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Ängelholm UFO memorial
Native name UFO-monumentet i Ängelholm (Swedish)
Drone photograph of the memorial
Location	Kronoskogen, Ängelholm, Skåne, Sweden
Coordinates	56°13′58.4″N 12°49′8.55″E / 56.232889°N 12.8190417°E / 56.232889; 12.8190417
Built	September 1972
Governing body	Swedish National Heritage Board

The Ängelholm UFO memorial is a monument dedicated to an alleged UFO landing site in the Kronoskogen forest near Ängelholm, Sweden. It includes a concrete scale model of a flying saucer, the purportedly life-size landing impressions on the ground, and copper plaques mounted on pillars. The monument reflects the account of Swedish entrepreneur Gösta Carlsson, who attributed his success to a 1946 UFO encounter at the site. The memorial, erected in 1972, is maintained by the local government. It has become a tourist destination and is Swedish National Heritage Board heritage site RAÄ Strövelstorp 47:1.

Background

Gösta Carlsson [sv] (1918–2003) founded the herbal medicine company Cernelle AB in 1953. Their bee pollen extracts made Carlsson a millionaire, and he became known as Pollenkungen (The Pollen King). Carlsson invested in the local ice hockey club, Rögle BK, and converted a former Cernelle warehouse into an arena. Rögle BK signed Ulf Sterner, Sweden's first player to make a National Hockey League roster. In the 1960s, Rögle BK won its division and was promoted to the country's highest league, Hockeyettan.

Carlsson attributed his success to a May 1946 encounter with a UFO in the woods near Ängelholm, though he did not speak publicly about the events until the 1970s. Carlsson said he was walking back from the beach through Kronoskogen, a forest planted into sandy soil to protect the coast, when he noticed a light at the edge of a clearing. He approached what, from a distance, seemed to be a crew setting up a carousel. Upon entering the glade, he reported seeing a disc sitting on a keel-like fin and a pair of retractable legs. Carlsson claims to have interacted with the crew, one of whom used a device resembling a chest-mounted bellows camera to keep him away. He described the human-looking crew as wearing white flight suits with dark blue boots, belts, and earplugs. After Carlsson witnessed the craft leave, he returned to the clearing to gather what he believed were discarded artifacts, including a quartz rod. He measured gouges in the ground that he attributed to the craft, and created sketches that would later form the basis of the UFO memorial.

Unverified

Carlsson made his first public statements in a 1971 interview with journalist Eugen Semitjov. Semitjov went with Carlsson to the clearing before the memorial's construction. They discussed a circular impression approximately 50 feet in diameter, a foot wide, and less than an inch deep but found no marks left by a keel or retractable legs. After the interview, Semitjov sent the purportedly discarded quartz to the mineralogical department at Stockholm University. Semitjov did not disclose the provenance of the quartz to the researchers, who found it to be completely mundane.

In 1995, Swedish ufologist Clas Svahn wrote a book with Carlsson about the incident, Mötet i gläntan (The meeting in the clearing). According to Svahn, there was no convincing evidence that the event occurred as described by Carlsson. Svahn has described typical alien abductions as "stories originate in inner experiences rather than in an external, physical reality" ("berättelserna har sitt ursprung i inre upplevelser snarare än i en yttre, fysisk verklighet"). Svahn did not doubt Carlsson's conviction, saying in an interview that the story "became a part of his reality". Carlsson both maintained that the events occurred and acknowledged that they might sound like dreams to others. He additionally connected the Kronoskogen encounter to subsequent fainting spells, nightmares, and feeling as if his skull were an overloaded radio receiver. Swedish historian Dick Harrison characterized Carlsson's narrative as "alleged but not proven".

Monument

At the center of the memorial a one-eighth-scale concrete model of a flying saucer sits atop a cement pedestal. Cast in Carlsson's Välinge factory and based on his sketches, the model has a rear fin, support legs, and a metal periscope-like device protruding from the top. Concrete paths, which depict landing impressions, circle the model. Copper plaques mounted on pillars at the edge of the clearing provide the purported eyewitness testimony. A plaque beside a nearby pit claims the ship's crew used it as a temporary grave. The monument is Swedish National Heritage Board heritage site number RAÄ Strövelstorp 47:1.

A few kilometers from Ängelholm and within walking distance of the beach, the memorial is a tourist destination. Guided tours began hiking to the area in 1996, the 50th anniversary of Carlsson's reported sighting, and the year after Mötet i gläntan was published. Swedish actress and former tour guide Catherine Jeppsson [sv] said that the story was appealing because Carlsson "wasn't just anyone, and the fact that he also claimed that he had the aliens to thank for everything didn't make the story any worse". Tours often begin from the Skåne Line bunkers on the beach, before hiking through the Kronoskogen forest, and into the glade. As of 2015, Ängelholm Municipality maintains the privately-owned site. In a 2015 initiative, workers cleared encroaching plants, replaced rotten wood benches, and repaired the cement paths on the forest floor.

See also

• Emilcin UFO memorial – a UFO monument erected in Emilcin, Poland, where a farmer says he experienced an alien abduction in 1978
• Robert Taylor incident – a reported UFO sighting commemorated by the Dechmont UFO Trail in Livingston, Scotland
• List of reported UFO sightings – a list of reported sightings with corresponding Misplaced Pages articles

References

1. "Sannsagan om Pollenkungen" [The true story of the Pollen King]. Helsingborgs Dagblad (in Swedish). November 23, 2003. Retrieved July 4, 2023.
2. ^ Cernelle (2023). "About us: History". Archived from the original on March 20, 2023. Retrieved March 19, 2023.
3. ^ Svahn, Clas (May 5, 2021). "'Pollenkungens' möte med utomjordingar skapade Rögle BK:s första storhetstid" [The Pollen King's meeting with extraterrestrials generated Rögle BK's first heyday] (in Swedish). Retrieved July 4, 2023.
4. Carlsson, Bo; Backman, Jyri; Stark, Tobias (June 2022). "The hegemonic impact of the NHL and the 'Americanization' of Swedish ice hockey and resistance: Rögle BK as 'hockey culture'". Sport in Society. 25 (6): 1125–1141. doi:10.1080/17430437.2022.2063581. ISSN 1743-0437. S2CID 248440213. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved January 29, 2023.
5. ^ Harrison, Dick (April 28, 2017). "UFO i Skåne?" [UFO in Skåne?]. Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
6. ^ "Världens första monument över "flygande tefat"" [The world's first "flying saucer" monument]. Arbetet (in Swedish). September 29, 1972. Archived from the original on January 27, 2023. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
7. ^ Svahn, Clas; Carlsson, Gösta (1995). Mötet i gläntan - Sveriges mest kända närkontakt med UFO [The meeting in the clearing - Sweden's most famous close contact with UFOs] (in Swedish). Sweden: Parthenon. ISBN 9789185044139. Min första tanke är att det är en tivolikarusell som någon kört dit. [My first thought is that it's a funfair carousel that someone drove out there.]
8. ^ Semitjov, Eugen (1974). "13 Mannen som teg i 25 år" [The man who was silent for 25 years]. De otroliga tefaten [The incredible saucers] (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Askild & Kärnekull. pp. 210–226. ISBN 9789170089268.
9. "FAQ - Svar på vanliga frågor om UFO och UFO-Sverige" [FAQ - Answers to frequently asked questions about UFOs and UFO-Sweden]. ufo.se (in Swedish). UFO-Sweden. Archived from the original on April 25, 2008. Retrieved May 6, 2008.
10. Oscarsson, Mattias (December 18, 2022). "Finns sanningen om utomjordingarna i ett arkiv i Norrköping?" [Is the truth about the aliens in a Norrköping archive?]. Sydsvenskan (in Swedish). Archived from the original on January 16, 2023. Retrieved January 16, 2023.
11. Semitjov, Eugen (1974). "13 Mannen som teg i 25 år" [The man who was silent for 25 years]. De otroliga tefaten [The incredible saucers] (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Askild & Kärnekull. pp. 222–226. ISBN 9789170089268. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved February 11, 2023. p. 224: säger Gösta Carlsson. Jag ser ett likblekt flickansikte inramat av ljust hár. Det börjar bli för mycket för mig i drömmen. Just när jag försöker skrika, bleknar bilden bort, krymper som i en TV. Jag vaknar badande i kallsvett och med blixtrande huvudvärk. Det känns som om skallen fungerat som någon sorts radiosändare och mottagare samtidigt [Says Gösta Carlsson, 'I see a pale girl's face framed by fair hair. It's getting to be too much for me in the dream. Just as I try to scream, the image fades away, shrinks like a tube television going out. I wake up bathed in a cold sweat, with a throbbing headache. It feels as if my skull functioned as some kind of radio transmitter and receiver at the same time.']
12. Gravplats [Graves] (on-site plaque) (in Swedish). Ängelholm, Sweden: pollenkungen.se. I denna grop begravdes tillfälligt tvá döda besättningsmän medan det skedade rymdskeppet reparerades.
13. Högberg, Anders; Holtorf, Cornelius (2020). Cultural Heritage and the Future. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p. 14. ISBN 978-1138829015.
14. ^ RAÄ-nummer Strövelstorp 47:1 (2 October 2018) Sweden: Riksantikvarieämbetet – via Fornsök.
15. "På jakt efter utomjordingar" [In search of aliens]. Skånska Dagbladet (in Swedish). August 6, 2008. Archived from the original on June 1, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023. Han var ju inte vem som helst och att han dessutom påstod att han hade utomjordingarna att tacka för allt gjorde inte historien sämre, säger Catherine Jeppsson.
16. Niklasson, Anette (July 11, 2022). "Guidade turer vid ufo-monumentet" [Guided tours at the UFO monument]. Helsingborgs Dagblad (in Swedish). Archived from the original on January 16, 2023. Retrieved January 16, 2023.
17. "Guidad Tur Vid Det Berömda UFO-Monumentet I Ängelholm" [Guided tour at the famous UFO monument in Ängelholm]. Magasin Laholm (in Swedish). July 27, 2022. Archived from the original on February 6, 2023. Retrieved June 1, 2023.
18. Gunnarsson, Evelina (July 20, 2015). "Nu röjs det kring ufot" [Now it is clear about UFOs]. Helsingborgs Dagblad (in Swedish). Archived from the original on January 16, 2023. Retrieved January 16, 2023.
19. Jasińska, Joanna (July 11, 2020). "Close encounter of third kind: the mystery surrounding an alleged alien abduction that still captures the imagination". The First News. Polish Press Agency.
20. Brocklehurst, Steven (November 9, 2019). "The UFO sighting investigated by the police". BBC Scotland News. Retrieved March 30, 2023.

External links

External image
Painting of the account Dan Sternoczky illustrated Carlsson's account in UFO-Aktuellt (1985).

• Pollenkungen – The image gallery from the Pollenkungen (Pollen King) documentary contains news clippings and photographs of the memorial's construction.
• UFO-Monumentet Ängelholm – Video drone tour

• UFO culture
• Buildings and structures in Skåne County
• Tourist attractions in Sweden
• 1972 establishments in Sweden
• UFO sightings