Talk:Matest M. Agrest

1959 publication?

Does anybody know the bibliographical details? So far, this seems to be only hearsay info... --Jonas kork (talk) 19:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Some of his publications are listed on the webpage set up by one of his sons: http://agrestm.people.cofc.edu/PCBIBLIOG.html The 1959 article is not among them. In 1963, Sagan mentions Agrest, but gives no reference other than Shklovskii (Sagan, Carl: "Direct contact among galactic civilizations by relativistic interstellar spaceflight", in: Planetary and Space Science 11 (1963), pp. 485-498). In Shklovskii's/Sagan's collaboration, I think the year 1959 is given, but again no bibliographic reference, IIRC. I found an (unanswered) request on an h-net mailing list. It seems to originate with Agrest's son Mikhail (the professor at Charleston mentioned in the mail). The requested article is not by Agrest himself, but seems to be about him. Suspiciously, the date given (Feb 9, 1959) appears elsewhere (google books) as Feb 9, 1960, but the only reference is a much later Agrest article (note 3 on p. 330 of the book). Fitzpatrick-Matthews (quoted below) gives a reference that fits the h-net/ Charleston request remarkably well. But it is from 1960, not 1959. I tend to conclude that 1959 might have been an error on the side of Shklovskii (or whoever else), and that there was never a paleo-contact article by or about Agrest before 1960. But it's just a guess. --Jonas kork (talk) 14:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"Valentin Isaakovich Rich and Mikhail Borisovy Chernenko published the article “Hypotheses, assumptions and guesses: does the trail lead into space?” in the magazine Новое Русское Слово (Current Digest of the Russian Press, a Russian language newspaper published in the USA since 1910) Volume 12 No 9 (30 March 1960), p 24-6. This was a complete reprint of an article that had originally appeared in Литературная газета (Literaturnaya Gazeta) 9 February 1960, p 2, discussing the speculations of Matest M Agrest (1915-2005) that aliens might have visited earth in the remote past and left traces of their arrival." [1]

I don't think the 1959 date it's an error. Here's an American report on future Soviet trends that references 1959: Future Trends in Soviet Science and Technology: Review of Soviet Literature. Also, David Darling refers to 1959 here (and gives Sagan as a reference): Agrest. Note that his 1959 argument was that ancient astronauts had visited Earth and monuments of ancient cultures could be evidence of it, while in the article published in 1960 he focuses on tektites.Ljfeliu (talk) 02:17, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe the mystery is solved if you look here: Enoch, who flew to heaven. You may also find the following interesting: The Power of Knowledge and the Momentum of Faith. Ljfeliu (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

So basically, he submitted his paleocontact hypothesis in the form of a manuscript to the Party in July 1959 and was subsequently invited to give a talk on the subject. When his sponsor, who was helping him get his work published, passed away in February 1960, Agrest went to his funeral in Moscow and learned that his work was being spread without it being yet published. In order to preserve his author rights, he quickly got his work published by two well known science fiction writers/journalists. This is the February 9, 1960 article in the Литературная Газета (Literary Newspaper), and was titled Следы ведут в... космос? (Trail leads to... Space?). Ljfeliu (talk) 03:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)