The Skiers and the Knome - A Finnish Close Encounter of the Third Kind

Mods I searched and I could only find this sighting briefly mentioned in two threads over three years old. Please delete this if I have managed to screw something up.

The two main witnesses, woodman Aarno Heinonen, 36, and farmer Esko Viljo, 38, were both active skiers. On Wednesday, January 7, 1970, both were skiing down a hill to a glade where they sometimes paused to rest. After about five minutes, the men noticed a bright reddish light traveling through the sky and heard a strange buzzing sound. The light began to come closer and as it did, it began to look almost cloud-like in appearance.

The faint buzzing sound became louder. The light halted, and then they could see that a luminous red-grey mist was swirling round it. Puffs of smoke were thrown up from the top of the cloud.

The two men stood quite still staring into the air, saying nothing. The cloud was soon down as low as 15 m, and they could see what was inside it: a round object, flat at the bottom, metallic in appearance and about 3 m in diameter.

UFO evidence

Aarno Heinonen's report was sent to the GICOFF, or the Goteburg UFO Information Centre. It reads as follows.

'The round craft hovered awhile completely motionless above us while the buzzing sound could still be heard, quite low. Then the huge disc began to descend along with the red-grey fog which became more thin and transparent It stopped at a height of 3-4 m, so near I could have touched it if 1 had reached with my ski-stick.

'The craft was completely round. When it came down obliquely towards us we saw it had a dome on the upper side. Along the lower edge was a kind of raised part on which were three spheres or domes spaced equidistantly, From the centre of the bottom projected a tube, approximately 25 cm in diameter, from which suddenly there came an intense beam of light.

'I don't think we said anything to each other at all. We were completely amazed. We saw the light move a couple of times before stopping and intensely illuminating a patch of snow about a metre in diameter, with round it a dark edge, almost coal-black and 1 cm wide.

'I was standing completely still. Suddenly I felt as if somebody had seized my waist from behind and pulled me backwards. I think I took a step backwards, and in the same second I caught sight of the creature. It was standing in the middle of the light beam with a black box in its hands. Out of a round opening in the box there came a yellow light, pulsating. The creature was about 90 cm tall, with very thin arms and legs. Its face was pale like wax. I didn't notice the eyes, but the nose was very strange, it was a hook rather than a nose. The ears were very small and narrowed towards the head. The creature wore some kind of overall in a light green material. On its feet were boots of a darker green colour, which stretched above the knees. There were also white gauntlets going up to the elbows, and the fingers were bent like claws around the black box.'

Viljo also made a report to the GICOFF:

'The creature stood in the middle of the bright light and was luminous like phosphorus, but its face was very pale. Its shoulders were very thin and slanting, with thin arms like a child's. I did not think of the clothes, only noticing that they were greenish in colour. On its head was a conical helmet shining like metal. The creature was less than 1 m tall.'

Suddenly the creature turned and directed the opening of the box towards Heinonen: He was overcome with a nearly blindingly bright white light.

A red-grey mist came flowing down from the object and large sparks started to fly from the illuminated circle of snow. The sparks were like tapers, about 10 cm long, red, green and violet. They floated out in long curves, rather slowly; many of them hit me, but though I expected them to burn me, I did not feel anything.'

Viljo:

'The sparks were shining in several colours. It was very beautiful. At the same time the red mist became thicker and hid the creature. Suddenly it was so dense that I could not see Aarno even though I knew he was standing only a few metres away from me."

Suddenly the beam dissipated, and the fog curtain was “torn to pieces”. Everything seemed to have disappeared! The air above them was completely empty. Surprisingly, both men only felt slightly uneasy about what had happened.

Physiological Effects

Over the following months Heinonen suffered severe memory losses, continuing pain, exhaustion, and headaches. For two months his urine was like 'black coffee'. Viljo suffered facial swelling, headaches and eye irritation.

'When they got home,' said Heinonen's mother, 'it was dark outside. They knocked on the door, which they don't usually do, When I opened the door Aarno was outside leaning against Esko. I helped them in. Neither seemed frightened, but I could see Esko's face was red and swollen. We got Aarno over to a sofa."

Heinonen: 'I felt ill. My back was aching and all my joints were painful. My head ached and after a while I had to vomit. When I went to pee the urine was nearly black, it was like pouring black coffee onto the snow. This continued for a couple of months.'

Viljo: 'I hurried to the nearest neighbour, who lived some 600 m away; he has a telephone. The first two doctors I called couldn't come, but Dr Kajanoja said he would meet us at Heinola clinic in an hour's time. The neighbour drove us there.'

To the doctor, Heinonen complained about his aching joints and his headache. The doctor prescribed sleeping pills, and next day sedatives, telling him the symptoms would be gone in 10 days. But they continued, and Heinonen was unable to work, in May he reported he was still ill, with pains in head and neck; the least effort tired him. The numbness in his right leg had gone, but he still had trouble with his balance. His memory was so bad that if be left home he had to say where he was going so that he could be picked up if he didn't return. A visit to the site of the incident made him feel worse. Several people who had visited the site, said Viljo, had felt sick for some days afterwards; he wondered if the place was infected in some way. He too suffered after-effects, including headaches and eye troubles. Dr Pauli Kajanoja reports: 'l think the men have suffered a great shock. Viljo was very red in the face and seemed a little swollen. Both seemed absent-minded. They talked quickly and incoherently. I could not find anything clinically wrong with Heinonen. He did not feel well, but that could have been his stomach reacting to the shock. The symptoms he described are like those after being exposed to radioactivity. Unfortunately I had no instrument to measure that. As to the black urine, it seems inexplicable. Possibly it could have been blood in it, but this cannot go on for several months. If blood samples had been taken they might have revealed changes in his blood.

'Both men seemed sincere, and I don't think they had made the thing up. I'm sure they were in a state of shock when they came to me; something must have frightened them.'

A strange thing happened in June 1970 when the two witnesses revisited the site together with a Swedish journalist, a photographer and an interpreter; the hands of the three strangers suddenly became red, and Heinonen had to leave the site with a powerful headache.

There has been lots of discussion about what happened that day, some say the two halucinated, some say the incident was a hoax, some say ET visitors. I have never been able to quite make up my mind about this case. I don’t think it was a halucination, how would that explain the physical effects? It seems very unlikely it was a hoax, that wouldn’t really explain the physical effects either. Could this really be evidence of aliens?

What do you guys think?

Sketches:

Sketch of the humanoid and the box of light: www.ufoevidence.org...

Artist's impression of the encounter: www.ufoevidence.org...

The witnesses revisiting the site of their encounter: www.ufoevidence.org...

Sources:
Kim Hansen, in Evans and Spencer (1987) [main source, sketches included]

nicap link

I'm not saying it was aliens....but it was aliens.

Knome?

reply to post by thesearchfortruth


For decades there have been abductees like myself that have "known" that we are a virtual cross-roads in this corner of the Universe and it is to be expect that we, having developed atomic energy, would be viewed as prime suspects by the cosmic police.

OK, that was a little over-blown, but many of us come away from our experiences believing that we are currently the center of attention by far more gifted creatures from various places. If they seem to handle us rather roughly, it is because we are subjects in our own experiment and they handle us no more worse than we treat one another. If they seem to all be humanoid, that should be our second recognition about the expansiveness of life in our part of the galaxy at the least.

Originally posted by amongus
Knome?

It was a terrible misspelling. I must have realized my mistake 2 hours and 1 minute after I posted - just long enough not to be able to edit anymore.

The silent K is used in so many words compared to the silent G...

knack
knacker
knapsack
knave
knead
knee
kneel
knell
knelt
knew
knick-knack
knickers
knife
knight
knit
knob
knock
knoll
knot
know
knowledge
knuckle

ah well...

Gnome it should be, lol

I had not known about this incident before your posting.
It is very interesting and quite detailed. It is also a little frightening that they
had such bad physical reactions to what sounds like some kind of probe.

Thank you for sharing this.

This is a really interesting case; the medical results in particular. If this were any other kind of described event it would be taken very seriously I believe on that basis alone. If medical conditions do not count as physical evidence, then what does? It certainly has the feel of a solid case. The darkened urine stands out as well, this can t be a common thing.

Results from a very cursory search:

congenital disease for dark urine
other possible causes

Though really I m thinking of listing all the symptoms and trying to find a match.

I had the thought that there might be some kind of strong EM field in the area of the experiences, which may have an effect on brain functioning, especially those with (I know this sounds funny) "sensitive" brain functions. Such fields could be pre earthquakes, minerals etc.