Sten Lindgren at his home, December 25, 1984
I learned this the hard way during my formative years in
ufology. My first teacher or mentor in
the strange and sometimes whacky underground world of the UFO movement was
Swedish contactee Sten Lindgren. A gentle soul, mystic and idealist who told of
both physical and telepathic contacts with the space brothers. Being a naive teenager I was immensely
fascinated by his claims and became a member of his group of eager students and
activists, the Intergalactical Federation (IGF). But after a couple of years in this very
special social milieu I began asking critical question which eventually led to
the founding of AFU.
Still I was deeply interested in the many contact claims of
Sten Lindgren and decided to gather as much data as possible to determine what
was reality and fantasy in the world of Sweden´s most famous contactee. This
endeavor proved to be a tricky problem as the core group around Sten were
unwilling to talk. But I kept on turning every stone and after several years
had quite an extensive file on IGF and its members.
Sten Lindgren (right) together with Roland von Malmborg 1971
The central contact experience often mentioned by Sten
Lindgren in lectures, books, articles,
radio- and TV interviews happened 1965 at lake Nävsjön, south of Nyköping in
central Sweden. During the Autumn of 1965 Sten and his close friend Christer
Janson are offered to participate in a contact with space people by contactee
Daniel Glantz. On a Saturday night in November 1965 Sten, Christer and a third
friend Bertil a.k.a. Besic (real name known to me) travel by car from Stockholm
to the home of Daniel Glantz and his wife Ingrid in Nyköping. Before leaving
for the contact the group have a cup of tea and Christian are instructing them not to
wear any metallic objects such as coins, watch etc. When the group has traveled a few Swedish miles south of
Nyköping, entering a small dirt road, the car is stopped and Daniel turn the car
headlights on and off a few times and then proceed further. Now Sten and
Christer begin experiencing a strange sensation as if faint electrical currents
are playing on their heads, like an electric hairnet.
According to Sten Lindgren this is what happened next:
Around 9.30 p.m. Daniel find a parking spot close to the small lake called
Nävsjön and the group leave the car. From a distance of around 50 meters Sten
observe a landed bell-shaped saucer. There are also two craft hovering a few
hundred meters above the lake. From the left side of the landed saucer comes a
man dressed in ski-type uniform with a wide belt. He looks like a normal human
being and have long hair. Daniel signal three times with a flashlight and the
man takes something from his belt signalling back. This light stop in mid air
at various distances.
Illustration of the Nävsjön contact according to Sten Lindgren
The man start walking towards the group and Daniel, Bertil
and Ingrid go to meet him. Sten and Christer are told to stay where they are
and just watch. Sten can hear the group
talk for about five minutes. Bertil is carrying a brown envelope that he hand
over to the man. The group return, enter the car and take of. After travelling a short distance Daniel stop
and everybody leave the car. The night sky is starlit and Sten observe another
saucer coming slowly gliding above the trees. When Sten and Christer look up
they get a visionary experience as if the stars are much closer, a sort of
zooming effect and they can see many more stars than is normal. It was like a
consciousness expansion. After this
observation the group return to Nyköping where Sten, Christer and Bertil
continue their journey to Stockholm.
Beginning in the 1980s some of the witnesses had begun to
open up regarding the incident, giving more and more details of what had
happened. I had also began corresponding with Daniel Glantz who claimed there
was a genuine contact although I found many of his letters rather far out and deeply
religious. In 1985 I finally persuaded Sten and Daniel to be interviewed before
writing an article on the case. On August 15 I visited Nävsjön in the company
of Sten Lindgren followed by an in-depth interview on August 26. I also
interviewed Daniel Glantz at his home in Nyköping on August 24, 1985. During a
dinner in November 1985 with the witness Bertil he confirmed to me that he was
the one that had carried the envelope during the contact but he insisted on
anonymity.
Sten Lindgren at Nävsjön, August 15, 1985
Sten standing beside lake Nävsjön from where he observed the landed craft
By this time I deemed the case so well documented that I
wrote an article for the Swedish magazine Sökaren, published in late 1985 (no
9). I called the article ”En svensk Adamskikontakt” (A Swedish Adamski-type
contact) and presented it as a possibly genuine contact with benevolent alien
visitors. But there were still many questions unanswered. How come that none of
the witnesses could remember the exact date of the incident, not even the
correct month. Both September and November was mentioned. I was also rather
dubious of a statement made in a letter from Daniel, indicating a connection with
the U.S. Air Force. In a phone
conversation with Sten Lindgren June 17, 1985 he, to my great surprise,
speculated that the whole incident could have
been staged or a bluff arranged by Daniel using a model or balloon.
In the Summer of 1986 I finally succeeded in getting
interviews with Bertil and Christer Jansson.
Bertil was according to Sten a key person in the contact as he had
handed over the envelope to the spaceman. When I asked about the content of the
envelope Bertil said he had a black-out during the incident and couldn´t
remember but that he often carried pen and paper and in a sort of calligraphy
wrote and made drawings as a hobby. ”It is possible that this so called strange envelope contained some of
these drawings but I am not sure… It is also possible that I dropped the
envelope, I don´t know.” Bertil was adamant that it did not contain any secret
message to some spaceman. Bertil
remember seeing a light in the forest but has no memory of a saucer. His
recollections of the incident are very hazy. He does remember that they stopped
once more to try telepathic contact but he did not see any saucer coming close
as told by Sten.
In an interview August 11, 1986 Christer Janson gave a
rather different version of the incident than Sten Lindgren: ”It was a light
that was not natural but emanated from some kind of lamp, spotlight or
headlight that could have come from a vehicle, boat or car but to me it was
obviously not an observation of an Adamski-type craft with clear outlines, but
Sten claims to have seen something like that.” To Christer the most memorable
part of the evening was the mind expansion: ”The best evidence for me is the
mind change because no earthly power could affect that unless they had put
drugs in the tea before we left… It was a pleasant feeling, not at all
negative.”
Daniel Glantz (left) and Christer Janson (right) being interviewed
To get more facts about the contact combined with field
investigation I travelled with Daniel Glantz to Nävsjön on October 11, 1986. He
told of three earlier meetings with a spaceman at this place. But what really made
me dubious was his claim that the spacepeople had helped him win on the
racetrack to get money for travelling to United States and Bahamas in 1971. He
was given five digits for the next Swedish Åby galopp and won 50,000 SEK. That
space people should visit this planet to help a man win on the racetrack wasn´t
exactly credible. After this meeting I
told Daniel I would contact his former wife Ingrid to hear her version of the
Nävsjön contact. But Daniel dissuaded me from contacting his former wife because
she was now dying from cancer, bone tumor.
Daniel Glantz during a visit to Nävsjön, October 11, 1986
I wrote a letter to Ingrid and mentioned that Daniel had
told me of her disease and offered help because my father was a nature
therapist. Ingrid called me on the phone October 29, 1986 and this conversation
became for me the heureka moment in the whole investigation. When I asked of her physical illness she
didn´t understand what I meant as she felt fine. After mentioning what Daniel
had told me of her cancer Ingrid exclaimed ”Oh, not that too”. And then I was given a completely different
story of the Nävsjön contact and what had transpired during their marriage.
Håkan: This incident which you witnessed in 1965, did you
see the craft?
Ingrid: No, absolutely not.
I am so astonished that these people have seen something.
Håkan: Didn´t you
notice a man coming out then?
Ingrid: No, absolutely not. I was there all the time and I
can clearly state there was no man coming out.
Håkan: Ok, that is strange.
Ingrid: Yes, I find it strange too.
Håkan: But you were a group standing together?
Ingrid: Yes, but there was no man. I must be honest… as far as I know Daniel has never told me he saw
a man there.
Håkan: But didn´t Daniel tell you of his own experiences?
Ingrid: Daniel has not met anyone.
Håkan: So what is this all about?
Ingrid: I believe there are psychological factors behind
this.
Håkan: Do you think it is a conscious fake?
Ingrid: No, it can be unconscious wishful thinking. When you
say we saw something in the forest I wonder if it could have been someone with
a flashlight. The light was like coming from a flashlight. There is a lake
there and people are fishing all the time.
Ingrid revealed the during their marriage the couple had
lived a sort of ”Sunday-hippie life” using drugs like hash and LSD. She wanted
desperately to get away from this life and turned for help to a local Christian
church. After having been saved by a life with Christ she regarded everything
to do with UFOs as evil.
Ingrid and Daniel Glantz
My investigation of the Nävsjön incident now turned in new
directions. Ingrid had provided several names of people who were part of their
group of friends in the 1960s. A group that often met to discuss UFOs, paranormal
phenomena, mysticism etc. But they were also experimenting with drugs of
various types. Could this be confirmed by other members or was Ingrid simply
exaggerating to discredit her former husband? Two of the group members
were Matts-Gösta Jonsson and Birgitta Holmberg. When I interviewed them they
confirmed what Ingrid had stated. The group had experimented with drugs also
using Mescaline, a psychedelic alkaloid with hallucinogenic effects. They bought
Mescaline cactus at Östgöta trädgårdshall, a local gardener´s supply. They never heard Daniel relate any meetings
with space people and regard these stories as fantasies.
I later received confirmation of Daniel´s drug use from two
more witnesses, Monica Ahnkvist and Yngve Freij. Daniel used to smuggle drugs
in cookies from Denmark, according to Monica. Yngve Freij claimed to have tried
LSD three times together with Daniel but he didn´t believe his UFO stories. With
these confirmations the most likely explanation for the Nävsjön incident is
that Daniel, without mentioning this to the other witnesses, put some Mescaline
or LSD in the tea before going to the contact with the ”spaceman”. This would explain the strange mind expansion
effects attested by Sten Lindgren, Bertil and Christer Janson.
Yngve Freij visiting AFU in 1993
In spite of all this information Sten continued to relate
the Nävsjön incident as a real contact on TV, interviews and in the book he
wrote in 1997, Dialog med Kosmisk Kultur (Dialogue With A Cosmic Culture).
Perhaps he really honestly believe to have witnessed this contact, not
realizing the influence of drugs. I have never been able to confirm any of the
many claims of contacts and UFO observations by Sten Lindgren. There are a few
cases of lights observed by others together with Sten but only of a vague
nature. Investigating the Sten Lindgren case was for me a profound learning
experience and taught me many lessons. Sten has always been a gentle mystic, a
good will idealist and I am grateful for having known him although his stories
may be more fantasy than reality.
Sten Lindgren lecturing at a UFO conference
This story is a very good illustration of the importance of
in-depth research, turning every possible stone, always checking sources again
and again. It is also an illustration of the need to be honest with your own data, theories
and convictions. This is why I value researchers, whether skeptics or believers, who after years of field investigation and published writings have, in a public debate, the guts to
stand up and say – Well, I may be wrong.
