UFO Sightings Inspired These Eerie Photos

When Maria Lax discovered a book written by her grandfather about UFO sightings in her hometown, she knew she had to learn more.

The USA has Roswell, but Finland has Pudasjärvi, a town of about 8,400 people that saw a wave of UFO sightings in the late 1960s. Townspeople reported mysterious lights, strange occurrences, and even alien abductions. Fascinating stuff, if you're into that sort of thing, but for photographer Maria Lax, these alien encounters were much more personal.

In late 2013, Lax visited her hometown to see her parents and stumbled upon a copy of Pudasjärven Ufot. It's a collection of first-person accounts of UFO sightings that her grandfather, Soini Lax, gathered in the '70s while working as a journalist. Mr. Lax died earlier that year, and his granddaughter grew fascinated by the strange tales and her connection to them. She decided to reach out to some of the people her grandfather interviewed and began making these haunting images as a homage to their experiences.

Given that the book was more than 30 years old, Lax worried that many of the people had moved away or died. While poking around, she met a retired taxi driver by simply knocking on his door unannounced and introducing herself. He was only too happy to discuss the strange lights he saw overhead all those years ago, and tell her what he know of others who'd had similar experiences. "Luckily he was super lovely and very happy to tell me his story, as was his wife, and they helped me to find more people," she says.

Since then, Lax has interviewed a dozen people, each offering vivid recollections of their curious and often unnerving experiences. Several report having bright, mysterious lights follow them home through the lonely forest. "The area is surrounded by a huge wilderness so you can imagine how eerie something like that is," Lax says. "The people often describe these lights as beautiful and changing in color, and completely silent. There were also some people who claim to have been abducted, and some of the stories that are quite scary - but I'll hold on to those ones for now."

Lax didn't set out to recreate the scenes in her grandfather's book, but rather offer a sense of what those people experienced. Strange streaks of colorful light pulse through snowy woods, a woman peers through drawn curtains at something eerie outside, an empty gas station awash in light appears vaguely threatening. Lax favored locations from her childhood, choosing sites reminiscent of the stories she's heard. She prefers to wander through town, utilizing available light (often from passing cars) and long exposures to create an otherworldly glow. "Patience is a virtue," she says. "It can take a good while before even a single car shows up."

Lax posts her photos on Instagram as a visual diary, and she's started getting feedback as she's approached 5,000 followers. The project is ongoing, and Lax is currently working on a companion film Lights. The experimental short will cover some of the same territory as the photos, and also examine nighttime and the loneliness that seems to accompany it. The work has left her undecided on the question of UFOs. Some things are better left shrouded in mystery. "I'm not a skeptic, I think there might be something out there," she says. "As one of the people told me, it would be really arrogant to think that in a universe this big that we would be the only ones." 

They came from outer Finland: the town where everyone saw UFOs

The photographer Maria Lax comes from a northern Finnish town where UFO sightings were common – so she set about looking for answers. Her book Some Kind of Heavenly Fire is published by Setanta Books.

‘I’m from a small town in northern Finland surrounded by a vast, sparsely populated wilderness. Most pass through the town without ever knowing it was a hotspot for UFO sightings in the 1960s,’ writes Maria Lax. ‘It wasn’t until I read my grandfather’s book about the UFO sightings in the area that I learned of the incredible stories of supernatural events, bravery and struggle against hardship in what is largely a barren land. Already suffering from dementia, he was unable to answer any of the questions I had so I went looking for the answers. I turned to the people who had seen the mysterious lights, to newspaper archives and my family’s photo albums from the era’.

‘All of the locations in the book are places I have been going to since my childhood. By doing the project, talking to people, reading my grandfather’s book, searching through family albums and walking around the familiar landscapes I got to know my past and my family history much better. This image was taken near my grandparents’ house on a New Year’s Day when there was a long power cut and an eerie fog came out of nowhere - the perfect weather for the type of photographs I wanted to shoot’

‘Over the few years I worked on this project I interviewed several people in the town, and all their accounts are remarkably similar. Colourful lights would follow cars, or people walking home alone. The lights would be silent, pulsating in different colours before disappearing into the sky. Sometimes bright lights would wake people up in their homes in the middle of the night - and would again vanish without a trace’.

‘With the lack of sunlight northern Finland experiences for a considerable part of the year, it’s impossible to escape the darkness. I decided to embrace it and felt like the absence of natural light allowed me to experiment with my images. I wanted to fill the darkness with colours and use long exposures to draw out the unexpected from the locations I knew so well’.

‘The first known UFO sightings in the area were made as early as the 1920s. But because of fears that they would be labelled as crazy by others, people kept what they saw a secret and would only come forward with their experiences decades later - and more than likely most never spoke of what they saw’.

‘There is a larger story running alongside the UFO sightings. Rapid industrialisation in the 60s and early 70s meant that people couldn’t support their families by farming and were forced to move to cities in search of jobs. Some towns lost nearly half their populations. A whole lifestyle disappeared in a matter of a few years, and those who lived through it remember it as a painful, uncertain time. It’s little wonder the UFO sightings embodied a fear of the future and the unknown. I wanted to bring all of this in by photographing the abandoned houses and showing the isolation’.

‘One of the people I interviewed told me: “I remember waking up one night and the room being awash with the most beautiful colours. I knew it was the aliens but I wasn’t afraid. I knew they didn’t wish me any harm.” Although some locals I spoke to were still visibly scared and cautious of sharing what they had experienced decades ago, others said the strange lights were a thing that gave them hope; a sign they hadn’t been forgotten’.

‘The title Some Kind of Heavenly Fire comes from a quote in my grandfather’s book about the alien sightings. When an older woman saw what looked like the forest on fire on a cold winter’s night, she described the strange lights by saying it wasn’t anything from this world - but what she saw was “some kind of heavenly fire”. The town where I come from was, and still is, deeply religious in parts, and I thought that quote was the perfect summary for the different elements for the photo book’.

‘This project is an artistic expression of something that is part of my hometown and my family history. I have kept the narrative ambiguous and hope that anyone who sees these images can form their own truth about this little town with a big secret’.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/mar/03/finland-everyone-saw-ufos-maria-lax-in-pictures

In the letter I received today (August 20, 1993), my cousin, lecturer Eero Elovaara told me about a UFO sighting made at Koutonen's house in Järvikylä, Nivala, about which one of the observers, Elsa Koutonen, had gone to tell him personally.

On August 14, 1993, when the Earth had to pass through a meteor shower, and a lot of shooting stars were expected, Elsa Koutonen planned to watch the event. However, because of the rain and cloud cover, she went to bed at 11 p.m. She had slept well.

However, at 01:30 in the night, she had woken up to find that her chamber was amazingly brightly lit. She called out to her sister Aili, who was sleeping in the other chamber, who had come to Elsa's chamber, and together they had looked out the window and wondered at the big red ball burning in the forest. It had been glowing red in the middle, lighter on the edges. The women had wondered and wondered about the phenomenon, when nothing happened. The forest did not catch fire. There was no sound and the same brightness continued.

Elsa said it was so bright in the room that she couldn't bear to look like her eyes were squinting.Finally, Aili was tired and went to her own room to sleep. When Elsa was left alone, a ball started moving in the forest. It had moved to the base of the fir tree and as if on a horizontal plane. Although there was a lot of spruce between the ball and Elsa, Elsa said that she could see the ball and the spruce, at the foot of which the ball had settled, unobstructed. The fir trees that had grown in between were as if they had disappeared from the power of the light. As the ball had moved back and forth, a three-walled room, high and narrow, had formed around it. A ladder had appeared in the middle of the room. Men in white coats, white pants and white coats had landed along them, and they had what looked like small baskets under their arms.

The entities had picked something up from the ground in their basket and climbed up the stairs to something that Elsa hadn't seen. The movement on the ladder had been fast and repeated up and down. Elsa sat in the chamber and watched this play. At 3:15 the movement on the ladder stopped, the walls of the triangular room disappeared and finally the ball of light rose up and disappeared. The same thing had been seen the same night at a neighboring farm in Haapajärvi.

Imjarvi Goblin Was a sighted extraterrestrials on near Imjarvi, Finland January 7, 1970. Aarno Heinonen and Esko Viljo saw a bright light in the sky approaching them with a buzzing sound. A round 10-foot wide metallic object with a flat bottom, wrapped at first in a reddish gray mist, descended to within 10-12 ft of the ground, and the buzzing ceased. It was so close to Heinonen that he could have touched it with his ski pole. 

From an opening in the center of the object’s bottom, a bright light beam was the emitted, creating an illuminated area of 3 ft in diameter on the snow beneath it, edged with black. A red gray mist descended again; when it cleared both men could see, only 10 feet away, a 3-foot tall humanoid creature standing in the illuminated area, carrying in its hands a black box with a pulsating yellow light. 

The arms and legs were very thin, the face pale like wax, and the nose hooked; it wore a light green coverall with darker green knee boots, white gauntlets, and a conical metallic helmet. Then the mist again descended, and long red, green and purple “sparks” floated out from the lighted area. A sort of flame rose from this spot and entered the UFO; then the mist vanished, as did the UFO. After this experience, Heinonen found his right leg numb, vomited, and passed black urine; Viljo also suffered severe physiological effects. The former would claim, two years later, a series of contacts with a female spacewoman.

Appearance

Two Finnish men, described a remarkable encounter near the village of Imjarvi. A humanoid appears in a blue beam of light that emanated from from a UFO craft. Both men experienced awful physical maladies.

I was standing completely still. Suddenly I felt as if somebody had seized my waist from behind and pulled me backwards. I think I took a step backwards, and in the same second I caught sight of the creature. It was standing in the middle of the light beam with a black box in its hands. Out of a round opening in the box there came a yellow light, which was pulsating…’

The time was 4.45 pm on Wednesday 7 January 1970, the place was lmjarvi, 15 km NW of Heinola in southern Finland. Woodman Aarno Heinonen, 36, and farmer Esko Viljo, 38, both active competition skiers, were out skiing. They came down from a little hill to a glade where they usually take a pause. It was sunset, and a few stars were visible in the unclouded sky. It was very cold (-17 Celsius) and windless.

They had been standing in the glade for about 5 minutes when they heard a buzzing sound, and caught sight of a very strong light moving through the sky. It approached from the north, made a wide sweep, and came at them from the south, descending as it came. The faint buzzing sound became louder. The light halted, and then they could see that a luminous red-grey mist was swirling round it. Puffs of smoke were thrown up from the top of the cloud.

The two men stood quite still staring into the air, saying nothing. The cloud was soon down as low as 15 m, and they could see what was inside it: a round object, flat at the bottom, metallic in appearance and about 3 m in diameter.

Heinonen’s account, as reported by GICOFF (the Goteberg UFO information centre) runs: ‘The round craft hovered awhile completely motionless above us while the buzzing sound could still be heard, quite low. Then the huge disc began to descend along with the red-grey fog which became more thin and transparent It stopped at a height of 3-4 m, so near I could have touched it if 1 had reached with my ski-stick.

‘The craft was completely round. When it came down obliquely towards us we saw it had a dome on the upper side. Along the lower edge was a kind of raised part on which were three spheres or domes spaced equidistantly, From the centre of the bottom projected a tube, approximately 25 cm in diameter, from which suddenly there came an intense beam of light.

‘I don’t think we said anything to each other at all. We were completely amazed. We saw the light move a couple of times before stopping and intensely illuminating a patch of snow about a metre in diameter, with round it a dark edge, almost coal-black and 1 cm wide.

‘I was standing completely still. Suddenly I felt as if somebody had seized my waist from behind and pulled me backwards. I think I took a step backwards, and in the same second I caught sight of the creature. It was standing in the middle of the light beam with a black box in its hands. Out of a round opening in the box there came a yellow light, pulsating. The creature was about 90 cm tall, with very thin arms and legs. Its face was pale like wax. I didn’t notice the eyes, but the nose was very strange, it was a hook rather than a nose. The ears were very small and narrowed towards the head. The creature wore some kind of overall in a light green material. On its feet were boots of a darker green colour, which stretched above the knees. There were also white gauntlets going up to the elbows, and the fingers were bent like claws around the black box.’

Viljo: ‘The creature stood in the middle of the bright light and was luminous like phosphorus, but its face was very pale. Its shoulders were very thin and slanting, with thin arms like a child’s. I did not think of the clothes, only noticing that they were greenish in colour. On its head was a conical helmet shining like metal. The creature was less than 1 m tall.’

Suddenly it turned and directed the opening of the box towards Heinonen: The pulsating light was very bright, almost blinding. It was very silent in the forest. Suddenly a red-grey mist came flowing down from the object and large sparks started to fly from the illuminated circle of snow. The sparks were like tapers, about 10 cm long, red, green and violet. They floated out in long curves, rather slowly; many of them hit me, but though I expected them to burn me, I did not feel anything.’

Viljo: ‘The sparks were shining in several colours. It was very beautiful. At the same time the red mist became thicker and hid the creature. Suddenly it was so dense that I could not see Aarno even though I knew he was standing only a few metres away from me.”

Heinonen: ‘I could only just see Esko. The mist was very thick and I could no longer see the creature.’

Viljo: ‘I saw the being for perhaps 15-20 seconds, no longer. Suddenly the beam melted, flew up like a flickering flame, and was sucked into the gap in the craft. After that it was as if the fog curtain was torn to pieces. The air above us was empty! I don’t think you can say we were afraid. We were laughing and talking about this light. But at the same time we felt a little uneasy.”

They stayed there for perhaps three minutes, Gradually Heinonen became aware of a numbness in his right side. When he stepped forward on his skis, his right leg wouldn’t support him and he fell in the snow. ‘My right leg had been nearest the light. The whole leg was stiff and aching. My foot was as if anaesthetised.’

Viljo: It was growing dark. I asked Aarno if we should be on our way. I thought he was joking when he sat down in the snow. But then I saw he couldn’t get up though he tried over and over again.’

Viljo had to half-carry, half-drag his friend to his home, some 3 km distant. ‘When they got home,’ said Heinonen’s mother, ‘it was dark outside. They knocked on the door, which they don’t usually do, When I opened the door Aarno was outside leaning against Esko. I helped them in. Neither seemed frightened, but I could see Esko’s face was red and swollen. We got Aarno over to a sofa.”

Heinonen: ‘I felt ill. My back was aching and all my joints were painful. My head ached and after a while I had to vomit. When I went to pee the urine was nearly black, it was like pouring black coffee onto the snow. This continued for a couple of months.’

Viljo: ‘I hurried to the nearest neighbour, who lived some 600 m away; he has a telephone. The first two doctors I called couldn’t come, but Dr Kajanoja said he would meet us at Heinola clinic in an hour’s time. The neighbour drove us there.’

To the doctor, Heinonen complained about his aching joints and his headache. The doctor prescribed sleeping pills, and next day sedatives, telling him the symptoms would be gone in 10 days. But they continued, and Heinonen was unable to work, in May he reported he was still ill, with pains in head and neck; the least effort tired him.

The numbness in his right leg had gone, but he still had trouble with his balance. His memory was so bad that if be left home he had to say where he was going so that he could be picked up if he didn’t return. A visit to the site of the incident made him feel worse. Several people who had visited the site, said Viljo, had felt sick for some days afterwards; he wondered if the place was infected in some way. He too suffered after-effects, including headaches and eye troubles. Dr Pauli Kajanoja reports: ‘l think the men have suffered a great shock. Viljo was very red in the face and seemed a little swollen. Both seemed absent-minded. They talked quickly and incoherently. I could not find anything clinically wrong with Heinonen. He did not feel well, but that could have been his stomach reacting to the shock. The symptoms he described are like those after being exposed to radioactivity. Unfortunately I had no instrument to measure that. As to the black urine, it seems inexplicable. Possibly it could have been blood in it, but this cannot go on for several months. If blood samples had been taken they might have revealed changes in his blood.

‘Both men seemed sincere, and I don’t think they had made the thing up. I’m sure they were in a state of shock when they came to me; something must have frightened them.’

A strange thing happened in June 1970 when the two witnesses revisited the site together with a Swedish journalist, a photographer and an interpreter; the hands of the three strangers suddenly became red, and Heinonen had to leave the site with a powerful headache.

Source: https://paranormal-strange.fandom.com/wiki/Imjarvi_Goblin

It is the night of February 3, 1984 and the then 40-year-old Ante Jonsson is on his way south along highway 30 from Ingelstad towards his home in Tingsryd. It's around one o'clock, it's snowing and the road is slippery. Ante, who knows the stretch of road well, slows down the car when he approaches a place where there are usually plenty of moose. Almost at the same time he glimpses a small figure on the left side of the road and further out in the meadow he can see a huge black object hanging in the air. Surprised, Ante stops the car, only to find that the pedestrian he saw has disappeared.

- My first thought was that I have to take a picture of the object, says Ante. I floored the gas and went home to get the camera.

When Ante returns to the scene, it is almost half past two. But the object is gone and disappointed, Ante continues north to turn at an intersection further on. Then he suddenly sees the object again, this time hanging over the road right in front of the car. He brakes but misses and stands with the light straight at the object. In an attempt to escape, he gets stuck with the car in a snowdrift.

- When I opened the car door, a creature grabbed me and almost lifted me out of the car. I just screamed, says Ante, who tried to run away. After a brief battle, he is captured and knocked unconscious. But before everything goes black, Ante remembers how he is dragged towards the craft and how a truck passes by.

- When I woke up, I was sitting in my own car, I was cold and wet and it stung my hands. Then I have a faint memory of talking to someone who I later learned was the police. After that I don't remember anything until I woke up in Sankt Sigfrid's hospital in Växjö.

At 01.50 the phone rings at the police in Växjö. A person who says his name is Bengt Johansson from Kristianstad says that he was on his way north along national highway 30 when he saw a car parked across the road with its lights off at the height of Uråsa airfield. He also thought he saw a person in the car or outside it. And "over the car hovers a black object", as it says verbatim in the Växjö police memo.

The officer on duty decides to send a patrol to the scene. Police officers Roland Karlsson and Thorsten Persson set off south to meet Bengt Johansson, who has promised to wait at the phone booth. But the patrol does not find him and continues towards Uråsa themselves. After a while, they see Ante Jonsson's Saab 99 driven into the snow embankment almost on the border of the Älmhult police district. The light is off and the driver's door is open. On the ground lies a telephoto lens in its case.

The police can see how the car drove around the intersection several times before it stopped against the snow bank. The newly fallen snow also shows that Ante got out of the car, towards Uråsa, where he stopped, stomped and kicked in the snow, after which he returned to the car. And there he sits when the cops arrive, very scared and confused.

Roland Karlsson and Thorsten Persson can see how Ante's fingers are curved like claws and that the muscles in the arms and hands are abnormally tight. He shakes violently as if he has a chill. When they try to talk to him, he seems very confused and can't remember how he got there. The police lock the car and take Ante to Växjö central hospital's medical clinic, where they arrive at ten minutes past three in the morning, an hour after the alarm.

The doctor who receives Ante notes that he is very shocked, hyperventilating and staring. Here, too, one notices how Ante's fingers are bent as if in a convulsion. The doctor decides to give Ante a shot of valium to try to connect with him. But it does not help. Ante has not recovered from his mental shock and speaks only briefly with the doctor. When asked if he has been part of something terrible, he answers yes, as well as that he still feels scared. Then Ante falls asleep but wakes up after a while. This time the doctor is unable to contact him.

From the emergency room, Ante is taken in an ambulance to the psychiatric clinic at Sankt Sigfrid's hospital in Växjö, where he has to stay for a few days. A time that Ante himself likens to a single long scene from the movie "The Cuckoo's Nest". But the patrol from the Växjö police never hears from "Bengt Johansson" again, and despite thorough research and conversations with twelve different Bengt Johansson in Kristianstad, I haven't been able to trace him either. There are many indications that the name is made up. Whoever it was that called, for some reason did not want to identify himself. The man who saw a black object hovering over Ante's car has never been found.

So far, most of it is documented. It is beyond all doubt that Ante Jonsson witnessed something very frightening on the road this night. Simulating the convulsions and the state of shock, which both the police and doctors noted, must be seen as out of the question. The cramp in the hands indicates that Ante was holding on to something, probably the steering wheel. It is also out of the question that Ante himself would have made the call from the phone booth.

At 3 pm the same day, Roland Karlsson and Thorsten Persson return to the scene to try to find traces of the object that would have caused the incident. But despite searching the terrain for three kilometers in both directions, they cannot find any explanation for what happened. In the open place where the object would have been seen, there are no marks. They write their report and the Ante Jonsson case is added to the documents.

Then the "dreams" begin. Already a month after the incident on the road, Ante begins to keep careful notes of unusual "dreams" and on the night of March 6, 1984, he receives the first real contact. But it will be until April 26 before he sees a craft again.

Most of the creatures Ante has encountered look like ordinary people, but at one point he is picked up by "something inhuman" in an egg-shaped craft. The creature is 170-180 centimeters tall, slender with long slender legs and arms, large head, small narrow mouth and two narrow slits for eyes, the nose is only hinted at while the ears, which are slightly pointed, are relatively large. In his hand the creature holds a spruce branch. After a while, it turns out that the creature cools down the twig in a sort of reverse microwave oven before munching on the twig. Ante also gets to taste.

At one point, in August 1985, Ante receives a message that shows how similar his and Gösta Carlsson's experiences are: "you will get to meet us in your dreams," one of the beings tells him before they part. And the meetings continue. During the travels, he often had long conversations with, above all, Jenny, the being who meant the most to him. He has been warned of a coming nuclear war and given a glimpse of how it might turn out - and when it might occur.

However, Ante refuses to say anything more about this. On one of his trips, he also gets to visit a planet whose inhabitants have been wiped out with nuclear weapons. The planet is totally destroyed and Ante also takes this as a warning to the people of Earth. But above all he has spent time with Jenny, bathed, eaten and met her acquaintances.

Since the first event, Ante has written down several hundred A4 pages of experiences. He himself believes that he has been taken to three or four different places outside our solar system. But where he has been, he does not like to speculate. During his travels, he has met several different human-like creatures. One he calls the "half-monkey", another named the "pine eater", a third with a slim body and long arms. And then Jenny, a beautiful and wise woman with an earthly appearance who takes Ante on several dream trips. The cornerstone of the whole story.

It is also Jenny who, in the summer of 1986, two and a half years after the incident, tells Ante what really happened outside the car that winter night. In a conversation with Jenny, which he carefully writes down, he learns that he has been taken aboard the craft after fighting for his life on the road outside. Severely shocked, he was brought on board and for a while his heart was close to stopping. 

To save Ante's life, his captors placed him in a pressure chamber and attached some rings around his chest and waist. The crew also took samples of Ante's hair to "see how long a total life" he has had; past reincarnations could also be measured. They also took a sample from Ante's skin to determine physical and mental condition. After this treatment, the crew was forced to let Ante off again as another car came close to spotting them.

So far Ante's own description of what happened on board. But the meetings would eventually become more positive. The trips with Jenny to other worlds are filled with questions from Ante. The answers he gets are often evasive and imprecise. He only gets answers to what Jenny really wants to tell. For Ante, Jenny is as real as any human being on earth. When we discuss these trips, Ante points out that he is not sure how real his experiences really are. Of course they are real to him, but he finds it difficult to draw a clear line between dream and non-dream.

- It could be a dream. I can't get away from it, he says. But I also can't get away from the fact that it really happened. I don't really know which leg to stand on sometimes. Some things I can still say I think are dreams. But I don't want to say either one or the other because I don't know. I don't really know what it is. Just when this happens, nothing exists except what is happening right in front of me. Yet it is so real. There will be a change in my perception of reality.

- It can happen at any moment. It can happen in the morning, at noon, in the evening, at night. But mostly it has happened towards the end of the evening.

- It starts with the whole body crawling. I don't know how to explain it. There is something moving inside me. Both in the head and in the body. It never goes wrong. When this comes one or two or three days later, something happens.

- This feeling then passes. It can only be felt for an evening or a day. Then a couple of days can go by when I don't feel anything. Then all of a sudden it happens. But in the meantime, you don't feel anything and not afterwards either.

- The change in reality is coming quickly. It often happens when I'm sitting in front of the TV. The funny thing is, I always feel it down in my toes for some strange reason. Just as if you imagine that someone grabs your leg and continues upwards. When it gets up here (about chest level) then I know it's happening. But it always starts between the big toe and the second toe. It sounds crazy, but it's true.

So Ante tells something he has never said before. In addition to writing down everything that happens to him during his travels and contacts with Jenny, he has, on her advice, started to write down his own childhood memories. Memories that appear thanks to the contacts with Jenny. Sometimes painful, often bright. It will be some kind of therapy. Perhaps it is this therapy that the whole incident has really aimed at. Maybe everything that happened is a way for Ante to come to terms with his own memories and his own traumas. It is not easy to say. There are actually a lot of physical and tangible parts of the story as well.

After about an hour of conversation, Ante suddenly mentions that he has a stone locked in a bank safe. He had found the stone in his pocket after one of his "trips". He's not sure where it might have come from but thinks it looks similar to the rocks he's seen on the beach he and Jenny have bathed at a few times. From a beach on another planet. The next day he picks up the stone. It is as big as the outer joint of a thumb, yellowish with lighter highlights and soft to the touch, although some roughness spoils an otherwise perfect surface. 

Whether Ante's stone is from a planet outside the Earth cannot be determined by holding it in the hand. Ante himself is not sure of its origin. It may have ended up there by other means than through his travels. And the bank deposit box holds a lot more, too: several hundred pages of notes from the first event and the travels later, a magazine that Jenny gave him. Perhaps there are also more things that Ante still does not want to tell about.

Before the fourth trip, in May 1985, Ante received a large plastic bottle with 1.5 liters of bland sweetish liquid. He found the bottle in his hobby room on the farm where it was in a cupboard together with one of his own mugs and a piece of paper with instructions on it. The bottle itself looked like a sports drink but with the opening on the side at the top. The content mostly resembled diluted milk. When Ante has drunk all the liquid for a few days, he is ready for a new journey. He burns the bottle as best he can, but what remains is a lump of melted plastic, which he puts in the bin. Why he destroyed this evidence he cannot answer.

Ante has also been given a "device" to be used to make further contacts. He also kept it in a bank deposit box until one day when he took it home.

- I had it in a room at home, but it disappeared. They took it back because I no longer had any use for it, says Ante.

Although the external framework may seem different, Ante Jonsson's experiences are in many ways similar to that of another Swedish contact person - Gösta Carlsson. Both Gösta Carlsson and Ante Jonsson encountered the objects by chance when, at night, they were on their way to a specific destination. Both reacted curiously (Gösta went closer, Ante drove home after the camera) and were then attacked by the creatures (Gösta had the mysterious camera pointed at him while Ante was apparently taken care of). 

Both experienced the events as very unpleasant in the beginning. Gösta tried to avoid being sucked into the dream-like state, resulting in him passing out on the floor at home ("I was afraid I was going crazy"), while Ante tried with all his might to get away from his pursuers out on the road.

But after a short time, the negative turns into a positive experience for both of them. The "dreams" they experience take them back aboard the craft and both seem to be in a different state of consciousness. In the "dreams" they get answers to several philosophical questions.

Both also come into contact with plastic bottles in connection with their experiences. Gösta finds two almost drunk on the ground after the landing, while Ante finds his at home in the shed at; the plot in Tingsryd. After some time (in Gösta's case several years, in Ante's a few days) the bottles are destroyed by fire - but not completely. What was left in both cases was a pile of melted plastic. Ante throws his in the garbage, while Gösta locks his in a bank safe.

Otherwise, both gentlemen have put a lot into their bank safes. Gösta has his notes, the quartz rod, the ring, (maybe) the plastic remains and maybe something else there. Ante has his notes, a smooth stone, a newspaper, a mysterious postcard and the strange device that then disappeared.

And the similarities continue. In Gösta's case, there is, according to himself, another witness to his observation, namely the carriage cleaner. But she is dead. In Ante's case, we have the mysterious "Bengt Johansson" who saw the object hovering over the car but is now nowhere to be found.

The aftermath for the two witnesses also has some striking similarities. For Gösta, the meeting in the clearing and the continued dreams meant that he embarked on a new path in life, while Ante, through his experiences, began to receive a type of therapy that made him a happier and more positive person. In addition, he claims to have gained a better memory.

Of course, one cannot draw too far-reaching conclusions from these parallels. Maybe it's just coincidence after all. If you want to go even further, you can also point to the creatures' interest in our fir trees. In Gösta's case, they used branches from spruce trees to cover their dead with, while one of Ante's pilots ate spruce rice for lunch. Nor can we ignore the prominent role of the beautiful women.

A dream sequence they both share is the clear warning of a nuclear war. Both Ante Jonsson and Gösta Carlsson are shown a planet destroyed by nuclear weapons by their respective visitors. The fear of these weapons that we all carry within us becomes very clear here. But the most important aspect is the impact that the events had on both men. Gösta gets help from time to time to solve difficult problems and his most important discovery so far, a pill that can extend life, has its origins in ideas he got after encounters with the creatures. Ante says he feels the creatures are helping him and watching over him. On one occasion they saved him from a warehouse fire and on another they made his heart heal quickly after a heart attack.

- In the beginning, the family only knew about the first thing that had happened, says Ante. They did not know about the other experiences. I tried to keep it a secret as much as possible. But it didn't work anymore. I had to tell you before I published the book too. Since then we have talked about it more and more. My wife says that "as long as they don't come and ask me anything, because I don't know anything". So I always schedule times with the newspapers when she is working. But otherwise there are no problems.

- I'm surprised it went so painlessly. I thought there would be quite an outcry. OK, it grumbled a bit at first but after just a couple of days it was gone. I myself have thought about how I would have reacted in the same situation, if it had happened to her. I would have said she was crazy. I would have said that without further ado. So I'm surprised she hasn't said so. At first, she thought it must have changed for me. No, she didn't say that either but she said "you must have dreamed this".

- In parts, I'm still figuring it out myself. Some things I can still say I think are dreams. But I don't want to say either one or the other because I don't know. I don't really know what it is.

Today, Ante Jonsson has divorced, left Tingsryd, moved to the west coast, remarried and returned to his home village of Väckelsång. The dreams continue but now with information about future events and disasters. From his friends from elsewhere, he has learned about both the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union before they happened, as well as the sinkings of the "Herald of Free Enterprise" and "Jan Hewelius" ferries. His experiences continue but without Jenny who has left him.

- But I don't know if it's about internal or external experiences, points out Ante. To me they are completely real but I have a hard time saying for sure.

Source: https://www.ufo.se/index.php/new-age-ufo-religioner/1407-ante-jonsson-ett-svenskt-kontaktfall2

The events surrounding Ante Jonsson and his close contact are well known to every UFO-interested person. For many years he has been Sweden's most famous contact person, possibly with the exception of Gösta Carlsson in Ängelholm.

The first time I contacted Ante was on September 11, 1986, then to do an interview for a series about enigmatic phenomena that I wrote in Norrbottens-Kuriren. After that, we have talked countless times and met on a number of occasions.

When our story begins, Ante Jonsson and I have returned to the place where it all started, an off-road from the busy highway 30 between Tingsryd and Växjö. Back then, on February 3, 1984, it was snowy and dark, now 23 years later it's the end of a lovely summer day.

The highway is heavily trafficked and at regular intervals large trucks rumble past. If we stand too close, it sways in the body. This is where Ante came driving after a visit to some acquaintances in Ingelstad, where he showed pictures and ate a late dinner. The clock had passed midnight and the date changed to February 3. He was on his way home in Tingsryd and it was dark and the snow was falling thickly, which made visibility poor. The temperature showed close to zero, the road was slippery and Ante was driving between 70 and 80 kilometers per hour but slowed down to 60 as he approached an area with a notorious amount of game and where he himself once came close to colliding with a moose.

When he passed the entrance to Uråsa it was one o'clock. Suddenly he caught a glimpse of a small figure on the left side of the road and out in the meadow a little further away something which, despite the darkness and snow, he then came to resemble a giant black craft. How he could see it is one of the details I have often pondered.

The black object seemed to hover about ten meters above the ground and Ante slowed down even more until his Saab 99 almost crawled forward. Although it must have been difficult to see exactly how large the object might be, he estimated it to be close to 80 meters long and between five and ten meters high. At the same time he thought of the person he had just passed and turned to see if it was still standing but could no longer see it. Since he was now almost standing still, he cranked down the side window to listen for sounds but could hear nothing. Apart from the engine noise from your own car.

- Then I hit the gas at the bottom to go home and get the camera. This is what I wanted to photograph, Ante tells us as we stand by the side of the road.

It is here at the intersection, where we now stand, that everything happened. Together with Ante, we walk down towards the highway and the place where he had to stand on the brake in the slippery snow slush. Where he had intended to turn, the large black object he had previously seen out in the meadow hung directly over the right part of the roadway. The car skidded around a lap before coming to rest, facing the wrong way, in the ditch on the west side of the road. The lights came shining straight at the object and Ante could see how the craft rocked slightly and had what he perceived as the front end pointing towards him. When he tried to turn the car again, he received another slip and was close to colliding with the craft, which now took up the entire width of the roadway and parts of the roadway:- When I tried to get away with the car, I got stuck in a snow embankment on the other side and when I tried to reverse, it didn't work, says Ante.

While he was trying to get out of the snow, the object seemed to have disappeared and Ante decided to get out of the car to see how badly he was stuck:

- When I opened the car door, a creature grabbed me and almost lifted me out of the car. I just screamed, he says. It was quite short and dark and I couldn't see any face, arms or legs.

Exactly what happened is not really easy to say. Ante explains to me how he was dragged out of the car, tried to escape but lost consciousness and didn't wake up until he was back in the driver's seat with his hands convulsively clenched around the steering wheel. But there are more memories.

In the police interrogation that was then held at the police station in Växjö on February 6, Ante said that he could not remember exactly how he got out of the car. But he was scared: "He wants to remember that he screamed straight into the air," writes Detective Inspector Börje Ekelius in his report from the interrogation.

In the interrogation, which was conducted four days after the incident, Ante Jonsson describes how he somehow managed to get away from the creature and started running towards Uråsavägen to try to get help in a house that he knew was a little further in. But he had only made it a short distance before it stopped again. Suddenly a similar creature stabbed him.

The story that Ante tells could be one of many hard-to-verify claims by people who claim to have encountered beings from elsewhere. And in part it is. But in Ante Jonsson's case, there is evidence that something actually happened. At 01.50 a person calling himself Bengt Johansson called the police in Växjö. Whether this is his real name I do not know and despite research the person has never been traced.

According to the police memorandum, Bengt Johansson was traveling by car from Tingsrydshållet north along highway 30/27. When he arrives at Uråsa airfield, he sees something that frightens him so much that he turns around and drives back instead of continuing the journey. And it might be interesting to quote directly from the police notes from the incident. 

I've written out all the abbreviations for readability: "On the same day as above at 01.50 a message was received by phone from a person who said his name was Bengt Johansson, Kristianstad. He stated that he was traveling by car on highway 30 north. At the height of Uråsa airfield, on the road he sees a car with its lights turned off, standing across. A black object hovers over the car, no sound or light was visible. Possibly there was a person in the car or outside. Johansson was very frightened, did not dare to drive further, but turned back to Väckelsång, from where he called the police from a phone booth."

When the police arrived at the designated meeting place, Bengt Johansson was not there, at least that is not apparent from the memorandum. Instead, the two policemen find Ante Jonsson's car parked in a snow embankment at the southern exit to Uråsa. The officers reported:"Behind the steering wheel sat the above person [Ante Jonsson, my note], the door on the driver's side was open, the light was off, next to the car was a telephoto lens in a case. As it had recently snowed, it was possible to observe how the car drove around the intersection several laps. Footprints in the snow showed that the driver walked towards Uråsa about 100 meters, stepped, kicked in the snow, turned back."

The footprints in the newly fallen snow thus showed that Ante Jonsson had wandered around outside. No trace of the creatures he would later tell about was ever found. Whoever it was that called, the police were soon able to establish that the object that scared the man was gone. Ante Jonsson remained in the car, confused and scared.

The police report notes that "the muscles in his arms and hands were very tense, his fingers were curved like claws" and that he was shaking violently. The policemen decided to take Ante to the medical clinic at the Central Hospital in Växjö. At 02.30 the police left the scene with Ante in the car and twenty minutes later they arrived at the infirmary. In the medical record, the doctor describes Ante as "completely shocked", hyperventilating and staring. Here, too, one noticed how Ante's fingers were spasmodic and curved like claws. The doctor gave Ante a shot of valium and then tried to make contact with him. But Ante Jonsson had not recovered from his mental shock and only responded briefly to the summons. 

When the injection has worked, the doctor asks if he had been part of something terrible and gets a short "yes" in response, as well as to the question if he felt scared. Then Ante falls asleep. When he wakes up again, he looks very anxious and stares around unable to speak.

When the doctor calls Ante's wife, she learns that Ante Jonsson has never shown any signs of mental illness and that he is completely healthy. Admittedly, the wife says that Ante is very interested in "phenomena in the firmament" and also a few years earlier was involved in the debate about flying saucers, but when he tried to photograph these phenomena, others around him were also able to see them. They have not been in Ante's head.

But the wife also tells the doctor something else, something that has never been proven right. The journal states that when Ante was in the bedroom at night to tell his wife that he was going back, he would also have said that he was not the only one to have seen the craft and "that the other man had gone and called the police ". Ante Jonsson himself denies that anyone other than himself would have seen anything at that stage of the evening and has no idea who it would have been he was referring to.

The medical emergency's assessment of Ante Jonsson was that he suffered from "a pure psychological shock". He was then taken in an ambulance to the psychiatric ward at Sankt Sigfrid's Hospital in Växjö, where he had to stay for a few days. A time that Ante himself likens to one long scene from the movie "The Cuckoo's Nest".

- But the very next morning I felt well again, says Ante.

The interest on the part of the police would continue. Perhaps because the incident occurred in a sensitive military area, very close to a war airfield surrounded by forts and bunkers. On the same day that Ante Jonsson had to leave Sankt Sigfrid, the criminal police in Växjö contacted him for a search of the place. For over an hour, Ante was interrogated while a policeman measured the scene, sketched and took notes. Others checked to see if Ante had a gun license, which he did not. But soon events would take a completely different direction.

Already a month after the meeting on the winter road, Ante began to keep careful notes of unusual and recurring "dreams" and on the night of March 6, 1984, what would become the beginning of a long series of contacts occurred. Ante then woke up to someone touching him and finally sat up in bed, got up and got dressed. Once out on the street, he stood under a street lamp and lit a cigarette. After a while, he saw a tall man dressed in a black coat who he couldn't help but follow. As soon as Ante approached the man, he seemed to disappear and then reappear a little further away. 

After a while, the man arrived at a meadow 600-700 meters from Ante's residence, and there Ante caught sight of a large black craft that seemed to hang in the air. The craft was a copy of the one he had come close to colliding with on the road but considerably smaller.

- Then I feel myself being lifted into the air as if by an invisible platform. At the same time, I hear a voice inside me that tells me not to be afraid, says Ante Jonsson.

- After a maximum of 15 seconds, I'm lowered again and then I find myself in my own garden!

- It could be a dream. I can't get away from it. But I also can't get away from the fact that it really happened. I don't really know which leg to stand on sometimes, Ante has told me on several occasions, but when I talk to him at the beginning of 2014, he feels more and more sure that it is something tangible.

- These are physical experiences, I can't say anything else. 

What started as an accident would eventually develop into a long series of meetings that Ante Jonsson himself likens to a kind of plan. A plan that he does not understand the purpose of and which still in 2014 has no end.

- Is it really the case that they come from somewhere outside or do they come from somewhere on Earth? I do not know. They have said they come from the planet "Prio" but I have never been told how far away it is. But I don't think they get that far away.

For Ante Jonsson, much of what is happening and what he has been told is incomprehensible. He himself realizes that the distance to the planet "Prio" must be great and he says that it can hardly be possible that the creatures go back and forth as often as they seem to do. Nevertheless, he claims to have been allowed to go along and therefore doubts whether the trip really took place in physical reality. 

When I interviewed him in June 1998, Ante Jonsson stated that the experiences were part of his everyday life. 

- At first it was a bit nasty, but now I don't think about them so much anymore because they have become a part of my life.

During our many and long conversations, it has often been frustrating not to be able to see the evidence that Ante claims to have received from time to time in the form of various objects. On one occasion he was given a small metal box which, when he opened it, turned out to be completely empty. The box would have been handed over by one of the creatures during a visit to Ante's residence. He never got to know what he was going to use it for and I never got to see it.

There is much that Ante Jonsson himself says he finds difficult to understand about what is happening. For example, he almost never gets answers to the questions he asks. Many times he has brought a note not to forget something important that he wants to ask about but it is rare that any of the creatures care about it. 

- Most of the time they don't answer but get into something completely different and it's terribly difficult to find out anything about themselves. Then there will be diffuse answers, he says.

Only once has Ante been given a mission by the creatures. It was in 2002 or possibly 2003 that he had to write down a rather long and complicated message to be delivered to a male decision maker. He doesn't want to say more than that. Otherwise, most of it has revolved around himself.

Over time, the contacts have decreased and at the beginning of the 2000s, three or four months could pass between each time he felt the crawling in his body that was usually the sign that a meeting was imminent. 

The last time was a late afternoon at the beginning of 2013 when Ante again felt the tingling in his legs and set off towards Lake Helgasjön where there is an old remote pier with a few benches.

- When I got there, there was a person sitting there, I thought it was anyone because he looked like us. So I sat down on a bench some distance from him. But when he turned around I saw who it was and when he stood up I went up to him. He greeted as he usually does by putting his right arm on my shoulder. For some strange reason!

The conversation, which lasted half an hour, came to be about how Ante should live his life and behave. A common theme at the meetings. Ante also told us that he got a clot in his right calf that then traveled up his thigh. At the infirmary he had been given medicine which helped for a while, but the X-ray had shown a narrowing of the vessels which was not so easy to cure.

- When I mentioned this, the man walked away and disappeared for a while. Ten minutes later he came back with a kind of thermos that he asked me to drink from. It tasted like old dishwater, but I drank it. "Now you should feel good about it," he said.

Once the meetings take place, he never gets to know in advance what they will be about. Over time, the focus has shifted more and more towards Ante himself, what happens after death and about rather mundane issues.

- I have asked so many times why they have made contact with me and not some leaders who have the power to influence. The answer I have received is that it has not worked. They have tried but have not received any contact. I have not been told why it has not been successful, says Ante.

Ante himself says that those who have contacted him since 1984 until today have largely been the same people. But some have also come and gone, and in total he estimates the number of different creatures to be between 15 and 20. He has not discovered a commander. No one seems to be above the other.

- I've had contact with someone called Sindo and someone I call Alvar, it's mostly him I've talked to in the last few years. At some point there have been five of them at the same time. A couple has had a box on their shoulder that flashes like a disco light as they speak, like it's some kind of translation device.

Conversations are conducted in pure Swedish. Rikssvenska to be more precise. Ante Jonsson's Småland doesn't always work. And it is in these details that Ante's story gets a closeness and touch of reality that makes it hard to wave away. When I ask him if the creatures always understand him, he answers quickly and with a moment's thought that once he had used the word "tyar", which every TV viewer who remembers his "Raskens" would have immediately recognized, then the strange creatures would not have understood him. Then he had to explain that it was Småland for Orcs. 

After initially resembling inhuman robots, the creatures have become more empathetic, says Ante. Lately, he's even seen some of them smile. Something that has never happened before.

- After more than twenty years, I see how they pull their mouths!

Some information feels difficult to digest, to say the least. According to Ante Jonsson, there are 200 creatures that live here in Sweden. All like us humans but slimmer. 

- You can't say it's one of them you meet. There is not much that separates them from us, he says.

When Ante tells us during one of our conversations in the fall of 2006 that two of them will sit in the government, so I ask which government; the past or the present. As far as Ante understood, it must have been in the Social Democratic Party because he learned about it a few years ago. Several will also be senior company managers.

Do you believe that, I ask. "I hesitate," says Ante. "Many of them talk so much nonsense that it is hard to believe that they would come from outside". I can only nod in agreement. Which Swedish politicians or business leaders would you suspect in that case? It all seems unreasonable and improbable. 

The physical evidence for what Ante Jonsson tells about is non-existent. Apart from a couple of rocks which to the naked eye cannot be distinguished from some completely earthly, I have never seen anything. He must have found one of them in his pocket after one of his trips but apart from being smooth and beautiful it is not very strange. When I hold it in my hand, I can tell that it could have come from almost any earthly shore.

But he has also received three "devices" of different kinds, but always without instruction manuals and it has ended with him putting them away in some closet before they have been taken back by the creatures.

- I actually don't know if I have had any use from them, he says.

In the early years, the core of the many contacts was a creature named "Jenny". Jenny became an important part of his life until she suddenly stopped showing up. When I ask Ante about how it happened, he tells a strange story that I have to promise not to write about.

It is clear in any case that Jenny's role was for a long time the most important in the entire story and that the connection between Jenny, who resembles an old school friend, and what goes on in Ante Jonsson's normal everyday life is the core of what is happening and that it leads back to Ante early years. The years with the "aliens" seem in many ways to have been a kind of long therapy session.

- It's like a kind of rebus that I have to solve, but I don't understand where it will lead anywhere, he says. One day I will know what to do with everything.

When I point out that thirty years have passed since the first contact and nothing has really come to light, Ante can only agree:

- I still don't understand it to this day, sometimes I go home and wonder if it's not just a mental ghost or if someone is playing tricks on me while I'm sleeping.

- But, he adds after a while, I've accepted it for what it is, either it's brain ghosts or reality.

And it is reality that Ante leans towards today and he continues to experience the contacts as physical. A reality that he does not want to share with others. It is no longer so important what is behind the events. "What happens, happens," he says.

Just three weeks before one of our meetings, he had met a craft down by Lake Helgasjön not far from where he lives. The meeting took place in the same way as they always did. First a crawling feeling in the legs the night before and then instructions where he should drive. Once there, he sees a miniature submarine-like object.

- Suddenly the craft appeared like when you turn on a light. Then a man came walking from the path where I had walked, even though the craft was out in the water, says Ante.

The man who has often appeared at the meetings is "fantastically thin" but looks like an ordinary person, according to Ante. He is dressed in light overalls with a belt and when he arrives, they start talking about things that concern Ante.

- It's very private stuff that I get to know in the form of clues and I write down what he talks about. It's a strange story with strange feelings.

The private runs like a red thread through everything that has happened, he says himself. But he has never talked about that part in public or written about it. But over time he has begun to understand that the two tracks are no longer distinguishable. The private is connected with the public, what he has come out with. "Perhaps I have to bring them together," he says, referring to the between 400 and 600 pages of notes from his various meetings that sit neatly inserted in binders at home in the apartment.

There are also notes on notices of upcoming events. Two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Ante had seen in a vision how a city was flooded. But he was never told where it would occur. Another time he was told that Earth astronomers would soon discover a new planet which also happened a few weeks later. The creatures had pointed it out on a map where the earth was also visible. But the question is how interesting such a task is.

Today, astronomers have found well over a thousand planets and new ones are discovered every week. When I ask Ante where this new planet would be, he refers to the "western side of the Milky Way" and "a good distance from Earth". A reasonably imprecise description that hardly indicates that the sages have access to any higher form of technology. And what "west"? Our galaxy is hardly described using a compass direction.

- It wasn't that long ago that I dreamed of which numbers would win on the Double of the Day. But I was lying at home on the couch and had no way to get into town to play them. So I thought I'd watch TV to see how it went, and then there were those numbers. Another night I dreamed of the last races of a trotting race and that two fives would win the double of the day. So I went in and played them. Once I won 870 kroner! 

But I guess you 've lost too? I ask.

- Yes I have. These are not foolproof tips. Three or four times it has not worked. But I don't bet more than a ten.

Ante Jonsson has learned to live with all the strange. The worst part was when the phone would never stop ringing.

- Many are nuts who think that I am some kind of god who can help them with everything possible, he says. 

When we leave the Uråsacrossing and drive back towards Växjö, we only manage a few miles before Ante asks me to turn left down a minor road and past some residential buildings. Finally we arrive at a dam plant. We park the car below an embankment and lock the doors. A staircase leads up to a low mesh fence that stretches along the edge of the pond. A grinding noise meets us where we stand and look out over the still water.

- They always come from there, says Ante and points. Then they become suspended above the water. 

Water seems to be a common denominator for Ante Jonsson's contacts. The first meetings took place on the shore of Torsjön not far from Väckelsång. When Ante moved to Strömstad, it was lake Färingen that came to function as a contact point. When he moved to Växjö, the meetings were focused over Lake Helgasjön, which is right next to his and his family's house. Then it was the dam not far from Ingelstad that became the center of most of the contacts.

We stand at the edge of the pond for a while and look out over the surface of the water. I explain how difficult it is for an outsider to understand any of what he describes. Despite all the years and all the conversations, most of what Ante has said makes no sense.

- That's it for me too, says Ante and laughs. It is difficult to understand. I don't always understand more than you do.

- Why am I so important to them? And what is it that they want me to do, because it is something. There is so much that is complicated but doesn't need to be. They could speak more plainly instead of in riddles.

Once, Ante claims to have visited an extraterrestrial base at the bottom of the ocean, but most often the trips in the creatures' egg-like craft have been to other planets, such as their own home planet Prio. However, Ante himself has never felt convinced that he has really been there because Prio looks like any place on earth but to me it is clear that he probably still thinks it is.

He has also been allowed to visit destroyed planets to warn him what can happen if our wars get out of hand but also tells him that Sweden will manage. The warnings of an imminent nuclear war are recognizable from the messages of the contact persons of the 1950s. When he asks if he can take a photograph of the creatures, he receives the answer that the time is not yet ripe but that it can go well "further on". But this has not happened either. Once he brought a stone with him which he still has. Another time an item he doesn't yet want me to write about. 

- It is a device that should function as a kind of communication between them and me, he says. But I don't know how long I can keep it. It may not be much longer.

Today it is also gone, recovered by those who lent it.

When we get into the car, Ante pulls out a necklace with a complicated symbol that he once saw in connection with his contacts. From the beginning, the figure was simpler and had the shape of a triangle with something that could be an eye in the middle.

At the top of the stem were two semicircles, which today have taken the shape of something similar to two mirrored fish bodies. I'm not surprised when Ante says that the whole thing should also be a kind of key, but he doesn't know what it's going to be used for. 

- It is a kind of future key. That is what I have been told, he says.

A key without a lock like so much else in Ante Jonsson's experiences.

We stay in the car and talk before we roll on. Ante tells me about yet another secret he has been given by the slim creatures and I ask if he ever gets the urge to have such information checked by an outsider. To go one step further. But he doesn't want that. For him, it's about not betraying a trust, he says. Maybe the contact would then be cut off and when too much time passes between the contacts, he almost starts to long for them.

- I have so much I want to talk to them about, he says.

The questions sometimes seem to be more important than the answers. 

When Ante talks about things he doesn't want to talk about yet, it sounds fantastic, but the details are down-to-earth and concrete. He is generous with names and information and even if he doesn't want me to write about it, he answers all my questions.

When I ask Ante what all these meetings over 30 years have given him, how his life has changed thanks to them, he answers: - I have probably become a happier and more open person. I find it easier to talk to people. 

Isn't it a little strange that 30 years of contacts have produced such a modest result? Such a big operation with contacts, meetings and trips in unknown craft and the result is that you have become a happier person?

- Haha, yes, unnecessarily large, you could say that. You think you could have become happier and more energetic anyway.

Ante Jonsson's straightforwardness and positive appearance make him a person you like to talk to for a while. Strange meetings or not. At the same time, he keeps a lot to himself. Private information that may be the key to the puzzle. Just like most other contact persons.

I never expect to get an answer to what is really happening to Ante Jonsson. But I often wonder what kind of object Bengt Johansson saw hanging over Ante's car.

What happened to Ante Jonsson?

At almost every lecture on AFU and the UFO enigma one or two persons from the audience comes up after the lecture asking for a private talk. Usually they relate a personal UFO experience and very often they wish to remain anonymous, sometimes not even disclosing their name, address or phone number. This of course makes it impossible to initiate any follow-up investigation. An exceedingly frustrating situation experienced by several of my field investigator collegues in UFO-Sweden. Especially since many of the stories we hear are very interesting and intriguing. There must be hundreds of unrecorded close encounter cases merely in Sweden.

This culture of silence regarding UFO experiences probably have several causes. The most obvious is fear of what friends and relatives will say, fear of losing employment or fear of media exposure. And here ufologists face a difficult ethical dilemma. What shall we recommend to the witnesses regarding anonymity? Although we as researchers advocate openness as much as possible, publishing personal data can actually create complicated and negative situations for the witness. One close encounter witness told me that if she had known how the media exposure would affect her life she had never given out her name. Field investigators must be sensitive to this problem and honestly discuss the issue before publishing personal data. This ethical dilemma becomes a central issue when dealing with humanoid and contact experiences. Here I narrate a classic Swedish case where the witness was very much media exposed but handled the situation in spite of many difficulties.

On the night of February 3, 1984, Mr. Ante Jonsson is travelling by car from Ingelstad to his home in Tingsryd, Småland. The time is around 1 A.M. and 40 year old Ante is driving carefully because of the snow and icy road. After passing the crossroad to Uråsa Ante notice a small figure on the left side of the road and over a meadow a large black object is hovering in the air. Astonished by the sight Ante stops the car but the small figure is gone. "My first thought was that I have to get a picture of this object. I hurried home to get my camera."

About 1.30 A.M. Ante is back at the site but the object is gone. Disappointed he decides to turn the car around and go home. Then suddenly the object appears again hovering right in front of the car. Ante hit the brakes but the car skids on the icy road and comes to a stop with the headlights shining on the object. He tries to escape the situation but the car gets stuck in the snow. "When I opened the car door a creature grabbed me and almost lifted me out. I just screamed." He tries to run away but is caught and dragged towards the object. The creature is not more than 1 meter in height, wearing some form of dress hiding the face. Ante´s last memory is noticing a lorry passing by. Then everything is blank. "When I woke up I was sitting in my car, cold and wet with a pricking feeling in my hands. And a vague memory of talking to somebody whom I later found out was the police. My next memory is waking up at Sankt Sigfrids hospital in Växjö."

At 1.50 A.M. there is a phone call to the police station in Växjö. A man calling himself Bengt Johanssson claims he just passed Uråsa airfield and noticed a car parked across the road with the headlights turned off. He also observed a person outside the car and "over the car a large black object hovered", as stated in the police records. Bengt Johansson promised to wait for a police patrol to arrive at the site but when Roland Karlsson and Thorsten Persson from the Växsjö police station arrive Bengt Johansson is nowhere to be seen. Instead they find Ante Jonsson sitting in his Saab 99. The car lights are turned off and the car door open.

Ante Jonsson appears very scared and confused. His is holding the steering wheel in a tight grip and the muscles in his hands and arms are abnormally tense. He is shaking violently and when the policemen try to converse with Ante he appears very confused and can´t remember how he ended up at the site. They bring Ante to Växsjö hospital. Here the physician notice that Ante is in deep shock, hyperventilating and his fingers are curved in cramp. He is injected with valium, with little effect. Then he enters a deep sleep. Later he is taken to the psychiatric clinic at Sankt Sigfrids hospital where he recovers and is sent home after a few days.

Field investigators from UFO-Sweden tried to locate Mr. Bengt Johansson from Karlskrona. But in spite of thorough investigation no such person could be traced. There were twelve Bengt Johansson i Karlskrona but no one claimed to be the witness. The man who observered the black object over Ante´s car could never be found. An extremley frustrating situation for the field investigators as this man could have corroborated a very intriguing UFO experience.

The story of Ante did not end with his first encounter. About a month after the traumatic abduction experience Ante enters a period of intense "dreams" and visions where he is contacted by a variety of entities, mostly human in appearance. The take him to different planets and predict coming nuclear wars. Ante´s contact experiences continue for many years but he is not sure whether they are reality or dreams. He enters a different state of consciousness. "It can happen anytime. In the morning, during the day, evening or night. But mostly during the evening. It begins with a grovelling feeling all over the body. Something is moving inside. I don´t know how to explain this. There is something moving in the head and body. And it is always the same. After two or three days something happens."

Ante Jonsson has written hundreds of pages decribing his contacts. In 1989 his story was published in a, not very serious, book written together with Sune Hjorth, Fantastiska resor med UFO (Fantastic trips in UFOs). There have been many articles and interviews with Ante in magazines and newspapers. He has never been afraid of publicity in spite of his fantastic claims and has also lectured to various organizations.