Håkan Blomqvist´s blog

In April this year UFO-Sweden celebrates its 50 years anniversary. For the young ufologists of today the 1970s probably appear like a very distant world. No smartphones, no FaceBook, a pre-digital age when communication was by old type telephones and snail mail letters. And people gathered in national and local societies to listen to lectures on UFOs. UFO groups are today almost gone. UFO-Sweden now has three local groups. So follow me on a journey in time, sharing some UFO-Sweden memories from 1972, when the UFO movement had a very different agenda than today.

”To successfully present the UFO problem as an important issue within the political system of today the demand must come from a broad public opinion.” These were the words of Carl-Axel Jonzon in an editorial, UFO-Information no. 2, 1972, p. 2. This quote from UFO-Sweden founder and first chairman Carl-Axel Jonzon (CAJ) is a good summary of how the organization then planned to work. Information and lobbying became the keyword. The idea was to create a large peoples movement that would change the public´s view of the phenomenon. This movement would then be strong enough to demand that the authorities initiate UFO research.

Carl-Axel Jonzon 1971

Carl-Axel Jonzon (Karl Axel Jonzon) is today 91 years but still now and then writes about UFOs on his blog UFO med mera. He succeeded, after much hard work 1968-1969, in uniting the then six or seven UFO-groups and founding the national organization UFO-Sweden. He was UFO-Sweden chairman 1970-1975. The new organization changed the ufological landscape completely. Local UFO groups were formed at a phenomal pace in most Swedish towns. By the end of 1972 there were 50 registered local UFO-Sweden units.

My AFU colleague Anders Liljegren had founded Norrköpings UFO-förening in 1970 and I formed the local group UFO-Södertälje during the same year. By 1972 Anders was in charge of the UFO-Sweden reporting center and I head of the organizations´s information center. Large groups had developed in Sundsvall, Stockholm, Ludvika, Södertälje and several other cities.

Swedish newspaper Sundsvalls Tidning, April 8, 1972, presenting the local group UFO-Sundsvall

During the pioneering years in the beginning of the 1970s UFO-Sweden´s ideology was a mixture of a rather naive New Age, contactee philosophy and research-oriented field investigation. This became clearly evident during the annual conference in April 1972. Anders Liljegren lectured on UFO reports during 1971 but there was also a lecture by Raymond Andreasson who with a combination of mathematics and Bible studies tried to convince the audience that the Holy City was inside the Moon and The End Times were near.

Part of the audience at the UFO-Sweden annual conference April 1, 1972

Anders Liljegren lecturing during the UFO-Sweden annual conference April 1, 1972

Carl-Axel Jonzon with Raymond Andreasson, Motala Tidning, April 4, 1972

During the Autumn of 1972 I initiated a new form of meetings in the organization, planning conferences, with the idea to create a forum for a more open and informal discussions and planning of projects. The first meeting was arranged in Södertälje, August 26, 1972. Anders Liljegren here for the first time presented his research project on the 1946 Swedish Ghost Rockets.

Planning conference August 26, 1972. Anders Liljegren to the right.

Plannings conference August 26, 1972. Kent Johansson, chairman of local group UFO-Västerås

The UFO-Sweden magazine UFO-Information improved in both printing quality and content in 1972, resulting in many subscribers, also from public libraries. From 1970 organized field investigation and documentation of UFO observations had been started and were now published in the magazine. Qualified writers begun publishing articles in UFO-Information and there was a lively debate.

The new improved UFO-Information

In spite of these improvements the ideology and activites were very much influenced by the information and lobbying idea. Research was not generally regarded as of prime importance. During the second planning conference on November 25, 1972 in Södertälje, Anders Liljegren and I tried to initate a change in policy regarding research and also democracy in the organization. Unfortunately not with much success. This difference in ideology and policy eventually led to our forming of AFU on March 17, 1973.

But UFO-Sweden continued with many ups and downs during the next decades. New leaders emerged affecting great improvements in policy, field investigation etc. Today UFO-Sweden is a large and well functioning organization with around 600 members. Although there are not many local groups around today, activities and meetings are organized in several places, which also function as important social gatherings.

The 50 years anniversary will be celebrated on April 17-19 at Norrköping. It is a very special and fascinating experience to have been involved with an organization for fifty years. A life journey filled with much interesting work and study, resulting in cherished friendships and many unforgettable memories.

My first teacher or mentor in the strange and sometimes whacky underground world of the UFO movement was Swedish contactee Sten Lindgren. A gentle soul, mystic, esotericist and idealist who told of both physical and telepathic contacts with the space people. Being a naive teenager I was immensely fascinated by his claims and in 1970 became a member of his group of eager students and activists, the Intergalactical Federation (IGF). But after a couple of years in this very special social milieu I began asking critical question which eventually led to the founding of AFU.

One of the first meetings with Sten Lindgren at my home January 2, 1971. From left Kjell Jonsson, Sten Lindgren, Bjarne Håkansson (IGF co-worker)

Still I was deeply intrigued by the many contact claims of Sten Lindgren and decided to gather as much data as possible to determine what was reality and fantasy in the world of Sweden´s most famous contactee. I kept on turning every stone and after several years had acquired quite an extensive file on IGF and its members. Years of research and investigation later made it clear that many of the observations and contact experiences that Sten Lindgren referred to had mundane explanations. I never found any concrete evidence that Sten was in physical contact with an alien group. There were a few UFO observations with group members that are a bit puzzling, but not of great interest. Still I can to this day wonder whether Sten Lindgren was, in spite of all misinterpretations and wild stories, during his early years really involved in some hidden activity with a benevolent alien group? The reason I still keep an open mind on this issue is the story of the enigmatic woman referred to as BEA.

Sten Lindgren (right) at his home 1971. To the left Roland von Malmborg

In the annals of UFO history there are few issues that have created more debate, derision and enmity in the UFO community than the classic contactee cases of the 1950s. The situation is not very much different today. Few ufologists appear to be able to handle these and similar cases today with an open and investigating spirit. The believers believe too much and the skeptics often dismiss empirical data without investigation. Finding weak points in the claims of the true believer is usually not very difficult, but when dealing with complicated contactee cases it is equally important to be critical of the critic and skeptical of the skeptic.

In many interviews, lectures and his book Dialog med kosmisk kultur (Dialogue with A Cosmic Culture) Sten Lindgren narrates the story of his physical and telepathic contacts and cooperation with a group of alien visitors he refer to as CBH, the Cosmic Brotherhood. As a young man he was deeply puzzled by why he so often observed UFOs, cigar-shaped and bell-shaped craft: ”I began reflecting over my luck, having made seven or eight observations of different types of craft since 1957. I thought this was unusual and began wondering why this happened. Who was I?” (p. 18).

Sten Lindgren´s father was an amateur astronomer and because of their common astonomy interest Sten and his father met with ufologist Eric Nordquist, chairman of the Swedish Ifologiska sällskapet (Ifological Society) in the beginning of the 1960s. Sten Lindgren started reading UFO literature and joined the Ifological Society. In 1963-1964 he began receiving telepathic messages, sometimes before a UFO observation. Late one evening in 1964 Sten observe a cigar-shaped craft not far from his home outside Stockholm. There are illuminated windows on the craft which is hovering over some buildings: ”Suddenly I was aware of something. I heard a distinct male voice, perhaps of 30 years age, with a metallic, echoing voice in normal Swedish language say: ”Sten Lindgren, we will contact you in the future.” This communication I perceived as inside my head, hearing. It was a very powerful voice, like someone talking to me from one meters distance. Nothing more was said and the craft disappeared after the communication. Later I was briefed on the technique that had been used, especially for this transmission. They had used a device that with a sort of electrical beam modulated the auditory nerve.” (p. 20) Sten was later told that he had been under observation by the alien group for several years as a preparation for open contact.

Beginning in 1965 Sten Lindgren for the first time encounter the woman who he always referred to as BEA (not her real name). The first meeting was probably, according to Sten, at the Ifological Society in Stockholm: ”From the beginning I didn´t know who BEA was. I found that out eventually. The contact with BEA was intensified and I came to realize that she was in direct contact with an extraterrestrial group. I received a lot of information. She confirmed that the contactees George Adamski, Howard Menger and Daniel Fry were authentic and that they were in contact with the same group she represented.” (pp. 21, 23) Sten Lindgren´s contact with BEA lasted only a few years during the late 1960s and then she left the country and he never heard from her again.

Sten Lindgren together with his former wife Tina, visiting my home August 8, 1971

So who was this mysterious woman that Sten Lindgren claimed was either belonging to a group of alien visitors or in liaison with this group? I have spent many years trying to follow up every lead in this puzzle, interviewing all individuals who met BEA. She was not a figment of Sten´s imagination as several witnesses who met her can testify, but who was this enigmatic woman? From my extensive files on this case I will present some relevant quotes that may shed some light on this enigma.

I have interviewed four people in Sweden who met and talked to BEA. Unfortunately I have not been able to interview Eva Jarring, daughter of former Swedish ambassador Gunnar Jarring. According to one of the four witnesses, Maj-Britt Gustavsson, Eva Jarring met BEA and received a jewellery from her in the form of a Saturn symbol with a golden chain. Maj-Britt has seen and held the jewellery in her hand. (Interview March 11, 1991). I have tried to contact Eva Jarring to get a confirmation of this statement but has received no answer.

Maj-Britt Gustavsson was for a while a member of Sten Lindgren´s group. Sten hade secretly photographed BEA and kept the photo in a metal box. According to Sten this photo mysteriously disappeared. The space people did not, for security reasons, wish to be photographed. Maj-Britt had seen the photo. She remember her as good-looking woman in her thirties. Blond, slender, nordic type. Probably singel. She had a car and foreign correspondence. BEA had a strange kind of watch that somehow was connected with her ”vibrations”. Maj-Britt regarded the messages from BEA to Sten as very much common sense viewpoints. Maj-Britt tried many times to get more information from Sten about BEA but he was very secretive regarding her identity and work. (Interview March 19, 1985).

Sten Lindgren at his home in Stockholm December 25, 1984

Another member of Sten Lindgren´s group who also met and talked to BEA was a good friend of mine who wish anonymity, partly because his involvement in some work for an unnamed Intelligence organization (no connection to his UFO interest). Sten used three alias for this man, Bertil, Roger and Besic. During his lectures Sten always referred to Bertil as a contactee, a liason man with CBH, which he vehemently denied to me and I have found no evidence indicating such a contact. In 2010 I published an interview with Bertil which may be of interest to Swedish readers. Bertil met BEA together with Sten once in Stockholm. It was a short meeting and not much was said. BEA had friendly brown eyes, slender and about 28-30 years old She spoke excellent Swedish. Dressed in ordinary clothes and carrying a brown attache case in her left hand. (Interviews January 2, 1987, April 27, 1990).

The third person to have met BEA is Christer Janson, who together with Sten Lindgren founded the Intergalactical Federation in 1965. He met BEA a couple of times and once fixed her car. Together with Sten he visited her apartment in Stockholm but Christer has very few memories of what transpired and is doubtful whether she was an alien visitor: ”Well, of course the girl in the dairy can also be a marsian, that´s possible. She was very kind and very pretty, but as for an extraterrestrial I must confess there are others more likely.” (Interview August 11, 1986).

The last person to have met BEA is Jan Sannerstam. He only remember her as a rather ordinary, reticent woman. (Interview January 31, 2012).

August 15, 1985. Sten Lindgren showing where he once observed a landed craft

To get an idea of Sten Lindgren´s claims regarding BEA here is a summary of a few quotes from the many interviews and phone conversations I have had with Sten.

Bea knew the American ambassador and did work connected with the American Embassy. She had a very unusual special electronic camera and took pictures of Sten but he was never allowed to study the camera.

BEA once demonstrated that she could bend her fingers as much forwards as backwards. This is a very unusual and specific statement which I have not found in the classic contactee literature. But it must have been mentioned in early contactee circles as this feat is described in Cosmic Top Secret, published 1991 by William Hamilton: ”The human-like, or Nordic, aliens bear specific differences from our own species. Several contactees have mentioned that Nordics have very symmetrical features; their skin is clear and almost translucent… their fingers are flexible in the backward as well as forward direction suggesting more pliable bone tissue…” (p. 38). This reminds me of a comment by American contactee Paul Vest when meeting and shaking hands with the alien visitor ”Bill” in 1953: ”We shook hands and I recall being aware of the peculiar feel of his hand-as though it were without any underlying bone structure... I recalled how odd his hand had felt in my grasp. Looking at his hands, I noticed that his fingers were long and tapering and so smooth that they seemed to be without joints or underlying bone structure.” (Paul Vest, Venusians Walk Our Streets, Mystic Magazine, August 1954, no. 5).

There is a UFO base used by the alien group about twenty Swedish miles from Stockholm. It is rather small and can harbour two or three craft.

Bea confirmed that George Adamski and Howard Menger were authentic contacts. She once browsed in Menger´s book From Outer Space to You and commented that there were two levels in the book. The Moon pictures were not authentic. Bea also once made underlinings of what was important in George Adamski´s Inside the Space Ships.

Sten Lindgren lecturing

Sten Lindgren is convinced that he in 1964, together with his friend Bertil, was taken aboard a bell-shaped craft and flown to a carrier ship. In the autumn of 1964 Sten Lindgren and Bertil went by car to a mine called Yxkullsgruvan in Västmanland, Sweden. The reason for this excursion was to find Lapis Lingua, sometimes called the psychic stone. The mine was closed and they didn´t find any Lapis Lingua but on their way home a cigarshaped mothership and several small bell-shaped craft appear over the car. One of the small craft makes a landing close to the road and Sten and Bertil are led aboard and are then taken to the mothership. Here they meet a group of five or six people, among them two women and a man dressed in a suit. The spacepeople ask Sten if they are allowed to erase his memory of this visit. He believes he was somehow programmed on this occasion. Sten and Bertil are then led back to the car and continue the trip to Stockholm. According to Sten there were several hours missing in their journey. They came home very late. This is corroborated by Bertil. but he has no memory of any UFO observation or contact. Sten was later put under hypnosis by an unknown physician and then became aware of what had happened during the missing hours.

Sten Lindgren interviewed in the Swedish daily Västmanlands Läns tidning March 17, 1994

Looking back today on my two years involvement with Sten Lindgren and the Intergalactical Federation I feel priviliged for this life experience. To have been a member of a very unique contactee group, sharing the members mindset and activities have been an invaluable asset in understanding contactee cases. It was also an excellent lesson in what esotericists would call discrimination or development of the critical faculty. What Sten told me in interviews and personal conversations was often different from what he claimed in his lectures, writings TV- and radio appearances. His activities and statements were sometimes fantastic and without foundation. In 1985 Sten told me during a private conversation that he felt disappointed, abandoned and used by the space people. After BEA had left Sweden he received no information and planned to end his UFO activity.

So what was the real truth behind the enigmatic BEA? I have no definite answer. It was either a result of Sten´s ability to project fantasies on ordinary people and events or perhaps he really was involved in a psychological contact experiment initiated by a benevolent alien group? Sten Lindgren was, and is, a gentle soul, a mystic, idealist and a man of true goodwill. Even if his contact claims were fantasies his philosophy was a worthy mixture of contactee philosophy and esotericism. He was a deep inspiration for my contactee research and involvement in the UFO movement. Whatever the truth of his stories he was a positive catalyst in my life. In his own special way a guide and mentor that put me on a quest that still continue. For this I will be forever grateful.

”So glad to learn that you and Dan Fry enjoyed the years of friendship. He and I met about 1955, when he was instigating the Understanding groups, and kept in touch almost to the end of his Earth sojourn. Dan was one of the very few people I ever felt free to tell of my own few direct encounters with Visitors from afar. All between, January 1958 and 1960: One very brief face-to-face, two phone calls, and three telepathic contacts… which were just as clear as the phone calls. (I do not publicise my encounters). During the last contact (by phone) it was suggested to me that some day conditions would make it possible for me to write a book on Mars… He had said, ”Under optimum conditions, it is possible to get a craft from Earth to Mars in 35 minutes… There´s the title for your book… remember that”. He placed the emphasis on Earth to Mars , so I realised that he and his group are hoping some highly ethical and technologically advanced scientists will be able to pick up enough clues to build such a craft, sometime soon. Of course, it will involve gravity control.”
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Gordon Cooper, August 23, 2000).

This very interesting letter from Rosemary Decker to astronaut Gordon Cooper I found among the 13,000 letters in the Wendelle Stevens extensive archive at AFU, which I am presently organizing, studying and scanning. In the collection I have found ten letters from Rosemary Decker. She was one of the real pioneers in the UFO and contactee movement, with unique inside knowledge and experiences of what happened in the 1950s and 60s. She passed away January 22, 2009 at the age of 92. Space and UFO research were her passion. Her studies of Mars culminated with the publication of 35 Minutes to Mars, in 2004.

Part of the Wendelle Stevens archive, 13,000 letters

What a pity that Rosemary never published her memoirs. What a treasure trove that would have been. She now and then wrote articles for various UFO magazines and lectured at UFO conferences. Even more tragic is that her archive was destroyed in a fire, as told by Bryan Dickeson in his article UFO Archives – An Underrated and Vanishing Resource: ”Californian bushfires destroyed all of Rosemary Decker’s UFO records, accumulated over six decades from the early Adamski era to the present. Rosemary was considered “a living treasure” and resource by MUFON and died several years ago.”

Rosemary Decker was a close friend of several of the classic 1950s contactees a.o. George Adamski and Daniel Fry. She had been at the Palomar Gardens home of George Adamski on that momentous day, November 20, 1952, when he and some friends returned from the first meeting with the ”Venusian” in the California Desert. Later she was able to interview, separately, five of the six witnesses to the encounter. During these years she also came to know several silent contactees, still unknown to the UFO research community:
”Sometimes, guests would report their own close encounters. Very few of them ever publicized their contacts, and so I learned early on that the vast majority of early contacts were nerver made public, as even today´s are not. Some of these people found ways to express appreciation and do something to benefit our troubled planet… This quiet, but profound, movement is still going on, not only among those pioneers who still remain with us, but among close-encountered people today.”
(Rosemary Decker, 35 Minutes to Mars, p. 179).

In her book 35 Minutes to Mars she narrates a few personal UFO observations but that she also had personal contact with one of the alien visitors was not mentioned and she actually kept this a secret until 2003 in a letter published in Flying Saucer Review:
”I had intended to tell them (Gordon and Eve Creighton – HB) of my meeting (in 1959) with a tall, kindly E.T. whom I saw only briefly, and received two phone calls from. He said goodbye on Feb. 14, 1960, as he was returning to his home planet… The people on Mars seem to be genetic cousins of ours. The man I met was about 6 ft. 4-5 inches, and if dressed like us, would blend into people on our streets. There are also not-so-friendly E.T.s, but I have an impression that we receive some protection from them.”
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Philip Creighton, Flying Saucer Review, vol 48, no. 3, Autumn 2003, p. 25).

The ten letters I have found in the Wendelle Stevens archive give further data on Rosemary´s contact experiences, which I now consider legitimate to publish, after her death. Here a few quotes:

”Now and then I submit an article to a UFO magazine (and recently to Atlantis Rising). Some are accepted. But I´ve put most of my spare time and energy the past few years into writing a book on Mars. As a science hobbyist rather than a scientist I would not attemp it – don´t feel really adequate. But way back in 1959, a friend and mentor who is very knowledgeable suggested, to my amazement, that ”some day” conditions would make it possible for me to write a book on Mars. He offered the title (!), a few clues towards broadened research – and left! I haven´t seen him since; but now and again I send a mental message that at last I have written the book. It was the break-throughs that began with the Viking photos, including the Cydonia monuments, and the immense water-spout, that got me going.”
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Wendelle Stevens, April 23-24, 1999).

”Late yesterday a letter arrived from a friend presently living in Australia, who cherishes you, she included for you the enclosed pic, an enlargement from a postage-stamp size ´snap´. (It is probably needless to say it should not be reproduced again.)
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Wendelle Stevens, August 13, 1988).

”… the Visitor whom I met only briefly, about 40 years ago) suggested that ”some day” conditions would make it possible for me to do – and he offered the title (!) and very little other data… Among your small photos one is the Visitor of 1959. Sent courtesy Millen about 5 or 6 years ago.”
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Wendelle Stevens and Christine Stevens-Cox, December 4, 1999).

Rosemary Decker´s interplanetary friend

The photo referred to and included in the August 13, 1988 letter I have never seen before. According to Rosemary this is an actual photo of her interplanetary friend and mentor whom she met in the 1950s. I have been somewhat hesitant whether I should publish this photo as Rosemary did not endorse reproduction and our visitors from afar usually do not want to be photographed, for obvious reasons. But as this gentleman, according to Rosemary, left our planet in 1960 I hope this photo will not cause him or his group any trouble. Representatives of this benevolent alien group are still around, but keeping a very low profile, according to some of my correspondents.

There were several reasons why this alien group terminated their experiment with open contacts around 1960. One was the psychological effect the experiences had on many contactees, who could not handle this unique situation and sometimes went off the beam. Rosemary Decker makes several comments on this problem on personality changes after UFO experiences:

”By 1956 I was already a bit alarmed at personality changes in some of these people (especially those who thereby came into the public eye) as they displayed the signs of deliberately seeking recognition. There was a general tendency among them to ”balloon off” on ”ego-trips”, and establish personal followings, as self-styled ”Authorities” on a great subject on which in fact they knew little more than the vast majority of the public, the ”un-encountered”. ”
(Rosemary Decker, letter to Flying Saucer Review, vol 31, no 6, Oct 1986, p. 28).

”We all found Adamski to be genuinely kind and deeply concerned with the problems the human race has been creating, to its own danger and that of the planet itself. However when his visitants withdrew, and he lost all contact with them, he found it exceedingly difficult to accept the fact, although he had admitted it openly, early on. He soon began to claim further contacts. Unfortunately his Achilles Heel was an immense ego, which grew alarmingly as time went on and his fame spread. As friends who had visited him for years, we became worried about his well-being… In all fairness it should be remembered that Adamski was not the only early space pioneer to undergo stresses greater than they could handle”
(Rosemary Decker, 35 Minutes to Mars, pp. 182-183).

I do not know whether Rosemary Decker was a student of or acquainted with the Esoteric Tradition but she does make an interesting comment in a letter 1988, referring to Desmond Leslie. If she was a connoisseur of the core Esoteric Tradition she would have noted that the worldview and philosophy presented by the, in my view, authentic contactees a.o. Angelucci, Adamski, Fry, Menger, Van Tassel, was generally in accordance with the Ancient Wisdom or science of the multiverse. A fact I have mentioned in several blog posts.

”The reason I´m particularly interested in the Venus (Omnec Onec, From Venus I Came – HB) book is because my own past experience and data gathered in the UFO field have led me to understand that many, perhaps most, of the E.T. cultures advanced beyond our own are not based in this chemical sector of the physical Universe, but in the ´other side´ - still physical substance, but less dense, more malleable, and mores stable. This concept has long been known to esoteric and metaphysical sources. Desmond Leslie suggested it many years ago, but unfortunately that only made him seem less credible in the eyes of other researchers, with rare exceptions. I am sure tht some of the Now-you-see-em-now-you-don´t effects of spacecraft must be due to shifts into, and out of, densification. Others, of course are due to the speeds possible to E.T. craft.”
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Christine Stevens-Cox, February 14, 1988)

Desmond Leslie and George Adamski

Being one of the last pioneers alive, with inside knowledge of what really happened during the first years of the contactee era, Rosemary Decker must have felt more and more like a stranger in a strange land in the UFO movement of the 1980s and 90s. She tried to express some of these thoughts in a letter 1995:

”Yes, I´ll do my best to take care – it´s true ´there aren´t many of us left´. And the early era of open friendly contacts has been so debunked, or at best ignored, by later researchers/encountered people, too much precious data has been lost. (Early era is among my 3 favourite presentations when I speak at a conference). Some of the early alledged contacts were real, thanks be. (And most never publicized).
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Wendelle Stevens and Christine Stevens-Cox, December 12, 1995).

Readers of my blog are aware of that I have advanced the theory that a core group of contactees was involved in a psychological and cultural influence test in the 1950s. An experiment implemented by a group of highly advanced, benevolent aliens, earth based or extraterrestrial, a group with access to “vimana” technology. Some of the people contacted tried their best to implement the projects and ideas received by the visitors. Others couldn´t stand the psychological strain and social stigma of the experiences or invented fake stories when the real contacts ended. But the cultural impact of this experiment was awesome, inspiring millions of people, some in humanitarian projects, others into UFO research and or a personal spiritual quest. There is still much research left to get a clear picture of what happened during these years. Rosemary Decker is definitely an interesting and valuable source of information regarding first hand data from the pioneering decade of the contactee movement.

From a larger cultural perspective the impact of the UFO phenomenon on society after the Second World War has been tremendous. It has engendered a military, scientific, religious and popular culture response. But first and foremost it has generated a world wide movement of private organizations and groups dedicated to investigating and documenting an unknown and intriguing phenomenon. The history of the UFO movement and the ideas and activities of the diverse personalities involved is for me almost as fascinating as the phenomenon itself. I have been a part of this heretic underground movement since a teenager so it has become sort of homebase. This has also made me aware of the importance of documenting the UFO movement for future generations and researchers.

UFO-Sweden in the middle of the 1970s was a young and from an ideological viewpoint rather unsettled organization. But around 1975 this began to change largerly due to one man, Thorvald Bertelsen, who changed his name to Bevan Bertelsen in 1980. Thorvald was the chairman of the local group Köpings UFO-förening and he and his group in many respects, laid the groundwork and changed the direction of ufology in Sweden to a more serious and scientific endeavor. Thorvald was elected chairman of UFO-Sweden in 1976.

Thorvald Berthelsen entered the ufological scene with a fervent commitment and soon became a leading public figure and spokesperson for the Swedish UFO movement. Together with collegues from Köpings UFO-förening he started a massive information campaign ranging from November 10 to December 15, 1975. During these weeks he lectured in 22 different Swedish cities and travelled more than 200 Swedish miles. In many cities there were hundreds on listeners. A second information campaign was conducted between February 3, and March 23, 1976. As a result many local UFO groups were founded all over Sweden and many of the active ufologists today began their ufological career after hearing a lecture by Thorvald Berthelsen in the 1970s.

Thorvald Bertelsen 1977

In order to improve the quality of investigation Thorvald together with the Köping group started the first weekend seminars for field investigators in September 1977. Since then hundreds of field investigators have received their basic UFO education in the annual seminars. This has helped to improve the quality of investigation and documentation of UFO observations and incidents.

Bertelsen realized the need for better and more qualified field investigation. To realize this ambition the Köping group initiated weekend seminars with education on misinterpretations, psychology, photography and basic field investigation proceedures. Participants were accommodated at Lersäter, a rural estate close to the municipality Kolsva, in the center of Sweden. The estate belonged to the Baptist Union of Sweden and consisted of five rooms with 30 beds.

Ufologists gathered at Lersäter for the first seminar September 24, 1977

Participants in todays field investigation seminars are used to quite luxurious accommodations, a sort of all inclusive with private quarters, excellent dinners and general good service. Lersäter was very primitive, with severeal bunk beds in the rooms and only two outside dry toilets. Food was prepared at Lersäter by friends of the local UFO group. During the first three years of the 1970s there were between 70-75 participants. With only 30 beds you were lucky to find a bed and people slept on mattresses everywhere on the floor. Getting a good nights sleep under these circumstances was virtually impossible. I participated at the Lersäter seminars 1984, 1992-1995 and remember always being tired during lectures. But most of the ufologists were young and enthusiastic so sleep was a minor problem.

Practical field investigation training September 24, 1977

The first weekend seminar was arranged on September 24-25, 1977, with 73 participants from all over Sweden. Different types of misidentifications was discussed and exemplified. A climax was the evening demonstration of how star shells and parachute lights appear in darkness, demonstated by military personnel. They also flew a small airplane at low altitude over Lersäter showing how landing lights and navigation lights could be identified. Social activities and entertainment became an important part of the seminar already from the beginning. Åke UFO Gustafsson played on various instruments. Press coverage of this first weekend seminar was very good and generally serious.

Åke UFO Gustafsson entertaining September 24, 1977

Bärgslagsbladet September 26, 1977

The UFO-Sweden field investigation seminars were, with a few exceptions, arranged at Lersäter between 1977-1995. Part of the seminar during these years was a practical demonstation of investigating and documenting a UFO landing site. A type of cases now almost totally unheard of. A delicate problem occurred during the seminar September 8-10 1978. The people responsible for the dinner had prepared a homemade Bulgarian lentil soup. But it had a rather unexpected effect on the stomach on the 75 participants who unfortunately only had two outside dry toilets - say no more, say no more. In spite of this little mishap the seminar was a great success with Anders Gernandt, amateur magician and member of the Swedish Parliament demonstrating lots of magic tricks.

Anders Gernandt showing magic tricks September 9, 1978

Vestmanlands Läns tidning September 9, 1978

What is today called the UFO-Sweden spirit began to develop partly as a consequence of the annual field investigator seminars starting in 1977 at Lersäter. These weekend seminars soon also developed into pleasant social gatherings for UFO-Sweden members and the notion of the Lersäter spirit was formulated. The annual field investigator seminars still have a very important social function when it comes to introducing and getting to know new members.

Carl-Anton Mattsson, Annika och Christer Nordin, seminar August 8-10, 1980

Thorvald Bertelsen, Håkan Ekstrand, Mats Nilsson, seminar late 1970s

The last seminar at Lersäter was arranged Septermber 1-3 1995. It coincided with the UFO-Sweden 25 years anniversary. Many special guests, active during the earlier years, were invited to the dinner, a.o. Thorvald (Bevan) Bertelsen and Christer Nordin (chairman 1980-1988). Clas Svahn, chairman from 1991-2012, proposed a toast for old and new ufologists, hoping for a successful future for UFO-Sweden. Entertainer this evening was as many times before Åke UFO Gustafsson from Tranås. This was the last time the weekend seminar was arranged at Lersäter but many of the UFO-Sweden oldtimers remember this place and seminars with much nostalgia.

Three former UFO-Sweden chairmen at the seminar September 2, 1995, from left Christer Nordin, Clas Svahn, Thorvald Bertelsen

Evening chat at the last Lersäter seminar, from left Jörgen Granlie, Håkan Ekstrand, Tage Bång

Åke UFO Gustafsson entertaining at the last Lersäter seminar

We use to say there is a spirit of place, the special quality associated with a city or rural area. Every group and organization also creates its own, special spirit or Genius loci. The unique and distinctive character of the organization shaped by the ideas, activities and personalities of the members. This also applies to UFO-Sweden. New active members will not only be confronted with magazine articles, Internet discussions and the official ideology but at a more subtle level experience the UFO-Sweden spirit. Much of this spirit was initially formed at Lersäter. I believe this spirit was very well expressed by then newcomer Amanda Fredriksson after having participated in her first annual weekend field investigator seminar in November 2008: "My general impression is that there is so much joy in UFO-Sweden".

Amanda Fredriksson and Clas Svahn at field investigation seminar 2008

”… the Brothers have suggested that a Get-Acquainted Program be started on Earth. To help in this movement they have suggested that I ask the help of one or more men and women in each nation, people who have proven their interest and sincerity… Those in each locality who have already expressed an interest in our interplanetary visitors are to be made acqainted with one another… Information of the Brothers of other worlds with whom I continue having more or less regular meetings, will be sent regularly to each national leader, who in turn will forward it to all of his assistants. The idea is, that the citizens of each nation, through these efforts, will grow into closer united friendship with their countrymen, without discriminations of divisions of any kind. In time, it is hoped, that these national efforts will overflow into world-wide understanding and friendship.”

This quote is from the letter George Adamski sent out to his co-workers on July 15, 1957. It was the beginning of the International Get Acquainted Program (IGAP), that for several years engaged many Adamski supporters around the globe. From a historical and cultural viewpoint this was an impressive humanitarian project, equaling the Understanding movement, founded by contactee Daniel Fry in 1955. IGAP did result in many international friendships and cooperation but also in disunion and enmity among co-workers, especially was this noticeable in Sweden and Denmark.

In practise IGAP have had two representatives in Sweden, Edith Nicolaisen and Thor-Leif Dahnielson (today Thor-Leif Strindberg). But only Thor-Leif Strindberg was officially recognized as a ”true” IGAP representative. Edith Nicolaisen was always regarded as something of a heretic because of her different interpretation of George Adamski´s space people and her support for other contactees like Daniel Fry.

Miss Edith Nicolaisen (1911-1986) was an exceptional woman, founder of the Swedish new age publishing house Parthenon in July 1957. She was strongly influenced by theosophical and anthroposophical ideas and was a good friend of Theosophist and Danish liberal Catholic Bishop Otto Viking. Edith Nicolaisen began corresponding with George Adamski in 1954 and the first book published in Swedish by Parthenon in October 1957, was Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski. Her second aim was to form as many UFO and new age groups in Sweden as possible. Parthenon published several of the classic contactees of the 1950s: George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Ray and Rex Stanford, Elisabeth Klarer. Edith Nicolaisen corresponded with hundreds of ufologists, contactees, esotericists and new-age activists from around the world between 1950-1986.

Edith Nicolaisen 1962

Edith Nicolaisen first accepted Adamski´s assertion that the space people he met were physical with organic bodies just like us, but in 1958 she began to doubt this claim and instead adhered to the position of Meade Layne and Desmond Leslie, that the space people from Venus, Mars etc. were etheric physical, not normally visible to physical eyes. This was also in accordance with the Esoteric Tradition. She never debated this issue with Adamski but she wrote of her conviction to other correspondents. In an undated letter 1970 to Alice Wells she stated: ”According to my opinion both Rudolf Steiner and George Adamski are right when they maintain: Rudolf Steiner that all other planetarian-life enfoldments in our sunsystem are on an etheric level (physical-etheric levels) and George Adamski that our Brothers manifest on the physical plane and are in physical bodies – right – but their normal plane is etheric-physical.”

This view of the space people became the dividing line in the contactee movement and especially among IGAP representatives. You were not accepted as a genuine IGAP co-worker if you accepted the esoteric interpretation. Even though Edith Nicolaisen had spent years in promoting the books and philosophy of George Adamski in Sweden the leaders of the George Adamski Foundation never really recognized her work and she is, to my knowledge, never listed as an official IGAP representative. The difference in opinion is clearly noted in the correspondence between Edith Nicolaisen and Alice Wells. Up until 1966 Edith always began her letters to Alice with ”Dear fellow New-ager” On June 4, 1966 she received a reply from Alice Wells with this sharp reprimand: ”The New-age movement has nothing to do with George Adamski´s work. His understanding is far beyond what they support.” In spite of Edith heretic views she was mostly tolerated by other IGAP co-workers and she corresponded with Adamski supporters from all over the world.

Alice Wells

In 1965 a young man living in Eksjö, Sweden, Thor-Leif Dahnielson (1949-) had become interested in George Adamski and his philosophy and entered a correspondence with Alice Wells and other co-workers. In a newspaper article, Smålands Folkblad, January 11, 1971 he mention a UFO observation in the Spring of 1965: ”It had the same shape as a discus and glided across the sky. The time was around 9 A.M., says Thor-Leif, who narrates that several others had seen the same phenomenon.”

According to Thor-Leif this observation had a special significance to him: ”George Adamski´s secretary once helped me when I inquired whether she could ask the space people to show themselves over Huskvarna (where I lived at the time), and the same day I received her answer a shining white object glided over the district around Vättern (lake). I observed it together with some friends and according to the newspapers it hade even been observed by the staff at Jönköping Airport. That was enough for me to be convinced of the truth in George Adamski´s words”. (Letter from Thor-Leif Dahnielson to Jan Janson, March 4, 1969). When I recently reminded Thor-Leif about this incident he has no special memory of the occasion. I have not been able to find the newspaper article referred to nor the letter from Alice Wells.

Thor-Leif Dahnielson with girlfriend, Smålands Dagblad, Jan 11, 1971

Thor-Leif soon contacted Edith Nicolaisen and he began working for Parthenon, helping with translations, distribution of information about books etc. When he asked Alice Wells about Parthenon he received some rather derogatory comments: ”Yes, I know of Parthenon, and Edith Nicolaisen, and I don´t have a good feeling about it either. I have a feeling that whatever she receives she uses for her own benefit. She receives the Cosmic Bulletin because she donated towards it. But she wanted the Science of Life lessons and this was refused, for I knew she would translate it without permission, even though they are copyrighted.”

(Letter from Alice Wells to Thor-Leif Dahnielson, Jan. 5, 1966).

An even more unflattering comment on Parthenon was recieved from Danish IGAP representative Air Force Major H.C. Petersen: ”We have never and will never cooperate with Parthenon. We don´t consider Miss Nicolaisen worthy of cooperation, neither has she the ability”.
(Letter from H.C. Petersen to Thor-Leif Dahnielson, January 18, 1966).

In spite of these critical comments from other IGAP co-workers Thor-Leif continued working for Edith Nicolaisen and they also planned to publish a UFO/New Age magazine in Sweden. Thor-Leif was rather enthusiastic about these plans and mentioned the project when he was interviewed in the local newspaper Smålands-Tidningen, November 15, 1968. He hoped this could develop into a permanent employment. But the critical comments about Parthenon from other IGAP co-workers now became obvious in the correspondence: ”I think there is a difference in our estimation of the ”Brother´s” visits to Earth. I believe wholeheartedly in George Adamski which means I absolutely do not believe in Rolf Telano or Fry. But I can be of assistance anyway as the purpose of the work is a better world. Unfortunately the ”saucers” have become something of a ”religion”, which was not the wish of George Adamski.”
(Letter from Thor-Leif Dahnielson to Edith Nicolaisen, October 27, 1968).

Smålands-Tidningen, Nov. 15, 1968

It was probably inevitable that the Dahnielson-Nicolaisen partnership should dissolve when their ideological differences became apparent. In October 1969 Thor-Leif founded the journal Kosmisk Bulletin (Cosmic Bulletin), which in 1970 added the subtitle Svensk IGAP Journal (Swedish IGAP Journal). With the approval of George Adamski Foundation he now became the official IGAP reprentative of Sweden. Edith Nicolaisen now obviously felt deserted and disregarded as Adamski co-worker:

”As to the IGAP-center: No one needs to obtain permission anywhere to establish IGAP-centers, as it was the Brothers and Adamski´s desire that as many centers as possible were established in all parts of the world, but above all a wholehearted co-operation between all centers. For some years, particularly, during 56/57/58 we were privleged with Adamski´s confidential messages as to his meetings with the Brothers and to their suggestions and advice. Therefore, we were among the first UFO/New Age-centers who got informed about the Brothers´ suggestions to establish IGAP-centers and thus became the first IGAP-center here in Sweden in accordance with the wish of George Adamski and the Brothers.”
(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Thor-Leif Dahnielson, February 8, 1970).

Thor-Leif explained that he now intended to publish the ”cosmic-philosophical” literature of George Adamski himself because of Parthenon´s bad reputation: ”I also wish to state that I don´t regard Parthenon as an IGAP center, because within IGAP we definitely dissociate ourselves from the type of fantasy literature published by Parthenon: Borealis, Fry, Anthony Brook etc. It is these type of authors who have caused the greatest damage to the saucer cause.”

(Letter from Thor-Leif Dahnielson to Edith Nicolaisen, February 19, 1970).

Thor-Leif published twelve issues of Kosmisk Bulletin between 1969-1970. The content was a mixture of UFO reports, articles and writings by George Adamski and co-workers. There were also plans to start a UFO reporting center in Sweden. The last issue was published in September 1970. When Thor-Leif moved to another town and entered a new employment he had no time for the magazine. In 1972 he settled with his wife in Nässjö and together with Ernst Wallin founded Nässjö ufologiska sällskap (Nässjö ufological society) and the publishing house Waldia. They published a Swedish edition of George Adamski´s Flying Saucers Farewell (Mot nya horisonter, 1974) and Thor-Leif also published his own book, Sanningen om det övernaturliga (The Truth About the Supernatural). Thor-Leif Dahnielson´s father was a pastor in a local church and the Christian religion became more and more an influence in his life and activities. Interviewed in the local newspaper Tranås Tidning he stated: ”What Jesus said is true in every word. But I do not believe in spirits. What people experience as spirits is an expression of the force that govern the universe… Supernatural experiences come from the subconscious”.

(Interview in Tranås Tidning, February 22, 1974.)

Tranås Tidning, Feb. 22, 1974

Beginning in 1974 Thor-Leif Dahnielson worked as translator for various publishing houses, a.o. Readers Digest. 1975-1979 he studied at Famous Artist School in Holland and has since participated in many exhibitions. In 1980 he changed his name to Thor-Leif Strindberg. Interest in Christianity and theology resulted in the website Bibelfrågan (Bible Questions).

As Thor-Leif Dahnielson (Strindberg) was a prominent exponent of flying saucer reality and George Adamski for several years I was of course interested in his view of the subject today. In an email March 5, 2020 he stated:
”That was a long time ago. I have not been engaged in the UFO-question since the beginning of the 1980s (even though I am of course still interested and read UFO news when I find them), but my attitude is probably the same as before. The UFO phenomenon cannot be dismissed as a physical or psychological ”natural” phenomenon or the result of some earthly technology and then we are forced to consider extraterrestrial visitors. So I still think it is interplanetary visitors as I cannot find any other explanation. Regarding Adamski I have not reflected much upon him during the last 40 years, but I have of course read some articles on the Internet written by persons in his acquaintance or who were in contact with him when everything happened. I still don´t think he was a liar but possibly he himself was deceived – but by whom and why? I have no idea. That the ”space brothers” he met was no visitors from planets in our solar system is in any case evident.”

Thor-Leif Strindberg in 2009

Being a supporter of George Adamski and IGAP in the 1960s and 70s often resulted in many conflicts and difficult decisions. The organic physical versus etheric physical interpretation is still a hot potato among Adamski supporters. One of the real hardline fundamentalist advocates of the organic physical interpretation was Danish IGAP representative H.C. Petersen as evidenced by this letter:

”Your most important guiding principle should be that Adamski NEVER participated in meetings where other representatives of the UFO cause were present. Adamski was the UFO cause – all others were freeloaders. But you decide yourself.”
(Letter from H.C. Petersen to Thor-Leif Strindberg, June 7, 1970.)

It must have been a difficult and frustrating situation for the idealist Edith Nicolaisen to having been more or less excommunicated by the IGAP leaders. She was more openminded to other contactees experiences and tried to concentrate on the messages of goodwill and spiritual evolution. Unfortunately, during her later years, she became involved in various doomsday prophecies but she did more for the Adamski cause and contactee philosophy than anyone in Sweden. She does have a few points in her last letter to Thor-Leif Danielson:
”Nothing has done greater harm to the Brothers and ”the case for the UFOs” than the lack of Understanding and the BIG ME… Few, - very few of the UFO/IGAP members seem to understand the true meaning of the IGAP-program as it was meant by the Brothers and their contact-person G.A. – Even many have become sectarian.”
(Letter from Edith Nicolaisen to Thor-Leif Dahnielson, March 2, 1970).

In a recent blog post I made a summary of the contact experiences of Rosemary Decker, based on her book 35 Minutes to Marsand correspondence with Wendelle Stevens. It became evident to me that Decker was a source of unique quality and inside knowledge of the contactee enigma. A search in the Flying Saucer Review archive at AFU revealed an extensive correspondence between Gordon Creighton and Rosemary Decker, 45 letters written between 1985-2001. Additional, and very fascinating information, was also found in The Alien Gene, authored by Australian ufologist Moira McGhee. These data, if correct, could in fact give us a whole new dimension to the history of the contactee movement.

Moira McGhee was born in the UK and migrated to Australia as a child. She has been researching UFOs for 40 years, a member of BUFORA for 25 years and MUFON State Director for North South Wales, Australia from 1997-2013 when she resigned.Author of The Gosford Files (with Brian Dickeson, 1996), Contact Down Under(2016) and The Alien Gene (2017). Moira is the founder of Independet Network of UFO Researchers (INUFO) . 25 issues of INUFOR Digest was published between 1997-2004.

Moira McGhee

By combining the data presented in Rosemary Decker´s and Moira McGhee´s books with the Wendelle Stevens and Gordon Creighton correspondence, a very fascinating picture emerges of covert liaison and cooperation with highly advanced, friendly Visitors, involving Rosemary Decker and Millen Le Poer Trench (formerly Millen Cooke, Millen Belknap). Millen was married to British ufologist Brinsley Le Poer Trench 1961-1969. Rosemary and Millen were close friends all their life but also silent contactees. During their lifetime very few knew of their deep involvement with the Visitors.

Millen Le Poer Trench and Rosemary Decker were not only close friends but also in contact with the Visitors before 1952 and heavily involved with George Adamski and his first contact on November 20, 1952. In The Alien Gene Moira McGhee makes some quite stunning revelations concerning Millen, Rosemary and Adamski and what happened in 1952:

”Recently I have been asking myself just how connected both these friends of mine were with the Visitors? I have been able to gather they had both had personal contacts before 1952. They also knew in advance of Adamski´s meeting in the desert with Orthon, but chose to stay back at Palomar – why? Was Adamski the ´chosen one´ to pass on messages?”
(Moira McGhee, The Alien Gene, p. 47).

Millen Cooke 1943

”While Rosemary trusted me enough to confide some details to me, she always kept everything close to her chest… What was of particular interest to me was that Rosemary was already acquainted with all witnesses to the first Adamski-Orthon meeting. She once let it slip that she and her friend Millen were at Mt. Palomar that day, when the group all returned in a state of great excitement. Over the next few weeks Rosemary spoke to each witness, individually and in private, they all confirmed the event and the circumstances.”

(Moira McGhee, The Alien Gene, pp. 35-36)

”I (Rosemary Decker-HB) have spent days, over several years of my life in the early to late 50s, in/at his (George Adamski-HB) open house weekends… He developed a great fear of undercover security agencies, and ignored the warnings and advice given by the Visitors. We were all concerned about his well-being, and grew very worried about his later ego trips and false claims, but he was not reachable by reason.”
(Moira McGhee, The Alien Gene, p. 36)

These remarkable statements open up the possibility that Adamski´s first contact was somehow planned by Millen and Rosemary together with the Visitors, and that Adamski was aware of this plan. It could also explain the rumor that he knew of the contact in advance and and his behavior during the trip to the desert. Later Millen and Rosemary became increasingly concerned about Adamski and how he handled his contacts. Moira McGhee gives this assessment: ”George breached strict limitations he had been given on what he could divulge, such a details of alien technology he had seen, and some of the Visitors´ modus operandi. As time went by, George increasingly embellished the information provided by his contacts with his own opinions and exagerrations. This undermined his credibility.”
(Moira McGhee, The Alien Gene, p. 27).

George Adamski in New Zealand 1959

It is interesting that both Millen and Rosemary were in contact with the same Visitor, whom they named ”D.”. It was a difficult situation for Rosemary to keep this liaison a secret but she understood it was necessary, as she expressed the situation to Gordon Creighton:

”Regarding Mars: On that occasion all those years ago (10? – 12)? When you Kindly invited me to tea, I had intended to tell you of my experience, many years previous of meeting a Visitor. You and Eve would have enjoyed it, and of course, it is a part of my heritage I can never publicize. Certainly, any credibility my Mars book might have would be destroyed, were it included. Fortunately, the Mars-based culture is friendly to Earth, we know that not all E.Ts are), (I don´t know if it´s large or small) and its people are our close Kin… Which is what makes it possible for ´Martians´ to walk among us, when they chose. According to Millen (who passed on exactly five years ago) it is not a comfortable experience for them; and our atmosphere too oxygen-rich. But they can cope. And they have helpful devices… I miss Millen sadly, even her last 14 years in Australia, did not bar us from the occasional phone call, and I was able to visit her twice. Since she has gone on Home, there is virtually no-one I can share the special memories with.”
Letter from Rosemary Decker to Gordon Creighton, May 29, 2000.

In August 1988 Rosemary Decker sent a letter to Wendelle Stevens with a small photo of the Visitor ”D” who had contacted Rosemary and Millen. She had received this photo from Millen five or six years ago and now forwarded it to Wendelle Stevens, not to be published, at least not while Rosemary was still alive. Moira McGhee made this comment on ”D”: ”It is apparent from Rosemary´s comments that Millen also had contact or an association with a Visitor, whom they both referred to as ”D” in their correspondence. It became obvious that ”D” was integrated into our society… ”D” had met and interacted with a couple of young university students, who became influential world leaders later on.”
(Moira McGhee, The Alien Gene, p. 45).

The Visitor D, who inspired Rosemary Decker to write 35 Minutes to Mars

Regarding the controversial issue whether the Visitors have organic physical bodies Rosemary Decker made a few interesting notes:

”Of the many, many interesting aspects and incidents reported in The Watchers, I´d like to remark here on at least one (more later): In Betty´s verbal recounting of having been placed in a ”shell” wherein her form was discernible via ”mirrors”, it reminded me at once of the Man met over 30 years ago who, upon departing said that he hoped not to have to use a ”chemical shell” again in order to communicate with some people here; an uncomfortable experience for him, ”something like wading through molasses.” (he had an excellent sense of humor, and occasionally joked). He also at one time mentioned the ”mirroring” effect. This man is so humanoid that, though unusually tall and with other minor differences, (appearance-wise) he would be able to mingle on our streets with no problem. (As I am sure he did). Due to my having to protect my career and that of a close friend who shared several experiences with me, all those years ago, I have kept them to myself – except for a very few trusted people.”
(Excerpt from undated letter to Raymond Fowler quoted in letter to Gordon Creighton, Aug. 9,1990).

Rosemary expanded on this theme in another letter to Gordon Creighton:
Many years ago, the Visitor informed Millen that there are many races in the galaxy, some of them highly advanced both spiritually and technologically, and other, who are ´emergent´, have reached a fair level technologically, but not all of them ethically and spiritually. The Earth-human is unlike any other race, in its genetic make-up. Although not the ´cream of creation´, humanity has a unique potential: Fully galactic cultures normally are based in the ´etheric´ physical, not the ´chemical´ physical we are part of as Earth humanity. In order to work among us, they convert, adding this 5th component to their natural four: Creative – Intuitive Mind (Holy Spirit in the ’Scriptures), Analytic Mind, Emotion (astral) and stable physical (etheric phys.) Their conversion is temporary, as is that of their space-craft. When space-ships are seen to fade out, inplace, or emerge into visibility, as they often are, it is not usually bending of light-rays for invisibility, but simply conversion. Humanity, partaking of both the Earth-animal nature and the galactic, has the potential to bridge the gap between… ”Once an individual human finds his true position, and begins to fill it Knowingly, he becomes a part of the Bridge…” A Peaceful Communications link… At the conclusion of the present crisis, how much of a remnant of human souls will carry on forward and up on Earth, I don´t know. M´s mentor said he and his group hope there will be enough, so that the collapse will not be total, (as it has sometimes been in the past). Whatever assistance can be offered within permissible bounds – will be.”

Letter from Rosemary Decker to Gordon Creighton, June 1, 2000.

This is a very interesting statement regarding extraterrestrial Visitors as it is actually in accordance with the Esoteric Tradition, which makes the connection with Millen Le Poer Trench appear in a different light. Millen was, beginning in 1930, the disciple of a Tibetan adept as related in her article A Narrative of Occult Experience, published in Round Robin (vol. 4, no. 7, Sept.-Oct. 1948, pp. 3-6). As Millen was also in contact with the Visitors, here is a definite link between the Esoteric Tradition and highly advanced extraterrestrial Visitors. According to Moira McGhee, Millen had worked with Kahlil Gibran, a relative of Dalai Lama and many others. Millen was also the author of one of the most fascinating articles even written about the Visitors, Son of the Sun, using the pen-name Alexander Blade.

I find it very strange that Rosemary Decker didn´t know or mention that Son of the Sun was actually written by Millen. It was written already in 1946 when Millen was married to occultist John Starr Cooke. This has been known for many years and was revealed already in 1952 by BSRA director Meade Layne, who was a close friend of Millen: ”In the literature of the Disc Visitation one of the most remarkable incidents has been the publication, in Fantastic Stories (actually Fantastic Adventures-HB) for November 1947, of an article entitled Son of the Sun, attributed in the by-line to ”Alexander Blade” (fictitious), but really written by BSR Associate Millen Cooke. Relying on her own intuition and great occult knowledge, she struck straight and truly at the heart of the mystery. So far as we can ascertain, only the BSR Associates and publications valued this achievement at something near its true work.”

Round Robin, vol. 8, no. 2, July-Aug. 1952, p. 17).

How come that Millen obviously didn´t mention to either Rosemary or Moira McGhee that she was the author of Son of the Sun? Was it because it was actually written by her Visitor? Moira states in The Alien Gene that ”Noboby really knows the true identity of the author, but I can hazard a guess.” (p. 254) In a letter to Gordon Creighton, Rosemary wrote:

”Which brings me to another FSR item – an ”Oldy but Goody” – namely ´Alexander Blade´s´ article Son of the Sun from a very early issue of during Brinsley´s tenure as Editor. In re-reading this I am impressed more than ever by it´s validity , and one could go through it with a running commentary, pointing up the specifics of its Truthfullness. Which is quite a record for an article by an ´unknown´ (A. Blade being a pseudonym), or for any one else, for that matter, since it was in the hands of its original published already in April, 1947, just a bit ahead of Ken Arnold´s renowned sighting.”
(Letter from Rosemary Decker to Gordon Creighton, Aug. 30, 1985.)

Both Rosemary Decker and Millen Le Poer Trench were very much aware of other Visitors, not of the highly advanced and benevolent type. But they were both fortunate to have been involved with and cooperating with a friendly group of visitors. Rosemary commented on this in letters to Gordon Creighton:
”My personal experiences were all so kindly, open, and heart-warming, it is well that my friend and I here were given information that not all beings and humankind from other-where and other-parallel.universes are friendly towards Earth-humans. Later developments (friend left here in 1960) certainly made that evident.”
Letter from Rosemary Decker to Gordon Creighton, Dec. 7, 1993.

”I want to make it clear that I am well aware that not all visitors to Earth are of the best intentions. I do agree with Jacques Vallee that the vast majority of the negatively or doubtfully motivated ones are essentially paraphysical, and most of the beneficient ones as well, come by way of a ´parallell universe´. Some from the ´astral´, some from the ´etheric´. The astral can condense to visibility/palpability, and the etheric can convert to our plane. Some contacted/abducted take years to grasp this"
Letter from Rosemary Decker to Gordon Creighton, June 26, 1996

The Alien Gene by Moira McGhee is a book I highly recommend, especially to those openminded ufologists who are seriously studying the contactee enigma. Of special interest is chapter 3: Rosemary and Millen. Now when many of the old contactees has left the scene we can hopefully find and publish new data to get a better understanding of what actually happened behind the scenes in contactee history. Problems began to appear around 1960 that stopped the Visitors open contacts, but from what I understand they are still here, working covertly. Moira McGhee makes an interesting comment regarding what happened around 1960:
Why most of these Visitors left about 1960 can only be a matter of speculation. Had another alien race arrived, or was our technology now more able to detect them their ships or bases, wherever they were located? … Unfortunately, they have left a vacuum in the human-alien interaction scenario, an opportunity which other, less ethical entities, have been quick to use.”
(Moira McGhee, The Alien Gene, pp. 3-4).

Like all of society UFO-Sweden has been forced to redirect activities because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 50 years anniverary planned on April 17-19 in Norrköping has been postponed and can hopefully be arranged during the Autumn of 2020. Now when we are all adviced to minimize social gatherings is the perfect time for some UFO-Sweden nostalgia. This time recollections from earlier decades when much of UFO-Sweden´s social activity was concentrated in a building not far from the city of Enköping, a site referred to by UFO-Sweden members as the UFO Cottage.

The UFO Cottage

The middle 1970s was a time of intensive activity in UFO-Sweden. Many new local groups were formed and there was a high demand for public lectures and much media interest in UFOs and the UFO movement. The local UFO-Sweden unit Enköpings UFO-förening (Enköping UFO Society) was founded in 1976 and soon developed into one of the most active local groups. In 1980 Mr. Arnold Idebring (1921-2011) was elected chairman and the group succeeded in hiring a cottage at Ulunda, outside Enköping. A large inauguration was arranged on August 10, 1980 with some 30 participants, including the then UFO-Sweden chairman Christer Nordin.

Enköpings-Posten August 12, 1980

For 30+ years the UFO Cottage was a center for UFO-Sweden activities: board meetings, lectures, seminars and a variety of social gatherings and parties. Beginning in 1976 the local group kept an open house at the cottage every Wednesday evening, where members and others interested in UFOs could get together for a chat and a cup of coffee.

Seminar at the cottage, coding of UFO reports. From left Sten Lindgren, Bertil Kuhlemann

March 21, 1987 UFO-Sweden planning conference at the UFO cottage

December 12, 1987, Christmas party at the cottage

Arnold Idebring was a talented artist and he loved to create badges and UFO models for the many local units. Some of these were used as decorations on the walls of the UFO cottage. These beautiful decorations can now be found on the walls at the AFU headquarters.

Arnold Idebring´s badges at the cottage

September 18, 1988, Autumn festivity at the cottage

Beginning in 1980 Arnold Idebring was one of the principal editors of UFO Allehanda, the newsletter published by Enköpings UFO-förening. Arnold never wrote any UFO books but published a wide variety of amusing and historical articles in the local newsletter, often using the headline In the Head of an Old Man. Between 1985-1990 he also edited the UFO-Sweden newsletter Lokal Information. Arnold Idebring left us on New Years Ewe 2011. He will always be remembered as a idealist and one of the hardworking pillars of UFO-Sweden.

Arnold Idebring

Interview with Arnold Idebring, Enköpings-Posten February 2, 1981

Another important member of Enköpings UFO-förening was Jörgen Granlie (1929-2013), for many years one of the leading lights of Swedish ufology. He started his ufological career in 1976 as board member of Enköpings UFO-förening. Between 1978-2011 Jörgen served as board member of UFO-Sweden in several capacities: vice chairman, secretary and treasurer. He was also an active field investigator, always meticulous in research and documentation. The older generation of Swedish ufologists also remember him as a skilled instructor at the annual UFO-Sweden Field Investigator training seminars in the 1970ies and 80ies. Jörgen Granlie worked as an engineer all his life. He was a practical man, a doer and idealist always ready to lend a hand with hard work. At the UFO Cottage Jörgen was often seen moving the lawn, fixing the plumbing or doing general maintenance work.

Former UFO-Sweden chariman Christer Nordin and Jörgen Granlie 1981

Jörgen Granlie at UFO-Sweden board meetings October 12, 1996

In 2011 UFO-Sweden was ordered to move out of the UFO Cottage as the municipality, who owned the house, had decided it was to be demolished. It was with a sense of sadness and nostalgia that UFO-Sweden arranged the last board meeting at the UFO Cottage on March 19, 2011. With mixed feelings the house was emptied of all UFO documents and parafernalia and then the members of the board said goodby to this historical place and building. When Clas Svahn, a few months later, passed by the site, the house was gone. Many of the UFO-Sweden members will always cherish the memory and the happy times at the UFO Cottage.

Former UFO-Sweden chariman Clas Svahn. Board meeting at the UFO Cottage April 10, 2010

The UFO-Sweden board at the last board meeting at the UFO Cottage March 19, 2011

UFO-Sweden board member Gunnar Karlsson at the site of now demolished UFO Cottage, March 17, 2012

The Corona pandemic has certainly restricted the life and activities for everyone on this planet. The UFO-Sweden 50 years anniversary has been postponed until Autumn and all meetings and social gatherings have been cancelled. We are all more or less quarantined in our homes. No big problem for an introverted, retired librarian like me, but a melancholy blues for most people. To cheer up and give some consolation to, especially Swedish, ufologists in these troubled times, join me in a memorable journey in time to the UFO-Sweden annual meeting 2010.

This year we celebrated the UFO-Sweden 40 years anniversary and my book on the history of UFO-Sweden was published. The annual meetings are arranged in different cities and 2010 we had chosen the charming, old city Kalmar, situated in the southern east coast of Sweden.

The date for the annual meeting 2010 was Saturday, May 22, but already on Friday everything had to be packed and transported to Kalmar. Mats Nilsson and Håkan Estrand had a tough job cramming old and heavy computers, models and exhibition screens into a cart. Clas Svahn picked me up by car at Norrköping and we joined the UFO-Sweden board and members at the Jenny Nyström School in Kalmar, to build the exhibition and check all facilities. After a couple of hours heavy work the UFO-Sweden gang checked in at First Hotel Witt for some rest and later dinner.

The UFO-Sweden gang at the Jenny Nyström School, Kalmar

Gunnar Karlsson building the exhibition

Joining UFO-Sweden can be quite an experience in several ways. New active members Anders Berglund and Amanda Fredriksson soon became a couple in the organization and today they are married and have three children.

Amanda Fredriksson and Anders Berglund

By ten o´clock on Saturday 19 members from 9 local units gathered for the annual meeting, where Clas Svahn was re-elected as UFO-Sweden chairman. Saturday started with wonderful sunshine and 25 degrees Celsius, making us all wonder whether there would be any visitors at the public lectures and exhibition. We feared the worst when no one had showed up just before Expo opening at one o´clock. But soon people started coming and some 80+ tickets were sold during the day.

Tage Bång and Amanda Fredriksson selling tickets

Clas Svahn and I lectured during the expo. My talk was called Aliens on Earth, presenting results from many years of study of the contactee enigma. Clas lectured on Secret Swedish UFO reports, giving insights into his extensive research of the formerly classified Swedish reports in military archives. Both lectures were well attended with many questions and signing of books. It is always fascinating to mingle with Expo visitors to hear comments and often also receiving new data on UFO observations. The ”close encounter” at the annual expo is an excellent way to get new cases for investigation.

Lecturing on the contactee enigma

Clas Svahn lecturing on declassified UFO reports

Clas Svahn and Tobias Lindgren

Carl-Anton Mattsson selling books

Around six o´clock it was time to dismantle the exhibition and loading everything in the transport cart. After some rest at the hotel it was time for the traditional UFO-Sweden dinner. This time at the Italian Ernesto Ristorante. As usual the dinner was excellent and the UFO-Sweden gang left happy and pleased for a stroll to the hotel in the warm Spring evening.

Håkan Ekstrand, Amanda Fredriksson and Tora Greve at the restaurant

The UFO-Sweden gang strolling to the hotel after dinner

At the hotel we gathered in one of the rooms for chatting and socializing. By a funny coincidence Mats Nilsson and Gunnar Karlsson had been placed in a very large hotel room, actually the wedding suite. This proved to be a perfect place for our late socializing and small talk. Clas Svahn played famous songs and music on his lap top and everybody had a real good time.

Håkan Ekstrand and Clas Svahn at the hotel room

Clas Svahn and Amanda Fredriksson

Mats Nilsson sometimes has a tendency to fall asleep during these late night sessions. Same proceedure this year. When he woke up the room was empty and Gunnar Karlsson was sleeping peacefully. It was time for Mats to go to bed - for real this time.

Mats Nilsson sleeping. Tobias Lindgren trying a practical joke. To the right Amanda Fredriksson

After a good breakfast Sunday morning we said goodbye to the gang who now travelled home to different cities. Clas Svahn and I made stop at Oskarhamn where oldtime UFO-Sweden member Roger Ersson donated five large boxes of UFO documents to be transported to AFU. All in all a very sucessful and enjoyable annual meeting and expo to be filed as happy UFO-Sweden memories.

Carl-Anton Mattson and Roger Ersson with donated UFO documents

”An outstanding point in flying saucer research which requires to be cleared up is the question of whether U.F.O. 's are material or non-material. Adamski says emphatically that the saucers and mother ships which he has seen are solid, material craft, and that the people in them are human beings like ourselves, who live on other planets much as we live here on Earth… On the other hand, Angelucci's experience wasdefinitely of a psychic or spiritual nature. He statesclearly that the beings he contacted were spiritual beingswho were able to appear in human forms, and ascribesall saucer appearances to a form of manifestation.”

(Australian Saucer Record, vol. 1, no 4, Last Quarter 1955, p. 1)

This quote from the editorial by P. D. Thomas is a good summary of one the most long-standing controversies and debates in the UFO movement. It is still not resolved, although today a large number of ufologists are adherents of the multiverse, 4-D or etheric theory. To get a historic perspective of what the first generation contactees stated on this issue I have compiled some relevant quotes from the early UFO literature.

The first statement that UFOs were actually not physical craft in the ordinary sense was presented in 1946 by Meade Layne, director of Borderland Sciences Research Association (BSRA). The information was given by the ”Inner Circle”, speaking through the unique deep trance medium Mark Probert.

”Anonymous communicator came as formerly – repeated that ”Kareeta” really came from… planet not in our vibration rate , and that K. could pass from one rate to another and materialize here, just as everything else on this planet is rooted in the invisible planes as source.”

(Seance Memoranda, 8-A, no 1, Nov. 3, 1946, p. 14.)

Mark Probert

”Ramon Natalli: The phenomena of the flying discs will continue and probably increase. And no doubt there will be some of your bold and devoted pilots who will pursue these phantoms of the skies – very foolishly, of course. … No, we do not change the interpretation of the discs as we first gave it to you. They do come from the Etheric world.

(Seance Memoranda, Transcript 5, Janury 24, 1948, p. 26-27. BSRA No 8-C).

”We have repeatedly described the aeroforms as emergents – meaning thereby that they emerge out of one space-time frame of reference into another, by means of converting their energy rates, or frequencis. When they enter the frequencis of color, sound and tangibility to which our senses react, we are able to perceive them. This word emergent was recommended by the Mark Probert Controls as being the most suitable at our command.”
(Meade Layne, Clips, Quotes & Comments, C3, Aug 1, 1954, p. 1.)

The first public contactee, Eugene Drake, published his experiences in a small booklet, Visitors From Space, 1949 or 1950. In line with the multiverse explanation given by BSRA Eugene Drake present this view of flying saucers:

”They come into our atmospheric belts from their planets not in solid form but in a etheric form. Upon entering our atmosphere they, through their superior knowledge, change the atomic elements in the contruction of these ships and materilize them into the density which they are now using. The beings on these various craft are also passed from the etheric to a dense form of matter and appear to materialize.”

(Eugene Drake, Visitors From Space, p. 2)

Eugene Drake

In his letter to Karl and Amy Veit, September 19, 1961, published in Besucher aus dem Weltraum, Drake makes these interesting comments (my translation): "There are very few people who have had real physical contact with space ships or space people, like ourselves. I have on various occasions experienced how space people appear in condensed form and I could shake their hands. After the contact they disappeared into a higher frequency." What made me especially fascinated by Eugene Drake was the fact that he, several years before George Adamski, claimed physical contact with space people and was actually the first to print illustrations of the classic Adamski type scout ship and cigar shaped space craft. A fact that has not been noticed, or at least mentioned, by American ufologists.

Page from Visitors From Space. Notice the Adamski scoutcraft

Based upon the published writings of BSRA och Eugene Drake it is evident that the multiverse explanation of flying saucers and space people was clearly established as an idea in the California metaphysical community before George Adamski. He was the contactee that, from the beginning, always insisted that flying saucers were physical, technological craft and the space people just like us with organic physical bodies. People on Venus and Mars were no different from Earth people except in spiritual and technical advancement. This was clearly stated in the booklets he sent out:

”Q35. Do space people materialize and dematerialize?

No, they do not! If they were capable of materializing and dematerializing, why have they bothered to build metal ships… We know from tracking their ships on radar, and from examining them after they have crashed, that they are indeed very ”material”. They are normal human beings of flesh and blood the same as we on Earth.”

(Cosmic Science, Series no 1, part no 2, 1957).

”Q – Do space people materialize and dematerialize?

A – They do not but they can place their mind in a high frequency state that causes their body to become invisible to our limited range of vision. There are some Earth people that can use this law. But the body reamains as solid as the blades of an electric fan revolving at a high rate of speed that causes them to become invisible to our sight.”

George Adamski, Answers to Questions Mot Frequently Asked About Our Space Visitors And Other Planets, revised 1965).

George Adamski 1959

Immediately after George Adamski´s first meeting with Orthon on November 20, 1952 Meade Layne asked the Inner Circle about Adamski´s experience and received a somewhat different interpretation:

"The story is in the main true. The Disc did land and Mr. Adamski did carry on a conversation with the operator of said ship. But brother Adamski was so excited he does not remember clearly all that was said. This particular ship was from the planet Venus. We would like to remind you however, that the intense heat on that body, due to its proximity to the sun and an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide, make it highly unlikely or impossible that beings with the same organic structure as earth-man could abide on its surface. The Venus beings live in the ether of this planet."

(Journal of Borderland Research, Jan-Feb. 1972, p. 20. Trance session December 1, 1952).

To get an overview of what the other leading public contactees of the 1950s stated regarding physical versus etheric craft and space people these quotes are of interest:

"Many of the space people live in frequencies of life beyond the human limits. By using methods developed by them, they can bring their body vibrations inside our visiual limits as easily as we can condense unseen moisture out of the air into water, and then freeze it into ice... Many spiritualist mediums can materialize people from beyond the door of death. do not let yourself be confused, howeer, with these ectoplasmic figures; or the words spoken through them. All figure of people generated through the ectoplasm of another person, are from the transition or earthboud level, or are created by the mind of the medium… Many of the space people coming here are from levels of life that would require them to lower the vibratory rate of their bodies in order to be seen. Others are from levels of life that come within our range of physical vision."
(George Van Tassel, Materialization and de-materialization, Proceedings, vol. 3, no. 9, June 1955, pp. 9-11).

George Van Tassel

”… we function in dimensions unknown to man and hence interpret all things differently”:

(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, 1955, p.12).

”You have just fully realized that we are not like earthmen in that we function in dimensions unknown to your world.”

(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, 1955, p.43).

Orfeo Angelucci

”The last time you saw me, Orfeo, I was in a less objectified projection in your three-dimensional world… but tonight you see me fully objectified… tonight I am no half-phantom, but can move among men as an Earthman… You now know that we can appear and function as human beings.”

(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, 1955, p.56).

”Question: ”From your statement that you are etheric, am I to presume that you have evolved beyond the stage of a physical and astral body”?

Ashtar: ”Correct. I do not possess a physical casing of the dense type such as yours. I am definitely etheric, as are all people on other planets in this solar system.”
(Trevor James Constable, They Live in the Sky, 1958, p. 39-40).

Question: ”When you become visible to our eyes does the person who sees you know that you are a ”converted etheric?”

Ashtar: ”Not as a rule. The conversion can be made so completely that a physical person encountering us thinks that we, too, are physical.”
(Trevor James Constable, They Live in the sky, 1958, p. 41)

Trevor James Constable 1961

Question: When you speak of making etheric matter visible at will, is this the way that George Adamski was permitted to take his now famous photographs?

Ashtar: ”Yes, Ether ships as they have been called on your surface, have been made visible to and for certain individuals, selected, upon your surface of whom Adamski is one. Normally the ships are part of the invisible world.”
(Trevor James Constable, They Live in the Sky, 1958, p.46-47).

Howard Menger was one of the classic contactees, who later in life, found it difficult to accept the Venus origin of the space people. When Timothy Good interviewed Menger in 1978 he speculated or wondered whether the visitors he met really came from Venus?

Howard Menger: ”Well, I asked them where they came from, and they told the truth, but I believe it´s a possibility that I might have distorted that answer. You see, when they say they have just come from a planet we call Venus, that doesn´t mean they are Venusians, but I interpreted it as that…. But I think that I might have been wrong. According to what they told me, they led me to believe that there´s no life on any of the planets in this solar system – I mean such as we people.”
(Timothy Good interview Howard Menger 1978).

Here it looks like Howard doesn´t recollect what he was told of life in our solar system and explained in his book From Outer Space to You, that organic life exists only on our planet but the space people in our solar system live in another part of the multiverse, normally not visible to us:

"For instance, on Venus and Saturn the rate of vibration is much higher, and renders corporeal structures more tenous; and if an Earth man in physical body could go there he probably would not see some to the life forms which vibrates more rapidly than his own - no more than he can see the spiritual life forms in and around his own planet." (p. 126-127).

Connie and Howard Menger, National UFO Conference, Miami Beach 1990

It is obvious that the majority of public contactees of the 1950s were given a multiverse explanation by the alien visitors. Possible exceptions are Truman Bethurum and Daniel Fry who, to my knowledge, made no clear statements on this issue. But Daniel Fry mentioned in an interview during his trip to Sweden in 1970 regarding his contact Alan: ”Alan is a middle-aged gentleman with an appearance that does not disclose his origin. But if a doctor examined him he would probably make some shocking discoveries.”

(Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sept. 9, 1970).

I am quite used to funny coincidences or synchronicities á la Carl Gustav Jung. While writing this blog I did my daily check of the Anomalist website. In my view the best daily review of news about UFOs, Forteana etc. There I found a reference to an article by Paul Seaburn: Former French Government Official Says UFOs Come From Parallel Worlds. I can hear Meade Layne whisper from his multiverse heaven – I told you so!

Anyone reading the title of this blog post would probably assume it is just another lamentation of the ongoing Corona pandemic and all the problems caused by the forced quarantine most of us have to endure. Well, you are in for a surprise, this is about an entirely different sort of quarantine, a central theme in the Esoteric Tradition, what I use to call the Alcatraz theory. The assertion that our planet is a sort of interplanetary Alcatraz, a quarantined prison world where the scum and criminals of other planets have been placed to work out their own destiny. An interesting point is that this claim was also presented by several of the first generation UFO contactees.

The flying saucer model placed outside the Köping UFO exhibition 1978

During the Summer of 1978 UFO-Sweden arranged a large UFO exhibition in Köping, a town in the middle of Sweden. This exhibition was also arranged for several years. The inauguration speech in 1980 was delivered by Anders Gernandt, former member of the Swedish Parliament och very interested in the UFO enigma. During the speech Gernandt stated his belief that ”Earth is the Kumla-prison of the Universe”. He was referring to Sweden´s largest prison facility at Kumla. This statement probably raised a few eyebrows. Not many of the listeners were aware of the history of the interplanetary Alcatraz idea, but it can be found referred to in the most unlikely writings. Famous Swedish author August Strindberg wrote in En blå bok (1913: ”… the earth is a prison for those who have committed crimes in heaven, we are all rascals…” (Zones of the Spirits. A book of Thoughts, p. 235).

Anders Gernandt

Vestmanlands Läns Tidning, May 25, 1980

Moscow, summer 1933. Journalist and author Arthur Koestler is relaxing at Café Metropoles. He has been sent to the Soviet Union to write about Stalin´s first Five-Year-Plan. After a few Vodkas his mood changes and he becomes painfully aware of the acute misery of human existence on this planet. Instead of an article on the Five-Year-Plan he starts formulating a fantasy on the Metropole´s napkins. This fantasy, a drama, was published as Twilight Barin 1945. Two interplanetary visitors, Alpha and Omega, suddenly arrive on Earth with a mission to find the worst and most unhappy planet in the Universe. They find it - Tellus. Alpha and Omega give the governments three days to change the situation. If not, humanity will be wiped out and another civilization take its place. The drama ends one hour before the three days have expired.

Among the first generation UFO contactees we find many references to Earth as a very special type of quarantined prison planet:

”For all of its apparent beauty Earth is a purgatorial world among the planets evolving intelligent life. Hate, selfishness and cruelty rise from many parts of it like a dark mist.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.24).

”I may tell you that to the entities of certain other worlds Earth is regarded as ´the accursed planet´, the ´home of the reprobate, fallen ones´. Others call your Earth the ´home of sorrows´. For Earth´s evolution is evolution through pain, sorrows, suffering and the illusion of physical death. Belive me, all evolutions are not similar to Earth´s, despite the present beliefs of your scientists.”
(Orfeo Angelucci, The Secret of the Saucers, p.43)

"...centuries ago, in a meeting among the teachers of wisdom on many planets, it was decided to ship such selfish ones to new planets capable of maintaining human life... Earth in our system was chosen for the new home of these unruly ones from many planets inside and outside of our system. These exiles were what you on Earth call trouble-makers."

(George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships, p. 180).

”They (the arrogant and unruly-HB) were exiled to this earth, as well as to some other worlds set aside for this purpose… These guardians of space, our Brothers, are continually doing all they can in many ways to benefit mankind, although they could do much more if this was not a quarantined world.”
(Kelvin Rowe, A Call at Dawn, pp. 38, 60).

In the Esoteric Tradition this theme is often mentioned and interested readers can find hundreds of quotes referring to the Alactraz idea expressed in various contexts:

The Tibetan, writing with the help of his amanuensis Alice Bailey, often refers in his books to "...the unhappy little planet of suffering which we call the Earth" (Discipleship in the New Age, p. 649) or "...this planet of suffering, sorrow, pain and struggle" (ibid. p. 385) and that this is part of a large experiment. We are also told that "conditions of agony and of distress such as are found on our planet are found in no such degree in any other scheme." (A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p. 416).

Swedish esotericist Henry T. Laurency is of very explicit when writing about la condition humaine on this planet:

”Our planet (Terra) is the only planet in the solar system where organic life is possible. On other planets, man’s lowest envelope (49:5-7) is an aggregate envelope and not an organic one. As a rule there is only one such planet in each solar system. That planet is in fact given a special task. Organic life is the life that is the most unsuitable to consciousness development. The organism is an envelope of suffering with its potentials for disease, disablement, and general helplessness. It is to such planets that monads are transferred from other planets, monads that have a repulsive basic tendency and thus instinctive hatred, which renders evolution so enormously difficult.

(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Two, Conscious Development, 7.2.9).

Our planet holds a special position, not just in our solar system but also in the greater globe comprising seven solar systems. Nowhere has such a mass of monads of repulsive basic tendency been gathered, nowhere has the tendency to selfish individual character been so intense. Nowhere has mankind incurred such a bad reaping by bad sowing. Our planet is the star of sorrow in our cosmic globe.
(Henry T. Laurency, Knowledge of Life Two, Consciousness Development, 7.17.6).

The idea of Earth as a very special planet in our part of the universe can be found in writings of authors perhaps not expected to harbour such ”irrational” and heretic views. On November 17, 2013 British author Doris Lessing died, aged 94, at her home in London. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007. Once asked what she considered her foremost works she answered that it was the five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argus: Archives, written between 1979-1983. This was a surprising answer to all who were not aware of Doris Lessing´s profound interest in mysticism and esoteric traditions, especially Sufism. That the Sufi tradition was an important philosophy and the ideological basis of many of her later novels was totally missed in the obituaries and articles in the Swedish press.

The Canopus in Argus novels is the story of interstellar intervention with the aim to accelerate the biological and cultural evolution of Earth (Shikasta). Early in Earth history extraterrestrials from Canopus visited our planet and tried to civilize the the primitive inhabitants with genetic engineering and cultural influence. After a cosmic catastrophe contact is partially broken and another group arrives with evil intentions, spreading violence, hate and destruction. Both groups infiltrate their agents on Shikasta and the story is presented through the eyes of George Sherban, a Canopus agent.

After Shikasta there were four more volumes in the series. Anyone acquainted with the esoteric tradition will immediately recognize ideas and themes from the Ancient Wisdom. Volume three, The Sirian Experients, is especially interesting because of Doris Lessing´s preface: "I think it is likely that our view of ourselves as a species on this planet now is inaccurate, and will strike those who come after us as inadequate as the world view of, let´s say, the inhabitants of New Guinea seems to us. That our current view of ourselves as a species is wrong. That we know very little about what is going on. That a great deal of what is going on is not told to ordinary citizens, but remains the property of small castes and juntas."

In a further comment Doris Lessing´s interest in both UFOs and the esoteric tradition becomes even more explicit: "I would not be at all surprised to find out that this earth had been used for the purposes of experiment by more advanced creatures... and that there might have been a science in the past which we have forgotten... that we may be enslaved in ways we know nothing about, befriended in ways we know nothing about... As for UFOs, we may hardly disbelieve in what is so plentifully vouched for by so many sound, responsible, sensible people, scientific and secular".

The Alcatraz idea is fascinating but not very comforting. In the Esoteric Tradition we are told that evolution on this planet is especially tough but makes us specialists in handling excessive and organized evil. We can if doing the right thing become a sort of interplanetary Navy Seals or Special Operations Forces. Earth is a hard school and not the nicest place to be stranded on. John Keel expressed it in his own very special way: ”The earth is not inhabited. It is infested”

This Spring day in 1922 begin as just any ordinary day in the life of the soon to be eight years old schoolboy Östen Engström. He lived with his parents in the small village Orsta, south-west of the Swedish city Kolsva. After school he join his schoolmate Holger for a walk to Holger´s home where the boys play for while. Then Östen start his journey home, about three Swedish kilometers. After having walked alone in this wooded area for some time there is a peat-moss to his right and the village school to the left. Östen is now close to home. But then something happen that would forever remain an unsolved mystery in the life of this young boy.

Östen Engström, photo by Clas Svahn

Suddenly lots of animals come running out from the woods: deer, hares, moose, foxes, badgers and other animals. They run towards the peat-moss. At the same time the sky is darkened and a strange light appear over the place. Östen can now feel an acrid smell all around him.

- I looked up and noticed three gray objects hovering silently above me. They were so close I could have thrown a stone at them. The objects were pulsating as if they were breathing and I saw two dark lines on them. A bit further away, over the woods, another two objects were flotaing. They were bigger and darker then the ones above me.

Drawing by Östen Engström

Then Östen remember nothing more. When he wake up he in lying on the road freezing. It is now dark. No animals are in sight but in the direction of Västlanda lake he can see a pulsing light becoming smaller and smaller. Östen is feeling very tired and start walking the short distance to his home. The time is now 7.30 P.M. indicating a loss of four hours. He try to explain what has happened to his parents but they don´t believe him. When Östen didn´t come home they had sent his older brother Gustav to look for him. He had travelled by bicycle to the school only to find out that Östen had joined Holger at home. There he is informed that Östen left at around 3.30 P.M. so he return home, passing the place where Östen later woke up. As it was still daylight Gustav should have found Östen lying on the road.

What happened to Östen Engström during the four hours? This old and unusual close encounter case was first mentioned in the Swedish newspaper Expressen June 15, 1996. UFO-Sweden ufologists Clas Svahn and Andreas Ohlsson contacted Engström and made several interviews and visited the observation site together with the witness.

Östen Engström at the observation site. Photo Clas Svahn

Here a few answers from the interviews:

- Where was I during those hours? I estimate having been gone around four and a half hours. I didn´t arrive home until half past seven or eigtht o´clock in the evening. I almost got beaten because they belived I was lying. They sent me to bed and I was bedridden four days in fewer. Probably I had catched a cold lying on the road.

- It looked as if the objects were pulsating simultaneously all three of them. Just like octopus functioning. They take in water and move by blowing it out. It looked like the objects used the same technique. They moved in a very elegant way, changed direction and appeared to steer with this pulsating.

- Where was I? Gustav cycled this way why I was lying there without seeing me. I have pondered on this so many times.

Drawing by Östen Engström

When studying this early close encounter case I am immediately reminded of a rather obscure idea in the annals of UFO history, usually referred to as the Space Animal Theory. Various types of sky creatures is also mentioned in science fiction literature. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the short story The Horror of the Heights published in 1913. An aviator investigating planes disappearing discovers that balloon-like creatures looking like aerial jellyfish reside in the upper atmosphere.

The theory of space animals or critters was popularized by UFO contactee Trevor James Constable (1925-2016) in several books and articles. Constable was a good friend of Riley Crabb and worked for many years in association with Borderland Sciences Research Foundation. In 1956-1957 Constable, together with his friend and co-worker James Woods, made many trips to various places in the Mojave desert in California, combining channeling sessions with infrared photography. They had hoped to photograph space ships but soon found something very different:

Trevor James Constable and Riley Crabb, June 1962

”I wanted a spaceship photograph, and went after such a photograph in a way that seemed to me to multiply my chances of success – all of it based on the radar evidence that some UFOs hail from the invisible yet adjacent realm. I got the pulsation not from a spaceship engine, but from something alive, precipitating its form repeatedly into a film emulsion… Study of thousands of exposures through the years leaves me in no doubt that the sky background of infrared photographs contain all kinds of artifacts, organisms and forms that are new to mankind… The existence of these organisms seems to be essentially plasmatic, i.e., having their form expressed in heat substance. They travel in pulsatory fashion, swelling and shrinking cyclically as they move through the air, much as we pulsate with our heartbeat and swell and shrink with our lung movements. They are spheroidal, and therefore often looks like discs.”

(Trevor James Constable, The Cosmic Pulse of Life, p. 84).

Constable has been criticized for reducing all UFO experiences to space animals bu the was very adamant that there are both real extraterrestrial space craft and what he called critters:

”… it´s not a question of having spaceships or plasmoidal organism: you have both! There are at least two dimensions to the UFO phenomenon. One is the spaceships idea and the other is the living organisms. And because in the mode of their manifestation these two aspects of the UFO phenomenon are mutually confused…”
(The Cosmic Pulse of Trevor James Constable, Interview by Joan D´Arc, Paranoia Magazine, No. 5, 1994).

Space animal photographed by Trevor James Constable August 25, 1957

Critics have claimed that the bioforms photographed by Constable are simply infrared artifacts occurring inside the camera or already present in the infrared film before the photos are taken. Whatever the truth in this matter there is a strong resemblance between the pulsating spheroids photographed by Constable and the pulsating objects observed by Östen Engström. What he really did encounter that Spring afternoon in 1922 and what happened during the four missing hours remain a mystery.

How would you, as a serious and critical investigator of UFO phenomena, react if you suddenly found yourself in the position of the contactee? What to do, if you were presented with physical evidence indicating that the people you have encountered are real alien visitors? This was the dilemma facing Danish painter, photographer and UFO researcher Rene Erik Olsen in the 1990s. In The Alien Visitors, published in 2019 he gave the outline of some remarkable information he had received from two mysterious visitors. Now after 28 years Rene has finally decided to reveal the background story of what really happened in The Alien Visitors - volume II.

I have followed the writings and corresponded with Rene since 2017, resulting in several blog articles. His investigations of the photos and films of George Adamski are in my view groundbreaking, opening up new research avenues. After a few years of UFO research 1986-1988 he decided to concentrate his investigations on the Eduard Meier case in Switzerland. The first part of the new book is a summary of two research trips to Switzerland 1988-1989 where Rene interviewed Meier himself and most of the people in his group.

Rene Erik Olsen

As a professional photographer Rene concentrated much of his research efforts on the Meier photographs which were soon found to be rather crude fakes. In secret Rene visited the sites where Meier had taken his photos. By using two small 4 inches balsa-wood models suspended on nylon wires he discovered how easy it was to create fake pictures with these models. The original Meier photos compared with Rene´s pictures are reproduced in the book.

One of the balsa-wood models used by Rene Erik Olsen to fake UFO photos

Rene Erik Olsen with fake model in the air

Although Rene concludes that the Meier photos and films are fraudulent he is open to the possibility that there could be something more to this case. I am now in the rather unique position of being able to follow the inside story of Wendelle Stevens involvement in the Meier case as I am presently organising and reviewing the very extensive (13,000+ letters) in the Wendelle Stevens archive. Here I also find my own letters to both Wendelle and Lucius Farish in the 1980s.

”I am very sceptical regarding the Meier case. Personally I believe it to be a hoax. My friend Jan-Ove Sundberg visited Meier some months ago. Although he had made an appointment before leaving Sweden, he was not allowed an interview with Meier. He bought several photos from the Semjase Silver Star Center though, but to me they look like fakes.”
(Letter from Håkan Blomqvist to Lucius Farish, September 11, 1984).

Today I find it unfortunate that Wendelle Stevens invested so much time and money in promoting the Meier case as genuine. He should have concentrated on investigating the classic contactees of the 1950s while there still were first hand sources aviable. Much of the information coming from contactees after 1960 was obviously ”contaminated”, a fact that Wendelle was very much aware of.

”I am convinced that some of the earlier cases were actually the best sources of real information, because they are less contaminated by a history of such phenomena. I knew Kelvin Rowe, Truman Bethurum, George Adamski, George Hunt Williamson.. and many others personally, and I was often out of step of the crowd because I knew what the experiencers knew, while many others were being swayed by the UFO club positions abetted by the disinformation services of the U.S. Government.”
(Letter from Wendelle Stevens to Anders Liljegren, March 27, 2009).

Wendelle Stevens (left) with unknown friend at a UFO convention

From two independent ”inside sources” I have been informed that the Meier case was a covert intelligence agency operation. A view not shared by Rene Erik Olsen. But I find this quite possible especially since now the Frank Fontaine case in France, the British Rendlesham Forest incident and several others are by some investigators regarded as secret military operations, implemented by the Messengers of Deception.

”It was in late November 1990 that I was contacted by phone by a woman, who said she knew a lot about my research (into Meier and other stuff) and also of my upcoming trip to the U.S… How she knew about my U.S. trip, I had no idea. I was quite certain, only my family was aware that I was travelling in September 1991… She seemed to have extensive knowledge of alien propulsion and technology and said that ”she wanted to part information on this subject, if I was interested”.”

This phone call was the beginning of four most extraordinary encounters in Copenhagen 1990-1992 with a man and woman, presenting Rene with photos, films and a story indicating they were real interplanetary visitors. About one week after the first phone call a man called with the same message. Rene got the phone number to both of these individuals and called the woman first, which resulted in a visit to his home. She presented herself as Eva and looked like any ordinary Danish woman around 30 years old. Eva was employed at a Danish research laboratory.

After some small talk she began to tell an intricate story of how she had ben able to acquire information from acquaintances about UFO phenomena: ”The story (in summary) went like this – The aliens visiting Earth are human in appearance – looking like ordinary Earth people. Some of them work here for shorter or longer periods of time and ”interact” mainly with terrestrial science. While visiting they can also hold other jobs.”

While they were eating a light meal Eva went for her bag and pulled out 15 metallic plates with photos embedded in the metal. The photos showed some of the aliens´visits to other planets and their craft in flight and landing.”They were some of the most clear photos, I had ever seen. The photographs were definitely taken by someone who knows about photogaphy.”. Rene is presented with information on how the aliens use a combination of electromagnetism, gravitational propulsion and repulsive gravity. After the woman has left Rene make sketches of the photos and some notes of what he had been told.

About two months later Rene call the other man and they meet at a Copenhagen restaurant in February 1991. The man, called Peter, claimed to have an engineering background and was 28 years old. He looked like an ordinary Scandinavian man. During the conversation Rene is again shown photos on metallic plates and given further data on the aliens and their technology.

In August 1991 Eva once again makes a call to Rene and they decide to meet at his home. To Rene´s great surprise Eva and Peter now come together. A meal has only been prepared for two but Peter is satisfied with some fruit instead. During this meeting the woman pull out a small, flat television screen, much like an Ipad. Rene is now presented with films showing various types of space craft, including the Adamski type saucer, and sequences obviously from other planets. At this stage of the proceedings Rene was rather frustrated with the whole situation: ”I asked them both what was going on? The man said, ”What do you mean?” I said, ”Is this a joke?” He said, ”No, this is the real deal.” I said, ”Where does this come from?” – ”From us”, she said. I looked at them both. They looked very serious, then smiled and looked at me with the intent to get me to continue watching the film.” After some more viewing Rene thought he had to ask: ”Who are you really and how come you are in possession of this material? The woman said, ”My acquaintances – remember I told you.” I said, ”Come on.” They both looke at each other and then looked at me and smiled. Nothing was said.”

Paintings by Rene Erik Olsen based on films by the visitors

The forth and final meeting occurred in February 1992 when the woman, Eva, once again come to Rene´s apartment. He is confronted with more films and data of their advanced technology making it possible for the aliens to travel many times faster than light. ”She told me that two large crafts had travelled to another star system many lights years away in the time it had taken me to watch that movie (I calculated 5-7 minuter). The information was beyond belief.” During this last meeting Rene once again ask how she knew all these things. ”She looked directly at me and said two words: ”Direct knowledge”. I now had the answer which I had assumed all along, from the very first utterance of the cover story of ”her acquaintances”.”

Rene didn´t know what to do with all this information and waited 28 years before he decided to publish his experiences. Although the information given by the visitors mostly dealt with technology and space travel they did give a few details of their worldview. Rene asked where they came from and the only answer was ”not from the Solar System”. They did not share a belief in some form of God. ”They said that – God does not exist. There is no God. Personification of a God or belief in a God is a terrestrial religious phenomenon created to have a common moral effect on a population.” Whether they had knowledge of the existence of a multiverse, life after death or evolution of consciousness is not mentioned.

The philosophy of these individuals appear strangely technological and materialistic, a rather soulless Aniara version of existence, where only more advanced technology is the hope for mankind. This is very far from the Ancient Wisdom, the essentials of the Esoteric Tradition given to contactees like George Adamski, Daniel Fry, Orfeo Angelucci, Daniel Fry a.o. This makes me wonder where Eva and Peter really came from and their true mission. They claimed to secretly help us in technological advancement which is very good of course but did the actually come from another planet?

With these thoughts in mind I felt it necessary to ask Rene a final question:
”Have you ever considered the possibility that the visitors could have been covert special operations agents with publicly not so far revealed technical knowledge?"

I received Rene´s answer in an email May 21, 2020:

”I considered EVERYTHING when I was contacted by them both initially. If things sounds, looks or feels "too god to true" I have always been suspicious. Had I not met with the woman and the man - and only received the information through letters or otherwise, I would have been very skeptical. But they presented photos (of a kind I had never and had never seen since) and film-material shown on a device I had never seen. The quality of the films and photos - in addition to their very technical explanations - made it all seem to me to be something they had a VERY close relationship to. Also their demeanor - when explaining things. They were VERY patient when they could see that I did not understand what they explained. They took their time to make sure that I at least got the full gist of what I was told. Even though I struggled at times, I must admit. They explained things in a different way, if I said that I could not understand. Their mood and seriousness is difficult to explain. They appeared very serious about the subject matter (being it technical stuff or many of my other questions). I do NOT believe they were somebody else but what I have concluded. Even though I know it IS a big conclusion.”

The Alien Visitors volume II is a unique contribution to UFO literature and research which I highly recommend. A UFO investigator revealing his own contact experiences. The book has 119 pages with 56 fascinating pages of photos and beautiful paintings, a real feast for the eye. I commend Rene for his courage to publish these encounters. But he is not alone in this situation. John Keel and MUFON consultant Rosemary Decker personally knew several researchers in the UFO community who had similar type of contacts, but kept the knowledge in a very small circle. The $64 question is of course – who are these visitors?

A classic in UFO literature is The Edge of Realityby Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, published in 1975. In chapter nine, Brainstorming, they discuss various UFO scenarios and hypotheses. Here (p. 252) Vallee mention one of the really intriguing riddles regarding close encounters and different types of entities: ”Vallee: "How can they breath our air? How come there are men, ordinary men with them? There are cases in France where witnesses have seen two dwarves coming our of a landed object, and one man with them."

The usual and popular media image of a alien visitor is a small, spindly creature with large black eyes, often referred to as the Greys. But are these entities the real visitors? Have both the public and many ufologists been mislead in assuming the Greys to be actual and intelligent visitors? Today there appears to be a re-evaluation of the human-looking aliens as the real visitors. A theory or idea shared by both critical UFO investigators and contactees. ”The Strange ”Greys” of Ufology: Are They Manufactured?” is the title of Nick Redfern´s recent article in Mysterious Universe, May 22, 2020. If Redfern checked some of the old contactee stories he would find that robots were described already in the 1950s:

"Also in this room was a robot instrument which I was cautioned not to describe. I had noticed a miniature version of this robot in the Scout."
(George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships, 1955, p. 60).
"Each pilot room has a robot. these, working singly or together, can fully govern the course of the ship, as well as warn us of any approaching danger." (Ibid. p. 77).
"True, they have robots to do much of the heavy work that once was done by manual labour." (George Adamski, Flying Saucers Farewell, 1961, p. 85).

In 2008 I investigated a very fascinating close encounter and contact case in Sweden which probably involved a robot. The percipient Jorge Z. was born in Honduras, 47 years old with a wife and four kids. On January 20, 2008 Jorge Z. is travelling in his car a few miles east of Norrtälje, north of Stockholm. Suddenly a bright light appears over the road and the wooded area. The light is a combination of yellow, white and blue and is moving quickly. Jorge assumes it could be a chopper. Suddenly there is a voice in his head ordering him to keep on driving. The voice is very clear: "move to the left", "continue". After a couple of miles Jorge enter a place called Norrtäljeviken and he parks the car. Standing beside the car he can hear a sound like a generator. Looking up he observeras a saucer shaped, silver coloured object with a light in the middle. Jorge becomes very frightened and says to himself: "A flying saucer. that´s not possible. God help me".

Illustration by witness

A light appears at the bottom om the object, shining down on the ground. In this beam an entity is floating down and start approaching the car. The entity makes a halt about 8-10 meters from Jorge and the beam is retracted into the object. Jorge tries to run but he is paralysed. The entity approaches and Jorge notice its large dark, oblique eyes. It is not more than 140-150 centimeter with a large head and long, skinny arms with four fingers. No nose, only two small holes and no ears. The entity is completely naked, hairless and lacking genitals. Jorge compared the feet to that of a duck.

"Don´t be afraid, I will not hurt you", says the entity and put his "hand" on Jorge´s shoulder. The hand feels exceptionally hard.” A short conversation ensues:

Miguel: My God, who are you? A god or an angel?
Entity: "We are neither Gods nor angels. My name is Horos and I come from Reticulum 4, a planet very far from earth. A long time ago you were chosen for this contact. Some of your ancestors were in contact with us and now is the time to bring a message to humanity. You can´t reach all the world but many people. There are already people who have been prepared to help you and with their help you will deliver the message."

Illustration by witness

Jorge ask if he can touch the entity? Horos says yes and Jorge touches his arm which is warm and feels like hard flesh without a skeleton. After about twenty minutes Jorge is ordered to come back the next day at three p.m. The object appears again and the entity is lifted up in the beam. The object disappears very quick, like turning of a light. When Jorge arrives at home he is very upset and find it difficult to sleep. On January 21 he return to the same spot. This time an object comes up out of the water in Norrtäljeviken. Three entities leave the object to meet Jorge. Besides Horos there is now Ziros and Andrak. They want to help earth humanity and claim there soon will be an open contact. Jorge is requested to contact church leaders to explain that they are here. After a rather long conversation the three entities board the object again and it disappears in the water.

An interesting case where bio-androids are mentioned is the abduction experience of Amauri Rivera of Puerto Rico. He was abducted from his car by dwarfish entities in May 1988. When he regained consciousness Amauri found himself in an unknown room together with 15 people, all Hispano-Americans. Magdalena Del Amo-Freixedo documented what happened next in an article published in Flying Saucer Review, vol. 39, no. 1, Spring 1994: "Facing them was a tall, dark man of human appearance. His hair was long, down to the shoulders, and his complexion dusky. He would, says the witness, have passed anywhere unnoticed. This man said that he was human, just like them, who had come here from another planet in our galaxy. On either side of him there was a dwarf, similar to those we have already described. Almost all of those present in the chamber gazed with horror at the two creatures... He (the man) seized hold of its (dwarf) face with one hand and turned it to right and left, at the same time saying that they should have no fear of these entities, as they were biological robots created by them for certain kinds of work, and that they were quite inoffensive." (p. 10)

When Glenn Steckling visited Sweden in 2018 I asked him of his view of this aspect of the UFO enigma:
Håkan Blomqvist: What do you think about greys, abductions. What is behind all this.

Glenn Steckling: In 1961 this field became divergent or went in separate directions. In 1961 after we had a flood of landings on this planet and the forces that control this world became very anxious. This was a psychological manipulation by the forces that use the politics of this world to keep people in a fearful state. The purpose of this type of rumor mongering is to keep the people fearful. All these craft carry a robot. The newer ships have no robots but androids. The androids only have four fingers and they can only do what they are programmed to do. Some of these sightings could be robots or androids.

Discussing contactee cases with Glenn Steckling (left), October 20, 2018

Former George Adamski co-worker Carol Honey also mentioned robots in one of his later articles:

”The non-human looking, referred to as ”greys”, etc., are actually androids, purposely made to look different so as to eliminate the concern and confusion caused by human looking creations in the past. The nostrils, ears, or mouth, shaped as in a human, are not necessary, as they would be in humans such as us. These androids perform the ”dirty work” and the labor involved in operating the spacecraft on their various missions throughout the solar systems.”
(Carol Honey, How It All Started,, no. 243, December 2001).

Carol Honey mention confusion caused by human looking androids, and of course this is certainly a subject full of confusing encounters. If benevolent and culturally advanced visitors use robots and adroids so could evil or dangerous visitors and our own Messengers of Deception, black project operatives from various highly secret intelligence groups. The Danish Adamski co-worker Hans C Petersen claimed to have discussed the robot issue several times with Adamski. In an article, The Sinister Forces From Space, he presents a somewhat more complicated view of the problem: "... the americans have constructed their own flying saucers, and that they fly just as if they were real space vehicles. Also, that they use the same propulsion system as do the visitors, and that these man-made vehicles are manned with robots - small grey men - all alike and produced alike in American research centers, as copies of the creatures found in the "crashed" saucers from outer space."
(UFO Contact Newsletter, no. 1, 1993, p. 9).

Carol Honey

Maybe some of the enigmatic Men In Black reported are actually androids used by some not very nice group of visitors? John Keel, who investigated this aspect of the UFO enigma and had several encounters of his own presented different theories, during his lifetime, about the MIB. In 1967 he regarded them as definitely a menace, as revealed in a letter, July 18, 1967, to Jim and Coral Lorenzen of APRO: ”The MIB represent a very large terrestrial group who are allied with a very hostile UFO group. They are not connected with any goverment in any way… The people I am concerned with are Androids… manifactured entities controlled by a distant and unknown master… they are quite stupid in many respects.”

There is also a reference to androids in psychic Ingo Swann´s autobiography Penetration: The Question of Extraterrestrial and Human Telepathy, published in 1998. After a very strange experience in a Hollywood supermarket where Ingo and a friend observed and received unusual psychic "vibrations" from a woman with black hair and eyes covered by purple sunglasses, Ingo and his friend decided to mention this encounter during a dinner with psychiatrist Dr. Shafica Karagulla and her friend Viola Petitt Neal.. During a dinner they discuss ET civilizations infiltrating Earth:
"Viola Petitt Neal: There are a lot of THEM, you know, and many are bio-androids."
Shafica Karagulla: "They´re dangerous, you know, and they realize that Earth psychics are their only enemies. Be careful Ingo, be careful."
(Ingo Swann, Penetration, p. 29).

I wouldn´t recommend delving too deeply into these aspects of the UFO enigma if you don´t have both feet firmly on the ground. It is hardly for the faint hearted or naive believer. Paranoia can easily become your next door neighbor. How about stamp collecting instead? Still, the original Vallee question is certainly valid: "How come there are men, ordinary men with them?"

December 13, 2010 began as a nice and leisurely winter day at AFU. We were celebrating our annual festivity on Saint Lucy´s Day, enjoying coffee, mulled wine and gingerbread. It was pretty cold outside and lots of snow so it was good to be in one of our varm and confortable archive premises. The festivity was suddenly interrupted by a phone call. A truckdriver from Schenker announced he had just arrived and wanted us to come out and unload eleven pallets. Not overly enthusiastic the AFU staff put on their winter clothes and walked up to the lorry and were met with a sight the like we have never encountered before. In the snow stood eleven pallets with 235 large and heavy boxes. The entire library from the Hilary and Mary Evans estate i London, donated to AFU.

Hilary Evans visiting AFU October 7, 1996

Luckily we were ten AFU people who helped carrying these boxes. But it was a tough job in the snow and icy stairs down to one of our basement premises. When all the boxes were safely stored we now had a double reason for keeping on celebrating. The 235 boxes contained the largest donation of material ever received in AFU history. More than 9.000 books and thousands of rare and unique magazines from all over the world. Many of the books and magazines in excellent mint condition, often clothbound. We were honoured och proud that AFU was chosen as the custodian of this immensely valuable collection covering subjects like UFO, forteana, folklore, parapsychology, paranormal phenomena, ancient mysteries, mysticism, esoterica and a host of other subjects. In AFU history December 13, 2010 will forever be remembered as the day we were visited by Santa Claus.

Part of the AFU gang celebrating Saint Lucy´s Day, October 13, 2010

The Hilary and Mary Evans donation has arrived

Håkan Landin with heavy boxes

Sven-Olov Svensson trying not to fall on the slippery floor

The AFU gang after one hour of heavy work

At AFU a decision was made to house this collection in a special facility, which we named The Evans Library, in honour of Hilary and Mary Evans. As librarian I still find it a feast both for the eyes and mind to peruse the shelves in the Evans library. Thousands of rare and unusual books I have never seen or even heard of before, many early tomes from the 18th and 19th century. A treasure trove for scholars of various disciplines and anyone researching the unsolved mysteries of our world. I notice for instance a complete set of Proceedings for the Society of Psychical Research from 1882 in clothbound volumes and the beautifully illustrated magazine The Medium1872-1882.

SPR Proceedings in the Evans Library

Hilary Evans (1929-2011) visited AFU in October 1996 and we discussed his research and theories. He didn´t want to be labelled ufologist as his foremost interest was paranormal phenomena. Hilary Evans was an advocate of the skeptical psycho-social theory regarding UFOs, but he represented skepticism at its best: erudite, open minded, humble. He was no debunker but stressed several times during our talk the importance of looking at new data and possibilities. When asked for an advice to Swedish ufologists and field investigators he said, never become a rigid dogmatist, be open minded - totally open minded. It was Hilary Evans that inspired the AFU board to change our acronym AFU from Archives for UFO Research to Archives for the Unexplained. A very suitable name as our collections had during many years come to include all types of borderland and paranormal phenomena, not only UFOs.

Part of the Evans Library

Since 2010 AFU has been visited by Santa Claus several times with donations like the archives from Borderland Sciences Research Foundation (BSRF), Flying Saucer Review and many many more. Study the impressive list of international donors who all have chosen AFU as the best repository for their archives and collections. AFU is a Cultural World Heritage, open to all types of serious researchers; ufologists, investigators of paranormal phenomena, academic scholars, journalists – skeptics as well as believers. We only wish you are endowed with that human quality - a persistent and uncompromising search for Truth, whatever that might be, and wherever it may lead. The policy of AFU is world wide open access to as many documents in our collections as possible. Take a look at the thousands of old and hard to find UFO and Fortean magazines that can be read at our AFU website. We deplore when rare archives are destroyed or sold to private collectors at eBay and other sites and consequently lost to the international research community. We wish to share as much data freely as is legally possible.

Although many collections have been lost or destroyed there is a steady stream of donations coming in to AFU. Yesterday board members Clas Svahn and Carl-Anton Mattsson fetched the latest donation to AFU from the late Swedish psychiatrist and parapsychologist Dr. Nils-Olof Jacobson (1938-2017). Well known for his book Liv efter döden (1971), English edition Life Without Death, published in 1974.

Anders Liljegren at AFU with the new Nils-Olof Jacobson archive

Nils-Olof Jacobson

Jacobson was deeply fascinated by the UFO phenomenon and we corresponded on and off beginning in 1985. In an email November 17, 2010 he told of his meeting with Jacques Vallee and UFO sighting:

I have said it so many times before but I will repeat it once again: Without libraries and archives we have no history, only anecdotes, myths and hazy memories. Without archives and libraries serious and scientific research becomes very difficult and in some areas almost impossible. If we don´t learn from history we will continue making the same mistakes or once again trying to reinvent the wheel. AFU is our legacy to the future.

One of my long-lasting projects is organizing and reviewing the 13,000+ letters in the very extensive Wendelle Stevens archive, now housed at AFU. More than fifty percent of the correspondence file consists of book orders, but now and then I find letters and documents of special interest. One such document is a letter to Wendelle Stevens, written on June 13, 1987, by an anonymous engineer involved in secret retrieval projects of crashed ”air craft” . The seven-page letter give detailed data on several retrieval operations in the U.S. of ”craft” crashing on land and water and then simply disappearing, exactly like the Swedish Ghost Rockets of 1946 and later.

British ufologist and artist David Sankey´s drawing of a Swedish Ghost Rocket made specially for AFU

The American engineer was involved in retrieval operations from 1975 to 1980, code-namned Project Pluto. The first assignement in 1975 took him to a remote place in upstate Pennsylvania. ”We were some of the first one´s on the scene other than lots of security people. The wreck had already been covered by very large canvas blankets… I did manage to get a very good look at the wreck on several occasions… It was later suggested to us that it was a new type of air craft, and it was super hush-hush project. The air craft was nothing like I have ever seen as probably ever will again… I don´t really like to use the term cigar, but since I could not see the front part, it certainly appeared to have once been shaped like a large cigar… The piece of physical evidence that I held in my hand, was a material that I really can´t identify… It weighed no where near enough to be any metal we had ever seen. It even weighed less than any plastic that I had seen of a similar size.

I tried to scratch it with a pocket knife, and even cut away a small piece of the edge, but the knife did nothing to it. The surface was clear as glass, and stronger than any thing we hade ever seen… After the site was secure, the first groups that included myself were taken away. There was a very thorough strip search prior to us being given jumpsuits, and put into a truck for the transportation to a waiting plane. We were taken to another area and debriefed before we were allowed to return to our normal way of life…

First page of letter from unknown engineer

In 1978, I was again sent to a crash site. We arrived the day after the security people. This time the air craft landed in a lake in upstate Pennsylvania… Lots of Navy equipment was flown in, and there were divers everywhere… It seems that the divers had located the exact spot that the air craft had rested on the bottom, but it was gone. There was lots of evidence on the beach that something very large had crashed into the lake causing the water of the lake to splash ashore, over thirty feet… There were some thoughts at first that the craft may have been buried under the bottom of the lake, but by this time, we knew enough about the craft to know if that were the case. It was not – it just vanished.”

In this document the American engineer mention several retrieval operations where the crafts have crashed or landed in water and simply disappeared. His conclusion: ”I don´t really believe that the air craft belongs to our Government or any other government on this earth… In addition, I have no way of knowing if I had been on every crash site that occurred. There may have been many more during that period and many more since. I really don´t know if any one had ever been removed from the two wrecks, that I had personally seen… Perhaps the medical people were only there – just in case. And/or to test the wreck for any form of unknown bacteria prior to removing it. Their being present is not really evidence that a life form was found. It could go either way.”

Since 1946 there have been hundreds of well documented Ghost Rocket reports in Sweden. Always with the same scenario, apparently physical objects crashing into lakes and the military finding nothing in spite of intense search. Swedish ufologist Clas Svahn have investigated the Ghost Rocket phenomenon for many years and regard these reports as one of the most intriguing type of UFO observations in our country.

Lieutenant Karl Gösta Bartoll searching for a ghost rocket in the Swedish lake Kölmjärv, July 19, 1946

These types of incidents continue in Sweden. Late afternoon on July 27, 1999 several witnesses observed a missile or rocket shaped object crash into lake Backsjön, north of the town Arvika in the province of Värmland, Sweden. The object was about three meters in length with small wings at the sides. It hit the lake with a splash resulting in a large water cascade. One of the witnesses called the local rescue service and eventually a unit from the Swedish military began an intensive search for the missile. During the first days of investigation the military gave various cover stories to the press of what had happened. They interviewed seven witnesses who were all regarded as very credible. After some preliminary dives in August a ten days search was initiated in September with a small submarine equipped with ultrasound and cameras. In spite of a very detailed search in the lake, nothing was found and this was very confusing to the military. ”We considered this report as credible. The search resulted in nothing and we really don´t know what we are looking for”, commented colonel Yngve Johansson.

Although most of the reports of vanishing crafts involve water there are a few cases where a crash or landing have been on the ground. In the beginning of the 1950s American contactee George Van Tassel was sometimes visited by military men from the Air Force who had a personal interest in or had become involved in UFO incidents themselves. He related several such incidents and talks in his magazine Proceedings. In 1953 an Air Force Major, stationed at George Air Force Base, at Adelanto, California, spent many weekends with the Van Tassel family at Giant Rock Airport. The major was officially in charge of UFO investigations in Southern California. An interesting case he had been involved in told of jet pilot who radioed George Air Force Base tower that a round unidentified object had crashed into the ground near San Jacinto Mountain. The Tower phoned the Major and hurriedly he and other Air Force personal climbed into a helicopter and headed for Mt. San Jacinto. They spotted the jet circling the area and landed the helicopter in a clearing about 200 feet from the unknown object.

”The Major said they walked slowly toward it and when they were about 25 feet from it they stopped in awe because the couldn´t figure out what was happening. The Major said the object was apparently remote controlled, and was in the process of some automatically activated ”self destruct” proceedure. He said the object had a pulsing bright light in the middle of an ovoid mass, of what looked like black tar about two feet thick and about 12 feet in diameter. The entire black mass was quivering like jelly, shaking and getting smaller by the minute.” (Proceedings, vol. 10, no. 6, Oct-Dec 1974, pp. 11-12).

In a short time the black blob dimished until there was nothing left and the pulsing light just vanished. The group took samples of the ground where the object had been and also samples of the earth a hundred feet away. George Van Tassel never heard what the results were as the Major then stopped visiting Giant Rock when security and secrecy regarding UFOs increased in 1954. Perhaps the 1958 American science fiction-horror film The Blob was inspired by rumours of these type of cases? The story by a strange co-incidence also transpires in rural Pennsylvania. Several writers claim that The Blob was inspired by a story published in Philadelphia Inquirer, September 27, 1950:

It was around 10 pm on September 26, 1950, in the city of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, USA... Patrolmen John Collins and Joseph Keenan were driving on Vare Boulevard near 26th Street when they saw something resembling a parachute at tree-top level drifting down into a field near 26th. They estimated the 'parachute' looked to be about six feet across. The officers called in backup -- Sgt. Joseph Cook and his driver, Patrolman James Casper -- and once they arrived, all four men went to investigate the parachute. It wasn't a parachute. The odd object was draped across the weeds, and so light that it wasn't bending the plants. The officers' flashlights made the strange mass give off a sort of misty, purplish glow that made it look as if the object contained crystals. Collins tried to pick the thing up but the part of the object he touched just dissolved, leaving a slightly sticky and odorless residue on his hand. As the four officers watched over the next twenty-five minutes or so, the whole object just slowly evaporated away.

There is a very fascinating description of this process in George Adamski´s Inside the Space Ships. During one of his contacts Adamski was told by one of the space people:
”Whenever possible these complex and highly sensitive little machines are returned to their parent craft, but sometimes, for one reason or another, the connection is broken and they go out of control or crash to the ground. In such cases emergency procedure is immediately brought into action. On each side of the mother ship, just below the disk-launching ports, is a magnetic ray projector. When a disk goes out of control, a ray is projected to disintegrate it. This accounts for some of the mysterious explosions that take place in your skies which cannot be accounted for by artillery, jet planes or electrical storms.

On the other hand, if a disk goes out of control near the surface of the planet where an explosion might cause damage, it is allowed to descend to the ground where a milder charge is sent into it. Instead of an explosion, this causes the metal to disintegrate in slow stages. First it softens, then turns into a kind of jelly, then a liquid, and finally it enters a free state as gases, leaving not a wrack behind. This latter process is without danger to anyone or anything should the disk be touched while in process of disintegration. The only harm could come if, by chance, someone should see it fall and touch it at the moment the ray is applied.” (George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships, 1955 ed. p. 155).

I don´t know if any ufologist has made a thorough study of UFOs vanishing and dissolving as in these reports. If some of my readers are aware of such a study I hope to hear from you.

It is the 18th of May 1946, the clock is 10 pm. The sky is dark blue and clear, a light breeze is blowing from the east. I´m sitting and listening to the beautiful birdsong … It starts to get darker, and I realise it is time to head back home. I turn on my orientation lamp which I always carry with me on my evening strolls. Just as I am about to turn I spot something that has forever stuck in my memory.

In the furthest part of the glade, just a couple of meters from a lonely pine, there is a illuminated craft, one of which I have never seen before or after. My first thought was that it was a carrousel someone had drove there. But I soon realized that would be impossible, as there are no roads leading to the glade.

The craft, or object, had the shape of a discus, and it is resting on a sturdy fin in the direction of the lonely pine, and two telescope legs, all three evenly spaced under the circular disc. In front of the fin on the crafts belly, there is a hatch open, with a ladder and leaders, like those ladders you see on boats. The hatch is about one and a half meter above the ground and I can see how light is coming out from the opening. I try to look inside the craft but the angle is to narrow. All I can see is the bright light.

On the top of the craft there is a streamlined cabin that I estimate to be around 8 meters in diameter. With roughly 1 meter spacing there is oval windows, maybe 50 cm wide and 30 cm high. While I am watching the craft I can´t keep from thinking that someone is pulling a prank on me. One thought that goes through my head is that this may be German pilots that has escaped from some camp. But deep inside, I know I´m wrong.

The "body" and the cabin seems to be one piece. You can´t spot screws, studs or joints anywhere. Around the belly’s rim on the craft there is a couple of holes, not unlike those found on turbines, pointing down and are covered with what look like a damper. A few meters in front and outside the light´s circle, a man with a white dress is standing. He is dressed like our astronauts of today. No matter how hard I look, I can’t see any buttons, zippers or other "clothing attachments". On his feet he has blue or black boots that wrap around his legs, around his waist he has a large blue or black belt, on his head something that looks like a rain hoodie or "windcheater hoodie" with the difference that it also covers the front of his face and are made of some transparent material. On his hand he got finger gloves. On his chest hangs something that looks like a folding camera, but other than that, there is no equipment. The man appears to be a guard. Where I am standing now I´m about 10 meters from the craft, and about 7-8 meter from this man.

The witness Gösta Carlsson at his home in Ängelholm, July 13, 1993

On top of the craft by one of the windows there was an additional three men, evidently occupied by some kind of work. Right next to them, but below, I see two more men who are assisting and inside the light circle, turned towards me, there are three women. All dressed the same way, in the same white dress, boots and belt. All the beings that are inside the light have the transparent face mask removed to the back of their heads. Suddenly something happened.

The man who was standing outside the light - which whom I now understand was serving as a guard - did a perfect stop sign with his hand raised. It is a sign that cannot be misinterpreted and I stopped. I still have my lamp on my head, but turned off. The guard points his "folding camera" looking thing towards me, and I get the impression that he is about to take a picture of me. I think I hear a crack from my lamp on my head, that I have turned off, but don´t bother with that… Suddenly, a woman with dark curly hair steps down the ladder of the craft. In her hand she holds what looks like a bag and hands out cups to the men and girls. Everyone stop working and start to drink from the cups. By the time I am standing there and watching, I can see the crew go in and out the craft, up the ladder next to the fin. When they do that, I observe how the two telescope legs moves up and down. They are spring loaded like the front wheel of an airplane.

Just as I am about to take a step forward again, the girl with the dark curly hair steps outside the cabin again. In her hand she hold a bright shiny object which draws the attention from all the other in the crew. She takes a few steps towards the outskirt of the light dome and throws the object out with a quick motion. It falls right next to a little slope. At the same time I hear a happy woman’s laughter, and I realize this is the first time I hear a noise from them this whole time. But I have heard the crackling of twigs by the guards feet on the grass which is spread all over the ground. The whole thing starts to be very surreal to me, and although I am one of those person who has never tasted alcohol in any form, and can therefore not blame this on some kind of hallucination or some other kind of imagination, I decide to hike back to the Skäldervik beach and then come back to see if it is still here.

It takes about 20 minutes to get there. I take of my shoes and socks and wade out in the water to wet my feet just to make sure I´m not dreaming. It is freezing so I am awake alright. Then, suddenly, I see a red light. At first I thought it was the moon rising, but after closer inspection, I realize that isn´t the case. Slowly, and majestically, the craft, which I now see clearly, is rising. It´s almost like a balloon rising.

This is a short summary of the 1946 close encounter told by Gösta Carlsson (1918-2003). The incident occurred outside the city Ängelholm, in the south of Sweden. It has become one of the most famous and controversial Swedish landing and contact cases. During the weekend May 18-19, 1996 UFO-Sweden arranged the annual conference and expo at Ängelholm. A memorable event for many UFO-Sweden members, who would get an opportunity to listen to Gösta Carlsson relating his story at the site where the landing occurred.

As Gösta Carlsson had become something of a celebrity in Ängelholm the media interest for the conference was all time high. When the expo opened at 10 a.m. on Saturday the 18th hundreds of visitors entered Ängelholms gymnasieskola (senior high school). UFO-Sweden representatives had a busy time guiding and informing about the various activities and UFO investigation in Sweden.

Of special interest was the exhibition show-case displaying the ring and rod that Gösta Carlsson had found at the place where the craft landed. The show-case was made of armored glass and guarded by a man from Securitas, which of course raised a few eyebrows. This was the first and only time the ring and rod were publicly displayed.

Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar, May 19, 1996

Anders Liljegren, right, at the expo

The ring och rod at the exhibition

At 6.00 p.m. hundreds of UFO-Sweden members gathered at the glade outside Ängelholm, where Gösta Carlsson told the listeners about his contact experience 1946. He also showed the UFO monument made of concrete and placed in the center where the landing took place. The monument is a scaled-down replica of the craft observed by Gösta Carlsson and is now an offical part of the Ängelholm cultural heritage. After the guided tour members gathered at the pub Källaren. Thomas Niby, chairman of the local UFO-Sweden group worked hard as bartender and offered a special UFO drink, enjoyed during the as usual lively discussions and mingling.

Gösta Carlsson in the middle recounting his experience

The monument

Sunday the 19th continued with several public lectures. Clas Svahn presented his very extensive investigation of the Gösta Carlsson case, documented in the 1995 book Mötet i gläntan (Meeting in the Glade), written together with Gösta Carlsson. Special guest speaker was Dr. Anton Geels, professor of Psychology of Religion at the University of Lund. He presented a psychological perspective of encounters with unknown entities. The program ended with a lively panel discussion. This was one of the most successful conferences arranged by UFO-Sweden with close to one thousand visitors during the two days.

What is today the assessment of the Gösta Carlsson story? Clas Svahn, who spent many years investigating the case, is rather critical, having found several inconsistences in the tale. At the death of Gösta, Clas had been promised to receive the ring and rod, to be able to make a chemical analysis of the material. Gösta broke the promise and this piece of important evidence is now probably gone forever.

Gösta Carlsson and Clas Svahn during interview July 13, 1996

In the Summer of 1993 Clas Svahn and I visited and interviewed Gösta Carlsson at his home in Ängelholm. For me this was a very special experience. Usually, during relaxed interviews like this, you get an emotional and mental connection with the UFO witness. But talking to Gösta Carlsson was like speaking to someone inside a impenetrable psychic sphere or bubble. We will probable never get the definite answer to what happened to Gösta Carlsson in 1946 unless the ring and rod somehow reappear. Whatever the truth, his story is certainly fascinating and part of Swedish UFO history.

Readers familiar with the classic literary masterpiece Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe may remember the scene where Faust one night walk to a crossroads and encounter a fire-breathing dragon. A ball of fire descends towards Faust and the ball is transformed into a monk. We find similar stories in folklore, religion, mythology and today in the cases documented by ufologists and investigators of paranormal phenomena. Astonished witnesses describing balls of light suddenly transforming into some type of entity.

In UFO literature we can find hundreds of these type of encounters. American ufologist Albert Rosales kindly made a search in his extensive database on humanoid encounters, also published in several volumes. Here are three examples:

Location. Alma, Quebec, Canada
Date: June 1973
Time: 02:20 a.m.
Georges Gaudet and his wife were sleeping soundly when a bright beam of green light entered the bedroom through the open window, awakening the wife. The green light seemed to transform itself into a 4 ft tall humanoid wearing a silvery combination suit, and a helmet with a dark visor, the figure was totally encased in a green glow. Gaudet’s wife stared at the figure and attempted to wake her husband to no avail. The figure then vanished in a flash of light. She suffered from headaches and insomnia for a week after the incident.
(Source: Christian Lemay UFO Quebec, Vol. 5 # 20).

Location. Near San Juan Puerto Rico
Date: Spring 1975
Time: evening
A woman who lived in a house surrounded by a sturdy iron fence that made it impossible to enter without knocking (or ringing) apart from which she had several rather fierce dogs that had the run of the garden and the small orchard (or kitchen garden) around it, preventing any stranger from coming in, reported that one evening she was alerted by the vehement barking of the dogs, she looked out the door of the garden and saw with astonishment that the dogs were barking at a type of simian---and not a small one, at that---that was sitting on top of a palm tree in the middle of the garden. The palm tree was rather tall, so the dogs had no way of reaching the strange animal. The woman was dumfounded, thinking first about how that animal could have managed to climb up there, despite the fence and the dogs, but above all about the threatening appearance it had. For a while, from the top of the palm tree, it was staring at her with eyes that seemed to shoot out fire. After a few moments, the animal began to shrink little by little, taking a spherical shape, while at the same time slowly becoming incandescent. The moment came when it had completely turned into a luminous ball the size of a basketball. While the woman, with her heart in her throat, was looking at the ball, it began to slowly rise up until it became lost in the sky. Naturally, the woman, who was already a little impressionable as it was, received a tremendous shock in the face of such a sight, which apparently made her collapse.
(Source: Salvador Freixedo, La Religion entre la Parapsicologia y Los Ovnis).

Location. Rodia, Messina, Sicily, Italy

Date: August 12 1989
Time: 04:13 a.m.
On a warm summer night, the witness was sleeping in his house by the sea when he felt someone touch his leg. He turned around and saw a small figure about 3 ft in height, with a big head and round large eyes. He could not see it well because it was surrounded by a bright light. He tucked his legs under the covers and shut his eyes thinking that he was dreaming but when he opened his eyes the figure was still there. The figure stared at the witness with a penetrating gaze that seemed to read his mind and attract him toward the figure. The creature moved in slow jerky movements. He closed his eyes again and when he opened them again the figure was leaning over his 3-year old brother who slept in a cot. At this point the witness screamed and the creature turned around, looked at him and then transformed itself into a luminous sphere not bigger than a tennis ball and it then flew out the window at high speed. After a while he called his parents.
(Source: David Ferrara cunsicilia@gmail.com)

During a period of more than thirty-five years Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke has collected and documented five thousand plus stories of encounters with various types of Star People by American Indians. So far she has written four very fascinating books presenting her findings. Several stories of balls of light transforming into entities are recorded in her books, especially in Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica(2015). Here a few short quotes from the cases documented, describing the transformation:

”… I sat there watching as those seven balls of light kept getting closer and closer. Then, all of a sudden, one light veered off from the rest and came toward the hose. It stopped short of the house maybe 30 feet away. It just hovered there a few feet from the ground.. . At this point, I was only focusing on the one that was so close to me and wondered if I could make it to my pickup… As I edged toward the pickup, the ball of light transformed again and a human form materialized in fron of me. He was dressed in a light suit. He told me not to be afraid. I felt faint; I am not sure if it was from fear or the odor I smelled… Like rotten eggs. It was overpowering…
After you talked about horses, what happened?
It was like he dropped to the ground and turned into a ball of light again and flew off to join the others. Later I saw them above the hill, The morphed into a huge craft and were gone.”
(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Encounters With Star People, pp. 139-140).

”In theri true state they are balls of light. It is only whenthey assume human form that you see them. Otherwise you are blinded by them. Many people never know they have met them. They see balls of light, not realizing that they are actually living forms.”

(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, p. 148).

”Late in the evening, Before dark, but all the tourists were gone. I found myself over a mile from the entrance when the sky became dark and a lightning storm came up. Taking cover in one of the structures, I deceide to wait out the storm… As the rain ceased, I decided to head home. That´s when a circular craft came out of the clouds and settled in the plaza. Three men, covered in light, came out of the craft. They stopped in front of the Temple of Inscriptions and turned themselves into balls of light. I watched as they floated upward to the top of the entrance and then they disappeared.
(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, p. 235).

”I could make out a circular shadow. It cast a blue light upon the ground. There were three balls of light that came out of it. They materialized into human-like figures. That is what I remember. Gabriella remembers the blue light and the balls of light, but nothing else.”
(Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Sky People. Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, 266).

After a lifetime of travel, field investigation and study of UFO, Fortean and paranormal phenomena John Keel reached the conclusion shared today by many researchers into these areas: we live in a multiverse inhabited by a variety of diverse intelligences. He usually referred to these intelligences as ultraterrestrials or elementals and their emergence into our reality as transmogrifications, another word for materializations. He was mostly pessimistic and often referred to the phenomena as demonic and destructive to mankind. A somewhat more hopeful tone was given in his last book The Eighth Tower (1975): "Today many scientific disciplines are moving in the same direction, not realizing they are mapping a very old country. In a few years, perhaps even in our own lifetime, all sciences will suddenly converge at a single point, and the mysteries of the superspectrum will unravel in our hands." (p. 216).

To me it is obvious that the ufologists, Forteans and cryptozoologists of our generation really are ”mapping a very old country”. A country studied and investigated for ages by custodians of The Esoteric Tradition – The Science of the Multiverse.

On March 11, 1973 Thorvald (Bevan) Berthelsen, together with three witnesses from his workplace in Köping, Sweden, observed a cylinder-shaped object silently passing over the city. No explanation was found to this observation, which was reported in local media. Thorvald Berthelsen and his wife lived in a country house with good views in all directions. On the same day his UFO observation was mentioned in the local newspaper a man knocks on their door. Thorvald is met by a man in his thirties, dressed in a brown suit and white shirt. He has dark hair, appears suntanned and his eyes are slanted but still not Asian looking. The man ask Thorvald how he is feeling and continue asking about directions. He says thank you and leave. "I thought, who the hell was that? I ran out and looked for him. The road was straight in both directions. If he had come walking I would have seen him. His eyes were slanted. That caught my attention. Afterwards I felt this experience was weird". Thorvald later became the chairman of UFO-Sweden (1976-1978).
(Interview with Thorvald (Bevan) Berthelsen, October 10, 1992)

Interviewing Thorvald (Bevan) Berthelsen at AFU, October 10, 1992

Experienced investigators of UFO and paranormal phenomena immediately recognize the situation. Our visitors from wherever they come from have the uncanny ability to disappear right in front of witnesses. In my investigations of contactees and close encounter reports I have stumbled on this phenomenon several times. Connoisseurs of UFO literature know there are hundreds of similar cases documented.

My old friend, ufologist Gösta Johansson, often discussed the various abilities of the aliens with contactee Richard Höglund, an enigmatic case which I have documented in several blog entries:
Håkan: How did the aliens look?
Gösta: They were brown, like suntanned, thin, dark eyes, long fingers. Only once did he notice something defective in their bodies. It was a man with a scar on his head. There were no women among them and they didn´t sleep or eat but drank, even liquor, and smoked. They could disappear into thin air. He told me that once he had been sitting chatting with two aliens on a bench in the Bahamas when some people approached them. He felt so ashamed because he was suddenly talking into thin air.The aliens were simply gone. But otherwise they seemed totally material.
Interview with Gösta Johansson, February 13, 1980).

Gösta Johansson, September 15, 1986

There appears to be at least two different ways this disappearance is achieved, as described by witnesses and contactees – advanced technology and classic materialization. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", is a classic quote from science fiction author Arthur C Clarke. But in individual cases it can be quite difficult to determine what is to be regarded as the most likely explanation.

In a recent interviewGlenn Steckling, director of the George Adamski Foundation told of meetings with a group of highly advanced, benevolent visitors and their use of technology to accomplish disappearance:
”They carry a little device which is also on their ships as well. And this device that they carry on their person, about the size of a cigarette lighter, is bending light rays around the object. So in other words they activate the device and the light rays bend around it and since you only see what is reflected back into your eyes and into your brain because in reality the brain sees not the eyes. Then the light rays continue around the object and so you can no longer see it. Physically there is no such thing as dimensional shifting and time warp or all this other science fiction nonsense. What it is, physically it is still there. You can touch them, you can hear them. And they can walk right past you. And so my father said I´d love to see that in action. And so a few weeks later we´re walking along the streets of Washington D.C. and this gentleman, the same guy´s coming towards us and in his arms he has his hans full of laundry and as he gets close within a couple of meters all of sudden he lifts his hand and wavs and disapperars. Gone he is. And you can hear him walking right past us, the sound of his shoes. And we all three of us turn around and look and a couple of meters behind us he suddenly reappears and turn around and waves again and smiles and keeps walking.”
(Talking Weird. Episode 14: Glenn Steckling, interview June 24, 2020).

Glenn Steckling lecturing in Sweden, October 20, 2018

George Adamski gave a somewhat different answer to this question. I don´t know if Adamski ever told of a technical device to accomplish disappearance.

”Q – Do space people materialize and dematerialize?
A – They do not but they can place their mind in a high frequency state that causes their body to become invisible to our limited range of vision. There are some Earth people that can use this law. But the body reamains as solid as the blades of an electric fan revolving at a high rate of speed that causes them to become invisible to our sight.”
(George Adamski, Answers to Questions Most Frequently Asked About Our Space Visitors And Other Planets, revised 1965, p. 16).

American contactee George Van Tassel also mention a technical device used by one of the alien visitors named Mr. Wheeler or Venuto, when visiting Giant Rock: "The man didn´t dematerialize. He was still there, because the third time he disappeared I had my hand on his shoulder, and he was solid; still there under my hand."
(Proceedings, April, May, June 1977, p. 14)

Ufologist William F. Hamilton, who was a good friend of Van Tassel interviewed some of the witnesses to this event: "About thirty people were present for this session. Venudo took out a crystal device, identical in appearance to the one worn by Solgonda, and proceeded to demonstrate it by tapping it and disappearing from view. Dan (Boone – HB) asked Venudo to repeat this performance and reached out to touch his shoulder when he disappeared again. Dan found Venudo invisible but tangible. I interviewed Dan and another female witness about three years after the event and when Saturday night sessions were a thing of the past." Unfortunately these interviews have never been published to my knowledge.
(William F. Hamilton, Alien Magic, 1989, p. 9)

Compare this description with the experience of contactee Howard Menger:
”When the alien is approx. 20 ft. From me, I (Howard) can see that it is a female. She had on a suit or uniform which appeared to be a strange, stiff material and it seemed difficult for her to get from the craft to where she was. She touched the light on her belt, the light expanded and enveloped her whole body and she disappeared from view. I (Howard) yelled to the two men standing at the craft, ´where did she go´? And they yelled back that she had returned to the craft.”
(Howard and Connie Menger, The High Bridge Incident, comment on one of many pictures between pages 103-105).

Space woman just before she disappeared, photo by Howard Menger 1956

If some alien visitors can make themselves disappear how to explain the disappearance of their cars? John Keel encountered alien visitors, often the so-called Men in Black, several times during his investigations in the 1960s. “On a number of occasions I actually saw the phantom Cadillacs as advertised, complete with sinister-looking passengers in black suits. On Long Island, following the directions given me in an anonymous phone call, I pursued one of these cars down a dead-end road where it seemingly vanished into thin air (there were no side roads or turn-offs).” (John Keel, The Eighth Tower, p. 141)

A interesting case of a disappearing car has been investigated by British ufologist Jenny Randles:
It all began in late August 1971 in a town in East Midlands, England. Jim Wilson had observed a white light moving slowly across the sky. Just an ordinary mundane sighting of no special interest but ufologist Derek James, a close colleague of Jenny Randles, made a standard follow up. He was rather surprised to find that two men in smart business suits and driving a black car har interviewed Jim Wilson. The men claimed to be from the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and instructed the witness to forget the sighting as it had been identified as the Russian satellite Cosmos 408.

Why would the MoD send two men to interrogate a witness to such an ordinary sighting? Derek James checked the satellite information centre at Farnborough. At the time of the observation Cosmos 408 had been over Canada and had not passed over England at all. Now the witness contacted Derek once more and was rather alarmed because several nights in succession two unknown men in a black Jaguar car had parked outside his house and he was sure they were watching him. Derek James had a relative who was a high ranking police officer and a plan was hatched to check the car as they were perhaps planning a robbery.

A police car was asked to keep a look out and on October 19 and 20 the policemen watched the car outside Jim Wilson´s house. The car waited for about thirty minutes and then drove off. A check of the car registration found out that the vehicle did not exist and now the police became really interested. On October 21 a police patrol was ordered to bring in the occupants of the Jaguar for questioning. Following standard procedure the two policemen walked towards the car, one on either side. They noticed two smartly dressed men inside. They were just about to knock on the window when the car simply disappeared into nothingness in front of the astonished policemen. The area was examined but gave no clue to the disappearance. Neither car nor occupants were ever seen again. For rather obvious reasons a cover story was presented in the final police report.

This unusual Men In Black case was published by Derek James and Jenny Randles in Flying Saucer Review, vol. 23, no. 3, October 1977. A somewhat updated version was later published by Jenny Randles in her book Investigating the Truth Behind MIB the Men In Black Phenomenon,1997.

If disappearance is accomplished by technology how about cases where visitors walk through doors or walls? There are indications that the visitors encountered by Richard Höglund could also pass through walls, as told to me and witnessed by my friends Sture and Turid Johansson. But that takes more than just bending light rays. Passing through walls requires materialization.

Some contactees also mention what must be regarded as a form of materialization. In his letter to Karl and Amy Veit, September 19, 1961, published in Besucher aus dem Weltraum, American contactee Eugene Drake makes these interesting comments (my translation): "There are very few people who have had real physical contact with space ships or space people, like ourselves. I have on various occasions experienced how space people appear in condensed form and I could shake their hands. After the contact they disappeared into a higher frequency."

Eugene Drake 1951

Dorris Van Tassel, wife of George Van Tassel, claimed several encounter with alien visitors and that her home functioned as a sort of safe house for both contactees and space people. One of her close friends told me how he reacted the first time he became aware of this: ”I remember the first time there was about 5 space people in Ms.Van Tassel's house talking with her as I quietly watched, and then suddenly one of the men turned , looked directly at me, smiled gently, and then very slowly turned to the kitchen room wall and walked right through the wall! I watched this very closely as he then came back in. Let me tell you , those kind of incidents have a very deep and troubling affect on our minds because we cannot comprehend it.” I asked my correspondent whether Dorris was aware of that these five men were space people: ”O yes, she knew them well. It was perfectly normal for her.”

(Email, February 26, 2012).

There is still much research needed to understand this phenomenon. A thorough study of all cases documented in UFO literature would be of great help. A worthy project for my many colleagues around the world.

Finally I cannot resist a humourous comment on the issue of disappearance by my favourite Fortean iconoclast John Keel, from his autobiography Jadoo: "One lama told me the way to vanish into thin air is to make the mind a complete blank. (If this is true, then I know several people who should have disappeared long ago.)"

The quote in the title of this blog article comes from a letter from John Keel to my AFU colleague Anders Liljegren, August 10, 1982. And Keel continues: ”Forget the flying saucer propaganda. We are dealing with something very close to home.”. During my many years of investigation of contactee cases I have now and then pondered whether this could actually be the answer to some of the very physical contact experiences reported worldwide. If we are partly dealing with one or more groups of earth-based and undiscovered aliens we are faced with an even greater enigma than extraterrestrial visitors.

To delve into these aspects of the UFO enigma the ufologist has to be both a meticulous, critical investigator and a detective. In-depth research of close encounter and contact cases of this type is time-consuming and can be quite unnerving as you will discover facts very difficult or impossible to publish. Ufology at this level is very far from writing reports of lights in the sky or being entertained by fake videos on YouTube. You have all the chances of entering Forbidden Science.

There are contactees who have doubted whether the aliens they have encountered really come from Venus, Mars etc. as they sometimes claim. An interesting example is Enrique Castillo Rincon from Costa Rica, author of UFOs. A Great New Dawn for Humanity (1997). Enrique meet a businessman, Cyril Weiss, of Swiss nationality and they become friends. Later he encounters this man aboard a UFO, as he actually belongs to an advanced group of extraterrestrials trying to help Earth. Enrique is taken to their secret retreat or base in the Andes. Enrique is given secret code keyes to be used to identify agents of the organization but also as a protection against "the opposition". Whether it is the "opposition" or a real intelligence group, in 1974 Enrique is contacted by three foreign-looking individuals offering to take him to Washington D.C., all expenses paid, for a test in "regressive hypnosis". He accepts the invitation: "Outside, two men were waiting with a luxurious, dark-coloured Cadillac. I started feeling like a star in a suspense movie." (p. 113) After this visit to Washington D.C. and interrogation Enrique has several doubts: "What were the true identities of those obscure agents who could take me and return me to Bogota, with arrangements made with a complete network of people, all so well coordinated? What were their true motivations?" (p. 119)

Enrique Castillo Rincon

Rincón is very puzzled of what it all meant and who the aliens actually were. One of the chapters of his book is named "The Venusians - are they Venusian?"In the preface he states: "I am not a mystic nor a religious fanatic... Neither have I considered myself a "chosen one" to save humanity, and I detest those "contactees" who pretend to have been appointed by some divinity to carry some message to the suffering and almost disgraced human race...Over twenty years have passed and I still don´t know why I was contacted. Was it plain chance?... Why was an individual belonging to the "sandwich-class" (middle-class), such as myself, assigned such an "ungrateful" task as this one, which has meant jeers, calumnies, epithets, and nick-names against my person and my dignity?" (p.xiii-xiv)

A case of very physical and partly normal contact with aliens is reported by a man named Leland and documented by Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke (Encounters With Star People, Chapter 6, They Are Among Us). He describes what has happened during several nights at his ranch near the Nebraska border: ”They come at night. They hover over the field. They lower automobiles to the ground. They´re filled with people. The craft goes away and when the car returns the next night, only the driver returns. They take the car and the driver on board their spacecraft and then they´re gone again.”

Leland especially remember one night when he noticed that the car had a flat tire. The driver got out and walked to Leland´s cabin. ”He was a strange looking fellow… He wore a black suit with a white shirt and kept pulling at his necktie like he was not used to wearing it. He avoided looking at me so I never got a good look at his face, but he had a short thick neck. Almost no neck. Like his head sat directly at his shoulders. Maybe that´s why he struggled with the necktie. He just stood there. I got the feeling he wanted me to follow him”.

Leland follows the man and find three men and two women waiting in the car. None of them spoke. Leland help them change the tire and for this work he receives ten real silver dollars. Asked by Ardy Sixkiller Clarke what makes him think they are not humans his comment is: ”Well, they came in a spacecraft for one thing. They weren´t friendly. None of them spoke to me. They acted strange. Like they were scared or they didn´t belong here. The women were wearing those high heel shoes and had trouble walking in them like they had never worn them before.”

The alien covert activity theme was discussed in an article, Unseen, Unspoken, Unknown, by R. Perry Collins, published in Ivan T. Sanderson´s classic magazine Pursuit vol. 22 no. 1, 1991. Collins mention several cases involving aliens leaving UFOs and entering ordinary cars. "There have been UFO reports that may be directly representative of actions that are not staged, that are not demonstrations and may have not been intended for our perception." A newspaperman from the Miami Herald told Collins of a case involving a man in Miami, Florida. One evening he noticed a large, dark UFO hovering low over a field at the rear of his building. The object began lowering two large cylinders to the ground below. One contained a large Sedan and the other several men dressed in business suits, carrying briefcases. The UFO moved off into the evening sky. The men got into the Sedan and drove off the field, onto a nearby road, and away.

But who are the people encountered by Leland and Rincon? They are physical like us and seem to be earth-based in their activities.. If this is the case, where is their hiding place on this planet? Could some covert intelligence groups have discovered who these people are and trying to deal with the issue in their own way? Disclosure of such a fantastic scenario would probably not be regarded as an option by the people who have a need to know.

Very few of the scientific mainstream ufologists try to uncover the truth in these controversial areas. In his article R. Perry Collins comments on this situation: ”The facts that such reports are very seldom submitted and are scarce in the literature indicates that such direct activities are usually carried out in a completely covert manner. These reports do exist, however, and we must consider them in any complete analysis of the UFO situation.”

Another case illustrating the complexity of the contact experience case was investigated by then APRO respresentative Dr. James Harder, University of California and Dr. Evelyn Brunson. On January 23, 1985 I wrote a letter to Dr. Harder to get more data on his study but unfortunately received no answer. It is documented in Direct Encounters. Personal Histories of UFO Abductees (1980) by Judith and Alan Gansberg, pp. 19-23.

In August 1974 Lydia Stalnaker was driving north from Jacksonville, Florida when she saw a bright light coming out of the sky. She stopped the car at a parking area and got out to have a better look. Suddenly another car pulled into the area and a man that Stalnaker thought she vaguely knew joined her by the side of the road. They stared at the light hovering over some trees, assuming it was a helicopter and noticed it descending as if crashing behind the trees. They decided to drive toward the region to see if they could be of help.

”I asked the man if he had seen what I had seen… He said, ´Yes, and its right on time´. The man was short, less than five feet five inches, and had a dark, Italian or Jewish look… He coaxed me into his car, and we drove off to find the spot.”

When they got closer to the area of the assumed crash Stalnaker felt un uncomfortable sensation of being suffocated. ”Then it seemed like just a moment passed and we were heading back towards Jacksonville on another road. It was midnight and Stalnaker´s forehead was hurting and she felt nauseated. After this incident she was having frightening dreams of being on an operating table surrounded by people wearing masks, sticking painful needles in her sides. Eventually she sought professional help and was hypnotised. During hypnosis she recounted a classic abduction scenario. After the missing time incident Stalnaker developed telepathic and healing powers and received messages from the spaceman Antron.

What makes this case especially interesting is the physical meeting with the strange man in the parking area. Stalnaker tried to find him again but found out he had disappeared from the town. He had quit his job and no one new where he was. ”His employer said that the man had appeared in town one morning looking for work, but they did not know where he had come from.” I have not read of any ufologist who have followed up on these important clues. But this is the kind of data ufologists should look for.

In his series of articles Science, Counterintelligence and UFOs Val Germann recommends that the ufologist study the techniques and history of Intelligence work including counterintelligence and apply this knowledge when dealing with the more complicated and controversial UFO cases. From the flood of material and documents the researcher must sift out what is a) interesting, b) significant, c) correct information. The social and psychological problem of this endeavor is that the ufologist may find himself in pretty deep water, discovering aspects of reality that are exceedingly controversial and almost impossible to communicate to the general public.

”He can steep himself in the subject, try to collect everything relevant, and then be fearless in where that material leads him. This may sound like ”no big deal”, but for those who take the work seriously it is anything but trivial. In many cases the information relevant to the UFO can lead down rabbit holes where no respectable person would want to go. But down the hole the investigator he must go or he will not have the perspective needed to judge the relevance of information.”

What better way to finish an article like this than a quote from John Keel:

”Suppose a strange metallic disk covered with flashing colored lights settled in your backyard and a tall man in a one-piece silver space suit got out. Suppose he looked unlike any man you had ever seen before, and when you asked him where he was from, he replied, "I am from Venus. " Would you argue with him?”
(John Keel, Operation Trojan Horse, p. 214).

During the early AFU years in the 1970s and 80s we became increasingly aware of that any type of serious UFO research required an extensive and easily accessible archive, covering all aspects of the phenomenon. Not just reports, books, magazines etc. but also private correspondence and organizational files, facilitating a thorough study of the history of the UFO movement, including the psychological and sociological aspects. From the Heureka Moment when we became aware of the importance of saving archives the AFU team has consistently ”pestered” old ufologists with requests to donate their collections. No wonder Robert ”Bob” Rickard has named us The Viking Raiders.

Clas Svahn ready for our first road trip, Mariestad June 25, 1992

In the 1990s we began a systematic effort to locate old Swedish ufologists and representatives of UFO groups no longer active, to salvage and retrieve as many archives as possible. In this way much of Swedish UFO history was saved for future research. Practically all people contacted generously donated their archives but now and then our inquiry came to late and we were informed that all material had been burnt or dumped not long ago. A sad message when the collection was especially large or valuable. But many times we could celebrate a happy ending to our efforts when travelling home to AFU with still another archive in the car.

During the Summers of 1992-1993 Clas Svahn and I made two memorable road trips to the south of Sweden, combining field investigation with archive retrieval.

June 22, 1992
Clas Svahn pick me up by car in Norrköping and our first stop is Mariestad, birthplace of Clas. When 16 years old he began his ufological career by founding the local UFO-Sweden group UFO-Mariestad in 1974.

Mariestads-Tidningen, May 3, 1974

June 23, 1992
We head south towards Ängelholm and the home of pioneer ufologist and science fiction author Henrik Nanne. He wrote several sf-novels using the pen name Carl Henner. Henrik was a close associate of Edith Nicolaisen, founder of the publishing house Parthenon and he was the translator of the Swedish edition of Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski. Together with Henrik Nanne we first make a visit to the UFO monument outside Ängelholm sponsored by Swedish close encounter witness and contactee Gösta Carlsson. We spend the rest of the day in Henrik´s small one room apartment listening to his memories of the early UFO movement and also packing part of the Parthenon archive donated to AFU by Henrik. He offer us to stay the night in his small apartment but there are no beds for us so we try to sleep on the kitchen floor with only some sheets underneath. Not much sleep of course. We wake up every half hour with aching limbs. Luckily we were offered a couple of Whiskys before bedtime.

Clas Svahn and Henrik Nanne at the Gösta Carlsson UFO monument, Ängelholm June 23, 1992

Science fiction novel by Henrik Nanne (Carl Henner) published 1958

June 24, 1992
Tired and with aching limbs – but with high spirits - we continue our journey to Ebbe Johansson, another of the Swedish UFO pioneers, chairman of Malmö Interplanetariska Sällskap (MIS), founded in 1958. We also met Gert Carlsson and his wife. Gert was one of the founders of the magazine Arcanum, with articles on esoterism, UFOs and ancient mysteries. Arcanum also had a large library, which was now to be donated to AFU so we loaded the car with books and magazines. After saying godbye to our friends we returned to Norrköping and AFU with our latest donations.

Interviewing Ebbe Johansson at his home in Malmö

From left: Håkan Blomqvist, Ebbe Johansson, Gert Carlsson and wife

As we were promised further donations from several ufologists Clas and I made another road trip to the same southern part of Sweden during the Summer of 1993.

July 11, 1993
I go by train to Stockholm where Clas, together with his young son Niklas, pick me up by car and we travel to Enköping, loading the latest issue of UFO-Aktuellt. Crop circles was a big issue in the 1990s. Before going south we visit a field outside Sala to study a reported crop circle. Here we are met by UFO-Sweden board member Mats Nilsson and Ingrid Roxhed.

Looking for the crop circle. From left: Ingrid Roxhed, Mats Nilsson, Clas Svahn with Niklas

After having documented the crop circle the journey continues to Mariestad where little Niklas is taken care of by Clas´ parents and we head for Gothenburg and dinner with two UFO-interested ladies Louise and Wiweka.

July 12, 1993.
After breakfast at a Gothenburg hotel we spend a few hours visiting antiquarian bookshops. I bought a biography of French esotericist René Guénon and then our next stop was Henrik Nanne, Ängelholm.

July 13, 1993
As we had been promised further donations from the Arcanum library we travel to the home of Yngve Freij. Here to our great joy the entire library is given to AFU so now the car is once again filled with books.

Yngve Freij in front of the Arcanum library

One of the real pioneers of the Swedish UFO movement was librarian, translator and writer Roland Adlerberth (1923-1993). We had been promised a donation of his extensive collection of UFO and Fortean clippings. At his home we are met by his wife who helped us load the clipping collection, now housed at AFU.

Roland Adlerbeth interviewed in Morgon-Bladet, August 3, 1957

The Roland Adlerberth clipping collection at AFU

Before returning home our last visit was Gösta Carlsson at his home in Ängelholm. We waited a long time before he appeared but finally he let us in for an extended interview. The result of this interview and many others done by Clas Svahn resulted in the by now classic Mötet i gläntan (Meeting in the Glade). Already published in two editions, a third edition is in the planning.

Clas Svahn interviewing Gösta Carlsson July 13, 1993

Back at AFU Clas and I could once again celebrate a successful journey, resulting in new donations and joyful memories.

UFO-Sweden Memories 1972

Sten Lindgren and the Enigmatic BEA

Rosemary Decker - Silent Contactee

UFO-Sweden Memories - Lersäter

The IGAP Movement in Sweden

Rosemary Decker and Millen Le Poer Trench - Contactees

UFO-Sweden Memories - The UFO Cottage

Consolation For Isolated Ufologists

Space People - Physical Versus Etheric

The Quarantined Planet

Missing Time and Space Animals 1922

The Alien Visitors - volume II

Robots, Androids and the Real Visitors

When Santa Claus Came to AFU

UFOs That Vanish and Dissolve

UFO-Sweden Memories - Ängelholm 1996

Visitors From the Multiverse

Invisibility and Materialization

"They Have Hidden Behind the Extraterrestrial Myth"

AFU Memories - Road Trips With Clas Svahn 1992-1993