The Troll of Imjarvi
THE TROLL OF IMJARVI
Imjärvi, Finland January 7, 1970 4:45PM
Aarno Heinonen and Esko Viljo were out skiing, when they encountered a 10-foot wide UFO that approached and hovered near them. A bright light beam was the emitted, and a thin, 3-foot tall humanoid creature appeared, carrying a black box with a pulsating yellow light. Severe and extensive physiological effects were suffered by the witnesses after the encounter.
‘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, which was pulsating…’
The time was 4.45 pm on Wednesday 7 January 1970, the place was lumijarvi, 15 km NW of Heinola in southern Finland. Woodman Aarno Heinonen, 36, and farmer Esko Viljo, 38, both active competition skiers, were out skiing. They came down from a little hill to a glade where they usually take a pause. It was sunset, and a few stars were visible in the unclouded sky. It was very cold (-17 Celsius) and windless.
They had been standing in the glade for about 5 minutes when they heard a buzzing sound, and caught sight of a very strong light moving through the sky. It approached from the north, made a wide sweep, and came at them from the south, descending as it came. 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.
Heinonen’s account, as reported by GICOFF (the Goteberg UFO information centre) runs: ‘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: ‘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 it turned and directed the opening of the box towards
Heinonen: The pulsating light was very bright, almost blinding. It was very silent in the forest. Suddenly 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.”
Heinonen: ‘I could only just see Esko. The mist was very thick and I could no longer see the creature.’
Viljo: ‘I saw the being for perhaps 15-20 seconds, no longer. Suddenly the beam melted, flew up like a flickering flame, and was sucked into the gap in the craft. After that it was as if the fog curtain was torn to pieces. The air above us was empty! I don’t think you can say we were afraid. We were laughing and talking about this light. But at the same time we felt a little uneasy.”
They stayed there for perhaps three minutes, Gradually Heinonen became aware of a numbness in his right side. When he stepped forward on his skis, his right leg wouldn’t support him and he fell in the snow. ‘My right leg had been nearest the light. The whole leg was stiff and aching. My foot was as if anaesthetised.’
Viljo: It was growing dark. I asked Aarno if we should be on our way. I thought he was joking when he sat down in the snow. But then I saw he couldn’t get up though he tried over and over again.’
Viljo had to half-carry, half-drag his friend to his home, some 3 km distant. ‘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.
On the same day and at the same time as the skiers had their experience, two other people saw a bright light in the sky. A farmer’s wife, Elna Siitari, in Paajarvi, about 15 km from Imjarvi, was on her way to the cow-house when she saw a strange light in the direction of Imjarvi. In Paaso, 10 km north of Imjarvi, the son of a household had gone out for firewood when he observed a light phenomenon; it was then 4.45 pm.
