LncnnD oF THE SprtsnrRGEN sAUCERsv OLp Joxr.rv Bn-cxNe

or almost 40 years rumors have told ofa crashedflying saucer on the remote island ofSpitsbergen.As the story goes, the wreckage was discoveredby jet pilots and later transponed to Narvik,

Norway, where an investigation determined it was com-posed of unknown metallic alloys and was of extratenestrialorigin.

But what really happened-if anything happened at all----on Spitsbergen in or around June 1952? In this article wewill document the story's evolution over the years, with allthe sunounding rumors, elaborations, and misunderstand-ings. The article is a summary ofa 38-page special issue ofUFO, the periodical of UFO-Norway, devoted entircly tothe Spitsbergen legend.

Some of you are no doubt familiar with the basicelements of the story, but let us start nonetheless at thebeginning, with the original source. We believe rhe firstmention ofa saucercrash on Spitsbergen probably appearedin an article in a German newspaper, Saorbr cker Zeitungon June 28, 1952. The piece was entitled "Auf Spitzbergenlandete Fliegende Untertasse." An English translation fol-lows:

FLYING SAUCER LANDED ON SPITSBERGEN

The puzzle finally solved? "Silvery disc with dom€ ofplexiglassand 46jets on the rim." Soviet origin?

Narvik, mid-June.Norwegian jet planes had just started this year's summcr

maneuvers over Spitsbergen. A squadron of six planes wereapproaching, at maximum speed, the Nordaustlandct, where unitsof the supposed opponent had bcen reponed. The jets had justcrossed over the Hinlopen Straits when cracklinS and rustlingnoises could be heard on all earphones and radio receivcrs. Radiocontact among the jets was no longer possible; all means ofcommunication between the jets seemed to be out of order. Theradarreading, which had becn showing "white" since fromNarvik,was now on "red." This indicated an alcrt, the approach of ametallic alien objectequipped with a radio dircction finder thathada different flequency from that of the fighters.

Nevertheless, the highly cxperienced pilots were able tocommunicate with each other by means ofcircling and diving, sothat each of them was aware oftheir common situalion, each onesearching the horizon with the utmost attcntion. The six fightcrscircled for some time not finding anything that was out of theordinary.

By chance, Air Capt. Olaf La.scn happened to look down.Immediately he started io dive, followed by his squadron. On thcwhite snowy landscape, the crusty surface of which had an icy

Anour Splrsnencw

Svalbard is a group ofislands, six of them ofsubstantialsize. The group lies between 76'and 81" N., about 930km nonhofTroms6. The islands, which havebelongedto Norway since 1920, cover an area of about 62,000km' and are mostly covered by ice and snow. They aretreeless but do contain 125 species of extra tough arcticgrowths. The highest mountain is Mt. Newton, rising to1700 meters.

The Hinlopen Straits, the site of the alleged crash,separate the is lands of Vest Spi tsbergen andNordaustlandet. The straits, in a north-northwest con-figuration between 79 and 80" N., are 120 km long andl0 km broad at their narrowest poinl.

The current populalion of the islands is 3500, some2000 greater than it was in the 1950s. Norway and theSoviet Union have an agreement on coal mining onthese islands. Most people living here work in themines. In recent years tourist traffic has increasednoticeably, owing to the islands' natural beauty.

glitter, there was a metallic, glittering circular disc ofbetween 40and50 meters diameter, which was even brightet than the icy snow.Between some wires and a tangle of supponing struts in the middle,the remains of an apparently partly desiroyed cockpit protruded.Whilecircling for 60 minutes, thejctpilots could neitherdetect anysign oflife nordetermine the origin ortype ofthe vehicle. Finally,they aook course for Narvik in order to repon their strange lindings.

Just a few hours later, five big flying boats, equipped withlanding skis, took off for the place ofdiscovery. They landed safelynext to the bluish steel disc, which was sitting in a bed ofsnow andice of more than one meter's depth.

"Undoublcdly one of the infamous flying saucers," claimcdDr. Norsel, a Norwegian rocket specialist, who had insisted onjoining the flight. He also established the reason why all means ofcommunication ofthe fighter planes had broken down on enteringthe zone of the landing spot, and why the radar equipment hadsignaled alarm: a radiodirection finderequippcd with aplutoniumcore was undamaged and transmitting on all wavelengths at afrequency of934 Hertz, which is not known by any country.

A precise inspection ofthe remote-controlled flying disc thatlanded on the Nordausdandet of Spitsbergen due to interferenceproblems, led to the following indisputable information:

l. The flying object, which has adiameterof48.88 meters andslanting sides, is round and was unmanned.

2. Thc circular steel objcct, made out of an unknown metal

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compound, resembles asilver disc. After igni-tion, 46 automatic jets,

located at equal dis-tances on the outerring,rotate the disc around aplexiglassed center ballthat contains measuringand control devices forremote coDtrol.

3. The measuringinstruments (gauges)have Russian symbols.

4. The action ra-diusofthedisc seems tobe more than 30,000 km,and lhe altitude over I 60krn.

5. The flying ob-ject, which resemblesone of the legendary"flying saucers," hassufficient room ior highexplosive bombs, pos-sibly nuclear bombs.

The Norwegianspecialists assumed thatthe disc had started fromthe Soviet Union andhad gone down overSpitzbergen due to amistake in transmittingor receiving, being in-capacitated because oftbe hard landing. Thestrange, rcmote-con-trolled, unmanned jetplane will be brought to Narvik on board a ship for furtherinvestigation. After hearing of the description of the disc, theGerman V-weapon designerRicdel stated: '"That's a typical V-7 onwhose serial production I have worked myself."-J.M.M.

The author of the Zeilung anicle, J.M.M., has provenuntmceable. Newspaper archives have no useful informa-tion on the matter. The very same article was also publishedby another newspaper, Berliner Volksblerr, on July 9, 1952.In early August 1952 the story got anotber mention in theGerman periodical Der Flieger,\\apieceby a Dr. WaldemarB eck. This mention probably spread the stary to a far greateraudience, even canied by the AFPnews service into the CIAarchives. Later authors often refer to the Der Flieper yet

sion.

thedisc itself: AirCapt. OlafLarsen and Dr. Norsel. This wemust keep in mind as we proceed with our investigation.

A few books published in 1953 and 1954 briefly men-tioned the Spitsbergen story. I refer specifically toDonaldE.Keyhoe's Flying Saucers from Outer Spqce, Harold T.Wilkins' FJyizg Saucers onthe Moon(published inAmericaas Flying Saucers on the Attctck), and Jimmy Guieu's lzssoucoupes volantes viennent d'un autre monde (anEnglishtranslation appeared in 1956 as Flying Saucers Come fromAnother Worl . Additional information comes then to ourattention through yet another German newspaper, IlessiscieNachrichten, which published this account on July 26,1954:

"FLYING SAUCERS" ARE NO FABLE

Several points in the Zeitung article are of particular Norwegian military report of "unknown flying object" oninterest. They include the speculation about possible Soviet Spitsbergen.origin as well as the mention of the names of two persons Only now a board of inquiry of the Norwegian General Staffpresumably involved in the discovery and investigation of is prcparing the publication ofa repod on the examinations ofthe

IUR + NovEMBER/DECEMBER 1992

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BARENTS SEA

NORWEGIAN SEA

NORWAY

remains of a flying saucer crashed on Spitsbergen, presumably

some time ago. The chairman ofthe board, Col. Gemod Darnhyl,

stated, during an instruction lesson for Air Force officers:

"The Spitsbergen crash was very rewarding. True enough, ourscience still faces many riddles. I am sure, however, that they cansoon be solved by these remains from Spitsbergen. A misunder-standing developed, some time ago, when it was statcd that theflyingdiscwas probably ofSoviet origin. It has-this we must state

emphatically-not been built by any country on earth. The matc-rials are completely unknown to all expens, either not to be foundon Earth, orprocessed by physical orchemical processes unknown

to us."

According to Col. Damhyl, the board ofinquiry is not going

to publish an extensive report until "some sensational facts" havebeen discussed with experts from the USA and GreatBritain. "We

must tell the public what we know about the unknown flying

objccts. A misplaced secrecy may well one day lead to panic!"

THE NoRrH PoLE, BASE FoR uNKNowNs?

The Norwegian fighter pilots, Lt. Brobs and Lt. Tyllensen, who,since the Spitsbergen event have been assigned asobservers ofthepolararea, claim that, contrary to American and othersources, thcflying discs have alrcady landed repeatcdly in the northern polar

zone."l believe that the polar area is an air base for the !nknowns.

Especially during snow and ice storms, whcn we, with our ma-chines, mustretreat to ourbase, it is mybcliefthatthe flying objectstake advantage ofthis to makc landings. I have, shortly after suchbad weather conditions, seen them land and take off threc times,"saidLt. Tyllensen. "I noticcd then, thathaving landed, they executca very speedy rotation around theiraxis. During flight, and take off,orlanding, thebrilliantlight preventsany view of theeventsbehindthis wall of brilliance and on, or inside, the flying object itself."

ENoucH oF PHYstcAL EVTDENCE

Col. Damhyl thinksthat, within thc next twelve months, asolutionto these technical problems will be found, or, at least, scienco willbe on the dght track towards solving the UFO problem, "We nowhave material at hand, on which we can start. That mcans labora-tories can start the work right away and they might give uspreliminary results shortly. Norwegian scientists think that thcmaterial from Spitsbergen can only giveaway its secrets by nuclearcrushing; this b€cause it does not change either at absolute zero,when air is liquefied, or at the highest tcmpcratures technicallypossible with our tcchnology. Also, every chemical treatment hasbeen tried. Scientific results will only be released subsequent to aUFO conference in l,ondon or Washington."

Thc communication from Swcdish Tv-set owners, that theirreception reccntly was interfered wi$ cvery time flying sauccrswere reponed over northem Sweden,caused scnsation in circles ofthe Norwegian board of inquiry. In consequence of this Col.Damhyl hopes, soonor or later, to track down thc communicationsystem of unknown flying objccts.-Sven Thygesen

Perhaps many will think that this is a change for the berter.The wreckage is no longer of possible Soviet origin but

extmtenestrial. And we also get additional names: Chair-man of the board Col. Gemod Damhyl (misspelled Dambylby some later sources), and Norwegian Lts. Brobs andTyllensen. Sven Thygesen, the author of the Nachrichtenanicle, is another pcrson we have notbeen ableto trace. Yetin this case we have a name, not just initials.

A new twist to the Spitsbergen story appears in theDecember 19, 1954, edition of the Norwegian newspaperVerdens Gang.It goes like this:

SOUTH-AMERICAN REPORT OFFLYING SAUCER IN NORWAY!

Conlradicts information ofit having Russian writing

The Uruguayan ne*spapr El Nacional of Montevideo has re-cently, with big fuss, brouSht a message "about the Norwegianscientist Hans Larsen Loberg's discovery of a flying saucer onHeligoland." It conccms, says thc newspap€r, the same flyingsaucer that "was reported to have fallen down into the mountainsof Spitsbcrgen in August 1952."

Mr. Larsen Loberg says that this saucer in reality crashed (felldown) on Heligoland (Helogaland-Helgeland?) which is a smallisland in the North Sca (Nordsjoen), used as a submarine basc bythe Germans during the war. OfHans Larscn L,9berg it is said thathcwon a prizein physics in Hungary. The ncwspaper also leatureshis picture.

Larsen Loberg also retracts thc rumor that the saucer wassupposed to have Russian writing. lt had, he says, a diameter of9lfeet and a thickncss on the middle of about 70 feet. In thespaccship's control room they found a numb€r of push-buttons. Itwas deduced that it could travel aided by the magnetic forces thathold the planets in thcir position in space, and these forces arecontrollcd by saidbuttons. They found noengine in the spaceship,norcould thcy discover any rivets, fuses orbolts. The outer surfacewas shiny and transparent.

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The material used was as lightas aluminum, but verymuch harder,and probably much heaFresistant. Of the things found in itsinterior, they noticed some water that was three times as heavy asnormal water, and a lew pills which were takcn to be food. Therewas also an apparatus which probably was a radio. lt was quitesmall and had no antenna. They also found some books, probablynavigational instructions, in a completely unknown writing. Thedoors of the spaceship were open. Just insidc of the doors weroseven bodics, burned beyond rccognition. Scicntists are of theopinion, according to Larsen llbcrg, that the bodies wcre ofmenat the age ofbetween 25 and 30 ycars, about 1.65 m tall. AU hadperfect scts of teeth,

BEAM-GUN

Dr. Hans Larsen Loberg could also teli about the finding of acompletely unknown wcapon, a beam-gun which used magneticrays. This gun, he thinks, explains a number ofstange incidents inthe USA.ln Wyoming, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh,and New Yortwindows were broken, forunexplained reasons, on thousands andthousands ofcars. And i t must be obvious, he says, that the young

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pilot Mantell, who during a flight reportcd on radio that he had

cncountcrcd a flying sauccr and shortly thcreafter crashcd inpursuit of i t , must have bccn shot down by this beam-gun.

CREw BURNED To DEATtt

Thc reason for the crash of this saucer, he thought, had to bc thatit was affected by the Amcrican hydrogen-bomb explosion. The

nlatcrial ofthc spaceship, and its apparatus, rcsisted the enormous

hcat, but thc crcw burncd todeath. The ncwspaperwhich picked up

thc story in Brazil, admils that it sounds fantastic, but draws

attcntion to it not having been officially denicd!

VG has invcstigatcd, in Oslo, whcthcr there is a scientist by

the name of Hans Larscn Loberg, but everyonc queried, and who

oughl to know aboul him, says that the name is completely

unkoown.

Obviously somebody is mixing two versions of thc story

herc. We are told that thc saucer fcll not on Spitsbergen but

on the German island of Helgoland, in the North Sea. We are

also given information about a magnetic beam-gun, heavy

water, pi l ls as food, books with unknown writ ing, and

bodics. Nonc of this has previously hgurcd in our sources.

In addit ion we obtain yet another name, our seventh:Norwegian scientist Hans Larscn Lpbcrg. The Verdens

Garg articfc rcfers to an Uruguayan new spaper, ElNacional,which again has a Brazi l ian solrrce. Our South Americancontacts have not yet bccn able to locate this art iclc, but wehavc managcd to track down the first mention of tbeHelgoland story as publ ishcd in Sir/ , a pulp men's magazine,for Scptembcr l9-54:

FIRST REPORT ON THE CAPTURED

FLYING SAUCERI

by E. W. Grenfell

On a liny island in thc North Sca off the German coast, a secrct

invcstigation is in progrcss to delcf lr ine whcthcr hydrogen bombcxplosions in thc Pac;f ic C)ccin knocked a f lying sauccr to earth.

Prcliminary findings wcrc rcvcalcd rccently in Oslo, Norway, byDr. Hans Larsen Llberg, a rctircd Norwcgian scicntist, who saidinvcstigators havc alreldy nlade somc starl l ing discovcries,

In his reporl, Dr. Llbcrg said lhe mystcrious cracking and

shattcr ing of automobile windshields in several U.S. ci t ies a fcwmonthsagomay be explaincd when rcsults of the invcstigation arein. Because, hc addcd, thc groundcd saucer is reportcd lo ca.ryf ir ing instrumcnls capablc ofshattering glass with magnctic rays.

The sauccr camc down on Hcl igoland, a small islaDd whichthc Gcrmans used as a U-boat basc during World War I- Sincc theisland is only a spccl of land in a largc body ofwatcr, Dr. Lobergbclicvcs the disk was forccd to canh when H-bomb blasts crcatedcondit ions of atmosphcric pressurc thnt madc f l ight impossiblc.

I t was not a crash-up, and invcstigalors found most of thesaucct 's inslrumcnts in good condil ion. On ground near thc ship

wcrc found lhc bodies of scvcn mcn, al l burncd bcyond rccogni-

t ion. They may, ormay not, havc bccn passengcrs aboardthe wcird

flying craft.

Dr. Lrtbcrg, one-t imc winnerofthc 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 wind-shields, then police in several Americancities willclose thebookson acase which drove them to the boiling point a few months ago.Ital lbcganinthecityofBell ingham,Washington,wherehonif ied

citizens leamed that, in one week's time, 1,500 automobiles hadtumedup withcracked windshields-and no one could explain thereason why. Bellingham's 34,000 people began to wonder ifghostshad invadcd their midst. Even house and store windows slithercd

into bits. Thc windshields at times cracked up while cars were in

motion, but no onc could pin down any concrete causc.

While the astounding story made headlines throughout theU.S., Bcllingham's city officials were dodging frantic citizens,police were going crazy, and local glass manufacturers weremaking a fortune. Then windshields began failing apart in Wyo-ming, in Oklahoma City, in Pittsburgh and finally in New YorkCity. Nobody, not even glass experts, could come up with aleasonable explanation.

The saucer's magnetic ray gun, which Dr. Loberg believesresponsible for all the disintegrating glass, may also providc asolution to yetanothermystery-an airplanecrash nearFort Knox,Ky., on January 7, 1948. On that day an unidentified object wassighted over Goodman Air Force Base [sic] at Fort Knox by bothmilitary and civilian observc$. Air Force Captain Thomas K.Bandell Isic], flying his plane ovcr the base, radioed the Goodman

Isic] towcr and reported thc objcct was travclling at halfhis speed."I'm closing in now to takc a good look," he reponed. "Ii's

directly ahead ofmc and still moving at about half my speed. Thisthing looks metal l ic and oftremendous sizc, . . . I t 's going up nowand forward as fast as I am- That's 360 miles pcrhour.. . .l'm goingup to 20,000 fcct and ifI'm no closer I'll abandon chasc."

The timc was l: l5 P.M, and that was the last radio contactBandell [sic] had with the Goodman [sic] tower. S€veral hourslatcr, his body was found in the wreckageofhis planc nearthe base.

If ihe Heligoland saucer's magnetic ray gun is in goodcondition, it may rcveal the power to shattcr airplanes as well asglass.

Dr. Lgbcrg contends the craft apparently landed under guid-ance of its own instruments and the investigators studied it at adistance for two days before risking closer observation. The arcawhere the saucer came down was bombarded with cosmic rays,Geiger counters and othcr protcctive dcvices bcfore investigationbegan.

The scven charred bodies found around the saucc. are yet

unidenlifi cd. Theirclothingwasburned away completely and therewere no clues to indicatc whetherthey wcrc passengers aboard thccraft, or whetherthey were Heligoland residents venturcd too closeto the saucertoo soon. Curiously, all seven men seemed to be from25 to 30 ycars ofage and ofthe same height-aboDt five fcct eightinches. Al l had excel lent teeth.

Invcstigators havc one thcory: That the sevan Inen werepassengcrs who wcreconsumed by fireinsidc thedcscending ship.The blaze had becn caused by sudden changcs in atmosphericprcssure condition inside the saucer's hermetically scalcd cabin.Atop thc craft was a lmp-door through which the seven bodies

!t,xl r,r9EI]IVPI9rygt-]:2217

could havc b€en th.own by the impact of landing.

Even morc curious were the ship's mcasurements. It was 9l

feet in diametcr and the cabin ?0 fcct high, In fact, all dimensions

were dividablc by seven. On thc conlrol board wcrc a series of

push-buttons, but investigators arc still studying the intcrior

mechanism to lcam what propellcd thc sauccr in flight.Dr- llberg's theory is that the disk may havc travelled by

hamessing magnetic lines of force which scicntists know encircle

the nine planets ofthe solar system. He points out that there was no

motorand noprcpeller, but ifmagnctic force is involved,the saucer

would movejust as a nail moves when approachcd by a magnet.

The landing gear resembled a tripod ofthree mctal cylinde$

which would revolve in any direction. Thcrc werc no bolts, rivels

or scrcws on the saucer and in thc conslruction were found two

metals which are cnlirely unknown to scientisls. Outermetalofthe

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 onc side of the saucer.Although it was not immcdiately established that the seven

bumed men werc former passengers of thc ship, investigators

found equipment insidc which definitely rcscmbled living quar-

tcrs ! Well-enclosed bunks were ingeniously placed on one side of

the cabin's interior.

A liquid rcscmbling water but almost three times as heavy as

normal drinking water, was found in two small containeB. On awall-bracket wasatubc f i l led witha largo numbcr ofpi l ls, possibly

tabulated food.

Thesaucer's radio, whichhad no tubes, no wires and no acrial,

wasaboutas small asa king-sizecigarcttc package. Pamphletsand

booklets, which seem to deal with navigation problems, were also

foundbut investigators are still tryingto dccipherthe scriptused inthe text.

Dr. Loberg emphasized that whcn thc Hcligoland investiga-tion iscompleted, the report will add a ncw chapter 1o flying saucer

history.

Where, or by whom, these two stories have been mixed up

is a question pcrhaps resolvable when we obtain the SouthAmerican art icles, but i t is clearthat we aredealing with two

different stories.Now, moving forward to November 1956, we find that

the Dutch magazine UFO-Gids published, with minorchanges, almost the same iext as the HeJ sische Nachichten.But the Dutch magazine does not crcdit HessischeNachrichtenfor thestory. Instead itlists Stuugarts Dagbladfor September 5, 1955, as its source.

In later accounts, Stuttgarter Tageblott has been al-leged to be the source of the Damhyl version, a story that hadsurfaced already in 1954. Evidently someone tried to ger-manize Stuttgarts Dagblad and did not investigate hissoutce.

Several authors have used Stuttgarter Tageblatt as asource for the Spitsbergen story. It is, in fact, a nonexistentnewspaper. Neither CENAP norother researchers have cvcrfound any trace of either such a paper or such an articl€published on, or around, the date given by UFO-Gids.

Actually Snngarts Dagblad may simp'ly mean "a newspa-per from Stuttgart" in Dutch.

In 1966 Frank Edwards' best-seller Flying SaucersSerious Business gave the Spitsbcrgen story new life. In itEdwards claimed to have conesponded with a member ofthe Norwegian board of inquiry. He said, "In 1954 when Iwrotelo a memberofthe Norwegian Board oflnquiry whichhad investigated the Spitsbergen case, I received, after fourmonths, a cryptic reply: 'I regret that it is impossible for meto respond to your questions at this time.' Could he, then,answer my questions at some other time? To that inquiry IreceiVed no rcply. I am recovering from the shock."

Edwards'account mustbejudged suspect. He does notname his allcgedcontact, and copies ofthe Ietters, whichonewould have thought Edwards would include in his book, didnot appear th€re and have yet to surface anywhere.

Nnw rwrsrs

In 1968 Arthur Shuttlew ood' s W arnin g s from F lyin g F ri endsrecounts an article by Bruce Sandham, "Invasion fromSpace," said to have appeared not long before in an undaledissue of the Western Daily Press. Sandham claims that aCatalina flying boat, not sixjets, discovered the object, andhe gives May 1952 and not June 1952 as the date. He citesno sources.

Through the years the Spitsbergen story has surfaced ina number of books and magazine articles, so many that inthis article we can dcal only with the most important ones-that added new information, or still more confusion.

Oh yes, confusion. More ofthat is supplied in 1986 byWilliam S. Steinman and Wendelle C. Stevens, authorc ofUFO Cresh at Aztec. First of all Steinman, the primaryauthor, gets the Spitsbergen and Hclgoland stories mixedup. He says that seven dead beings were found near theSpitsbergen saucer. He also gives us new "data" whichassert that the pilot who first discovered lhe saucer, andreported his find, never came back.

The most recent article ofnote is "New Information onthe Spitzbergen Saucer Crash" by William L. Moore, inFocas 5 (December 31, 1990). Moore includes a translationofa French newspaper articlewhich appeared in the October15, 1954, edition of lz lorrqin.It tells of a Swiss reportpublished by D.A.T. (Territorial Air Defence) on flyingsaucers, describing World War II SchrieverAlabermohUMiethe Nazi saucer expedments. The Spitsbergen wreck-age, from one ofthese aircraft, was "lecovered by Canadiancommandos." Moore, who has not done his homework,states that "this account remains the best and most authori-tative explanation I've heard so far for the Spitzbergensaucer crash ntmors."

A MODERN INVESTIGATION

This is, basically, the Spitsbergen UFO crasUretrieval storyas of today. Now we can either let it keep wandering from

ruIj tr9M90"/90..!1r"_]222l8

magazine to magazine or conduct a little basic research andinvestigation to check the story out. WhatI will do now is totell you what investigation others have done, what investi-gation I bave done myself, and finally we will concentrateour attention on the Norwegian Air Force jets around thewinter l95l/spring 1952 period.

If we look at page I l8 of Roben G. Girard's An EarlyU.F.O. Scrap Book (1989), we find an undated newspaperclipping which is most interesting. It tells what the DerFlieger article said about the incident; it remarks that"Norwegian Air Force headquarters denied all knowledgeofthe report and said itneverhad heard of Dr. Nonel." Thisclipping is probably dated around August or September1952.

In 1954 the Norweg ian new spaper Verdens Gang madeinquiries, in Oslo, about the nam€ ofHans Larsen Lgberg (aswe remember, involved with the Helgoland story), buteveryone asked, who presumably would have known orknown ofsuch a man, stated that the name was unfamiliar.

AMERICAN INQUIRIES

The UFO Evidence (1964) recounts NICAP's effort to lookinto the story. When the organization wrote to the Norwe-gian Embassy in 1958, it got this reply: "Our Air Force'sUFOmaterialis mainly ofsecurity graded nature and cannotbe put to the disposal of NICAP." The letter has been usedas evidence of a secret classification of the Spitsbergenincident report and analyses, but in fact it does not mentionthat case specifically, just UFo-related documents gener-ally. And UFO-related materialbeing classified at that time,ties iD wilh my own research.

According to Scienirtc Study of Unidentned FlyingObjects (1969 ,know n informally as the Condon Report), "itseems well established that this story has no basis in fact."

Furrunn rNeurRrES rN NoRwAY

Norwegian researcher Ame Bprcke visited the Ministry ofDefense inlate 1973. There he sifted through all thematerialit had about this case. Ever since the story surfaced in 1952,the ministry had received numerous letters from interestedpersons but beyond rhat knew nothing ofany such incident.

Another Norwegian, Jon-Ingar Haltuff, determined in1978 that the original story was an impossibility, physicallyas well as politically. Kevin D. Randle, who would laterachieve eminence for his research on the Roswell case,rejected the story ard so wrote disparagingly ofit in RonaldD-Story's Encyclopedia of UFOs (1980). Margarct Sachs,authot of The UFO Encyclopedia (1980), writes that "al-though rumors continue to circle about the allegedSpitsbergen crash, no conclusive evidence has been pre-sented to support the story."

My own research consists of sifting through the entire1952 edition of Svalbardposten, the local newspaper forSvalbard/Spitsbergen. I found no mention of any saucer

crash. Neitherwerethereany such stories in any ofNorway'smain newspapers, Aftenposten, Morgenbladet, Morgen-posten,or Verdens Gang, in 1952. I also checked all editionsof Hvem Er Hvem for the period I 9 I 2-1 984, the Norwegianequivalent of IYho'.r 17fto. None ofthe names mentioned inconnection with our story figured in any of these editions.

During I 990-1 99 I , through conespondence, I leamedthat the Defense Museum in Oslo had no knowledge ofanyof the names mentioned in the published accounts. Theauthorities at the museum do not consider it likely thatNorwegian jets could have operated around Svalbard in1952.

The Press and lnformation Division ofthe NorwegianHigh Command do not have any papers on the Norwegianpilots and military personnel allegedly involved in theevent. They do, however, have data on all those officers whodid exist.

NonwncraN JET FIGHTERS

Then we come to the aircraft. According to all the versions,excepttheone by Bruce Sandham, the wrcckagewas discov-eredbyjet pilots. The onlyjet fighters in the Norwegian AirForce in l95l-52 were De Havilland DH 100 Vampires (inthree versions: FMK3, FBMK52, and TMK55) and Repub-lic F-84 Thunderjets (in two versions: F-84E and F-84G).

According to information supplied by the DefenseMuseum as well as the available literature, the Vampirejetswere stationed at Gardermoen AFB (about 50 km north ofOslo). Becausethey had an actionradius ofonly 980km, wecan definitely rule these out.

Our last, and only, altemative is therefore the F-84. SixF-84Es were delivered on September 10, 1951, and wereincluded in Squadron 334atSola (outside Stavanger). Thesewere the only F-84Es delivered to the Norwegian AirForce.During the spring and summer of 1952 N orway received24F-84Gs. Two hundred were delivered. in all. with deliveriescompleted in 1955. F-84G had an action radius of 1610 krn,so this /00,1(s promising. But that's all. Why?

Because, according to research done in part by AndersLiljegren and myself, the airfields in northem Norway wereeither too short or in the process of extensive upgrading tomeet the new NATO standard. All F-84 aircraft were sta-tioned in the southem part of Norway at the time, and thenthe action radius becones too short. In addition, it was saidthat the aircraft circled around the saucet wreckage foralmost an hour. In other words, the story is hopeless.

CoNcr.usroN

The Spitsbergen story, along with the Helgoland story,is-as readers will already have surmised-fiction. Theoriginal authors, mainly J.M.M. and Syen Thygesen (ifthese were their real names), had a cursory knowledge ofNorwegian military aircraft but beyond that were too igno-rant to pull off an entirely successful hoax.

ruRl I.r9Eg!*/eE1:g_.1222l9

Even ifthis case is empty of substance, we may safelypredict that it will continue to show up in print for years tocome, as long as there are "researchers" who think itdeserves their enthusiastic attention and will not allowprosaic truth to stand in their way.

A posrscnrpr

Not much remains to be said after Ole Jonny Branne'sthorough compilation ofsources on the Spitsbergen legend.The bibliography ofthe original Norwegian text refers to nofewer than 165 sources. Still. a few nieces remain to be laidout for the puzzle to be more complete:

( l) The original articles in 1952-54 resemble the mod-ern tabloid stories of "impossible phenomena" of the sortthat plague ufology in the West (and now the East). To acasual, nonenthusiastreader the small details ofthese storiesoften ring a warning bell. The enthusiast, however, pays noattention to such matters. When. for instance. "SvenThygesen" reports on interferences noted by north-Swedishtelevision-set owners in the summer of 1954, "Thygesen"obviously is unaware that the first small chain of SwedishTV transmitters were not put into operation until 1956, andthen only in the southern, more populated areas.

(2) TheSpitsbergen and Helgoland yams (as well as theNazi-saucer saga and other similar legends) cannot beunderstood without a look at the sources and the culturesfrom which they get their inspiration.

Nineteen fifty-two, when the Spitzbergen story firstsurfaced, was a particularly tense yearinEurope.In JunetheSovietUnion shot down a Swedish DC-3 radio/radar recon-naissance aircraft overthe Baltic (the plane and crew are stillmissing, but Russia recently admitted guilt) and also shotdown a Swedish Catalina search-plane on a search missionfor the DC-3. These and similar incidents heightened ten-sions in centml Europe and the northem theater.

Several stories published du ng that period more orless attributed saucers to the Kremlin. Particularly interest-ing, in connection with Spitsbergen, is the UFO sighting ofEast German mayor Oskar Linke in the spring of 1952,published only weeks after the Spitsbergen yarn. "When Isaw this object, I immediately thought that it was a newSoviet military machine," Linke stated in a report whichwent to the CIA.

In the summer of 1953 Danish sources speculated abouta Russian saucer base in the Arctic. In October 1952 theNorwegian marine base at Horten and the Oslofjordenestuary was reportedly violated by an airship "ofunknownconstruction." The Swedish Air Force had a sedes of un-known blips ("angels," Russians, or unknowns) on its Balticradar scopes in 1952-53, panicularly after the Washingtonradat cases and the U.S. wave noted by most Europeanpapers.

As with the Nazis, a decade before, the extreme secrecyof Communism led to much unfounded speculation. Forinstance, inJune 1955 the AmericanAero Digerlspread the

rumor that the Russians had successfully developed a pho-ton rccket which they were now testing from submarines.

This was fertile soil for rumors. Loren E. Gross reports(in IIFOs: A History, 1953, August-December, p. 5) ofRussian use ofdisinformation to spread tales ofrayweaponsand flying saucers in cenlral Europe.

(3) The Spitsbcrgen story was, from the start, emphati-cally denied by Norwegian auihorities, but denials usuallyhave no credibility in the UFO community. Gross notes(UFOs: A History, 1952, June-July 20th, p. 31), based onBlueBookfiles, that the U.S. AirAttache in Oslo was askedto confirm the incident. The Norwegian Air Force informedthe attache that the saucer story was "definitely false."

This exchange was also reported in the NorwegianDewspaper Morgenposten (October ?7, 1952), where Maj.Ole Mehn-Andersen of Luftforsvarets Overkommando(LOK) stated, as an example ofsaucer sensations created bythe newspapers, that "one evening I had a telephone callfrom a foreign embassy which had been given the sensa-tional news that a 'flying saucer' had landed on Svalbard andhad been investigated by a Professor Norsel."

(4) Finally, let me add yet one more twist to theSpitsbergen legend as told in a letter written to AFU associ-ate Ake Franz6n on November I l, 1968. The author is acertain B.S. (full name known) of Stockholm:

"The case of the Norwegian fighter pilot. A Norwegianfighter pilot on reconnaissance over Spitsbergen reported tohis base in northem Norway, that he had sighted a saucerthathad landed on Spitsbergen. The message, received by thecontrol tower, is quickly spread among the base personnel.The pilot had taken a close look at 'the saucer.' An uncon-ditional secrecy was ordered among the staff of the tower,but it was too late.

"The pilotdoes not retum, but is believed-by the staffnot associated with those in the tower -to have landed atanotherbase. Friends ofthe pilot staftlooking for their mate,but he has disappeared without a trace. He is even leftoutofall the papers, and when his friends visit his home district,his name is no longer in the parish register. The story hasbeengiven mepersonallyby a Norwegian air mechanic whodid his military service at the base at the time of the incident.Personally, I ask the question: Is this disappearance due toactions by Norwegian defense, or are the UFOs behind it?"

When Hikan Blomqvist, in 1986, queried B.S. forfurtherdetails, he got a shangereply which raised questionsabout the informant's mental state.

It is obvious that the Spitsbergen story has taken on thequalities of an urban legend, embroidered with each tellingof the tale.*Anders Ltljegren

Ole Jonny Brqnne is q prominent figure in NonvegianafologX. This is a slightly revised version of an article whichoriginally appeared in AFU Newsletter 36 (1991), pub-lished by Archivesfor UFO Research, Box I1027, 5-600 l1Norrkt)ping, Sweden. Anders Liljegren, whose postscript

follows this article, is editor of the Newsletter.

IUR + NovEMBER/DECEMBER 1992