In 2022 I was contacted by Mr Rune Røstad, a professional photographer and a member of the black metal band Slagmaur. He had been interested in UFOs all his life, but recently had decided to get more involved, and was looking for reports from his local municipality. The report database being offline I was unable to provide him with exactly what he wanted, but he happily accepted a copy of all the press clippings we had, 20,000 files, about 66GB. This was of course only the material we had in digital format since most of the Norwegian press clippings are now deposited at AFU (Archives For The Unexplained) in Norrköping, Sweden. Even so, Røstad was so impressed by the scope of the material that he created an art exhibition at a local gallery (printing out hundreds of press articles in large format), which turned out to be the most visited exhibition in the history of the gallery. Rune Røstad also had a large map on display where local reports were registered, and he collected a number of reports from the public.
Mr Arnulf Løken (of UFO-Norway/NUFOS) visited the exhibition since he is practically a local himself, and met with Rune. They talked about a lot of the history of UFO reports in Norway, including the Namsenfjorden 1959 event and the Djupsjøen 1947 event. This led to a search of Namsenfjorden in 2022, and Lake Djupsjøen in June 2023.
But let’s go back to 1946 for some context.
During that year several hundred observations were made over Scandinavia, mainly Sweden, but also over Finland and Norway as well as sporadic reports from other European countries.
At noon on Thursday July 18 two airplane-like objects similar to the V-1 rockets, cigar-shaped 2-5 meters long and 1 meter long wings, plunged into Lake Mjøsa throwing up a column of water several meters high. The wings were about 1 meter from the tip, the front and back part were metallic shiny, while the midsection was black. This event was observed (seen and/or heard) by at least seven people.
The next day, Friday 19 July between 11:30 and 15:40, four unknown objects crashed into four different lakes. All events were observed by multiple witnesses.
UFOs are strange, but these sightings of “ghost rockets” (a subset of UFO reports) are even stranger. And they continue to be observed. We have at least 16 such reports where multiple witnesses see an unknown object (described as an aircraft, rocket, egg- or cigar-shaped, etc) perform height-, speed-, and course changes before either landing or impacting a body of water (usually a lake). Nearly all reports are from the months of July and August, and we have only found them in Sweden, Finland, and Norway – spanning the years 1946-2012.
One of these reports is from August 1947, at Lake Djupsjøen. The main witness was Mr Bernhard Sollie, a farmer at the time, living at the Fastvollen farm on the south side of Lake Djupsjøen. Mr Sollie was also the mayor of Røros 1956-1959. During one of the first days of August, Solli and Mr Harald Engvik, had plans to working the hay. They were up early before 07:00 and were grinding the layer. Suddenly they hear a roaring sound, which Sollie later describes as like a jet engine only deeper. They look and spot a metallic blue-grey object coming down from the south at high speed. Sollie estimated the speed at 800 km/h. As the object comes closer and passes above them, it reduces speed and adjusts the flight path to fit the terrain. The object is egg-shaped, 3-4 meters long and has two half-moon-shaped wing-like protrusion on the sides. The object continued out over the lake, and turns 90 degrees towards the east – apparently to avoid crashing into a small island, and lands on the water surface – splashing the water violently. The object then just lay there floating on the lake.
Mr Engvik was very shaken by the experience. He wanted to build a raft or get a boat, to go out to the object. But Mr Sollie didn’t agree. The hay had to be worked, so they went to a field some distance away and started working the hay. When they returned a couple hours later, the object was nowhere to be seen. Presumably it was sunk into the lake, since they hadn’t noticed any more of the jet-engine noise.
Mr Sollies wife, Gudrund Sollie, was in the kitchen. Whe didn’t see the object in flight, but she heard the deep roar (“like several jet engines”), and she saw the object after it had landed on the lake. As did the daughter Astrid Sollie. They all agreed to keep quiet about what had happened, no one wanted any fuzz about it.
When the story went public in 1967, local UFO investigator Mr Stenødegård (Trondheim UFO-Forening) arranged a search of the lake with divers. All the remaining witnesses were interviewed repeatedly both by the press and local UFO investigators, and the interest was very high among the press. I can only imagine it must have been exhausting for the Sollie family to have to answer all the questions many times. Nothing was found by the divers in 1967, and again in 1973 a similar search was performed (by national organisation NUFOC), with the same result. Today all the witnesses to this event is dead. Engvik died as early as 1950, so no-one got to interview him properly. So unfortunately there is no way to get clarification on details of this report.
Most of the documentation from 1967 and 1973 are also gone. When Mr Stenødegård died in 1995, he had no close relatives, so the Trondheim municipality employees considered everthing he owned to be garbage and just emptied his apartment and threw everything into a landfill. Mr Stenødegård was the kind of person who recorded all his interviews on tape. Even meetings in the UFO society and radio programs were recorded. So he presumably had a voluminous archive of recorded interviews, as well as report forms, books, journals, files, photos, correpondence, as well as personal and association historical material. What we have today is the original report form, which has suvived against all odds, and the press interviews and clippings.
Then we come back to 2023. Mr Rune Røstad is currently involved in making a documentary about his search for the UFO mystery (produced by Up North Film). He has during his career built a large network of contacts, and thought the time would be right for modern technology to be implemented in the search. During June a new search was launched, with cooperation from local people as well as several companies and entrepreneurs. We all studied the report form and press clippings from 1967/1973, and discussed the contents and the several statements by Mr Sollie, to get a proper understanding of what was seen in 1947. Curiously none of the 1967/1973 press included any statements from either his wife or daughter. A complete mapping of the lake was performed, with a multi-beam side-scan sonar operated by experts from Nordic Subsea. Some UFO investigators were also present during this exercise, which were fully funded privately by Mr Røstad; Mr Arnulf Løken (UFO-Norway/NUFOS) was present from 12th to 15th. I myself was present from the 11th to 13th. Mr Clas Svahn (UFO-Sweden/AFU) was also present from 11th to 13th. Mr Mads Alexander Haneborg (Norwegian Anomaly Investigation Collaboration, NAIC) was present from 11th to 15th. Several people from the new Project Hessdalen were also present; Mr Bjørn Magnar Vik, Mr Frank Gunnes Mikkelsen, Mr Erik Magnus Holm, and Mr Jan Moen. In total 17 people including the camera crew, not counting the local visitors and press. It was unavoidable but the film crew needed several takes of many scenes, so there was ample time for conversation and to get to know each other. Myself, Mr Svahn, and Mr Haneborg interviewed some local people – one even arrived at the lake in his yellow Rolls Royce.
A Cessna 172 aircraft was aquired (piloted by Mr Mikkelsen) to reconstruct the flight path of the object, and to use as a reference for size estimate.
So what was found?
Nordic Subsea located “an object of interest” at a depth of about 20 meters. The object seems to be about 15 meters long and 2-3 meters wide. The ROV only found mud on the lake bottom. So presumably the object is buried beneath the mud.
Next search was planned for 2024. From February 19th until 24th, a large team again descended on Lake Djupsjøen (“Operation Arctic Seal”). Mr Røstad brought with him several divers from Subsea Fosen. It was winter and the lake was frozen, so step one was to cut a hole in the 80cm thick ice. Chainsaw and sledge hammer did the job. The ROV was sent down first, to confirm the location was right and recon the area. When all was prepared the divers went to work. The lake itself in 700 meters above sea level, and the dive itself is down to 20 meters depth. Some security concerns were present, so the divers had 20 minutes effective dive time before they had to get up again. The team consisted of four divers (one in backup) and one dive chief.
This search coincided with the local market week at nearby Røros, so Mr Rune Røstad also arranged a social event for kids and families, so they could come and watch what was happening. Perhaps some future UFO investigator was ignited with interest. Randolf Strømsnes (major, Norwegian Air Force) visited the site, and Mr Løken (UFO-Norge/NUFOS) was also present during the exercise. Two F-35 jet fighters from the Air Force also overflew the area of Røros and Lake Djupsjøen. I suspect Mr Røstad had contacts within the fighter crew, and managed to have them add a visit to their flight plan.
The divers confirmed that the bottom was covered with mud, almost half a meter thick. Below the mud layer there is clay, and this is packed so hard not even a knife could be inserted into it. This clay is apparently covering the “object of interest”, whatever it is.
Currently the data is being analyzed and plans for any future operations formulated. It will not be easy to dig out and excavate the object. No one want to destroy it in the process, so things have to be done correctly and in the right order.
