Hessdalen Lights!: - What's happening in the Norwegian mountains?

Hessdalen

lights!

- What's Happening In the Norwegian Mountains?

Nils M. Ofstad

--

Thanks to Jadie Rachel Sten

for great help with the translation.

Copyright © 2019 Nils M. Ofstad

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-359-70381-4

1 background

The acronym UFO stands for unidentified flying objects, but in practice - in media, and elsewhere - the term has long been synonymous with visits from other planets. Therefore, the topic has been ridiculed, believing in UFOs is - well helped by Hollywood - being linked to believing in visitation of small green men from Mars in flying saucers, and in Norway it’s almost social suicide to talk about the topic in public.

On the Internet, however, the topic is discussed relatively lively, - anonymously, - on both Norwegian and international discussion forums, so it is clear that there exist some interest in the topic, after all.

My interest in the subject was awakened in the early eighties. In 1981, some strange light phenomena appeared in the small mountain village of Hessdalen in Holtålen municipality, a few kilometers northwest of the town Røros in the middle Norway. This soon reached the newspapers, and all the reports led to UFO fever in Trøndelag in the early winter months of 1982.

Residents of Hessdalen didn’t only see lights, however, eventually brave people living in Hessdalen appeared and told about crafts - with shapes like saucer and cigar, or eggs and triangles - these being so close that they had been able to throw stones at them. Many people from all around Norway went to Hessdalen to experience the phenomena themselves, while most people made up their minds based on how the matter became portrayed in the media. It wasn’t lack of explanations. Everything from reflection of car headlights from Støren village, or railway lights from Rørosbanen - to ball lightning or even the planet Mars floating through the valley, was presented as a solution - without exception by experts who had not visited Hessdalen and experienced the phenomena themselves.

Although I was only a little boy in 1981 - I remember the discussions at family gatherings, between those on the one hand who had confidence in the attempts at explanation that were served, and those on the other side who actually believed in the stories told by people living in Hessdalen. These discussions were often heated, and it made an impression on a little boy. What was all the fuss about?

The phenomena in Hessdalen persisted throughout the 1980s. In 1983, a group of enthusiasts started a research project - Project Hessdalen - hoping to find out more about the phenomena. They had partial support from universities, as well as the norwegian defense research institute, and therefore had access to advanced instruments such as a spectrum analyzer, magnetometer, radar, geiger counter, IR viewer etc. in a four-week field action carried out during January / February 1984. They did not succeed in finding the solution to the mystery, but at least they were able to kill all train light / car lights and planet theories.

I continued to hear about UFOs and Hessdalen during the 80s. The newspapers wrote about it at irregular intervals, and occasionally there were something on radio and TV. At one point, probably sometime in 1983 or 1984, I came - by accident - across a documentary program sent on NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) that dealt with the UFO phenomenon. This program made an unforgettable impression on me. Among other things, a reconstruction was presented - in the form of a drawing of an alien - this was in connection with a testimony of a UFO abduction / kidnapping (or close encounter of the 4th kind as it’s often called), and this type of creature was alleged to be pilots / crew on board the UFOs.

I can still picture the drawing; small creatures, with oversized, hairless, head in relation to the body. Big, black, slanted eyes - vicious looking. No ears, two small holes for a nose, and just a dash to a mouth. Long, thin arms, as well as flimsy, thin legs. This, along with pale gray-white skin, did not resemble a likeable exterior. I was almost traumatized by the vision, and I was afraid of the dark for a long time. The kidnapping in the TV show allegedly happened in the middle of the day, so I did not feel safe in daylight either…

My fear of the dark subsided as I grew up. The same happened for my interest in UFOs. In Hessdalen, fewer reports came in than in previous years, and the media coverage was limited to a few occasional articles now and then. My life was primarily about football, school and friends, as with teenage boys most, and a little later I started to go to parties and met my first girlfriend. UFOs was a peripheral thought. So it continued for several years, until the winter of 1993, the same year I graduated high school. I watched a TV-documentary series about UFOs and got renewed my curiosity about the subject.

In the autumn of 93 I started at the University in Trondheim, and within a few months I borrowed all of the books of the Trondheim public library that covered the UFO topic. Admittedly, that did not help studying for my exams, but eventually I saw more and more connections and patterns across data on UFO reports - which ultimately convinced me of the existence of the phenomenon.

The public library also had books about Hessdalen; The UFO mystery in Hessdalen by journalist Arne Wisth - 1983 - and The UFO phenomenon - can the impossible be possible? by auditor and hobby-ufologist Leif Havik, 1987. These books, with many reports and descriptions, showed me that what was seen by residents and visitors in Hessdalen in the 80s was exactly the same phenomenon - UFO - which is reported internationally, as I read about it in the books.

Later, there were studies for my part. I learned - among other things - about scientific method, and reliability, validity, - and triangulation , which means referring to observations using at least two different perspectives, according to wikipedia:

By combining different perspectives one can uncover weaknesses in the perspectives separately. If the different perspectives point in different directions, then it indicates that the perspectives have bias, while if the perspectives point in the same direction, it may indicate that the results have high validity. One way to achieve this is by using different datasets from different sources, times, locations and people.

And that is precisely what one does when comparing reports from Hessdalen in the 80s with reports internationally, from different eras, - from the US, Australia, South America - etc.

The descriptions and patterns are relatively limited. It is the same shapes;  disc, cigar /cylinder, oval / egg and triangle. The same pattern of movement and  maneuvers; undulating motions, pendulum / spiral movements, - as well as abrupt,  angular turns, zigzag patterns and more, - the same light compositions and colors. Descriptions  of sounds are the same, and in the few cases where odor is registered, this also fits…

When multiple independent witnesses, separated geographically and in time and without the possibility of having mutual contact, largely give identical descriptions, down to a level of detail that indicates that it is absurd to blame it on coincidence. Everything suggests that what they are telling actually is true and genuine. The phenomenon and reports were - and are - not the result of misinterpretations, hallucinations and / or bluffs.

The UFO phenomenon came abruptly in Hessdalen in the 80s, and the people living in Hessdalen had not read themselves up on international literature on the phenomenon - which in addition was exclusively available in English at that time. Nevertheless, the people of Hessdalen - down to the last detail - described the same thing that has been reported internationally.

So, I had been confirmed for my own part that the phenomenon was real, - UFOs in the sense of unknown vessels (ie NOT misinterpretations, hallucinations or bluffs, hitherto unknown geophysical Phenomena or meteorological phenomena) were real and they existed!

At this time, I was relatively convinced that UFOs represented something extraterrestrial. Ie that I considered the UFOs to be manned crafts from another solar system, - another planet. Alternatively, I’d look at UFOs as possible interdimensional vessels, or could it be time travelers?

However, my conclusions were in contrast to the latest development in Hessdalen. At this time, the project had been revived, and in 1994 Project Hessdalen Workshop was held at Hessdalen community center, for a total of one week. Here, researchers and experts from various disciplines from all over the world participated - among others, the candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics, Boris Smirnov. Various suggestions for explanatory models were presented. Most of them were based on the geophysical conditions in the areas in and around Hessdalen, which are rich in ore and various minerals. It was assumed that tensions arose, and that different energies and mechanisms led to light.

I was actually present at the last day of the week, which was less technical in the content, and therefore open to the public. Together with several of Hessdalen residents and other curious visitors, I got to hear a lecture by Leif Havik. At least as interesting as the lecture itself, was that during the break - in the parking lot outside the community center - I saw a light sphere rise over the horizon, stand still for a few seconds, then sink down behind the mountain again. My first UFO observation!

The organization UFO-Norway was also present this evening, and I grabbed the chance to sign up. As a paying member, the member magazine UFO dumped into my mailbox at irregular intervals. Here was a lot of interesting stuff, about both national and international UFO cases. What was not as good in my eyes, however, was the coverage of Hessdalen in the magazine, - and what was now consequently referred to as the Hessdalen phenomenon.

They had stopped using the UFO definition when it came to Hessdalen, and instead placed what was happening in a separate, isolated subcategory of the UFO phenomenon; a kind of hitherto unknown natural phenomenon or atmospheric light phenomenon. This accusation began to annoy me, because in my opinion it was a clear form of under-reporting . As I said, I had long since concluded that the UFO phenomenon in Hessdalen and the UFO phenomenon globally was exactly the same phenomenon, and certainly not separate things.

In 1998, an automatic measuring station was set up in Hessdalen. A blue container box was mounted up in Vårhuslia, with cameras connected to a computer rigged with software set to respond to light. When an alarm went off, a video recorder would start automatically.

Over the years, the Blue Box has become increasingly more advanced, with addition of several cameras, more instruments and more equipment. However, there have been many false alarms; airplanes, snowmobiles, insects, etc. - but the project team have also managed to capture genuinely unknown things, - which after thorough research, the researchers have still not been able to identify. Even though they have received more data, they have not succeeded in getting closer to a solution to the puzzle. - The more data we get, the more mysterious it is, as project manager Erling Strand said.

Italian Massimo Teodorani, a doctor of astrophysics, was present at the workshop in Hessdalen in 1994. In the late 90s and in the early 2000s he was leader of, and chairing, Project EMBLA, which eventually became an Italian branch of project Hessdalen. The EMBLA team carried out three field actions over three years in Hessdalen, and a number of analyzes and several articles were published. Teodorani & co’s starting point, was that the phenomena in Hessdalen were related to the geophysical conditions, and that luminous plasma arose as a result of tension in the bedrock. But Teodorani also maintained that a small but significant minority of the observed and recorded phenomena - were not having plasma characteristics, but were marked by being illuminated, solid objects.

Teodorani was also involved in the SETV project; Search for Extraterrestrial Visitation, which was based on the idea that the globe, among other things - in places like Hessdalen - could be visited by possible self-reproducing robotic probes, - a type of advanced extraterrestrial drones, and eventually included this hypothesis in several of his analyzes and articles.

This was an interesting read, I thought - and made a new impression on my thinking about UFOs and Hessdalen. Teodorani further maintained that although the observed and photographed lights in Hessdalen had outer plasma-like characteristics, this did not necessarily mean that the phenomena were exclusively plasma, transverse, below the surface and into the center. On the contrary, there was not enough advanced photo-technical equipment available to make an assessment of what was below the surface. In other words; what was photographed could just as well be solid objects, made of metal, - surrounded by an outer