Space Visitors - Part One (Russian Science-Fiction Short Animation 1981)

Space Visitors - Part One (Kosmicheskie prishelcy) [Russian Science-Fiction Animation English Subtitles 1981]

IMDb entry should appear soon.

Original Translation By Pashka Geraskin
English Translation Revised By Kosmikino

Though the screenplay was jointly written by the late Arkady Strugatsky who along with his brother Boris are the most famous science-fiction writers of Russian origin, this animation remains virtually unknown outside of Russia and Eastern Europe.

This is a fascinating science-fiction story , set specifically just over a year ago, on September 2nd, 2011. The scriptwriters Arkady Strugatsky And Marian Tkachov (in conjunction with the director Aleksey Solovyov who also helped write the screenplay). Made in 1981 and set thirty years into the future, the writers no doubt assumed, like many people at the time, that contact with extraterrestrial civilisations would have occured by this point, hence the opening statement about "a meeting with the space brothers will certainly happen... and very soon!"

The story begins with a message from  the 'Centre of Space Research' which reports a mysterious event where all links to the space stations in Earth's orbit were temporarly cut and the subsequent appearance of a strange black sphere with the ability to teleport objects in and out of their locale.

Early scientific speculation suggests the black sphere may be searching for intelligent life and "The Centre of Space Research" reports the "Council for Contact with Extraterrestrial Civilisation" has sent search parties out to locate the sphere and bring it back to Space Research Centre's laboratory for testing.

Once back in the laboratory, a specialist  scientific "contact group" begins attempts to solve the enigma of the black sphere, but soon, all communication is cut off and the scientists are isolated as a the laboratory is hermetically sealed by an unknown force-field.

Once the scientists are trapped by the black sphere, strange events begin to occur as the extraterrestrial object turns the tables and begins what appears to be a series of experiments on the scientists (after a feeble attempt to disable the object by one of the scientists with a laser gun).

Eventually, communication is established with the alien sphere and the scientists soon realise they are caught in an elegent trap as they hypothesise what an extraterrestrial intelligence would do upon first contact; it would search for scientists, but how, amongst a vast population, would it know who was who?

They realise it would allow itself to be captured and the scientists would come to it. A given race's scientists are after all, "walking information repositories", the best subjects to extract data from to give an overall picture of the planet's level of progress, both technological and 'moral'.

As the outside agencies frantically try and establish communication with the trapped scientists inside, the mysterious black sphere suddenly takes off; leaving Earth's atmosphere and the scientists realise the sphere is actually a "scout robot... designed for human abduction."

The first part was released in 1981, the second part in 1983.

Any help improving the translation will be very appreciated as I do not speak Russian, all I have done is improve the English side of things.