Hessdalen Valley

62°47′N, 11°11′E

Holtålen, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway — narrow north–south valley at ~750 m elevation

[from the public record]

62.7833, 11.1833 · view on OpenStreetMap →

What's documented

Hessdalen is a valley in Holtålen Municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, central Norway. Roughly 15 km long, with a population in the low hundreds. Beginning in 1981 and especially through the mid-1980s, residents and visitors reported recurring luminous phenomena in the night sky over the valley. Project Hessdalen, an academic research effort under Østfold University College, has operated automated observation instruments in the valley since 1998 and continues to publish data on the recorded phenomena.

Notable & intriguing

Residents of Hessdalen reported a sharp escalation of luminous phenomena beginning in December 1981, peaking in 1982-83 at ~20 sightings per week. Project Hessdalen, founded 1983 by Erling Strand and colleagues, has operated continuously since.

Strand, Project Hessdalen 1984 Final Technical Report, 1985.
The Hessdalen Automatic Measurement Station (operational since 1998, under Østfold University College) is a permanent unmanned installation logging optical, radio, magnetic and seismic data. It is the longest-running ground-based instrument array dedicated to unidentified luminous phenomena in the world.

Østfold University College; Strand & Teodorani 2003.
Italian astrophysicist Massimo Teodorani has published several peer-reviewed papers on Hessdalen, characterising recurring “plasma-like” light objects with luminosities of 10–100 kW and diameters of 0.5–10 m.

Teodorani, Journal of Scientific Exploration 18(2), 2004.
Geologist Jader Monari (CNR Italy) proposed in 2012 that the valley’s unusual mineralogy — a north-south split between zinc/iron and copper-bearing rock — acts as a natural battery, with the river as electrolyte. The hypothesis remains under investigation.

Monari & Teodorani, Atti del XIII Congresso Nazionale di Geofisica, 2012.
Long-time Hessdalen residents in the Project Hessdalen primary-witness archive report that the lights were a regular occurrence since at least the 1930s — predating both the Hessdalen Power Plant (constructed 1960s) and the surrounding mining activity that has been proposed as a piezoelectric source.

Strand & Leone, Project Hessdalen primary witness interview archive, 1984-1985.

Public-record items already documented about this subject. Folklore is labelled. Sources cited where the specificity warrants it.

Public-record imagery

Hessdalen valley with abandoned farms, winter 1953. Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Riksarkivet / Billedbladet NÅ · 1953

Hessdalen, 1953 — a fjellgrend (mountain settlement) of abandoned farms photographed by Billedbladet NÅ. The valley has been depopulated since the mid-20th century; today, scientists outnumber residents during monitoring campaigns. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author · 1953

Another archival view of Hessdalen. The Project Hessdalen automated monitoring station, established by Erling Strand in 1998, still records anomalous luminous phenomena multiple times per year. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author · 1953

Hessdalen valley. The peak-activity period — December 1981 through summer 1984 — drew Norwegian Defense Research Establishment investigators who logged dozens of luminous events firsthand. Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author · 1953

Referenced in the codex

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