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UFO-Aktuellt issue 1/2003

Issue 1, 2003 reached its Swedish readership in March, 2003.  English translation by Stefan Isaksson  Page 2: Shy Extraterrestrial Lady With a Ray Gun. Who said the world of the unexplained couldn’t be a funny thing?  On page two in this issue of UFO Update; Swiss contactee Billy Meier’s   Pleadian friend is (almost) shown on one of the contacte's famous pictures. Clas Svahn   is having a laugh, together with his readers, but is still keen to point out that despite all his flaws; Meier still has many adherents in the contemporary world.

Page 3: Editorial. This issue's editorial is about three things. First, chairman Svahn explains how lack of funds prohibit UFO Update from becoming a monthly journal. As always, time and money and resources are not as great as they could be, and thus UFO Update will continue to be a quarterly journal. Second, UFO   is now ufo.   No more capital letters when writing about our favorite unexplained phenomenon. The reason for this change is the general trend in society, where the three letters U, F, and O is now a word in itself. However, both UFO Update and UFO Sweden will continue to be written with capital letters. Third, readers have been wanting more articles about genuine unexplained phenomena, but Svahn’s explanation is simple: UFO Sweden and its investigators are today a group of well-trained researchers, and we are simply better at coming up with possible explanations for what it is that people see in the skies. However, unexplained cases will   be written about in the future, alongside with explained   cases as well.

Pages 4-8: Tracking an Intruder. Article by Andreas Ohlsson   about the unexplained flights over the Swedish border to Norway in northwestern Värmland, Sweden, during the 70s. Olsson and Svahn met with Inge Stålbom, head of the criminal investigation department in the city of Karlstad during the 70s. In the interview, Stålbom speaks, for the first time, about the investigations he was a part of. During the spring of 1975, Project Argus   was launched; dedicated to finding an explanation to who or what it was that regularly kept crossing the Swedish/Norwegian border. The Swedish Secret Police (SÄPO), was informed and made contributions to the search, but nothing concrete was ever found or come up with, despite eye witnesses and multiple radar sightings. During the fall of 1975, the project changed name to Dacapo.   Since Norway was, and is, a NATO country, investigations had to proceed with caution. However, eventually even the second project was closed, and certain files are to this date still classified. When asked by Svahn what it is that still should be considered classified now that 30 years have passed, Stålbom says: Nothing. That’s why I’m telling you this. 

Page 9: I Hunted the Ghost Flight.  One page article by Svahn, telling the story of one Bo Olsson , guardian of the frontier, while the secret operations - mentioned in the previous article - was carried out.  In the article, Olsson describes what he did and how he did it. As with Stålbom, Olsson thinks that the public should be told what is was that was going on, and he too, does not think keeping the projects classified is a good idea.

Pages 10-11: Media Watch. C Göran Norlén   gives a review of news clippings from Swedish media, this time from the middle of November 2002 to the middle of February 2003. Many of the articles is about the New Religious UFO movement known as the Raëlian Religion.  Claims are that they have successfully created a human clone. The movement, described in detail in an essay by Stefan Isaksson   and available from UFO Sweden, created worldwide controversy when they recently said that nowadays it's not just sheep that can be cloned. However, harsh criticism from mainstream scientists has hurt the already frail claims by the controversial movement. Other articles mentioned by Norlén is, among other things, about the infamous Swedish contactee enthusiast Sune Hjorth   and his bizarre claim that chairman Svahn is "an agent for the financial mafia". What kind of agent, and what the "financial mafia" really is, no one knows. Except Hjorth, obviously.

Pages 12-13: International ufology.  Stefan Roslund   has thirteen short news tidbits from the international UFO, and forteana, scene. In this issue the main focus is on ufology. Roslund talks about crop circles (Jacques Vallée   has a new theory about their origin, and a strange circle has appeared in Denmark), doomsday theories, UFO sightings in Turkey, Russia, Spain, and Russia, an alleged abduction in Pennsylvania, USA, nuclear facilities and their power of attraction regarding UFOs, the Roswell Incident, and so on. When talking about the moon landing and possible conspiracies, Roslund enlightens the reader by saying that no matter how many proofs there are for the truth about the landing, "doubters will always doubt".

Pages 14-18: Space Expert and Ufologist.  Svahn, productive as always, has met James Oberg , American space engineer/expert and ufologist. The interview is a long and thorough description of Oberg's view of anomalous phenomena in space. It's important, Oberg points out, that one knows the physics of space if one wants to investigate unexplained sightings taking place in a non-terrestrial environment. The market is flooded with books and documentaries about sightings by astronauts on the Moon and in the atmosphere, but, as with pilots reporting sightings carried out in their cockpit; the fact that it is an highly trained astronaut who reports the sighting does not automatically mean it's a genuine UFO, i.e. unexplained. Oberg's approach to the phenomena goes hand in hand with the approach taken by UFO Sweden; namely that it’s of crucial importance to the outcome that the investigator attempts to reach the black box of the witness, i.e. what happens in his or her conscience. Subjective ideas and notions have a tendency to ruin a good sighting, Oberg says, and [It's] "important to keep in mind that a pilot isn’t paid to be a good UFO witness, but rather to be a good pilot".

Pages 19-21: Inhabitants of the Sea.  Richard Svensson,  presents another interesting article about fortean phenomena. This time he describes several encounters with strange humanoid creatures originating from the sea; follows in the footsteps of his article in the previous UFO Update (Hybrids Now and Then, UFO Update #4 2002). As with many other ethnological phenomena, the idea that the world's oceans are inhabited by strange humanlike monstrosities and mermaids are common in practically every single culture, and has been so for millennia. The article is, as always, accompanied by Svensson's delicate drawings.

Pages 22-23: Book Reviews.  Three reviews in this issue; two by Svahn and one by Andreas Ohlsson. The longest review (by Svahn) is Politics of the Imagination: The Life, works, and ideas of Charles Fort    by Colin Bennett.  The other two are books in Swedish, one about Swedish aviation history (by Ohlsson), and the other (bu Svahn) about close encounters with angel-like appearances and written by well-renowned Swedish professor of the Psychology of Religion Anton Geels.

Page 22: Sales.  Two ads, about older issues of UFO Update and a book (unfortunately only available in Swedish) written by UFO Sweden and designed to accompany study circles.

Page 23: UFO Expo.  A large ad for UFO Sweden's upcoming annual event with a meeting for the organization's members, this year in the Swedish town of Köping on the 25^th of May. Besides the meeting, an entire day is dedicated to UFO Sweden's own UFO exhibition which is open to the public, and also four different lectures by Svahn, Svensson, and Ohlsson, as well by Ulf Palmenfelt,, acclaimed prefect of ethnology.

Pages 26-27: UFO Armada over Stockholm.  Article by Svahn about an incident that took place on the 22^nd of December 2002. Numerous witnesses observed what looked like a bright string of pearls slowly moving across the night sky. However, Svahn managed to find a profane explanation to what is was: UFO balloons. A local sports association was responsible for setting the balloons free. Apparently, the sales of such balloons has boomed lately, and the association has thanks to the sales been able to fund an extension to their soccer field. But even if the explanation was as profane as it was spectacular, the different observations from the many witnesses varied greatly.

Page 27: Another Year with Holes in the Ice.  Short article by Svahn about mysterious holes that somewhat regularly appear in the ice covering Swedish lakes. The article, accompanied by a small photograph, offers the possible explanation that the holes are not   the results of objects coming down   from space, but rather the workings by marsh gas   coming up   from the bottom of the lake.

Pages 28-29: How to Make Your Own UFO NASA-Style.  Article by Anders Persson   about a picture taken by the sun research satellite know as SOHO.  Apparently pictures taken by NASA quite regularly show "things" or "objects" interpreted by some as extraterrestrial spaceships (see the Oberg article on pgs. 14-18). But an interpretation is not the same as a fact.  Person shows how easy it is for anyone to create a strange-looking object out of a quite normal looking picture, using such simple tools as the computer program Adobe Photoshop.

Page 29: News in Short.  Three short stories; about the riddles of vapor trails, a forgery of a picture showing the crash of space shuttle Columbia, and the release of documents on the internet, documents that once were the possession of the British Ministry of Defense.

Page 30: Saving a European UFO Archive.  Article by Svahn, telling the sad story of how one of the oldest and best UFO archives in Europe, the archive belonging to the French UFO organization SOS-OVNI, now is up for sale. UFO Sweden, together with UFO organizations and private ufologists all over the world is now working to raise enough money to save the archive. The goal is to raise at least 50.000 SEK.

Page 31: Strange light lit up Entire House.  Short article by Svahn about an incident that took place on the 3^rd of February this year, where a residential house was mysteriously lit up by a light force of unknown origin. The incident is still under investigation and will be followed up in coming issues of UFO Update.

Page 31: Veteran Returns.  Short story about how Irre Bredin,  long-time member of UFO Sweden, returns to work with the report central.

Back page: Colorful Pillar in the Skies. Article by Svahn, accompanied by a beautiful color photograph, about a strange phenomenon called vertical pillars, created when it’s freezing cold, calm, and ice crystals are present in the air. The phenomenon has been reported as a UFO phenomenon from time to time, and even as a genuine mystical phenomenon by some UFO groups.