Close Encounters in Sweden: The Fire People and the Owl Beings (SITS CLASSIC)

Summary

Swedish ufologist Fred Andersson returns to dig up forgotten 1960s and 1970s Swedish close encounters, including glowing fire humanoids seen in doorways of light, white-clad beings chasing children from a mine, and green antennaed figures that vanished into thin air. He links these strange, personal experiences to Scandinavian folklore about trolls, mine spirits, forest nymphs and fire spirits. He also argues that the UFO phenomenon behaves like a trickster with a sense of humor, and warns that the post-2017 focus on military witnesses risks losing sight of how weird the subject really is.

Key takeaways

• 1In 1978, 16-year-old Lars Westerlund in Mershal saw a two-meter glowing rectangle near a WWII bunker containing a humanoid silhouette wearing what looked like a spiked Pickelhaube helmet; panicked cows fled before the sighting.
• 2About a month later near Sundsvall, 18-year-old jogger Jeanette saw a door-like glowing object in a forest with a humanoid gliding out of it; UFO-Sundsvall investigators found nothing.
• 3In 1968 in Smedjebacken, a boy named Benny and his friends were chased by three tall, floating, white-clad beings carrying suitcases who emerged from an old mine; Benny reported years of golden disc sightings afterward. A moonshiner explanation is also discussed.
• 4The 1973 Vikbolandet case near Norrköping, first spread online by Albert S. Rosales, involved green beings with antennas and visored helmets who vanished. Fred traced the original report via illustrator Rikard Svensson and the magazine UFO Aktuellt.
• 5Fred argues the phenomenon is a trickster, possibly turning real UFOs into hoax-looking models on film, and cites the Sam the Sandown Clown, Wollaton Park gnomes and Joe Simonton pancake cases.
• 6Fred suggests David Grusch is honest but may have been set up, cites Jacques Vallée's 'Revelations,' and promotes his book 'Northern Lights: High Strangeness in Sweden' (Beyond the Fray Publishing) and the Archives for the Unexplained (AFU).

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

The best part of waking up? A full cup of Folgers coffee and music on full blast. Shop Folgers instant coffee and more at your nearest retailer. Looking for a simple way to thank your clients or recognize employees for a job well done? A Starbucks card is more than a gift. It's a pick-me-up, a break in their day, and a reminder that you appreciate them. Whether you're shopping for digital or physical cards in bulk, Starbucks cards are the perfect gift to brighten anyone's day. Share the joy of coffee and connection when you give the gift of Starbucks. Shop Starbucks cards in bulk now at starbuckscardb2b.com. While our government's official position is not to speculate on this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore other possibilities, to use our imaginations. For if we consider that astro-scientists agree on one point, that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable, some feel it is there without a doubt. Let us suppose, then, that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial in order, and not an illusion of the mind. I'm Ryan Sprague, and you are now Somewhere in the Skies. Welcome back to Somewhere in the Skies, everybody. And welcome back to Fred Anderson, our return guest. How are you, my friend? Hello, hello. Thank you for accepting me once again to this wonderful show. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm very, very fine. However, I've been sweating like a pig today because it's been warm outside. You know, summer has struck Sweden brutally. But I'm not complaining, but it's warm. It is very, very warm. I mean, now you see the top of me here. You don't know if I have bullets on underneath. Same. Yeah. Same, my friend. ...

Excerpt from Somewhere in the Skies, Sep 16, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.