Angel hairs

Angel hairs: the one and only from Sweden

By Anders Liljegren

I have checked our computer file for angel hair cases. The computer search lined up quite well with what my own biological brain memory had registered -- there is seemingly just ONE such case from Sweden.

No UFO was seen simultaneous to this fall of "angel hairs", according to our report files. No UFO phenomenon was reported from any place in Sweden in the pre-noon hours of October 5, 1969, when the following was reported from the western part of our country. I quote here from two small articles in the newspaper Goteborgs-Posten (G-P):

LONG THREADS OF FIBRE FELL FROM THE AIR

(From the G-P Varmland office). Saffle: A very strange aerial polution was observed Sunday morning in the Saffle area. Long cobweb-like threads of fibre were seen to slowly fall to the ground during several hours. Some threads were up to four meters long and some had down-clad lumps at the ends.

It was dead calm in the Saffle area on the Sunday morning and the person from Varmlandsbro who [first] reported this to G-P had also had the occasion to hold in his hands the threads that had fallen to the ground. They were sticky, he said, and disintegrated on being rubbed between his fingers.

The threads could be seen in the air at a distance of about 100 meters. They were most easy to discover against the sun. The G-P local editor could also make the same observation in central Säffle, where the cobweb-light material even had fallen on cars. G-P made contact with the Swedish Meteorological Institute whose assistant-in-charge never had received any report of a similar occurence.

G-P also contacted Dr. Sven Rydholm at Billeruds AB [a paper mill] and Dr. Wirén at Svenska Rayon AB, a textile industry, at Valberg who, neither of them, could give a good explanation for the falling substances. The collected material, which could be seen all over the lawns in the residential district of Varmlands Bro, will on Monday be sent to a lab for tests.

Source: Goteborgs-Posten, Oct 6, 1969

FALL OF FIBRES WAS COBWEB THREADS

At several places in west-Sweden many people saw long threads falling from the sky on Sunday morning. What it was noone knew, but they looked like threads of fibre. Dr. Nils Dahlback of Gothenburg, a very wellknown Swedish biologist, known for his radio and TV shows on zoological subjects, does not dare to give a definite answer but is quite sure it is the question of spiderwebs, which were whirled into the air during the previous storm and which then fell to the ground when it became calm.

The phenomenon was seen at several places in [the counties of] Varmland and Bohuslan and many phoned G-P wondering what it was all about.

One person thought he could make out that the threads were buish-white in colour which caused on humorist to theorize that it was "angel's hair" torn off in the flush of victory after the Sunday victory on Ullevi, the football stadium in Gothenburg.

Dr Dahlback thinks it is the question of cobwebs... torn free and caught by the wind. Some of those who have seen the fibres stated that they were glittering. This could be the effect if water drops were caught on the threads, says Dr. Dahlback, who also informs us that small spiders sometimes can be seen to follow their threads into the air. That so many sightings were made over a wide area, Dr. Dahlback thinks was because such a large area had the same kind of weather. It has been a strong wind, threads have been blown into the sky and then fallen to the ground.

Source: Goteborgs-Posten, Oct 7, 1969

AFU - Archives for UFO Research has no report on the lab tests of threads promised. Maybe this was published in some other October 1969 issue of the newspaper, not found yet.

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