The Gnome in the Snow

Incredible Claims

Why do Ufologists judge some reports of alien encounters to be more credible than others? Usually, the perceived integrity of the witness is the key factor in deciding whether or not to take a CE3 report seriously. But what if an apparently credible witness starts to make incredible claims? That was precisely the situation arising in the Heinonen case, which was first accepted, and then rejected by the Ufological community.

The Saucer in the Mist

Forester Aarno Heinonen and farmer Esko Viljo were both keen cross-country skiers who participated in national competitions. On the evening of Jan 7, 1970, they were practising their sport in forest land near Imjarvi, Southern Finland, when they decided to rest in a glade and watch the sunset.

Soon afterwards, they heard a loud buzzing sound and saw a luminous red mist moving through the sky towards them. The mist entered the glade and hovered above the treetops. At its centre was a metallic disc-shaped object, 10 feet in diameter.

"The disc began to descend along with the red-grey fog, which became more thin and transparent," said Heinonen. "It stopped at a height of 3-4 metres, so near I could have touched it with my ski-stick."

"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 25cm in diameter, from which there suddenly came an intense beam of light."

The Little Green Gnome

"Suddenly I felt as if somebody had pulled me backwards. In the same second, I saw the creature. It was standing in the middle of the light beam with a black box in its hands. From around the opening in the box there came a yellow light, pulsating."

"The creature was about 90cm tall, with very thin arms and legs. Its face was like pale wax. 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 coverall in a light green material. On its feet were boots of a darker green colour, which stretched above the knee. There were also white gauntlets going up to the elbows, and the fingers were bent like claws around the black box."

The Beam of Light

The entity aimed the black box at Heinonen and fired a pulsating ray of yellow light straight at him. A red mist descended from the hovering saucer, shooting red, green and purple sparks into the snow. Then the beam - along with the entity standing inside it - was "sucked up" into the craft.

"After that it was as if the fog curtain was torn to pieces," said Viljo. "The air above us was empty!"

After Effects

Heinonen found himself completely paralysed down his right side. His companion had to virtually carry him home. Both men suffered from headaches and aching joints, but Heinonen's symptoms were more pronounced, and he also experienced persistent short-term memory loss.

Dr Pauli Kajanoja, who examined both men, stated that "they were in a state of shock when they came to me". He speculated that their symptoms were "like those after being exposed to radioactivity".

Professor Matt Tuuri, an electro-physicist at Helsinki University, investigated the case and concluded that the men's injuries could have been caused by an overdose of X-rays or by "an abnormal electrical phenomenon".

Saucers and Spacewomen

After the incident, Heinonen claimed he was unable to continue working. He reported no fewer than 23 subsequent UFO sightings as well as several encounters with a gorgeous 180-year-old blonde spacewoman from "the other side of the Milky Way". On one occasion he tried to photograph her, but she promptly disappeared into thin air along with his camera!

These bizarre claims irrevocably damaged Heinonen's credibility as a witness. Ufologists who had previously championed his case now dismissed him as an inveterate fantasist.

However, in light of recent theories that UFO encounters may be caused by highly-charged balls of plasma that affect the temporal lobes of the percipient, perhaps Heinonen's subsequent experiences were hallucinations arising from temporal lobe damage he had sustained during his initial UFO sighting.

Sources

John Spencer: UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, pp98-99.
Peter Brookesmith: UFO: The Definitive Sightings Catalogue, pp99-101.
Jenny Randles: Alien Contact: The First Fifty Years, p66.
Albert Rosales' Humanoid Database.