Brief Biography
Born in Athens in 1963, he studied Public Health but pursued a professional career in journalism, writing, and translation. Since 1982, he has authored approximately one thousand articles on subjects including paranormal and anomalous phenomena research, astronautics and astronomy, anthropology, ethnology, folklore, and related fields.
To date, nineteen of his books have been published—fifteen non-fiction works and four science-fiction novels. His articles and short stories have also appeared in various anthologies and collective publications. In addition, six monographs have been published. He has translated more than sixty books, both scientific and literary.
THANASSIS VEMBOS
The Early Period of UFO Research in Greece
1946 - 1989
A General Appraisal
Nearly eighty years after the “official” beginning of the phenomenon, the subject of UFOs remains enigmatic. The overwhelming majority of reported cases can be explained through conventional means, yet there remains a “hard core” of incidents that continue to resist ordinary explanations.
In Greece, the evolution of the phenomenon followed a familiar path: initially, complete ignorance; later, the delayed and chaotic arrival of various interpretive trends; and finally, the dominance of a mixture of conspiracy theories, arbitrary assumptions, misinformation, absurdities, speculation, and half-truths. There is, however, one aspect that remains largely unknown to the public—even to the specialized public.
This evolution appears, at first glance, to have been linear. In reality, it was anything but. The UFO phenomenon in its classical form—that is, as it developed after 1947—followed a fluctuating course marked by periods of growth and decline. Its historical intensity varied considerably over time.
An extensive and time-consuming investigation of old newspapers, which I conducted between 2009 and 2011 at the Municipal Library of Athens, yielded not only a vast archive of press clippings but also a comprehensive picture of the UFO phenomenon and—more importantly—of how it was perceived by the Greek public, including both ordinary citizens and members of the scientific community. For example, the first half of the 1950s produced far more reports and generated considerably greater public interest than almost the entire decade of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, despite what one might expect. The reasons for this are another story altogether, one which I examined in detail in my book The Spirit of the Times (Daidaleos Publications, 2013).
The modern history of UFO research in Greece begins shortly before the “official” start of the phenomenon marked by Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting on June 24, 1947. More precisely, it begins in the autumn of the previous year, in the aftermath of the massive wave of “ghost rockets” reported across Scandinavia—and beyond—which also reached Greece.
In 1946, the political climate in Greece was extremely tense. The first phase of the Greek Civil War had already begun, with communist guerrillas launching armed attacks against Gendarmerie stations, while clashes in the countryside became increasingly frequent. Persecutions and executions had already started. On September 1, 1946, amid growing political tension, a referendum was held on the return of King George II. Nearly 70 percent voted in favor of his restoration. The King's return would inevitably lead to a further escalation of the Civil War.
On September 5, while Prime Minister Konstantinos Tsaldaris was in London, he stated during a press conference that “flying rockets” had been observed in the skies of northern Greece. Specifically, twelve rockets had reportedly been sighted on the night of September 1—the day of the referendum—by Greek military commanders and British officers in Thessaloniki. Others had been observed over various regions, from Stavroupoli to Kastoria, as well as above Serres and Drama. Tsaldaris diplomatically stated that the origin of the rockets was unknown. His remarks were later confirmed in Athens by Foreign Minister Stephanos Stephanopoulos.
In the wake of the Scandinavian “ghost rocket” wave, the most plausible explanation was that these objects represented tests of new weapons systems, possibly Soviet in origin. It was therefore hardly surprising that this perceived threat appeared over northern Greece, a region dangerously close to neighboring states that were, at the time, considered hostile. Following the announcement, a wave of rumors and unconfirmed reports spread throughout the country, while sightings of the “rockets” continued.
On September 9, Pavlos Santorinis (1893–1986), then Lecturer in Applied Physics at the University of Athens, an important scientist with pioneering work abroad and, as would become known many years later, a member of a secret committee investigating the origin of the “rockets,” addressed the Athens Radio Station. Commenting on the Scandinavian ghost rocket wave, he suggested that the objects represented an exceptionally advanced weapon system. The rockets, he argued, appeared to be guided—since they had reportedly been seen changing direction—and were probably equipped with an “electronic brain,”[1] a term that today would be understood as a computer.
In general, Santorinis concluded that some nation was demonstrating a new class of weapons capable of defending against enemy aircraft carrying atomic bombs:
“It wishes to demonstrate that it does not fear them. To this end, it must show that it possesses self-guided rockets for its defense, as well as offensive rockets which it can send anywhere within Europe. Consequently, it carries out demonstrative launches toward Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Greece, and elsewhere; it allows them to descend to low altitudes so that everyone may see them, and then guides them back again. In this way it displays the perfection of their mechanism. The astonishing reliability of flight exhibited by these so-called Ghost Rockets convinces every specialist that they are most likely highly perfected examples of modern weaponry.”[2]
[1] What today would be called a computer.
[2] Pavlos Santorinis, “Ghost Rockets – The Capabilities of the New Weapon,” Empros, September 11, 1946.
Like every wave of related phenomena, the ghost rocket episode subsided after only a few days. As part of the familiar process of rationalization and the subconscious burial of such “troubling” clusters of incidents, the matter was soon forgotten and became little more than a footnote in the blood-stained history of the Greek Civil War.
In the years that immediately followed, with the “official” beginning of the phenomenon in its modern form, the Greek public—or at least the newspaper-reading public—began to familiarize itself with the new phenomenon, which was then known as the “flying saucers.” The interpretation that they were secret weapons fitted well with the spirit of the age and the atmosphere of fear regarding both external and internal threats, whereas the idea that they were “interplanetary machines” was largely dismissed. Greece had experienced neither an Industrial Revolution nor a widespread embrace of rationalism and technology. For these reasons, the supernatural and metaphysical dimensions of UFOs were particularly pronounced within Greek society, and the phenomenon was frequently confused with seemingly unrelated fields such as Parapsychology and Spiritualism. For the same reason, the Demonic Hypothesis concerning the origin of UFOs has always enjoyed considerable popularity in Greece—as we shall see later.
The position of the scientific establishment was, predictably, highly conservative. In March 1950, during one of the first interviews devoted to the subject, Stavros Plakidis (1893–1990), Director of the Athens Observatory and Professor at the University of Athens, together with Deputy Director Georgios Adamopoulos, expressed their views. Plakidis favored the secret-weapons explanation, while Adamopoulos attributed the reports to misinterpretations of astronomical phenomena. The wholesale rejection of the phenomenon would remain the dominant attitude of the Greek scientific establishment for decades. This approach also characterized its response to many other unconventional subjects and reveals the deeper ideological conservatism and inward-looking mentality embedded within the Greek collective unconscious. Following the interviews, the journalist concluded:
“Are these celebrated ‘flying saucers’ therefore a case of mass psychosis, optical illusion, imagination, meteors, fireballs, shooting stars, comets, or merely a fabrication of the Cold War? For what some imaginative Americans claim—that they come from another planet by means of mechanical craft—is not accepted by the competent scientists even as a joke.”[1]
Beyond the material—or perhaps not entirely material—“threat from the skies,” flying saucers and their “pilots” became closely associated with “spirits,” understood as incorporeal entities from higher realms. Strange as it may seem, Spiritualism would play a significant role in shaping the UFO phenomenon in Greece.
During a Spiritualist séance held in Piraeus (the exact date is uncertain, though it occurred sometime between 1947 and 1950), the medium E.F. was asked whether the newly appeared “flying saucers” were of terrestrial origin or came from neighboring planets.
“The flying saucers are a reality and not an optical illusion, as some claim. The error lies in the following: you regard all these luminous and extremely fast-moving craft as saucers, whereas they are not all saucers, nor do they all originate from Earth [...] The genuine saucers are terrestrial and move at relatively low speed compared with the others. In addition to the genuine saucers, your atmosphere is traversed by enormous cylindrical craft originating from neighboring planets which, because of their great speed, create the impression of saucers. The crews of these interplanetary vessels have repeatedly crossed the Earth’s atmosphere and have transmitted to their base complete descriptions of your planet’s atmospheric conditions and geographical features. They possess detailed information concerning the distribution of the population across the Earth’s surface and are diligently preparing and studying the possibility of landing, either on land or at sea. One fine morning you will be astonished by their mass appearance. Do not be afraid, however; this approach will have highly beneficial consequences for the progress of humanity...”[2]
Subsequent séances involving other mediums would produce a flood of descriptions concerning flying saucers and their pilots. In 1949, during a series of sessions centered on a medium practicing automatic writing, the spiritual guide “Alexander” made the following intriguing statements.
[1] Sp. Avlonitis, “The Opinion of Greek Specialists on Flying Saucers,” Akropolis, 28 March 1950.
[2] Alexandros Bellos, A World Without Death, p. 108.
Public concern over the strange appearances of mysterious objects within the Earth's atmosphere is understandable. Much has been said about them, yet one thing is certain: human history is about to change its course thanks to the imminent mass landing of the inhabitants of Mars, who will profoundly influence humanity’s future.
They are delaying their arrival out of concern that they might inadvertently hand over to Earthlings a terrible weapon of destruction. They are also accustomed to a much colder environment, thinner air, and lower gravity, which is another reason for the delay. [...]
When speaking of celestial bodies, you refer to attraction and interaction. Yet their rotation and whirling motion within the void transform that void, through the very act of rotation and vortical movement, into a form of space [...] solid, more solid even than material substance itself. Matter itself is based upon the vortex motion of negative energy, which in this manner materializes, first becoming positive energy and subsequently matter.[1]
The anticipated landing clearly evokes a secularized version of the Second Coming, emerging during an era in which the transcendent became increasingly identified with outer space. This central idea would be repeated continuously over the following decades and would become the core message delivered by the “extraterrestrials” who allegedly established direct contact with human beings—the so-called contactees—beginning in the 1950s. These extraterrestrials originated from Mars, Venus, or other unknown planets; they were invariably benevolent and conveyed messages of brotherhood, love, and peace—precisely the same themes commonly communicated by “spirits” during Spiritualist séances. Equally noteworthy is the pseudo-scientific “teaching” they often provided, another characteristic feature of such communications.
The parapsychological dimension of UFOs also emerged during this period, and indeed at a remarkably early stage, through the theories of Argyrios Kouzas, a physician from Thessaloniki. In October 1952, Kouzas argued that these mysterious phenomena were neither extraterrestrial spacecraft nor secret weapons, but rather “ectoplasms of psychogenic ontogenesis.”[2] Prompted by the enormous wave of flying saucer sightings in the United States during the summer of 1952 and the widespread anxiety it generated, Kouzas prepared a report which he sent to the U.S. Air Force. In it, he stated:
“I therefore sense that the souls of those who have died in mass calamities, disturbed by the alarming course of worldly affairs, symbolically display from the other world ‘wonders in the heavens and signs upon the earth below...’ Flying saucers, visions in the sky, ectoplasmic manifestations upon the earth, have also been observed in Greece for years, and it is likely that these supernatural phenomena [...] will continue so long as the causes—and the individuals who generate them—remain present.”[3]
Kouzas submitted his theory to the U.S. Consulate General in Thessaloniki, emphasizing that such phenomena “are psychogenic ectoplasms and should be studied rather than shot at.”[4] In essence, Kouzas was extending the pioneering theories of the physician Mead Layne (1883–1961),[5] who, in the late 1940s, concluded that UFOs originated from an ethereal realm he called Etheria. These “ether ships” traveled between that world and our own, which was composed of “denser matter” in the occult and esoteric sense of the term.
By the early 1950s, the Greek public—at least in Athens and among newspaper readers—had become somewhat familiar with the subject of flying saucers. Articles on the phenomenon appeared constantly, and the topic became closely associated both with atomic weapons and rockets, as well as with the planet Mars. The famous UFO wave of 1954, which included numerous sightings and alleged landings, made its presence felt in Greece through extensive press coverage, often reaching newspaper front pages.
In the Greek press, sighting reports were accompanied by lengthy articles, analyses, commentaries, opinion pieces, and chronicles. Those who did not dismiss the phenomenon outright as fraud or delusion generally oscillated between the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and the secret-weapons theory.
The secret-weapons theory remained highly popular and was adopted by several Greek astronomers, particularly those who did not simply reject flying saucers as products of imagination, hoaxes, or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. Dimitrios Kotsakis (1909–1986), Professor of Astronomy at the University of Athens, argued that flying saucers were merely optical reflections caused by atmospheric refraction, essentially repeating the views of the American astronomer Donald Menzel (1901–1976).[6]
“As for the alleged inhabitants of Mars and similar claims, it seems that—once the element of imagination is removed—many such reports contain a kernel of truth. Yet that kernel does not conceal a Martian, but rather an ordinary inhabitant of sinful Earth: an aviator-paratrooper descending to the ground by means of an individual helicopter modified into a spherical form according to the latest developments in aeronautical engineering. When a simple or uninformed farmer somewhere in the countryside sees such a fur-clad and strangely dressed man emerging from his aircraft, he will most likely assume that the aviator is not... of this world and spread whatever story comes into his head.”[7]
K. Makris, Lecturer in Astronomy at the University of Athens, predictably followed a similarly anthropocentric line of reasoning. If flying saucers existed at all, he argued, they must be man-made weapons rather than spacecraft, because “they would not disappear whenever a human approached them. On the contrary, they would land at some central location and clearly state their intentions and the reasons for their visit.”[8]
The remarkable unanimity of Greek astronomers regarding their consistently conservative—and often openly hostile—attitude toward the UFO phenomenon is a classic characteristic of the Greek scientific establishment. Pavlos Santorinis also favored the secret-weapons explanation:
“Since, a full decade ago, mankind had already achieved the study and partial construction of truly astonishing secret weapons, it is entirely possible that revolutionary improvements have since been made to them. The appearance of these so-called ‘mysterious objects,’ the flying saucers, convinces me personally that such improvements have indeed been achieved. This, of course, does not mean that I can know precisely who their manufacturers are.”[9]
Santorinis would later change his position, as we shall see.
Throughout the 1960s, reports of UFO appearances continued. As Greek society gradually emerged from the hardships of the postwar period, public interest increased. UFOs as extraterrestrial craft became firmly established within the worldview of a small segment of the population, although the scientific community remained openly hostile. The beginning of the Space Race between the superpowers was one factor influencing perceptions of the phenomenon.
At the same time, however, a certain fatigue became apparent among the Greek public. Since no spectacular developments occurred, the phenomenon gradually receded into the background and lingered on the margins of public attention. It would take until the late 1960s for the first organized nuclei of UFO research to emerge in Greece.
[1] “The Martians Are Preparing to Land,” Yperfos, No. 7, March 1953.
[2] “Flying Saucers Are Psycho-Spiritual Phenomena,” The World of the Soul, Vol. IV, No. 6, 1953, pp. 330–331.
[3] “The Report Submitted by Dr. Kouzas to the Washington Air Ministry Concerning Flying Saucers,” The World of the Soul, Vol. V, No. 4, 1954, p. 58.
[4] “Flying Saucers Are Psycho-Spiritual Phenomena,” Yperfos, No. 6, January 1953.
[5] Further information on Mead Layne can be found in Chapter 3.
[6] Menzel was among the earliest debunkers of UFOs, and his book The World of Flying Saucers (1953) became the “Bible” of UFO skeptics.
[7] “A Greek Astronomer Explains What Flying Saucers Really Are,” Vradyni, 26 October 1954.
[8] “Greek Scientists Investigate the Mystery of Flying Saucers,” Akropolis, 31 October 1954.
[9] “Flying Saucers Are Real, Says Polytechnic Professor Santorinis,” Akropolis, 3 November 1954.
Specifically, in early 1969, the first organized research initiative was established in the form of the Section for Extraterrestrial Studies (TEM) and Psychic Research of the Society for Spiritual and Scientific Development (EPEAN),[1] an association originally founded in 1963.[2] Giorgos Balanos (1944–2020), the undisputed “patriarch” of the Search movement in Greece, became president of TEM. At the time, and for many years thereafter, Balanos was the representative of APRO[3] in Greece. With access to a wealth of foreign bibliography, he would be the first to bring the Greek public face to face with the problem of the “flying saucers,” presenting it with clarity and breadth in his later books.
It should also be noted here that the well-known veteran UFO researcher Makis Podotas was also among the members of TEM. He had met Balanos in 1967 and joined an informal research group formed by friends, participating in TEM’s first major investigation at the famous Davelis Cave in 1969.
Over time, the terms “flying saucer” and “Martian” would become obsolete. At the same time, another threefold pattern began to take shape: the scientific establishment remained clearly hostile or dismissive; nuclei of private research existed; and newspapers generally ridiculed the subject or treated it very lightly.[4]
Around the same period, Pavlos Santorinis gave a radio interview on flying saucers to journalist and writer Kostis Meranaios (1913–1986), broadcast by the National Radio Foundation (EIR) on February 8, 1966. In it, he discussed many sighting cases in detail, noted reports of landings and humanoid occupants, and offered several highly interesting reflections on the subject of “extraterrestrial contact.”[5]
The contrast between space and technology on the one hand, and traditionalism and Orthodox religious doctrine on the other, is characteristic of a 24-page pamphlet titled Flying Saucers and Their Explanation, published in Athens in 1967 and written by the secondary-school headmaster and philologist Panagiotis Antypas. The headmaster stated that he himself had witnessed UFO appearances in 1950 and 1960 in Kefalonia,[6] and that he was attempting to formulate a rational interpretation of the phenomenon based, as expected, “on the one hand upon Holy Scripture, and on the other upon ancient Greek poets and writers, as well as upon our own observations and reflections.” Through this interpretation, he claimed to offer “one further proof of the divine power of the Helleno-Christian spirit.”
Antypas argued that extraterrestrials do not exist because Holy Scripture makes no mention of them, since the stars are intended exclusively to illuminate the Earth and for no other purpose; therefore, they cannot be intended for habitation. UFOs, he wrote, cause “the shaking of faith in Holy Scripture, which [...] indirectly teaches that the stars are uninhabited; anxiety and fear among many people; and mutual suspicion among human beings, who suspect one another of manufacturing flying saucers for military or other coercive purposes.”
His conclusion was that “evil spirits, that is, demons, cause the flying saucers to appear or construct them in order to fulfill their misanthropic purposes [...]”. He then offered further “proofs,” including passages from the Bible and from the prayer books of the Church:
“We therefore conclude that demons know how and are able to appear in the form of flying saucers, or to construct them from real matter or even Atomic Energy [...] They themselves ride upon their flying machines and appear in the form of humanoid beings in order to deceive humanity and bring upon it the evil which, as we have said, flying saucers are capable of causing.”
The Demonic Hypothesis as an interpretation of UFOs was neither unprecedented nor exclusively Greek, but conditions in Greece were such that this interpretation fitted perfectly, given that conventional science was absolutely hostile toward the phenomenon—leaving the field open to metaphysical explanations.
“The Greek scientists are categorical,” wrote Athinaiki on January 4, 1967: “Flying saucers are a myth—the subject excites the masses but lacks any popular basis.” Konstantinos Makris, Lecturer in Astronomy, stated that they were “phenomena of anomalous refraction of light,” while the same “explanation,” invoking Donald Menzel, was also used by Ilias Petropoulos, Secretary General of the Hellenic Astronautical Society, and Dimitrios Kotsakis, Director of the Astronomical Institute of the Athens Observatory.
Yet within this general rejection by the scientific establishment, there was one dissenting voice: that of Pavlos Santorinis, now Emeritus Professor at the National Technical University of Athens. In a lecture delivered on February 2, 1967, at the Hellenic Astronautical Society on the subject of flying saucers, he remarked:
“The thought of the arrival on Earth of foreign visitors, superior in psychological, physical, and technical development, is extremely unpleasant to all the authorities of the planet. An attempt is therefore made to deal with the problem through ignorance, ridicule, and denial.”
Santorinis spoke at length, providing a great deal of information and ultimately concluding that UFOs were extraterrestrial craft observing our planet.[7] The religious element would enter the opposing argument through an ironic article by the journalist Stefanos Lippiotis in Vradyni. The journalist concluded that he was struck by Santorinis’s categorical assertion that flying saucers originated from beings of “incomparably superior psychological development”:
“But we Christians, who possess ‘the hope that is within us’—that is, the teaching of Christianity, the revealed truth, and through it the supreme justification of our existence—is it not excessive, if not unjust, for us to be collectively characterized as inferior to unknown and unexplored beings from space? I believe that a Greek Orthodox professor of a higher educational institution in Greece cannot possibly ignore, disregard, or underestimate such a truth.”[8]
Santorinis would return to the subject in a newspaper letter written in response to the announcement by the U.S. Air Force denying the existence of UFOs. He countered the arguments and concluded:
“I regret that, for the third time within a year—and I hope the last—I am compelled to deal with a completely misunderstood subject entirely unrelated to my own field of work. I do so, however, because I know that great interests prevent those responsible from speaking freely about it.”[9]
A few months later, he returned to the subject once again in statements prompted by successive UFO appearances in Greece and abroad, noting that “...what matters now are the beings inside the flying saucers, which can be nothing other than interplanetary craft.”[10]
[1] Giorgos Balanos, The Enigma of Penteli, p. 11.
[2] See http://epean.forumotion.net/t3-topic
[3] Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, one of the most important private American UFO research groups. It was founded in 1952 by Coral and Jim Lorenzen and operated until 1988, with representatives in dozens of countries.
[4] This characteristic triad essentially persists to this day, with the difference that unrestrained conspiracy thinking has quite literally run rampant, while newspapers have been replaced by the Internet and social media. What is missing today is the strong public interest that existed in the subject more than half a century ago, the related front-page coverage, and the relatively healthy skepticism of an era that now seems innocent compared with the present.
[5] “Flying Saucers Once Again on the Scene,” Eleftheria, 10 April 1966. It should be noted that Pavlos Santorinis cited ufological material from the book by the French author Aimé Michel (Flying Saucers and the Straight Line Mystery, 1958) and did not refer to Greek incidents.
[6] Antypas’s first experience, involving an unidentified flying metallic sphere, occurred in August 1950 in the village of Mesovounia, Kefalonia. See also the related letter: “An Appearance of a Flying Sphere,” Ethnos, 9 January 1951.
[7] “Flying Saucers Are a Reality,” Athinaiki, 3 February 1967; “Flying Saucers Exist... Extraterrestrial Visits Cause Anomalies,” Ethnos, 3 February 1967; St. Iliadis, “Flying Saucers – The Establishment of a Position of Scientific Interest” (article in three installments), Eleftheros Kosmos, 8, 9 & 10 February 1967.
[8] Stefanos Lippiotis, “Flying Saucers,” Vradyni, 17 February 1967.
[9] “Many Facts Confirm the Existence of Flying Saucers,” Apogevmatini, 21 February 1967.
[10] “Flying Saucers Are Interplanetary Craft, Says Mr Santorinis,” Ta Nea, 31 July 1967.
Meanwhile, during the 1960s, Greek Spiritualists continued—quietly—their experiments with vacuum spheres, in which “etheric forms” were supposedly able to appear more easily, these not always being “souls of the dead.” The lawyer Dimitrios Ambelas, who had founded the Scientific Society for Metapsychic Research (EEME), was the driving force behind these new investigations. The well-known astronomer Konstantinos Chasapis (1914–1972) also appears to have been involved in this effort.
Within this new context, the investigations of EEME were no longer purely Spiritualist, but turned toward other planets. The forms now photographed inside the vacuum sphere were not “spirits of the dead” but extraterrestrial beings. On February 23, 1964, using a woman as medium, EEME experimenters photographed alleged extraterrestrial forms from the planet Venus.
In any case, these Spiritualist-space journeys were out of step with their time. Their inability to create any impact or gain publicity was also due to Ambelas’s incoherent and often incomprehensible writing. The following is a characteristic passage:
“According to the theory that zero, wherever it may be found, possesses an absolute frequency of vibrations, that is, complete resonance, there is reasonable hope that photographs may be obtained anywhere in infinity; because the vacuum achieved by man does not reach ‘absolute zero’ — and absolute zero, as matter, is spirit — the spectacular impregnations continue to be material and to have external manifestations.”[1]
In January 1967, the Center for Metaphysical Research of Greece was founded, with civil engineer Konstantinos Antonakeas as its president. In collaboration with EEME and one of its offshoots, the Scientific Society for Indirect Interplanetary Explorations,[2] they regularly photographed inhabitants of other planets inside a vacuum sphere. Newspapers, whenever they did not ignore them entirely, published ironic comments.
Extraterrestrials had now entered our midst. A characteristic passage appears in Phaidon Paris’s Is Another World Watching Us? The Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Question (1971), one of the earliest Greek books on UFOs:
“We are no longer in the period of the Second World War, when pilots of Allied bombers raiding German cities spoke of ‘secret Nazi weapons,’ confusing researchers of unidentified flying objects [...] Now that we have set foot on the Moon, now that we envision its colonization, now that we are preparing to land on other planets, now that we have opened our minds to space travel, and because we know and accept space journeys, we can approach these mysteries of the past and present with eyes more open and less veiled than before [...].”[3]
Slowly but steadily, reports on the UFO phenomenon became more frequent in Greek newspapers. To be sure, they still concerned events abroad, but this would soon change.
The great turning point in Greece came in 1973 with the publication of Giorgos Balanos’s seminal book Flying Saucers — Invaders? It was a thorough and substantial study, containing material unprecedented for the Greek public, and presented many aspects of the UFO enigma by connecting it with a variety of phenomena—from falls of living creatures and miscellaneous objects from the sky to the enigmas of prehistory.
The book seems to have been the right move at the right moment—a “rider of the wave,” in simpler terms. A full-page report by Giorgos Karagiorgas in Vradyni in March 1973, devoted to the book and its author, concluded:
“...closing [...] the book [...] the reader feels surrounded by a void! [...] And he realizes that at the limits of this void lies terror! This is not a horror novel. Nor is it a collection of ghost stories. It is reportage, a gathering of what has been written in more than one hundred foreign books and magazines concerning mysterious appearances of flying saucers, as well as various other strange incidents accompanying these appearances.”[4]
In 1975, Balanos’s second book, Beings from Space, was published. In it, he mentioned several Greek UFO sighting cases and also brought the Greek public face to face with the work of the pioneering ufologist John Keel (1930–2009), as well as with “forbidden” subjects such as Mothman and the Men in Black (MIB), which at the time were entirely unknown territories.
In 1978, his third purely ufological book was published, titled The Methodology of Research — A Guide for the UFO Investigator. It was exactly that: a manual containing valuable information and research methods—although today, due to the rapid development of digital camera technology and computers, much of what the book says is unfortunately outdated.
The fall of the dictatorship and the beginning of the Metapolitefsi period brought, beyond political and social seismic shocks, the outbreak of a “memetic storm” that would rage throughout the second half of the 1970s. This also affected activity in the field of the paranormal. A flood of publications came to replace the drought of previous years. As usually happens in Greece, new trends arrived chaotically and fragmentarily, attempting to make up for a delay of years or even decades.
For the first time, a magazine of this field was published: Enigmas of the Universe in June 1975. In addition to purely scientific subjects, it covered “mysterious” topics that monopolized the interest of a public thirsty for information: UFOs, ancient and historical enigmas, and parapsychology. At the same time, there was a flood of science-fiction book publications—usually with tragic translations. This too was another factor that shaped the field: haste and ignorance became parameters of distortion.
During the period 1977–1980, the UFO subject received its greatest publicity in Greece throughout the entire era of print media. There is no real comparison with today’s era of electronic media—and especially social media—because Consensus Reality itself is different. During that period, magazines, fanzines, and books by both Greek and foreign authors were in circulation, while private research groups were active in an environment that had lost part of its old conformism and enjoyed a greater degree of freedom.
All this took place at a time when print-media technology was “primitive” compared with today, when the personal computer was still in its infancy, the Internet was unimaginable, and the search for information was time-consuming and difficult. Yet it was during this period that the image of the “extraterrestrial” became firmly established—and this was aided by memes arriving from abroad. This was the era, in 1977, when Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a decisive film for the UFO phenomenon, was released.
Articles and reports on UFOs regularly appeared both in newspapers and in the periodical press—and not only in general-interest publications. It is characteristic that a serious magazine dealing with historical subjects, Historia Eikonografimeni, announced in August 1976 that in its next three issues it would publish three articles by specialists, forming “a responsible report on the subject of flying saucers, which constitute one of the enigmas of our time.”[5]
[1] Dimitrios Ambelas, Psychic, p. 141.
[2] On the ground floor of 149 Michail Voda Street.
[3] Ph. Paris, Is Another World Watching Us? The Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Question, p. 92.
[4] Giorgos Karagiorgas, “Flying Saucers in Greece Too,” Vradyni, 16 March 1973.
[5] Historia Eikonografimeni, issue 98, August 1976, p. 130.
The post-dictatorship tendency to idolize youth, even when young people were involved in subjects that only a few years earlier would have seemed “unfounded” or even “improper,” is evident in comments concerning the creation of a research group, the Däniken Studies and Research Society.
“Sick with technology and progress, and opposed, as they say, ‘to every established traditional method of study,’ because ‘some suppress the phenomena and others refuse to study them’—a group of young people, all of them students, admit that the only things in this world that touch them are space, spacecraft, comets, flying saucers, and extraterrestrials...”[1]
Their interests had nothing to do with politics:
“The interests expressed by a group of students turn beyond earthly matters. These are not marches with banners and slogans [...] young citizens are searching for new orientations that will secure for them free institutions, without which neither the dignity of individuals nor of society as a whole can be conceived.”[2]
However, the organization’s president, Nikos Simonetatos, became involved in actions by para-state far-right elements and consequently ended up in prison,[3] something that gave “progressives” everywhere a golden opportunity to throw everything connected with the then extremely popular Swiss researcher of “ancient astronauts,” Erich von Däniken, into the same pot. After all, this was a period in which everything was “supposed” to have a political character. Even UFOs...
In 1976, a small book on UFOs titled The Mythology of Flying Saucers was published by Alexandros Lagkadas, who rejected the phenomenon wholesale, presenting the endlessly repeated arguments of foreign “debunkers.” In another booklet of his, published in 1974 under the title Is There Life in Space?, he devoted one chapter to rejecting UFOs as well as the “myths of Däniken”—whom he had apparently studied so thoroughly that he could not even spell his name correctly.
The Greek scientific establishment, in its overwhelming majority, may have dismissed the UFO phenomenon with scornful laughter, but something had changed significantly in Greek society. This is also evident in the formation of numerous UFO research groups, mainly by young students.
In September 1976, the formation of one such group was announced in Enigmas of the Universe,[4] with two “nuclei,” one in Athens and one in Thessaloniki:
“The purpose of this group is to bring into contact all those involved with the subject of UFOs. Through this contact we will be able to become acquainted with one another, and beyond that we ourselves will become correspondents for all of Greece. The group will be connected through a correspondence network which will cover, depending on its members, a corresponding part of our country.”
It was reported that the group was to receive assistance from the Italian ufological magazine Klypeus. This group was PEEAF, the Panhellenic Union of Researchers of Unknown Phenomena, which had been informally founded in May 1975 by Stavros Chatzopoulos, Giannis Michelakis, and Giorgos Fokydas. In an announcement published in Enigmas of the Universe in November 1976, it requested computer programmers for the coding of UFO reports.
During the same period, OMEAF, the Research Group for Unknown Phenomena, was founded as a branch of PEEAF in Thessaloniki. Its core consisted of Omiros Karatzas, Giannis Mikedakis, Giannis Ketikidis, and Nikos Antoniou.[5] A few months later, the same magazine announced the establishment of yet another group, OEID, the Flying Saucer Research Group, based in Gyzi, Athens, with four core members. A few months later, OEID merged with PEEAF.[6]
Another research organization created at the time was OMA, the Study Group of the Unknown, directed by a coordinating committee consisting of Panos Patsis as president, Charis Gkinos as secretary, Vasilis Asimakopoulos as treasurer, Kyriakos Spyropoulos as personnel officer, and Kostis Pentarakis and Stelios Dovas as advisers. OMA also published the information leaflet Unknown Worlds.[7]
In 1977, PEEAF acquired permanent headquarters at 77 Alexandras Avenue and began publishing a mimeographed bulletin titled Research, containing various articles. It aspired to “be the connecting link among the researchers of PEEAF, as well as a fairly good information bulletin for any ufologist.”[8] Between 1977 and 1978, a total of six issues of Research were published, two of them double issues.
The board of the renewed PEEAF met for the first time on April 3, 1977, and consisted of Akis Lorandos as president, Stelios Pontikis as vice-president, Dimitris Bousoulas as secretary, Stavros Chatzopoulos as treasurer, Charis Gkinos, Kostas Roupakias, and Giannis Michelakis. Its technical department included Dimitris Zagklis and Markos Zouganelis. Later, Spyros Vrettos was elected general secretary and Takis Giannopoulitis became responsible for reports. In February 1977, it was announced that PEEAF had acquired a five-member branch in Volos, chaired by Andreas Vrontos.[9]
In the spring of 1977, as part of a collaboration between members of PEEAF and the well-known director Andreas Tsilifonis, three half-hour documentaries on UFOs were filmed for the then very popular television program Research. The first part of the documentary was broadcast on Wednesday, July 27, 1977, by EIRT, now ERT-1, with the second and third parts following later.[10]
Research organizations not only sprang up like mushrooms; they were also composed of young people, mainly students, and were therefore automatically approved in the eyes of society and the media, given the “deification” of youth during that early post-dictatorship period.
“Have you happened to observe... mysterious flying objects shaped like discs? The question is entirely serious, and we put it to you following a relevant announcement by the Panhellenic Union of Researchers of Unknown Phenomena (PEEAF),” wrote Athenian newspapers on October 6, 1977.[11] Only a few years earlier, such requests would have ended up in the wastebasket.
The culmination was perhaps PEEAF’s First Panhellenic Conference,[12] held on Sunday, December 18, 1977, at the Apollon Palace Hotel in Kavouri, with the following program, beginning at 11 a.m.:
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Greeting by Akis Lorandos, president of PEEAF.
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“Greece and PEEAF” — lecture by Giannis Michelakis, public relations officer of the organization.
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“A Modern View of Greek Mythology” — lecture by Spyros Vrettos, general secretary of the organization.
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“Greek Ufological Data” — lecture by Giorgos Balanos, honorary researcher of the organization.[13]
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“Photographic Briefing” — lecture by Ifigeneia Vardopoulou, adviser to the organization.
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“Technical Issues and Achievements” — lecture by Markos Zouganelis, head of the organization’s technical department.
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“Pessimistic Tendencies and New Paths” — lecture by Stavros Chatzopoulos, responsible for the organization’s magazine.
[1] Andreas Deligiannis, “They Study the Sky with Enthusiasm — Without Money,” To Vima, 15 May 1976.
[2] P. Palaiologos, “Poetry with Numbers” (column), To Vima, 21 May 1976.
[3] He was arrested for the disturbances and acts of violence that took place on 16 December 1976 during the funeral of the junta torturer Evangelos Mallios, who had been assassinated by 17 November.
[4] Enigmas of the Universe, issue 16, September 1976, p. 58. Stavros Chatzopoulos in Athens, a member of the Danish organization SUFOI, and Omiros Karatzas in Thessaloniki, a field investigator for the American APRO, were listed as recipients of correspondence.
[5] In issue 42 of Enigmas of the Universe (November 1978), it was announced that OMEAF “has been reconstituted and operates in a new form,” directed by a four-member board consisting of Omiros Karatzas, Giannis Mikedakis, Nikos Antoniou, and Christos Christou.
[6] Enigmas of the Universe, issue 20, January 1977, p. 20. Many members of the dissolved Däniken Studies and Research Society also joined PEEAF.
[7] The first appeared in May 1977 and the second in July of the same year. The available information about OMA has been drawn from these leaflets.
[8] Research, issue 1, May 1977.
[9] Enigmas of the Universe, issue 21, February 1977, p. 52.
[10] The documentary included footage from Davelis Cave in Penteli and from the famous “anti-gravity road” on the same mountain. These scenes, however, were cut for unknown reasons, while shortly after the broadcast of the first part, the well-known mysterious works in the cave began, triggering a labyrinthine story that continued for decades and still continues. According to G. Balanos, efforts had been made to have Tsilifonis’s programs cut—although in the end only the “controversial scenes” were removed (G. Balanos, Beyond the Enigma of Penteli, 2004, pp. 67–67).
[11] Ta Nea, 6 October 1977; Vradyni, 6 October 1977.
[12] The contents of the conference presentations, except for that of Giorgos Balanos, appear in issue 7–8 of PEEAF’s magazine Research, which the reader can download from the GRUFON website — www.grufon.org.
[13] Giorgos Balanos’s presentation is included in the anthology of his older texts titled The Distant Worlds Beside Us, Locus-7, 2022, pp. 104–108.
As expected, media coverage of the PEEAF conference resulted not only in an increase in the organization’s membership, which reached 82, but also in the emergence of many old and new UFO reports. Curiously, the attitude of one supposedly “liberal” newspaper toward the subject was negative. The only newspaper that sent a journalist to the conference was Eleftherotypia. Yet the writer did not focus on the presentations or the research material that had been presented, but rather on the external characteristics of the participants, referring to “individuals with very short or very long hair” — strange as it may seem today, at that time the length of one’s hair corresponded to one’s political position. The article indirectly associated the conference with politically extremist organizations, adopting a critical approach that placed greater emphasis on the social profile of those present than on the content of the discussions. As already noted, however, in that era of the early Metapolitefsi, everything was — or was expected to be — political, even UFOs.
Before and after the conference, PEEAF undertook innovative initiatives, using microfilm technology to archive various press clippings and a PC, a Commodore 8032, to create a ufological archive, always in collaboration with the Thessaloniki group led by Omiros Karatzas. Most reports concerned “Night Lights,”[1] while the only close-encounter-of-the-third-kind stories were a few unconfirmed accounts from the Mount Olympus region. Although Olympus remains one of the main hot spots of Greek ufology, two field investigations conducted in 1976 and 1977 failed to confirm the reports that had reached PEEAF’s offices.
A year later, in the November 1978 issue of Enigmas of the Universe, something pioneering was announced: the forthcoming publication of a Greek magazine devoted exclusively to UFOs. The publishers, Christos Lazos and Spyros Alevizopoulos, wrote characteristically: “When, four years ago, we presented the magazine Enigmas of the Universe to the Greek reading public, we could not have imagined that one day the presence of a magazine devoted to this subject would become an urgent necessity.”
Indeed, the magazine UFO—Flying Saucers published its first issue in January 1979, with Dimitris Koutsoukis (1946–2026) as editor-in-chief. Koutsoukis was one of the earliest Greek researchers and, possessing a rich archive and library, had presented numerous cases from around the world in his book We the Extraterrestrials—The Activity of Beings from Space on Our Planet (1976). In the first issue, he wrote: “Humanity’s course is approaching the turning point of Cosmic Contacts. Its psycho-mental ascent, with all its practical implications, can now give it the ability to understand ‘signs and visions’ which it once overlooked or rejected.” The publication of this magazine represents the high point of research and reflection on the phenomenon. Shortly afterward, this intellectual momentum would decline, and the magazine would cease publication—together with Enigmas of the Universe—thus completing yet another cycle of intensification and recession.
In the first issue of UFO—Flying Saucers, the existence of the research group Phaethon was also announced. It was described as a group “which for quite some time has been dealing quietly but productively with UFO appearances in Greece. It consists of scientists from many disciplines, people who hold important positions and academic titles, and who are aflame with the enthusiasm we all share for knowledge and for proclaiming the truth. It is—and for understandable reasons, and by their own wish, will remain—the ‘Invisible College.’” In essence, its “leader” was Dimitris Koutsoukis, surrounded by researchers in the field, including members of other organizations.
From a certain point onward, UFO research was transferred to the jurisdiction of Phaethon, because PEEAF wished to focus on more “tangible and practical” research subjects.[2] In May 1978, members of PEEAF founded the Center for Exobiological Research, with the aim of investigating subjects ranging from parapsychology to broader questions of so-called “fringe science,” at a time when similar research interests were beginning to appear cautiously in American research institutions such as the famous Stanford Research Institute. PEEAF members interested in “classical ufology” moved to the Phaethon group, including Stavros Chatzopoulos and Ifigeneia Vardopoulou.[3]
At two consecutive meetings, on October 31 and November 10, 1979, the founding members of Phaethon were present, and “issues concerning the statutes, research means, as well as the very content of the research and the form it would take” were discussed. It was reported that “so far, more than 400 people throughout Greece have declared their participation.”[4] Shortly afterward, it was announced that the group would become an official association with legal status under the name Scientific Union for the Research of the Unknown in Space — Phaethon, with Dimitris Koutsoukis as president and Giorgos Charalampopoulos as general secretary.[5] Phaethon announced that four or five sub-branches were planned in Thessaloniki, Siatista, Volos, Patras, and Cyprus, while some five small, independent research groups declared their intention to merge with Phaethon.[6]
In 1979, the journalist Dimitrios Chanos also published his book The Flying Saucer Phenomenon — Fantasy or Reality. In the preface, the author states that “for almost seven years in America, I dealt closely with the subject, gathered extensive material from newspapers, magazines, books, articles, lectures, and conferences, and publish it [...] so that the reader may become informed.”
Unfortunately, just when everything seemed to indicate that serious ufology in Greece was on an upward trajectory, a sharp decline occurred. Enigmas of the Universe ceased publication after a total of 65 issues, the last being that of October 1980. UFO—Flying Saucers had already closed in April of the same year, after only 15 issues.
The baton was then taken from Phaethon by the Sirius group, whose driving force was Dimitris Koutsoukis, together with Sokratis Aikaterinidis, Dimitris Kourtis, and others. Aikaterinidis became publisher and editor of the magazine Astral Contact—UFO,[7] which published material on ufology as well as parapsychology and esotericism. The first Sirius meeting took place in a room provided by Aikaterinidis, which would henceforth become its “hangout,” at 20 Kolokynthous Street. The first meeting was held on Sunday, January 17, 1982, and the group’s ambitions were noticeably reduced: grandiose labels were absent, and Sirius was described simply as a “club,” more precisely the “Astral Contact Club.”[8] The usually Sunday meetings of its members continued until 1983.
Before Astral Contact—UFO had completed even two years of existence, however, it ceased publication, having issued 23 numbers up to January 1983. It would evolve into a new magazine, Astral World & Psychic Research; the turn toward esotericism and metaphysics was now evident, with ufological subjects comprising only one of the nine categories of articles it would publish.[9] The first issue appeared in March 1983. This magazine too would soon close, and in January 1984 it would be succeeded by Other Dimensions, with a clearly esoteric orientation and the almost complete displacement of ufological themes.
Interest in UFOs had declined rapidly, not only in Greece but also abroad, resulting in a prolonged “drought.” After the peak of interest in the late 1970s, UFOs had faded into obscurity. The worship of youth was no longer what it had been immediately after the Metapolitefsi. Thus, when two young men, Giannis Koutouvos and Thanasis Rapanakis, photographed a UFO in Akrata, Achaea, on July 18, 1981, they were met with icy indifference by the media, even though the photographs were in color and of good quality. Norwegians had offered Koutouvos a large sum of money to sell the film, but he preferred to return to Athens and approach various newspapers and magazines, which regarded him as a fraud. At Ta Nea, they characteristically told him, “Nice little lights you photographed.”[10] Eventually, he approached Eleftherotypia, which published one of the photographs and the related report in early September.[11]
In 1982, a small book titled Do UFOs Exist? was published by Apostolos Frangos,[12] who, in 84 pages, analyzed “the deeper causes of belief in the UFO phenomenon.” He concluded: “It is a characteristic phenomenon of the human being of our age, who has lost his proper metaphysical orientation and is dominated by the spirit of apostasy, that he is willing to believe and accept without difficulty all kinds of absurdities, even irrationalities, while rejecting the Christian Faith. And it is indeed astonishing how easily many people [...] believe in imaginary and strange, supposedly natural, phenomena such as UFOs [...] while at the same time they neither accept nor believe in the miracles described in Holy Scripture.” He naturally concluded with various inevitable Biblical passages.
The reversal of the trend was also evident in the media, where printed newspapers still held the lion’s share. On the rare occasions when UFO sightings or experiences were mentioned, the subject was ridiculed directly or indirectly. A characteristic article published in To Vima in 1983 reveals not only journalistic ignorance, but also a permanent tendency toward mockery and cheap wit:
“Foreign powers have always coveted the territorial integrity of Greece [...] There is one thing, however, about which we need not worry. Greece’s territorial integrity is in no danger whatsoever from... extraterrestrials. For whole decades now, extraterrestrials and their UFOs have provocatively ignored Greece. In the last 20 years, only one unexplained phenomenon has appeared in Greek airspace. It seems that either they are not interested in Greece, or they respect the FIR.”
The “fully informed” journalist referred to a survey conducted by officials at control towers in ten European countries, from which it was inferred that the only Greek case was one that had occurred in 1980:
“Since then, no luminous object has disturbed us. Nor, of course, before that. Many Greeks, however, police sources confirm, telephone the Police to report that they have seen spacecraft, mainly in the Attic sky. In 1982 the police received 45 calls about UFOs and 56 in 1981. All swore that they had seen spacecraft ploughing through the sky. No one ever paid any attention to these reports.”[13]
Note the use of the word “report” in Greek as katangelia, a term that carries the sense of a denunciation or complaint and often implies an illegal or reprehensible act.
Another supporter of the Demonic Hypothesis of UFOs “unsheathed his sword” in 1985 with a 40-page booklet published, predictably, by Apostoliki Diakonia.[14] UFOs were possibly “great signs from heaven [...] not only as natural phenomena, but also as phenomena directly caused by the devil: imaginary appearances of UFOs and extraterrestrials.”[15] Further on, he wrote: “We therefore see that the devil always knows how to exploit the opportunities that arise. So too in the case of UFOs. Whether they exist or not, he can achieve his goal: estrangement from the Church and perdition.”[16] The author also emphasized that “there always lurks the danger of the deification of extraterrestrials, and responsible for this anti-theology is, of course, none other than the devil.”[17]
During the 1980s, the drought in the field as far as periodicals were concerned was interrupted by an invigorating “rainfall” in the form of the magazine Anexigito, which began publication as an independent magazine, separate from the foreign-language Unexplained, of which it had initially been the Greek translation. The first issue appeared in May 1984, with Tasos Panas as editor-in-chief. Anexigito defined itself as “a review of the mysteries of thought, space, and time,” and from time to time hosted articles on UFOs and extraterrestrial life.
Another small “oasis” of that period was the radio program by director and radio producer Giorgos Pittas, titled On the Paths of the Galaxy. It began in 1982, was broadcast at midnight every Monday on the First Programme of ERT, and continued until 1987. Several episodes dealt, at least in part, with ufological subjects. Pittas recalls: “Everything aimed at stimulating the imagination, at the perception that everything has countless aspects, that there is always something beyond, farther beyond, that our perception can be vibrated by the universe and communicate.”[18]
[1] Some data from PEEAF’s early ufological analyses are discussed in Chapter 5.
[2] Personal communication with Stavros Chatzopoulos, 25 May 2026.
[3] Unfortunately, PEEAF’s electronic and printed archives were lost during multiple relocations of the Center for Exobiological Research. The same unfortunate phenomenon occurred with the archives of Sokratis Aikaterinidis, who died on 24 December 2005.
[4] UFO—Flying Saucers, issue 11, November 1979, p. 39.
[5] UFO—Flying Saucers, issue 12, December 1979, p. 25. Despite the announcement, unfortunately Phaethon never became an official association.
[6] UFO—Flying Saucers, issue 13, January 1980, p. 3.
[7] The first issue appeared in March 1981.
[8] Astral Contact—UFO, issue 10, December 1981, p. 2.
[9] Astral Contact—UFO, issue 23, January 1983, p. 2.
[10] Makis Podotas, UFO: The Greece File, p. 66.
[11] “‘Close Encounter’ with Extraterrestrials,” Eleftherotypia, 7 September 1981.
[12] He is described as “General Secretary of the Scientific Society for Space Research,” while the book was published under the auspices of the Christian Brotherhood “Stavros.”
[13] “Provocatively Indifferent,” To Vima, 22 May 1983.
[14] Ioannis Kostoff, Do Extraterrestrials Exist?
[15] Ibid., p. 18.
[16] Ibid., p. 30.
[17] Ibid., p. 37.
[18] Personal communication, 26 May 2026.
Around the same time, another important research group was formed. The Society for the Research of the Universe and Extraterrestrial Civilization (SESEP) was founded on April 14, 1984, and was legally recognized one month later as an official association, even receiving a grant from the Ministry of Culture and Sciences. Its founder was Giorgos Karpodinis. SESEP brought together various researchers, including Sokratis Aikaterinidis, Makis Podotas, Athanasios Pournaropoulos, Lefteris Saragas, Panagiotis Pappas, Konstantinos Georgonas, Nikos Triantis, Nondas Laskos, and others.
In December 1986, SESEP announced that it now had offices, a members’ lounge, and a screening and lecture hall, calling for the support of all interested individuals and organizations. In the large hall, covering 300 square meters and located at 158 Patision Street, dozens of events and lectures were held over the following years, including several related to ufology. SESEP would remain based there until 1990, when its headquarters moved to 12 Tinou Street.
In March 1987, Sokratis Aikaterinidis announced the creation of Cosmic Contact, a new association for the research and study of unexplained phenomena. He stated that “for this purpose we are preparing a suitable space, in which there is already a library and an exhibition on related subjects.” Yet, as everything indicates, this initiative ultimately did not come to fruition.[1]
In the autumn of 1989, a major wave of UFO sightings broke out both abroad and in Greece. The pendulum had changed direction once again. The treatment by newspapers, and by establishment scientists, was not always accompanied by irony. Especially following the report of a UFO landing and the disembarkation of giant one-eyed humanoids in Voronezh, in the Soviet Union—and the fact that the event had been announced by the state news agency TASS itself—related articles multiplied in Greek newspapers.
“In Greece, where strange appearances of the ‘third kind’ have also occasionally been reported, researchers at the Eugenides Foundation treat such descriptions with extreme skepticism, although not all exclude the possibility that ‘there may be something in all this’ [...] the enigma [...] remains...”[2]
It was also noted that “...there are certain solid and indisputable elements that call upon us to revise many of our previous views concerning the uniqueness of humanity in the Universe...”[3]
It is characteristic that the very “high priest” of UFO rejection, Dionysis Simopoulos (1943–2022), director of the Eugenides Planetarium, who had in the past more than once thundered against ufology, stated in an interview that “extraterrestrial visits to our Earth are rather unlikely.” Yet when the journalist asked, “Unlikely, but not impossible?” he replied: “We cannot rule out anything.”[4]
On October 17, 1989, the French contactee Claude Vorilhon, better known as Raël, visited Athens. He had founded an organization which, a decade and a half later, would cause an uproar with its claims to have carried out the first human cloning. Raël delivered a lecture at a central Athens hotel, attended by hundreds of people. His message was similar to that of Erich von Däniken—who had drawn even larger crowds during his visit to Athens ten years earlier—but wrapped in a pseudo-religious rather than pseudo-scientific mantle.
A few weeks later, the Berlin Wall would fall, symbolically bringing the Cold War to an end and inaugurating a new era. Soon the spotlight of publicity would move away from the UFO subject—only to return briefly the following year, due to a mini-wave in September 1990.
The approval of licenses for the creation of private television was the most important event of 1989 in terms of the further formation of the public image of UFOs, as well as of paranormal phenomena more generally. This development would radically change the field, not only by breaking the monopoly of state television but also by “visualizing” the news. This, in turn, would have enormous consequences.
Nearly forty years separate that period from the present day. Consensus Reality changed drastically during this time, but in a way that would never have been possible during the almost exclusively print-based phase of the media. Private television, and later the arrival of the Internet, would create entirely new parameters and prospects. Ufology itself would also mutate, adapting to the new conditions, while entering a new period of growth with new research groups, new periodical and book titles, and broadcasts on radio and television channels—and much later, on the Internet.
That, however, is another story, one that will have to be properly documented...
[1] Sokratis Aikaterinidis, letter to Anexigito, March 1987, p. ES5.
[2] “From Arnold to the ‘Giants’ of Voronezh,” Ta Nea, 12 October 1989.
[3] “UFO: Fantasy and Truth,” Ta Nea, 16 October 1989.
[4] Chara Tzanavara, “Ufology Is Faith, Not Knowledge — What Professor Dionysis Simopoulos Says,” Ta Nea, 15 October 1989.
Εν είδει επιμύθιου…
Because the historical documentation of Greek ufology—particularly for the period examined here—remains incomplete, and because the temporal distance separating us from these events continues to widen, with all the unfortunate yet inevitable consequences that this entails (older researchers and those with first-hand knowledge are gradually passing away), it is only natural that this text may contain omissions, inaccuracies, or even errors.
It is our hope that further feedback, corrections, additional sources, and previously unpublished material will emerge, allowing for the development of a more complete picture and a clearer understanding of the historical reality. The reconstruction of the history of Greek ufology remains an ongoing process, one that can only benefit from the contribution of researchers, witnesses, archivists, and anyone possessing relevant information.
If this work succeeds in encouraging further investigation and discussion, then it will have fulfilled one of its most important purposes.