Two extraordinary accounts became associated with the television and telecommunications relay station on Hemliden, near Trehörningsjö in northern Sweden. Station keeper Kjell Näslund described a huge object and box-like figures entering the building. Years later, radio enthusiast Kurt Nilsson reported a smaller domed object, three figures and a temporary failure of his car’s engine and lights.
The published record is more qualified than many summaries suggest. An early interview explicitly questions the date of Näslund’s experience. The witnesses knew one another. Reported damage and footprints were not demonstrated to have an extraordinary cause, and a headline’s reference to landing is contradicted by descriptions of an object remaining above the ground. These limitations are part of the case history.
Näslund’s account and the earliest reviewed report
The detailed account in UFO-Information no. 6, September 1972, printed pages 4–7, combines Ragnar Söderberg’s inquiry with Carl-Axel Jonzon’s interview that June. It describes Näslund beginning a shift at about 18:00, making routine checks and then encountering repeated alarms affecting television and telephone links. He reported clear, very cold weather and northern lights. Around 18:30 he felt an impulse to go outside.
From the doorway, according to his account, he saw an enormous object occupying a hollow beside the station. He estimated its diameter at 150 metres, with a grey, indistinct outline and a blue-grey illuminated opening. About ten cloud-edged, box-like forms appeared nearby; seven or eight were said to move into the station. Näslund described being unable to leave or touch them, and feeling that he should remain calm.
The interviewer specifically asked whether he heard something inside his head. Näslund replied that he could describe it only as a feeling, not a voice. The distinction should survive later retellings: perceived influence is the witness’s interpretation, not a recorded message or an independently demonstrated transmission of thoughts. The report also gives inconsistent estimates of the figures’ size in an editorial note, rather than pretending every dimension was secure.
Näslund said the episode lasted perhaps five or ten minutes. The forms returned to the object, which departed northwards, after which he could move again. He reported a rushing or humming sound from the object, compared with switchgear. He then telephoned policeman Hans Häggblad. The officer reportedly went outside and saw nothing unusual; the publication’s explanation that the object had already gone is an inference, not a second observation of it.
Why the date remains qualified
The 1972 article initially uses 12 March 1969, but its final discussion explicitly says Näslund was unsure of the exact date and recalled the middle of March in either 1969 or 1970. Investigators linked the proposed 1969 date to a local newspaper report about another motorist that evening. They also said details of that separate observation were unclear and that they had not yet contacted its witness.
The original newspaper issue and an independent reconstruction of that proposed cross-date have not been examined here. Later publications adopt 12 March 1969 without retaining the same qualification. The later date is therefore reported as the conventional attribution, while the earlier uncertainty remains visible. Listing both 1969 and 1970 as separate confirmed episodes would create events that the source does not establish.
Nilsson’s encounter on 18 October 1977
The January 1978 UFO-Information account, printed pages 4–8, was compiled by Carl-Anton Mattson and Thorvald Berthelsen, drawing on Reinhold Carleby’s site inquiry and interview with Nilsson. Nilsson had driven towards the station to improve a 27 MHz radio connection. He said interference worsened near the summit and that he abandoned the conversation at about 20:00.
His attention then turned to a pale blue object in a hollow, with three small grey figures in front of it. He initially estimated a diameter of only a few metres; a later reconstruction with the investigator produced an estimate of five to five-and-a-half metres. The report explicitly describes a plate-like body with a dome. These were visual estimates made under the reported conditions, not surveyed dimensions of a recovered machine.
Nilsson said that switching on his headlights made the scene disappear from view, although the lights themselves worked during this first stage. After roughly a minute it became visible again. As he tried to drive away, three similar figures were on the road. One turned a shovel-like object towards him, and at the same moment his engine and headlights failed. He restarted the engine, reversed in darkness, waited and then turned the lights on again; the road was empty.
That sequence establishes what Nilsson reported. It does not demonstrate that the instrument caused an electromagnetic effect. No recorded field measurement or vehicle examination establishing such a mechanism appears in the reviewed case sections. Nilsson himself was unsure whether he or the figures had initially stopped the car. Even the number of figures remained uncertain: investigators speculated whether the roadside group was the same three or another group.
The watch, the witnesses and the traces
At home, Nilsson and his wife reportedly noticed a twenty-minute discrepancy between his wristwatch and the house clock. It was a reported clock difference, not a calibrated measurement proving missing time. This must also be kept separate from Näslund’s earlier experience: the 1972 account explicitly says Näslund noticed no fault with his own watch.
Nilsson already knew Näslund and his earlier story and telephoned him that evening. Näslund reported television interference, but did not independently witness Nilsson’s figures or object. Nilsson’s account of meeting police while driving home concerns his failure to dip his headlights and his explanation of why he was distressed. The officers’ reported confidence in his honesty is not the same as witnessing the encounter themselves.
Carleby described marks on a birch, disturbed moss and short, broad footprints with a cross on the heel. The often-repeated four-by-four-centimetre measurement refers to the heel, not the entire footprint. The original report also records tracks from newspaper personnel, Nilsson and his wife, and the dog: the roadside surface had already been visited. No documented chain of custody or comparison excluding ordinary footwear was reviewed.
The report inferred that figures had collected plants because moss found in one place resembled material growing across the road. It also discussed missing lichen from a trunk. Those interpretations should not become claims of laboratory-confirmed alien botany. For the earlier episode, Söderberg recorded damage to a pine and two nearby birches; the source does not independently date the damage or demonstrate what caused it.
Publication, assessment and geography
The 1981 Nordic UFO Newsletter English version, printed pages 7–10, makes the material accessible but condenses details from the Swedish account. Its diagram uses a landing-site label even though the text says the object did not reach the ground. UFO-Sverige’s present Trehörningsjö entry preserves the two reports in brief form. Neither an illustration nor a later summary resolves the original evidential gaps.
The case is classified as Insufficient evidence. Published interviews and field inquiries document detailed claims, but essential measurements, authenticated physical traces and independent verification are missing. The earlier date is uncertain, and reported faults do not establish a common cause with perceived figures. No demonstrated ordinary identification or non-human explanation is established by the reviewed material.
The map uses a broad Trehörningsjö locality reference at 63.70, 18.80, from the GeoNames Sweden gazetteer, entry 2667412. It does not locate a particular mast, station door, witness’s home, footprint or damaged tree. The relay-station setting is not verified as a visitor destination. The lead photograph shows the locality’s church as regional context only; no encounter at that church is alleged.
Only the securely specified 1977 episode is entered in the numerical year list. The earlier experience remains described with its conventional March 1969 attribution and the witness’s recorded 1969-or-1970 uncertainty. The research reviewed the relevant original case sections, rather than all the other reports in those magazine issues. Original police records, engineering logs and the newspaper used for cross-dating were not independently inspected.
For another Danish account in which interviewing and follow-up evidence matter, see Sjællands Odde in the Cases directory. Similar narrative features do not establish a common origin.