Showing posts with label Clas Svahn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clas Svahn. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

Ghost Rockets Documentary – A Review

Ghost Rockets Documentary – A Review
Watch the skies for Ghost Rockets, which received its Texas premiere today at Other Worlds Austin

In search of UFOs and meaning

     There's a supreme arrogance to pretending there is no life beyond Earth. But isn't it equally hubristic to think they would traverse inconceivable interstellar distances, just to see us scarcely upright apes?

And yet, as Fox Mulder would say, we want to believe.
By Richard Whittaker
The Austin Chronicle
12-4-16

Scandinavian documentary Ghost Rockets catches that inner contradiction through the work of Clas Svahn and UFO-Sweden, a nonprofit dedicated to sorting the wheat from the chaff of airborne sightings. Only, so far, it's all been chaff. "My working day is all about ministrepretations," says one of the team, as he rattles off a list of reasoned explanations that debunk every single sighting.

Well, almost every sighting.

Saturday, September 01, 2012

VIDCAST | UFO Crash Retrieval Team Streams 'Live' Update From Location


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Ghost Rockets The Documentary



Continue Reading . . .



See Also:

VIDEO | Swedish Team Launches UFO Retrieval Mission | UFO NEWS

GHOST ROCKETS: The Investigation Begins (Video)

Interview With Anders Liljegren Chairman and Co-Founder of AFU


SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

VIDEO | Swedish Team Launches UFO Retrieval Mission | UFO NEWS


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Ghost Rocket Drawing

By Oliver Gee
www.thelocal.se
8-30-12

     A research team set off for northern Sweden on Thursday to get to the bottom a "Ghost Rocket" sighting from 1980 that has been labelled as “the biggest UFO mystery in the world” and which the Swedish military kept classified for years.

The expedition leader and head of UFO-Sweden, Clas Svahn, set off on the trip to Jokkmokk, far northern Sweden on Thursday together with a support team, divers, a film crew, and the original witness who watched the craft land in the water.

“I expect to be surprised,” Svahn told The Local, explaining that while he is not a “believer”, he hopes that the trip can provide answers.

“People mistake UFOs with flying saucers. There are many, many reports of strange things in the air, but what we’re interested in is explaining what they are. Every answer is a good answer.”

The craft the team is looking for was seen crash-landing in the south end of a lake in Muddus, back on July 31st, 1980. . . .

Saturday, August 18, 2012

GHOST ROCKETS: The Investigation Begins (Video)


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Ghost Rockets The Dcoumentary

UFO-Sweden dives for unknown object in lake

By www.ghostrockets.se
8-17-12

     For more than 30 years an unknown object has rested on the bottom of a lake in the north of Sweden. In a couple of weeks UFO-Sweden will lead an ambitious expedition to try and find the object. Coming along will be a professional diving team, the original witnesses Liz and Bo Berg, a support team, a chef and a documentary team. The case, previously classified by the Swedish military as Top Secret, will take them to a lake located deep in the forests of northern Sweden. To ensure that no stone is left unturned, they are bringing nearly a ton of specialist equipment including inflatable boats, underwater cameras, a side sonar scanner and metal detectors. They aim to scan the lake bed and use the diving team to inspect any unusual looking sonar scans.

The expedition will start to build a base camp at the shore of the remote lake on Thursday 30 August and the divers will begin their work on 31 August and continue the search for two more days. On Monday 3 September the expedition will leave the lake.

Following the search is an independent Swedish documentary team which for the last two years has been filming UFO-Sweden’s investigation and with the development support of Swedish Television (SVT) will make a documentary covering the investigation. Teaser:



Witness background

   
Shortly before 12 O'clock on July 31st 1980, Bo and Liz Berg were resting at the south end of a lake in Muddus national park in the very north of Sweden. A strange noise, resembling a wind coming from a jet air craft, got their attention and looking for the source, they immediately saw what soon should be fly- ing straight above their heads,an elongated, cigar shaped object with two protrusions on its sides. Shortly thereafter the object descended and turned towards the couple ut landed on the water at the far end of the lake.

”We took the binoculars and looked at the object that was sitting on the water but soon it started to sink with bubbles coming from it”, says Bo Berg.

The couple estimates the length of the object to between 3 and 4 meters. It had no color but was steel grey. It looked like a rocket.

”When it landed on the water, after making a 180 degree turn, it had lost nearly all its pace. Then it sunk”, says Liz Berg.

The observation has puzzled both the Swedish military and UFO-Sweden’s researchers for years. And with UFO-Swedens upcoming expedition, the case may finally find its explanation.

Ghost Rockets background

Since 1946, nearly 20,000 unidentified objects have been reported by eye witnesses seen in the skies over Sweden. More than 1,000 during 1946, the year of the Ghost Rockets. The Ghost Rockets got their name from being escribed as elongated, rocket like, metallic objects with or without wings.

The number of reports on the Ghost Rocket phenomenon caused the Swedish Military to take notice and send out research teams to try and identify the crafts. A special committee was formed with experts working for six months trying to solve the enigma. At first the “rockets” were believed to be Russian tests of captured V-1 or V-2 missiles captured from the Germans during World War Two.

The objects often maneuvered in unusual ways and several landed or crashed in lakes. Still to this day rocket like objects, with no apparent source of origin, are seen in Sweden; a modern day Ghost Rocket phenomenon. What they are or where they come from remains unknown.

Since no fragments have ever been found, neither on the ground nor in the lakes, both the Swedish, British and US military failed to find an explanation. When investigating the lakes, the only tangible evidence the military search teams found, was occasional craters in the lake bottom and torn off aquatic plants.

Both the US and British Military argued that the Swedish Military was ill equipped to handle the inves- tigation adequately and the British MoD wanted to send a RAF team called “Task force 196” which was held on standby near Heathrow Airport. However Swedish Prime Minister at the time, Per Albin Hansson, refused them entry due to the fears that Sweden’s “neutral” status was at risk.

Since 1946 new reports of cigar shaped objects have been reported every decade, fitting the description of a Ghost Rockets. The case that will be investigated this autumn was discovered by Anders Liljegren, Archives for UFO Research, and UFO-Sweden’s chairman Clas Svahn, who will head the investigation team in 2012, in the Swedish War Archive (Krigsarkivet) where it was declassified in 1986.

UFO-Sweden

UFO-Sweden is the largest UFO-organization in Scandinavia and was founded in 1970.

The organization is headed by Clas Svahn who also works as a journalist for Sweden’s largest morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The organization have over the years managed to collect hundreds of thou- sands documents, newspaper articles, UFO-reports, books, videos and audio concerning UFOs. Their archive, Archives for UFO Research (AFU) is now considered to be the largest and best organized in the world and is used by researchers from countries all over the globe.

UFO-Sweden has nearly 1,000 members and around 70 of these work as field investigators, investigating the 300+ UFO-sightings that are reported to the organization every year. They work independently but the organization also benefits from a close exchange of information with the Swedish Defense Research Institute (FOI) and the organization’s approach “research – not speculation” has helped them find natural explanations to most of the cases they investigate. However, so far, the Ghost Rockets phenomenon has defied all of their attempts.

The Ghost Rocket documentary
(www.ghostrockets.se)

The Ghost Rockets documentary will use UFO-Sweden’s upcoming investigation as the driving narrative to tell a bigger and more personal story. A story that will peer into the thoughts and motivations of a UFO-investigator and give the audience insight into a unique organization that have managed to uphold a stance of “research – not speculation” within the international UFO community.

The aim of the documentary is not to reveal facts, speculation or even attempt to come to any kind of conclusion about the Ghost Rocket phenomenon, but rather to tell a story about the people who dedicated themselves to asking questions and finding answers where others dare not.

A call to action

We are really excited to be able to join UFO-Sweden on their upcoming expedition and are eager to get the perspective of a real UFO-investigator out into the world.

If you like what we are doing, there is a really easy way for you to help. Later this year we will be pitching the ghost rockets film to a panel of international broadcasters. We want to show them that people from all around the world want to see this film. A simple way for us to do this is to get likes on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ghostrockets). By liking the page you get a sneak peak of UFO-Sweden’s Investigation and the making of the documentary which we update regularly.

Why is this important? Having the support of the community is crucial for independent filmmakers, the more buzz there is about a film, the better chance we have of getting the ghost rockets documentary to a TV station near you.

Here is what you can do to help make it happen:
• Share the Ghost Rockets teaser and Facebook page to your friends and networks

• Write about us on your blog, and social networking sights

• Follow us on Facebook by clicking like on our page. Join in on the conversations and tell us what you think.
Interview with Clas Svahn (Head of UFO-Sweden) about the upcoming investigation.
Why do you consider this expedition important?

This is the first time someone else than the military tries to find a crashed Ghost Rocket. And this isn’t really a crash since this specific object has landed and sunk, which increases the likelihood of it still being entirely intact.

Why is this particular sighting so interesting?

I would like to say that there are a lot of reliable witnesses who have seen what they claim to be a Ghost Rockets. However there are not many of these witnesses who have seen the Ghost Rockets together with someone else at the time of impact. That’s what makes these witnesses stand out. The sighting took place in daylight, on low altitude and for a long time. The witnesses also quickly reported the sighting to the military. I have met and interviewed both Bo and Liz Berg on several occasions since I first discovered their report in he military’s archive in 1990 and I feel confident that they have seen what they also re- ported. The witnesses do not exaggerate; they do not change their story from time to time. And their line of work, Liz as principle at a Stockholm school and Bo as head of a department at the Swedish War Archives, vouches for that they have nothing to gain by telling a strange story.

Why is it so important to get an answer?

What’s important is to dispel the mystery surrounding the reports. What is it really that has crashed in our Swedish lakes since 1946 and, from time to time, continue crashing down? Getting an answer could get us a hint of where these objects come from. It could tell us if the Ghost Rockets phenomenon has a simple, natural explanation or if it arises new questions.

There are several other cases in Sweden fitting the Ghost Rockets description. If this expedition goes well, if we do find what we are looking for, we will investigate the other cases as well.
What’s so special about the Ghost Rockets phenomenon?

The Ghost Rocket related objects differ from other UFO-reports in the way that they are very physical. There is no doubt that the objects reported are physical objects. When you get reports about UFO-sight- ings you often doubt the fact that what someone has seen is physical. Often the explanation is to find in the human mind. But in most of the Ghost Rocket cases, seen in daylight, the witnesses has seen the sun reflecting in the hull, heard the sound of a motor, the wind whistling as the object flies by, seen the water splashing high in the air when some of the objects did crash. There are no doubts in my mind that these sightings involve real, physical objects.

What will happen if you don’t find anything? Does that mean the witnesses were wrong?

No it could mean that somebody has been there removing the object before us. In 1999 an object with similar description crashed in Värmland in the west of Sweden. The Swedish military searched the whole lake and found nothing. In the secret documents from the investigation, it is stated that the ones that sent the object very well could have been there collecting it before the military arrived. This you can never be sure of. What we are sure of is that this expedition is our best chance to find one of the modern Ghost Rockets. I really think that the object is still there.
Links and resources
Links:
Documentary website: www.ghostrockets.se

Documentary teaser: www.youtube.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ghostrockets

Twitter: @ghostrockets_se

Ghost Rockets on Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_rockets

UFO-Sweden: www.ufo.se/english

High resolution photos: www.flickr.com/photos/ghostrockets
If you need any more press material or information please let us know.
Contact information:
Clas Svahn, head of UFO-Sweden: clas.svahn@gmail.com

Kerstin Übelacker, producer of Ghost Rockets documentary: kerstin@wehaveaplan.se

Monday, July 16, 2012

NEW BOOK | UFOs And Government: A Historical Inquiry


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UFOs And Government: A Historical Inquiry

Anomalist Books Press Release


By Michael Swords and Robert Powell, with Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, Barry Greenwood, Richard Thieme, Jan Aldrich, and Steve Purcell

Trade Paperback, 594 Pages, 350 Illustrations

Genre(s): UFOs


Governments around the world have had to deal with the UFO phenomenon for a good part of a century. How and why they did so is the subject of "UFOs and Government," a history that for the first time tells the story from the perspective of the governments themselves. It's a perspective that reveals a great deal about what we citizens have seen, and puzzled over, from the "outside" for so many years.

The story, which is unmasked by the governments' own documents, explains much that is new, or at least not commonly known, about the seriousness with which the military and intelligence communities approached the UFO problem internally. Those approaches were not taken lightly. In fact, they were considered matters of national security. At the same time, the story reveals how a subject with such apparent depth of experience and interest became treated as if it were a triviality. And it explains why one government, the United States government, deemed it wise, and perhaps even necessary, to treat it so. Though the book focuses primarily on the U. S. government's response to the UFO phenomenon, also included is the treatment of the subject by the governments of Sweden, Australia, France, Spain, and other countries.

This book is the result of a team effort that called itself the UFO History Group, a collection of veteran UFO historians and researchers who spent more than four years researching, consulting, writing, and editing to present a work of historical scholarship on government response to the UFO phenomenon.

About the Authors:

Michael Swords was the primary author of the United States chapters. The work was coordinated and edited by Robert Powell. Clas Svahn, Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Bill Chalker, and Robert Powell contributed country chapters. Jan Aldrich was the primary content consultant, with additional content consultation and writing coming from Barry Greenwood and Richard Thieme. Steve Purcell was the primary photo illustration editor.

From the foreword by Jerome Clark: "While UFOs and Government revisits an often unhappy history, the reading of it is far from an unhappy experience. The authors, eloquent, intelligent, sophisticated, and conscientious, provide us with the first credible, comprehensive overview of official UFO history in many years… Most of the current volume deals with U.S. military and intelligence responses to the UFO phenomenon, but it also features richly informative chapters that expand the story across the international arena. If you're looking for an example of a nation that dealt productively with the UFO reports that came its official way, you will take heart in the chapter on the French projects… From here on, every responsible treatment of UFOs and government will have to cite UFOs and Government prominently among its sources… this is the real story as accurately as it can be reconstructed in the second decade of the new century. I expect to keep my copy close at hand and to return to it often. While it cannot be said of many books, UFO-themed or otherwise, this is among the essential ones. Stray from it at your peril."

CONTENTS

Foreword by Jerome Clark vii
Preface x
Prologue xii

Chapter 1. World War II and the Immediate Post-War Era 3
Chapter 2. Ghost Rockets 12
Chapter 3. The Flying Disks and the United States 30
Chapter 4. A Formalized UFO Project 48
Chapter 5. Grudge 71
Chapter 6. Duck and Cover 90
Chapter 7. Transition 112
Chapter 8. Tacking Against the Wind 139
Chapter 9. The CIA Solution 170
Chapter 10. Intermission 204
Chapter 11. A Cold War 208
Chapter 12. Something Closer This Way Comes 238
Chapter 13. Battle in the Desert 271
Chapter 14. The Colorado Project 306
Chapter 15. After the Close of Blue Book 336
Chapter 16. The Swedish Military's UFO History 361
Chapter 17. The Australian Military and the Official Government Response 373
Chapter 18. UFO Secrecy and Disclosure in Spain 423
Chapter 19. UFOs and France—Beginnings of a Scientific Investigation 439
Chapter 20. Glimpses of Episodes in Other Countries 456

Epilogue 468
Appendix 472
Illustration and Photography Credits 530
Bibliography 540
About the Authors 559
Name Index 561
Subject Index 569
UFO Event Index 577

Monday, May 11, 2009

Swedish Association Opens 'World's Largest' UFO Archive

Clas Svahn at UFO Sweden
By news@thelocal.se
5-11-09

     The world's largest UFO archive, with over 18,000 Swedish reports, pictures and foreign reports over mysterious happenings was opened to the general public in Norrköping in eastern Sweden on Sunday.

"There was a great interest," said Clas Svahn at UFO Sweden.

A Swedish pilot in a Draken plane was flying over Småland in a training exercise in the 1970s. He received the order to break the exercise and fly towards an unidentified object lying still on the water.

As he approached the object suddenly shoots straight up - and the pilot takes up the chase. Despite full speed the pilot soon loses the object and it is never identified.

The event which confounded the pilot, is just one of the reports recorded in the world's largest UFO archive in Norrköping in southern Sweden. It is one of up to 1,000 reports worth taking a closer look at, according to Clas Svahn.

The Swedish UFO association held a series of lectures on Saturday in connection with the temporary opening of the archive.

"175 came to listen and there was a great interest. There were more than we have seen in recent years and there was a serious interest. We are very happy," he said.

There were then around 70 people in Norrköping for the opening of the archive on Sunday.

The archive is now closed once more, as the association works on a voluntary basis and does not have the time to do more than show the archive to, for example, researchers.

"One can come and have a look but in that case you have to arrange an appointment."

In response to the question over whether he believes in the existence of UFOs, Svahn answered:

"I am completely convinced that there is life in space. If life can exist here then it can exist elsewhere. But can they travel here? There is no conclusive evidence, but I do not want to answer for certain. There are mysterious phenomena that we can not identify, and they are not only optical illusions," Clas Svahn said.