Remembering a 36 year old space Voyage
Hayter for Oct 19, 2025
This morning, I decided to take us 36 years and four days back in time. While we’re not reliving the day of October 15, 1989, we’re going to read about it. I have in my hand the Trends section of the Conroe Courier’s 36-year-old Sunday edition. What I have now is a story about an alien spacecraft that landed in the Soviet Union.
Assuming you never heard of this particular incident, I thought I would refresh our memory about the aliens that landed in the Soviet Union. The following is what a 40-year-old Government teacher reported concerning a visit to Russia by extraterrestrials.
Thirty-six years ago, my Courier boss intended me to focus on Fairfield’s Fall Foliage Festival. Fortunately, news had just arrived about an alien spacecraft landing somewhere in Russia, in a town with a name that started with a “V” and was followed by eight other consonants.
The first to learn about the alien visit were children from Vkrsklsxz, home of the Vkrskls Seal-Shooters. After sighting a strange landing of a spacecraft, followed by the observance of three extraterrestrials who exited the cigar-shaped craft and wandered off for a short while. When they returned to the landing craft, it took off immediately. Its last sighting was in a Northeast portion of Siberia.
Upon the ship’s exit, the children who had witnessed the event collected some strange stones left behind by the three passengers. When they returned to town, they displayed their find to several Vkrsklsxz adults. The objects looked a lot like chunks of green Sulfur. The adults didn’t know what it was, but they were sure it did not arrive in a spacecraft. Each of them were full of vodka at the time, but still had a portion of their brains operating.
Personally, I believe the kids. I just don’t see them making up a story about 13-foot, three-eyed, no-nose aliens. I only wish pictures were taken. In the Soviet Union children are not allowed to steal cameras from the town leaders.
For me, the importance of the story doesn’t rest with the sighting itself. It’s significance lies in the fact that the Soviet National News Agency, TASS, actually printed the story. They were apparently unconcerned about a panic being spread by Soviet children. Regardless, all of the Ivans and Gwezldxs still went to work the next day and produced their quota of defective tractor tires.
There is little difference in the U.S. of A’s take on aliens. Especially, the ones living and working here. That aside, It was a few years ago that two ladies and a child received radiation burns after viewing some kind of vehicle being followed by a bunch of helicopter-looking aircraft on a road near New Caney. The government response was : “No, we didn’t have 23 helicopters near New Caney. Nothing showed up on radar. An Air Force doctor is studying the burns on the three people who supposedly noticed the strange craft.”
On that particular night the Air Force was probably testing a way to engage the landing gear of one of its B-1 bombers, and the experiment turned nasty. I can see where news of a malfunction in a nuclear wheel engager might cause a stir.
A space story, of a more positive nature, centers around the Atlantis mission. While I’ve often questioned the wisdom of naming a shuttle after a lost continent, I am fascinated by the mission. Have you been reading about what it is Galileo, an unmanned research spacecraft, is supposed to do? Once launched by Atlantis, Galileo will circle Venus a time or two, go back to earth where some gravitational force will hurl it toward Jupiter at a speed of 100,000 mph. While that’s nowhere near warp speed, it’s almost as fast as a Dominoes Pizza delivery truck on a Friday night.
At some point Galileo will release a probe that will zoom towards Jupiter. This is where it gets hairy. This five-foot capsule will slam into a gravity force that is 400 times greater than Earth’s. Then a parachute is supposed to come out and slow the thing a bit. There will likely be a massive crash to the special package that may shred the daylights out of it, causing the thing to smash onto the surface of Jupiter. If not, the capsule could bury itself deep enough to take photos of Jupiterian creatures living below ground. Look, I’ve seen the movies. Who is to say it won’t happen?”
That is the end the news from October 1989. It’s merely a small portion of space knowledge that was acquired. What we now know is that Galileo was destroyed while in the atmosphere of Jupiter, because astronomers wanted to protect Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. They considered it best to end Galileo’s attempt at crashing into Jupiter. I was 51 years old at the time and didn’t know a thing about Europa… nor cared to know. I was still teaching government at the time.
By the way, Voyager 1 and 2 are the farthest space objects that have ever been fired into space by earthlings. That means that Americans are still Number One? By the way, Voyager Two left earth about three weeks before Voyager One.
And the Voyagers are more than just satellites. They are “…ambassadors for humanity, carrying a message on a gold record with sounds and images from Earth. Its legacy will live on for centuries, serving as a reminder of our curiosity and our desire to explore the cosmos.
I don’t know who etched onto the Voyagers. Unless the President allows the special envelope to leave his desk, we’re going to have to wait until someone from China comes up with a way for spacecraft to travel the speed of light. Einstein said that was not going to happen.
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