UFO hunters scour Sweden for tips
http://www.thelocal.se/7800/20070705/

Members of the organization UFO-Sweden are currently knocking on doors
nationwide in a bid to follow up on reports of strange phenomena sighted
in the skies.

According to chairman Clas Svahn, UFO-Sweden receives an average of one
report per day of peculiar flashes, aircraft and extra-terrestrial
beings.

Ninety percent of all reports concern easily explainable atmospheric
light phenomena. At one point, many sightings could be traced to secret
missile launches in the then Soviet Union.

"Today we can explain much more than we could thirty years ago. But
there are some genuinely strange cases," said Svahn.
He takes as an example a pilot and his student who took off from Kiruna
for a night-time lesson. Suddenly they saw a brightly lit object
suspended above an abandoned village ten kilometres ahead. As they
approached, the object began to move, lighting up a vast swathe of the
countryside before flying away into the night.

"Quite a simple observation really, but incredibly mysterious," said
Clas Svahn.
One of those interviewed by UFO-Sweden on the organization's nationwide
tour is Niklas Johansson, who is still puzzled by a sighting he made all
of seventeen years ago.
One summer's morning at 4am, Johansson was driving to hospital with his
wife and daughter when he spotted a blinking, graphite grey object in a
corn field near Kristianstad in southern Sweden.

"It was hair-raising. I became very excited and very scared," he said.
At the top of the object were two lights, one green and one yellow.
Johansson pulled over to the side of the road and spent several minutes
just staring in to the field.

"I would really like an explanation for what I saw. It was something
that wasn't supposed to be there," he said.
On his way back from the hospital all those years ago, Johansson stopped
off at the field. There he claims that the corn was flattened in a
circular form and there were no signs of any footprints or wheels.
He regrets now that he didn't leave his car and approach the
unidentified object.
"But you just don't know what might have happened. If it actually was
some strange aircraft, there is no way of knowing whether they would
have been friendly or hostile," he said.

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)