Felix Ziegel

Felix Yurievich Ziegel (, 20 March 1920 – 20 November 1988) was a Soviet researcher, Doctor of Science and docent of Cosmology at the Moscow Aviation Institute, author of more than forty popular books on astronomy and space exploration, generally regarded as a founder of Russian ufology. Ziegel, the co-founder of the first officially approved Soviet UFO research group, became an overnight sensation when, on 10 November 1967, speaking on the Soviet central television, he made an extensive report on the UFO sightings registered in the USSR and encouraged viewers to send him and his colleagues first-hand accounts of their observations, which resulted in barrage of letters and reports. He died in November 1988, leaving 17 volumes of the unpublished research documents for his daughter to keep.

Biography Early years Felix Ziegel was born in Moscow on 20 March 1920, to the lawyer Yury Konstantinovich Ziegel, a Russian-born ethnic German, and his wife, Nadezhda Platonovna. "I had been sentenced to death before I was even born," Felix Ziegel used to say later, referring to the extreme circumstances of his birth. The concept jarred with the official "meteorite theory" but a decade later the evidence would be found, corroborating his idea that the object indeed went off in the air, without contacting the Earth. This latter discovery came as a result of numerous expeditions to the region made in the 1960s by enthusiasts who, in their own turn, have cited Ziegel's lectures as an original inspiration.

In 1963 Ziegel, now the co-author (with Valery Burdakov) of the first Soviet university textbook on the cosmonautics and space exploration became the astronomy docent in the Moscow Aviation Institute. The same year he read Donald Menzel's book Flying Saucers published in Russian which reignited his interest in possible contacts with the extraterrestrial life.

UFO studies In May 1967 the first official Soviet UFO Study Group held its meeting at the Moscow Aviation and Cosmonautics Center with Major General Pyotr A. Stolyarov at the helm and Ziegel as his deputy. In October the DOSAAF Cosmonautics Committee invited the Group to function under its auspices. Preceding this was the publication of Ziegel's article in Smena magazine, in which he wrote:These UFOs have been seen all over the USSR; the craft of every possible shape, small, large, flattened, spherical. They are able to remain stationary in the atmosphere or shoot along at 100,000 kilometers per hour. They move without producing the slightest sound, by creating around themselves a pneumatic vacuum that protects them from burning up in our stratosphere. Their craft have the mysterious capacity to vanish and reappear at will. Besides, they are able to affect our power resources, putting to a halt our electricity-generating plants, our radio stations, and our engines, without, however, leaving any permanent damage. So refined a technology can only be the fruit of an intelligence that is indeed far superior to ours.

On 10 November 1967 Stolyarov and Ziegel, speaking on the Central TV, encouraged viewers to send their first-hand accounts in. The response was astonishing: it showed, Ziegel later wrote, that the UFO phenomena was indeed widespread. But before the committee (by this time comprising more than 200 scientists and high-level professionals) could even begin to work on the information received, its work was abruptly cancelled. In the end of 1967 the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Physics department led by Lev Artsymovich, passed a resolution denouncing studying of UFOs as such. In February 1968 Ziegel made a report at a high-level discussion held in Moscow, academicians Leontovich, Mustel and Petrov attending. Several days later he received a letter from Edward Condon, the director of the University of Colorado UFO Project, suggesting that the Soviet and the American groups should cooperate, starting with the information exchange. Ziegel and twelve other members of his group signed a letter requesting the Soviet government to create the state-sponsored organization that should coordinate all the UFO research in the country. Next month he received the official response: it was negative.

The Inhabited Cosmos was already in print, when Boris Konstantinov suddenly died in July 1969. The academician Lev Artsimovich demanded the book to be confiscated and brought before the academician Vasily Fesenkov for further scrutiny. The resume signed by Artzymovich and Fesenkov, read: "Along with the articles based on strong scientific evidence we found there some pseudo-scientific scoops (UFOs, Tunguska meteorite, etc.) more akin to fables, which can in no way be published under the Academy's auspice".

Ziegel and Pekelis made an official protest. It was upheld by Parin, the almanac's new Editor-in-Chief, but rejected by Mikhail Millionshchikov, the academy's vice-president. The heavily censored 1972 edition, according to Argumenty i Fakty, "profoundly shook the readership" Ziegel called for the special meeting of the academy's Radioastronomy Council, inviting some well-known scientists like Vsevolod Troitsky and Nikolai Kardashev. His lecture made an impact: in a carefully worded resolution the Council proposed that the "data exchange process should be maintained" between the Council and the UFO investigators. Ziegel then formed the UFO Study Group at the MAI, compiled a report called "The Preliminary Study of Anomalies in the Earth's Atmosphere" and initiated the ambitious UFO-77 symposium. What followed then were what Ziegel later referred to as his "days of nightmare." On 28 November 1976, sci-fi writer Yeremey Parnov published in Komsomolskaya Pravda an article entitled "The Technology of Myth-mongering", calling for "this whole UFO business to be sorted out," and labeling ufology "pseudoscience". According to the two commissions' joint communiqué, Ziegel's mistakes came as the result of his "poor knowledge of the principal postulates of Marxism-Leninism," which prompted him "taking upon the subject far beyond his scientific qualification and scope of knowledge". Researcher's demand for this verdict to be openly discussed at the institute's Communist party committee was ignored.

Still, Ziegel had influential allies (whom he often mentioned, but never specified). In The Brief History of the UFO Studying in the USSR he wrote: "…So I had to forward letters to our country's highest quarters. I informed them of how important it was that the UFOs should be studied in the USSR, of how serious and significant this problem was and of this press campaign's sheer absurdity. And this time my voice was heard. These higher quarters interfered and made sure no repressive actions would be taken against me." Ziegel was expelled from the Znaniye (Knowledge) society where he lectured for more than thirty years, but retained his position at the MAI. People like physicists V.A. Lashkovtsev and B.N. Panovkin (his former student) continued to attack Ziegel, and, "Y. I. Parnov was not to be left behind. As A. P. Kazantsev informed me, speaking at the Writers' Union special Science fiction authors' congress on February 23, 1977, Yeremei Iudovich insisted that "Ziegel's lectures were the act of foreign ideological subversion. Their direct result has been our industry's labour efficiency’s 40 per cent drop!", Ziegel wrote.

In 1979 he formed another, this time unofficial group of the UFO investigation enthusiasts. It compiled thirteen type-written volumes of the classified UFO sightings evidence, complete with fresh theoretical works, summed up in the extensive thesis called "The Introduction to the Future UFO Theory".

Death In 1985 Ziegel suffered a stroke. Recovered, he returned to the Aviation Institute full of new ideas and lecturing plans. A second stroke proved to be fatal; Felix Ziegel died on 20 November 1988. Tatyana Konstantinova-Ziegel told Argymenty I Fakty in March 2010: "For my father Stalinism has never ended. As the War broke out he, an ethnic German, was deported to Alma-Ata. After the War he had difficulties because his second name sounded too Jewish to many. And while in the years of the Thaw, the whole country started to shake itself off this horrible catatonia, in science the domination of "the one and only correct point of view" remained a norm. Obscurantism and common ignorance, unveiled malice from one group of people and secret jealousy of another – those were the reasons that prevented him from bringing his ideas to the general public's awareness." According to ufology.net at least 50,000 UFO reports collected by Ziegel have been left stored in the MAI computers. Tatyana Konstantinova-Ziegel claimed she was (as of 2011) still in a possession of 17 huge type-written volumes of her father's unpublished work.