The Saucer on Spitsbergen
In 1952, a German newspaper reported that the Norwegian air force had found a crashed flying saucer in the snow on an Arctic island.
What was reported
In June 1952, a German newspaper published a sensational story: Norwegian military aircraft had spotted a crashed disc-shaped craft on the island of Spitsbergen, in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. Experts, the report said, had examined it and found it was made of an unknown metal and had come from the Soviet Union, or somewhere else.
The story was picked up by other papers, and it has been repeated in UFO books ever since, along with other details such as Norwegian investigators keeping the find secret.
Explanations offered
The Norwegian authorities denied the story, and no military record of such a find has ever been produced. The report seems to have been invented, perhaps as a hoax or for Cold War propaganda. It's an early example of a crashed-saucer tale, like Roswell.
- When
- Reported in 1952
- Where
- Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway
- Witnesses
- None: it was a newspaper story
- Status
- Hoax
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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