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UFO|UAP & ENTITY ENCOUNTER REPORT

1955: The Vastra Norrland, Sweden Case:

A “Dying Alien” Story and Its Tabloid Origins

A story of three Swedish lumberjacks, a crashed cigar-shaped craft, and a dying alien who spoke perfect Swedish for two hours before asking to be dissolved in a river is one of the most narratively elaborate entries in this entire archive. It is also, on close examination of its own sourcing, a very probable tabloid fabrication — surfacing 36 years after the claimed event, in a supermarket tabloid, told anonymously to an unnamed interviewer whose own byline appears to be a literary pen name. The story is preserved here in full, with that evaluation stated plainly rather than left for the reader to discover elsewhere.

Date: July 1955 (claimed; first reported August/September 1991, a 36-year gap)

Sighting Time: Approximately 6:00 AM

Day/Night: Day (early morning)

Location: Vastra Norrland, near the Gulf of Bothnia, Sweden

Urban or Rural: Rural (forest logging area)

No. of Entity(‘s): 1

Entity Type: Humanoid

Entity Description: Small in stature (110-120 cm / roughly 3.5-4 ft), well-built with broad shoulders, yellowish skin, deep-set entirely black eyes with no visible white, wrinkled colorless lips, small flat canine teeth, earlobes fused to the neck, light-white downy hair, small slender fingers without nails. Wore a skintight reddish metallic uniform, ribbed vibrating shoe-soles compared to tank treads, and a large silver belt buckle marked “UV” that glowed light blue and darkened after death.

Hynek Classification: CE-III / CR (Crashed-Retrieval type) per the accounts consulted — though see Case Status below for the significant credibility caveats attached to this classification

Duration: Approximately 2 hours (the conversation before the being’s death)

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): A cigar-shaped craft, described as flying erratically through the trees before crashing near a riverbank clearing; no wreckage or debris was subsequently found at the impact point

Shape/Size/Color of Object(s): Cigar-shaped; size and color not specified beyond the shape descriptor

Distance to Object(s): Witnesses ran toward the crash site from roughly 300-400 meters away; the being was found at the forest’s edge, separate from the point of impact

Height & Speed: Object flew low and erratically through the trees before crashing; no altitude or speed data given

Number of Witnesses: 3, none named in the surviving account — described only as the primary narrator and “two brothers” who supplied timber to a sawmill; the primary narrator himself is unnamed, relayed only through the byline author’s retelling

Special Features/Characteristics: A blinding, silent flash of light and a “vacuum wave” at the moment of crash impact; the being spoke fluent Swedish and reportedly a second, unknown language; a small handheld device with 12 indents the being used before death, said to notify “his fellow men”; a request to be sealed in a sulfur-smelling bag (provided by the being himself) and disposed of in the river, where the body reportedly dissolved entirely within 5 minutes

Case Status: Evaluated by researchers who have reviewed the case’s sourcing as a probable tabloid hoax, with high confidence. The story’s earliest known publication is a 1991 U.S. supermarket tabloid (“UFO Universe”), 36 years after the claimed 1955 event. It was relayed by a byline author, “John La Fontaine,” describing an anonymous, unnamed 60-year-old man who told the story once at a UFO conference and was never traced or independently interviewed again. The byline itself closely echoes “Jean de La Fontaine,” the classical French writer famous for his fables — a detail noted by researchers as a significant red flag rather than coincidence. No named witnesses, no physical evidence, no contemporaneous 1955 report, and no independent corroboration of any kind have been located.

Source: “John La Fontaine,” UFO Universe tabloid, August/September 1991; circulated further via Albert Rosales’s humanoid case compilations

Summary/Description: According to a story first published in a 1991 U.S. tabloid, three lumberjacks in Vastra Norrland, Sweden saw a cigar-shaped craft crash near a river in July 1955, followed by a silent, blinding flash of light and a vacuum-like wave that knocked them down. At the tree line, they found a small, injured humanoid being surrounded by a fading halo of white light. The being spoke fluent Swedish, explained he was dying, and conversed with the narrator for two hours, describing (in fragments the narrator would not fully disclose) an origin near the constellation Aquila and various categories of space-faring visitors to Earth. Before dying, the being activated a small device meant to notify his own people and asked to be sealed in a provided bag and disposed of in the river, where his body reportedly dissolved. The story reached print only in 1991, told to an unnamed interviewer by an unnamed elderly man at a UFO conference, and has never been independently corroborated.

Related Cases: None identified

Detailed Report

The story, as published, describes an encounter at a UFO exhibition in Copenhagen, where a writer using the byline “John La Fontaine” noticed an elderly, distinguished-looking man attending a lecture on humanoid encounters multiple times, showing particular interest whenever slides depicting alien entities were shown. After some persuasion, the man reportedly told his story: in July 1955, while working as a lumberjack alongside two brothers near the Gulf of Bothnia in Vastra Norrland, Sweden, he witnessed a cigar-shaped object crash through the forest canopy near a river. A silent flash of light and a vacuum-like shockwave knocked the three men down.

At the treeline, the men found a small, injured humanoid being, surrounded by a fading halo of white light. When one of the brothers touched the being, he reportedly received an electrical shock. The being then opened his eyes and spoke — in perfect Swedish, notably better than the witnesses’ own regional dialect — asking not to be touched and stating plainly that he was dying. What follows in the account is an extended, highly detailed description of the being’s physical appearance (yellowish skin, fused earlobes, flat broad canine teeth, ribbed tank-tread-like shoe soles) and a two-hour conversation in which the being reportedly described his origin near the constellation Aquila, the existence of multiple space-faring visitor races with different purposes on Earth, and other cosmological claims the narrator declined to fully disclose to his interviewer.

Before dying, the being used a small handheld device to send some kind of signal, explaining it would inform his own people of what happened so they would not come searching. He then asked to be placed in a sulfur-smelling bag — which he himself produced — and disposed of in the river, where his body reportedly dissolved entirely within minutes, leaving no remains. The narrator claimed to have kept a single metal object, resembling a crochet hook, as physical proof of the encounter, though this object was not independently examined or verified by any outside party according to the available record.

This narrative was first published in 1991 in UFO Universe, a U.S. supermarket tabloid, presented as translated from a Scandinavian “Free UFO Study” source. No contemporaneous 1955 report, police record, or independent witness account of any kind has been located anywhere in the 36 years between the claimed event and its first publication.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

The Vastra Norrland Case — 1955 Sweden and a Textbook Tabloid Fabrication Pattern

• A Fabulist’s Pen Name. The byline “John La Fontaine” bears a striking resemblance to Jean de La Fontaine, the 17th-century French writer famous for his fables — a detail multiple researchers examining this case’s sourcing have flagged as unlikely to be coincidental, and consistent with a fabricated or embellished tabloid byline rather than a genuine journalist’s name.
• A 36-Year Reporting Gap. No trace of this story exists in any record between the claimed 1955 event and its 1991 tabloid publication — an extraordinarily long silence for an event this dramatic, especially given that the alleged witness reportedly discussed it “every day” with the two brothers involved.
• A Double Layer of Anonymity. Neither the original witness nor the two corroborating “brothers” are named anywhere in the account; the witness himself is known only through a secondhand retelling by an author whose own identity is itself questionable. This is an unusually thin chain of custody even by the standards of 1950s contactee literature.
• Narrative Richness as a Warning Sign, Not a Strength. The story’s extraordinary level of sensory and dialogue detail — down to shoe size, tooth shape, and verbatim quoted last words — is characteristic of embellished or wholly fictional tabloid narratives rather than the sparser, more fragmentary recollections typical of genuine, decades-old witness memory.
• Same Pattern as Other Flagged Sources in This Archive. This case belongs in the same credibility category as other tabloid- and pseudonym-sourced contactee narratives flagged elsewhere in this archive (the Anfalov and Commander X material, certain Jimmy Guieu accounts) — vivid, emotionally compelling narratives with no independent corroboration and strong internal markers of fictional construction.

The Vastra Norrland case is preserved here for its place in the broader UFO literature and for the sake of a complete chronological record — but it should be read as a probable tabloid fabrication, not a documented 1955 event. The evaluation of researchers who have examined its sourcing in detail is “tabloid hoax,” with high confidence, and nothing found in this pass contradicts that assessment.

“You have come without any wish to and depart against your own wish. Our life is like vapor.”
— attributed final words of the dying being, as published in UFO Universe, 1991