Do-it-yourself construction and repair

Where and when can you see the northern lights. When and where can you see the northern lights in Russia? When does the northern lights happen? Where to see the northern lights

Hunters for the northern lights - there is something desperate and romantic in this. If you like to travel, you are not afraid of difficulties, and you want to see the most bewitching natural phenomenon with your own eyes, this guide article will help make your dream come true. Let's see where you can see Northern Lights, and what expert advice you need to follow in order to witness a unique spectacle.

General information about the natural phenomenon

From a scientific point of view, this is a glow that appears at an altitude of 80 to 100 km as a result of the interaction of molecules in the atmosphere with charged energy particles penetrating into the atmospheric shell from space. In other words, streams of sunlight, reaching the layers of the atmosphere, cause a bright glow of nitrogen and oxygen atoms.

You can observe a natural phenomenon near the magnetic poles, namely in the zone limited by 67 and 70 degrees of latitude.

It is difficult to see the northern lights near the magnetic pole in the southern hemisphere due to the fact that there are no places suitable for human habitation in these latitudes. In the northern part of the planet, you can find a dozen places with ideal conditions for observing a unique phenomenon.

Be prepared for the fact that this is too rare. To see it, you need to put together a lot of circumstances into a single puzzle. It is likely that you will have to travel north to no avail. However, by following simple guidelines, you will increase your chances of success.

When there is radiance

The season of celestial glows is the period from the third decade of September to the end of March. The peak of activity occurs in the cold season - from November to February. In winter, in the northern latitudes, the longest nights come - 18-20 hours, so the slightest glow in the sky will be clearly visible and you can take a bewitching, magical photo of the northern lights.

Watch for activity on the surface of the Sun

This is the main condition for the appearance of a natural phenomenon in the sky. After solar activity, from 2 to 5 days should pass - during this time the flow of energy reaches the surface of the Earth. The more powerful the release, the greater the chance of success. There are sites on the Internet that display up-to-date information.

It is important! The magnetic activity of the Sun is indicated by the K-index, which ranges from 1 to 9. Favorable condition for the appearance of a glow, the value of the K-index is considered to be at least 4.



Cities have a large number of electric lights that break the contrast of the night sky and interfere with observation. In large cities, the probability of seeing the aurora tends to zero, in which case you will need to leave the city at a distance of 50 to 70 km. If you are in a small village, it is enough to drive a distance of 5-10 km.

Only clear weather.

The northern lights appear at an altitude of 80-100 km, the cloud cover is lower, so the clouds completely hide the glow. In frosty weather, as a rule, the cloud cover is minimal, respectively, there are more chances for success.

Follow due north

Moving away towards the north, you inevitably approach your dream.

What you need on the trip

  • Automobile. It can be your own car or a rented vehicle. Considering the difficult climatic conditions of the zone where you have to be, the car will not only provide comfortable movement, but also warm you up.
  • Stock up on gasoline. Fill up the tank and grab a few jerry cans as the car will need to be kept running to keep it at a comfortable temperature.
  • Hot drinks in a thermos. In no case do not take alcohol, as it warms for a short time. It is better to leave an alcoholic drink for returning home to celebrate success.
  • Shoes. Pay special attention to the choice of shoes, because you will have to stand in the snow for a long time.
  • Tripod. If you want to take high-quality photos and videos of the Northern Lights, a tripod is indispensable.
  • Spare batteries. In the cold, batteries drain too quickly, stock up on necessary quantity spare kits, so that if necessary, replace them in a flashlight, phone, camera, camcorder. Keep them in a warm place.
  • Professional camera. Theoretically, an ordinary soap dish will do, but is it really worth going through such a long and difficult path to take some fuzzy, blurry photos? You are traveling to capture a real natural wonder, so the best choice is professional photo and video equipment.

Where to see the Northern Lights

We got to the most interesting - where you can see the northern lights.

Where can you see the northern lights in Russia

In Russia, there are endless opportunities for hunters of the polar glow, because almost half of the country crosses the Arctic Circle. However, it is almost impossible to get to some places in winter and the weather conditions become too harsh (temperatures below -45 degrees are not a test for weak travelers).

The best choice is to go by plane from Moscow or St. Petersburg to the Arkhangelsk or Murmansk regions. Such a trip is not only convenient in terms of climatic conditions, but will cost less than a trip to Taimyr or Chukotka.

Murmansk



This is the closest place from the capital of Russia. The journey by train will take from 30 to 35 hours, and by plane you will fly in 2 hours. Here you can stay in any small town, the main thing is that in cold weather there should be transport links. Remember that you will have to drive.

Pay attention to the village of Teriberka, the village of Vidyaevo, the urban-type settlement of Pechenga. A plane ticket to Murmansk will cost an average of 7-8 thousand rubles, if you follow from Moscow. Then you need a car.

Do not be afraid of harsh temperatures, in the Murmansk region you can observe a wonderful phenomenon from September at a temperature just below +10 degrees.

At first glance, a scientific trip can be turned into entertainment and visit the Khibiny Mountains. This is a great place for mountain skiing. Pay attention to the recreation center Kuelporr, you can get to it from Kirovsk on snowmobiles.

Arhangelsk region

The main advantage of Arkhangelsk and the surrounding settlements is mostly clear weather, the northern lights are clear and bright here. Travelers come here from September to April.

Many experts claim that even in the city itself you can see a glow in the sky, however, in terms of intensity and saturation of colors, it significantly loses to the glow in the Murmansk region.

It is better to lay the route through Moscow or St. Petersburg. The flight will cost 6-7 thousand rubles. Recreation diversifies the visit to the museum of sculptures under the open sky. The best photographs are taken on the coast of the Northern Dvina.



People come here who are resistant to extremely low temperatures, because here is the epicenter of the coldest climate not only in Russia, but the entire planet.

In anticipation of the Northern Lights, you can go skiing, rafting on the rivers, climb the mountain peaks. Lovers of comfort will certainly be interested in a cruise on the Lena River.

Taimyr Peninsula

One of the proven places in Russia where the northern lights are often seen is the Taimyr Reserve. There are almost no traces of human activity. In the immediate vicinity of the protected area, infrastructure is developed - they carry out rafting on the river, walks on foot and on snowmobiles. If you have enough time and finances in reserve, be sure to go to the administrative center of the reserve - Khatanga.

Northern lights in Norway


The best time to visit Norway is from December to February. In addition to the radiance in the sky, there is another natural phenomenon here - a blue glow in the daytime.

The best way to go on a cruise is to travel by ship along the coast of Norway. Choose a route from Tromso to Trondheim. A four-day tour costs an average of 500 euros.

You can visit the polar center, located in Norway on the island of Eustvogea in the small village of Laukvik. Here you will enjoy the heavenly glow, visit exhibitions and presentations dedicated to the natural phenomenon.

Directly from Moscow, you can take a boat trip to the Svalbard archipelago, located just an hour and a half from the North Pole. Similar expeditions are organized in Norway. Regular flights depart from Oslo to the capital of the archipelago, Longyearbyen.

If you don't want to leave the Norwegian mainland, visit the cities of Tromsø and Alta.

Compare accommodation prices using this form

Northern lights in Iceland



Until recently, Iceland was considered exotic and out of reach for the average traveler. However, it is here that you can most often observe the northern lights.

Start your journey from the town in the south of Iceland - Stokseiri, which is located just 60 km from the city of Reykjavik.

Here you can visit the Icelandic Wonder Center, listen to fascinating stories about fabulous creatures and try a drink made from the ice of a real glacier. After a portion of miracles, travelers go to the Ghost Center. Now you can start hunting for a wonderful natural phenomenon.

The most desperate guests of Iceland go to the glacier lagoon Jokulsarlon. Here you will find picturesque nature and many miracles - waterfalls, geysers, thermal springs.

Northern Lights in Finland



Finland is called a strange country of lakes and forests, but within the framework of our topic, another fact is interesting - in the northern part of the country the air is so clean that the glow in the sky appears up to 200 times a year. It is better to come to Finland in February-March or September-October.

It is better to start the journey in the city of Rovaniemi - this is the administrative center of Lapland. Excursion groups are formed here, which are sent to their destination on comfortable buses. You can also go skiing or reindeer sledding. Tourists are offered a fascinating night safari on a snowmobile, its average cost is 60 euros per person.

In the province of Lapland, there is Sodankylä, where the observatory and the Northern Lights House are located. Tourists are welcome here all year round, conduct excursions and fascinating exhibitions.

Oulanka Park is a picturesque place where you can not only see the polar glow, but also enjoy beautiful landscapes and picturesque nature. There is a hotel with a Finnish sauna on the territory of the park.

Now you know exactly where you can see the northern lights, and be lucky. Feel free to go to your dream, because emotions and impressions will surely become one of the brightest in your life.

How the polar glow looks like in dynamics, watch the video.

Related posts:

Would you like to see the northern lights with your own eyes? In Russia it is possible. After all, our country most of its territory lies in the northern latitudes. And you are probably interested in the question: where can you see the northern lights in Russia? To help everyone interested - a kind of guide, our short article. We will help you choose a route and give some simple tips for organizing your trip. So, how and where to see the northern lights in Russia?

Aurora Borealis - what is it?

Encyclopedias give a rather dry explanation of the aurora phenomenon. Its occurrence is explained by the glow of the rarefied upper layers of the atmosphere, which occurs due to the interaction of molecules and atoms with larger charged particles entering the atmosphere from space.

Simply put, this means the penetration into the upper layers of the atmosphere of our planet of millions of tons of tiny particles thrown into space by the Sun. Interacting with oxygen and nitrogen, they cause this mysterious natural phenomenon.

About magnetic poles

Of course, not only in Russia, the northern lights illuminate the sky. It is possible to observe such glows in the regions of the magnetic poles of our planet. As you know, they do not coincide with geographical ones. That is why the places where this natural phenomenon can be observed are located to the south - at a latitude of about 67-70⁰. Sometimes in Russia, the northern lights can be found in more southern territories - sometimes even in Tver and Moscow.

Since our planet has two poles, then, accordingly, there are two polar lights: southern and northern. Seeing the southern lights is a big challenge. Why? For the simple reason that it is not so easy to find a suitable inhabited place at the right latitude of the southern hemisphere.

And we have?

In contrast, the northern hemisphere has a lot of corners in which you can observe the aurora. There are places in Russia where seeing the northern lights is not a problem. Those wishing to admire this miracle of nature will not even need to travel outside their homeland.

Unfortunately, it is not enough just to go to those places where it can be observed. This magical spectacle will take place only with the successful coincidence of many circumstances at once. Sometimes a trip to the north undertaken for this purpose may turn out to be fruitless, for which one should be mentally prepared.

But the chances of success increase if you follow a series of simple tips.

When can you see the northern lights in Russia

Auroras can be observed during a certain season, which stretches from the autumn to the spring equinox (from September to March). This does not mean that it is possible to see the sky illuminated by it only in these months. Sometimes the probability of its occurrence exists, for example, in August.

But still, most likely, you will be best able to admire the miracle of nature in the winter months. Plan your trip between November and February. In high latitudes, where the northern lights occur in Russia, the duration of the night in these months is 18-20 hours. This increases the chance of seeing even a faint glow. According to experienced observers, it is best to choose night hours for "hunting" for the aurora - from 10 pm to 3 am.

How can you increase your chances of spotting the aurora?

Track solar flares

The emission of microscopic particles by the sun is the main condition without which the aurora is impossible. When it happens, within 2-5 days the particles reach the earth's atmosphere. It is at this time that it makes sense to take a trip to the desired latitudes.

The probability of the appearance of aurora is directly related to the power of the ejection. The larger it is, the higher your chances. Observation of the weather in space is carried out by many observatories scattered around the world. They exist in Russia (we are talking about the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Russian Academy of Sciences), and in the USA (observations are conducted by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska), and in Finland (there is its own Meteorological Institute), as well as in the UK (at Lancaster University) and etc. You can get the latest space weather news from these institutions' websites.

Each of the sites publishes the values ​​​​of the index of magnetic activity, where one indicates the calmest level, and nine - the most stormy, fraught with electronics failure. The phenomenon that interests us is possible when this index reaches a value of 4-5 or higher. Having found increased magnetic activity, you can pack a backpack and travel to one of the northern regions. There are also a number of smartphone apps that provide auroral forecasts.

Try to get away from the city

In urban areas, the abundance of electric lighting leads to the so-called light pollution. At the same time, the night sky looks less contrasting and the aurora is either not visible at all, or it is very difficult to see it. The level of light noise in a city depends on its magnitude. The larger it is, the farther from its border should be removed.

For a metropolis, this distance is 50-70 km. If we are talking about a small village, 5-10 km is enough.

"Catch" clear weather

The fact is that the height of the glow of the auroras is more than 100 km. Clouds are always located below, that is, they are able to block all the beauty of the spectacle from you. best review can be achieved with a clear sky, which in winter conditions happens in frosty weather and at times when it starts to get colder.

Keep north

The closer you are to the Arctic Circle, the more places where you can see the northern lights in Russia, and the more likely you are to observe them. They further increase if you climb even further north. But the main factor is the already mentioned index of magnetic activity. If it reaches a mark of 8-9 points, you will see the northern lights from your own window, even if you are a resident of the southern region.

How to organize a trip

A car (own or rented) is very useful for aurora hunters. There are two reasons to travel exclusively by car - you can quickly leave the city's light pollution zone and stop at any site convenient for viewing. But, more importantly, in the car you will be able to warm up.

Before the trip, fill up a full tank and grab a couple of spare cans of gasoline in addition. To keep the car warm, turn off the engine. This means - constantly drowning, which requires a serious fuel consumption.

Other important points

Be sure to take a thermos with hot tea. Don't rely on alcohol to warm you up. It's only good for short distances. It is best to take alcohol not earlier than you return to urban conditions.

There is no talk of warm clothing, it is implied by default. But many people forget that shoes should also be warm and of very high quality. After all, you have to stand motionless for a long time on the frozen ground or in the snow.

If taking high-quality photos is a matter of principle for you, be sure to stock up on a tripod.

About technology in northern conditions

All equipment (camera, telephone, flashlight, etc.) can be discharged very quickly in the cold. Be sure to provide spare batteries and accumulators. They should be kept warm - in the car or in the deep inside pockets of your clothes.

Your camera must be of high quality. Photos taken with a soap dish are likely to come out fuzzy. They can be more or less legible only with very bright radiance. Therefore, if you want to capture the spectacle with high quality, try to get a “reflex camera” at least for a while (borrow it from friends) and figure out its device. You will need some experience with long exposure photography. You may even need to take a few photography lessons.

Where exactly to go for the spectacle

Where can you see the northern lights in Russia? Theoretically, our country has almost unlimited opportunities to observe this rare natural phenomenon. After all, half the country is crossed by the Arctic Circle. Such a coveted heavenly show can be seen everywhere - from Karelia to Chukotka.

But in practice, in the conditions of the Russian winter, getting to most places is a great problem. The temperature in some areas can be -45 degrees or even lower. We are no longer talking about how much a flight to one of the remote corners of our Motherland will cost.

That is why, if you live in St. Petersburg or Moscow, you should go hunting for the aurora borealis in one of two regions - Murmansk or Arkhangelsk. It is much more convenient and will cost you an order of magnitude cheaper than a trip to Siberia or the Far East. In addition, the winter in these parts is not as severe as, for example, in Taimyr.

If saving is not important for you and the quality of roads and decent infrastructure come to the fore, you can go abroad in search of the aurora. In the Nordic countries - Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland - you can admire this fantastic natural spectacle right from the hotel window, staying warm and comfortable.

In which cities of Russia you can see the northern lights best

If you have chosen the Murmansk region, stop by the towns of Vidyaevo, Teriberka, Polyarny, Pecheneg, or choose another small town where light pollution is negligible. The most important thing is to make sure in advance that in winter the road to the chosen place by car will be available. A flight to Murmansk by plane will cost you between 4,000 and 8,000 rubles.

There are also places where you can see the northern lights in Russia on the Kola Peninsula in the Khibiny Mountains. Geographically, they lie to the south than Murmansk, but in elevated conditions it is much easier to see a clear sky, and the phenomenon of light pollution is completely absent there. Unfortunately, this area cannot boast of a developed infrastructure. Hotels are difficult to access, most of them can be closed for the winter.

Other routes

Those who choose places where you can see the northern lights in Russia can be recommended to go to the Arkhangelsk region. Theoretically, you can see the aurora while in Arkhangelsk itself, but in terms of latitude in this regard, it is inferior to Murmansk. That is why it is better to prefer the north of the region. You will most likely have to get there and back by plane, which will require an amount from 4600 to 7300 rubles.

This natural phenomenon is not uncommon in the Komi Republic. Sometimes it can be observed in August, while in Syktyvkar. The chances increase when traveling in a northerly direction - to Vorkuta. In conditions covered with snow winter roads motorists should be especially careful. At night and at dusk, the road completely merges with the snow-covered roadsides. Leaving the road, you run the risk of getting bogged down to the very roof in a deep snow massif.

The flight to Vorkuta itself may require less expenses if it is divided into two separate flights with a change in Syktyvkar.

For those who are not afraid of the cold

For extreme and other adventure lovers, we can recommend a small town called Khatanga, located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. It is located in the heart of Taimyr and is famous for its average annual temperature of minus 13 degrees Celsius.

Khatanga belongs to the settlements of Russia, located to the north of everything. It is possible to observe the most "high-quality" aurora there compared to Murmansk and even Iceland. Direct flights to Khatanga are available from Norilsk and Krasnoyarsk.

One of the most "verified" places in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in this respect is the Taimyr Reserve, the nature of which has hardly been changed by human activity. However, oddly enough, these places are very popular among tourists.

It should only be recalled that the path to the same Khatanga, which serves as the administrative center for the reserve, is quite long and by no means cheap.

Northern lights abroad

The "capital" of Svalbard in Norway is Longyearbyen. It lies at a northern latitude of 78⁰. Those wishing to get even closer to the North Pole can only be advised to take part in an Arctic expedition.

It is technically easy to fly to Svalbard, but each flight from Russia is accompanied by a couple of transfers and will cost you from 26,000 rubles. You can save a lot (up to 10,000 rubles) if you make your own flight from two separate ones - for example, from Moscow to Oslo (it will cost you 4-10 thousand rubles) and then from Oslo to Longyearbyen (from 4 to 13 thousand . rub.)

There are places where you can see the northern lights abroad in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Finland, but the topic of this article is still our country.

Let's return to our homeland

Russian patriotic tourists who are indifferent to the comforts of European hotels and are not afraid of extreme Siberian cold weather can be recommended to go to Yakutia. Watching the northern lights there is an activity for the most frost-resistant. Everyone knows that it is here that Oymyakon is located - the pole of cold in our country. In winter, frost here can reach 50 degrees or more.

As compensation, you will receive clear skies with minimal atmospheric pollution. This is due to the fact that most of the territory of the republic (over 90%) has not been developed industrially. This is one of the places in Russia where the northern lights are seen in all their glory from October to April.

Page 2 of 6

When does the northern lights happen? Where to see the northern lights?

Where can you see the northern lights?

  • Northern (polar) lights can be seen around the magnetic belts of the Earth in a zone with a diameter of approximately 3000 km. This belt is called auroral oval, lies at a latitude of approximately 65-70 °. However, with increased solar activity, this atmospheric phenomenon can also be observed at lower latitudes.
  • You can see the northern lights in the polar regions of Finland and Scandinavia, Canada and the USA, Alaska and Siberia.
  • For the aurora borealis, the best area to observe is Antarctica.
  • Previously it was believed that the northern and southern lights are symmetrical to each other. And in 2001, during the simultaneous observation of both hemispheres of the Earth from space, this was proved - the northern and southern auroras are mirror images of each other.
  • For a detailed listing of places where you can see the northern lights in Russia and abroad, see a little lower in the text of the article.

When can you see the northern lights?

  1. The best time of the year to see the northern lights is autumn and spring periods closer to the equinox.
  2. The most likely time of day when you can see the northern lights - from 10 pm to midnight.
  3. It has been noticed that the brightest and most impressive auroras in terms of beauty and scope appear on frosty and clear nights. However, the reason for this relationship is not yet known.

1. Watch out for magnetic activity in the sun

The northern lights appear when particles are ejected into the Sun. The solar wind reaches the Earth's upper atmosphere in two to five days - during which time you need to get to the intended place to observe the northern lights.

The more powerful the emission of particles on the Sun, the more likely it is to see the northern lights on Earth. The strength of the ejection can be found using the magnetic activity index (K-index), which is assigned values ​​from 1 to 9.

K-index values.

  • 1-3 - the probability of occurrence of northern lights is low.
  • 4-5 - the probability of occurrence of northern lights is high.
  • 6-9 - the probability of occurrence of northern lights is very high.

Space weather is monitored by observatories in many countries around the world.

  • Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation RAS, Russia
  • Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, USA
  • Finnish Meteorological Institute
  • Lancaster University, UK
  • Center for Space Weather Forecasts, USA

It is convenient to follow the forecasts of the auroras through the US CPRC apps for iOS and Android.

The closer you get to the Arctic Circle (or even go even further north), the more likely you are to see the Northern Lights. Although it depends on the value of the K-index: if it goes off scale to 8-9 points, you can just look out the window, even if you live in Sochi.

3. Stay away from populated areas.

When the northern lights flare up in the sky, the lights of settlements can interfere with its observation. Therefore, to see the northern lights, drive away. Moreover, the larger the settlement, the farther from it you need to leave. From a small village it is enough for 5-10 km, and from a large city it is better for 50-70 km.

4. Leave only in clear weather

Northern lights are formed in the upper atmosphere at an altitude of more than 100 km, and most of the clouds in the lower layers - in the troposphere. So on cloudy days, even if all the previous conditions are met, it will be impossible to observe the northern lights - the clouds will block the view. In winter, the chance of clear weather is higher on frosty days and during periods of cooling.

5. Be Prepared for Possible Failure

Until now, scientists cannot accurately predict when the northern lights will be visible, so any tour that guarantees you this unforgettable spectacle is a lottery. True, with a high probability of winning.

6. When the northern lights are most active - scientists predict

According to scientists, after 2016 the opportunity to see the northern lights will appear less and less. The thing is that it occurs during the 11-year solar cycle. According to Peter Delamere, a professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, we are at the beginning of a downward cycle curve. Therefore, until 2024 or even until 2026, the northern lights will become a rarity in the polar latitudes.

Where can you see the northern lights in Russia?

Russia is a huge northern country, and it would seem that Russians have a huge number of opportunities to see the northern lights - from Karelia to Chukotka. But not everything is so simple. In most places, when the northern lights appear, there are severe frosts and a harsh Russian winter prevails with impassability, lack of well-established infrastructure and familiar amenities.

Therefore, in this article we will clearly define where in Russia you can see the northern lights, enjoying this process, and not risking freezing to death.

1. Murmansk

Or rather, the Murmansk region (after all, we remember the third point of the tips we listed above for organizing the hunt for the northern lights - to travel away from large cities). The Murmansk region is located at 68 degrees north latitude, beyond the Arctic Circle, on the Kola Peninsula. Here, in order to see the northern lights, you need to leave in advance for one of the small towns of the region (for example, Triberka, Vidyaevo, Polyarny, Pechenega, etc.) and wait for the northern lights to deign to delight your eyes with extraordinary pictures of cosmic-terrestrial origin. In this case, the color is usually greenish. Red shades are a rarity. By the way, the Murmansk region should soon have its own museum of northern lights.

2. Khibiny mountains

Khibiny is the largest mountain range on the Kola Peninsula. They are located on the 67th parallel, also beyond the Arctic Circle. It is quite difficult to get to them in winter on your own, but in this regard, the Kuelporr recreation center, located directly in the mountains, offers its services.

3. Arkhangelsk

The city of Arkhangelsk itself is located on the 64th parallel, but, as we know, the further north you go, the more chances you have to see the beautiful northern lights. Therefore, just like in the Murmansk region, here it is better to go to the north of the region, settle in one of the towns and wait for the northern lights to sparkle with colorful lights in the clear sky.

4. Vorkuta

Vorkuta is the third largest city beyond the Arctic Circle and the easternmost city in Europe, located on the 67th parallel. So this is another potential place where you can see the northern lights.

5. Khatanga

The village of Khatanga on the Taimyr Peninsula in the hunt for the northern lights is the choice of real extreme people. The frosts here are so severe that the average annual temperature is only -13 C°. But on the other hand, it is located at 71 parallels of northern latitude, it is one of the northernmost Russian settlements. When the northern lights appear, it is here that they play out in all their unimaginable beauty.

6. Yamal Peninsula

The Yamal Peninsula is located to the west of the Taimyr Peninsula, but at the same latitude, which means that the chances of seeing the northern lights are very high here. By the way, scientists of the same opinion. Here is the necessary equipment - magnetometers - to study this natural phenomenon. Three of them have already been installed in the villages of Gornoknyazevsk and Kharasavey, on Bely Island, and two more are planned to be installed in the village of Se-Yakha and in the city of Nadym.

7. Naryan-Mar

In Naryan-Mar, the northern lights are very beautiful. It consists of several shades of colors and is accompanied by a shimmer that turns the whole picture into something unreal. The city of Naryan-Mar is located at 67 parallels of northern latitude, also beyond the Arctic Circle, in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

8. Norilsk

The city of Norilsk also very often finds itself in the zone of the northern lights. When the northern lights appear here, it is distinguished by a green tint and a specific shimmer. The city of Norilsk is located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, at the 69th parallel, beyond the Arctic Circle.

Where to see the northern lights when you are abroad?

Every year more and more travelers go in search of the northern lights; from a dangerous adventure it becomes a profitable tourist destination. However, the elusiveness and unpredictability of the phenomenon will still make the northern journey exciting, romantic and even gambling.

Longyearbyen is the northernmost settlement in the world, located at 78 degrees north latitude, on the island of Western Svalbard. The polar night here lasts 4 months, so there are quite enough opportunities to wait for the northern lights to show their beauty. The people of Longyearbyen offer The best way to see the radiance for those who do not want to part with warmth and comfort: here you can find rooms with panoramic windows or a glass roof.

Longyearbyen is a city of over 1,000 people and even an international university. True, students here are first of all taught to shoot, since Svalbard is a country of polar bears. Aurora hunters should take this into account when organizing a trip. By the way, it would be useful to know that the city has a law prohibiting dying on its territory. Yes Yes exactly. So, if you suddenly want to do this in the near future, then it is better to refuse to visit the northernmost settlement in the world.

2. Tromsø and Alta, Norway.

Norway again, but not islands, but a continent. Here, two cities are fighting for the title of the capital of the northern lights - Tromso and Alta. Both cities are located on the 69th parallel, so the chances of them waiting for the northern lights to smile at the impatiently waiting people are equal. And hunters for the northern lights make a choice based on their own preferences. And there are plenty to choose from. Tromsø is famous for its abundance of restaurants, a large selection of hotels, the Arctic Cathedral (which the architects were inspired by the views of the northern lights), the polar museum and the Polaria exhibition center with a panoramic cinema hall. And in the Alta region, on the top of Mount Halde, there is the world's oldest observatory for the study of northern lights, built in 1899. Currently, the observatory is closed, but the observation deck is open to tourists. In March, the Northern Lights Festival is held in Alta, and the largest dog sled race in Europe is also held here.

In every, probably, northern European country, there is a city that claims to be the “capital of the northern lights”. In Sweden, this is the city of Abisko, located on the 68th parallel, in the Abisko National Park. A research center for the study of polar lights has been established here. "Aurora Sky Station, Abisko - the best place on earth to experience Northern Lights" is what they "modestly" say about themselves. "Best place on the planet to see the Northern Lights." Well, you can believe them, and on occasion - check! By the way, tourists are offered snow sleigh rides and snowshoe hikes.

4. Akureyri, Iceland

Iceland is a land of fantastic landscapes, billowing geysers, hot springs, fuming volcanoes and unearthly beauty of lagoons and waterfalls. If we add the northern lights to this, then the feeling of euphoria from the impressions will be provided. When the northern lights appear in the sky, drawing bright flashes of the dark sky, the view becomes truly grandiose. Well, for the northern lights it is best to go to Akureyri - the driest city in Iceland. Or the Jökulsarlon glacial lagoon in the southeast, where eyewitnesses say they get the most spectacular photos of the northern lights.

There are other options. Four-star hotel built two hours from Reykjavik Ranga, in which you can watch the radiance directly from the jacuzzi; and in the city stokkseyri there is the Center for Icelandic Wonders. Inside, you can watch a documentary about this natural phenomenon while drinking a cocktail with the ice of the Vatnajökull glacier.

The choice of Iceland as a country where you can see the northern lights is also evidenced by the fact that the climate here is warm and mild - in winter the temperature rarely drops below zero. (Not like in Taimyr with its 50-degree frosts...)

5. Ivalo, Finland

In Finland, it is best to observe the northern lights in the small town of Ivalo, where there are good hotels designed just for such tourists. But the main highlight of Ivalo is that 40 km from it is the unique Arctic resort of Kakslauttanen, where the rooms are built in the form of glass igloos. You don’t need to go out anywhere, freeze in the cold - you just lie in a warm bed with all kinds of comfort - and look-look at the northern lights, and dream-dream .... “On a clear frosty night, when the northern lights hung their fiery veils in the sky ...” - this is how legends about the northern lights are imperceptibly born.

6. Sodankylä and Rovaniemi, Finland

This is one of the best places to hunt for the northern lights. First, in areas Sodankylä and Rovaniemi the radiance is visible every second night, which in itself already guarantees a large influx of tourists. Secondly, there is something to have fun besides watching the northern lights. For example, in Sodankylä you can visit the "star city" Astropolis, where the aurora has been studied since 1912. And if you didn’t manage to see the natural northern lights, you can admire the artificially reproduced ones. In Sodankylä, this opportunity is provided by the unusual house "Crown of the North", located 11 km from the city, which looks like a Sami tent. And in Rovaniemi you can watch the light show at the Polarium Theatre. By the way, in the same city festivals of northern lights with concerts, sports competitions, sculptures made of ice and snow are held.

In the States, the best place to see the northern lights is in Fairbanks, Alaska. It is seen so often here, and there are so many travelers that hotels have even introduced a special service: in the event of a phenomenon, you will be woken up by the Metro-Hotel.

In the city of Churchill, tourists are offered a special attraction - Aurora Pod - a glazed booth with a panoramic view, from where you can observe the glow with all amenities. And in Yellowknife, a village with heated wigwams was built specifically for this.

9. From a cruise ship

If you sit in one place and wait for the northern lights to illuminate the heavenly halls, you are bored, you can go in search of impressions on a cruise ship plying between Iceland and Norway. The company Hurtigruten, which organizes such tours, guarantees tourists that if during the 12-day cruise it is not possible to see the northern lights, they will be provided with a ticket for the next race for free. Apparently, such an outcome is indeed very rare, otherwise the company would have gone bankrupt as a result of such a marketing move.

So we told where you can see the northern lights when it appears in the sky. The choice is yours. But no matter where and when you see the northern lights, it is important that it will be an amazing, exciting and truly unforgettable sight!

Special thanks for the preparation of the article are expressed to the site: www.skyscanner.ru

Every year, the number of stars that you and I can see in the night sky at any particular point on the globe is rapidly decreasing. According to the World Atlas of the Night Sky, one-fifth of the world's population lost the ability to see the Milky Way without a telescope as early as 2001. The same study found that two-thirds of Americans and more than 50% of Europeans were the most affected, and 99% of the population (66% of the world's population) lived in areas considered polluted.

While there are fewer and fewer places to admire the purest canvas of heaven, fortunately, there are still a couple of corners in the world where you can be alone with the pristine starry sky.

Chaco National Historical Park, New Mexico


Bryce Canyon, Utah

Clayton Lake Park, New Mexico


Northumberland National Park, UK


Mont Megantic National Park, Quebec, Canada

Namibrand Nature Reserve International Reserve, Namibia


Atacama Desert, Chile

Death Valley National Park, California


Since time immemorial, people have peered into the sky and reasoned about whether there is life on other planets. It seemed impossible to answer this question, but one day humanity made a breakthrough. April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin made the world's first orbital flight around the Earth! True, this did not bring us much closer to solving the mystery. Science to this day cannot reliably confirm the existence of aliens, but ordinary people from different parts of the country confidently declare that they have seen them! On the occasion of Cosmonautics Day, Woman's Day decided to collect all the places in Russia where a UFO was seen.

Text: Svetlana Fedorenko, Saniya Galeeva, Yana Lyubaeva, Marina Kuznetsova, Larisa Loskutova, Alexander Chernov, Anna Gerasimenko, Natalia Mishanina April 12, 2015

Perm (Moleb) anomalous zone

A pointer to Molebka and a comic picture that "walks" on the Internet

Photo vk.com, molebka.ru

The surroundings of the village of Molebka in the Perm region (Kishertsky district) have long been chosen by ufologists, researchers of all kinds and tourists who want something unusual. And this unusual here is just the sea. Flying saucers, luminous balls hanging over the clearing, strange sounds ... By analogy with the Bermuda Triangle, this territory is also called the Moleb or Perm Triangle, and is also mysteriously called the M-zone. According to legend, a prayer stone of the Mansi people was once located here, near which sacrifices were made. Now only the name of the village reminds of this. But, perhaps, shamans at one time were attracted by the same energy force that ufologists talk about today.

In summer, the only way to get to the M-zone is either by boat

The anomalous zone is located opposite the village, near the Sylva River. People who have been here talk about seeing UFOs. different types: flat "plates" (similar to a hat), luminous balls of different colors, elongated "cigars" ... And from time to time there are whole "gatherings" of UFOs here: several objects appear in the sky, line up in the correct shapes, then disappear when they notice people . Some eyewitnesses even say that they managed to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations - however, there is no evidence for this. But UFOs are often recorded here. They used to shoot on film, now they take digital photos.

Geologist Emil Bachurin was the first to notice this place. In the winter of 1983, he was hunting nearby and suddenly saw a luminous hemisphere. At the place where it touched the snow, a huge thaw hole with a diameter of about 62 meters was formed. After the geologist told about this unusual phenomenon, researchers of various kinds frequented Molebka. Local residents willingly told them about their observations: incomprehensible luminous objects, flashes in the sky, and so on. And besides, they complained about health problems: next to the anomalous zone, they felt worse, headaches appeared, pressure increased or decreased.

1990 Researcher Marat Kabirov: “The plate hung, then an energy column and a black hole or spot formed under it”

What did ufologists record in the Moleb Triangle?

  • UFO: luminous spheres, elongated figures, etc.;
  • sound mirages: strange sounds seem to people for which they do not find an explanation;
  • the course of time changes: the clock slows down;
  • Batteries and accumulators run out very quickly here.

“In our group, for unknown reasons, the functionality of the dosimeter went out right before our eyes (although after returning home it started working again), several diodes in the flashlights burned out, the batteries in the watch quickly ran out, and the bioframes behaved restlessly (in certain places), – the participant describes his impressions one of the expeditions to the M-zone, the head of the Monitoring station of the Ural anomalistics Dmitry Volobuev. “In addition, two people felt acute ailments: fever, blood pressure jumps, etc.”

M-zone map

The M-zone itself is divided into different sections. Tourists are usually accommodated in the central clearing. But without fail they visit “places of power”. So, the most vivid visions are described by those who visited Vyselki - those who spent the night here say that they saw small creatures that looked like fairy-tale elves. And disruptions in time are observed near the Black River.

Each visitor must be shown pyramids - these are stones stacked in three pyramids, and together they form an isosceles triangle. Measurements of ufologists have shown that a strong flow of energy comes from the tops of these pyramids. It is believed that the pyramids are a kind of beacon for UFOs, which helps the "saucers" navigate in space.

Witch rings - another interesting place in the M-zone. In a large number of photographs taken here, dark balls with light spots are visible. They were nicknamed "witch rings", and then the name passed to the site.

Monument to an alien and one of the "places of power" Molebka

Photo vk.com, molebka.ru

There is evidence that a huge dark figure, similar to a human, was seen in the M-zone. “It was a moonlit night,” describes Valery Yakimov, who calls himself a stalker and organizer of expeditions to Molebka. - I quietly descended into a small ravine, and suddenly something made me raise my head. I saw that two steps in front of me was a man 3 meters tall, black, opaque, proportional. I can’t say how much time I spent in a daze, looking at him, but I woke up running with a flashlight 10 meters from this ravine.

Suspecting that a bigfoot might live in Molebka, the researchers even tried to lure him by making a bait from pheromones of a large great ape. But, unlike the Loch Ness monster, no one was able to photograph the prayer snowmen. But every tourist can take a picture here of a humanoid from another planet, however, a wooden one. Do not be surprised: just a monument to an alien was erected in the village. The locals affectionately call him Alyoshenka.

Novokubansky district of the Krasnodar Territory

Such crop circles in Novokubansk are not uncommon

The Novokubansky district of the Krasnodar Territory is considered by ufologists to be the "capital of Russian crop circles", since with a frequency of about once a year, people who have appeared from nowhere are found here. geometric figures. From year to year they appear in the middle of summer, the diameter is from 10 meters to plus infinity and sometimes they are not only round in shape: for example, last year ufologists recorded squares. The figures appear in one night, they are clearly burnt or badly crushed, and the plants around remain untouched. Surveillance cameras at this moment do not record anything. And in the morning the farmers grab their heads. They say they are tired of the intrigues of aliens. But this phenomenon cannot be attributed to hooligans - there are no human traces!

A few years ago, for example, giant circles, the largest of which is 40 meters in diameter, appeared in a wheat field. Very carefully, clockwise, the stems of the plant were crushed, and the weeds around were burned, and in a special way - only the leaves were burned, while the stems remained intact and even. And the day before, there were power outages in the area, residents were sitting without electricity. The next morning, the news made a lot of noise, passed in the local media. The well-known Russian researcher Vadim Chernobrov also visited the area with Cosmopoisk. “Novokubansky district is the Russian capital of crop circles. This is where the most anomalous things happen. Krasnodar Territory, and in Russia this place is among the leaders,” says Chernobrov. Local ufologists are also studying such cases, but they also have no explanation. “On video recordings, we noticed that lizards were running around in the field, but all living creatures usually disappear from such fields in a day,” local Armavir experts comment.

Unidentified flying objects also periodically appear in the sky over the area. At night, villagers see luminous objects hanging for a couple of minutes, which then disappear without a trace. In the 90s, people even wrote appeals to the local administration to be protected from the invasion of aliens.

It is interesting that the locals even treat the ongoing anomalous phenomena with humor. And for several years in a row there was a Novokuban festival of bard songs “Near the crop circles”.

Ice phenomenon happened only once

Photo svet-mayakov.ru

But the Novokubansky district is famous for another phenomenon. 20 years ago, in winter, the Kuban River froze in a special way. In one place, a perfect circle of ice appeared, as if outlined by a compass, around which the water went counterclockwise. One single place in the frozen river frightened the local population. Various versions were put forward - from a strange undercurrent to a UFO landing in this very place. The villagers came ashore, but no one dared to get on the ice to the mysterious place. This went on for two weeks until the thaw began. The phenomenon melted away, and no more similar phenomenon was noticed.

Alat flower with tentacles

The Ashit River connects the villages of Alati and Potanikha

In 1803, the status of a city was removed from Alat, and the settlement began to deteriorate. Numerous manufactories and craft workshops moved to Kazan. But, according to local residents, it was then that the remaining residents began to regularly observe incredible phenomena in the sky.

“The whole action lasts for several minutes,” says Vladimir, a local resident. - After sunset, a yellow speck appears in the sky, from which, like tentacles, multi-colored rays grow. They swirl around this spot, and then fly off to the side and dissolve into the sky.

So far, no one has been able to take a photo on a cell phone or on a SLR camera. Probably, the technique is not configured to recognize such objects. Last year, the object was frightened off by camera flashes. The "tentacled flower," as the locals call it, vanished into the sky faster than usual and hasn't reappeared since.

The local artists are happy to dedicate entire paintings and drawings to the "guests", which they decorate their homes with.

The locals are so used to space guests that they talk about flying saucers as something ordinary. And from March to early May and from mid-August to November, every now and then they look at the sky after sunset.

Photo: drawing by local resident Vladimir Chernov

A couple of years ago, not far from the Ashit River, which connects Alati with the neighboring village of Potanikha, under the place where the fishermen saw the "flower", the field was dotted with something resembling pieces of foil. Nobody dared to take the substance with them, and by noon the “foil” seemed to have melted from the daytime sun.

Witnesses suggest that UFOs always appear above the village cemetery between the village churches - the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in the village of Potanikha and the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Alaty. Locals say that both temples are connected by an underground gallery, which they tried to find in Soviet years. And some even insist that aliens use the Alat church as a compass. During its construction in 1712, the rays of the streets symmetrically departed from the square where it stands in all directions of the world, which can be seen from satellite images.

Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in the village of Alati

Maria Petrova, head of the organization "Kosmopoisk-Kazan":

– Similar observations have already been made in this region of Tatarstan. The presence of the Ashit River nearby confirms that the phenomenon most likely refers to a UFO. After all, flying saucers attract large areas of water bodies.

Belovsky district, Kemerovo region, Mokhovsky coal mine

On January 31, 2015, at the Karakan coal mine near the town of Belovo, mining foreman Artur Presnyakov stumbled upon an unusual object. At a depth of 40 meters lay a stone disc with bulges on both sides in the middle. After measurements, it turned out: its diameter is 1 m 20 cm, weight - 200 kg. Surprising finds for the Karakan section are not uncommon. Fossils and mammoth bones have already been found here, but they were closer to the surface of the earth - at a depth of 20 meters. And this means that the stone disk appeared even before the mammoths. According to scientists, the age of the find is about 250 million years.

Artur Presnyakov announced the discovery on his page on the social network, and scientists immediately became interested in it. The disk was handed over to the Kemerovo Regional Museum of Local Lore, where geologists and ufologists arrived for research.

Artur Ponomarev and his unusual find

Tomb or UFO?

Various versions were put forward: a disk of ancient people, a tomb, the petrified remains of marine inhabitants. But two versions became the most popular: this is a device for storing information or a fragment of an unidentified flying object.

“It really looks like a flying saucer, what to hide,” admitted ufologist Vadim Chernobrov, head of the Kosmopoisk organization. – As a specialist in aerospace aircraft, I am convinced that this form is the most convenient in terms of aerodynamics. But if a flying saucer made of almost any material really got into the rock and lay there for 200 or more million years, this product would not have come down to us in its original form.

The ufologist emphasizes that the atoms of the material could be replaced by the atoms of the surrounding matter, and the object has come down to us not in its original form, but in this one, petrified. As for the version that the disk is an information carrier like modern flash drives and disks, Chernobrov comments on this as follows:

– It is known that the electronic data array is well stored on silicon, much more efficiently than on many modern devices. Maybe before us is an experiment that was not started by us. Indeed, in Egyptian museums, for example, several such discs are also kept. For some reason, the Egyptians made them.

The disk really looks like a UFO

Photo Kemerovo Regional Museum of Local Lore, Maxim Kiselev

Scientists conducted research and measurements, no objects inside the disk were found. Now other studies are being carried out - the composition and nature of the disk is being studied, comparing it with other finds. For example, the same discs were found in China. The version was considered that these are black boxes of interplanetary ships, information carriers of other civilizations. Ufologists are sure that there should be more similar objects on the territory of the mine. And not a couple, but a lot at once, perhaps about ten.

An alien from the Chelyabinsk region - where the "Kyshtym dwarf" disappeared

Lovers of the mysterious and inexplicable know Aleshenka - a mysterious creature, thanks to which a small village in the Chelyabinsk region became known to the whole world. It was in the village of Kaolinovy ​​near Kyshtym that the mummy of an unknown humanoid, which ufologists consider an alien from distant planets, was found - and mysteriously lost. Who was he really? Perhaps we will never know.

The very beginning of history was marked by the seal of mysticism. In the summer of 1996, Tamara Vasilievna Prosvirina heard a voice in her head that persistently called for help. The voice brought the old woman not just anywhere, but to the cemetery. On one of the graves, the pensioner found a barely alive humanoid creature. Small - 25 centimeters long, skinny, like a baby. Grandmother took pity on the creature and decided to shelter it - she began to take care of him, fed him sweets and watered him. The name was given to him - Aleshenka.

The humanoid lived with his foster parent for about a month. Information about him, subsequently collected from the stories of the inhabitants of the village, was very fantastic. Some of the villagers saw Alyoshenka still alive. Eyewitnesses said that the creature smelled strange, and after eating it was covered with mucus. Some report that the creature had vertical pupils and was covered in fur.

The circumstances of the death of the humanoid are also shrouded in mystery. According to one version, after the old woman was taken to a psychiatric hospital, there was no one to look after the "alien". According to another, Alyoshenka died much earlier, being extremely weak and unadapted to human food. Tamara Prosvirina, unfortunately, will never talk about her strange adopted child - in 1999 she was hit by a car.

Aleshenka's dried body was found by policeman Yevgeny Mokichev during a search. His colleague Vladimir Bendlin became interested in the find and began his own investigation. This is how pictures of Alyoshenka's corpse were taken - the only thing left in the hands of scientists after his mysterious disappearance. Something that will help judge who the humanoid really was. A mutant, an alien or a representative of a species unknown to science?

Alyoshenka disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared. Bendlin contacted the UFO Star Academy. Contact according to the Zolotov method ”from the city of Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk region, dealing with the problems of ufology, and its employees seized the mummy - allegedly for further research. Yes, they didn't return it. Where this society of ufologists has gone, no one knows.

From the photo and video, we can conclude that the unique, non-human structure of the humanoid. It has a large bulbous head. There are teeth, but no cartilage, organs of the genitourinary system and anus.

Who is Alyoshenka? Ufologists insist on the version of its extraterrestrial origin. The participants of the 15th season of the show "The Battle of Psychics" Julia Wang and Tatyana Larina claimed that Alyoshenka is really an alien. But what does science say about this?

Maybe Aleshenka was just a premature mutant baby? According to many residents of the village, this would not be surprising. The ecology of the area leaves much to be desired: the chemical industry pollutes the soil and water with heavy metals, and relatively recently, in 1957, an explosion occurred at the Mayak plant in the local area, and radiation was added to the chemical pollution. Scientists are against this version: such mutations, in their opinion, are impossible in a human embryo. For example, he could not have teeth in any way.

Such a twin develops on the body of his brother or sister according to the principle of Siamese twins, but often develops more slowly and cannot eat and think on his own. And what is most terrible, such a twin can develop inside its "carrier"! And it can even be in the uterus of a “sister” woman. And she may not know about it for many years. Moreover, an unsuspecting woman may one day "give birth" to her twin, separated from the body.

Green Island

In appearance, an ordinary river island is fraught with a lot of mysteries.

The river island, 4 km long, located in the lower reaches of the Don River in the Rostov region, is famous for its "anomaly". For more than 70 years, Rostovites and guests of the city have encountered strange entities here. The story began back in the 1930s: several fishermen, having moored longboats, went down to the island to spend the night. In the darkness, they heard something like a big explosion! It was accompanied by a large hail, but it was strange that this hail did not melt ... Several maples fell nearby, and sparks flew up from there, which then also turned into strange grits. The next morning, the fishermen, in a cloudy mind and with pain in their chests, returned to Rostov ... Immediately, the bridge to the island was hastily closed (it is located on the Don, not far from the city) - the NKVD military hastily raided there.

One of the eyewitnesses of those events later said that as a boy he went to the island in order to investigate what happened in his own way. He discovered a dug hole 20x20 meters, which then someone tried to disguise. And around the pit there are grains that look like lead. The guy tried to make a sinker for a fishing rod out of lead, but ... it surfaced! The surprise was so strong that the boy preferred not to tell anyone about the strange find, and only decades later, when talk about Green Island resumed, did he share his observations. Strange stories about the island appeared long before this incident: in the 1920s, Rostovites liked to tell that ghosts, drowned people and zombies often appeared there.

Another story: between Rostov and Bataysk, it was planned to build an underground railway tunnel, the path of which ran right under the island. The project had already been approved, when suddenly the authorities canceled it. At the same time, in Stalin's times, they planned to build a children's health camp on Zeleny. However, again, at the last moment, without explaining the reasons, the idea was hacked to death, although a construction plan had already been drawn up.

During the war, a whole regiment perished on the island... Historians are perplexed: why was it necessary to destroy so many lives in order to protect a small piece of land without any infrastructure?! Scientists suggest that what the fishermen witnessed was nothing more than the crash of a UFO ship. Allegedly, its fragments were examined in a secret laboratory built on the island. She was protected...

Later, it was decided to plant poplars on the island: in Rostov, they take root as well as possible! But the landscaping plan was thwarted: only a few trees took root. And no wonder - the measurement of radioactivity shows that it is anomalously high! This, however, does not prevent one from surprising with opposite phenomena: for example, cherry bushes come across on the island, which amaze with the size of their truly “Chernobyl” fruits, and some trees grow at an angle of 45 degrees.

The case strikes the minds during the search for Chikatilo, when the entire Rostov region became more active. A team of operatives was sent to Green Island to observe. One of them, secluded at night with a girl, suddenly saw something strange: the whole life of his companion flew before his eyes in detail ... The same thing happened to her! In shock, they began to check each other for details. Everything matched!

Also known is the story of a fisherman who knew the island like the back of his hand. On one of his trips, he managed to get lost there, and no matter how hard he tried to get to the place he needed, he always returned to his boat. The amazing thing is that he followed the compass and still came to the same point.

And once a company of Rostovites, who sailed to the island to rest, was forced to leave it: in the midst of a picnic, they felt a strong vibration coming from the bowels of the earth, and everyone had a terrible headache. The guys tried to get into the boat as soon as possible - the sensations in it immediately disappeared ... Later they recalled how they were looking for a source of vibration: there were no ships passing by, it was also quiet on the opposite bank.

But the most inexplicable incident happened to an ordinary family of Rostovites who came to Zelenyi Ostrov with their six-year-old daughter Anya. The whole family was in the collection, as the girl suddenly disappeared. The mother remained to guard at the tent - suddenly the daughter herself will return! Father went to comb the woodlands. An hour and a half later, accidentally looking into the tent (where Anya was looked for first of all!), The parents found her sleeping there. The girl was barely awakened, and then she told how she went for a walk and, getting lost, fell asleep on a large black stone in the middle of some clearing ... and woke up in a tent. After this incident, the girl began to talk in her sleep in an unknown language.

Green Island is a favorite place not only for fishermen and vacationers, but also for sorcerers and magicians. Various signs of rituals were found there more than once: skulls, knives and other paraphernalia of occult lovers.

“One gets the feeling that some dark forces have converged here, and thanks to constantly emerging phenomena and various rituals held here, these forces began to receive additional powerful nourishment from space,” says Andrey Gorodovoy, a Rostov researcher of anomalous phenomena. - This explains the periodic hovering over the island of UFOs. And it seems to me that magicians choose this place not only because of its solitude. According to legend, many centuries ago a pagan temple with human sacrifices was located here. Water is a barrier to evil spirits, which is why it is concentrated in this particular place. And what happened on the eve of the Great Patriotic War was really very similar to the crash of an alien ship. This is also indicated by the facts that the NKVD troops secretly removed its fragments to Kapustin Yar. But a few small fragments still remained in the ground, and they give such strange side effects: wandering fires, underground vibrations, loss of memory of the people there.

Donskoy Stonehenge

A little more than ten years ago, 120 kilometers from Rostov-on-Don, near the Kamenny barrow near the Kerchik-Savrov farm, huge standing stones were discovered. By their location, they are very reminiscent of Stonehenge - the ancient temple of the Sun, located in the UK. The only difference is that the stones do not stand like cromlechs (blocks on which transverse giants lie), but look like menhirs - huge vertically standing stones. They laid out geometric shapes - squares, circles, parallels. The estimated age of the find is 7 thousand years BC. e., that is, they are even older than the more famous megaliths in the world. It is surprising that these stones are not at all from rocks familiar to the Don steppes, but from quartzite. It emits ultrasound, and thus it is easy to navigate through it ... but who?

Local residents speculate that these stone alleys are of alien origin. As if they were built for identification purposes: something like an airfield. Moreover, the stones have a certain direction - from east to west. The proof of this is the frequent occurrences of UFOs. One of the farmers said that at dawn, when she was milking a cow, she saw something elongated hovering over the stones with luminous windows. The contraption did not look like an airplane or a helicopter, and besides, it moved silently. This case is far from the only one.

There are other versions - perhaps the stones, arranged in such a bizarre way, simply served as a kind of calendar: from the shadows falling from them, it was possible to calculate the time and date. It is also suggested that the stones could be idols.

Riddles of ball lightning Medveditskaya ridge

Traces of fireballs

One of the most famous anomalous zones on the planet - the Medveditskaya ridge - is located on the border of the Volgograd and Saratov regions, not far from the city of Zhirnovsk. The Medveditskaya ridge is stretched across the steppe by a chain of low hills 200–370 m high.

The number of inexplicable things happening here is striking in its diversity.

Ball lightning has become a hallmark of the geomagnetic zone. The place where they appear most often has been nicknamed "Raging Lightning Hill". It sparkles here in any weather and at any time of the year. Fireballs appear both singly and in large groups and move in space contrary to all the laws of physics: against the wind, slowly and not high above the ground, in intricate trajectories, hovering in one place for a long time. Lightning can circle for hours along one route, burning through the trees that come across on the way. A lot of twisted, creeping birches along the ground are dotted with traces of fireballs that have passed through the trunks. Studies have shown that many birch trees are burned from the inside, in the direction from the root upwards, as if lightning burned them out of the ground. Cases have been recorded when lightning passed through people without hindrance, leaving no damage. There is an assumption that lightning appears from the bowels of the earth, from a network of ancient tunnels, and moves exclusively along the lines of these tunnels. In terms of the number of occurrences of ball lightning, the Medveditskaya ridge ranks second in the world after Malaysia.

Traces of mysterious tunnels can be traced in the history of the Golden Horde, which used them to store countless treasures. AT civil war The caves were used as shelters by White Cossack gangs. However, this does not at all explain the reason for their occurrence.

During the construction of one of the villages, builders unearthed an ancient burial place with skeletons of people over two meters tall. Giant skulls are regularly found when plowing fields. And on the other side of the river, a burial of midget people about half a meter tall was discovered. No reliable explanation has yet been found by scientists.

Volgograd ufological expeditions observed many phenomena of the Medveditskaya ridge. Not far from the slope of furious lightning is a low hill of artificial origin. The radiation background of this place is very unstable, it jumps from 6 to 24 microR/h and seems to “float” along the hill. Interestingly, soil samples show a normal radiation background, that is, the cause of the radiation is not on the surface, but inside the hill.

On the other side of the slope lies a clearing of sound mirages. People here hear their echo from several directions at the same time, accompanied by all this with a loud whistle and clicks.

Another mysterious place of the Medveditskaya ridge is the Grove of drunken birches. The spectacle of trees twisted into knots is striking and depressing at the same time. The condition of people here is rapidly deteriorating: whiskey aches, the general tone drops. Psychics say that the earth here sucks strength from a person. You can’t spend the night in the Drunken Grove - you can’t wake up in the morning.

People regularly disappear on the Medveditskaya ridge. If they can be found in hot pursuit, they look inhibited, depressed, do not want to return, and can remember almost nothing.

Residents of neighboring villages regularly observe UFOs - unidentified objects, mostly triangular in shape, which move along a broken path. The fields are dotted with triangular patches of land devoid of vegetation. It is impossible to plow these places: the equipment stalls.

Numerous expeditions have also witnessed UFOs. Here are just a few observations of ufologists:

“A star-shaped object has been observed moving from the western side. He moved in jerks, and before his disappearance hovered in one place. The angular height of the object was 80 degrees, magnitude 1. The object was observed for 3 minutes.”

“While observing the sky from the camp, the team leader noticed an unusual star. After some time, it increased significantly in angular dimensions and reached 2-star magnitude. The object was observed in the northwest. After increasing the size of the UFO moved to the east, gradually losing brightness. Within 5 seconds of movement, he ceased to be visible at all. The object was observed for 1 minute."

- Numerous studies of "Kosmopoisk" did not reveal any deviations in the Drunken Grove: radiation, electromagnetic fields, even soil pH - everything is normal. Apparently, the reason is genetic disorders or something else very subtle and difficult to investigate, - comments Andrey Bezrukov, deputy head of the Volgograd branch of Kosmopoisk. - Interestingly, the Drunken Grove is very local: it is a group of trees a hundred meters long, around which there are quite ordinary, normal trees. At one end, young, normal birch trees grow. Apparently, the anomalous impact was one-time in the past and no longer has any power.

My group and I have repeatedly observed a black UFO of a triangular shape, flying silently in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe village of Novinka (there is the 4th field camp of Kosmopoisk). Observed in the summer in 2007-2008.

Triangular overgrown areas in the fields in which machinery stalled are a reality. They could not be plowed open after triangular-shaped UFOs supposedly landed there. But that was still under the Soviets. When the Kosmopoisk expedition arrived in 2007, the traces had already lost their strange strength and did not work at all. And soon after they were smelled.

There is a secret ravine on the Medveditskaya ridge. Indeed, people disappear here in broad daylight. But its location is classified by Cosmopoisk so as not to attract crowds of onlookers there.

Don Shambhala

The temple of idolaters is surrounded by a giant moat

On the banks of the Don, near the village of Trekhostrovskaya, Volgograd Region, there is the mysterious Romanian Mountain.

The huge mound has always been considered by the locals as a "place of power". Repeated attempts were made to conduct archaeological excavations here. At the end of the 19th century, the merchant Pyotr Avdeev was looking for gold in the barrow. All hopes of getting rich were limited to the extraction of several carts of charcoal. In the 20s of the twentieth century, a serious archaeological expedition again tried to open the secret of the mound. The expedition was not successful. All the earth dug during the day mysteriously returned to its place by morning. The horses would untie themselves at night and run away. Local residents frightened archaeologists with stories about the terrible dark power of the mound, which should not be disturbed.

And only at the end of the 20th century, archaeological excavations revealed to the world an amazing temple of Indo-Iranian fire worshipers, an ancient cult place comparable in age to the Egyptian pyramids. The ancient Zoroastrians called this place "the navel of the Earth." According to archaeological research, the age of the temple of the god of fire Agni is from 2500 to 5000 years. It is not yet possible to determine the exact age of the temple. A hill of artificial origin with a diameter of about 200 meters is surrounded by an impressive moat. In the center of the hill there is a huge 40-meter furnace of complex architecture, in which fire has been maintained for hundreds of years.

Our ancestors knowingly chose this place for a fire place. The temple stands in the bend of the Don at an equal distance from the river: nine kilometers from the north, nine from the east and nine from the south. This place is considered to be filled with high energies. Here, cell phones go off, but people experience an extraordinary surge of strength and vigor.

Not far from the fire place stands the Romanian Mountain, which has attracted the attention of ufologists from all over the world for many years. It is here, according to cosmoenergetics, that one of the few places on the planet is located where the energy flow from the bowels of the Earth meets the energy flow coming from space. Unlike the fire place, staying on the Romanian Mountain for more than 20 minutes is almost impossible: everyone gets terrible headaches.

UFOs of various shapes have been spotted by local residents on several occasions, but they have not yet been captured on film.

The famous prophetess Vanga believed that one of the most important energy points for the entire planet was located on the Don. Perhaps it was about the Romanian mountain and the temple of fire worshipers.

During the Great Patriotic War, fascist troops rushed to this place. Scientists of the Ahnenerbe created by Hitler, a scientific institute that studied the practices of occultism, astrology and alchemy, believed that somewhere in the region of the Romanian Mountain and the fire place there was an entrance to the mystical Shambhala, the world of high vibrations. Was it by chance that the decline of the Third Reich began precisely near Stalingrad? After all, all the forecasts of German astrologers convinced that the winter of 1941-1942 would be mild. The troops marched light and did not at all expect to freeze in the Don steppes. Esotericists believe that the zone simply did not let the Germans in here.

Martian Chronicles

Martian views in the Volga steppe

Devil's game is one of the mysterious places of the Medveditskaya ridge, which deserves a separate story. In the middle of the green hills there is a real Martian red desert with a funnel in the center, about 400 meters in diameter and about 15 meters deep. Geographically, Devil's Game is located in the Kotovsky district of the Volgograd region, near the Romanov farm. Travelers are greeted by an amazing unearthly landscape: red sands of dozens of shades, rare dwarf ugly trees, also distinguished by a variety of colors, from green to purple and burgundy.

The sand here is very unusual, multi-colored: red, orange, pink - about 50 shades! In addition to the Devil's Game, such sands are found only in two places on Earth. They say that if you rub your hands with it, then the skin will sparkle for some time, as if sprinkled with shiny powder. And if the sand is taken out of the anomalous zone, after a while it will change its color.

Surprisingly, the sand in the Devil's Game is always wet, despite the arid semi-desert climate and low air humidity. The radiation background here is normal, but the compass needle in the crater literally goes crazy. There is no living creature here, not even the ubiquitous steppe snakes and lizards.

A crater of this size could hardly be the work of man, as it was formed many centuries before the era of bulldozers. None of the natural methods of funnel formation also explains its origin: there are no relief drops necessary for such tectonic shifts, there have never been reservoirs. Soil studies have shown that there are no traces of a meteorite, even the smallest ones, here either. Although it is very difficult to refuse the space version, the local landscape looks very fantastic. Multi-colored sands, unusual pebbles with a metallic sound (the number of which has greatly decreased with the advent of tourists), patches of melted sand suggest a spaceport. But if this is a cosmodrome, then it is definitely not of terrestrial origin, because it was formed long before the appearance of the first human technologies.

Near the Devil's Game, the land has not been plowed for a long time: it is impossible to make an even furrow here. All attempts to do this fail: the furrow quickly becomes crooked.

They say that if you stay here until dark, then it is simply impossible to find your way back until morning.

However, Andrei Bezrukov, one of the leaders of the Volgograd Kosmopoisk, who visited the Devil's Game with an expedition, believes that the mystery of this place is somewhat exaggerated:

- The fact of changing the color of the sand was not confirmed. We took it out of there a lot, but the color remained what it was. I believe that this is due to the saturation of the soil with iron, which is included in the sand in different proportions, which is why it is so colorful. Damn game is really an anomalous zone, but not so much from a UFO, but from a geological point of view.

Okunevo

On the banks of the Tara River, locals sometimes see strange luminous objects.

Photo: archive of the Telesem magazine. Omsk

The village of Okunevo is a regional center in the north of the Omsk region. Many thousands of years ago there was a camp of ancient people and traces of their stay are still preserved, for example, a stone sacrificial altar. And today, with the light hand of one of the Indian gurus, who in the late eighties decided to find and revive the ancient temple of Hanuman, Okunevo is considered the place where it once was located. Since then, this place has been considered the energy center of the Earth through which divine vibrations and energy flow. It is not surprising that Okunevo is a place of pilgrimage for lovers of esotericism, mysticism, and seekers of spiritual enlightenment. "Okunevskoe Sanctuary" Omkar is included by the Vatican among the holy places of the world. They say that a variety of inexplicable phenomena occur here, from visions to the appearance of UFOs. Villagers, numerous pilgrims and Babajists (representatives of this religious movement consider Okunevo a holy place and permanently live here) assure that UFOs are a common thing here, and they constantly see luminous balls either in the floodplain of the Tara River (a village is located on its bank), or near their houses, either in the vicinity of the Tarsky ridge, or on Lake Shaitan, which is located 7 km from Okunevo.

Local residents say that they once observed a UFO landing on the surface of Lake Shaitan: the “saucer” first hovered over the lake, then floated along its surface and dived into the reservoir. By the way, it is believed that the ancient temple of Hanuman is located exactly under the Shaitna Lake, and at night a greenish glow can be observed from the water.

Another case of a meeting of a local resident with a UFO in the mid-90s is described as follows: at three in the morning, going out into the street, a man saw an orange ball hanging over the field, and in the morning, having examined this place, he discovered a failure - a hole with an outer diameter of about a meter and going into the abyss, up to 20 m deep.

Glowing objects (mostly orange) pilgrims and locals see here quite often. They are different in shape: either glare, or yellow-orange fog, or white balls. But, as a rule, in shape they resemble a spinning top - a configuration traditional for UFOs. Last summer, such a spinning top, for example, was observed in a field southwest of Lake Shaitan, at the Bergamak cordon, in the bend of Tara and in a ravine that lies immediately behind Okunevo. And another top that landed under a large tree in the Tara bend even deceived the photographer: at the moment when he was about to capture it, it flew to another place, then to another, and finally melted away.

There was a case when such an orange "pinwheel" was next to a working geophysicist (scientists studied the geomagnetic background of the area), and when he tried to reach it with the antenna of a device for measuring the electrical component of the magnetic field, the readings on the device immediately went off scale - its electromagnetic field.

Sasovo, Ryazan region

The funnel from the explosion is now filled with rainwater and has become a lake

Photo by Vladimir Frolov

On April 12, 1991, exactly 30 years after the first manned flight into space, a powerful explosion thundered in the fields near Sasovo. Local residents said that before that they saw luminous balls in the sky and heard a growing strong rumble, but experts were in no hurry to lean towards the version with an unidentified flying object and discussed different versions. For example, one of the causes considered was bags of fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, left in the field, but significant traces of this substance could not be found.

The riddle was that a huge funnel with a diameter of about 30 meters and a depth of about 4 meters was formed at the site of the explosion, and a hill 1.4 meters high at the bottom. Interesting fact that a tree grew near the site of the explosion, but no damage from the blast wave was found on it. But there was evidence that for two nights in a row the funnel glowed from the outside, and the earth from the site of the explosion was scattered crosswise.

I was also surprised by the power of the explosion: in the houses located within a radius of 500 meters from the funnel, glass flew out. Moreover, they poured both inward and outward.

The Sasovo explosion is still of interest to ufologists, but there is no exact data on what it was yet. Although local residents, perhaps, are inclined to the version of the anomalous nature of the explosion, and there are eyewitnesses of unidentified flying objects.

Dalnegorsk, height 611

Mount Izvestkovaya, she is height 611

January 29, 1986 at 19 hours 55 minutes near the seaside town of Dalnegorsk, at the foot of a hill called height 611, an unidentified flying object about half a meter in diameter crashed. The object, according to eyewitnesses, had a solid spherical shell the color of stainless steel. Someone mistook it for a meteorite, someone - for an alien ship.

Schoolchildren were the main witnesses of the incident. One of them, at that time a fifth grade student, and now a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences Evgeny Serebrov, recalled:

“The ball flew parallel to the ground, rising and falling several times before our eyes. There was no tail or plume. There was no explosion, only a strong blow. Scientists who came to Dalnegorsk from Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, using a chronometer, calculated that the falling speed was 15 m / s, which did not correspond to the speed of falling meteorites. We, the boys, were then told by pundits that we were mistaken: neither a meteorite nor a fragment of a rocket could fly like that, they say ... "

According to eyewitnesses, the reddish-orange ball was "the size of half the moon or the size of a soccer ball." There were no sounds. The brightness of the red color changed - the ball flared up, then dimmed. Having flown up to the hill (it is also “height 611”, or Mount Izvestkovaya), the ball made a “peck” and abruptly went down. After the fall, the earth caught fire, and the fire was of some strange shade.

Soon, several schoolchildren organized a sortie to the site of the fall of the object. They saw a burnt stump, a shallow depression, branches cut off by fragments, but they could not find any large parts.

At the crash site, only melted drops of some substance were found, in appearance they resembled soft metal. However, they did not give in to tool steel processing; only a diamond cutter “took” them. As a result, scientists came to the conclusion that for the formation of metals with such resistance, the combustion temperature had to be above 3000 degrees. Other parts of the found substance turned out to be completely made of pure molybdenum, which, due to poor physical and chemical properties, is not used as a structural material on Earth.

Two weeks later, two more balloons appeared over the place where the first ball fell - they made four circles over height 611 and disappeared with a flash. A year later, this area was visited by a whole flotilla of UFOs, and different ones - both in the form of a silver disc and in the form of balls. Only officially registered UFO eyewitnesses in 1987 were more than 150 people. In total, 32 flights of unidentified objects were registered in the north of Primorye, including 14 over Dalnegorsk. When they appeared, the picture on the TV screens disappeared, phones and radios did not work. One of the balls hovered over Dalnegorsk, and a violet-blue beam came out of it, dim, about 50 cm in diameter. The beam turned out to be not so harmless - one man was standing at a bus stop, and when the beam touched him, he lost consciousness and fell. When he came to his senses, his face was very swollen...

In general, acquaintance with the anomalous zone in the region of height 611 had and continues to have an adverse effect on people - visitors to the hill complain of feeling unwell, a manifestation of inexplicable fear.

Since then, UFOs have begun to visit the crash site of their fellow less often - the last reports that "something incomprehensible was flying again" in the Dalnegorsk region date back to 2004.

Samara Luka

Samara Luka

Residents of the local villages and surrounding cities have repeatedly observed luminous balls, circles, pillars in the sky, shared cases of disorientation in space. Some who got lost in the adits of the Zhiguli Mountains spoke about caves with ice crystals and outlandish creatures frozen in them. A real sensation was made by concentric circles of unclear origin in a buckwheat field, which 10 years ago were discovered one July morning by residents of the new quarters of Togliatti.

ice crystals

Internet publications claim that the memories of an employee of Volgostroy, Viktor Ageev, have been preserved in the Samara State Archive. In the early 1930s, he was studying the Shiryaev adits in the Zhiguli mountains and once fell under a collapse. For five days I wandered around the dungeon and saw inexplicable things: “After long wanderings underground, I finally came out into a vast hall, some corners of which were filled with ice. In the darkness, this ice glowed with a faint bluish glow. The core of each of these huge columns was occupied by a creature, as if frozen in ice. Apparently, there were many such ice crystals here, and inside each of them unseen, fantastic monsters were motionless. Describing these creatures is extremely difficult. I remember a large head hanging over the body, huge bulging faceted eyes, a large suprafrontal bump, small hands with three fingers pressed to the stomach. The torso is something like a soft cocoon, rolled up into a tube and pressed against the stomach.

Since then, there have been no such messages. Perhaps because collapses regularly occur in adits and this hall with crystals has not been preserved.

This photo was taken with a cell phone near the intersection of Gorky and K. Marx streets in Tolyatti. It captures a fairly common triangular UFO in these places. The reliability index is the highest.

Glowing objects

But most often, those living on the Samara bow have to observe luminous balls, rays, groups of points.

- A luminous object was observed, for example, on the night of May 1, 2006, by two groups - from the Stone Bowl (tourists, students of VUiT) and from Lake Elgushi, - a senior researcher at the Togliatti Museum of Local Lore, journalist Lidia Lyuboslavova. - Around midnight (23:40), he appeared at a high altitude and moved from south to north, towards the Kurumoch airport, without sound. It was not possible to determine the flight altitude and size of the object due to darkness, but it visually resembled a very large star. In front of him from Kurumoch at that time a plane was taking off. The object stopped (!) in the air and smoothly turned to the side, described a curve and disappeared, as if melted. The observation process took quite a long time, about 10 minutes, so it is very doubtful that we were dealing with ball lightning.

Another fairly common phenomenon is clots of fog. Here is what Lydia Lyuboslavova says about this:

- In June 2005, our group walked along the southern coast of the Samara bow from Shelekhmeti to Osinovka. We moved along the top, along the rocks, along a heavily overgrown path. In the area of ​​the Visly Kamen rock, one of the participants, who was walking ahead of everyone, noticed a wrapped figure (he assures that it was a man) to the left of the path, that is, above the very cliff. An elderly man allegedly crossed the path and merged with the rock. It is curious that the participant did not know about publications in the press, where similar episodes were cited: meetings with an old man disappearing into the rocks. Another example. On the evening of April 30, 2006, in the Yelgushi tract, for about half an hour I watched a procession of tourists moving through the wasteland (about 100 meters away from me), who then took on the shape of animals and disappeared unnoticed. (Again, I will draw a parallel: in the works of cultural researchers, stories of local residents are given about similar phenomena: for example, people see haystacks moving across a meadow. They attribute this to the intrigues of the goblin).

The head of the Togliatti UFO Commission, Tatyana Makarova, says that over the 15 years of the commission's work, more than a thousand reports of UFOs and anomalous phenomena in Togliatti and its immediate environs have been accumulated. And this database of messages is constantly updated.

What's the matter, explain!

When witnesses of anomalous phenomena turn to scientists with a request to explain what they have experienced, they, as a rule, dismiss or talk about the subjective features of a person's psycho-emotional and physiological perception.

Indeed, for a long time there was no clear explanation of where, for example, concentric circles appeared on a buckwheat field in July 2005. The townspeople have already forgotten that story or remember it with laughter, agreeing that this was the work of some joker-hooligan.

- Falls in the buckwheat field do not have a single sign that would indicate their anomalous origin. It is also known who did it. But for obvious reasons, I can’t name names, ”says Tatyana Makarova, head of the Togliatti UFO Commission.

Photo site of the Togliatti UFO Commission

The photo was taken in the Avtozavodsky district of Tolyatti on October 13, 2011 by a cell phone camera. The object, which is depicted on it as being (flying) in the sky, has no analogues among known technical devices.

However, some scientists still undertake to explain what is happening. But so far, apart from the conclusion that the Zhiguli Mountains are the strongest anomalous zone, the matter is not moving forward. One of the most fantastic versions belongs to the Samara search group "Avesta": in the depths of the Zhiguli Mountains, at great depths, for many millions of years, a certain technical device, once created by an ancient super-civilization, has been operating. This device creates a force field around itself, which prevents the flow of water flows through the mountain range. That is why the Volga has been forced to go around the Zhiguli Mountains throughout all these millions of years, making a strange bend in its middle course. This hypothetical geomachine is a bunch of force fields - electromagnetic, gravitational, biological, or others that are not yet known to us. It is these fields that for more than ten million years have been helping the Zhiguli limestones (which, as you know, are very susceptible to water erosion) to keep the ancient riverbed in a stable position, preventing even its slight displacement. According to the Avesta group, an extraterrestrial civilization needs this underground energy complex to feed an extra-spatial channel that connects their world with the earth's surface. Such a channel can play the role of a kind of television camera through which a distant civilization sees everything that happens on our planet. Proof of this is the strange mirages that are regularly observed in the sky above the Samara bow, as well as over some other points on our planet.

“Such versions as those of Igor Pavlovich from the Avesta group should be treated with particular caution, because, excuse me, this is a fantasy, and nothing more,” says Tatyana Makarova, head of the Togliatti UFO Commission. And he continues: “Scientists do not explain what is happening in any way. Firstly, such phenomena occur not only on the Samara bow, but also on a fairly large adjacent territory. Secondly, while the accumulation of factual data is in progress, and in order to understand the mechanisms of what is happening, serious full-scale studies are needed, which so far no one has been doing, both due to inaction and due to the imperfection of technical support. Therefore, there can be no more or less objective explanations so far.

“As a researcher, journalist and materialist, I am sure that any phenomenon can be given a scientific explanation,” says Lydia Lyuboslavova. – The question is whether modern science is ready to give it. Everything has its time. Maybe it's good that so far there are no clear intelligible explanations? The unknown attracts. Including tourists.

Photo site of the Togliatti UFO Commission

The brightest photograph of several similar ones taken by different photographers in different time in different places Zhiguli. This photo was taken in the area of ​​the natural monument Racheyskiye Alps (near Syzran). During the shooting, the photographer and his companions did not see (didn't notice?) any foreign objects in front of the digital camera lens. The object (and other similar objects) is significantly different from possible natural objects that fell into the lens (birds, flies, airplanes, etc.). The reliability index is the highest. Conveyed by L. N. Lyuboslavova.

1965 Local residents with delight and fear at the same time watched a strange object of an elongated shape flying without a single sound, the size of which was about 300 meters. When a UFO flew over the peaks of the Khamar-Daban ridge, three white balls separated from it and flew away at high speed in the other direction. This case is officially recorded by the UFO Commission.

1967 A UFO landed not far from one of the Baikal villages. According to local residents, tall creatures, almost two meters tall, very similar to people, dressed in silver overalls, came out of the space object.

Same 1967. The Il-14 aircraft was preparing to land at the Irkutsk airport. The liner was already entering the runway, as a mysterious object of a huge size appeared next to it. The UFO first illuminated the plane with a bright beam, then flew after it for some time, repeating all its movements. And then he disappeared as quietly as he appeared.

By the way, about the airport of Irkutsk. Ufologists have long been saying that it was built in an anomalous zone. During its existence (began to function in 1925), 11 (!) disasters occurred here, and only one managed to avoid casualties.

1971 Leningrad engineer Georgy Filippov with his wife and son were vacationing on Lake Baikal. Somehow, on an inflatable sailing raft, they moved away from the coast at a distance of no more than a kilometer. The sun went down, and the man, wanting to return to the shore, tried to start the engine - to no avail, he wanted to set the sail - the wind changed direction. It got dark. And suddenly the man looked back and saw three luminous columns rising up from the water, which, having joined, formed a pyramid. A black triangular platform appeared under the pillars. After a few seconds, the columns broke away from the surface of the water and began to rise up, and then, as it were, were drawn into the platform and turned into bright white lights. A few moments later, the platform moved in the opposite direction from the coast and disappeared.

1982 Military swimmers held training camps on Baikal and dived to a depth of 50 meters. There, in the water column, they once noticed strange creatures almost 3 meters tall, who swam in helmets, but without scuba gear and were dressed in silver wetsuits. Military submariners decided to catch one giant. They plunged into the water, stretched a thin strong net there and tried to throw it on one of the unknown. But something strange happened: it was as if someone had pushed them to the surface. As a result, three of the seven swimmers died of decompression sickness, four remained disabled. After this incident, ufologists began to talk about the fact that at the bottom of Lake Baikal there may be an underwater base of aliens from outer space.

2006 Above Lake Baikal, near the village of Bolshie Koty, UFOs staged a real light show for vacationers: more than ten balloons hovered over the lake and left only a few minutes later.

Regularly shaped circles with a diameter of 25–40 meters have existed on Olkhon Island for a very, very long time. Scientists-historians tried to explain the origin of the circles by saying that these are supposedly traces of the buildings of the Buryat yurts, but if we compare, the diameter of the circle is 20–30 times larger than the traditional yurt. Biologists say that the circles are nothing more than mycelium, consisting of growing intertwined threads. The local population believes that these are traces of tengris - mystical creatures that descend to earth every full moon and dance. Ufologists believe that circles are evidence of aliens visiting the earth.

In proof of the unearthly version of the origin of the circles, one can cite the stories of people traveling in circles. Those who tried to enter the center of the circle say that they had a feeling of some kind of obstacle that needed to be pushed through (this is similar to squeezing a film). Moving along the border of the circle resembles immersion in the water column. And some lovers of the mystical and mysterious argue that if you stand in the very center of the circle, then there is a slight change in consciousness.

“In general, the entire Urals is an anomalous region,” says Aleksey Martin, coordinator of the Russian UFO station in the Urals. – We have a lot of minerals being mined, developments are underway, a lot of resources. All this attracts the attention of cosmic beings who draw energy for their activities in such zones. We also have many military and industrial facilities - in this case, we can say that they are interested in man-made human activities. But it is difficult for us to judge why the Sverdlovsk triangle has become anomalous - there is nothing here except for a thermal power plant and a quarry, other creatures cannot be interested in this. But we assume that there is a natural anomalous zone here, which feeds them at the energy level.

In the 1980s and 1990s, it was here that the largest number of documented UFOs were recorded. Moreover, their flights took place along the same trajectory and at the same height, which makes us think about some kind of “route”. Just balls flew by, from which luminous rays emanated, there were also luminous points that moved along broken lines, which no human aircraft is capable of. They hovered in the air, there were jumps, accelerations.

Photo personal archive of Alexei Martin

In the same places, people often wander, for hours they cannot find a way out of the forest, although no matter which way you go there, you can quickly reach civilization. Moreover, they wander not over a vast territory, but over an area of ​​2 by 2 kilometers. Travelers go in circles and return to the starting point again and again. Others, on the contrary, can overcome 10 km at a leisurely pace in an hour.

In the Sverdlovsk triangle, traces are often found - seemingly human - that go to some open area and abruptly end. If this is a person, then his disappearance is absolutely inexplicable!

In 2008, a film crew of one federal channel came to the anomalous zone - they filmed a program. They wanted to interview the fishermen who were sitting on the small shores of the lake inside the zone. They set up the camera, and on the screen - colored flashes. We decided to move to another place - there is the same thing. TV workers were afraid for their equipment and fled to shoot in safer places. And they said that this happened to them only once, when they filmed at the plant near the open-hearth furnaces.

There has been no urban development in this area for a long time. Now buildings of the Ural Federal University are being built there, and ufologists are afraid that something might happen to those who will study and work there.