In several blog entries I have presented the early
history of AFU during the first formative years 1973-1979. Compared with the
intensive and global activities of today the 1970s was a period of slow but gradual
growth of the library, coupled with much discussion of the future development
of our small informal working group. In March 1979 we decided to change the
acronym AFU from Arbetsgruppen för ufologi (Working group for ufology) to
Arkivet för UFO-forskning (Archives for UFO Research) and we also started
publishing articles in English in AFU Newsletter.
By 1980, as several ufologists began donating books
and magazines to our library, the international contacts increased and because
of our new name, we realized that we couldn´t just function as an informal
group. So in January 1980 AFU was registred as a formal foundation with a
governing board and bylaws. But our greatest problem was lack of space as the
entire library was housed in Kjell Jonson´s small one room apartment in Södertälje.
Anders Liljegren succeeded in finding a 38 square meters basement facility in
Norrköping and on November 15, 1980 the AFU library was transported to our new
premises. Norrköping was chosen as our new headquarters for practical reasons.
Anders had a steady job and the rent for the facility was reasonable. With our
new premises AFU entered an era of continued expansion. From now on Anders Liljegren handled the day to day
activities at AFU, after work and at weekends. Ufologist Sven-Olov Svensson,
who lived nearby, began taking an active part in handling book loans, which
then often were sent by mail.
Anders Liljegren and Kjell Jonsson relaxing in my apartment in Sundbyberg after discussions about the future of AFU, August 18, 1980
GICOFF, Göteborgs informationscenter för UFO (Gothenburg
UFO Information Center) was the first research oriented UFO organization in
Sweden, founded in 1969, one year before the founding of UFO-Sweden. GICOFF was
headed by Sven-Olof Fredriksson and Björn Högman and performed high quality
field investigation and documentation in the 1970s. The group ceased activity
in 1978 and in 1981 the GICOFF archive was donated to AFU.
Sven-Olof Fredriksson
By 1983 the library consisted of 1163 titles and the
need for a specialized cataloguing system became evident. Anders Liljegren
created the first version of UfoCode, later updated to the more inclusive
PhenCode, the library classification system presently used by AFU.
A happy Anders Liljegren at the new AFU headquarters 1983
In May 1984 I terminated my work as librarian at
Stockholm Public Library and moved to Norrköping, beginning a career as
freelance journalist. We were now three active ufologists in Norrköping engaged
in keeping AFU going. New board member from this year was journalist Clas Svahn, active in ufology since 1974. During the 1980s he lived with his wife in
Luleå, in the northern part of Sweden so his visits to AFU was not so frequent.
But we had now installed a copy machine and telephone in our facility which
made communication easier.
In 1985 Anders bought the first AFU computer at a
cost of incredible 50,000 SEK, a very large amount of money at that time, all
from his own savings. With this computer Anders built our first database,
ScanCat, with Swedish UFO reports. Statistical analysis now became much easier
and an important research tool. In the Autumn of 1985 the vast archive of the
publishing House Parthenon was donated to AFU, collected by a.o. Carl-Anton Mattson
and me at Hälsingborg.
Proudly displaying some of the magazines at AFU 1985
1986 was in several ways a year of sadness. On
February 28, 1986 Edith Nicolaisen, founder of Parthenon, died. By a strange
coincidence this was the same day that Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was
assassinated in Stockholm. On April 30, 1986 our friend and AFU co-founder
Kjell Jonsson died during a heavy attack of asthma. We had noticed his health
becoming increasingly frail but his early death was still a chock to us. Kjell
was in many respects the man who created AFU as a library and archive institution.
On the positive side 1986 was the year when AFU joined UFO-Sweden as an
affiliate group and could officially be recognized as the archive unit of our
national organization.
Kjell Jonsson at the old AFU library in his home, August 1977
If 1986 was a year of grief, 1987 proved to be quite
the opposite. In 1987 Sven-Olov Svensson
made the historical decision to quit his ordinary work at a local firm and
engage in full time volunteer service at the then rather small AFU office.
Truly a gift from heaven for a non-profit but growing foundation. And he
is still with us today.
Sven-Olov Svensson, June 1988
In 1987 Anders Liljegren and Clas Svahn had been allowed
to copy the entire UFO archive at The Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI),
former name FOA. We could now create a large national UFO report archive,
merging reports from FOA, GICOFF, UFO-Sweden, AFU and other Swedish sources.
Interviewing Whitley Strieber at Hotel Diplomat, Stockholm, October 11, 1988
In an earlier blog entry I have detailed the very
happy ending in our efforts to save the archive of pioneer Swedish ufologist
Gösta Rehn. In August 1989 Anders Liljegren and I succeeded in rescuing his
entire correspondence file from being dumped in a container. This was also the
year when Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren published their groundbreaking
research and documentation of the famous Domsten abduction case of December 19,
1958. After years of meticulous investigation they could prove that this
classic abduction and contact claim was a hoax, inspired by the Tom Trick
science fiction series published in a Swedish magazine. Their motive was simply
fame and money. The Domsten study is serious research-oriented ufology at its
best and a prime example of what can be achieved by having an extensive archive
as a research base.
Anders Liljegren, Åke Franzén and Sven-Olov Svensson at AFU May 30, 1989
For AFU the 1980s was a decade of consolidation and implementation
of several research and documentation projects. A further development from
being a simple UFO lending library to an international UFO, Fortean and paranormal
archive.
