It was a crisp December in 1981, the time which makes your lungs ache with the cold. A group of four friends had decided to hike and camp near the remote village of Hessdalen in Norway which sits in a Valley. The group began their hike early in the morning, looking to take advantage of the limited daylight by late afternoon. They had tricked deep into the valley and they had chosen a spot near the base of one of the valley walls close to where the forestry begins. They set up camp and the temperature began to drop as it got darker but the sky was clear and filled with stars at around nine p.m. They were ready to settle into their tents for the night when one of them beyond noticed something unusual. He asked the others if they just noticed what had’ seen and they all turned around to face the direction he was now pointing in the sky.
There was a strange sprite like light hovering and moving leaving behind a glowy, stringy tail. They said that the light stood still at times and was glowing softly and steadily but also seemed to pulse faintly. When it began to move away from the group, Beon wanted to follow it while the others felt uneasy at doing so not only had it gotten very cold but they also didn’t know what they were seeing or what they’d be approaching. Little did the group know that what they’d seen is what is now referred to as the Hessdalen Valley Lights.
This apparently has been going on for a long time and according to Dr Zou and Dr Hauge, these unusual lights look to have been seen over 100 years or perhaps even longer than that when taking into account the local fork claw which we’ll get into later to be clear. Now in the early hours of the same night the other hikers were camping experienced same thing. One inhabitant of the village also awoke to something strange.
Eric was abruptly awoken at two a.m. by an intense brightness flooding his bedroom. He was startled and disoriented and his heart was pounding. He said that he felt a sense of dread though it was probably due to how out of the ordinary this was and being a working abruptly at first. Once he’d gathered his senses he thought there may have been an emergency but at a quick glance he couldn’t hear any sirens or the sound of a fire or any kind of accident going on outside. He got up and walked to the window and after peeping back the curtain, he described what he saw, as a large bright spherical ship just hovering outside of his home. Eric believed that whatever this thing was it was moving purposefully and for some reason seemed to be examining his house. He said that it hovered and moved across the windows lighting up different rooms in the property. He just watched this thing in astonishment as it occasionally stopped and continued and apparently this went on for nearly 2 hours.
The Strange Night
Eric didn’t dare leave the house as presumably like the campers he just didn’t understand what he was looking at. The experience was accompanied by an unsettling feeling and he said that he was shaken after that and didn’t manage to sleep again that night. The local police station lit up with phone calls that night calls the control room supervisor had only just gotten back into the office when he realized that the call operators were all on the line which was not usually the case in this peaceful area especially at such an early hour.
Eyewitnesses were pouring in talking about seeing though I quote something that looks like car headlights in the sky. They reported slow moving white lights traversing without any apparent pattern along the valley and sometimes hovering above the Lakes. From researching I have seen about this time in the early ‘ 80s personally, I believe that there was a military base of some description around 20 to 30 km away from the village and police officers put forward the idea that it was perhaps just Aircraft or Flares or something to do with the base. But many people on the ground just didn’t believe that this was the case I don’t think that there was any resolution to those reports really at the time other than the locals not believing that that was the case.
Unexplained Lights
In the morning afterwards Eric shared his experience with his neighbours some of whom had also seen lights that night and others who had told him that they’d seen such lights in the past. The general description given was that sometimes they were balls of light sometimes they were like strands or stringy, they were sometimes on the ground and other times in the air. So strange, were these sites that people began to camp out in the harsh winter conditions just for the chance to see them and throughout that time period they were often seen several times a week. It wasn’t unusual for upto 20 observations to have been made per week whatever this was didn’t only entice the general public but it also captured the interest of a few scientists who’ also seen them and wanted to understand what they were.
Erling Strand
Erling strand is a Norwegian engineer born in 1955 who became interested in these unusual atmospheric lights and other such instances of lights in the sky. He studied Master of Science in electrical engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 1981. In 1988 he became an assistant professor at the ORD University College. In 1983 though Erling co-founded a group that was committed to researching and understanding what was going on in the Valley.
In September of 1982 a year before the creation of this group he and a small team of research split up into three different locations on the mountain side. Erling and the rest of the group saw what they described, as an intense light in the night sky. He said that, they seen this very intense light, which made quite an impression on him. There was a spotlight coming from it and touching the ground without any kind of sound. It was a very impressive sight it seems that this may have been a defining moment for Erling because I believe until that point he didn’t really question the pre-existing explanation for what was happening perhaps some kind of natural event that we’re familiar with such as ball lightning or some other such thing.
The Debate
However when a spotlight emerged from this light source from what I can gather it seems that Erling started to question that hypothesis after hearing the stories that came before him and seeing this thing shine a spotlight. It seems that Erling became more open to the idea that this could be something that we just don’t understand yet or perhaps something completely out of the ordinary that we wouldn’t be expecting at all. The presence of this Spotlight initiated a debate within the research groups with some suggesting that it very much appeared that it could be technological and therefore intelligently controlled whereas others were suggesting it may have been some kind of strange atmospheric effect campers have stated that these lights seem to at times interact with their flashlights either moving or blinking themselves.
In response I don’t believe that Erling is firmly in either of the two camps and rather just wants to understand what these things are. He said that while there does seem to be some instances of the lights that could indicate a display of intelligent behaviour that isn’t the case for most of the reported incidents. There was another occasion though where a light hovered above the ground and it was so bright that it eliminated the Earth beneath it for almost 2 hours. This led to further discussions that it really could be some kind of Technology doing this. But from reading the reports a total lack of sound seemed to lead the researchers to think that it may be something else entirely that they just aren’t aware of yet. There were also questions about its power draw and how it would have to have been massive to produce a light as powerful as it did for that length of time it was there it was stated that generally the lights have no discernable pattern or behavior and they seem to defy logic, making it difficult to come up with a congruent explanation.
They have been observed ascending and descending mountain sides, moving horizontally and oscillating in mid-air, something that is fairly frustrating that was highlighted by this paper written by Dr Carson. It mentioned that in the past this has received very little attention from the academic community because of the associations of seeing lights and other things that one cannot identify in the sky and what they might do to a person’s credibility. It’s very disappointing how that fear might have dissuaded any actual serious efforts to understand what was happening at the site. Clearly these lights whatever they may be have been spotted for a long time and it seems like it might be a good idea to understand precisely what is happening, whether it’s just some kind of rare atmospheric event or whether it is something more unusual than that, understanding what is actually happening is more important than the specific conclusion about its nature if that makes sense.
Witness
In another paper written by Dr Hauge, this can be found in the abstract that, “For more than a century, people in the valley have been witnessing the fleeting bright lights. Since 1998, scientists from Italy and Norway have been accumulating experience through the SETTI initiative. The nature of these lights was revealed by installed cameras, spectrometers, and radar; the results show that an unidentified power is driving a combustion process.”
Source that quote in and of itself is fascinating so let’s start by having a look at perhaps the older reported experiences at this place during the winter of 1811 Jacob to Crow wrote in his diary that the, a star with large, gleaming Brushwoods, glow bear like structure was visible in the sky in the final days of 1811. In 1895 when the newspaper ‘Fjeldljom’ reported about Strange lights in the valley that was not two single observations of meteorites which it could be but the same kind of Lights they are seeing today that had been frequently active before attracting so much attention. Another popular newspaper mentioned about it during the major world war events of the 1930s and 40s people saw lights in the valley but did not talk about it. After residents thought the lights were coming from soldiers of German fleeing in the mountains, there didn’t seem to be any more reports of them coming from the valley until 1982.
In regards to the power source this was stated, “Numerous studies have found no connection between solar activity and bright phenomena, and high-energy particles coming from the sun don't seem likely to constitute a trigger mechanism or a source of power. It is still impossible to draw judgments about the light’s internal or external energy source. Because of its randomness and the requirement for permanent installations on the mountain, new data appears to raise new problems and complicate matters.”
It’s fascinating that the lights have been seen for so long but we don’t have a good understanding of what they are what causes them where their energy is derived from or how they even arrive in the first place. It is believed that some of these things may have density and do show themselves on radar while also sometimes being invisible to the naked eye. Dr You Sou Zou found evidence to suggest that what they’ve been observing might be some kind of plasma rotating at a high speed though again that doesn’t explain much about the origins or why. Professor Boris M Smirnov concluded that it is no longer a question about whether the lights were real or not but rather he questioned whether our current knowledge of physics could even begin to explain what was happening suggesting that this area of research might lead to new concepts in physics.
In 1984 for a time the lights presented themselves somewhat differently and according to those in the valley, it was a very impressive site three of them seemed to be in some kind of formation which moved together over the valley. Several of the observers describe seeing a large shape in the sky which emitted three separate beams of light down into the valley below. I’m not sure how similar this might have been to Erling spotlight experience. But while these lights were on the ground the lights in the sky were reported as interacting with each other. Other witnesses describe something similar to Eric's narration. They had seen spherical shapes that didn’t emit any sound apparently. They are usually small, sometimes they are flash and other times they remain stationary in the sky for minutes or hours. At a time Erling himself has said that, it’s very difficult to find one explanation that fits all of the different descriptions and measurements that they’ve gathered this far and now the research group is wondering whether there might be several things all occurring at the same time over the valley.
The point he was making essentially is that the more data they seem to record the more confusing it becomes to explain what’s happening. Erling mentioned an example that happened. In 1999 a light was spotted in the sky moving at a slow speed when suddenly another light just appeared beneath. It moving towards the larger light and then just paused near it. Some believed that was purposeful as if the smaller light was interested in the larger one for some reason usually though. It was explain that they are all having small flashing lights that are blue or white.
Descriptions
Sometimes these are missed by the eye but can be captured on camera. Sometimes you’ll have larger balls of light usually yellow which may float stationary in the sky or move slowly through the valley. Sometimes they oscillate in place expanding and contracting, they remain there for hours sometimes and don’t behave like anything. The researchers are aware of. To confuse things even further on occasion a black ship was seen in the sky with multiple lights associated with it again they have been described as being able to moving ways that defy the kind of Aviation capabilities that we are aware of and they produce no sound alongside.
These visual reports on multiple occasions the research teams have watched their radar pick something up that they themselves cannot see. The researchers have questioned if the area itself might be special somehow with a unique makeup of minerals that is causing this but they haven’t found anything that would suggest that. Erling really wanted to understand what these were. In 1990 he wanted to see if he was able to confirm or completely disregard once and for all whether or not this was ball lightning. So he attended a conference with leading world experts at the time and was able to present his data to them privately.
Natural Phenomenon?
The people at this conference did not believe that these atmospheric effects were anything to do with ball lightning. To summarize they said that ball lightning typically demonstrates attraction to electrical sources such as power lines or household wiring. It is also usually associated with thunderstorms. While the lights in and over the valley have been known to last hours upon hours. While they still didn’t know what they were looking at. Being able to remove a possible conclusion was at least a start.
One of the more promising natural explanations has been to suggest the formation of cold plasma, which is unusual in of itself because Plasma is usually very high in temperature. While some of their measurements indicate that the this is the closest thing to what they might be seeing it’s not without its own problems. According to those who know an awful lot more than I do plasma formations typically dissipate quickly whereas again these lights can go on for hours and hours. After doing some further reading of my own cold plasma can be generated in the lab or for industrial environments where there is a need and it can exist for as long as the power source is active which can range from milliseconds to hours depending on the application. However when talking about cold plasma in open air, it is inherently unstable because it relies on an energy source to maintain the ionization state. Once the energy source is removed, the plasma would typically last for milliseconds or less. I believe that this is what Professor Boris M. was getting at when he said that this might be an area of interest that could lead to new findings in physics, perhaps meaning that it is being powered by something that we just don’t understand yet or it’s something else entirely.
Now as mentioned some of the lights through observational radar data have actually thought to have been solid ships, I’m not sure exactly how they know that for certain as radar detects things based on their ability to reflect or scatter electromagnetic waves which can include plasma under the right conditions I believe. The team may be referring to the black shape with lights that has been spotted over the valley. Moreover Erling said that they do have some other data which could indicate something solid being present over the valley. He went on and described that with one such finding they could not see anything directly overhead but they were able to follow something on the radar suggesting it might have been invisible somehow.
Government
To coincide with that finally you have this idea that some of the lights have been observed as potentially behaving intelligently such as shining the spotlight to the ground being in or even circling a house for some reason. It is for these reasons specifically the potential solidity and the potential presence of a power source, that a number of people suspect that we’re witnessing something stranger than some natural Atmospheric effect. As pointed out earlier some have questioned as to whether the Norwegian military might have been responsible for the sightings. They were station 20 to 30 km away at the time after all it’s seems unlikely for a number of reasons though. Firstly the lights are still seen today and also seem to be happening well before the 1980s. The Norwegian military has also taken an interest in these lights and have provided specialized equipment to the researches in the valley such as Radar systems. They have also shared some data from their own monitoring systems and have offered technical expertise to the research group. The other problem as mentioned is that it’s been officially noticed as going on for just over 40 years with the current understanding that, we have but this may have been occurring for a century or perhaps even much longer than that.
The military’s own stance on this subject is also quite noteworthy, they acknowledged the lights through their own data and have collaborated data with the civilian research group. They have often cooperated and they have no claim or responsibility or knowledge of the origin. This leaves the other technological hypothesis which is essentially that what might have been observed at least for some of them might be something that is not human but intelligent or in other words, the idea that someone from somewhere else has been present over the valley. There are those that lean this way I suppose due to the intelligent control that some people believe they have observed. Alongside Norwegian officials stating that they are not responsible for it if the radar data is also suggesting that some of these lights are actually solid then that is highly interesting. There was something else that I came across that reportedly happened too in 1983 that is probably worth including here.
Given that segue a local woman from a nearby area said that she was driving alone at night on a quiet Road through Hessdalen Valley. The road she was traveling on was sparsely populated and she hadn’t seen too many of the cars that night. She said that it was a calm clear night though very cold and she was driving through a dark stretch of of the valley when she said that her car just randomly stalled without warning and she didn’t know what had caused it. According to the woman her car just stopped in the middle of the road and then it went silent which she said was very unnerving in the pitch blackness that she was surrounded by as the headlights had gone out. She tried turning the key into the off position and then tried to switch it back on but it didn’t do anything as she was trying not to panic she reported seeing a small person at the side of the road.
She didn’t know if she should have asked for some assistance or what but then she noticed something else for some reason, she said that she was absolutely petrified of this person and she just had that good intuition that something was wrong. She said that the person was slim and probably stood at around 5 feet tall and the face seemed very flat with very dark large eyes. She noticed that the person is not wearing clothes despite how cold it was and he was standing completely still which she found very unsettling. This person didn’t appear to be aggressive or threatening but she was filled with dread while focusing on this person and experiencing this overwhelming sense of fear and panic. She said that the car just randomly started again and she was able to drive away which she did very quickly in the immediate aftermath. She didn’t tell anyone about this though, later told a friend of hers who encouraged her to report the experience which she then shared and that is apparently how we know of it today there have been various reactions to this account
Some believing that she was telling the truth others believing her but suggesting that her psychological state may have influenced what she was seeing because of how startled and shook she was. Others believe that she just wasn’t telling the truth and the whole thing is an outright lie. When you have stories or reports like this it’s basically impossible to verify because she could have been telling the truth but also have been mistaken about what she’d seen the whole story could just be completely embellished because of the area itself and the things that have happened there since people do tell such stories or alternatively of course it could just be totally made up and untruthful. So it’s always best to take such things with a grain of salt so make sure you have another grain of salt out the ready.
Mythology
As This is a topic I always find fascinating when you consider it through the lens of previous Folklore. For instance in the North Folklore, seeing lights in the sky is mentioned on occasion and was usually interpreted by them to have been spirits of the Fallen or assign from Thor. The Vikings also believed perhaps similar to what the woman describes seeing that there are other kinds of entities among us specifically you can find mention of, the Elves or the Alpha as they called them within said Folklore the surviving literature doesn’t provide much in the way of a physical description of what they were supposed to look like but they were treated with reverence. They were considered to be very dangerous if disrespected or angered burial mounds were often associated with the elves which is interesting because in later for a from a large part of Europe you find mention of fairies or the fair of which burial mounds were also associated with them.
All over the world you find mention of something that sounds very similar to them, but all have different names. The Malaysians called them the Orang Bunian. You can find mention of the Jinn, the hidden people or the little people as the Native Americans and Irish would call them. It seems ridiculous to even bring that up as in our modern frame of reference you might think of Tinkerbell or Walt Disney or something along those lines but that is not what our ancestors were describing and you have to forget that notion to try to take in what they were saying. The people that came before borers described them as sometimes friendly to bad to outright malevolent from helping those lost in the woods find their way home to wreaking havoc on people’s lives, stealing items and causing people bad luck all the way to taking people and making them disappear forever. People were largely scared of them, the elves that the north spoke of never really went away and they also find themselves as part or members of the fair. Within this folklore seeing strange lights are related and what even seen as a warning sign for people to leave an area that they might have been in famous mentions of this usually come from highly remote areas and forests where lights would be reportedly seen and again they were associated with people disappearing.
Conclusion
The main point being here is that Dr Zhao and Dr Hauge might very well be correct in their assertion that this might have been going on for a century or perhaps even longer than that. If people hundreds of years ago had seen lights in the sky potentially in this remote area not understanding what they were and so they became fully ingrained within the folklore whatever the case may be I do hope that in the future Erling and others are able to get a full understanding of what these lights over the valley are. Whether it’s ball lightning or plasma being created and powered in a way that we would never expect or whether it’s true something bizarre and out of the ordinary.