Nyberget, mid-Sweden, summer 1988.

Gunnar Örjas had lived in the community of Nyberget since 1955. He moved into a house where he lived until the beginning of 1988, when he had finished building a cabin on the plot. Gunnar moved into the cabin himself and left the house to his son and his family. And it was in the forest behind this cabin that he would have an unexplainable encounter in the summer later that year.

Gunnar Örjas

It was a beautiful summer day and Gunnar decided to go and cut down a tree on the wooded ridge behind the cabin. He went up there and saw a nice birch that would make good firewood and that he intended to saw down with the chainsaw. But when he tried to saw, it didn't work. The blade didn't seem to rotate. No matter how hard Gunnar tried, he couldn't get the saw to start. Finally he gave up. Instead, he walked back down the ridge and down to the road. He tried again and then the chainsaw started and worked perfectly. So he went up to the birch on the ridge again and tried once more. But then the same thing happened again. The chainsaw refused to start.

Gunnar didn't understand what was wrong, and looked up and around in the forest while he was thinking. Then he suddenly saw a small man… or creature three meters (10 feet) away from him. It was only “knee-high” about 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) and dressed in gray clothes with a hood and a long beard. When Gunnar made eye contact with the creature, it just faded away and disappeared.

But that was not the last time Gunnar would see the small gray-clad figure. A few weeks later he was up in the forest on the ridge again. Then he once again saw the creature in front of him. This time it was at a longer distance, about 15 meters (49 feet). Also this time, the creature disappeared into thin air when they made eye contact.

The next time Gunnar encountered the creature, it was much closer. It was the winter of 1995 or 1996 and he was about to sit down on the couch to watch TV. As he sat down and leaned back, he felt something squirm among the cushions on the couch. When Gunnar turned around, he saw something jump off the couch and run around the corner and disappear. It was the small humanoid creature again and it was not much bigger than an adult cat. Gunnar saw the small gray-clad creature one last time and on this occasion too it was for a short while and it was inside the cabin by the wall opposite the couch.

This type of small, bearded creature, known as a Gnome (or Tomten or Nissen in Scandinavian languages), is said to have been seen by thousands of people in the countryside over the centuries and is a mythological creature that is deeply rooted in the myths and folklore of the Nordic countries.

Source: UFO Aktuellt no 3 1998