1969.02
23.00c
In February 1969 a sixteen-year-old boy, Matti Kontulainen, had a stange experience only 100 metres or so from the slope where Heinonen and Viljo had their encounter:
“It was a cloudy winter evening about eleven pm. I was skiing home through the forest after visiting a friend. It was dark but suddenly the forest was lit up by an intense light which rushed just above the treetops at so low an altitude that I threw myself down in the snow. It was like a huge welding flame, and it disappeared in no time. I have never seen such an intense light; it was like staring at the sun! It was coming from the south and heading north. I heard no sound, so Ii’m sure it wasn’t an airplane.”