1958.11.09
22.10c
Event: Alleged crash retrieval
Physical traces from UFOs are rare and usually confined to ambiguous ground marks, burn marks, etc. Occasionally, however, solid artefacts alleged to be part of UFOs are recovered…
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
In this first issue of Nordic UFO Newsletter we have concentrated on giving a resume of some of the “hottest” cases in Norway and Sweden during the last 25 years. In subsequent issues we will bring cases which have been reported more recently.
SWEDEN
THE VADDO CASE
By Christer Nordin
Translated by Borgny Tingstedt [Translation corrected slightly by LUFORU]
Sunday November 9, 1958, wasn’t different from other days. A feeling of winter came over you. It was cold and lots of people were making plans for Christmas.
For the two carpenters Stig Ekberg and Barry Sjöberg, this day would end with a very strange event that would affect them for a long time.
Resting comfortably in an armchair with a cup of freshly-boiled coffee within reach, I’m staying with Stig Ekberg and his wife at their place. Next to me in a sofa Harry Sjöberg is sitting with a cup of coffee of his own. On the table in front of Harry lies a small and rather heavy piece of metal that makes me curious. It’s under such pleasant circumstances I come to share the strange event of Stig and Harry – an event that has come to be known as the Väddö case. You will soon realize that the small piece of metal plays the leading part.
The Väddö case began that eventful Sunday in November 1958. “At that time we were building a weekend cottage at Väddö some nine miles north of Stockholm,” says Stig. “We had gone back to our families in Stockholm for the weekend and were to return to Väddö Sunday evening, to be at the place of work Monday morning. Harry and I usually spent the night in a little cabin on the spot,” Stig continues. The two workmates started the trip in Stig‘s almost brand new Ford V8 truck. They went from Stockholm through Norrtälje to Elmsta. From there they passed over the Elmsta bridge and then turned left towards Väddö and Grisslehamn. It was about ten in the evening.
FACE TO FACE WITH A UFO
Some six miles later the car engine started to cough and then stopped. Even the headlights went out. Despite several attempts to start, the engine remained lifeless. Stig, who was seated behind the wheel, had nothing else to do but accept what had happened when Harry burst out: “Take a look, Stig, a star that’s moving.” Amazed they saw a huge shining object descend towards them. “I looked at the sky, which was all clear, when Harry called out,” Stig relates. “When I looked up I saw a shining object and told Harry: ‘Damn strong searchlights the AA Command has got nowadays. Different to when I did my service.’ Harry thought it was a thunderball, but I doubted that. I had read somewhere that the largest thunderballs ever seen were the size of a football and this object was much larger.” While they were discussing different explanations for their sighting, the silent and odd object came closer. It made a turn over the Väddö bay to the left of the road. Then it returned, and to the great surprise of Stig and Harry it landed across the road in front of the car some 300 feet away. Puzzled, they stared at the glowing object and its neon-like glow that lit up the surroundings. Harry saw, for instance, a barn-like building on a hill, a quarter of a mile from the object, clearly lit by the light. Although the light was intensive it wasn’t directly dazzling. In the strong glow Stig and Harry could see blurred details of an object that looked like a flattened-out ball. Since it reached to both sides of the road, the length was estimated to be 53 feet and the height to be twenty or 23 feet. The object did not seem to be standing directly on the ground, but with some space between, although no struts or landing gear could be seen. No creatures could be seen either. On the other hand it looked like fire underneath the object, like a delimited light beneath. Furthermore the object seemed to be surrounded by glowing veils of mist dazzling around the object. It could be compared with what can be seen above the road surface on a hot summer day.
STIFLING AIR
“We didn’t know what to do,” Harry relates. “We must have been sitting and watching the strange and a bit frightening scene for almost ten minutes. We then began talking about getting out of the car to take a closer look. But it never became more than an idea, because at the same moment the strange object rose from the road. It made a turn to the left, returned across the road and then disappeared with a high speed up in the sky to the right. It looked as though it was on its way to the moon,” Harry continues, “which was to be found to the right of us. When the object had disappeared like a small dot in the distance, we left the car to check the engine. It was then that we noticed that the air was stifling and sultry and it felt heavy to breathe. We opened the hood and Stig looked at spark plugs and cables with a flashlight without finding anything wrong. He then asked me to turn the ignition key and the engine started up at once. Relieved that nothing was wrong, we jumped into the car again to get going.”
WARM AND HEAVY PIECE OF METAL
Harry was interested in what they had seen and he therefore asked Stig to stop at the place where the object had been seen. At the “landing spot” Harry got out and looked around. The first thing he saw was that the grass on both sides of the road was pressed down in a semicircle. Amazed by the finding, Harry called: “Come here and have a look, Stig – something’s been here”. Stig took his flashlight and stepped out of the car and took a look. The two friends wandered about looking with wonder. “I spotted something on the ground that gleamed when I let the light hit it,” Harry says. “To my surprise it was a smooth hot piece of metal. It was so hot that I could hardly hold it. He came to me and he could see it too. What surprised us besides the heat was that it was so heavy considering its small size. It was triangular and had the size of a matchbox,” Stig continues. “It must have been because of its smoothness and heaviness that I brought it along, otherwise I probably would have thrown it away.”
After Stig and Harry had looked around the place they returned to the car and drove on to where they were going.
NO EXPLANATION TO THE PIECE OF METAL
After this event Stig and Harry passed the place several times and they came to talk about their strange experience. “We told our friends about it, but they thought we were joking,” Stig says.
Almost a year passed before Stig and Harry once again took interest in the piece of metal. It was because they met a young man who was a metallurgist. However, he could not tell what kind of material it was, but referred them to a metal laboratory on Drottninggatan in Stockholm. There Stig and Harry would get to know what kind of strange piece of metal it was. But they failed the task and were referred to another lab in Regeringsgatan. No success there either, so Stig and Harry were once more referred to another place – this time to a laboratory for metal analysis in Helsingborg. There too the results were small, but they had managed to split the piece of metal into three parts. According to information this should have been accomplished by ultrasound.
After this the circus really began. The piece of metal went from one examination to another. Before the investigators got the pieces of metal, they were sure they would solve the riddle. But, as said before, everyone failed. As an example, one could mention Oxelösunds Jernverk, who got one of the pieces to make a so-called wet analysis. The only result was that one analysis mill broke down at the ironworks’ laboratory and had to be repaired for almost 20,000 Swedish crowns. The piece of metal was on the other hand intact and unaffected. During the entire period of examination neither Stig nor Harry had with one single word mentioned the circumstances that lead them to the mysterious piece of metal. This was mostly because they did not put it in connection with the strange object that had landed in front of their car some years earlier. “UFOs or flying saucers were something we had never heard of at that time,” Stig says. “It was much later we read of a Norwegian case where a car had stopped when a glowing object was observed. It reminded us a lot of what we had experienced, and I guess it was then we started to see a connection.”
CONTINUED EXAMINATIONS
Rumor now began to spread about their pieces of metal and their experience. Stig came in contact with engineer Schalin in Linköping, to whom he sent one of the pieces. The result from the examinations amazed Schalin completely. The piece of metal has the hardness of sapphire and the specific weight of 15.2. Sharp diamond discs just slide over its surface and it can take several thousand degrees’ heat without getting the slightest red-hot. This led to the opinion that the piece was unique and Schalin asked for an appointment with Stig. At this meeting Schalin was accompanied by an American Air Force major who wanted one of the three pieces for further examinations in the USA. This was granted by Stig, who still has not heard anything from this Air Force major or anything about the destiny of the piece of metal. One of the three pieces is lost to the US Air Force. The two remaining pieces kept on puzzling the neighborhood for several years. In the early 70s one of the remaining pieces finally arrived at Berkeley University in California, insured for 50,000 Swedish crowns. All this due to the American magazine the National Enquirer, which had set a reward for anyone who could present real evidence for the existence of “flying saucers”. At Berkeley University the examinations were made under the guidance of Prof James Harder. It took the scientists more than three years and thousands of dollars were spent on the examinations. One could now establish the fact that the piece of metal consisted of tungsten carbide, cobalt and a few traces of titanium. But the hardness and composition puzzled the investigators.
Furthermore, they could establish the fact that it was manufactured; it was sintered under enormous pressure. But by whom and in what way couldn’t be explained. “We doubted if machines for such pressure existed except within diamond manufacturing,” Prof Harder said in his statement. As time went on the piece of metal returned to Sweden through, among others, the State Department.
STRANGE BURGLARIES
“When the event became public and was written about in papers, a lot of strange things happened to me,” Stig finally relates. An unknown person phoned and offered 50,000 Swedish crowns for the piece of metal and had to come and collect it within half an hour. Someone broke into Stig‘s car and looked through the compartment. This “someone” appeared after police investigations to be an American student in Uppsala. When he was to be questioned, it was found that he had returned to USA very fast. Thereafter someone broke into the boatyard where Stig worked. Even his home was hit, as well as the homes of his close neighbors. “It even occurred that letters or parcels I sent by mail were opened and searched or never reached the address,” Stig adds.
One can ask oneself why these mysterious burglaries and searching took place. Just souvenir hunters or maybe people with other interests? No doubt the piece of metal was what they searched for.
Anyway, the enigma of the Väddö case and its pieces of metal is still not solved. This most interesting UFO event that took place more than twenty years ago still puzzles and activates ufologists both nationally and worldwide. The final word has not been added to Stig‘s and Harry’s widely discussed experience and there is all the reason in the world to get back to the unique Väddö case.
[Click images to clarify and enlarge]
Two parts of the piece of metal that was found at Väddö. The third got lost in a mysterious way in the USA. [Matchbox in background for size comparison.]
Stig Ekberg shows one of the little heavy pieces of metal.