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[Informal part : what follows is a summary, with excerpts from the
chapters "Introduction" "The Instruments" "The Results" "Discussion"
and "Conclusion". The original is 73 pages long and can be ordered
at :
Fair Witness Project Inc. , 4219 W Olive Ave, Suite 247, Burbank, CA 91505.
this summary doesn't take into account "Project Hessdalen Update" by
Roed and Strand, BUFORA Congress 87.
My understanding is that Strand may soon publish a paper in the JSE about
this work. I also know that Strand has received promises of funds from
Japanese sources [With their work on the Scotland UFO Wave these days, Japan is
definitely the leader on the field, with the CEE proposal as the only serious
"competitor"] at the extent of 20,000$ to launch on
Project Hessdalen II : a set of instruments installed in Hessdalen that
can work for a long period without the help of researchers at the place
(the following studies have been conducted under -20 Celsius and with
40 cm of snow on the ground !, but Strand is so modest you won't find
mention of this parameter in the report...) ]
PROJECT HESSDALEN 1984 : FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT PART ONE
by siv.ing. Erling Strand
Introduction :
Hessdalen is a valley in the middle part of Norway, south east of Trondheim,
about 30 km north west of the town Roros. The valley is about 12 km long,
and about 150 people live there.
In december 1981, unknown lights suddenly started to show up. The lights could
stand still for more than an hour, they could move around slowly, and sometimes
they could stop. They could also show a large speed : at one time a speed of
about 8500 m/s was tracked by radar.
These lights could be anywhere. Sometimes they were reported to be just
above the roof of the houses, or just above the ground. Sometimes they
could be high up in the air. Mostly the lights were reported to be below the
tops of the mountains nearby. No one could give explanations for these lights.
The lights appeared to have different specific forms. This showed up on the
photos. It could have a form of a bullet, with the sharp end down. It could be
round as a football. It could be as a "Christmas-tree" upside down. The colours
were mostly white, or yellow-white. Sometimes it could have a small red
light, usually on the top or bottom of the white. A few times it seemed to
have all the colours : red, green, blue, yellow, at the same time. And sometimes
on the photos, we can see a blue light.
The lights were occuring several times a day, but mostly during the evening
or nighttime. At the most, it could be seen about four times a day. All of
these were actually in the valley. If we had conted those lights that showed
up higher in the sky also, it could have been a higher number. There were more
lights in wintertime. In summertime, lights were seldom seen at all. One
reason for that might be that there is daylight almost whole night in
summertime in Hessdalen.
The lights could be split in three groups :
1- Small and strong white or blue flashes, which could show up everywhere
in the sky.
2- yellow or yellow-white lights. These lights have very often been in the
valley , just over the roof of the houses, or even down on the ground. They
could be stationary for more than an hour, move slowly around in the valley,
and sometimes show large accelerations and speeds. They could also be higher
up in the sky. Mostly they moved on a north / south course.
3-Several lights together with a fixed distance from each others. Mostly it
was two yellow or white lights with a red in front. Many people talked about
"The Object" when they saw this type of light. These lights could move
slowly around the top of the mountains. The direction of "travelling"
was mostly on a north/south course.
Suddenly, in the spring of 1983, the lights seem to be much more seldom.
In the summer of 1983 we got no reports. However, in the autumn and winter
reports started coming in again, but much fewer than the years before. However,
in this autumn (1984), we have got more reports than last autumn.
As no official institutes with governmental support seem to care about these
unknown lights, five persons started their own project. The aim of the
project was to find out what this phenomenom in Hessdalen and nearby areas
was. Even if we didn't succeed in that, we hoped to find out a little bit
more about the phenomenom than what we knew before. This is the report
n part 1 of this project. If founding is available , we will go on for
another year.
The project consists of a "working commitee", which has the responsability
for running the project, and an "advisory commitee", which should help
the working commitee in the theoretical part. It should act as an expert
group and answer questions from us, the working commitee. (The fact is that
the advisory commitee got very little work from us, because we managed to
build up a local expert group, consisting of people from Norwegian Defence
Research Establishment (NDRE), The University of Oslo and The University
of Eergen. In these days, the University of Trondheim also joined the group)
The project was born 3 June 1983. On the 27th of August it was presented
on BUFORA's 3rd international UFO congress in England. During the autumn a
research project was established. The 19th of November the project was
presented to the people in the valley. During the first part of January
1984, an information bulletin, explaining abou the project, together with a
simple report form, which people should return to us, were sent out to
3300 households in the district. The work in the field, with all
the instruments, started the 21st of January 1984, and ended the 26th
of February. (...)
The instruments [more detailed in the report]:
Camera with gratings : 6, 3 of them designed for spectral analysis : Paton
Hawksley TE.216.E. We also got one Paton Hawksley TE.218C and TE.215.
Seismograph : MEQ-800 Portable Seismic System.
Radar : Atlas 2000. Wavelength of 3 cm, with a maximum distance of 33 km.
Spectrum analyser : Hewlett Packard, with a 8554L-RF Section 8552A-IF
Sction and 141S Display Section. The spectrum analyser sweeped from 150KHz
to 1250 MHz continuously.
Radio interference and field intensity mete Singer NM-25T
150 KHz to 32 MHz. The purpose of this instrument was to measure the strength
on any unknown source detected by the spectrum analyser.
Magnetometer : Fluxgate Magnetometer : Modell FM100, Serial 73. Also :
an Esterline-Angus Graphic Ampmeter.
Laser : a 633nm laser from Spetra-Physics Inc. Modell 155. o.4 to O.76
mW in the TEM(00) mode. Divergence 1 mrad.
Geigercounter : 2 Radiation Alert Mini, 1 home-made with digital readout.
IR-Viewer : 2 FJW, Model 80045.
The Results :
53 sightings considered sufficiently documented to dismiss any mundane
explanations (from a total of 188 sightings)
spectral analysis : see the report [The datas obtained seemingly couldn't
be reduced to find some pattern]
seismograph : No connction between the phenomenom and movements in the ground.
radar recordings : 36 radar recordings. Nine uncorrelated with visual sightings
see the report for more details. Some echoes were as solid as the mountains
nearby ("If this isn't a reflection of a solid object, but only gas in the
air, the gas has to be locally and strongly ionised. Otherwise, it wouldn't
give such a strong reflection" - NDRE). Sometimes there were reflection
every second sweep : a mystery.
Spectrum Analyser : some spikes. No trivial findings to be made. See the
report.
Laser : 9 times we used the laser and pointed it towards a flashing light.
8 of these times there was a reaction. From "Flash... Flash... Flash.."
to "Flash.Flash... Flash.Flash... Flash.Flash.." as soon as the laser beam
ligthened the phenomenom.
Geigercounter : Nothing, but lights never came close (< 1 km) to the counters.
IR-Viewer : Not enough material to draw any conclusion.
Discussion :
The four best documented sightings are reported. See the report. [To give
an idea, each one of these cases would have been "case of the year" if it
had occured in America]
Several proposals for a better use of the material are made. See the report.
Notable comment from Strand : "The results from the laser test are very
surprising. Even though we have heard that one person have done a light test
before and succeeded, i personnally thought this test was only a coincidence
We could have done this test more times, and I think
we will another time. Maybe even with a stronger laser ?"
Conclusion :
We have not found out what this phenomenom is. That could hardly be expected
either. But we know that the phenomenom, whatever it is, can be measured.
Besides the light measurement, it can be "measured" by radar and lasers.
Perhaps the measurements we did on the magnetograph and spectrumanalyzer
is due to this phenomenom as well. we have to do more measurements with these
instruments, before we can be sure of that.
We got no measurements with the geiger-counter, seismograph or IR-Viewer. But
I will prefer to bring these instruments as well as in the next period. And
it might be useful to also record events that seem to be unimportant. We
stand in front of something unknown, and we must collect everything that might
lead us to an answer on what this is.
Some hypothesis of what this phenomenom is, might be weakened or strenghtened
after analysing the measurements in this report. However, the different
hypothesis will not be discussed here. The report is more intended to set
a basis for further discussion on what it can be and what should be used
in the next period.
[Then The Appendix, that includes 35 photos as well as an extensive report of
every day of the Project (visual reports, instrument reports)]
(My personal comment before to end : A Masterpiece of Ufology
E.Marin)
hanneton@frulm63.bitnet
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"There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or
to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking". Alfred Korzybski.
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--
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Ed Stewart - egs@netcom.com - | So Man, who here seems principal alone,
"There is | Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown.
Something Going On!" ,>'?'<, | Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal,
-Salvador Freixedo- ( O O ) | 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
------------------ooOO-(_)-OOoo------- Alexander Pope, Essay on Man -------
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