Ross Coulthart

[deirdre]

Can you reply with a source for that, please?

time stamp 30:27

 

[deirdre]

The funding for SETI had been cut, so he helped lobby with astronauts to get it back. The people at JPL were "ecstatic" about this and invited him to do a 3h seminar.

[28:15]

[Marcia Smith] said would you be willing, as the chief counsel for the Jesuit National Headquarters office of Social Ministry, to join with a few of the astronauts to lobby with the congressman to get this funding back in. So I said sure I'll do that, let me check with the Jesuit office and the
directors and the board and get permission to do this. And they gave me permission to do it, so I go back in and we lobby for it and it all gets put back in... And so the people out at JPL the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were ecstatic about this. So I get invited to go meet with the top 40 scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to do a three-hour seminar with them on anything I want.
So I said to Marcia, I go to Marcia Smith and I said, look if I'm going to prepare adequately for this, how about letting me see all of the classified information that you saw in doing this report?

Content from External Source

It's not plausible to me that even if he got access to these top secret files as a contractor, he was then allowed to spill all those beans to 40 top scientists at JPL who may have had no need to know regardless of their clearance level.

heres a interview, -july 2001-wording is very similar. but he doesnt say the seminar was on "anything i want"

Article:

telling me that the scientistsat the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in the SETI program, wanted to have me give thema seminar out at JPL talking about the potential theological religious implications ofpotential contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. I was delighted to do that, so I saidto Marcia "Look if I am going to be doing this, which I am totally delighted to do, Iwould like to be able to get access to some of the data that you might have availablein the course of your doing this investigation for the Science and TechnologyCommittee in Congress. So she said, "Well what would you like to see?" It didn'ttake me a second to tell her what I wanted. I would like to see the classified sectionsof the Project Blue Book. Well, she said that she didn't know whether the Air Forceand the Department of Defense would agree to release these to the Library ofCongress, but she would try. So she contacted them and shortly thereafter shecalled me and she said, much to her surprise, "They have agreed to do this."

Source: https://silentenigma.com/Interview_with_Daniel_Sheehan__July__2001__-_UFO_Evidence.pdf

 

[deirdre]

Except that the 1995 version of the story, at least in this talk, said nothing about the crashed UFO.

so sometimem between 1995 and 2001 the ufo is remembered. possibly for the first time. (its a pretty good story to leave out of the 1995 interview..i didnt watch but i assume you watched in full.

sounds alot like the Russia roswell film i just watched..except they were obviously russians in that film.

There was oneof these overhead filmstrip machines that was sitting in the room. I began to takethese little canisters out, and open them up, and put the filmstrips in and lookthrough these things. I don't know how many I had gone through. I had gonethrough several, or at least a few of these boxes, when I hit upon this one canisterthat had film and pictures. I started going through, turning the little crank and there itwas. Again I have told people about this a number of times. There were thesephotographs of unmistakable -- of a UFO sitting on the ground. It had crashed,apparently. It had hit into this field and had dug up, kind of plowed this kind of troughthrough this field. It was wedged into the side of this bank. There was snow allaround the picture. The vehicle was wedged into the side of this mud-likeembankment -- kind of up at an angle. There were Air Force personnel. As I crankedthe little handle, and looked at additional photos, these Air Force people were takingpictures. In the photograph they were taking photographs of this vehicle. One of thephotos actually had the Air Force personnel with this big long tape measuremeasuring this thing. You could see that they had these parkas on, with little furaround their hoods. You could see that they had the little name tags on their jacket.They were clearly U.S. Air Force personnel. I was kind-of in this strange statesaying: "Here it is!" So I turned the crank for more pictures, and I could see on theside of this craft these, like, little insignias - little symbols. So I turned ahead acouple of pictures to see if there was a closer picture. Sure enough, there was. Oneof the photos had kind of a close-up picture of these symbols. So what I did is -- Iwas getting nervous -- I looked around, and the guys weren't watching or anything.They were outside of the room, so I took the yellow pad, and I flipped it open to thelittle grey cardboard backing and I flipped it under the screen. I shrank the size ofthe picture to the exact same size as the

Content from External Source

https://silentenigma.com/Interview_with_Daniel_Sheehan__July__2001__-_UFO_Evidence.pdf

edit add pic from tubi free tv

 

[SuppaCoup]

i almost said 'those look more like shadows' but figured everyone would think i'm nuts. but i think now they are just shadows

How funny! We're looking for symbols and see them where they weren't!

 

[Charlie Wiser]

heres a interview, -july 2001-wording is very similar. but he doesnt say the seminar was on "anything i want"

Article:

telling me that the scientistsat the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in the SETI program, wanted to have me give thema seminar out at JPL talking about the potential theological religious implications ofpotential contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. I was delighted to do that, so I saidto Marcia "Look if I am going to be doing this, which I am totally delighted to do, Iwould like to be able to get access to some of the data that you might have availablein the course of your doing this investigation for the Science and TechnologyCommittee in Congress. So she said, "Well what would you like to see?" It didn'ttake me a second to tell her what I wanted. I would like to see the classified sectionsof the Project Blue Book. Well, she said that she didn't know whether the Air Forceand the Department of Defense would agree to release these to the Library ofCongress, but she would try. So she contacted them and shortly thereafter shecalled me and she said, much to her surprise, "They have agreed to do this."

Source: https://silentenigma.com/Interview_with_Daniel_Sheehan__July__2001__-_UFO_Evidence.pdf

This version is closer to the current story than the 1995 version:

Jim Garrison has disappeared.

Sheehan spent some time first watching reel-to-reel films, which he didn't tell Coulthart: "classic films that you have seen, sort of far distant shots of strange moving vehicles".

There were boxes of canisters and he went through several boxes before hitting paydirt, whereas he told Coulthart it was the 3rd canister.

In this version he does see photos of a crashed UFO and the writing is on the UFO.

The guard is surprised to see the yellow notepad as he's leaving (in 1995 he saw it before Sheehan went in).

As in 2024, he implies he saw Marcia Smith's 2 reports after all this happened, but in the 1995 chronology he saw her classified report before and that's what encouraged him to ask her if he could have access to the data she'd seen (for his JPL talk).

He still has the tracings in 2001 and "one of these days" will get them analyzed:

SDI: Has anyone analyzed that? Have you had anyone take a look at that?

DS: Well actually, no. I've got it in all my Jesuit Headquarters files. I have them all in file drawers that are in the basement of the garage.

SDI: What would be the chances of doing a scan of or reproduction of--

DS: Well, I'm obviously going to have to do that one of these days. You know when I got asked to give a presentation to MUFON, I figured it was just important to tell people about this. I guess I should have realized the potential importance of the data. There should come a time when I should dig these documents out, and make them available, which I am going to have to do... I had expected frankly that by this time that I would have been asked by our community -- the UFO community -- would have been interested in having a major professional investigation undertaken. So, I always said to myself , when that time comes, then I know it would be politically time to bring this forth and to integrate this into a major professional investigation. Much to my surprise, it still hasn't happened.

Content from External Source

Sheehan literally walked out of the basement office after making these tracings, when he could've stayed longer, because he was so excited about getting them... and then put them away for (at least) 6 years without analysis and then lost them. When I put myself in the shoes of a "true believer" - and he apparently truly believed this was a real UFO and real alien writing - I just can't fathom why he didn't get the writing analyzed.

The reports that Marcia Smith wrote, both of which he read, had no classification markings on them.

Her conclusion was "2 to 6, at least" ET civilizations (down from 2 to 10, and can I just say that "2 to 6, at least" is redundant and almost self-contradictory). And she concluded that based on the Drake equation, not evidence.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

so sometimem between 1995 and 2001 the ufo is remembered. possibly for the first time. (its a pretty good story to leave out of the 1995 interview..i didnt watch but i assume you watched in full.

Agreed, it's not really something you'd leave out. But between 1995 and 2001 is the timeframe when that Russian UFO footage appeared.

Even if he wasn't referring to that footage, maybe it... implanted a false memory of... seeing a photo 20 years earlier of a similar UFO stuck in the ground at 45 degrees with fur-wearing US Air Force personnel measuring it with tape measures in order to... see what size flatbed they needed to cart it away for proper analysis...?

 

[deirdre]

2001 is the timeframe when that Russian UFO footage appeared.

im watching it on tubi as the quality is better. the tubi show has canisters and a movie projector that might match his description. i only skimmed as its late. but may watch it more closely tomorrow. i like how the soldiers march all in rows to go get the alien body

(also added a pic to my comment above to show the snow and mud shot more clearly from tubi.)

 

[Mick West]

Jeff Knox notes this looks rather suspicously like the "John Reeves / Brooksville Martian hoax" text:

Source: https://twitter.com/mrjeffknox/status/1767630781042889044

 

[Charlie Wiser]

im watching it on tubi as the quality is better. the tubi show has canisters and a movie projector that might match his description. i only skimmed as its late. but may watch it more closely tomorrow. i like how the soldiers march all in rows to go get the alien body

(also added a pic to my comment above to show the snow and mud shot more clearly from tubi.)

Screenshot of canisters:


An alien dissection on that show comes from the same source... I can't help but notice these "scientists" are rather young. Like, college-age young. College kids are well-known as serious and not prone to playing pranks. (During the dissection they are just pulling entrails out of the chopped-in-half alien carcass without even opening the ribcage.)



And totally not staged that it takes two men to pick up and carry away a small piece of concrete:


There's a dramatic animation of how the crash may have occurred based on a written description, which matches Sheehan's story of it ploughing through a field and ending up at a 45-degree angle.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Jeff Knox notes this looks rather suspicously like the "John Reeves / Brooksville Martian hoax" text:

Source: https://twitter.com/mrjeffknox/status/1767630781042889044

There are certainly similarities in the writing. But Sheehan said the military personnel were in fur-trimmed winter attire. Maybe he's mixed up several different photos and films.

 

[Mendel]

Sheehan was given access (for no clear reason) to the supposed secret unreleased "real" Blue Book files on microfiche in 1977,

I think the Blue Book files were classified back then, but are they implying there's a secret set of Blue Book files apart from the official, now declassified set?

There was oneof these overhead filmstrip machines that was sitting in the room. I began to takethese little canisters out, and open them up, and put the filmstrips in and lookthrough these things. I don't know how many I had gone through. I had gonethrough several, or at least a few of these boxes, when I hit upon this one canisterthat had film and pictures. I started going through, turning the little crank and there itwas. Again I have told people about this a number of times. There were thesephotographs of unmistakable -- of a UFO sitting on the ground.

Content from External Source

Compare:

Article:

Access to BLUE BOOK textual records is by means of 94 rolls of 35mm microfilm (T-1206) in the National Archives Microfilm Reading Room. The first microfilm roll includes a list of contents for all of the rolls and the finding aids. Photographs scattered among the textual records have also been filmed separately on the last two rolls.
Motion picture film, sound recordings, and some still pictures are maintained by the Motion Picture & Sound & Video Branch (NNSM) and the Still Picture Branch (NNSP).

Source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos

So maybe Sheehan looked through those microfilm rolls and happened upon one of the two "photographs only" rolls that wouldn't have any context to the photos.

I would write the indexing information from the end of the microfiche I was looking at. The Dewey Decimal system number, the Library of Congress classification number, the IP address, the zip code, whatever was being used to identify where that piece of film was being stored.

well he says he wasn't allowed to take notes

Project Blue Book is declassified, btw.

Article:

The United States Air Force retired to the custody of the National Archives its records on Project BLUE BOOK relating to the investigations of unidentified flying objects. Project BLUE BOOK has been declassified and the records are available for examination in our research room.

Source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos

They're also online at https://www.fold3.com/publication/461/us-project-blue-book-ufo-investigations-1947-1969 and on archive.org in at least two places.

 

[taurusclover21]

time stamp 30:27

There's no mention of "he slid it behind a box, once in the room, to prevent anyone seeing it."

Or am I missing something?

 

[deirdre]

There's no mention of "he slid it behind a box, once in the room, to prevent anyone seeing it."

Or am I missing something?

oh sorry, thought you meant hte first part of what you quoted. i dont know where the sliding behind a box comes from

its from her fisrt movie interview in this thread topic
21:59
so I I sat down and I took the the yellow pad out and I slid it over behind
22:04
one of the boxes so if they looked in they wouldn't see it uh and I I opened up the first box and and they had these


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVPs-2DfN_o

 

[jdog]

The policy about bringing in the notebook but not being able to use it doesn't sound at all implausible. The National Archives currently has pretty strict and sometimes odd-seeming rules on what you can bring into and take out with you from a Research Room, such as "If a researcher is bringing any personal notes into the Research Room, they must be inspected by staff. A NARA employee must stamp, initial, and date notes and other research materials approved for admission to the Research Rooms to indicate that the materials are a researcher's personal property. If there are a large amount of notes, researchers may inquire if the notes can be stapled together so only one authorization stamp and signature is required."

One thing that does happen with government records is that sometimes everything is retained, including half-assed submissions from the public and media collected from international sources. You send a letter to the President about your UFOs theories and it can wind up in a presidential library; you send UFO hunters a VHS tape of a home dub of an Eastern European movie about aliens and it goes in their records. It's entirely plausible to find context-free images of something weird-looking retained by a government agency without it actually being government-produced material.

 

[NorCal Dave]

I think Coulthart's description of Sheehan is reveling:

...he also has a theatrical flourish for storytelling and an Irish charm that trial juries enjoy.

Content from External Source

Plain Sight cited above in post #198

.This at least sounds reasonable for why he was talking at JPL:

...the scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in the SETI program, wanted to have me give them a seminar out at JPL talking about the potential theological religious implications of potential contact with extraterrestrial civilizations.

Content from External Source

Did Sheehan ever mention anything about this UFO picture(s) in his talk at JPL? The supposed reason he was granted access to classified material was to do research for his talk.

Access to BLUE BOOK textual records is by means of 94 rolls of 35mm microfilm (T-1206) in the National Archives Microfilm Reading Room. The first microfilm roll includes a list of contents for all of the rolls and the finding aids. Photographs scattered among the textual records have also been filmed separately on the last two rolls

These are the microfilm readers I remember from the late '70s-'80s. They showed the image on a screen in front of you. Not sure how he put his note pad in/under it to copy the symbols:



Maybe with one of these '70s era portable types, but wouldn't the Library of Congress have the bigger permeant type readers?



I think Coulthart had the clue he needed when he described Sheehan as having "the theatrical flourish for storytelling". He appears to have confabulated whatever he may have seen in the '70s, with maybe some hoxed Martian writings and bits of a Russian movie and created a "theatrical story" that is told with flare and mystery, even if not always the same contents.

 

[deirdre]

The supposed reason he was granted access to classified material was to do research for his talk.

that part doesnt ring true to me. why would you need to see classified ufo files to discuss theological religious implications? I guess you want to check and make sure none of the aliens look like Jesus? That would certainly mess up the whole 'son of man' thing.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

A note on this, that was indeed a hoax. The jeeps are, none other than American jeeps, which were not used by Soviet forces. The "autopsy" connected to the "crash" also features actor Nikolai Antropov. The claimed sources relating to it largely, do not exist at all outside of the movie, and no references to such in Russian information environments outside referencing American sources. This film also includes the infamous Soviet Union UFO shootdown, featuring none other than F-15 (claimed as a MIG) footage with a cigar photoshopped in.

Screenshot of canisters:


An alien dissection on that show comes from the same source... I can't help but notice these "scientists" are rather young. Like, college-age young. College kids are well-known as serious and not prone to playing pranks. (During the dissection they are just pulling entrails out of the chopped-in-half alien carcass without even opening the ribcage.)



And totally not staged that it takes two men to pick up and carry away a small piece of concrete:


There's a dramatic animation of how the crash may have occurred based on a written description, which matches Sheehan's story of it ploughing through a field and ending up at a 45-degree angle.

 

[Duke]

A note on this, that was indeed a hoax. The jeeps are, none other than American jeeps, which were not used by Soviet forces. The "autopsy" connected to the "crash" also features actor Nikolai Antropov. The claimed sources relating to it largely, do not exist at all outside of the movie, and no references to such in Russian information environments outside referencing American sources. This film also includes the infamous Soviet Union UFO shootdown, featuring none other than F-15 (claimed as a MIG) footage with a cigar photoshopped in.

The United States provided jeeps to almost all of the Allies in World War II. Britain, Canada,[nb 28] Australia, India, the Free French, USSR, and China all received jeeps, mostly under the American Lend-Lease program.[21] Some 182,500 units were provided to Allies under Lend-Lease alone. Almost 105,000 to the British Empire,[nb 29] including Australia and India, plus over 8,000 to Canada, and some 50,000 to the Soviet Union.

Content from External Source

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_MB

 

[deirdre]

also features actor Nikolai Antropov.

how do you "know" this?

 

[Charlie Wiser]

The policy about bringing in the notebook but not being able to use it doesn't sound at all implausible. The National Archives currently has pretty strict and sometimes odd-seeming rules on what you can bring into and take out with you from a Research Room, such as "If a researcher is bringing any personal notes into the Research Room, they must be inspected by staff. A NARA employee must stamp, initial, and date notes and other research materials approved for admission to the Research Rooms to indicate that the materials are a researcher's personal property. If there are a large amount of notes, researchers may inquire if the notes can be stapled together so only one authorization stamp and signature is required."

This wasn't just any research room, though (and he wasn't bringing notes in). It was a basement office in a still-unopened new wing, with three "guards" on the door (he says they all wore civvies but two had military bearing*), two photo IDs required for entry, and high-up permission needed to enter because he was viewing highly classified files.

At least, per his story...

*Description of the guys on the door comes from UFOevidence.org interview, July 2001 - the interview mentioned above, but is an HTML version not PDF.

SDI: If we can go back to the room in the basement. You said on your way in, there were a couple of security people there. Were they military security? Were they Wackenhut? What were they?

DS: I didn't ask them for their credentials! As I recall they were civilians. They guy that was at the chair and the desk. He was in civilian clothes. The other two guys . . . they had extreme military bearing, but they were in private clothes -- in suits and ties, but I got the impression that they were military. The other fellow gave off the vibes of a civilian.

Content from External Source

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Did Sheehan ever mention anything about this UFO picture(s) in his talk at JPL? The supposed reason he was granted access to classified material was to do research for his talk.

I'd have thought he wouldn't be allowed to, but then again only 18 years later he's talking about it at a civilian talk (well, a version of it).

Some options for how the "reason he asked for access" discrepancy came to be:

1. He made up the JPL thing in 1995-2001 because he wasn't able (NatSec!!) to give the correct context, which he is now giving.
2. The JPL talk was the reason and the files weren't actually classified beyond random JPL scientists' authorization to hear about them, and he's changed the story now to insert himself into a more clandestine narrative.

 

[John J.]

The (Soviet) Jeeps in The Secret KGB UFO Files footage don't look right to me.
World War 2 Jeeps -in the pictures I've seen- all have sharp 90 degree angles at the top corners of the windshield. These would be the type delivered to the USSR.



The Jeeps delivered to the USSR in WW2 must have seen heavy use (and attrition). I doubt many survived as everyday service vehicles into 1949, the year when AK-47s (the weapons the soldiers in the footage appear to carry) were introduced into Russian service.

Soviet Army Jeeps, WW2:


From 1950, the US M38 Jeep was produced. This had more rounded windshield corners, like the vehicles in The Secret KGB UFO Files. As far as I know, there were no official sales of M38s to Russia (which shouldn't be a surprise).
Other countries later produced licensed copies, notably Japan (Mitsubishi) and India, which still makes them, many bought by civilians.



From 1943, Russia produced the GAZ-67, which went on to be the standard light utility truck until superseded by the GAZ-69 c.1953 on. These had tapered, quite convex hoods (bonnets), distinct from the USA Jeep's squarer, flatter hood.
The GAZ soldiered on into the 1970s, being replaced from 1972 by the UAZ-469.
None of the three look much like the utility vehicles in the video.



The jeeps in the video also seem to have raised suspension (look at the gap between the top of the front wheel and the fender).

Military utility trucks are often modified, and we can't rule out local conversions of Soviet US-supplied Jeeps, but I think it unlikely that the Soviets would bother making new 1950 M38-style windshield frames for Jeeps acquired pre-summer 1945, as any remaining in service- if any remained in service- were being replaced by GAZ utility trucks.
The Russian army never used M-38s or their non-American clones (that I'm aware of).

The Secret KGB UFO Files, from approx. 10 minutes 17 seconds in, links the footage to claimed events near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in November 1968:
(The whole film was uploaded by YouTube user Randy Oak in 2017- I can't access the Tubi film here)


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pJii4_7XyQ&t=618s


It's inconceivable that the Soviet army was using WW2 Jeeps in 1968, particularly in the area of Sverdlovsk, a "closed" city due to the amount of military-related industry and research.
Sverdlovsk's history as a closed city, and the hosting of secret research establishments, must have made it fertile ground for rumours:

In 1979 there was a lethal outbreak of anthrax, denied by Russian authorities for many years, after an accident at a facility producing anthrax spores for weapons use;
Wikipedia, Sverdlovsk anthrax leak, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

As recently as 2021 organisations in Yekaterinburg (former Sverdlovsk) had US sanctions applied due to contraventions of international law regarding chemical and biological weapons,

On 2 March 2021, additional US sanctions were imposed on the 48 Central Scientific Research Institute Yekaterinburg (aka 48th TsNII Yekaterinburg) along with its associated military BW institutes in Kirov and Sergiev Posad

Content from External Source

-Wikipedia, ibid.,

see also U.S. Sanctions and Other Measures Imposed on Russia in Response to Russia’s Use of Chemical Weapons, Office of the Spokesperson, U.S. Department of State, 02 March 2021
https://www.state.gov/u-s-sanctions...-response-to-russias-use-of-chemical-weapons/

I think it's highly likely that the footage is staged, though for what purpose I don't know.
Probably not of Soviet / Russian official origin, they'd have access to the right vehicles! Maybe the brief clip of soldiers in the truck was snipped from an official source.
There are some other possible indications; the soldiers standing guard don't have webbing or belt kit over their overcoats, which seems implausible for a serious task.

At least one soldier appears to have a red and gold branch of service patch on his left arm, which might be the Motorized Infantry badge, worn by the largest combat branch of the Soviet army. But for an event like this, and near Sverdlovsk, we might expect to see KGB security troops used as the inner cordon- tough, trusted men with a blue and gold branch patch.

 

[deirdre]

None of the three look much like the utility vehicles in the video.

the gaz 67 is the closest. look at the odd very angular "running board" that goes around to back over the back wheel. so far the gaz models are the only one ive seen that have that. the nose is off though.

the one in my pic says 1943-1953


this one has the funny 'eyelashes' over the lights and the shark fins on the hood.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

These are odd looking critters.

They are not WWII era American jeeps. Or any American made jeeps.

I think these are GAZ-69s, with a difference. They've had the front body work of a Jeep grafted on. Those are certainly GAZ-69 windshields, rather than GAZ-67 windshields. The rear fender wells have been squared off, perhaps with grafted on GAZ-67 parts, and the doors have been removed and replaced with low panels to simulate the look of a doorless jeep, but the rest of the body behind the windshield is clearly that of a GAZ-69.

GAZ-69




The Jeep front end, above, looks most like that of a 1954 Willys Jeep CJ3B. But note that Jeeps have either 7 openings in the grill like this one below; or 9. The grill above has 8 openings.

This is a civilian model. CJ means civilian jeep.



It isn't credible that the Soviet military would make these chimeras. It's likely that these are movie props. Some previous low budget Eastern European/Russian movie required a few vehicles that looked at least a little like a WWII Jeep.

So why not just import real Jeeps? Easy. Super low budget. They mocked up some parts of a Jeep and welded them onto surplus Soviet vehicles. I don't think they were authentic Jeep parts. As noted above, the Jeep grills on these vehicles have 8 openings, while authentic Jeeps seem to only ever have 7 or 9. These are ungainly looking mocked up vehicles that sit too high above what look like undersized passenger vehicle tires/wheels.

These props weren't made for this bit of film. Just reused. Probably rented for a day. The hoaxers would have preferred to use unmodified GAZ-69s, right? To make it look like authentic period footage. But they didn't have access to any. They had to rent these recycled props. It's analogous to the way the props and uniforms from Forbidden Planet kept showing up in TV shows and low budget Sci-Fi movies. (Kubrick had props from 2001 destroyed because he didn't want them to show up in bad movies for years. Not the best economic decision, but he didn't want to have his creation cheapened.)

It would have been smarter not to use these prop vehicles at all. These mocked up vehicles are a dead give away. It's faked footage, not found footage. It was produced by the makers of this documentary. Reason? To make dough.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

This bit of silent film is super clumsy. Like low budget 1920's silent movie clumsy.

-A very serious looking square jawed soldier standing there ready to shoot. Shoot what? A random guy standing ten feet in front of the Flying Saucer? Isn't that a bit late? How would that random guy get there? They'd watch him wander over and wait until he was ten feet away then shout, "Halt, you random guy! That's far enough."

In reality, they would set up a perimeter out of eyeshot, and a check point a mile down the road. But we wouldn't see that, now would we? We've got to see the "tight security" in frame, don't we?

-A very busy, gesticulating KGB officer putting on a pantomime... A naïve actor very aware that this is a silent film. So he's hamming it up.

-Troops get off the truck, get into parade ground formation, march twenty feet, perform a parade ground maneuver and listen to a few seconds of instruction, then march another twenty feet. Very military. Heh. The camera just happened to be in position to shoot this scene. And why shoot this scene anyway? What's interesting/useful about it? Shouldn't the camera crew be made up of specialists... documenting the Flying Saucer? Shouldn't the only people on site be specialists, documenting the Flying Saucer?

-The same troops. looking very busy... moving debris a few feet here and there. Why?

-Great way to keep a secret. Have ordinary troops randomly wandering around. In reality the only use they'd be is to secure the site... at a distance.

-And about that Flying Saucer... It's just sitting there on undisturbed ground. Is it a whole Flying Saucer half buried in the undisturbed ground? Or half a Flying Saucer with a neat edge sitting on the undisturbed ground? Heh.

 

[John J.]

It isn't credible that the Soviet military would make these chimeras. It's likely that these are movie props

the gaz 67 is the closest. look at the odd very angular "running board" that goes around to back over the back wheel.

Agreed. Suspect these are modified prop vehicles but maybe not purpose-built for this bit of film.

Something about the side view of the Russian "Jeep" was bothering me, until I twigged, it has a bit of a family resemblance to the "North Korean" vehicle in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights.
The actual vehicle was a Land Rover Lightweight or Air Portable, dressed with corrugated side panels, wheel surrounds like the vehicle in the UFO video (rear wheel surround especially), a protective grill in front of the radiator and horizontal strips of material on the front body panels. No running board, front lights like Land Rover not Jeep. LR windshield.




Probably not physically related to the claimed Sverdlovsk UFO vehicle, though, just parallel evolution-
a film maker saying "let's make one of our utilities look like one of their utilities."

The hoaxers would have preferred to use unmodified GAZ-69s, right? To make it look like authentic period footage.

You're probably right Mr. Wolf.
If this were real 1960s Soviet army footage, I don't think they'd be showing a (by then non-existent) reliance on US jeeps, as the front view of these wagons might imply ("chimeras"- I like that).
So maybe filmed outside of Russia pre-1990-ish, after which surplus/ clapped-out Soviet vehicles became easier to acquire in the West, not just from Russia but also former DDR etc.

Edited to add: There's a lack of radio antennae on the "Russian" vehicles in the UFO film (compare with the Land Rover above).
While Warsaw Pact forces didn't distribute radios on the same scale as their Western counterparts before the early 80s or so, you might expect the KGB or army to be able to rustle up a command/ signals truck, or at least a Commandant's Service GAZ with a radio, for such an important find in an area where military technologies were being developed.

 

[Duke]

If this were real 1960s Soviet army footage, I don't think they'd be showing a (by then non-existent) reliance on US jeeps, as the front view of these wagons might imply ("chimeras"- I like that).
So maybe filmed outside of Russia pre-1990-ish, after which surplus/ clapped-out Soviet vehicles became easier to acquire in the West, not just from Russia but also former DDR etc.

John, as I'm sure you know, the Soviets/Russians are well known for hanging onto old weapons/military equipment. They are using WW2 era T-54 tanks and pre-WW1 designed Mosin-Nugant bolt action rifles currently in Ukraine. That would have been like the US using Sherman tanks and Springfield rifles in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn't have been surprised if they were still using Lend-Lease equipment well into the 60s.

 

[John J.]

the Soviets/Russians are well known for hanging onto old weapons/military equipment.

You're right of course.
On reflection, I was premature in writing off the possibility of some lend-lease Jeeps surviving into the 60s (particularly considering the numbers involved).
-And it's possible they'd acquire locally-made replacement grills and windshield frames over the years.

I don't know about the GAZ-style running boards and rear wheel arches (pointed out by @deirdre) though.
I'm going to bow out of the vehicle issue here accepting that Sovietised Lend-Lease Jeeps might well have been around in the 60's, but I think I'm persuaded by @Z.W. Wolf 's theory that the utility vehicles in The Secret KGB UFO Files are prop vehicles.

 

[Skalman]

I tried to look at the vegetation of the purported KGB UFO footage from Sverdlovsk to see if I could find some clues as to where it was filmed, but unfortunately the film was too grainy (at least for my skills) to make any useful conclusions other than that I couldn't exclude it actually being filmed in the vicinity of Yekaterinburg. I got a bit of hope when what looked like a small pedunculate oak, but the south western part of Sverdlovsk Oblast is within its natural range. The rest of the trees, as far as I could identify them (genus level at best) have too broad ranges as to be useful in this regard, and the area in the former Iron Curtain states where this type of forest can reasonably be found covers around 50% of the former Eastern bloc in Europe.

The map is a print screen from inaturalist over reported Quercus robur in Sverdlovsk oblast, so about 2/3 of it can be excluded based on this (if it is indeed an oak. It could be an alder as well, but judging by the surroundings, that seems less likely).

I don't think it was filmed in the fall, though. I think it's late winter/early spring based on the amount of snow, the colour of the dry grass and herbs and the lack of fallen leaves and leaf "stragglers" on the birches. But that is just a guess based on feeling and personal experience, and I can't point to any definite indication for it other than that.

 

[Ben Harris]

So, any update from Ross? I clearly remember he said, a long time ago, "we will see evidence of ufos very soon". I guess "soon" is Australian for "in the next century or so".

All the UFO entrepreneurs have been promising 'soon' for decades. Ufos are like a circus more than any scientific endeavour.

 

[Mendel]

All the UFO entrepreneurs have been promising 'soon' for decades. Ufos are like a circus more than any scientific endeavour.

A circus tends to deliver on its promises (the Wonka experience being the exception).

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

The games at carnivals seem a better metaphor. When you do get a prize it turns out to be made of foil wrapped around grass clippings.

 

[Mendel]

The games at carnivals seem a better metaphor. When you do get a prize it turns out to be made of foil wrapped around grass clippings.

no, some of these games (e.g. the ladder) are rigged such that it appears possible to get a price (just one more attempt!) but actually isn't

that's what this feels like to a UFOlogist, that it's possible to get a good proof of these visitors, it's just the details that seem to somehow never work out

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Ye

some of these games (e.g. the ladder) are rigged such that it appears possible to get a price (just one more attempt!) but actually isn't

This is so well known that I didn't feel the need to state it.

 

[Mauro]

Ye

This is so well known that I didn't feel the need to state it.

I don't know anything about the 'ladder' game and how it's rigged to make a win impossible. It seems an interesting topic, would @Z.W. Wolf or @Mendel care to elaborate a little (or point to a reference) about this? Thanks in advance

 

[Mendel]

This is so well known that I didn't feel the need to state it.

I guess it depends on what we want this be a metaphor of. When we think of Zondo's Navy videos being explainable, the fake prize comes to mind; when we think of disclosure activists, we see them demanding another step on the ladder to failure.

 

[Mendel]

I don't know anything about the 'ladder' game and how it's rigged to make a win impossible. It seems an interesting topic, would @Z.W. Wolf or @Mendel care to elaborate a little (or point to a reference) about this? Thanks in advance

Here's an explanation of the ladder game and its physical principles (cued up).

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_ZlWJ3qJI&t=411

 

[Mauro]

@Mendel ty)