Newspaper clippings, books and first-hand accounts of people claiming to have visited other planets have been catalogued in a giant Swedish archive of paranormal phenomena that is attracting the curious and researchers from around the world, AFP reports.
The Archive for Unexplained Phenomena (AFU) claims to be the world's largest library of paranormal phenomena with 4.2km of shelves located underground.
Klas Svan, 65, and Anders Liljegren, 73, who run the archive, located in the southeastern city of Norrkoping, say they are neither superstitious nor believers, but rather "curious explorers of the unknown."
AFU - the name of both the library and the association that has been collecting documentation for more than 50 years - consists mostly of books, but also more original documents, such as first-hand accounts of paranormal activity recorded on magnetic tapes and photographs of ghosts.
"What we're building here at AFU is a repository of knowledge. We're trying to gather as much information as we can about every kind of unsolved scientific mystery, we can find to make it available to the world," Svan explained.
About 300 people visit the library each year, and visits are by appointment only.
The archives are in the process of being digitized and many of the documents can now be viewed on a server.
All that is needed is an access code, which the couple are happy to share.
Greg Egigian, professor of history and bioethics at Pennsylvania State University, USA, visited AFU to do research for a book on the history of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects).
"I have worked in countless archives in Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom. My time at AFU was by far the most fascinating and the most productive," he said.
"The AFU is without doubt the most comprehensive archive for material relating to the global history of the UFO phenomenon in the world," he said, adding, "The AFU currently houses the largest number of UFO-related archives: one cannot study the subject in depth without becoming familiar with its holdings."
The study of UFOs has long been stigmatized but is becoming an increasingly accepted area of research.
In September 2023. NASA officially joined the UFO search, stating that the discipline requires a "rigorous, evidence-based approach."
At AFU, Svan flips through the yellowed pages of a red-covered book.
The work is from the underground UFO scene in the former Soviet Union, secretly printed in only seven or eight original copies.
The book is "one of the rare things we have," Svan says as he looks at the handwritten notes in Russian in the margins and the sketches of rockets.
"They didn't know what they were seeing but we can compare this to our own files and (we can infer that these are) missile launches from the Plesetsk missile base," which were classified at the time, he says.
The AFU archives contain some surprising material, including a little-known anecdote about French writer and politician Victor Hugo, which is currently on display at the Norrkoping Museum of Art.
In the notes he wrote during his political exile on the British island of Jersey in 1852-1855, Hugo describes encounters with his dead daughter.
These notes contributed to the birth of a new religion that is now practiced by several million followers in Vietnam - Caodaism, says exhibition curator Magnus Bartas.
A Victor Hugo mural now adorns the wall of a temple a dozen kilometers north of Ho Chi Minh City.
AFU, administered by an association of volunteers and amateurs, "also covers folklore, beliefs" related to paranormal phenomena in general, Svan said.
"We like to see this as a social work that influences society around the world and impacts people's lives," he explained.
Beliefs evolve over generations, and what used to be superstitious and dismissed as such may not be as stigmatized today.
Swedish artist Ida Idaida spent a month researching in the AFU archives to create a giant dark wood sculpture.
She sought inspiration from the experiences of witches detailed in books whose knowledge had been neglected in history, Idaida said.
People whose experiences and stories are not taken seriously in society can find their rightful place in the archive, says museum curator Magnus Bartas.
"The archive says something is inexplicable. That means we shouldn't dismiss it. We should explore it. We have to be open," he concluded. / BGNES
