The Encounter

One night in May, 1975 (the witness did not remember the exact date) a man was fishing for eel at the bank of the Åmose creek leading up to the bog named Åmosen. The weather that night was very clear, with mild frost and a visible moon. Shortly before midnight, the witness noticed a yellow, low-flying light approaching Hesselbjerg Forest. The light flew in an irregular, zig-zag, jumping manner. The light passed over the forest, then flew over the south side of the creek until it stopped 2-300 meters from the witness. By then, the witness had a very good view of the object up close: It looked exactly like a classic flying saucer, with two perfectly symmetrical saucer-shaped halves. The upper half was a medium shade of gray and the lower half perfectly black. The witness estimated the diameter of the saucer to be 13-15 meters. He noticed that even when hovering, the craft was in a constant wobbling erky-jerky movement throughout the entire sighting.

The witness then saw a row of brightly lit windows appear on the flying saucer’s upper half, and a cone-shaped beam of light emitting from the bottom. The conical light ended in a point around 5-6 meters above the ground, its color constantly shifting between various shades of orange and white. At this point, the witness noticed two dark silhouettes of humanoid figures, visible from the chest up, standing in the windows. Both figures were visibly moving. The witness was so captivated by the two humanoids in the windows, that it was not until a bit later he saw a third one floating in the middle of the light cone. The third humanoid figure was clearly ascending back into the spaceship, but the witness could not determine whether this happened by its own force, or if the light cone acted as some type of elevator system.

When the third humanoid had arrived back into the saucer, the cone of light slowly retracted. After this, the saucer started moving and flying around various parts of the swamp, before finally setting the course towards the west and eventually disappearing completely out of view. When departing, the saucer appeared to glow brighter in color than before, as if a ring of glowing white light appeared around the edge of the saucer. According to the witness, the entire sighting took about 5 minutes, and during the whole time everything had been completely silent.

SUFOI looked into the case soon after it had been reported, but we don’t have much detail about how the investigation occured. The witness was clearly asked certain questions, however, based on experience from other encounters of this kind. For example: He was asked if he had been paralyzed during the encounter, to which he answered negative. There had been other physical effects, though: The witness recalled that he developed an unexplainable spot in one of his eyes, which at the same time became bloody red, following the encounter. However, this eye irritation went away after 10 days and the witness did not believe it had any connection to the UFO sighting.

Commentary

Luminescent “swamp gas” is a standard skeptical explanation for UFO sightings, to the point it has become a running joke. Therefore, it is somewhat amusing that one of the few CE3K cases in Denmark, turns out to take place in a bog. The case is also somewhat reminiscent of the widely reported Pascagoula abduction case from 1973, that happened less than 2 years before Åmosen. With that in mind, it is tempting to try and explain it away as either a tall tale, or a misinterpretation of well known natural phenomena, “infused” with images from other UFO cases.

But, despite the above similarities to well known American UFO cases, and even though data in this case is limited, there are also several things pointing towards, if not a full blown alien encounter, at least some kind of unusual, physical event taking place. The eye malady that the witness described may in fact be significant and very much related to the encounter, despite his own apparent reluctance to make that connection. There are countless other examples of such unusual bodily effects occurring after close encounters with UFOs. (See f.x. Josef Matiszewski, who after a CE3K in 1951 experienced both diarrhea, insomnia and a weird acidic taste in the mouth in addition to his pocket watch no longer working – or even the police officer Evald Maarup, who according to his wife looked “pale with fright” after a flying saucer stopped his patrol car one evening in 1970). It may also be significant that the witness reported no sound whatsoever during the entire sighting. This is something found repeatedly in CE3 cases.

In any case, these details are something he could easily have picked up on from previously reported UFO cases (there were a lot known to the Danish public at this time), to give his story more credibility. In that connection, it could be argued, that if the witness had wanted to create a hoax, he wouldn’t have waited two years to report the sighting. The counter-argument to this, of course, is that we only have his word for such a long time span having taken place.

Sources

• Sjællands Tidende, 12th of March, 1977
• UFO-Aspekt #3 (1977)
• UFO-Nyt #3 (1977)

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