GHOSTS, ANGELS AND UFOS
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has thrown up reports of weird goings-on
THE GHOST OF KYIV
In the early days of the invasion, Ukrainian resolve was considerably boosted by tales of the “Ghost of Kyiv”, a pilot flying a MIG-29 fighter jet who, it was claimed, had singlehandedly shot down at least six, and possibly 10 Russian planes in the first few days of the war, making the “Ghost” the first fighter ace of the 21st century – to be acclaimed as an “ace”, a pilot needs to have five or more confirmed kills. Confusion reigned as to the pilot’s identity, with both female and male pilots being alleged to be the Ghost. A tweet by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, supposedly showing the Ghost, turned out to be a reused image from a 2019 Ukraine Ministry of Defence post of a pilot testing a new helmet. Footage also circulated showing aerial footage of the Ghost winning a dogfight, which was shown to be computer generated imagery from the 2013 video game Digital Combat Simulator that the originator had posted as a tribute to the Ghost, urging them to keep fighting, but which later got forwarded, including by the Ukraine’s armed forces, without this caveat. The armed forces also posted a picture of the alleged Ghost captioned “Hello, occupier, I’m coming for your soul!”. Military commentators doubted the reality of the Ghost, as it is extremely rare for planes to get shot down in direct aerial combat today, particularly as Ukraine has strong missile defences and would be more likely to use those against Russian jets. Tom Demerly of
The Aviationist said that the Ghost of Kyiv is an “example of bizarre distortions... amplified by the chaos of war.” It is true, though, that Ukraine downed at least six Russian planes in the first few days of the war, but this was not the work of just one pilot, and while he or she is almost certainly an urban legend, the “Ghost of Kyiv” was an undeniable morale booster for the people of Ukraine when they were in severe need of one. Times, 11 Mar 2022.
PICKLE-PACKIN' GRANDMA It seems MIGs and missiles are not the only thing Ukraine is successfully using against
Russian air power. In Kyiv, a grandmother, named only as Elena, took out a suspected enemy drone by throwing a jar of pickles at it. Originally thought to be another moraleboosting myth, this was later confirmed by the news outlet Liga (Life). It seems Elena was sitting on her balcony smoking just before dawn when she heard a buzzing sound and saw something hovering near her block of flats. At first, she thought it was a bird, but then she realised it was a drone and grabbed a jar of pickled tomatoes and hurled them at the device, scoring a direct hit and sending it crashing to the ground. She was particularly concerned to clarify to the media the exact nature of the missile as initial reports had said she used pickled cucumbers: “I don’t know where the fables about cucumbers came from,” she said. Elena then broke the debris into several pieces and disposed of them in separate bins in case the operators were running tracking or recording software and swept the street so that local dogs didn’t cut their paws on any remaining shards. businessinsider.com, 8 Mar 2022.
ANGEL OF KYIV
Also boosting morale was a classic example of “Angel of Mons” style pareidolia, showing a cloud in the shape of an angel hanging over Kyiv, posted on the Ukraine Updates Twitter account after Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said “We perceive today that the Archangel Michael together with the whole Heavenly Host is fighting for Ukraine. So many people from throughout Ukraine are turning to me saying that they saw luminous angels over the
She hurled a jar of pickled tomatos, scoring a direct hit
land of Ukraine.” The Archangel Michael is the patron saint of Kyiv. However, fact-checkers from USA Today claimed the image was some years old and predated the Russian invasion. catholicnewsagency.com, USA Today, 4 Mar 2022.
ST MICHAEL AND THE DEVIL For some reason St Michael also seems to have chosen Broomfield, a suburb of Denver in Colorado, to express his feelings about the war. On 23 February, just as the invasion was beginning. Alicia Martinez, 57, found that her statue of St Michael was apparently bleeding from the forehead and posted a video on Facebook showing it with a red liquid running down its face. “It was dripping, like when you cut yourself and the blood drips out; that’s how it was,” she said. Originally from Mexico, Martinez called a friend there who is a priest. He told her that what was occurring was marvellous and that her home was blessed. Another friend, a sister in a religious order, told her the blood would continue to flow until it reached the head of the Devil on which St Michael was standing; and, indeed, Martinez reports that the statue bled for a week, then stopped when the liquid fell on the Devil’s head. As to whether the Catholic Church sees this as a genuine miracle, Mark Haas, public relations director for the Archdiocese of Denver, said that they had “just recently been informed of this claim and we will investigate.” ncregister.com, 8 Mar 2022.
SPACESHIP MIRACLE
Tales of more direct divine intervention are being reported as well. The Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) carried a report from its Ukraine Director, Kostyantine Lytvynenko, in which he tells a story apparently shared with him by an unnamed man whose son is serving with the Ukraine military in an undisclosed location. According to Lytvynenko, this man told
him that “one dark night” early in the war his son’s unit found themselves under attack from Russian tanks and mobile units, heavily outnumbered and outgunned. Faced with this onslaught, the boy picked up his phone and called his father saying, “Dad, you have to pray right now. We’re in a situation”, so the father called other members of their church who all prayed fervently for the boy and his unit. Later, Lytvynenko said, the boy called his father once more and said “There’s some miracle that happened. It looked like an attack [on the Russians] from a spaceship. There was some kind of lightning shooting from the sky and sparks were spreading everywhere.” Indeed, in the morning they found the Russian tanks and other units destroyed. www1.cbn.com, 3 Mar 2022.
For more UFOs over Ukraine, see Nigel Watson’s “Saucers of the Damned” on p.26.