Pavel Popovich
Pavel Romanovich Popovich | |
|---|---|
| File:Popovich.jpg | |
| Nationality | Soviet |
| Occupation | Pilot |
| Space career | |
| Cosmonaut | |
| Rank | Major General, Soviet Air Force |
Time in space | 18d 16h 27m |
| Selection | Air Force Group 1 |
| Missions | Vostok 4, Soyuz 14 |
Mission insignia |  |
Pavel Romanovich Popovich ([Павел Романович Попович, Pavel Romanovich Popovich] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help); born October 5, 1930 in Uzyn, Kiev Oblast of Ukrainian SSR) was a Soviet cosmonaut of Ukrainian descent, arguably the first ethnic Ukrainian to fly in space.
Popovich commanded two space flights, Vostok 4 and Soyuz 14. His call sign in these flights was Golden eagle (Russian: Бе́ркут).
In 1960, he was selected as one of a group of twenty air force pilots that would train as the first cosmonauts. Vostok 4 was part the first dual space flight, with Andrian Nikolayev on Vostok 3.
He retired from the space programme in 1982. In 1984 Popovich joined the Academy of Sciences newly created All-Union Investigation Committee for Anomalous Aerial Phenomena and became head of the Academy's UFO Commission. Nowadays he is the president of UFO association of Russia and the chairman of Ukrainian diaspora organisation in Russia.
He met his wife Dr. Marina Popovich in 1955 and they have two daughters. Marina Popovich is a retired Soviet Air Force colonel, engineer, and legendary Soviet test pilot. She has been very outspoken about UFO reality, having written a book called UFO Glasnost (published in Germany) and given public lectures and interviews. She has mentioned over 3000 UFO sightings by Soviet military and civilian pilots. Although qualifying that her statements are not official, she says that the Soviet Air Force and KGB have fragments of five crashed UFOs in their possession. The crash sites mentioned were Tunguska (1908), Novosibirsk, Tallinn/Estonia, Ordzhonikidze/Caucasus, and Dalnegorsk (1986). Popovich said debris was analyzed and the conclusion was that it wasn't manufactured on Earth with terrestrial technology.
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