Case Type: CE3, Lan­ding Case  

When: July or August, 1940 (Repor­ted and publis­hed in 1974)

Whe­re: Tis­b­jerg Hill, Kgs. Thi­sted (aro­und 56.74614, 9.61684)

Investigator(s): N/A

In the ear­ly years of Wor­ld War Two, a tee­na­ge boy was wit­ness to an appa­rent UFO lan­ding, years befo­re such events beca­me widespre­ad. Read more here

The Expe­ri­en­ce

On a clear and sun­ny sum­mer after­noon in 1940, the wit­ness, then a 15-year old boy, was wal­king towards the hill Tis­b­jerg (Tirs Bjerg = Tyr’s Moun­tain) betwe­en the mea­dows and the heath, somewhe­re to the sout­heast of Kon­gens Thi­sted. He was going the­re to fill a herd of cows’ drinking trays with water. The wit­ness was wal­king along the field road that goes aro­und Tis­b­jerg by the north and had just rea­ched the foot of the hill, when he saw three stran­ge­ly dres­sed peop­le wal­king side by side from the nort­heast, in his direction. They were wea­ring skin tight dark gre­en clo­t­hing, made of a shin­ing , silk-like mate­ri­al, that rea­ched all the way up over their necks cove­ring part of their chins. On their heads they had tight-fit­ting hel­mets of the same dark gre­en colour as their clo­t­hing, their faces cove­red by a trans­pa­rent mate­ri­al resem­bling glass. On the front of the suits were two tube-like pro­tru­sions, each 10cm wide, going from the shoul­ders to the feet. The three figu­res did not appear to wear any type of sho­es. Neit­her could but­tons, zip­pers or pock­ets be seen on their clo­t­hing. They were of nor­mal pro­por­tions and avera­ge height. Their gait was also nor­mal, alt­hough the wit­ness noti­ced that they were swin­ging their arms slight­ly when they wal­ked. 
The wit­ness thought it unusu­al to meet any­o­ne in such an emp­ty deso­la­te area, his imme­di­a­te impres­sion being that they were mecha­ni­cs of some kind. When the three enti­ties were 30 metres away, they sud­den­ly tur­ned aro­und and wal­ked to the south befo­re dis­ap­pea­ring behind the hill. The wit­ness inter­pre­ted this as them not wan­ting to con­front him. Whi­le he felt like “his heart was stuck in his thro­at”, he was curious and made it to the top of the hill to try and spot them again. He obser­ved that the figu­re clo­sest to the hill had fal­len somewhat behind the others and was slo­wly on his way left, towards them. They con­ti­nu­ed furt­her down the heath and the boy could now see that their suits were smoo­th on the back. He then spots a round, shin­ing, dome-sha­ped vehi­c­le par­ked on the heath, 200 metres away from the hill. This vehi­cle’s fusela­ge was clear enough to reflect the sun­light and the­re were no whe­els, lan­ding gear, doors or hat­ches visib­le. The wit­ness was not sure about the exa­ct dimen­sions of the vehi­c­le, but got the impres­sion it was at least the size of a con­tem­porary figh­ter aircraft. Sin­ce the inci­dent took pla­ce during the Ger­man occu­pa­tion of Den­mark in Wor­ld War Two, the boy instant­ly assu­med the vehi­c­le was some kind of advan­ced Ger­man mili­tary aircraft and the stran­ge­ly dres­sed peop­le its pilots. When the three figu­res final­ly rea­ched the object, they all stood still in front of it for a moment. The­re­af­ter, they just dis­ap­pea­red. The boy was puzz­led by this, as he had expected them to open some door and go insi­de nor­mal­ly. After a few seconds the craft rose silent­ly and ver­ti­cal­ly, at first very slo­wly, but sud­den­ly it tur­ned towards the south-east and star­ted to acce­le­ra­te off at an ang­le at enor­mous spe­ed. After a few seconds, it could no lon­ger be seen. A high-pit­ched sound, similar to that of swin­ging a long fis­hing-pole through the air, could be heard when the craft acce­le­ra­ted. After the vehi­c­le was gone, the wit­ness ran down to the lan­ding site. The­re, he noti­ced that the vege­ta­tion on the heath had been depres­sed by the vehi­c­le but was star­ting to rise up again. He could find no tra­ces of any per­ma­nent dama­ge to the vege­ta­tion.
When the wit­ness got home, he won­de­red about what he had seen. He had at that point not seen or heard about any aircraft that could fly as fast as the myste­ry vehi­c­le did. When he told his mot­her about the inci­dent, she re-assu­red him that he had pro­bably enco­un­te­red the crew of a Ger­man Luftwaf­fe aircraft and remin­ded him that he was expli­cit­ly for­bid­den to talk to any of the Ger­man mili­tary per­son­nel who were occu­py­ing Den­mark during the WW2.  After the war, the wit­ness would deve­l­op an inte­r­est in UFOs. In 1974, he final­ly deci­ded to con­ta­ct Scan­di­navi­an UFO Infor­ma­tion about the inci­dent. That same year, an arti­c­le along with a few illu­stra­tions by H. Poul­sen was publis­hed in the jour­nal UFO-Nyt.

Com­men­tary

The main cave­at in regards to this case is that it was repor­ted more than 30 years after the fact. At this point, not only could the memo­ri­es of the event have faded, but also have been influ­en­ced and distor­ted by the growing num­ber of UFO lan­ding cases during the 1960s and 1970s. Put frankly, whi­le an inte­r­e­sting acco­unt, the­re is not­hing about the Thi­sted case that could­n’t have been pie­ced toget­her — whet­her conscious­ly or unconscious­ly — by rea­ding the avai­lab­le UFO lite­ra­tu­re of the ear­ly 1970s. By the same token it must be said though, that we do know of similar UFO cases that ARE on record during that time peri­od. So it is certain­ly pos­sib­le that at least the core expe­ri­en­ce was real (or at least felt real). It is notewort­hy that the wit­ness at no point during the sigh­ting thought the stran­ge­ly dres­sed peop­le were extra­ter­re­stri­als and their vehi­c­le a spa­ces­hip from ano­t­her pla­net, even though it resem­b­led a clas­sic flying sau­cer. But one again has to remem­ber that this alle­ged­ly hap­pe­ned in 1940, 7 years befo­re Ken­neth Arnold’s sigh­ting that her­al­ded the modern UFO age. Furt­her­more, until the 1950s, the most widespre­ad the­ory about flying sau­cers was that they were secret mili­tary aircraft, mis­si­les or spa­ce expl­ora­tion vehi­c­les being test flown by eit­her the Uni­ted Sta­tes or the Sovi­et Uni­on, built on Ger­man tech­no­lo­gy. The fact that both the boy and his mot­her instant­ly thought the flying sau­cer-like vehi­c­le was a top secret Ger­man mili­tary aircraft and the enti­ties Luftwaf­fe pilots beco­mes rat­her inte­r­e­sting in hin­d­sight: After the war, an ela­bo­ra­te myt­ho­lo­gy has ari­sen aro­und so-cal­led Nazi UFOs. In the ligh­ter ver­sions of the Nazi UFO myt­hos, WW2 Axis engi­ne­ers built jet-powe­red circu­lar expe­ri­men­tal aircraft that per­fect­ly resem­b­led clas­sic flying sau­cers of 1950s sci­en­ce-fiction. With all that in mind, it is very inte­r­e­sting that we actu­al­ly have a report of a Clo­se Enco­un­ter of the Third Kind made during Wor­ld War Two in which the enti­ties could very well have been human air for­ce pilots wea­ring high pres­su­re flight suits, with the wit­ness at the time being con­vin­ced what he saw was an advan­ced Ger­man expe­ri­men­tal aircraft and its crew.

Sour­ce

  • UFO-Nyt #6 (1974)