FEBRUARY 18, 1983 — 1:13 A.M.

Seven Women, a Norwegian Mountain Road, and the Night They Begged to Be Taken THE TAKEN WOMEN — An Investigative Mystery CASE FILE: THE HESSDALEN SEVEN They didn't run from the lights. They ran toward them. And when the lights disappeared, seven women were gone, leaving behind everything they had been wearing. The Night Nobody Believed When Norwegian minibus driver Arne Vik finally agreed to speak publicly about what happened on the mountain road outside Hessdalen on February 18, 1983, he brought a photograph that he had kept hidden in a drawer for more than twenty years. It showed seven little piles of women's clothing, arranged irregularly across a snow-covered road. There were woolen coats, skirts, trousers, sweaters, stockings, boots, scarves, and underwear. Everything the women had been wearing. But there were no women. "They always ask whether the girls took their clothes off," Vik told our interviewer. "They didn't. They were wearing them when they disappeared. I saw it happen, and I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I'm tired of pretending I saw something else." Seventeen people had been traveling in the minibus that night. Ten returned home. Seven women, all between twenty-two and thirty-three years old, vanished. Unlike most accounts of alleged extraterrestrial abductions, the surviving passengers did not describe women screaming in terror, attempting to escape, or being dragged unwillingly toward an unfamiliar craft. They described something infinitely more disturbing. The women were happy. Excited. Almost impatient. And according to several witnesses, one of them became so desperate to accompany the others that she grabbed another woman's leg as that woman appeared to rise above the ground. A sixty-one-year-old survivor would later describe the scene in words that investigators repeatedly challenged. "Those girls weren't being kidnapped," she insisted. "They were afraid somebody was going to leave without them." The Passengers The journey had begun shortly after midnight, when sixteen passengers boarded a privately hired minibus following a retirement celebration in the village of Ålen. Some were relatives, others were friends, and several were staying at a guesthouse near Hessdalen. Their driver, Arne Vik, forty-six, knew the road well and had little concern about making the short journey despite the falling snow. The passengers aboard the minibus before the incident. Among his passengers were seven younger women. Mari Lunde — 22 Liv Berg — 24 Signe Holte — 25 Elise Nordby — 27 Runa Haug — 29 Karen Nilsen — 31 Solveig Røed — 33 All seven would disappear before the journey was completed. The seven women who disappeared that night. The remaining passengers included six older women and three men, in addition to the driver. One of the older women, Ingrid Holte, fifty-seven, was Signe's mother. Another, Astrid Lunde, sixty-one, was Mari's aunt. Both women would subsequently become central witnesses to the incident. And both would spend the rest of their lives defending an account that local authorities considered almost impossible to believe. The Lights Above the Valley At approximately 12:56 a.m., Vik noticed a brilliant yellow-white light hanging above the mountains to the east. Unusual lights had already become a subject of considerable local conversation, and he initially assumed he was witnessing another of the unexplained phenomena being reported around Hessdalen. Several passengers moved toward the windows. The first to notice the light was reportedly Elise Nordby, twenty-seven, who had been sitting near the back. "Se! Der er det!" she exclaimed. "Look! There it is!" Her excitement seemed disproportionate to what Vik regarded as an interesting but hardly extraordinary sight. Then Liv Berg stood up. "Herregud, det skjer virkelig!" "Oh my God, it's really happening!" The first mysterious light appears above the valley. Ingrid Holte remembered asking her daughter what Liv meant. Signe did not answer. Instead, she pressed both hands against the window and smiled. "Mother, you have to see this." "I can see it, Signe. Sit down." But Signe was already reaching for her coat. Astrid Lunde would later recall something that troubled her more than the sight of the mysterious light. "The younger women seemed to understand each other without talking," she said. "They kept looking from one to another and smiling, as though they knew a wonderful secret that the rest of us weren't allowed to know." By 1:08 a.m., Vik could distinguish three lights moving above the valley. One appeared yellow. Another was bluish white. The third changed intensity repeatedly, briefly becoming so brilliant that it illuminated the snow-covered mountainside. He slowed the vehicle. Then the radio stopped working. The dashboard lights flickered. And every passenger heard a low, sustained humming sound. "Stop the Bus! She's Here!" The first woman to demand that Vik stop was Karen Nilsen. She suddenly rose from her seat, gripping the backrest in front of her. "Stopp bussen! Hun er her!" "Stop the bus! She's here!" Vik told her to sit down, but Karen was already moving toward the door, pleading with him to stop before it was too late. "Please! You don't understand! We have to get out!" Within seconds, the other younger women were standing, speaking excitedly and reaching for their belongings. Ingrid Holte remembered her daughter laughing. Not nervously. Happily. Almost uncontrollably. "Signe, what is wrong with you?" Signe turned toward her mother, tears running down her cheeks. "Nothing, Mother. Nothing is wrong. She's here!" "Who is here?" Signe grabbed her mother's hands. "Mamma, hun har kommet tilbake!" "Mother, she's come back!" "Who has come back, Signe?" But Signe was already reaching for her coat. Before Ingrid could ask another question, all three lights descended toward the road. Vik later described the largest as something like an enormous illuminated window suspended above the snow, although he could see no building, aircraft, or visible structure supporting it. The vehicle's engine stopped. The interior lights went out. And seven young women rushed toward the door. "They were pushing each other," Vik said. "Not fighting exactly, but trying to be first. Like children waiting to see somebody famous." He attempted to block the exit. Runa Haug pushed past him. "Please move! You're wasting time!" Mari Lunde was crying by then, but her aunt insisted that the tears were not caused by fear. "She was so excited she could hardly speak," Astrid remembered. "She kept saying, 'We're going! We're really going!'" Vik opened the door, intending to investigate the stalled engine. The women rushed past him into the snow. The women rush toward the mysterious lights. Within moments, all seven were standing in the road. And the lights moved directly above them. The Women Who Wouldn't Stay Ingrid Holte followed her daughter outside without taking time to put on her coat. The temperature was several degrees below freezing, but she barely noticed. Signe was standing beneath the brightest light, looking upward with her arms stretched wide. Ingrid grabbed her daughter's wrist. "Signe! Come back inside!" Her daughter pulled away. "Mother, please! Let me go!" "Go where?" Signe laughed again. "I can't explain it. You wouldn't understand." "Then try!" But Signe had already turned back toward the light. Ingrid desperately tries to stop her daughter. Twenty-two-year-old Mari Lunde was standing nearby, trembling with excitement. She began calling toward the sky. "Please! I'm here! Don't forget me!" Astrid stepped between Mari and the light. "Mari! Har du gått fra vettet?" "Mari! Have you completely lost your mind?" Mari grabbed her aunt's shoulders. "Tante Astrid, vær så snill! Ikke ødelegg dette for meg!" "Aunt Astrid, please! Don't ruin this for me!" Then, almost whispering, she added: "Jeg har ventet så lenge." "I've waited so long." Astrid later testified that she had never heard her niece speak with such conviction. "Waited for what?" she demanded. Mari simply shook her head. "For her." Above them, the humming became louder. Then Signe Holte began to rise. The Girl Who Wouldn't Be Left Behind At first, Ingrid thought her daughter had jumped. Signe's boots lifted a few inches above the snow, and her body seemed to straighten beneath the extraordinary light. Then she rose farther. Ingrid screamed. "Signe! Get down!" Her daughter looked down at her. "I'm all right, Mother!" "You are not all right! Come back!" But Signe was already nearly three feet above the road. And that was when Mari Lunde did something that three survivors independently described, although none could explain it afterward. She ran toward Signe. "Vent! Ikke dra uten meg!" "Wait! Don't leave without me!" Signe stretched a hand toward her, but Mari could not reach it. Unable to reach Signe's hand, she threw herself forward and wrapped both arms around her leg. "Ta meg med! Vær så snill!" "Take me with you! Please!" Her boots dragged across the snow. For a moment, both women seemed to be suspended above the road, Signe rising slowly and Mari clinging desperately to her calf. "Don't leave me!" Mari screamed. "Please! I want to come too!" Her aunt rushed forward and grabbed Mari around the waist and desperately tried to pull her back. "Mari! Slipp taket!" "Mari! Let go!" Mari refuses to be left behind. But Mari kicked backward, trying to free herself from Astrid's grasp. "Nei! Slipp meg! Jeg vil være med!" "No! Let me go! I want to go too!" Astrid fell to her knees, still holding her niece. She remembered feeling an extraordinary warmth coming from the younger woman's body despite the bitter cold. Then Mari looked down at her. Her expression changed. "Aunt Astrid, please. I want this." Astrid began crying. "Please don't leave me." Mari reached down and touched her cheek. "I'm sorry." And then, according to Astrid, both young women rose another foot. The light intensified. Astrid lost her grip. For the rest of her life, she remembered one final glimpse of Mari's face. Her niece was smiling. "Zhaevyra! Don't Forget Us!" By this time, the remaining five young women had gathered beneath the lights, and Karen Nilsen was calling a name that none of the survivors recognized. "Zhaevyra! Vi er klare!" "Zhaevyra! We're ready!" One was kneeling in the snow, her hands clasped together as though praying. Another was laughing and crying simultaneously. Two were holding hands. "Ta oss alle med!" "Take all of us!" "Ikke glem oss!" "Don't forget us!" At least, that was how Arne Vik eventually attempted to reproduce the unfamiliar sound. Astrid Lunde remembered it as something closer to "Shaveera." Ingrid Holte insisted that the word began with a sound resembling a soft Z. The witnesses would never agree on the exact pronunciation of the unfamiliar name, but several remembered hearing it repeatedly among the Norwegian cries. But they agreed that several women had been calling toward the lights. "Zhaevyra! We're ready!" "Please! All of us!" "Don't forget us!" Then came the detail that would later make the testimony almost impossible for investigators to accept. The remaining five women began rising from the ground. Not simultaneously. Not in a straight line. One after another, as though each had been recognized by something above them. Seven women ascend into the mysterious light. The survivors described frantic movements, laughter, tears, and hands reaching toward the light. One woman appeared to be begging for the others to wait. Another called down to her mother that everything would be fine. And Signe Holte, still suspended with Mari clinging to her leg, looked directly toward Ingrid. "Mamma! Ikke vær redd!" "Mother! Don't be frightened!" Ingrid reached up toward her daughter. "Signe! Kom tilbake! Vær så snill!" "Signe! Come back! Please!" Signe smiled. And spoke the last words her mother would ever hear from her. "Jeg skal bli lykkelig, mamma!" "I'm going to be happy, Mother!" Then the light became unbearable. The Clothes in the Snow Arne Vik described the next moment as a flash so brilliant that he could see the bones of his hands through his closed eyelids. A tremendous pressure seemed to pass through the air. Several passengers collapsed. The humming stopped. And the lights vanished. When Vik opened his eyes, there was nothing above the road. No aircraft. No unfamiliar structures. No sign of the seven women. But the snow was covered with clothing. Seven women vanished. Their clothing remained. Ingrid Holte was the first to discover what had happened. A blue woolen coat lay near the roadside. Beside it were a sweater, trousers, undergarments, and a pair of boots. They belonged to Signe. Ingrid picked up one boot. It was still warm inside. Then she began screaming her daughter's name. Astrid found Mari's clothing several feet away. Her coat and blouse were tangled together, and her trousers had fallen beside them. The boots were separated, one lying near the center of the road, the other several feet away. There were seven complete sets of clothing scattered across the snow. Everything the women had been wearing. Nothing was torn. Nothing was burned. And there was no blood. Vik later struggled to describe what he had witnessed. "People imagine the girls undressed. That's not what happened. Their clothes were on them until the very last moment, and then there wasn't anybody inside them anymore." He remembered something even more disturbing. The stockings. "The stockings were there too. Everything. I don't know how to explain that. One moment there was a girl standing in a coat and boots, and the next there was just a coat and boots falling into the snow." Nobody had seen the women removing their clothing. Nobody had seen them run into the forest. And nobody could explain how seven people had vanished while their clothing remained behind. "You Expect Us to Believe This?" The first police officers arrived shortly after two in the morning. They found ten profoundly distressed survivors, a disabled minibus, and piles of clothing scattered across the road. Investigators examine the abandoned clothing. The surviving passengers were taken to separate locations and interviewed. Investigators initially suspected a combination of alcohol consumption, poor visibility, and a confused reconstruction of events. Some suggested that the younger women had abandoned the vehicle following a disagreement and disappeared into the surrounding countryside. But the clothing presented an obvious problem. Why would seven women remove every article of clothing in subfreezing temperatures before disappearing into a Norwegian winter night? And where were their footprints? There were numerous tracks around the minibus, including those left by the survivors and responding officers. But investigators could not establish any trail leading away from the abandoned clothing. When officers questioned Ingrid Holte, she repeatedly insisted that she had seen her daughter rise into the sky. One investigator reportedly asked whether she had been drinking. Ingrid became furious. "Do you think I'm inventing this? Do you think I want to tell people my daughter flew into the sky and left me standing there holding her boot?" The official questioning continued for days. Every survivor was asked about the lights. Every survivor was asked about the clothing. And every survivor was asked whether they had agreed upon their extraordinary story before contacting the authorities. Vik remembered the frustration. "They kept asking the same questions, hoping somebody would change their answer. But what were we supposed to say? That seven women walked away naked in the snow and disappeared? Would that have made more sense?" No trace of the missing women was recovered. Three Witnesses, Three Impossible Memories In the months following the incident, three survivors gave interviews that would later become central to the Hessdalen mystery. Arne Vik — Minibus Driver, 46 "People keep asking me whether I saw a spaceship, and I tell them I don't know what I saw. I saw lights, and I saw seven women go up toward them, and I saw their clothes fall down. That's what happened. I'm not asking anybody to believe in aliens, but I am asking them to stop calling me a liar." Ingrid Holte — Mother of Signe Holte, 57 "My daughter was not frightened. That's what hurts me more than anything. She was happy to leave, and I wasn't part of whatever made her happy. She looked at me and told me not to be afraid, and then she went away. I've spent every night since wondering what kind of mother I must have been if she wanted to go so badly." Astrid Lunde — Aunt of Mari Lunde, 61 "I held her. I had both arms around her waist, and she was clinging to that other girl's leg, and I couldn't pull her down. She fought me, and she begged me to let her go, and then she looked at me like I was the one doing something cruel. People can tell me she was kidnapped until the day I die, but I know what I heard. She wanted to go." All three statements were challenged by investigators. Yet none of the witnesses withdrew their accounts. Seven Women. No Bodies. No Explanation. The disappearances eventually became part of the growing body of stories associated with the mysterious Hessdalen lights. Skeptics suggested that the witnesses had experienced some form of shared misperception, perhaps intensified by exhaustion, darkness, and unusual atmospheric conditions. Others proposed that the entire incident had been staged. But the survivors insisted that their most disturbing recollection had nothing to do with the lights themselves. It was the behavior of the missing women. They had not appeared surprised by the phenomenon. They had acted as though they were expecting it. As though a long-awaited appointment had finally been kept. Their mothers, relatives, and friends had pleaded with them to stay, but the women had been far more concerned about being left behind. Why? Had they been subjected to some unknown influence? Had they experienced previous encounters that they had concealed from their families? Or had something—or someone—promised them a future so extraordinary that their lives on Earth suddenly seemed insignificant? Investigators found no credible evidence supporting any of these explanations. Nor could they establish that the mysterious name reportedly shouted by the women belonged to a real person. Zhaevyra remained nothing more than an uncertain word recorded in contradictory witness statements. But years later, researchers comparing reports of extraordinary female disappearances would begin encountering other accounts of young women appearing eager to depart with unidentified lights. The similarities would prove deeply unsettling. The Last Woman to Look Back Ingrid Holte never remarried after the death of her husband several years earlier, and she continued living in the same house where Signe had grown up. For many years, she kept her daughter's blue woolen coat hanging in the bedroom closet. She refused to wash it. She refused to give it away. Ingrid Holte never stopped waiting for Signe. And whenever journalists asked whether she believed Signe had died that night, she gave the same answer. "No. I saw her leave." In her final recorded interview, Ingrid was asked whether she would have tried harder to stop her daughter if she had known what was about to happen. She thought about the question for a long time. Then she shook her head. "I couldn't have stopped her. Nobody could have." The interviewer asked why. Ingrid looked toward the window. "Because she wasn't trying to get away from them." Her voice broke. "She was trying to get to them." The Hessdalen Seven is a fictional investigative mystery. The characters, disappearance, interviews, and evidence described are invented. The setting draws on Hessdalen's real history of reported unexplained lights.