  |
Legend of the
|
Legend of the
By Ole Jonny Brænne
For almost 40 years rumors have told of a crashed flying saucer on the remote
But what really happened - if anything happened at all - on
Some of you are certainly familiar with the basic facts of the story, but for all of us to get well acquainted with it, we'll start off with the original source. We believe the first mention of a saucer crash on
We will give you an English translation of it, here:
FLYING SAUCER LANDED ON
The puzzle finally solved?
"Silvery disc with dome of plexiglass and 46 jets on the rim" - Soviet origin?
Narvik, mid-June: Norwegian jet planes had just started this year's summer maneuvers over
Nevertheless, the highly experienced pilots were able to communicate with each other by means of circling and diving, so that each of them was aware of circling and diving, so that each of them was aware of their common situation, each one searching the horizon with the utmost attention. The six fighters circled for some time not finding anything that was out of the ordinary.
By chance, Air Captain Olaf Larsen happened to look down. Immediately he started to dive, followed by his squadron. On the white snowy landscape, the crusty surface of which had an icy glitter, there was a metallic, glittering circular disc of between 40 and 50 meters diameter, which was even brighter than icy snow. Between some wires and a tangle of supporting struts in the middle, the remains of an apparently partly destroyed cockpit protruded. While circling for 60 minutes, the jet pilots could neither detect any sign of life nor determine the origin or type of the vehicle. Finally, they took course for Narvik in order to report their strange findings.
Just a few hours later, five big flying boats, equipped with landing skis, took off for the place of discovery. They landed safely next to the bluish steel disc, which was sitting in a bed of snow and ice of more than one meter's depth.
"Undoubtedly one of the infamous flying saucers", claimed Dr. Norsel, a Norwegian rocket specialist, who had insisted on joining the flight. He also established the reason why all means of communication of the fighter planes had broken down on entering the zone of the landing spot, and why the radar equipment had signaled the alarm: a radio direction finder equipped with a plutonium core was undamaged and transmitting on all wave lengths at a frequency of 934 Hertz, which is not known by any country.
A presise inspection of the remote-controlled flying disc that landed on the Nordaustlandet of Spitsbergen due to interference problems, led to the following indisputable information. The flying object, which has a diameter of 48,88 meters and slanting sides, is round and was unmanned. The circular steel object, is made out of an unknown metal compound, resembles a silver disc. After ignition, 46 automatic jets, located at equal distances on the outer ring, rotate the disc around a plexiglassed center ball, that contains measuring and control devices for remote control. The measuring instruments (gauges) have Russian symbols. The action radius of the disc seems to be more than 30.000 km, and the altitude over 160 km. The flying object, which resembles one of the legendary "flying saucers", has sufficient room for high explosive bombs, possibly nuclear bombs.
The Norwegian specialists assumed that the disc had started from the
~J.M.M.
The author of the "Zeitung" article - J.M.M. - has not been possible to track down. Newspaper archives have no information which can be of help to us. The very same article was also published by yet another newspaper, Berliner Volksblatt (2), on July 9, 1952. In early August 1952, the story got another mention in the German periodical Der Flieger (3), in an article by a Dr. Waldemar Beck. This mention probably spread the story to a far greater audience, even carried by the AFP news service into the CIA archives (4). Later authors often refer to the "Der Flieger" version.
There are several points in the "Zeitung" article which are quite interesting. They include the speculation about a possible Soviet origin, and the fact that we get the names of two persons presumably involved in the discovery and investigation of the disc itself - Air Captain Olaf Larsen and Dr. Norsel. This we must keep in mind as we proceed on our investigation.
A few books that appeared in 1953-54, briefly mentioned the
Additional information comes then to our attention through yet another German newspaper, the Hessische Nachrichten (8), which published this account on July 26, 1954:
"FLYING SAUCERS" ARE NO FABLE
Norwegian military report of "unknown flying object" on
Only now a board of inquiry of the Norwegian General Staff is preparing the publication of a report on the examinations of the remains of a flying saucer crashed on
The
According to Colonel Darnhyl, the board of inquiry is not going to publish an extensive report until "some sensational facts" have been discussed with experts from the
We must tell the public what we know about the unknown flying objects. A misplaced secrecy may well one day lead to panic!
The North Pole, base for unknowns?
The Norwegian fighter pilots, Lieutenant Brobs and Lieutenant Tyllensen, who, since the
"I believe that the polar area is an air base for the unknowns. Especially during snow and ice storms, when we, with our machines, must retreat to our base, it is my belief that the flying objects take advantage of this to make landings. I have, shortly after such bad weather conditions, seen them land and take off three times", said Lieutenant Tyllensen.
I noticed then, that having landed, they execute a very speedy rotation around their axis. During flight, and take off, or landing, the brilliant light prevents any view of the events behind this wall of brilliance and on, or inside, the flying object itself.
Enough of physical evidence
Colonel Darnhyl thinks that, within the next twelve months, a solution to these technical problems will be found, or, at least, science will be on the right track towards solving the UFO problem.
We now have material at hand, on which we can start. That means laboratories can start the work right away and they might give us preliminary results shortly. Norwegian scientists think that the material from
The communication from Swedish TV-set owners, that their reception recently was interfered with every time flying saucers were reported over northern Sweden, caused sensation in circles of the Norwegian board of inquiry. In consequence of this Colonel Darnhyl hopes, sooner or later, to track down the communication system of unknown flying objects.
~Sven Thygesen.
A lot of people will think that this definitely is a change for the better! The wreckage is no longer of a possible Soviet origin, but extraterrestrial. And we also got additional named persons involved: Chairman of the board Colonel Gernod Darnhyl (misspelled Darnbyl by several later sources), and Norwegian Lieutenants Brobs and Tyllensen. Sven Thygesen, the author of the "Nachrichten" article, is another person we haven't been able to track down. Yet, in this case we have a name, not just initials.
Later this same year a new twist to the
SOUTH AMERICAN REPORT OF FLYING SAUCER IN
Contradicts information of it having Russian writing
The Uruguayan newspaper "El Nacional" of
Mr. Larsen Løberg says that this saucer in reality crashed (fell down) on Heligoland (Hålogaland - Helgeland?) which is a small island in the
Larsen Løberg also retracts the rumour that the saucer was supposed to have Russian writing. It had, he says, a diameter of 91 feet and a thickness on the middle of about 70 feet. In the spaceship's control room they found a number of push-buttons. It was deduced that it could travel aided by the magnetic forces that hold the planets in their positions in space, and these forces are controlled by said buttons. They found no engine in the spaceship, nor could they discover any rivets, fuses or bolts. The outer surface was shiny and transparent.
Pills and heavy water
The material used was as light as aluminum, but very much harder, and probably much heat-resistant. Of the things found in its interior, they noticed some water that was three times as heavy as normal water, and a few pills which were taken to be food. There was also an apparatus which probably was a radio. It was quite small and had no antenna. They also found some books, probably navigational instructions, in a completely unknown writing. The doors of the spaceship were open. Just inside of the doors were 7 bodies, burned beyond recognition. Scientists are of the opinion, according to Larsen Løberg, that the bodies were of men at the age of between 25 and 30 years, about 1,65 m tall. All had perfect sets of teeth.
Beam-gun
Dr. Hans Larsen Løberg could also tell about the finding of a completely unknown weapon, a beam-gun which used magnetic rays. This gun, he thinks, explains a number of strange incidents in the
Crew burned to death
The reason for the crash of this saucer, he thought, had to be that it was affected by the American hydrogen-bomb explosions. The material of the spaceship, and its apparatus, resisted the enormous heat, but the crew burned to death. The newspaper which picked up the story in
VG has investigated, in
Obviously, somebody is mixing two different versions of the story, here. We are told that the saucer didn't fall on
In addition we get to know yet another person by name: the Norwegian scientist Hans Larsen Løberg. He becomes person number 7 in this jigsaw. The "Verdens Gang" article refers to an Uruguayan newspaper, El Nacional (10), which again, has a Brazilian source. Our South American contacts have not yet been able to get hold of this article, but we have managed to track down the first mention of the
FIRST REPORT ON THE CAPTURED FLYING SAUCER!
By E.W. Greenfell
On a tiny island in the
In his report, Dr. Løberg said the mysterious cracking and shattering of automobile windshields in several U.S. cities a few months ago may be explained when results of the investigation are in. Because, he added, the grounded saucer is reported to carry firing instruments capable of shattering glass with magnetic rays.
The saucer came down on Heligoland, a small island which the Germans used as a U-boat base during World War I. Since the
It was not a crash-up, and investigators found most of the saucer's instruments in good condition. On ground near the ship were found the bodies of seven men, all burned beyond recognition. They may, or may not, have been passengers aboard the weird flying craft.
Dr. Løberg, one-time winner of the Hungarian Physics Award, said descriptive details of the saucer were told him by a fellow-scientist who is with the investigating team on Heligoland.
If magnetic rays from the flying saucer shattered auto windshields, then police in several American cities will close the books on a case which drove then to the boiling point a few months ago. it all began in the city of
While the astounding story made headlines throughout the
The saucer's magnetic ray gun, which Dr. Løberg believes responsible for all the disintegrating glass, may also provide a solution for yet another mystery - an airplane crash near Fort Knox, Ky., on January 7, 1948. On that day an unidentified object was sighted over Goodman Air force Base at
"I'm closing in now to take a good look," he reported.
It's directly ahead of me and still moving at about half my speed. This thing looks metallic and of tremendous size... It's going up now and forward as fast as I am. That's 360 miles per hour... I'm going up to 20000 feet and if I'm no closer I'll abandon chase.
The time was
If the Heligoland saucer's magnetic ray gun is in good condition, it may reveal the power to shatter airplanes as well as glass.
Dr. Løberg contends the craft apparently landed under guidance of its own instruments and the investigators studied it at a distance for two days before risking closer observation. The area where the saucer came down was bombarded with cosmic rays, Geiger counters and other protective devices before investigation began.
The seven charred bodies found around the saucer are yet unidentified. Their clothing was burned away completely and there were no clues to indicate whether they were passengers aboard the craft, or whether they were Heligoland residents ventured too close to the saucer too soon. Curiously, all seven men seemed to be from 25 to 30 years of age and of the same height - about 5 feet 8 inches. All had excellent teeth.
Investigators have one theory: That the seven men were passengers who were consumed by fire inside the descending ship. The blaze had been caused by sudden changes in atmospheric pressure conditions inside the saucer's hermetically sealed cabin. Atop the craft was a trap-door through which the seven bodies could have been thrown by the impact of landing.
Even more curious were the ship's measurements. It was 91 feet in diameter and the cabin 70 feet high. In fact, all dimensions were dividable by seven. On the control board were a series of push-buttons, but investigators are still studying the interior mechanism to learn what propelled the saucer in flight.
Dr. Løberg's theory is that the disk may have travelled by harnessing magnetic lines of force which scientists know encircle the nine planets of the solar system. He points out that there was no motor and no propeller, but if magnetic force is involved, the saucer would move just as a nail moves when approached by a magnet.
The landing gear resembled a tripod of three metal cylinders which would revolve in any direction. There were no bolts, rivets or screws on the saucer and in the construction were found two metals which are entirely unknown to scientists. Outer metal of the ship was light in weight and resembled aluminum, but it was so hard that even 15,000 degrees Fahrenheit could not melt it down. Two men could easily lift one side of the saucer.
Although it was not immediately established that the seven burned men were former passengers of the ship, investigators found equipment inside which definitely resembled living quarters! Well-enclosed bunks were ingeniously placed on one side of the cabin's interior.
A liquid resembling water but almost three times as heavy as normal drinking water, was found in two small containers. On a wall-bracket was a tube filled with a large number of pills, possibly tabulated food.
The saucer's radio, which had no tubes, no wires and no aerial, was about as small as a king-size cigarette package. Pamphlets and booklets, which seem to deal with navigation problems, were also found but investigators are still trying to decipher the script used in the text.
Dr. Løberg emphasized that when the Heligoland investigation is completed, the report will add a new chapter to flying saucer history.
Where, or by whom, these two stories have been mixed up, will possibly be a lot easier to determine when we get the South American articles, but it is quite clear that we are dealing with two different stories.
Now, if we move forward in time to November 1956, we find that the Dutch magazine UFO-Gids (12) published, with minor changes, almost the same text as the "Hessische Nachrichten". But the Dutch magazine does not credit "Hessische Nacrichten" for the story. Instead, it gives "Stuttgarts Dagblad" for
In later accounts, Stuttgarter Tageblatt (13) has been alleged to have been the origin of the Darnhyl version, a story which surfaced already in 1954. Obviously, someone tried to 'germanize' "Stuttgarts Dagblad", and didn't care too much for investigating his source.
Non-existent newspaper
Several sources has used "Stuttgarter Tageblatt" as a source for the
The story goes on, and in 1966 Frank Edwards' book Flying Saucers - Serious Business (14) is published. Edwards claims to have been in contact with a member of the Norwegian board of inquiry. We will bring the relevant section here:
In 1954 when I wrote to a member of the Norwegian Board of Inquiry which had investigated the
This alleged contact can not be regarded as anything but an attempt to make the story "better". He does not name his alleged contact, and copies of the letters, which would have been natural to include in his book, never surfaced.
New twists to the story
In 1968, Arthur Shuttlewood's book Warnings From Flying Friends (15) was published. here he recounts an article by Bruce Sandham, "Invasion from Space" (16). Sandham says that a Catalina flying boat, not six jets, discovered the object, and he gives May 1952 and not June 1952 as the date. Where he got his information from we don't know. Obviously it is yet another "twist" to the story.
Through the years the
Oh yes, confusion. More of that is added in 1986 by William Steinman in his book UFO Crash At Aztec (17). First of all he gets the
The latest article I will discuss here is "New Information on The Spitsbergen Saucer Crash" by William L. Moore, in Focus 5 (18), dated December 31, 1990. In this article,
It tells of a Swiss report published by the D.A.T. (Territorial Air Defense) on flying saucers, describing WW2 Schriever/Habermohl/Miethe Nazi saucer experiments. Claiming the
This is, basically, the Spitsbergen UFO crash/retrieval story as of today. Now we can either let it keep wandering from magazine to magazine as endless rehashes, or we can do a little basic research to check the story out. What I will do now, is to tell you what investigation others have done, what investigation I have done, and finally we will concentrate our attention on the Norwegian air force jets around the Winter of 1951/Spring 1952 period.
If we look at page 118 of Robert G. Girard's An Early U.F.O. Scrap Book (20), we find an undated newspaper clipping which is very interesting. It tells what the "Der Flieger" article said about the incident, and included that "Norwegian Air Force headquarters denied all knowledge of the report and said it never had heard of 'Dr. Norsel'". This clipping is probably dated around August-September 1952.
In 1954, the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang made inquiries, in Oslo, about the name of Hans Larsen Løberg (as we remember, involved with the Helgoland story), but everyone asked, who ought to know about such a man, stated that the name was completely unknown.
American inquiries
According to the book The UFO Evidence (21), NICAP wrote to the Norwegian Embassy in 1958, receiving this reply: "Our Air Force's UFO material is mainly of security graded nature and cannot be put to the disposal of NICAP". I have not seen the letter myself. This letter has been used as evidence of a secret classification of the
According to the Condon report, Scientific study of Unidentified Flying Objects (22), "it seems well established that this story has no basis in fact".
Further inquiries in
A Norwegian researcher, Arne Børcke, visited the Ministry of Defence in late 1973. There, he was able to sift through all the material they had about this case. Ever since the story surfaced in 1952, they had received numerous letters from interested persons of all categories. but the Ministry had no knowledge of such an incident having taken place (23).
Another Norwegian, Jon-Ingar Haltuff, determined in 1978 that the original story was an impossibility, physically as well as politicaly (24). Kevin D. Randle, a very eminent researcher, was of the opinion that the story is a hoax (25). Margaret Sachs, in her book The UFO Encyclopedia (26), writes that "although rumours continue to circle about the alleged
My own research consists of sifting through the entire 1952 edition of Svalbardposten, the local newspaper for Svalbard/Spitsbergen. There was no mention at all of any saucer crash! Neither were there any such story in any of
In correspondence with the
The Press and Information Division of the Norwegian High Command do not have any papers on the Norwegian pilots and military personell allegedly involved in the story. They do, however, have data on all those officers who did exist.
Norwegian jet fighters
Then we come to the aircraft. According to all the versions, except the one by Bruce Sandham, the wreckage was discovered by jet pilots.
The only jet fighters in the Norwegian Air Force in 1951-52 were De Havilland DH 100 Vampire (in three versions: FMK3, FBMK52, and TMK55), and Republic F-84 Thunderjet (in two versions: F-84E and F84G).
According to my correspondence with the
Our last, and only (!), alternative is then the F-84. Six F-84E's were delivered on September 10, 1951, and were included in Squadron 334 at Sola (outside
Because, according to research done in part by the author and by Anders Liljegren, the airfields in northern
Conclusion
The conclusion therefore has to be that the
Even if this case does not hold any water, I will venture my way with a little prophecy: This story will, with great certainty, continue to be the subject of books as well as magazines during the 1990s. There will always be "researchers" who think this story deserves their enthusiastic attention, and cannot settle down with factual arguments which clearly show the story to lack any basis in reality.
1. Saarbrücker Zeitung, 28 June 1952; "Auf Spitzbergen landete Fliegende Untertasse".
2. Berliner Volksblatt, 9 July 1952; Fliegende Scheibe auf
3. Der Flieger, August 1952, p. 148; "Luftpolitische Monatsschau".
4. FOIA CIA document, 8 August 1952.
5. Donald E. Keyhoe: Flying Saucers From Outer Space, 1953.
6. Jimmy Guieu: Les Soucoupes Volantes Viennent d'Un Autre Monde, 1954.
7. Harold Tom Wilkins: Flying Saucers On The Moon, 1954.
8. Hessische Nachrichten, 26 July 1954; "'Fliegende Untertassen' sind keine Fabel".
9. Verdens Gang, 19 December 1954; "Sør-Amerika melder om flygende tallerken i Norge!".
10. El Nacional, published some time before 19 December 1954. Not yet seen by author.
11. Sir, September 1954; "First report on the captured flying saucer".
12. UFO-Gids, v 2/n 8 November 1956; "De Schotel op
13. Stuttgarter Tageblatt, (or Stuttgarts Dagblad), 5 September 1955. Non-existent!
14. Frank Edwards: Flying Saucers - Serious Business, 1966.
15. Arthur Shuttlewood: Warning from Flying Friends, 1968.
16. Western Daily Press, 1967-68.
17. William Steinman: UFO Crash At Aztec, 1986.
18. Focus, 5/31 December 1990; "New Information on the
19. Le Lorrain, 15 October 1954; "The Mystery of the Flying Saucers".
20. Robert G. Girard: An Early U.F.O. Scrap Book, 1989.
21. Richard H. Hall (ed): The UFO Evidence, 1964.
22. Daniel S. Gillmor (ed): Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1968.
23. UFO Forum, 1/1974; "Historien om den nedstyrtede UFO'en på
24. Letter from Jon-Ingar Haltuff to Ole Henningsen, 18 July 1978.
25. Ronald D. Story (ed): The Encyclopedia of UFOs, 1980.
26. Margaret Sachs: The UFO Encyclopedia, 1980.
27. Gram/Stenstrup (eds): Hvem Er Hvem, 1912-1984.
28-30. Letters from the
31. Arheim/Hafsten/Olsen/Thuve: Fra Spitfire Til F-16 - Luftforsvaret 40 År 1944-1984, 1984.
|
