December 17, 1953 — Hässleholm, Sweden
2:37 p.m. While flying a Transair Sweden DC-3 in the vicinity of Hässleholm, Skåne, Sweden, pilot Ulf Christiernsson and flight mechanic Olle Johansson encounter an “entirely unorthodox, metallic, symmetric, round object” closing in on their aircraft for about 10 seconds.
It passes about 1,970 feet under the DC-3 at an altitude of 7,055 feet. Air Force Gen. Bengt Nordenskiöld calls in reports from all relevant Swedish radar stations to identify the object, and the Defence Research Institute spends many hours reconstructing the event. However, the owner of a local perfume company confessed in late December to releasing 300 hydrogen-filled balloons south of Hässleholm as an advertising promotion around 12:30 p.m. that day. [Eberhart]
Record Card:
News Service Report in BB:
ATIC Report 1:
ATIC Report 2 (Italian Newspaper coverage):
Air Intel Evaluation:
Sources:
“Swedish Pilot Spots Mystery Object above Clouds; Called ‘Russ Robot,’” Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram, December 18, 1953, p. A-9;
“'Saucer Is Sighted in Skies of Sweden,” Buffalo (N.Y.) News. December 18, 1953, p. 7;
CIA Foreign Documents Or Radio Broadcast Report;
Richard Hall, The UFO Evidence, p. 121;
Loren E. Gross, The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse: UFOs, a History: 1953 August-December, The Author, 1990, p. 69;
Michael Swords and Robert Powell, UFOs and Government, p. 365;
Dan Wright, The CIA UFO Papers - 50 Years Of Government Secrets and Cover-Ups, Red Wheel, 2019, pp. 71-72;
Brad Sparks, Blue Books Unknowns Catalogue, Case 997, p. 206;
