You are driving through one of the few places on Earth where unexplained lights have been scientifically documented for decades. The Hessdalen lights are luminous phenomena, usually white, yellow, or red balls of light that appear above the valley. They hover, drift slowly, or occasionally shoot off at enormous speed. They are not Northern Lights, not reflections, not aircraft. Nobody knows for certain what they are.
Reports go back to at least the 1930s, but the valley made international headlines between 1981 and 1984 when sightings spiked to 15-20 per week. Hundreds of people came to watch. In 1983, a group of Norwegian engineers and scientists set up Project Hessdalen, making this one of the only places in the world where recurring unexplained aerial phenomena have been studied with real instruments over a long period. An automated measurement station, the Blue Box, has been running on Aspåskjølen hill since 1998, with cameras, magnetometers, and radar. It still streams live today.
Leading theories include ionised dust from old mine tailings reacting with scandium deposits, piezoelectric discharges from quartz under tectonic stress, and a geological battery effect where the valley sides act as electrodes and the river Hesja as electrolyte. Italian and Norwegian universities have published peer-reviewed papers. None of the theories fully explain all observations.
Today, sightings are rarer, maybe 10-20 per year. Project Hessdalen runs annual field trips where anyone can join and try their luck with cameras.
The valley also inspired the 2022 Netflix comedy Blasted, a sci-fi film about a bachelor party that stumbles into an alien invasion, with the Hessdalen lights as the premise.
The valley is about 120 km south of Trondheim and 35 km north of Røros, along road 705 through Holtålen. About 150 people live here. There is nothing to see in daylight, but the story is the point.
Reports go back to at least the 1930s, but the valley made international headlines between 1981 and 1984 when sightings spiked to 15-20 per week. Hundreds of people came to watch. In 1983, a group of Norwegian engineers and scientists set up Project Hessdalen, making this one of the only places in the world where recurring unexplained aerial phenomena have been studied with real instruments over a long period. An automated measurement station, the Blue Box, has been running on Aspåskjølen hill since 1998, with cameras, magnetometers, and radar. It still streams live today.
Leading theories include ionised dust from old mine tailings reacting with scandium deposits, piezoelectric discharges from quartz under tectonic stress, and a geological battery effect where the valley sides act as electrodes and the river Hesja as electrolyte. Italian and Norwegian universities have published peer-reviewed papers. None of the theories fully explain all observations.
Today, sightings are rarer, maybe 10-20 per year. Project Hessdalen runs annual field trips where anyone can join and try their luck with cameras.
The valley also inspired the 2022 Netflix comedy Blasted, a sci-fi film about a bachelor party that stumbles into an alien invasion, with the Hessdalen lights as the premise.
The valley is about 120 km south of Trondheim and 35 km north of Røros, along road 705 through Holtålen. About 150 people live here. There is nothing to see in daylight, but the story is the point.