hello and welcome to this episode of Mysteries with a History. We will be taken on a wild ride into the unknown, the strange, and the mysterious. (00:28) Like you, I have questions, and like you, I want answers. And with each episode together, we will peel away the layers to look for the truth. When it comes to Russia, there's a lot to cover. I was really shocked in these stories and the cases that I came across, and I'm very excited to share them with you. (00:45) Before we start, I do want to say thank you to absolutely everyone that had wished me to get better. I have been coming off of a cold since this weekend, so if I start sniffling or coughing a little bit, please bear with me. But let me bring in my co-host, Jimmy Church of Fade of Black Radio. Jimmy, happy Thursday. (01:05) You're faking. She's faking it, everybody. She's fine. Look, she looks wonderful. Accessorized. Hair is done. And she's faking it. She wants sympathy. She wants, you know, like, is it William? It's got to be William, right? Is it Will? What other names start with W? William, Will, Walter. Could be Walter. (01:39) Walter Bishop from Bridge. Classic. But thank you so much, W. Decker. I really appreciate all of Christina and Jimmy's hard work. Thank you both. And Beck, thank you so much. And thank you for everyone that's catching this show live. Jimmy, I'm really, really excited for this show. And I thought it'd be really fantastic to start off first of all, in chronological order, but also with a case that took place in 1977. (02:04) And last week, we spoke about jellyfish-shaped UFOs. Well, Russia also had an encounter that I'm really shocked that we didn't cover last week. And this took place, and please bear with me, I have never studied Russian, but it's okay. We're going to do this together. The Petrozavodsk phenomenon that occurred September 20th, 1977. (02:25) This was a first one for me, and I have an image that I'm going to share here with you. But have you heard of this case, Jimmy? I have. This is a huge case. Okay. Huge. Humongo. Humongo. And so I'm going to not ask my question. I like the way that you went around it. You went around and answered it before. (02:54) But because this case, there it is. Ties in with what is going on right now in our community, and that is jellyfish stuff. Jellyfish. And this is jellyfish-ish. Yeah, for sure. And the case is huge. And when I say huge, it covered, excuse me, now you got me coughing. You like that? I'm fine. I'm fine. (03:29) I'm fine. And I will always fake it. I never tell anybody when I'm sick. I never do. I just go through it. I'll wait to see if somebody comments. Jimmy looks kind of... This case covered multiple countries, multiple air systems, civilian and military, air and radio chatter across several militaries. (04:04) Multiple witnesses, astronomers, towns, flight personnel at airports. It was in all of the newspapers throughout the country. It was reported on the news. This was a huge case. Happened in 1977. And you said it correctly. The Petrozavodsk case. Petrosavodsk, you got to get the D, the D needs to be pronounced, Vodotsk phenomenon, was a series of events that occurred on September 20th, 1977. (04:45) Now, when I say series, it's because it happened across multiple countries. And the sightings were reported not only over a vast territory, but a wide part of the civilian population, too, as well. I mean, everybody reported this. Images were captured, like this one here. And it was seen from Copenhagen in Denmark to Helsinki and then throughout the Soviet Union to the east. (05:21) It was named after the city that you just mentioned, Petrozavodsk in Russia, which was back then the Soviet Union, where a glowing object was widely reported. And they also said that rays were shot down at the ground from this object. And I find that very interesting. It appeared in the upper atmosphere and moved all over the place. (05:49) In Helsinki, in Finland, I said Denmark, in Finland, the sightings of the glowing ball were reported by newspapers in Ilta Sanomat on September 20th. And Kansen, you just said the next day, the appearance of the UFO over Helsinki caused heavy radio traffic in the Soviet territory. Now, remember, Finland and Russia, the then Soviet Union, share a very long and extended border. (06:23) The eyewitnesses, Christina, they included paramedics, on-duty military, personnel from the Navy, longshoremen at the city's port, local airport staff, and also, I mentioned, an astronomer. It was also observed by members of the Izmiran geophysical expedition that was going on near Letka. In St. Petersburg, then Leningrad, by the way, they changed the name of the city, the sighting of the UFO was reported by three night shift employees of the Pokovo Airport, including air traffic controller B. Blagarev. (07:07) Now, check this out. Blagarev stated that the UFO was surrounded by a spacious, rhythmically glowing coat with intricate structure. A follow-up investigation. This went on for years, by the way, and I'm leaving a lot on the table. A follow-up official government investigation into this. When you look at their description of And this is official of the craft. (07:38) They constantly go back and report that it had some type of force field, some type of shield, some type of protection that was surrounding the object. And I find that part extremely interesting. Yes, rays, they didn't say like ray guns or plasma weapons or anything like that, but it was projecting rays of light all over the ground. (08:08) And they were being classified in a sense like golden tentacles. And they were a bunch of beautiful colors as well. And so people that were witnessing this, the first thing that came to mind to them as we're seeing in this image is like a jellyfish or an octopus. And it gets more interesting because since this sighting had spanned about 1,000 kilometers, people were really curious on what was going on, but not just that, but they also wanted to get a response by the Soviet Union, their government, their military, on how they could explain this. (08:50) So there was a lot of investigations done over the years to attempt and explain away really what was going on and so what I came across was that according to the TASS journalist Nikolai Milov and what's really awesome is that I actually have an article right here it's in Russian by the way and again I do not speak Russian but here is an article that's supposedly covering this so if any of my Russianers that are out there, that's not even a word, but I'm going to make it into a word, can read this and tell me it is from the article. (09:24) I would appreciate that. But I did find it when looking up this case. And so what they were looking at, and in particular with the TASS journalist Nikolai, he said that there were many people that looked decently ill in the minutes following the incident, a look that continued for hours afterward. And some of the witnesses who spoke with this journalist claimed that they could kind of feel some kind of electric current running through their body when the arrow like lights appeared. (10:00) And this is something that really caught my attention is that this is just another case where certain people that have a UFO encounter get ill right afterward. So there is a connection there. But even stranger were that these lights, when they touch the ground and sometimes in like windowsills, they left rough holes. (10:24) And then some of the witnesses recalled the object descending even closer. So then you have multiple residents and they saw a bulb shaped object detach itself from the main craft and set over the rooftops of the local houses and buildings as if performing some kind of reconnaissance mission. And then it continued to do this for several minutes before returning to the main craft. (10:46) And some witnesses claimed that it disappeared into an opening on the underside, perhaps suggesting some kind of remote-controlled drone. But following this, according to the statements given by the director of meteorological station of that area by the name of Gury Gromov, The object, quote, gradually assumed the shape of an elliptical ring. (11:12) And then it began moving once more, heading to the bank of nearby clouds in the direction of one of their lakes in that area. And as it went into the clouds, it left behind a red hole as if the clouds had been burnt. and remained so for several minutes. Now, later investigations would show that there were no records of any aircraft over the skies of the town on the night in question, and Gromov dismissed it that it could have been just ball lightning or any other atmospheric phenomena, which... (11:45) We have heard that time and time again, and maybe it could have in some aspects, but it doesn't necessarily explain how the journalist by the name of Nikolai, once again, when he was speaking to the witnesses that had seen this jellyfish type UFO, how many of them got sick afterwards. But it gets even more interesting because the Soviet government, recognizing the significance of these reports, they conducted an official investigation into the phenomenon. (12:16) And scientists involved in the inquiry proposed various explanations ranging from rare natural phenomena like an unusual form of northern lights or a meteorite, to more unconventional theories. However, there was no definitive conclusion that was reached, leaving the door just completely open to speculation. (12:36) But Jimmy, it gets even stranger than that because years later, when people are still having this interest in this encounter, in this sighting, there was some glass that was found near one of the buildings that looked almost warped, that just looked incredibly odd. So there was one publisher by the name of Vasyl Zakharchenko. (13:04) That's probably not at all how you say that, but we're going to continue onward. He, during, no, as Jimmy laughs at me, right down below but what he noticed when he was speaking to people is that in the ground and on the windowsill there seemed to be like that was glass that was melting where this where these rays of light came down from this object and a factory window was so bizarrely twisted that it was removed for analysis so then a doctor by the name of Azhara in 1981, he gave a lecture noting that not only did the glass show signs of melting, but that the windows themselves were significantly distorted. (13:49) So there were other scientists that looked into this and they couldn't really give an explanation. But what they did notice is that the glass had this like crystalline structure when originally that glass was non-crystalline at all. So that was something that really, really caught people's interest. (14:09) And I do want to say, James, thank you so much. And Jessica, thank you so much also. And just really quickly, there's not going to be any shows next week. I'm going to be out of town visiting some families. So just make a little note of that on your calendar. There will be a show tomorrow, but no shows next week. (14:24) All right, Jimmy. So when you're looking at this information, what really grabs your attention when it comes to scientists looking at this years later? Yeah, the situation, when we back up and look at not only the investigation, but the original reports that were coming in, the airport employees and the flight controllers that reported the object said, called it an object. (14:55) They never called it an aircraft. They were never able to identify the structure. So there was that part. What was seen over Finland and over Helsinki was different than any other explanation. Also, the directions that the flight path of this was the opposite of some of the claims that were made by the military that was trying to suggest it was a rocket launch. (15:30) And the rocket launch and the direction of the rocket was the opposite of the flight path that was reported from the ground and what people were seeing. The article that you posted up was about some of the claims that were made by the official military saying that it was a rocket launch that was putting up a satellite. (15:54) That was not the case. And all of the information that was in from the military in the official investigation, it was the opposite. So the flight path from Finland over Russia and the flight path of the launch of the rocket went against each other and against the grain. So you can remove that. The military was doing their best to debunk this, saying that it was a rocket launch. (16:24) Also, The rocket launch and the timing of the rocket launch, which did happen, was not at the same time as the reports that were coming in from the airports and civilians and also the official military. So which caused, and if you go back and look at all of the original newspaper reports and the media reports at the time, the timeline of the sighting in the sky, is confirmed. (16:57) The timing of the launch of the rocket is confirmed, and the two are very, very, very, very far apart. So that's not what happened. It wasn't the satellite that was being launched by the Russians at that time, or by the Soviet Union, I should say. Now, back to this other part. The original sightings that happened over Finland were describing an object, Christina, that came down from the atmosphere. (17:35) So they watched it enter Earth's atmosphere and then move across Russia. Not the opposite. With a rocket launch, you are going up and out through the atmosphere. And all of this can be confirmed. We can look at the facts and come to our own conclusions. This was something that entered Earth's atmosphere. (18:00) What was it? We don't know. It was multicolored, very, very, very bright. And this, again, which is in the official investigation, the reports of the civilians and the astronomer and the flight control all described some type of I'm going to say it, like a shield that could be seen around this and that there were reports that you could see the structure of the craft behind this shield. (18:38) It's a very interesting case and it's very, very, very well documented. It's one of those cases that really did catch my attention. And I think a great place to start for our show today, talking about UFOs and aliens referring to Russia. But Jimmy, many people are saying in the live chat about feedback. (18:57) And remember, we actually spoke last week about this. And Annie says that it's also occurring on your other shows recently too. But does it happen when I have my mic open? I'm asking these people in the live chat, are you hearing that feedback only when I'm speaking? I just want to make that clear and just want to get that fixed if we can. (19:17) Cause you know what? We want to give you the best quality shows possible. So I'm just going to let you, since we're doing this in real time, I have a echo cancellation on. I've got the background noise down. I don't have anything active. So, or anything that's, And everything sounds normal to me coming in here. (19:45) So I don't know what that could be. Sounds good. So getting I want to give a really fun fact actually about this in general. And that is so when this maybe a little back when this was all going on in 1977, this is when the USSR changed the term from unidentified flying object and replaced it with the term anomalous phenomenon for research purposes. (20:16) So when we use the term UAP, people are like, oh, this is such a brand new term. Why are you confusing people with this from UFO to UAP? But Russia has been doing this since 77. And I thought that was a really fun fact. And I have another fun fact for you a little bit later because I love fun facts. The best. (20:37) As Jimmy giggles in the background. But something else that I didn't want to mention, just very quickly back to that glass and the holes that were seen and finding crystalline structures, because later Western scientists, including Dr. Dale. And sociologist David Swift from the University of Hawaii, as well as Professor Manfred Cage from the Institute of Scientific Photography, analyzed the glass samples as well. (21:07) And they confirmed the presence of crystalline around the hole's edge. But here's the crazy part. They had mentioned, all people that had looked at this, they had mentioned that it is practically impossible to have the glass change from non-crystalline to crystalline and seeing it on the edges of these holes. (21:26) And let me tell you, I love, I do, I really love it hearing when scientists say it's impossible or nearly impossible, and yet it happens like, ah. It makes my day like almost every single time. And this particular case is no exception to that. And this is another thing that caught a lot of people's attention. (21:45) So in one aspect, you have people getting severely ill after encountering this. And then you are finding physical evidence of something that is nearly impossible to happen naturally. Excuse me. And this is. One of many reasons to why this case is still being looked at today is because of those factors. It's not just eyewitness accounts. (22:11) It's not just a wobbly photograph of a blob in the sky. But there's so much more to this case that people think there must be something to it. Now, could it be completely natural like a meteorite? Or something of that nature. And it seems that there's a lot more to this case than maybe we understand just yet. (22:36) But getting into our next case, and probably one that a lot of people think of when they imagine to themselves Russia and UFOs, and that is Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal has, well, first of all, it's classified as a hotspot in that area. But there is one very, very famous story that, of course, we're going to cover when it comes to Lake Baikal. (23:00) But first, I like to just kind of lay a foundation of this area before we get into the stories. So here is one just beautiful image of the lake. And so it's the deepest lake. So it holds the largest volume of fresh water globally. And it is the deepest lake in the area, being about 5,314 feet or 1,637 meters. (23:29) And local lore suggests it is bottomless and connected to all the world's oceans, seas, and rivers. And deep within its waters, legends speak... of a silver castle which is the siberian god of death and ruler of destinies and this mysterious lake has long been associated with strange occurrences as well because starting out in 1904 according to the book russia's uso's secrets unidentified submergible objects in russian and international waters It says here that in 1904, there were descriptions of black objects with searchlights, colorful rotating wheels and cigar shaped craft performing complex maneuvers and apparent landings and workers. (24:21) of the Trans-Baikal Railroad also reported mysterious spheres with rotating searchlights. But it gets even weirder, Jimmy, because in one case in May of 1964, near the area of Lake Baikal, An anti-aircraft missile unit about 250 kilometers from Ulan Udi witnessed a strange event on the night of May 17th and 18th, which they saw an unexpected glow that rose from the lake spreading across the area, distinct from any natural phenomenon or sunset, and the military initially thought it was a forest fire. (25:02) So soon after, they lost all communication, experiencing only very strange interference. And from the lake's direction, a fiery orange sphere emerged, pulsating and emanating a radiant glow comparable in size to the midday sun, but less intensive and visible without eye protection. So the military unit, they went into alert. (25:26) They're freaking out. They're like, what's going on here? And as the situation escalated, only regular phone lines remained operational to reports to their commanding officers, which is really bizarre, by the way. But as the fiery sphere advanced, it emanated a glow resembling a burning fog, engulfing everything in its path. (25:50) And the commanding officer at the military installation near Lake Baikal ordered radiation levels to be monitored every 30 minutes with reports sent to the command center. And so soldiers, they wore gas masks and protective gear, but absolutely no radiation was detected. So the sphere glowing like a telegraph pole height moved closer to the unit, dimming as if expending some of its energy through its radiance. (26:20) When it enveloped the military base, the commanding officers ceased attempts to identify it and instead ordered a lockdown, isolating the compound from the outside world. And this is just one detailed case of a good handful. And we're going to cover some more. but I do want to say that right now we have 629 people watching this live, only 263 likes. (26:46) If you're enjoying the show so far, or if you're from Russia, hit that like button right down below. It lets us know that you're enjoying the show. Now, Jimmy, looking at this location, have you, Looking at Lake Baikal, to be very specific, there have been a handful of UFO sightings, UFO encounters, alien encounters as well. (27:10) Would this be a place that you would like to visit and maybe even scoop a dive if given the opportunity? You're on mute. Now you're still on mute. There's no audio coming through. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. You can? Yes. Yes. Now there's a feedback loop. Now there's a feedback loop. Okay. (27:46) I have no idea. I'm going to do this. While Jimmy's fixing his microphone, you okay? You got it? No, I still can't hear you. What is going on? Got it. I'm back. Is there a feedback loop? No, it sounds good. Okay. There is a gremlin in the system. Or it's that ghost that lives in your house that likes to play with your shoes. (28:33) When you said I'm muted, I'm not muted. And then I watched you mute and unmute me. I saw that. But I'm just sitting here drinking coffee. And now the echo's gone. You're going to blame that on coffee, too. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so anyway, Baikal has such a rich history of sightings, of contact, of paranormal, the supernatural. (29:08) It's part of folklore. It's part of the mythology of the region. This goes back a thousand years or maybe longer. It is indeed a very special place. It is the largest freshwater source on planet Earth. It's huge. It's a mile deep, largely unexplored, and it's huge. It's just a large, large lake. (29:34) And with all of the sightings that have happened with the military and with civilians and people of different towns in the region, there's obviously something going on. And when we go back to your report was from 1964, we have to remember one thing, that the Soviet Union being a controlled state and group of states, the Soviet Union, the reports that we got from anything were only through official channels and state-owned like TASS, the news agency. (30:15) from the military, you know, an official controlled situation. We never heard from the civilian population. And the civilian population only got reports on the news that came from the Soviet Union. You didn't get anything that was independently broadcast or written. Everything was controlled. So isn't that interesting that the reports that we have in and around Lake Baikal are all from official sources? Okay, that adds a lot of, I hate to say it, we're talking about the Soviet Union, but it also allows for real credibility because the Soviet Union did not release anything. (31:06) Everything was controlled propaganda. So if it got out there, it really happened. And so that's why this 1964 report and others from the military, Rambacal, were so important, which brings us to one of the most I'm going to say infamous, too, as well. Famous cases in UFO history, which has been covered. (31:34) I have covered it on my show. We've covered it here. It's part of your images that you used for the show today, which is 1982. 1982 now i have heard uh interviews uh with these divers i've gotten the translations of the interviews from the divers uh for my relatives direct uh translations um it's it's uh been translated and and put into books and that is of course seven russian divers in 1977 or 1982 seven russian divers were in the lake and they were doing some research. (32:25) And about 50 meters underwater, which is about 150 feet, by the way, a little side note, 150 feet when you're scuba diving, that's max. To go below 150 feet, now you need deep water, very special dive gear. So that's the maximum. So when you hear 50 meters or 150 feet, that's it. The body cannot handle anything below that. (33:01) Okay, so that's a very key part of this incident. So 150 feet underwater, strange humanoid creatures appear from the depths. And they come up. And they tried to capture one of the divers. All of the divers are then, are you ready? Pushed up. by a force pushed up, pushed up out of the area and back to the surface. (33:37) And, and to hear the divers talk about this, to go from 150 feet and they tried to kidnap one of them. And I, again, I've listened to the interviews and, and for them to talk about this in 1982, which was again, a controlled state. This is the Soviet Union. You don't go and say things like this unless the incident actually happened. (34:05) Was it as the divers reported and what they experienced is what they experienced. And so just to kind of emphasize the scuba divers and being propelled up, this is very significant because then they dealt with decompression sickness. Because when you are a scuba diver, when you're doing any kind of scuba diving, you have to take your time going down and coming back up to acclimate to the pressure in the water. (34:43) case goes is that it's believed that these divers working for the USSR were attempting to capture these entities in the water and there's a legend in that in Lake Baikal that it's like a half man half shark that lives there and so these scuba divers they're going in and they see allegedly a handful of them that look kind of similar to this as we're seeing on the screen here and And then as that was going on, all seven divers, they were propelled up, not giving them any time to decompress. (35:22) And so when they reached the surface, they had to immediately be placed in chambers in order to avoid death or any kind of decompression sickness. However, there were only four chambers available. There were seven people. So tragically, three divers died. didn't make it and they died on shore. And this is just another key detail to this case that makes it so significant, that makes it so intriguing, and that catches a lot of people's attention to continue researching this case. (36:02) But it just also, it's another drop in this bucket of water of all of the strange things that happen in and around Lake Baikal compared to other parts across the globe. This location could be classified as a UFO hotspot. Here's the thing. All right? I love saying that. Were the divers there... because of the extraterrestrial alien humanoid presence, right? Or were they there researching something else and then encountered them? That's the question. (36:51) And my mind, when I look at this case, it's not a coincidence that the divers were at that location at that time and made this contact. I think they were going to make this contact, that they knew what they were looking for. And there's talk that, yes, that was the plan of the mission and so forth. (37:15) I have not interviewed the divers. I have not. A couple of them have gone public, and you can hear their stories, and you can read what they have to say. I have come to the conclusion that they were there to make contact. They know about the base. They know what's living in the lake, and they know what is there. (37:38) And the divers saw exactly what they were expecting. The part of this case that is so fascinating, is that they couldn't go any deeper and that they were forced back to the surface. That's the interesting part about this case. This is our world. This is our lake. You're just visiting here. And I think that that was the message that they got, and that's what happened. (38:07) We haven't heard anything about any future contact in Lake Baikal since 1982. But here's a little fun fact, and I have another one after this one. But Vladimir Putin, he went in a miniature submarine to go to Lake Baikal in the early 2000s. Now, he didn't mention exactly what he saw, if he encountered any strange beings, but he did have a desire to go. (38:35) He did, and he made it back in one piece. Now, I have another really fun fact for you. And you can probably tell that I'm not from Alaska. And I found this really interesting, referring to the Alaska purchase. And I learned about this from a trivia game app that I play on my phone. So much fun. Highly recommend just any trivia games. (38:54) But here's a little fun fact, because Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia back in 1867 for only $7 million. So the United States was paying two cents an acre for Alaska. Now it's worth about $37 billion. But what's crazy about this is that if you just look at how close Russia is To Alaska, you would say, oh, OK, that makes sense. (39:24) And I got to find my image here. Because you usually just think that Russia is on the other side of the planet. It's incredibly far. But when you look at this map, it puts everything into perspective. And you think, oh, my goodness, you could just take a little boat and get yourself to Alaska. And that's my little fun fact. (39:43) And I know I'm not the only one that didn't know about this. Yeah, there are. 55 miles. Well, there's that, but there's also two islands. If you go down, it's not here, in the Bering Sea to the south, there are two islands. One's Russian, one is in the United States, and they're like four miles apart. (40:09) That's right. You can throw a rock. You can yell, yo, Vladimir, from one island to To the other. Now, back to your previous fun fact, and your fun facts were pretty good today. When Vladimir, when Vlad, those that, you know, we just call him Vlad, you know, his inner circle, Vlad. He was head of the KGB when he went to Baikal. (40:39) Think about that. Why would the head of the KGB get in a submersible in a freshwater lake? Why? Well, you know, he does ride Siberian tigers. You know, he's a pretty manly man, I guess. But yeah, right? Think about that. Why would you risk? There was a reason to do that. You're not just like, today, I'm going to go get in a submersible and I'm going to cruise down below crush depth. (41:11) No, you're not going to do that unless there was a reason to do it. And he was head of the KGB. Yes, before he became the Russian president, well, the prime minister and then president. It is really interesting, that little tidbit right there. Right now we have 750 people watching. Can we get to 400 likes? It really does help support the channel, the algorithm, and all of that fun stuff. (41:36) While you go ahead and do that, we're going to move on to our next case. And this one, what's really interesting is actually in the 70s and 80s, there were a lot of cases, a lot of sightings that were happening in Russia, but also just across the globe, which is like a hot time period for UFO sightings. (41:57) And Lori, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. So I'm going to share my screen here, and we're going to get into this one. This one was also new to me. Are we doing height? Are we doing height? Yes. Yes. Yes, we are. Height 611, or 611 UFO incident that took place in 1686. So looking at that time frame, 70s into the 80s, it was whack. (42:27) So in January of 1986... there was there's a small town in dalengortsk in primorsky kari dude i am flipping fluent in russian and it became the site of a ufo crash at least allegedly And the event that remained relatively unknown until 1995. And it was then that an American ufology TV series called Sightings brought the incident known as Height 600. (43:02) 11 UFO incident to public attention, revealing compelling evidence and intrigue, even the most skeptical observers. Now, let me just back that up a little bit. This sounds kind of similar to Roswell. So while it took place in 1947, it was buried rather quickly. And then it was Stanton Freeman who brought the whole case back to life to where now it is the most famous case in the world. (43:27) Thanks to Stan. Thank you so much. Right. This is very similar. It took place in 1986, but it wasn't really known about until 95. So the incident occurred January 29th, 1986, when over 20 people witnessed a spherical