The Sjæl­lands Odde CE3

The Expe­ri­en­ce

The Sjæl­lands Odde inci­dent hap­pe­ned on the 18th of Janu­ary, 1967, and invol­ved two young boys: Tage Jen­sen and Jes­per Ander­sen, respecti­ve­ly 9 and 7 years old at the time. Jes­per lived in the vil­la­ge of Over­by, on a farm near the road lea­ding from Nykø­bing Sjæl­land to the tip of Sjæl­lands Odde (“The Edge Of Zealand”). The farm had a clear view of the sea on the other side of the road. That day the neig­h­bour’s son, Tage, was visi­ting along with his 4‑year old, youn­ger sister. The weat­her was cold and misty, with a strong wind blowing from the west.

Aro­und 16:45 after dusk­fall, the boys were playing near a lar­ge bale of hay. Tage was just about to head home, when he saw a dark grey object in the sky. The object had a blur­ry round sha­pe with a short, tape­ring tail.

Tage beca­me frigh­te­ned. At first, he thought the thing was a water­spout. In fear he yel­led out to Jes­per and his youn­ger sister, who was near­by, that it was dan­gerous and that they had to flee. Tage and his sister then ran home to their mot­her to warn her. Mrs. Jen­sens imme­di­a­te rea­ction was that the wind was not near­ly strong enough for a water­spout to form in the first pla­ce. She then went over to the win­dow, but could not see anyt­hing unusu­al in the sky. Tage was also sur­pri­sed that a water­spout could be so small, but then again he had never seen one befo­re.

Jes­per, on the other hand, was not afraid. He inste­ad took cover in a roadsi­de ditch and obser­ved the furt­her flight of the “cloud”, which at this point had trans­for­med into a dark, round ball but wit­hout the pre­vious “tail”. It now also had a glowing cor­o­na of light and it pro­jected two sear­chlight-like beams of light that cut off mid-air.

The furt­her “trans­for­ma­tion cyc­le” of the UFO is not com­ple­te­ly clear, but after moving aro­und the imme­di­a­te area for a whi­le, the cor­o­na even­tu­al­ly dis­ap­pea­red, and it gra­du­al­ly came to look more like a clas­sic flying sau­cer-type craft. The UFO was oran­ge in colour with a long, nar­row, rectangu­lar win­dow in the mid­dle, a beam of blu­ish-gre­en light des­cen­ding from each cor­ner of the win­dow. The object had ela­bo­ra­te anten­nae atta­ched to, and so did the front end of the sau­cer itself. The bot­tom of the UFO furt­her­more had a squa­re door sur­ro­un­ded by glass. Jes­per saw two rows of stran­ge sym­bols on the flying sau­cer, that did not fit with any num­bers and let­ters he had lear­ned in school. Behind the fusela­ge of the UFO trai­led a small round object on a wire, that Jes­per com­pa­red to a round che­e­se on a string of rope. Most bizar­re­ly, on the other side of the UFO the­re was a poster depi­cting — in Jes­pers own words — “a negro”, wea­ring a basket on his head!

Jes­per’s acco­unt of the UFO’s flight pat­tern descri­bes the object des­cen­ding as it con­ti­nu­ed flying from east to the west, then making an abrupt turn towards the obser­va­tion site befo­re making ano­t­her sharp turn towards a small hill behind the hou­se whe­re Tage’s parents lived. Jes­per noti­ced that the UFO flew in a weird wobbling man­ner, as if the pilot had dif­fi­culty con­trol­ling the craft, and would con­ti­nue doing so throug­hout the enti­re sigh­ting. Three lan­ding legs then des­cen­ded from the bot­tom of the UFO, as if it was about to land. Howe­ver, when the UFO was hove­ring just a meter above the gro­und, it pul­led up the three legs again, but not com­ple­te­ly — just so that the lan­ding legs’ tips were still visib­le throug­hout the rest of the sigh­ting.

Next, the UFO flew to the nort­hwest, hea­ding towards the sea. When it was over the beach, somet­hing stran­ge hap­pe­ned. A bla­ck sub­stan­ce fell out of the UFO. Then the object took a dra­stic turn, whi­le at the same time a squa­re gon­do­la or basket was lowe­red down towards the gro­und. It was han­ging in a thi­ck and sup­po­sed­ly very rigid cab­le, as it did not swing no mat­ter what mane­u­vers the UFO made.

Next, eight “crew mem­bers” clim­bed down through the hole in the bot­tom of the UFO, one by one and into the basket. Jes­per descri­bed the crew as small peop­le, who loo­k­ed human but were all betwe­en 1–1.2 meters in height, aro­und the same size as Jes­per him­self. They all had long thin faces with long noses. Seven of the crew had crop­ped blond hair, with the eigh­th crew mem­ber having lon­ger and dar­ker, shoul­der-length hair. Jes­per remem­be­red that one of the crew mem­bers — per­haps the lea­der — wore a blue uni­form, but the other seven were wea­ring clo­t­hes with ver­ti­cal stripes in red, whi­te and blue – similar in design to the uni­tards worn by gym­nasts or the suits that babies wear. Addi­tio­nal­ly, all eight wore caps like tho­se worn by sto­ne­ma­sons. Except for the com­man­der in blue, each car­ri­ed a doub­le oxy­gen tank on their back that had what loo­k­ed like bre­at­hing appa­ra­tu­ses atta­ched. From here ran a hose that con­nected on the oppo­si­te end to a grid-like con­trap­tion cove­ring the crew mem­bers’ mout­hs, the same way as with deep sea divers. The crew also had a flas­hlight-like type pro­jector fixed to each of their shoul­ders.

The UFO even­tu­al­ly flew back from near the sea towards the area whe­re Jes­per was hiding. The eight crew mem­bers then pick­ed up some devi­ces that were laying in the basket, which Jes­per descri­bed as look­ing like bino­cu­lars or came­ras. Jes­per was not frigh­te­ned at all and descri­bed the crew as not just look­ing fri­end­ly, but also waving good­bye to him when the UFO pas­sed over a for­ma­tion of tre­es on the side of the road. By then, Jes­per could hear the UFO making a low noise similar to that made by a bat­te­ry powe­red tape recor­der. Jes­per noti­ced that the UFO pro­du­ced no heat sig­na­tu­re like a low flying aircraft or heli­cop­ter usu­al­ly would.

When the UFO con­ti­nu­ed its flight in the direction that would have brought it over the church in Over­by, Jes­per noti­ced seven of the eight crew mem­bers clim­bing up from the basket into the craft itself. Towards the end of the sigh­ting, the UFO chan­ged col­or from oran­ge to purp­le but the light from its win­dow stay­ed blu­ish gre­en. The obser­va­tion lasted no lon­ger than five minu­tes and was over by 16:45.

After­math and Inve­sti­ga­tion

Ini­ti­al­ly when hea­ring their son’s story, Jes­per’s parents were skep­ti­cal. But neit­her he nor Tage were known for tel­ling lies. Jes­per’s fat­her, who was the director of the local air­bor­ne civil defen­se unit, showed Jes­per pho­to­grap­hs of all the aircraft and heli­cop­ters in ser­vi­ce at the time. Jes­per was certain that he had seen somet­hing com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent. Also, Jes­per was fami­li­ar with dif­fe­rent aircraft ope­ra­ted by the Danish mili­tary thanks to their frequent drills over the near­by Gni­ben area. His mot­her final­ly con­ta­cted the Rude Skov satel­li­te tra­ck­ing sta­tion, who put her into con­ta­ct with SUFOI.

A few weeks later, Erling Jen­sen, who at the time was the director of SUFOI’s report cen­tral, went to Over­by to inter­view the young wit­nes­ses. Jen­sen’s impres­sion of boys was very posi­ti­ve — he did not belie­ve they were lying about their expe­ri­en­ce. They stuck to the overall story they had ori­gi­nal­ly told their parents, whi­le Jen­sen mana­ged to get even more details from them in the inter­view, more or less all of which have been rela­ted above. Jen­sen noted that the­se details fit remar­kably well with other CE3 acco­unts from aro­und the wor­ld at the time, which was made all the more intri­gu­ing sin­ce he deter­mi­ned that the family mem­bers had no know­led­ge of, or inte­r­est in, UFOs whatso­e­ver. It would there­fo­re seem that this expe­ri­en­ce was “uncon­ta­mi­na­ted” and had hap­pe­ned inde­pen­dent­ly of any influ­en­ce.

Most of all, Jes­per see­med wor­ri­ed about not being belie­ved, and decla­red his sin­ce­re wis­hes for the spa­ces­hip and its crew to visit again so that his fat­her — and espe­ci­al­ly his grand­fat­her, who had tea­sed him about it — could be con­vin­ced. Erling Jen­sen did press Jes­per on some of the more bizar­re details of the sigh­ting, such as the poster of the Afri­can with a basket on his head, but the boy insi­sted that this was what he had seen. When SUFOI con­ta­cted the Ander­sen family again in 1983, Jes­per’s mot­her affir­med that his son, now 24 years old, still belie­ved in the truth of his obser­va­tion. He was also hap­py to help spre­ad the word about the exi­sten­ce of UFO’s, alt­hough he now felt that the story should be left as it was. Jes­per’s mot­her admit­ted that she had sin­ce beco­me more to the pos­si­bi­li­ty of extra­ter­re­stri­al visi­ta­tion and furt­her­more had had seve­ral UFO sigh­tings on her own.

Final­ly, about that stran­ge “somet­hing” that Jes­per saw fall from the UFO near the sea? About a month after the obser­va­tion, a 50 kg heavy lump of solid but somewhat damp bla­ck mate­ri­al was found on the near­by beach. The bla­ck lump was sent to the Danish Mine­ra­lo­gi­cal and Tech­no­lo­gi­cal Insti­tu­tes for ana­ly­sis. The results found that the mate­ri­al was not­hing more exo­tic than arti­fi­ci­al fer­ti­lizer made from calci­um and nitro­gen. It tur­ned out that it had long ago been dum­ped by a resi­dent of the neig­h­bor­hood after the fer­ti­lizer had beco­me too hard to use. In other words, the lump had not­hing to do with the UFO sigh­ting whatso­e­ver.

Com­men­tary

The Sjæl­lands Odde case has almost all the hal­l­marks of a ste­reo­ty­pi­cal 1950s/1960s CE3: A flying sau­cer-type craft, car­rying what seems to be human-like ali­ens in uni­forms, with odd devi­ces and sym­bols in an unk­nown alp­ha­bet. Is this Den­mark’s best examp­le of an enco­un­ter with extra­ter­re­stri­als, or an ela­bo­ra­te chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy?

One might think that with a sub­ject as fan­ta­stic as UFO’s, chil­dren make up for a sizab­le amo­unt of reports, but actu­al­ly the per­cen­ta­ge is qui­te low. A French sur­vey of UFO clo­se enco­un­ter cases in the peri­od 1954–1967 found that chil­dren only made up for about 3% of the total wit­ness mass. Likewi­se, very few repor­ted cases from Den­mark have chil­dren among the obser­vers. An important factor to con­si­der here though, is of cour­se how many parents take sto­ri­es of chil­dren’s obser­va­tions serious­ly enough to report them to offi­ci­al instan­ces. The­re may be qui­te a lar­ge per­cen­ta­ge of unrepor­ted sigh­tings invol­ving chil­dren, but one can imag­i­ne that even most of tho­se that are actu­al­ly belie­ved by parents never get repor­ted furt­her, out of fear of ridi­cu­le.

In any case, one would think that UFO sigh­tings by chil­dren show a much more imma­tu­re qua­li­ty than tho­se of adults. But this is also not stri­ct­ly true. In fact, the Sjæl­lands Odde case demon­stra­tes pret­ty much the same dream-like sur­re­a­li­stic qua­li­ty as so many other CE3 “lan­ding” cases. If one should point to the most remar­kab­le dif­fe­ren­ce that sets Jes­pers sigh­ting somewhat apart, it is more in a qua­li­ta­ti­ve sen­se, due to the asto­nis­hing amo­unt of details given. The­re are a few points of con­ten­tion though: Jes­pers acco­unt real­ly does seem like a mas­hup of dif­fe­rent and con­fli­cting impres­sions and influ­en­ces. The poster depi­cting the Afri­can with a basket on his head is the most striking examp­le, in the sen­se of how com­ple­te­ly irra­tio­nal it seems. But also the craft itself seems more like a hybrid of a hot air bal­loon, an airs­hip, and a sau­cer, and the crew are also stran­ge­ly mixed up of many dif­fe­rent ele­ments. If one loo­k­ed dee­per into popu­lar chil­dren’s lite­ra­tu­re etc. from the peri­od, one could pro­bably find the sour­ce for many of the­se, see­m­ing­ly ran­dom, details.

Does this mean that Jes­per was imag­i­ning thin­gs? Some of it, per­haps, but pro­bably not all. The inti­ti­al, stran­ge cloud that both he and Tage (and pos­sibly Tage’s litt­le sister) saw, was qui­te pos­sibly real enough to take a pho­to of. In fact it sounds a lot like one of Teren­ce Mea­den’s ionized plas­ma vor­te­xes, a (hypo­the­ti­cal) exo­tic weat­her pheno­menon that in the 1990’s were seen lin­ked with crop circ­les in the UK. The­se vor­te­xes have been obser­ved by wit­nes­ses and are known to glow and chan­ge sha­pe, even some­ti­mes “shed” parts of them­sel­ves, resul­ting in what would look like a fal­ling sub­stan­ce. Some link has also been establis­hed betwe­en the electro­mag­ne­tic fields the­se vor­te­xes can cre­a­te and cog­ni­ti­ve chan­ges, some­ti­mes lea­ding to hal­luci­na­ti­ve effects in obser­vers. We still do not know that much about what hap­pens in the­se cases, but seve­ral stu­di­es and expe­ri­ments point towards electric sti­mu­la­tion of the brain (tem­poral lobe) under the right circum­stan­ces being able to bring about life­li­ke visions and fee­lings of an otherwor­ld­ly “pre­sen­ce”. The takeaway point of this is, that the stran­ge cloud itself might have been a sour­ce — or trig­ger — of Jes­pers furt­her sigh­ting. But at just what point Jes­pers expe­ri­en­ce trans­for­med from obser­ving somet­hing tan­gib­le into a more dream-like or visio­nary “over­lap”, is hard to say.

It does seem a bit odd that Jes­per, after being con­ta­cted by SUFOI again in 1983, did­n’t seem to want to inve­sti­ga­te the case furt­her. The­re can be many per­so­nal rea­sons for this, though, that in no way means that he was trying to pre­vent clo­ser scru­ti­ny about what actu­al­ly hap­pe­ned. All in all, The Sjæl­lands Odde case is at the same time both very typi­cal and very unique for CE3 cases, most defi­ni­te­ly deser­ving an important pla­ce in the annals of Danish ufo­lo­gy.

Sour­ces

• Aar­hus Stift­s­ti­den­de, May 18th (1967)
• Hol­bæk Amts Ven­stre­blad, April 15th (1967)
• Hol­bæk Amts Ven­stre­blad, June 15th (1967)
• Jyd­ske Tiden­de, April 16th (1967)
• UFO-Nyt: #2 & 3 (1967), #1 (1984)
• Wil­ly Weg­ner — UFO-Lan­din­ger i Dan­mark