ARCHIVES FOR UFO RESEARCH

AFU

Swedish student Stefan Isaksson has written a paper titled "New religious UFO movements. Extraterrestrial salvation in contemporary America".

Isaksson is a student with the California State University of Fresno, USA. Isaksson's paper is available, as a 120-page, ring-bound edition from UFO-Sweden. Price is 90 SEK (postage included in Sweden). If interested, please make contact with clas.svahn@dn.se for more details.

Isaksson compares three new religious UFO movements (NRUMs): the Aetherius Society founded by George King, Unarius founded by Ruth and Ernest Norman and the Raelian Religion founded by Claude Vorilhon, alias Rael.

Of the three, Isaksson gains the most intimate knowledge about the Raelians, while doing a field trip to a Raelian seminar in Las Vegas. Information on the other two is gained through literature studies and email contacts.

While Aetherius and Unarius are heavily influenced by 'Old Age' Spiritualism and Theosophy, Raelians is more of a technocratic and modern NRUM. But, reports Isaksson, Elohim (the Realian creator of us all) "channelled messages to him, which subconsciously made him [Rael, alias Claude Vorilhon] go out into the wilderness" (for a meeting with the ET).

"Interesting to note is that while Raelians deny the existence of God or soul, they still refer to their movement as the Raelian Religion, and they do have prayer, although not as elaborately outlined as the Aetherius Society, whose members put great emphasis on dynamic prayer for the welfare of mankind…"

Isaksson invalidates the cliché word "flying saucer cults" in connection with these movements (as does, of course, representatives of all the three NRUMs).

"This is because…they A) all show elements of different religious movements such as millenarian and messianic movements, B) are structured quite unlike the (unfair) picture of a traditional cult, C) actively work for the benefit of all, not just the members of the group, D) have leaders and/or founders who function as not merely leaders but also as mediums and mystagogues, and E) are clearly religious with complex mythologies, rituals and other attributes usually attributed to religious movements."

AFU preserves files from all three NRUMs studied by Isaksson. The most active file is the Raelian Religion file, regularly updated with Rael's books, editions of Rael's international Contact Newsletters and the glossy Apocalypse. AFU would appreciate donations of retrospective and new material related to any New Religious UFO Movements. Anders Liljegren

Welcome to the new series of AFU Newsletters. It is more than six years since our most recent issue in English. Issue 39 (Sept 1995) was our latest one - but not the last... So, please don't think any post-39 issues were lost in the mail, or never sent to you!

Since 1993, we have maintained contacts with Scandinavian members, sponsors & contacts by way of our (Swedish) AFU Sponsornytt news-letter. This temporary solution is now discon-tinued and we will concentrate our efforts on this newsletter in English. We sincerely hope that our Scandinavian sponsors will continue to support us, despite the change of language.

The newsletter will now be quarterly, as was AFU Sponsornytt, and will be published in March, June, September and December, each year.

There will probably be three distribution ways for the newsletter - postal distribution, email distribution and internet download when the newsletter is one or two months old. We are working on a web site to accommodate a lot of information available from the AFU archive, including databases, and our newsletters.

Swedish sponsors, support members & exchanges will continue to receive the AFU Newsletter just as they previously received AFU Sponsornytt.

International sponsors & exchange partners will receive the AFU Newsletters in exchange for their contributions, or printed materials sent to us. To save on our costs for international postage we would prefer to send your copies by email, as Word 97 files. Help us keep AFU the low-budget operation it is. If this is arrangement is all right with you, please mail your email exchange address to afu@ufo.se.

Actually, AFU would prefer to receive exchange materials as regular paper copies in the mail, but email exchange is also most welcome. Authors and book publishers are welcome to send review copies of their works. Although we cannot guarantee a review, what we can guarantee is preservation at the AFU archives.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have faithfully supported AFU during the long absence of the Newsletter. Let me just mention one of you: Mr Lucius Farish, who graciously donates each monthly issue of his UFO Newsclipping Service newsletters to the archive. Thanks to Lucius, and to all of you!

Newsletter contents will be a mixture of general news from Swedish ufology and information about activities, new items and collections received here at the AFU archives.

We also plan a series of insights into the wealth of materials available at the AFU archives centre. So, I bid you welcome again and hope you will enjoy our new-born newsletter. Anders Liljegren

Recently, Mr. Bruno R. (Roland) Ericsson, died at his Sundbyberg (Stockholm) residence. UFO-Sweden was contacted by the heirs of Ericsson, through Clas Svahn, vice chairman of AFU, and chairman of UFO-Sweden.

Ericsson, born in 1930, was a 'contactee' since childhood, and an avid collector of UFO literature, videos and such items. Clas Svahn negotiated a deal with the heirs, whereby AFU and UFO-Sweden will pay 5.000 SEK for the collection. It is expected that much of this cost will be neutralised by expected surplus sales, since, probably, some items are already available at the AFU centre.

A negative factor of the deal is that the collection has to be decontaminated after a life with nicotine smoke from the owner. Clas Svahn, Andreas Ohlsson, Bernt Bartosch, Peter Mårtensson and Mattias Mårtensson, from UFO-Sweden and Stockholms UFO-Förening, spent one entire day in smoke and dust moving about 1.200 books to Svahn's home garage. Here, the UFO books were dusted and cleared from a layer of nicotine by another team headed by AFU sponsor Inga-Lill Wallin. That part of the project took three days.

The final work, before being catalogued and added to the AFU collection, will be ozone cleaning by a specialised company at Sollentuna. If you are interested in sponsoring the project please contact Clas Svahn, or AFU.

Ericsson was sort of an "intellectual contactee" (he used "B.Sc." after his name and obviously was a very intelligent man who had studied in the US). He sometimes reported, in extreme detail, sightings to UFO groups. His personal notes and journals, part of it on technical subjects more or less associated with UFOs, cover several meters of shelf space, and will also, eventually, come to rest with AFU.

Twelve years old, Bruno Ericsson had his first UFO experience, in the spring of 1942, at Frösön (close to the lake Storsjön with it's well-known lake monster). "I was victim of telepathic hypnosis by a humanoid, probably a space vampire", Ericsson wrote. He received a strange impulse to jump on his bicycle, and, in a trace-like state, fetch a parcel which he delivered to the alien man. He was ordered to forget the incident and said he did not remember it consciously until in 1953.

Ericsson believed the humanoid placed implants into his brain. These 'implants' gave off sounds in his ears, about 95 % of them into his right ear. Although this sounds (sic!) very much like the medical diagnosis tinnitus, Ericsson firmly believed he was remote-controlled by the aliens. "They catch a child, put in implants and can then, from space, find [the victim] at once throughout all of his lifetime".

In the 1980s Bruno met a young man "with yellow eyes and foreign face" at a Stockholm railway station. He believed he had met a space vampire once again. In his report he stated that he had reported the sighting to the police. Well, we don't know what their reaction was!

The Ericsson collection includes more than 450 UFO-related books, most of them contactee-oriented. AFU recently catalogued the 2.772^nd title in its UFO reference library. The Ericsson collection also includes a fairly large number of American commercial videos, and a video tape recorder for use with the American video system - very welcome additions to the archives.

Many thanks to the members of the Stockholms UFO-Förening for their great help and participation in this project.                                                            Anders Liljegren

The Archives for UFO research board of directors assembled, on May 22, 2001, for their annual meeting. The board discussed expected donations from, among others, Rune Rydebrant, a Gothenburg ufologist active since the early 1950s; from Gunnar Schelin, recently deceased long-time ufologist from the island of Öland; from Bruno R. Ericsson (see special note in this issue) and parts of the collections of Finn Kalvik, a well-known Norwegian ufologist, also recently deceased.

Clas Svahn had reached a preliminary agreement with leading board members of SUFOI - Scandinavian UFO Information - of Copenhagen to copy the complete Danish UFO report archives for future availability at the AFU centre. AFU recently received paper copies of parts of the UFO-Norway report archive.

The AFU board awards an annual book prize to 'the AFU sponsor of the year'. This year the lottery decided the recipient would be Anders Persson, Gothenburg ufologist.

Andreas Ohlsson, secretary of the AFU board, will represent AFU at the UFO-Sweden annual general meeting in Sundsvall next spring.

Anders Liljegren, chairman of AFU, detailed the plans to seek financing, from the Swedish National Archives board for private archives, for 100-125 metres of new book cases for the archive and library. AFU presently has 400 meters of book shelves. If financed, the new sections will be mobile 'compact' type book cases mounted on rails, in between the book cases presently available. The cost is expected to be about 40.000 SEK.

Security measures, such as security doors & alarms, for the archives, were also discussed. AFU is the archive repository for the national group UFO-Sweden, which has reserved 5.000 SEK from its 2001 budget for security measures at the archives. In spite of this, there will be an effort to seek National Archives, or private, financing to resolve the security issues.

The board also decided on efforts to investigate the possibility to secure European Community (EC) financing of projects at the centre.

The board discussed the possibilities of recruiting international sponsors and donors. This will be enhanced when the new internet / web presentation of AFU will 'go on air'. It is expected this will happen during 2001.

Swedish clippings with a UFO content is now available on the internet through a yahoo groups mailing list. New articles from newspapers and magazines are mailed to the list members every week. Unfortunately the articles are only available in Swedish. We have no resources for translations. You have to know our language to grasp what its all about. At this moment, the service has 17 subscribers. If interested please contact afu@ufo.se.

■ On April 25, 2001, the archive was visited by four 3^rd grade students from Virginska skolan of Örebro, a senior high school. They interviewed Anders Liljegren and studied the archives for a school essay and presentation on UFOs and life in space.

■ On April 26, thirteen archivists from ÖLFA, a union of east-Swedish local archives spent a few hours at AFU as part of one of their twice-annual conferences. The professional and amateur archi-vists were truly surprised by the information richness of the UFO subject. Since 1993 AFU is one of (now) 15 members of the regional ÖLFA archives group.

■ On May 19, eight members from the mid-Swedish group Skaraborgs UFO-Förening of Töreboda, came to AFU for a tour and presentation of the archives. After that, discussion focused on UFO cases and the possibility of EC financing of the archives, while consuming coffee and sandwiches.

AFU, in 1999, received 655 copies of 'New Scientist' (mainly 1985-1998 except for 1993), as a gift from the heirs of well-known Swedish astronomer and author Peter Nilson.

AFU also has a substantial collection of New Scientist indexes for these years, but we are searching for twenty indexes: 116, 124, 128, 130, 136-142, 144-147, 149, 153, 158, 160 and 161. A box of surplus issues can be offered as an exchange.

Among recent 2001 donations to AFU are the following files from the Parthenon book publishing house (Edith Nicolaisen) of Helsingborg, made available to the archives by sponsor Carl-Anton Mattsson:

■ Three files of correspondence with Swedish ufologists and occultists, mainly period 1960-1974. (Has promptly been integrated into our previous files of Parthenon correspondence).

■ Three working files on 1) Parthenon duplicated leaflets, 2) the Paul Goos and 3) the Elizabeth Wilcox books. (Originals, translations, clippings with reviews from Swedish press.)

■ Two card index files of book customers 1957-1963.

There is still much unsorted material, in boxes, from the huge 1986 deposition of material by Parthenon and Edith Nicolaisen. It is hoped that this can be sorted and filed more appropriately when we are able to expand the storage capacity.

UFO-Sweden has deposited their annual book-keeping for year 2000, as well as about 25 diskettes with articles and illustrations from UFO-Aktuellt.

UFO-Sweden recently also deposited all report material for 1999 from their UFO report centre (more than 500 reports). The new reports have been sorted chronologically, but database entry, and/or scanning, remains to find resources for. Reports received in 1995 and onwards remain to be entered into the ScanCat database.

Clas Svahn has printed three volumes of VMDB records, detailing some 1 million meteor sightings recorded world-wide during the past 13 years, now available at AFU. The three files cover 1984-1992, 1993-1996 and 1997-1998, respectively. The database is available on the internet at http://www.imo.net/visual/vmdb.html.

An interesting recent (2001) donation, by sponsor Carl-Anton Mattsson, was a copy of the LP record. "From Worlds Afar" by British composer and singer Mollie Thompson. It is not clear when the record, on the Asteroid Records label (Nield & Hardy Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, England) was released, but it seems 1960's style. Adamskian saucers on the cover and printed lyrics included, the record is a nice example of contactee poetry with song titles like "Space Talk", "Heralding the Dawn" and the title song, "From Worlds Afar".

Very nice sing-songs sung in a clear voice by Thompson, accompanied by her guitar. Just imagine a lady, like the once popular French "singing nun", singing saucer salvation songs, sometimes country & western style, and you'll roughly get the picture… Did Thompson release other records and what became of her? Anyone?

One of the major donations of year 2000 - and still continuing into year 2001 - was from the Solna Astronomiska Förening (SAF) of Sundbyberg, Stockholm.

This society, founded in the mid-1960s, com-bined their members interests in UFOs, parapsychology, astronomy and radio, into one organisation with separated subject sections. The group published the SAF Bulletin, probably a well-known exchange newsletter for some of our readers. The Bulletin always detailed the latest clippings & reports from SAF's fields of interest. Head of the group, from the start, was Mr. Erik Fredriksson.

One of the greatest assets of the SAF collection is the newspaper clippings. In May 2001 AFU received probably the final part of this, a large box of thousands of articles received by the society, between 1965 and 1977, through their AB Pressurklipp subscription for Swedish UFO clippings. This will produce quite a lot of surplus copies, but probably also a substantial number of new additions to the AFU 'master' clippings file, which now consists of about 10 meters of file folders, for Sweden alone.

AFU co-worker Sussie Andersson, who works at the AFU centre two days each week, will continue the tedious work of integrating the collection with our master file.

AFU secretary Andreas Ohlsson recently brought further additions to our collection of official Swedish maps, donated by the Kartbutiken map shop of Stockholm. As new editions are released, the shop donates unsold copies of old-to-be-discarded editions to AFU.

AFU's map collection now cover about 75 % of Swedish territory with 1:50.000 or 1:100.000 terrain maps, totalling more than 750 maps. The most recent delivery brought one hundred new map editions, including a complete set of "AC-ICAO Aeronautical Charts" of Sweden (1:500.000 scale). The AFU map collection is sorted geographically by latitude and takes up about four meters of shelves in the main archive. There is also a searchable Access database of the maps.

AFU has an active file of clippings and documents related to submarine violations and 'USO (unidentified submarine objects) sightings'. The files comprise about 35 folder volumes and cover two meters of our shelves. The file has recently seen the following acquisitions:

■ From AFU sponsor Bertil Lindqvist his annual delivery of clippings on the submarine issue, cut out of the daily Svenska Dagbladet.

■ As part of the SAF collection (see above) hundreds of clippings from the 1980s, primarily from Stockholm newspapers. They are now being integrated into the AFU master file.

■ From AFU secretary Andreas Ohlsson, copy of his 'C level' thesis at the Historical Institution of Stockholm University, "Carl Bildt and the submarine issue. An investigation concerning a political personality's commitment to a security-political issue 1982-1996". (36 pages, will be catalogued in our book collection).

■ From Clas Svahn, his printouts of 77 articles in the Swedish press, from the Presstext internet service, about Carl Bildt and his involvement in the submarine issue. (in a file folder).

One of the most recent additions to our roster of exchange magazines is Fate Magazine, published since 1948 - nowadays by Llewellyn World-Wide Ltd, and edited by Phyllis Galde. Rich with tradition, this US news-stand magazine has, since early 1994, adopted the 8' x 11' size, turning away from ageing pulp paper (a problem for archivists), and now has it's illustrations nearly always printed in colour.

Sent as complimentary issues to AFU (thank you!) each issue is carefully preserved here for future availability and research after doing the tour among AFU reviewers and board members.

The June 2001 issue is unusually rich with UFO contents, featuring articles on The Mothman Prophecies, now resurrected into a Hollywood film to be released this coming fall, and the Woodrow Derenberger contact claim, another well-known part of West Virginia's fortean mythology.

The article Facing the truth complains about the IPL release of new photo images of the Mars face, claimed to have been filtered, because there was no face any longer… There are also other articles on life on Mars, falling ice, stone mysteries from Portugal and the Mayan culture, and an article on ET encounters of the Ouija kind (= channelling).

Always a worthy review section, this time with a review of The Anomalist No. 9. Fate will live on… forever.

In November 2000 Clas Svahn and Håkan Ekstrand, board members of UFO-Sweden, spent a few days in the eastern part of Britain, visiting London and Sheffield.

One of the reasons for the trip was to fetch the book collection promised AFU when Hilary Evans visited us in October 1996. "I don't think I have ever seen so much UFO material in one place - and so well-organized as well", Evans wrote in our guest book at that time.

Clas and Håkan brought about seventy books to AFU, all surplus copies from Hilary's personal collection. The donation is mostly of French and Spanish literature and has been catalogued in the annual 2001 acquisition list. If you don't receive the list with this issue - and would like a copy - please let us now.

Many thanks to Hilary for this great donation!

Clas and Håkan also paid a visit to the Mary Evans Picture Library, interviewed Gordon Creighton, editor of Flying Saucer Review, and met a group of UFOIN members for talks.

"This has to be the most comprehensive and well-organized UFO archives of this planet! I am full of praise for the dedication of all those involved and feel now much more comfortable about the future preservation of important UFO material."

These words are from the pen of UFO author Timothy Good, written in the AFU guest book on September 25, 1998. Visiting the archives on a research tour to Scandinavia, Good decided to make a substantial donation to AFU. In 1999 we received a check of 1.000 pounds (about 12.800 SEK) from him. To us this was something very unique. Now is the time to tell Timothy - and the UFO community - how we spent the money!

At about the same time we also received a grant of 3.000 SEK from the John Björkhem Memorial Fund, which awards money mainly to parapsychological research. We had applied for a grant for adding literature to the archive, "on the borderlines between UFOs, psychology and parapsychology".

Combining the two grants, we used 3.000 SEK to buy twelve American academic thesises from University Microfilms. All of these were catalogued in the AFU 1999 acquisition list. Many of the thesises touch on psychological, sociological and folkloric issues of UFO research.

We also used more than 5.000 SEK to buy a full run, 12 volumes in all, of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, one of the world's two refereed journal that regularly features UFO investigations (as well as parapsychology).

We further invested about 1.000 SEK on general library materials; about 1.400 SEK on a number of current books; 700 on an almost complete run of the Anomalist journal; 1.000 on completion copies for our run of Fortean Studies and an index of Fortean Times. Finally, 1.000 SEK on Center for UFO Studies publications, and the UFOCAT99 database; about 900 on missing issues of Flying Saucer Review's; and about 1.100 on a collection of UFO journals bought from Eileen Fletcher, of Sheffield.

We think the grants came to very good use and would once again like to extend our sincere thanks Timothy Good and the board of the John Björkhem Memorial Fund for their great support.

Our GR (ghost rocket) files has recently been enlarged with the following files & data:

■ One folder of copies from sighting report files at the War Archives in Stockholm. "Defence Staff: Air- and Air Defence department. FVIIa, volumes 1-3". The complete file is available at AFU as a microfilm, sponsored by Göran Jansson, but this is a paper document file of a number of sightings copied in the mid-90's.

■ "Ghost rockets. Public Record Office 1946. Full size copies. England 1946". Dr. David Clarke and Andy Roberts have discovered considerable files of GR (ghost rocket) documents at the Public Record Office in England. The Files has some extremely interesting data on British Intelligence interest in the GRs in Sweden. Things we suspected, but could not document, and other things that came as a complete surprise. The complete picture will emerge when the Clarke-Roberts book on British Government UFO investigations will be published in late 2002. Until then, the file will remain confidential with AFU.

■ "Ghost rocket crash observed by Swedish Commander-in-Chief July 18, 1948". File - from Clas Svahn - of documents concerning the Swedish Supreme Commander, General Helge Jung's sighting of a ghost rocket. Clas Svahn is planning a book in English on the case & his investigation thereof. In 1997 AFU received a 5.000 SEK grant from our sponsor Bertil Lindqvist for investigations into the ghost rocket enigma, 2.000 of which were spent by Svahn on the Helge Jung case.

■ "Ghost rockets and Soviet missiles. US National Archives. Documents from Air Force and Naval Intelligence". Files received in 1997 from Jan Aldrich, Project 1947, covering the period 1946-1955. A lot of intelligence material on missile developments in the Eastern Bloc and early (espionage) "Ferret flights" over Europe.

An Aug 16, 1946 Army Air Force document shows US intelligence knew about British experts being sent to Sweden for GR investiga-tions, but also (Oct 1 document) that the US suspected a lot of British info was withheld from them. Also some US Intelligence material from the mouth of Stig Wennerström, who, in the 1960´s, was disclosed as the Russian top spy in Sweden. Those years, immediately after WWII, was when he really got involved with Soviet intelligence.

Also Nov 4, 1948, document that shows that Air Force Intelligence knew about the Swedish Supreme Commander's GR sighting the previous summer.

■ "Official ghost rocket documents in U.S. Archives". The Jan Aldrich chronological listing of all known US documents related to the GRs. From AF files, Project Blue Book, Naval Intelligence and other sources.

■ "US Intelligence investigations of missiles exploded on Jan 31, 1949 near Gardheim (Germany) and Feb 28, 1949 in Unter-Fleichfeld (Germany). US National Archives." Document copies received from Jan Aldrich, Project 1947.

■ Another GR source, not yet available, is Robert Bartholomew's new book "Little Green Men, meowing nuns and headhunting panics: a study of mass psychogenic illness and social delusion" (McFarland, 2001) which has a chapter, "The ghost rockets: anatomy of a moral panic", co-authored with Clas Svahn, Anders Liljegren and Dr. Glenn Dawes.

■ Finally, Ole Jonny Brænne, long-time Norwegian AFU sponsor and co-worker is making his Norwegian ghost rocket clipping texts available at his web site: http://home.c2i.net/3dfx/projects/index.html

On the evening of the 11^th of October 1995 a strong light on the wall of Bisse Juhlén made her walk over to the window. Right above a nearby house a blue-white ball was hovering. It was so big that it covered the whole of the roof. In spite of the glaring shine it was not reflected on the roof, or on the ground.. She observed the ball for more an hour.

When she went to bed that night her eyes hurt. Since then, her sight has steadily deteriorated. She had to get a new pair of glasses twice each year. She is afraid she will turn blind.

On the internet there is a catalogue of cases concerning eye and skin irritation in UFO reports by Mark Cashman. The catalogue details several similar cases. (http://www.ufo.se/fakta/artiklar/bisse.shtml  &  http://www.temporaldoorway.com/ufo/catalog/emeffect/index.htm

The Swedish report archive at AFU. The chronological report archive now consists of about 140 similar "Blue" file folders covering sightings from the 14^th century up to 2001.

■ UFO Criticism by J.N., Junji Numakawa, 3-21-8-105 Soshigaya-ku, Tokyo, 157-0072 Japan. Vol. 1 No. 1, January 2001. Mr. Numakawa has published his newsletter in Japanese since 1993 and now turns to an international audience. The issue includes Numakawa's own research into the case of the UFO-shaped boat that stranded in Japan in 1803, supplementing an article in the July-Aug. 2000 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer.

Other pieces on abduction folklore in old Japan, a sceptical viewpoint on Roswell, and a report on a four-hour long Tokyo lecture by Mr. Kiyoshi Amamiya (publisher of the UFO Researcher, another of AFU's Japanese exchange partners). Also a report about a Japanese passenger plane's 'near-miss-with-a-UFO' case in November 1998. The publisher thinks this was a US B-2 stealth bomber on a secret mission.

■ Donald Johnson, Sun River Research, P O Box 226, Concord, NH 03302, USA, the present administrator of the UFOCAT database, has graciously donated a copy of the UFOCAT 2000 database version on CD to AFU. With this AFU has yet another instrument for searching the UFO literature for bibliographical references to UFO cases world-wide.