UFO-Aktuellt issue 3, 2004

A short summary in English, by Stefan Isaksson, of the contents in UFO-Sweden's quarterly magazine.

Page 2: Pictures sent to UFO-Sweden

From time to time, pictures are sent to UFO-Sweden for analysis. This time two observers in Älvsjö in southern Stockholm managed to snap two pictures of a strange object in the sky at nine o'clock in the evening on 12 June, 2004. According to Bjarne Håkansson, who was responsible for the analysis of the pictures, it's likely to be a hot air balloon, but cannot tell for sure. The article is accompanied by the two pictures the observers sent in.

Page 3: Editorial

Chairman Clas Svahn devotes this issueís editorial to talking about the fascination of the unknown. The world is indeed a strange place, and Svahn praises the fact that we cannot, and do not, know everything about everything. An experience is a very personal, subjective, event, especially when it goes beyond what the individual can comprehend. And is it legit question someone's personal experience? Indeed, Svahn argues. That's what drives him; not being satisfied with some of the answers, embarking on a personal journey out towards what cannot be understood or explained by rational scientific methods. As we are entering a winter with glowing stars in the dark winter sky, who knows what will be seen and reported? "It's never wrong to look up at the skies", Svahn says. "There are a lot of beautiful things to be seen up there".

Pages 4-7: The "glowing bus" in 1965

Article by Svahn, accompanied by four extravagant pictures, about an event that took place on 29 October, 1965. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Swedes watched as a glowing object majestically traveled over the night sky, but despite the multitude of witnesses; only one managed to document the event. Erik Ehnmark took several pictures of the glowing object, and Svahn has, thorough as ever, met with him and discussed what took place. He also tells an amusing tale of how a meeting put together by Swedish believers with the famous contactee Wayne Aho was interrupted when the object passed overhead. "It happens all the time, wherever I go", Aho is quoted as having said, and not surprisingly some people "knew" it was Venusian beamships that had decided to take a trip over Stockholm. However, the truth was quite different, which the next article shows.

Page 8: Beamship? No. Satellite? Yes.

On 10 June, 1966, Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory published its special report no. 214. The report was devoted to one single event: how satellite 1965-79A entered the Earth's atmosphere and finally disintegrated after having been followed by special observers in Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark. Svahn gives a detailed description of how the satellite traveled across Europe, what it looked like during the final stages of its existence, and where it finally disappeared. So it was no bus, nor a beamship. Just a very normal satellite.

Page 9: Philip K. Dick and the Believers

Short article by Andreas Ohlsson, about a story taken from the recently published biography about science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick, entitled "I am alive and you are dead - A journey into the mind of Philip K. Dick" (Metropolitan Books, 2004). As the story goes, at the end of the 1950s, Dick was invited by a group of believers in extraterrestrial visitations who lived in the same town as he did, Point Reyes Station northwest of San Francisco. They told him Jesus was an alien, and that the world was to end on 23 April, 1959. But apparently it didn't, and thus Dick was correct when he eventually told the group that he didnít share their beliefs.

Page 9: The passing of Dr. John Mack

Short notice about the tragic passing of famous abductee researcher Dr. John Mack, who was killed by a drunk driver as he passed a street in London on 27 September this year.

Page 10: The Ice that Fell from the Sky

At around 20:30 pm on 29 July, 2004, a large piece of ice fell from the sky and touched down in the garden of the Sjöberg family in Kvicksund, Sweden. Several explanations were offered for the strange incident, but Svahn reveals that it was actually a piece of ice falling from a Finnair Airbus 938, on it's way from Manchester, England to Stockholm Airport.

Page 10: Book Reviews

Two books reviewed by this time, both by Stefan Isaksson. The two books represent two sides of the paranormal; hardcore skeptics and hardcore believers. The former is represented by Georges Charpak and Henri Broch, who together has written Debunked! ESP, telekinesis and other pseudoscience (The Johns Hopkins University Press) and the latter by Michael E. Salla and his book Exopolitics - Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Science (Dandelion Books). The books have much in common, despite being more or less two sides of the same story: both the skeptics and the believer promote their own views without much understanding of or consideration about the fact that the truth is perhaps not always as apparent as they want the reader to think.

Page 11: Bizarre Ring of Smoke

Article by Svahn, accompanied by several pictures, about a ring of smoke that appeared in the sky over Svalöv, southern Sweden, in July, 2004. Local media wrote about the event, and field investigators from UFO-Sweden assumed it to be a) industrial effluent, b) an explosion on the ground, or c) the aftermath of a flash of lightning. However, field investigator Mikael Karlson eventually cracked the case. It was a group of students at a nearby folk high-school who had been working on special effects for a movie, and one of these special effects had caused the smoke ring.

Pages 12-13: Time to Retire

Article by Andreas Ohlsson, about one of Sweden's most famous (or infamous, depending on who you are asking) ufologists: Sune Hjorth. Hjorth has written extensively over the years about such topics as extraterrestrial visitations and governmental cover-ups, and the article is a short resume over his life, how he came to be interested in the world of UFOs, and various things he wants to talk about. The man has much to say and some of the stories can be quite amusing, regardless if you believe in them or not. Hjorth is now retiring from the UFO field, but he will not quit believing in his sometimes extremely bizarre ideas.

Pages 14-17: A Swedish Astrobiologist

Long and thorough article by Svahn, about Tomas Hode, a Swedish graduate student in astrobiology, the line of science devoted to finding life outside planet Earth. In the summer of 2005, Hode is going to Portland State University, taking along with him a study of the largest meteorite impact in Sweden, a place where life might have been created. Hode is fascinated with Mars, and when asked by Svahn what a discovery of traces of life on Mars would mean, Hode says that it simply would mean that the creation of life is a somewhat simple process, and that if life existed on Mars, then it might as well exist on countless other planets in universe. The article details the life and ambitions of a young, enthusiastic scientist, and proves that not all scholars are dull, old men who donít believe anything except "traditional" established scientific theories.

Page 17: The UFO that was a Pirate

Article by Anders Persson, about a UFO sighting that took place on 20 July, 2004, outside Falkenberg, Sweden. Several different witnesses observed the UFO, and some thought it resembled a glider, while others disagreed. As it came nearer they could see that it was green, about 2-3 meters large, and with a red mark on it. It came to a stop, continued, came to a stop again, and continued in that manner as it passed over the houses. After a thorough and sometimes rather tricky investigation (described in detail in the article), the solution was found: it was simply a pirate-shaped balloon bought by a family visiting a nearby fair.

Pages 18-20: Horrific Fauna

UFO Swedenís expert on fortean phenomena, Richard Svensson, writes (and as always, draws beautiful pictures) about bizarre things, not necessarily UFO related. This time itís all about trees that, allegedly, have a tendency to devour humans. Such trees are not known to mainstream science (fortunately), but just as with any other thing paranormal; just because science doesn't acknowledge it doesn't mean there aren't any reports. Svensson tells of several incidents that according to various books took place in South America and Africa, with white men going on daring expeditions and sometimes not returning to tell what they found. So far no real evidence of man-eating plants have been produced, and itís probably safe to say that weíll have to wait for quite some time before we have to start worrying about entering the woods.

Page 21: Advertisements

Various advertisements of books sold by UFO-Sweden.

Pages 22-24: Media Watch

C Göran Norlén gives a review of news clippings from Swedish media, this time from the end of April 2004 up until the beginning of September 2004. As always, there have been both very good and very bad things said in Swedish media about the UFO phenomenon. Norlén isn't very pleased with a lot of things, and he makes sure the reader becomes aware of that.

Page 25: Various short articles

Five short articles by Svahn, about a few pictures that turned out to be not-so-strange after all, how six Dutch F-16 airplanes were mistaken for UFOs, and various circles in the ground found in Sweden.

Pages 26-27: International Ufology

Stefan Roslund has nine short news about the international UFO, and forteana, scene. Among other things, Roslund mentions crop circle investigations in California, Albert Rosales and his database of humanoid encounters (known as The Humanoid Contact Database), the archaeological excavation at Roswell, New Mexico, and the infamous Bigfoot footage by Robert Patterson, which has, once again, been exposed as a hoax.

Pages 28-29: News from the Report Central

Strange things are indeed taking place in the skies. The Report Central run by UFO-Sweden receive several hundred reports annually, and in this issue of UFO Aktuellt Pelle Persson presents three of them, taking place in 1974, 1992, 1994, and 2004. The article is also accompanied by four different photographs sent to the Report Central of odd things seen in the skies.

Pages 30-31: A UFO-Sweden Poll

UFO Sweden's Jennifer Forss has done a small survey about UFO-Sweden and the UFO phenomenon in general. She asked 70 people to participate, and she presents her findings on two pages. Some of the questions were; Do you know about UFO-Sweden? (37% yes, 63% no), Do you know about the so-called Roswell Incident? (66% yes, 34% no), and Have you ever seen a UFO? (73% yes, 27% no).

Back page: Picture taken by - Columbia?

Short article by Svahn about a beautiful NASA color picture, taken from space, depicting Europe by night. The picture was said to have been taken by the crew onboard the doomed space shuttle Columbia (or so it said on the internet), but Svahn tells it like it is, that the picture is a mix of several different pictures taken by satellites a long time before Columbia was even launched.