An oval ground mark on Espevær, an island in Bømlo on Norway’s western coast, became known as the “UFO ring”. Photographs show a real feature in the grass. The harder question is what produced it, and whether reports of unusual lights can be connected to its formation. The published record contains investigations, site visits and several confident explanations, but also disagreements about dates, dimensions and what military or botanical enquiries established.
Discovery and formation are different dates
The island community’s own account places discovery at Easter 1976. Olav Aas’s Kringom account instead says an oval impression was found in October 1975 at Svartaneset, on a sloping grassy area. That distinction cannot be settled simply by choosing the date most frequently repeated online. A mark may be noticed, described locally and publicised on different occasions; none of those dates automatically establishes when it formed.
Kringom describes a roughly 64-metre circumference and dimensions about 26 by 16 metres. Its Norwegian text says circumference, while the English version calls the 64-metre figure a diameter. The dimensions make the translation difference material. This account follows the Norwegian wording and treats the figures as reported measurements, not as a new survey. The same article discusses fungal rings and ball lightning while acknowledging that neither provides a demonstrated explanation in its presentation.
The early NUFOC report
The 1981 Nordic UFO Newsletter report compiled and translated by NUFOC starts with the Bergens Tidende coverage of 22 April 1976. Its photograph, said to have been supplied through an Air Force representative, shows the oval feature from above. The relevant text and images were reviewed. They are an organisation’s published report of the investigation, rather than an original military case file or a witnessed record of an object making the mark.
That report describes a circumference of 63.4 metres, axes of 25.6 and 14.4 metres, and a depression varying with the slope. It also records an account of a distressed dog in autumn 1975. The family concerned had not seen anything through the window they checked. In a further episode, representatives Finn W. Kalvik and Egon Nielsen visited on 2 June 1979 after hearing of additional marks near the older ring. The report interpreted a partial new trace in terms of frozen ground; that was an explanation offered by the investigators, not an independently established formation date.
A later mark near an earlier one makes a useful test of any proposed cause. An explanation ought to account for the geometry and persistence of the original feature as well as the reliability of the additional-mark report. It would be premature either to assume repeated landings or to dismiss a change in the field without inspecting the underlying observations.
The helicopter comparison and the soil claim
The organisation’s 2021 overview, drawing on a 2017 article by Øyvind Liberg and Mentz Kaarbø, names Kalvik and Nielsen’s work and describes soil samples taken within, outside and along the trace. It reports Kalvik’s statement that analysis at the agricultural college in Ås found no fungal evidence. It also repeats the comparison with a Sea King helicopter that allegedly left no similar impression and a calculation suggesting a very heavy object.
The aircraft’s mass is inconsistent across the sources reviewed: the early newsletter gives sixteen tonnes, whereas the later overview gives about eight. This article does not choose one as the measured load of the particular visit. Nor does a helicopter’s failure to leave a mark, by itself, yield the weight of whatever produced an older feature. Contact area, surface condition, load duration and the actual process of formation would have to be established before treating the comparison as a quantitative experiment.
Likewise, a statement that samples lacked fungal evidence needs its original laboratory report, sampling method and scope before it can exclude every biological explanation. The available accounts record that testing was claimed. The original analytical paperwork was not obtained for this article. The newsletter’s account of botanists reversing an initial fungal explanation is also NUFOC’s report of what happened, not a separately reviewed statement from those botanists.
A first-person visit in 2001
Kjell Arne Høviskeland and Tharald Beck described their November 2001 visit in UFO-Nytt 1/2002, pages 7–8. They walked to the site, examined the impression and photographed it. They attributed the initial discovery to school head Rolf Eriksen and companions on 7 October 1975. They also described a silver-grey aluminium UFO sculpture by Johanne Getz and Vilde von Krogh, installed as an artwork. The sculpture was a modern interpretation of the story, not an object recovered from the event.
Their article favours a large UFO as the cause and retells local light and animal-behaviour accounts. It also demonstrates how measurements can become muddled: after describing the ring’s circumference as about 63 metres, a later passage refers to an ellipse with a diameter over 60 metres. That inconsistency is a reason to return to the stated axes and photographs, rather than using the largest repeated number as a craft dimension. The visit is valuable first-person evidence that a visible feature remained, while its explanation remains the visitors’ interpretation.
Lights over the island are a separate evidential question
The reviewed publications associate the ring with lights said to have been seen in summer or autumn 1975. The later overview gives a June episode before St John’s Day; other narratives emphasise autumn. Their relationship to the ground mark is not demonstrated by a shared island name and year. A contemporaneous sighting at a fixed time, a securely dated new trace and evidence linking the two would strengthen that connection. Without them, an aerial report and an unusual patch of ground remain two reported phenomena rather than one established sequence.
The newsletter’s language about Air Force conclusions also needs to be read within its source. It attributes remarks to military personnel and then makes a stronger UFO interpretation. No original signed military determination, aircraft exclusion study or authenticated landing report was reviewed here. “Not identified in the account available” therefore does not become “officially proved to be an extraordinary aircraft”.
Assessment, map and access
The outcome is Insufficient evidence. The ring’s existence and persistence are documented by photographs and named visits. Its exact formation date and cause are not established by the reviewed material, and the claimed tests and helicopter comparison cannot be independently reconstructed from original records here. The article assigns no craft-shape or landing tag from the oval trace alone: a ring in vegetation does not show the outline or identity of an aircraft.
The map uses the site-level reference linked by Opplev Bømlo, rounded from 59.59209678575069, 5.14858098642744. It is not a surveyed boundary, exact object position or location of a neighbouring private home. The current destination page promotes marked walking routes to the ring. Follow those public routes and current signs; no transport timetable or unrestricted access to neighbouring properties is implied. The lead photograph was taken years after the reported discoveries and is credited as a photograph of the ground feature, not its creation.
This review used the early organisational account, the named visitors’ published article, later source comparisons and the public local-history and access pages. It did not independently inspect the 1976 military files, complete contemporary newspaper issues, laboratory reports or an original ship’s log. These gaps leave specific research tasks, rather than evidence for a preferred dramatic conclusion.
Visit UFO-ringen på Espevær
Opplev Bømlo currently promotes marked walking routes to the ring. Follow those routes and current signs; no access to neighbouring private properties or transport timetable is implied.
Official visitor information → · Access information checked 2026-11-13. Check current opening and booking details before travelling.
Share an experience here →Experiences at UFO-ringen på Espevær
First-person accounts shared by visitors and reviewed before publication. They are separate from the researched case above.
No visitor reports have been published here yet.