UFO-Aktuellt issue 4, 2003

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

Page 2: The Saucer that never took off

Short article about the Italian airplane constructor F. Tallei, who during World War II came up with an idea for a new type of aircraft, which resembles the traditional flying saucer. In Tallei's mind, the aircraft would run by a fifty meter propeller that spun upwards, much like the one Leonardo da Vinci had designed some 500 years before. Tallei's machine was, however, never constructed in real life, a fate shared by many other saucer-shaped aircraft that was designed during World War II.

Page 3: Editorial

Chairman Clas Svahn devotes this issue's editorial to the fact that the UFO phenomenon doesn't attract as much attention in media as it used to, at least not in Sweden. It was different before, especially back in the 1970s when the debate between Swedish saucerians and skeptics was both loud and intense. Still, Svahn emphasizes the fact that for the last 15 years, UFO-Sweden has focused on scientific work and investigations, instead of looking for juicy material to please proponents for the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and this is without a doubt a reason why the Swedish ET-debate has faded over the years. But UFO-Sweden works closely together with different Swedish media, and over all the organization is met with both respect and interest. However, the real debate is missing, and thus Svahn urges his readers to ventilate, to write letters to the editor, and do other things to get a discussion going.

Pages 4-7: Sixteen years with Gösta Carlsson

A long article by Svahn, accompanied by several photographs, about the most famous of Swedish contactees: Gösta Carlsson. Carlsson passed away on 24 September, 2003, at an age of 84. Svahn and Carlsson met for the first time on 6 August, 1987, after Svahn had decided to pursue a thorough investigation of the close encounter Carlsson claimed to have had on 18 May, 1946. Their work resulted in book published in 1995; "Mötet i Gläntan" (English approximately "The meeting in the Clearing"). Having sold nearly 3.000 copies, the book is the first thorough investigation of a Swedish contactee, and one of few - maybe even the only? - book in the contactee genre written together with the contactee himself. Svahn offers an open and very personal insight in who Carlsson was and what he was like, and he is without a doubt one of the strongest glowing stars in the Swedish UFO history.

Pages 8-9: The Story of Gösta Carlsson

Another article by Svahn, taken directly from his book about the Carlsson case. Carlsson was more than just a contactee. Born in 1918 outside Ängelholm (where he later was to have his close encounter), Carlsson went from being a poor child to become a successful inventor of nature-cure medicine based on pollen, an industry that would in time make him a millionaire. The meeting in 1946 was the main reason why he chose to pursue his ambitions in medicine. He earned the nickname "The Pollen King", and besides his successful medications Carlsson worked hard (and spent much money) on supporting the local ice-hockey team, which gained some success in the 1960's. Carlsson was a man with strong beliefs, and he never stopped believing that he in his late twenties met visitors from another world.

Page 10: Book Reviews

Four books reviewed by this time, all of them by Svahn. Three of them are in Swedish, and they're all for juveniles. The fourth book is Journal of UFO Studies Volume 8, edited by Stuart Apelle, a compilation Svahn is very pleased with indeed, since it contains "several good investigations by competent ufologists".

Page 11: The Martebo Lights Featured in Detective Story

The chairman of the local group in Stockholm, Inga-Lill Wallin, published three years ago her book about the mysterious Martebo Lights, a strange light that has been seen in Gotland, Sweden, for many centuries. Now the lights have appeared in another book, this time a fictive detective story written by Anna Jansson. In the book, Jansson's sixth, two of the main characters can be found discussing the strange lights. The article, written by Svahn, also offers a short history of the lights.

Pages 12-14: The Secrets of the Moth Man

Article by John Sherwood, and translated by Stefan Roslund. The article tells the story of Gray Barker, by many known as one of the more infamous characters in the history of ufology and paranormal research. Barker, who wrote among other things the classic "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers" which introduces the notorious Men in Black, passed away in 1984 at the age of 59, and was a friend of Sherwood's. According to the latter, Baker was a man who deliberately promoted hoaxes, co-operated in other people's frauds, and manipulated the belief systems of his surroundings. John Keel, another strong name in paranormal research, had a long-time feud with Baker, one of the reasons being both men's interest in the Mothman mystery. However, Sherwood paints a picture where Baker was in it for the money and the sheer fun of fooling others, while Keel was more of a serious researcher. It's hard for an outsider to really get the full picture of who the bad guy was, but Sherwood still offers much evidence to why Baker wasn't quite the ufologist many thinks he was.

Pages 15-17: Invisible Forces

UFO-Sweden's expert on fortean phenomena, Richard Svensson, writes (and as always, draws beautiful pictures) about bizarre things, not necessarily UFO related. This time it's strange, unknown, and strong forces in nature that comes under examination. Old tales tell of people entering into parts of the land that was under fairy- or troll-control, and as a result of that they became paralyzed. Trolls and similar mythological creatures were known to have the ability to paralyze, and one can easily find parallels to contemporary ufology, where stories of cars suddenly dying when a UFO or extraterrestrial is near, or people becoming immobile when encountering other-worldly beings.

Pages 18-19: International ufology

Stefan Roslund has thirteen short news about the international UFO, and forteana, scene. Among other things, Roslund mentions how a retired American soldier who used to serve at Rendlesham claims to be the man behind the - in his eyes very mundane - famous incident in 1980, an alleged alien abduction in Brazil that Linda Moulton Howe has investigated, a research trips to Lake Champlain and Loch Ness that for the former resulted in some curious underwater sounds, and crop circles in Arkansas.

Pages 20-21: Media Watch

C Göran Norlén gives a review of news clippings from Swedish media, this time from August 2003 up until and including October 2003. Norlén sort of continues the discussion Svahn had in his editorial, but adds a little more negativity to it. But not too much, though. As usual, there have been both very good and very bad things said in Swedish media about the UFO phenomenon.

Pages 22-23: The World According to Strieber

Article by Andreas Ohlsson, where he tells the story of Whitely Strieber, the horror writer who allegedly was abducted by extraterrestrials on 26 December, 1985. Ohlsson gives an update to what Strieber is up to these days, how he has continued writing books and how his wife Anne Strieber is handling Strieber's own website: Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country. Apparently Strieber is still convinced that extraterrestrials do exist, and that they have indeed abducted him once. Ohlsson quotes him saying "The visitors are entirely real and they are here taking sexual material and tissues from human beings". The article is accompanied by a photograph taken by Svahn of Strieber when he visited Sweden in 1988.

Pages 24-25: Book Advertisements

Two pages with ads for books and booklets offered and produced by UFO-Sweden.

Pages 26-27: The Hessdalen Phenomenon

Article by UFO Norway's Arnulf Løken, and translated by Jörgen Granlie. Løken has met with Bjarne Lillevold, a Norwegian who have lived in Hessdalen for forty years. The valley of Hessdalen is famous throughout the ufological world for its mysterious lights, which have shown themselves on numerous occasions. In the article Lillevold tells of some of his more interesting sightings. The article first appeared in UFO-Norway's magazine UFO, no.3-4 2002.

Pages 28-29: Empty Promises From UFO Religions

Article by Stefan Isaksson, where he talks about some of the promises offered over the years by different New Religious UFO Movements. Isaksson mentions among other things Unarius, Heaven's Gate, and above all the Raëlian Religion. The latter has gained much publicity from its leader, His Holiness Raël, who is a strong cloning-proponent. But, as is the case with all the other religions, the Raëlians have yet to come up with real evidence for their claims.

Pages 30-31: A Car Full of Books

Article by Svahn, where he tells the story of when he and UFO Aktuellt's editor Håkan Ekstrand went to England in October, 2003, to pick up donations in the form of books and other UFO material from both Gordon Creighton's son Philip. The two spend many hours at the house of the late Gordon Creighton gathering books, and the next day they went to see Hilary Evans and his Mary Evans Picture Library, where additional material was picked up. But Svahn and Ekstrand didn't just receive material, they also donated several Swedish magazines from the late 19th and early 20th century. When the trip was over the two had collected more than 500 books and a couple of thousand periodicals in many different languages; material that will be available at the Archive for UFO Research (http://www.afu.info).

Back page: UFO Photograph Taken With Cellphone

Article by Svahn and Jimmy Sassi, about the first Swedish UFO photograph taken with a cellphone equipped with a digital camera. The photograph was taken 12 October, 2003, in northern Sweden, and shows a strong light against a dark background. UFO-Sweden's field investigators suspects that it might be a photograph of a helicopter with its headlights on, but the case is still under investigation.