Monday, May 25,
2015
See the Norwegian Town at the Center of a UFO Mania
|
Film still from
the documentary "The Portal: The Hessdalen Light Phenomenon"
(2009).
Directed by Terje Toftenes |
Hessdalen, a
valley in the Norwegian countryside, isn’t in the pristine north or by the
magnificent fjords in the west. It’s, in fact, an unremarkable place of
scrubby, low-lying hills; a former mining center that has slipped into
depression and depopulation. It is unremarkable — except for the strange and
unexplained lights.
They appear in
the sky, moving slowly, separating and reforming, wnking in and out. At other
times they shoot down the valley and disappear, or simply switch on for a
moment and vanish. I know what you’re thinking — but there’s video footage.
Word of the
phenomena didn’t leave this tight-knit, insular community for quite a while.
But in December 1981, the lights shone brighter, outsiders took notice, and the
press descended.
The town
attracted both legit scientists and spectators from across Europe. “Most people
are [just] enthusiasts,” Norwegian photographer Ivar Kvaal tells TIME, “but I
have also met the oddball fanatic. It’s divided. Most of the villagers are sane
and honest.”
Kvaal says that
“some of the villagers have hopes of making some money from UFO tourism. They
tried to run a small gift shop, but it had to close. Now you can get souvenirs
at the local pub, when it’s open.” Mostly, what the town has gotten is
ridicule, which made it especially hard for Kvaal to gain people’s trust.
Theories for
these occurrences abound: the light comes from ionized gases in the atmosphere,
or ball lightning, or decaying radon. The earth itself is acting like a giant
battery — which some say could be tapped for clean energy. And, of course,
others believe these are aliens.
Kvaal isn’t
interested in any of these theories. He’s never seen the lights himself. “I’m
interested in how the lights have affected the community and the people,” he
says.
This is instead,
as Mark Durant writes of the work, “a meditation on the human desire to
experience the otherworldly.”
Through a
mixture of documentary photos, archival material, still lifes and portraits of
believers, Kvaal creates a quiet but suggestive series about, in Durant’s
words, “one of those forlorn frontiers where the mysterious and the desperate
coincide to produce a new culture of wonder and paranoia.”
One of those
frontiers where belief precedes evidence, and where the truth is always just
around the corner.
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