UFO UpDates Mailing List
From: Sean Jones <Tedric@tedric.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 08:59:59 +0000
Fwd Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 12:28:23 -0500
Subject: Return to Shaitan Mazar
Source: http://ufos.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa100498.htm
Check out the page for more associated links.
-----
Return to Shaitan Mazar
Dateline:10/04/98
Participants in the expedition to Shaitan Mazar.
From left to right: Oleg Murashev, Nelli Slugina, Anton Bogatov,
Nikolay Subbotin, Alexey Kostenko, Emil Bachurin.
Photo by
Maxim Slugin.
Copyright by Nikolay Subbotin =A9
and Russian UFO Research Station =A9,
1998. Used with permission.
A Report From Russia At Last!
On August 17, in an article entitled Shaitan Mazar, I told you
about ufologists Nikolay Subbotin and Emil Bachurin of the
Russian UFO Research Station (RUFORS) and their expedition in
search of a 600 meter long UFO (artist's conception) that
supposedly had crashed into a gorge called Shaitan Mazar("Grave
of the Devil")in the Tien Shan ("Celestial") Mountains of
Kyrgyzstan near the border with China in August of 1991.
I had wondered for six long weeks what Nikolay and Emil had
found, and this week I got the answer in an e-mailed document
that was in the familiar broken English of the computerized
translator that Nikolay uses to translate his messages from
Russian. Once again, please remember that it is very difficult
to understand these translations perfectly, so I must sometimes
guess the intended meaning.
On 19 August, 1998, Nikolay and his group left Moscow and
travelled first to Almatis in search of German Svechkov, who was
a member of the June, 1992 expedition to investigate the crashed
object. They found Svechkov's son, Vasily, but he refused to
tell them where to find German Svechkov. Emil Bachurin was
willing to look for Svechkov, but the sponsor of the expedition,
Anton Bogatov, insisted that they not spend any more time
looking for Svechkov. Bogatov was becoming concerned about how
the Russian economic crisis might hurt his business, and wanted
to get back home as quickly as possible.
The expedition arrived in Karakol on the evening of 20 August
and spent the night in a local hotel. Karakol is about 250
kilometers from the crash site, and the expedition hoped to rent
a helicopter there to fly them to a suitable campsite near the
gorge.
The next morning, they went to the airport, where they were told
that there were no helicopters available. This was very bad news
because they only had enough money to rent a helicopter and for
the return trip to Moscow.
The airport manager, trying to be helpful, told them that there
was a camp of mountain climbers in the Tien Shan Mountains only
fifty kilometers from the crash site, and that these people
would rent their helicopter to the expedition if the expedition
could get to their campsite. However, since both the campsite
and the crash site were in a restricted area near the Chinese
border, it would be necessaary to get special permission from
the border authority to go there.
This was easier said than done. The border authority told them
that they must first get permission from the militia. So, off to
the militia office they went. The militia told them that they
should first register with the local passport office of
Kazahkstan. At the passport office they were told that they
should talk to the local branch of the KGB. The KGB sent them
back to the militia.
After going in circles for a while, they stopped and considered
their options:
1. They could rent a small plane - an AN-28 - and overfly the
site. This choice had two unpleasant drawbacks:
a) There was no landing strip in the area, so any photos
would have to be made from the air, and it would be very
difficult to make any good pictures from an airplane.
b) The last aircraft that had approached the site too closely
had experienced fatal mechanical problems caused by the intense
magnetic field (or anti-magnetic field?) radiated by the object.
2. They could ignore the border authority, the militia, the
passport office and the KGB, and just go, hoping their
journalistic credentials would get them by.
And so our brave comrades risked spending the rest of their
vacation in Siberia and headed for Shaitan Mazar. As luck would
have it, their vehicle broke down on the way and they had to
stand in a cold rain for four hours. During this stop, however,
they spoke to a shepherd who told them that they were only 20
kilometers from the crash site. Since ten of those kilometers
were over mountains, the expedition decided to go on to the camp
at which they had been told they could rent a helicopter. The
shepherd also told them that there was a sacred spring at
Shaitan Mazar at which many people had been healed of various
illnesses.
On 23 August the expedition reached the border outpost of
Mai-Odir, and found that the border guards were very friendly
and hospitable, allowing them to camp nearby.
The next day, with only enough money to rent the helicopter for
one day, they did so, and took off in search of the crash site.
In about 20 minutes they had found the site by following the
directions of Emil Bachurin, who had been to the crash site with
an earlier expedition. The UFO, however, was gone.
Photo copyright by Nikolay Subbotin =A9
and Russian UFO Research Station =A9, 1998.
Used with permission.
The helicopter set down at a safe distance from the odd magnetic
field, if indeed the field was still there, and they walked to
the site. The site was at 4800 feet, unreachable except by
helicopter or by mountain climbers. No ground vehicle,
four-wheel-drive or other, could have reached it. There was a
hole approximately 20 meters in length, but the slide marks that
Emil had spoken of seeing were gone.
Photo copyright by Nikolay Subbotin =A9
and Russian UFO Research Station =A9, 1998.
Used with permission.
Nikolay describes the site thus(computerized translation): All
stones were broken and smooth. The Earth seem very much freshen.
It seemed that the slope was artificial. Probably, someone has
cleaned traces of failure?
Nikolay says that Emil Bachurin was shocked. He found some
special labels left by the previous expedition, so he knew this
was the place, but he could not understand the disappearance of
the UFO. The only other thing of note to be seen in the area was
an area that looked to be a rudely constructed helicopter
landing pad. Their instruments could detect no magnetic
anomalies in the area.
Dejectedly, the expedition flew back to camp and left for home.
Nikolay says that half of the expedition thought Emil Bachurin
had lied to them about the previous expedition and about what he
had seen. However, some corroboration of Emil's story appeared
in the form of one Igor Vislobokov, who stated that, while in
the military in 1991, he and two comrades saw a cigar-shaped
object in the skies of the Tien-Shan area.
Oddly, Nikolay says that when he got back to civilization, he
found that the magnetic tape strip on all of his credit cards
had been erased. However, the film and videotapes that he made
were not harmed.
What happened to the UFO?
Nikolay believes that the military had come in and taken it out.
He intends to continue his investigation, and hopefully, he will
continue to report to us.
On a final note, there is a story from one Nikolay Romanov that
the Shaitan Mazar UFO was actually a module of the Russian block
of the International Space Station that was lost four minutes
after launch when the rocket carrying it into orbit
malfunctioned and exploded. This module carried four nuclear
power generators according to Romanov. Nikolay Subbotin argues
that this cannot be true because work had not yet begun on the
space station modules in 1991.
---
In an infinite universe inifinitely anything is possible.
Sean Jones
Homepage--http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/1745/index.htm
Research page--http://www.tedric.demon.co.uk/
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