Freedom of speech and opinion are something most of us in Scandinavian countries have become accustomed to. But what we take for granted is for others a dream only. This interview with Juri Lina, age 32, Estonian journalist and UFOlogist was made in December 1981. It gives a frightful picture of the way nonconformists are treated in totalitarian states. Mr. Lina is a brave man and we wish him all the best here in Sweden.
(The capital of Juri's native country, Talinn, was a northern terminus for the earliest of Europe's trade associations, the Hanseatic Leagues. A thousand years ago Estonians watched for the arrival of trade goods from southern Europe and the Orient. Today they watch for the arrival of Visitors from Outer Space! RHC)
BLOM: First a classic question. What started your active interest in UFOs?
JURI: It began in 1969-70. On Nov. 2, 1969 I observed a cigar-shaped object from which emerged three or four shining spheres. We were three witnesses to this incident.
BLOM: Did you know anything about UFOs, before this observation?
JURI: Yes, I was very intrigued by the mystery. In 1967-68 Soviet authorities published several articles on UFOs and some were translated in Estonian newspapers. In 1970 I began my first field investigations. Other young people came to me and talked about UFOs and asked for books. At the time I only had two underground books in Estonian. One of them was "De flygande tefaten" by K. Gosta Rehn, translated from Finnish to Estonian and Samizdat-printed. I also contacted Tunne Kelam who wrote articles on UFOs in local newspapers. He told me there was something like one hundred Estonian cases and from him I borrowed books and other material. I was deeply fascinated by all this and started a small underground publishing house to print Samizdat literature on UFOs, in secrecy.
BLOM: Didn't you fear your activities would be discovered?
JURI: Yes, we were very afraid of the authorities and I used the pseudonym Tuulo Ellis in print. We received very few books from abroad but lots of magazines which were easier to smuggle by mail. Books didn't always reach us. Most of the material we received from Finland. Our information-net increased, we had contacts with people from Moscow, Ukraine, Leningrad, Lettland, Lithuania, Finland and Sweden. Material posted in Sweden never reached us. It had to be shipped via Finland. Our publishing grew, we printed books on parapsychology and philosophy.
BLOM: How long could you keep up this activity without interference from the KGB?
JURI: About two or three years. Several people in our group were interested in philosophy and some had become vegetarians and teetotalers.
BLOM: How did the KGB find you?
JURI: Somehow they found out there were some young people gathering who didn't drink and who had peculiar philosophical ideas. They started questioning my friends about what I was up to as I was a leader of the group. My friends warned me and mentioned the KGB visits I now had to be very careful. Very little material was kept in my apartment. If someone wished to borrow a book I told him: be at my place at this date and hour precisely and the book will be there.
But on April 2, 1975, I woke up and noticed some men who tried to enter the front door of my house. I immediately realised it was the KGB and hurriedly burned dangerous letters and documents. They came to search my apartment and started enquiring about my UFO interests.
UFOs exist only in the West, not here, they said. You are not to tell anyone about UFOs. You are not to tell anyone about UFOs. (Interesting, isn't it, that the Russian leaders have a Silence Policy on Flying Saucers, as do the American leaders, and for the same reason: fear of loss of power of control over the people, to a superior power from Outer Space! -RHC) If you persist we will make it impossible for you to live here in Estonia. Also you don't drink. This is not good. You must have religious reasons.
BLOM: They were afraid of your philosophy?
STRANGE IDEAS ARE FORBIDDEN
JURI: Yes, they thought of me as religious. After this visit I could not get anything published in Estonia. All editors refused my articles. That was the end of my journalistic career. Instead I took a part time job transporting cattle to Central Asia. When I came back from this job I was called to the police. They asked about my income as I didn't write anything. I told them I was blacklisted by the KGB. You must have mental problems to believe in such things, we will put you in a mental hospital, they said. Then I started quoting Marx and Lenin and they were confused by my knowledge. To put an end to my strange ideas hard work was the best, they thought. I started working as a nightwatch.
BLOM: But you didn't stop writing?
JURI: No, I smuggled articles to Finland and also published some in Estonia, using my friends' names. They got the money and gave it to me. But this was no solution to my problem. Sooner or later I would be discovered and imprisoned, perhaps in a mental institution. In the USSR they can send you to prison if you haven't been working for two months. The second time this happens you are sent to Siberia.
BLOM: Do you know if any Russian UFO researchers have been imprisoned?
JURI: Yes, there was a man in Minsk, Veacheslav Zaitsev. We had much contact in 1976-77. In 1978 he stopped writing and I heard from Moscow he had been sent to Siberia for five years. Religious propaganda they called it. He had been quoting the Bible in his UFO research!
BLOM: How did you escape from Estonia?
JURI: Well, I realised my situation was getting more and more dangerous. In 1978 my friends from Finland helped me. They sent a Finnish girl to me and we were married. The marriage was only a front, of course. I didn't know if this would succeed but possibly the authorities were tired of my activities. With me gone they could easily disrupt the group. I did receive permission to leave my country and arrived in Helsinki, April 2, 1979. There I started writing about human rights in the East. My friends in Finland warned me of these activities and in July 1979 I moved to Sweden.
BLOM: Are you publishing articles in Sweden now?
JURI: Very few. Most of my material goes to the USA.
BLOM: Have you been contacted by the KGB in Sweden?
JURI: I was invited to the USA, Canada and West Germany to relate my experiences and talk about human rights in the East. One evening, after listening to a speech by a Russian dissident in Stockholm, a KGB man came up to me and said, "If you don't stop your activities you will be killed," and he hit me. I also noticed another man but they couldn't do anything as several witnesses arrived. That was in February 1981.
NO BOOKS FORBIDDEN IN SWEDEN
BLOM: How does it feel coming to Sweden from Estonia?
JURI: It's like another planet! You don't realise how happy you are here in Sweden. A big surprise for me was all the books available. No books are forbidden.
BLOM: In spite of all your hardships you mentioned something about feeling protected?
JURI: Yes. It is related to a UFO experience I had on Nov. 24, 1974. This was a Sunday evening and I felt very restless. A strong urge to visit a secluded place in the woods made me call two friends and we drove off to our observation post. When we arrived there was a strange red light above the trees. Not a clear light but a diffused glow. We went to our familiar old spot and immediately felt like being watched. After a short while the surroundings were illuminated in an unknown way and our bodies felt taller or bigger.
BLOM: This happened at night?
JURI: It was dark but around us everything became brighter and brighter and there was a definite increase in temperature. About half an hour past midnight we heard a noise like when you strike a match, but much stronger. From the east came a green ball of light passing about two meters above our heads.
BLOM: How big was it?
JURI: From a half to one meter in diameter. We all shouted "UFO, UFO!" It passed us and disappeared into nowhere after about 100 meters.
BLOM: Was the light in the woods still there?
JURI: No. It disappeared some ten minutes before the ball of light passed us.
BLOM: You were not afraid?
JURI: No, we felt very happy. It was a positive experience. After this all three of us have had an inner feeling of being protected, like nothing evil can reach us.
BLOM: What do you think it was you saw?
JURI: Perhaps some apparatus from a UFO. They wanted us to have proof we were noticed. After this experience I had no real deep fear of the authorities. An inner voice told me to be calm. When the [10] time is right, I will escape from the USSR, I thought.
BLOM: What about Close Encounters in the USSR and Estonia?
A NUCLEAR WAR WILL NOT BE ALLOWED
JURI: I have published two cases in FSR (Flying Saucer Review). From Nikita Schnee I heard of a Close Encounter involving a Russian officer. This happened outside Moscow in June 1978. The humanoids this man met told him: "We know a lot about you. If you start a war that becomes dangerous to the planet we will interfere and stop you." They also mentioned a catastrophe in the near future.
BLOM: What is the present situation on UFOs in the USSR?
JURI: There has been a general increase in reports and the authorities are worried about the consequences. They want them to go away. In Moscow there is a man, an academic, who works as chief censor. His name is Migulin. He reads all articles on UFOs before they are published. But more and more activities have filtered through lately.
BLOM: How many cases have you investigated personally?
JURI: About thirty. There are something like 200 documented cases from Estonia.
BLOM: What do you believe about UFOs?
JURI: Personally I think they are interplanetary, but possibly also inter-dimensional. I don't believe they originate on this planet.
BLOM: How many books have you written?
JURI: Twenty-three, but only one has been published, in Finland. It is about UFO research in the USSR. I have also written about parapsychology and mysteries generally.
BLOM: Will you continue your UFO research here in Sweden?
JURI: Yes, but so far I have only held a few speeches. I still don't know many Swedish Ufologists.
* * *
Juri's comment about being into parapsychology and the Mysteries indicates that Flying Saucers are an awakener, especially when the researcher comes to realize and accept the fact that the craft and their pilots are materializations from other planes or levels of consciousness, as well as locations related to known planets, suns and systems.
There is also a forewarning that if the millions of crypto-Nazis in the United States crawl out of the woodwork, rise up and get control of the nation -- as they did in Germany in the 1930s -- Flying Saucer researchers will have to follow Juri Lina's example and head for the nearest border; and hopefully, with the protection and guidance of the Guardians from Outer Space, they will make it -- as did Juri Lina! Associate Hakan Blomqvist writes for "Archives for UFO Research" (AFU) PO Box 11027, S-600 11, Norrkoping, Sweden. The Lina interview, with bibliography, was in the January-April 1982 issue.
Further Reading
- Håkan Blomqvist's Blog: <http://ufoarchives.blogspot.se/>
- Jüri Lina's Homepage: <http://jyrilina.com/english/about-jyri-lina/>
Selected Bibliography of Jüri Lina
- Lina, Jyri. Ufotutkimuksesta Neuvostoliitossa. Helsinki: Alea-Kirja, 1979. Print. [Finnish; "UFO Research in the Soviet Union"]
- Lina, Jüri. Öised Päevad: Olumärkmeid Eestist, Nôukogude Liidust Ja Mujaltki. Stokholm: Faag, 1983. Print. [Estonian, "Nocturnal Days: Beer Notes from Estonia, the Soviet Union and elsewhere"]
- Lina, Jüri. Kommunisternas Heliga Krig: Om Internationella Röda Hjälpen, Dess Taktik Och Historia. Stockholm: Referent, 1986. Print. [Swedish, "The Communists' Holy War: About the International Red Aid, Its Tactics and History"] Lina, Jüri, and Annes Enehielm. Ufo-gåtan Fördjupas. Stockholm: Referent, 1992. Print. [Swedish, "UFO Mystery Deepens"]
- Lina, Jüri, Lars Adelskogh, and Björn Söderholm. Under the Sign of the Scorpion: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire. Stockholm: Referent Pub, 1998. Print. <http://amzn.to/1t88lyK> [Available direct from the author, <http://jyrilina.com/>]
- Lina, Jüri, and Steve Ahlberg. Architects of Deception: The Concealed History of Freemasonry. Stockholm: Referent, 2004. Print. <http://amzn.to/1sLJT9y> [Available direct from the author, <http://jyrilina.com/>]
References
- Rehn, K G. De Flygande Tefaten: Dokument Och Teori. Göteborg: Zinderman, 1966. Print. [Swedish, "The Flying Saucers: Documents and Theories"]