19 July 1946, about 11:45 a.m.; military search began 20 July / T031
The Kölmjärv lake incident
Lake Kölmjärv, west of Överkalix
Witness account
Witnesses reported a gray or gray-brown, projectile-like object entering Lake Kölmjärv, with a motor-like sound and a splash. A same-day military report names Knut Lindbäck and Beda Persson and gives an estimated length of 1.5–2 meters. Police and Home Guard personnel secured the area, and an army team began investigating the following day.
Public record
Göran Jansson's archive-based study separates the initial report from later interviews. Search leader Karl-Gösta Bartoll served with army engineers at Ing 3, Boden, not the Swedish Air Force. He later described probing and metal-detection work and explicitly said divers were unavailable. No object was recovered. Dramatic additional descriptions from a 1992 witness interview are retrospective evidence, not verbatim 1946 observations.