The Unseen: Baltic UFO Quest

Quests: Whether searching for a vaccine, a life-mate, money or The Holy Grail, we are all on a quest of one sort or another.

My current quest: To understand the mystical, magical Baltic reality—a world that is just as real as the Tallinn fortresses, castles of Riga or Vilnius cathedrals. But since this reality lives within the silent realm of the Unseen, we need to open our minds rather than our eyes.

Jevgeny Sidorov—a 1975 graduate of Latvian University—is a physicist, research scientist and president of the Latvian Anomalistic Phenomena Research Center, better known as, "UFOlats." He has been studying paranormal events for over 30 years.

His quest: To comprehend the incomprehensible.

I recently met with Sidorovto discuss some of his theories about the Unseen world here in the Baltics.

"We believe the world to be as we see it. This is a misunderstanding of both time and space," Sidorov began. "I believe there's an energy that weaves the universe together and can only be understood by exploring beyond our misconceptions of the world and entering into the depths of consciousness."

"Then you're speaking of a journey into the mind?" I asked."The mind is everything!" he replied.

There I sat, itching to use my new camera, and Sidorov was talking about an inner quest—a journey into thoughts and perceptions—hardly the material from which photo-ops are made.

"The more open-minded we are concerning the Unseen, the more likely we are to see it," Sidorov continued. "It's our own psycho-physiological state that allows us to see these Unseen things; like SOUO, for example.

"SOUO?" I asked."Spherical Objects of Unknown Origin," Sidorov explained. "Objects that are seldom seen by the naked eye, but show up in pictures. There are actually sites that have more observable SOUO than other places; like Pokaini forest, for instance."

Pokaini forest, located in the Zemgale region of Latvia, near the town of Dobele, is reputedly an ancient sacred site. Among other claims, Pokaini is said to contain rock mounds that radiate energy and cure illness. I'd visited this forest on several occasions.

"So what are these SOUO?" I asked.

"We believe that they are possibly new life forms coming into our dimension," he said. "I've been researching Pokaini for six years, and it seems to be consistently occupied by something similar to 'ball lightening' in the infrared spectrum [cannot generally be seen by the naked eye but observable in photographs]. There are, however, many stories of people visually witnessing strange phenomena in Pokaini, too."

Sidorov recounted the following story. A doctor and several friends set out to visit Pokaini. On their way to the forest their car stopped. The men got out to check under the hood, while one woman remained in the car. Suddenly a huge eye materialized in front of the woman. When she screamed the eye vanished.

Later, hiking through Pokaini, people, within the group, individually witnessed blue-violet spheres flying through the forest.

Their visit completed, the group returned to their car and, somewhat confused by the blue-violet spheres, headed back to Riga.

The woman, glancing out of the car window, gasped, "Look! The spheres are following us!" Everyone in the car turned and witnessed the spheres.

Unfortunately, for the woman, leaving Pokaini didn't end these strange occurrences.

Images, such as a small man leaning on a door in her home and a woman walking across her living room and 'entering' a wall, plagued her. Her young son was also tormented; frequently screaming out at night, "Mommy, there are violet balls flying around my bedroom."

As a final resort the woman called a priest to her home. After blessing the house, the events ceased.

"So if a priest was able to end these events, are you saying they were bad or negative?" I asked.

"No," Sidorov said, smiling. "I'm saying that the woman perceived the events as torment because they were beyond what she could accept. She also perceived the priest as capable of rescuing her from her torment. It was her thoughts and her beliefs that created her ordeal; but they also set her free."

Ah… yes, we had come full circle: Thoughts, beliefs and the inner journey; the mind is everything... But it now appeared that this inner journey was capable of creating some rather bizarre events in the outer world—including some great photo-ops!