
The Portal - The Hessdalen Lights Phenomenon
Hessdalen Valley in central Norway has recorded unexplained aerial lights since the early 1980s, when sightings escalated to roughly twenty reports a week. This film traces the scientific response: Project Hessdalen, launched in the summer of 1983 under Assistant Professor Erling Strand, ran a formal field investigation from January 21 to February 26, 1984, logging 53 separate light observations with cameras, radar, and spectrum analyzers. Strand and colleagues convened the first international congress on the phenomenon in 1994, drawing researchers from multiple countries, and by 1999 the project had grown into EMBLA, a collaboration with Italy's CNR and radio astronomer Stelio Montebugnoli to study the lights' electromagnetic signature. The film relies on this instrumented data and firsthand testimony from valley residents rather than speculation, showing footage of the lights themselves alongside the equipment used to track them. Sightings have dropped to about twenty a year, but the case remains open: decades of measurement have ruled out simple explanations without producing a confirmed one.