Case file · Official inquiry
Stolyarov's UFO section and Zigel's television appeal
In May 1967 a group led by retired Major-General Porfiry Stolyarov met in Moscow to study UFOs, with the astronomer Felix Zigel as deputy; in October it became a UFO section of the All-Union Cosmonautics Committee, and in November Zigel asked Central Television viewers to send in sightings.
1967 CE · 55.79, 37.54 · status: official
The account
Hundreds of reports arrived, but the Academy of Sciences and Party officials quickly turned against the project: the section was dissolved and the newspaper Pravda published a rebuttal in February 1968. Zigel continued private research and is called the father of Soviet ufology. The state's later Setka programme began in the late 1970s.