Spitzbergen Crash

[longhaircowboy]

I've been browsing over at foia.cia.gov and recently came across a document that mentions the 1952 Spitzbergen event. Now there's been much written about it over the years. Here's some links for your enjoyment.
http://ufo.whipnet.org/xdocs/spitzbergen/index.html
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006/08 ... crash.html (Randle doesn't mention a year but the specifics point to the 1952 event)
http://www.subversiveelement.com/UFO_Sp ... aucer.html
http://www.ufocasebook.com/spitzbergencrash.html
You'll notice that these sites also mention a 1946 crash that may have involved Maj. Doolittle but my focus is on the 1952 report. Here's the doc at the CIA-
http://www.foia.cia.gov/search.asp?page ... Order=DESC
Click on the last item.
There appears to be some unique differences in this document and the accounts on the web. First off it mentions the magazine Der Fieger which none of the other accounts mention. Also it mentions names. Dr. Waldermar Beck is the reporter and he says a Dr. Norsel(thats what it looks like) inspected the craft. The one big difference is that Dr. Beck reports that the craft had a radio pilotting transmitter with a nucleus of plutonium. This isn't mentioned in any other accounts. It was transmitting on the wave length of 934 hertz which was unknown at the time. He also notes that the metal was an unknown alloy and that there were Russian instructions.
There doesn't appear to be any other documents in the archives there related to this. And why isn't the plutonium mentioned in the other accounts?
It appears likely that this may have been a Russian experiment but there isn't any sign of the Russians seeking to retrieve it.
This ones got me thinkin hmmm.

[Access Denied]

Interesting case, don’t think I’ve heard of it before. If it was Russian they wouldn’t necessarily want to admit it and ask for it back... that is depending on what is was for of course.

Randle’s article mentions that there’s a [formerly] classified document in Blue Book about it but a search on Footnote for “Spitzbergen” here…

http://www.footnote.com/documents/62834 ... -book-ufo/

Turns up a later (unrelated?) report in 1954…

http://www.footnote.com/image/6786139/

Ah, found it [and some more related douments] by searching for “german newspaper”…

[Edit to add: "“Spitsbergen” with a "s" works too]

http://www.footnote.com/image/7476093/

[stamped “UNCLASSIFIED” and “T52-14468-1” is handwritten next to the downgrade instructions… better not let Gary see that lol]

I’ll have to do some more checking around…

By the way, I hope you don't mind but I edited the title of the thread and your post. You had it as “Spitzberg” instead of “Spitzbergen”.

[Edit to add: Wikipedia says "Spitsbergen" is the correct spelling]

[longhaircowboy]

Thanks for correcting the boo boo AD. Didn't even realize it till I posted. Also thanks for turning up the other doc. I'm looking through my library to see if it's mentioned in any books but off the top of my head I can't think of one and none turn up in a google search. I too had no knowledge of this one till the doc turned up. I notice there is no mention of the plutonium in the one you found. Thats the one thing thats got me. As for Gary i got somethin for him.

[longhaircowboy]

Ok here's what I've come up with so far.
Journalist Frank Edwards wrote about the story in "Flying Saucers - Serious Business",
citing a Stuttgarter Tagerblatt article as his source. He also mentioned that he had
written to a member of the Norwegian Board of Inquiry that had investigated the case and,
four months later had received the following reply:
I regret that it is impossible for me to respond to your questions at this time.
I think it may also have been mentioned in a Donald Keyhoe book. There's also a few out there
who seem to think its a hoax. Take for instance this chap.
http://ufo.whipnet.org/xdocs/spitzbergen/index.html

Ole Jonny Brænne, of UFO Norway, says that his investigation shows that the second story
must be a hoax. He says that the Norwegian Air Force had no jets in 1952 that could have
been flying over Spitzbergen. He also went though the 1952 files of the island's own
newspaper, Svalbardposten and was unable to find even the slightest mention of the story,
likewise for Norwegian newspapers of that year. He was also unable verify that there was
ever a newspaper called The Stuttgarter Tagerblatt.

Well this may not be entirely correct. First the jets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Norwegian_Air_Force

After the war the Spitfire remained in service with the RNoAF into the fifties.

In 1947, the Surveillance and Control Division acquired its first radar system, and around
the same time the RNoAF got its first jet fighters in the form of De Havilland Vampires.

I've also seen reference to them having F-84s but I'm still checking on that.
Next the newspaper.It seems everyone has mispelled it which could be why they
can't find it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagblatt-Turm

From 1928 to 1943, the tower was the seat of the editorship and publishing house of the
Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt, a local newspaper; the building derives its name from this
original tenant. After World War II until 1978, the tower served as the headquarters for
the two newspapers Stuttgarter Zeitung and the Stuttgarter Nachrichten.

Looks like they dropped the original name during the war.
There also is a feeling that it may have been confused with another incident that happened
on the North Sea Island of Helgoland (Heligoland) and I'm still checking on that.
And there are four newspapers I'm hunting down that are somehow involved. They are-
Saarbrücker Zeitung
The Stuttgarter Tagblatt
Svalbardposten
Der Flieger
When I have more I'll post it.

[Access Denied]

I notice there is no mention of the plutonium in the one you found.

Did you look at the other pages in the Blue Book file?

[click on “Open Filmstrip” to scroll through them sort of like a microfiche reader]

There’s a copy (translation) of a newspaper article that mentions the plutonium here…

http://www.footnote.com/image/7476174/

And in the original ATIC report here…

http://www.footnote.com/image/7476000/

Also note this document stating the story was “definitely false” here…

http://www.footnote.com/image/7476014/

The reference to a “transmitter with a plutonium core” was no doubt what generated so much intelligence interest in the story as this is clearly a reference to a RTG (nuclear battery)…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisoto ... _generator

”I regret that it is impossible for me to respond to your questions at this time.”

Not surprising Frank Edwards got that response… as the documents clearly show the investigation was classified at the time.

Apparently this was one the “Direct Physical Evidence” cases the Condon committee looked at (at Frank Edwards’ urging?) and they cite the ATIC report…

http://www.ncas.org/condon/text/s3chap03.htm

In the Spitzbergen case, Mr. Finn Lied, Director, Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, replied that the only articles he knew of having been recovered in Norway have been traced back to rocket and satellite hardware. Mr. Tage Eriksson, of the Research Institute of National Defense, Sweden, replied that neither the Swedish Air Force nor the Research Institute of National Defense has at any time taken part in an investigation of a crashed UFO in Spitzbergen or elsewhere. A U. S. Air Intelligence Information Report, dated 12 September 1952, revealed that the Norwegian government knew nothing of such an object. The story apparently was the work of a West German reporter. It first appeared in the German newspaper "Berliner Volksblatt" for 9 July 1952. The original newspaper report stated definitely that the silver discus-like body was 48.88 m. in diameter and made of an unknown metal compound; its meters and instruments had Russian symbols, and it appeared to have a range of some 30,000 km. Significantly, the aspects of this first report implying that the vehicle was of Russian origin have been selectively neglected by subsequent writers, particularly those who urge that the claimed wreckage is extra-terrestrial in origin. It seems well established that this story has no basis in fact.

Note the name of the paper (Berlin People's Gazette).

Well this [no jets in Norway] may not be entirely correct.

True but if you look at that Subversive Element page you linked to, Ole Jonny Brænne didn’t say there were no jets, he said they were out of range…

http://www.subversiveelement.com/UFO_Sp ... aucer.html

Norwegian jet fighters

Then we come to the aircraft. According to all the versions, except the one by Bruce Sandham, the wreckage was discovered by jet pilots. The only jet fighters in the Norwegian Air Force in 1951-52 were De Havilland DH 100 Vampires (in three versions: FMK3, FBMK52, and TMK55) and Republic F-84 Thunderjets (in two versions: F-84E and F-84G).

According to information supplied by the Defense Museum as well as the available literature, the Vampire jets were stationed at Gardermoen AFB (about 50 km north of Oslo). Because they had an action radius of only 980 km, we can definitely rule these out.

Our last, and only, alternative is therefore the F-84. Six F-84Es were delivered on September 10, 1951, and were included in Squadron 334 at Sola (outside Stavanger). These were the only F-84Es delivered to the Norwegian Air Force. During the spring and summer of 1952 Norway received 24 F-84Gs. Two hundred were delivered, in all, with deliveries completed in 1955. F-84G had an action radius of 1610 km, so this looks promising. But that's all. Why?

Because, according to research done in part by Anders Liljegren and myself, the airfields in northern Norway were either too short or in the process of extensive upgrading to meet the new NATO standard. All F-84 aircraft were stationed in the southern part of Norway at the time, and then the action radius becomes too short. In addition, it was said that the aircraft circled around the saucer wreckage for almost an hour. In other words, the story is hopeless.

Sounds like a fairly thorough analysis to me.

One thing I did find interesting about this case is this article attributed to Todd Zechel I found…

THE CIA'S MOST SECRET UFO COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROJECT: The Condon Committee
http://www.eyepod.org/ARC-WTZ-5.html

The Soviets had gone so far as to stage an "accidental" exposure of a supposedly 'Top Secret' schematic of a (bogus) Soviet-built flying saucer to an American spy in Moscow in 1950. Then in 1953 the Russians tried to reinforce this misinformation by planting a story in a Vienna, Austria, newspaper which claimed a flying saucer had crashed on Norway's Spitzbergen Island, and it had Russian markings on internal parts and matched almost exactly the bogus schematic exposed to an American spy in Moscow in 1950.

I find this claim highly suspect for a number of reasons. For one thing, no sources are given and for another, there’s reason to believe Zechel (who reportedly died in 2006 and had left the UFO scene after he suffered a stroke and became disabled many years earlier) may not have written it. This according to Larry Bryant (in 2008 in conjunction with UN hoax) is how the article appeared…

http://ufoview.posterous.com/?page=3

It was in the latter category that I received my final word from him -- cranked out via an e-mail message addressed to me and to several other persons on May 8, 2006. (Having no computer of his own, he relied on the communal computer service at his local public library.) His message consisted of an essay titled "The CIA's Most Secret Counterintelligence Project: The Condon Committee." One of his e-correspondents at the time -- Frank Riccardi, director of the UFO-research web site of http://www.eyepod.org -- has posted the essay's contents as part of the Eyepod's online newsletter called "The Alien Chronicles" -- Issue 2-23.

Sounds to me like a possible spoof and attempted hit piece on Zechel who was thought to be one of the authors of A.I.R. exposing Bruce Maccabee’s (rather unsavory) relationship at FUFOR with Kit Green at the CIA as far back as 1979 among other things…

The Fund for CIA Research? Or Who's Disinforming Whom?
http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/ufo/cia.research

[this is related to our Scammers Inc. research]

Anyway, do you see any reason this case shouldn’t be moved to “Famous Hoaxes”?

[longhaircowboy]

Thanks for the info AD. I did come across the subversive element piece after I posted and realized that Ole Jonny Brænnes piece had been slightly modified in the link I posted. And I also came across the Condon connection which as you suggest may have been at Edwards urging.
Yes I agree this has all the makings of a spoof and hoax. Ship it to the hoax bucket.

[longhaircowboy]

Another little tidbit. I've found out William L. Moore wrote a publication titled The Spitsbergen Saucer Crash but haven't been able to locate it. However in Ryan S. Woods book Majic Eyes Only which contains a chapter on the crash he mentions that Moore had contact with someone in France about it. At the end of the chapter Woods makes note of a release involving the crash had been marked by someone at the NSA with the word "Plant". Here's the link to that-
http://books.google.com/books?id=RoaZqD ... #PPA104,M1
Boy add in Moore and the word plant and hey off to the hoaxes.

[Access Denied]

Nice work LHC... very interesting. That little gem is actually helpful for an article I've been working on for a while now.

Thank you for that and also for bringing this relatively obscure case to light… it really touches on a number of historically significant aspects of UFOlogy. Who knew?

I’ve moved this to “Famous Hoaxes” but by all means please continue to post anything else you might find.

[longhaircowboy]

Here's something. It seeems Spitsbergen is to be the home of the doomsday seed bank. What irony.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=7529

[Access Denied]

What irony.

Indeed, alas the true meaning of "Plant" is revealed.

Funny, in my last post I meant to post a link to the NSA doc for easy reference and forgot but now I see somebody has been spying on us and I didn’t need to...

FOIA doc - NSA Flying Saucer Disinformation
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread467843/pg1

[longhaircowboy]

Hey thanks for that because I had been trying to find the doc myself. I thought you'd like that irony bit. When I realized I had missed it I almost kicked myself.

[Access Denied]

Nick Redfern has weighed in on the Spitzbergen case (and crashed UFO stories in general) in a recent article posted on his blog UFOMystic…

Crashed UFOs? Probably Not…
http://www.ufomystic.com/the-redfern-fi ... bably-not/

The Spitzbergen Saucer That Wasn’t

For many years, tales have circulated to the effect that in the early 1950’s a UFO crashed on the island of Spitzbergen, Norway, and, under circumstances similar to those that allegedly occurred at both Aztec and Roswell, was recovered along with its deceased alien crew.

On March 22, 1968, the State Department forwarded to a host of official bodies within the American intelligence community (including the CIA, the National Security Agency and Army Intelligence) a translation of a March 12, 1968 news article titled “Flying Saucers? They’re A Myth!” that had been written by Viillen Lyustiberg, science editor of the Novosti Press Agency in Russia and that included a small mention of the Spitzbergen allegations.

The relevant section of the article stated: “An abandoned silvery disc was found in the deep rock coal seams in Norwegian coal mines on Spitzbergen. It was pierced and marked by micrometeor impacts and bore all traces of having performed a long space voyage. It was sent for analysis to the Pentagon and disappeared there.”

The CIA, Army, State Department and NSA have all declassified their files pertaining to their apparent interest in Soviet news articles on UFOs in general and the Spitzbergen event in particular.

However, the NSA’s copy of the document differs significantly from those of its allied agencies. On the NSA’s copy, someone had circled the specific section of the article that referred to the Spitzbergen crash with the word “PLANT.”

This, again, would seem to suggest that this was a faked crashed UFO story, purposefully planted by persons currently unknown but known to the all-powerful National Security Agency.

The rest of Nick’s article is very interesting as well… check it out.

[longhaircowboy]

If you notice the location fo the wreck differs from the other accounts as well as the condition of the craft. This just adds to the status of this as a hoax. I had seen the Russian article and I think I even mentioned it.