UFOs and crime fiction

Dear readers

Welcome from Adelaide, South Australia, where we have had a great week of Autumn sunshine and temperatures maxing in the mid 20 dgrees C. The city is in full "arts" blossom, with our Adelaide Festival; our Adelaide Fringe; our World Music Festival and just gone, was our weekend of high powered motor racing through City streets. A great time to visit our lovely city.

Crime fiction:

Finding out just what causes some UFO reports is an art. Just like the detective in crime fiction solves a murder. An eye for small detail, and an analytical mind are two of the tools, which both crime fiction writers and good UFO researchers, bring to bear on their respective targets.

Another tool, is persistence, as it sometimes takes quite a while to arrive at a solution. Yet another tool is curiosity. You might read a small item connected to the UFO phenomenon, and wonder just where did that come from?

Stieg Larsson:

An example of my own curisoity came about when I was reading one of Swedish author Steig Larsson's novels (Click here for my original post) "The Girl Who Played With Fire" (Maclehose Press, London. 2009.) One of the characters "Salander" visits the island of Grenada, and talks about the UFO interests of the island's former leader. Larsson had based this on fact. Sir Eric Gairy, indeed did have a deep interest in UFOs.

Since I wrote that post, one bit of my brain, pondered over the question "Where did Larsson get this very small piece of UFOlogical history from?" It has taken me several months to find the answer.

Stieg:

I have just been reading a book by Jan-Erik Pettersson titled "Stieg: From Activist to Author," (published by Quercus. London. 2011. ISBN 978-1-84916-499-3.)

The author writes: "This is not a biography in the conventional sense. It is a book about the public personna of Stieg Larsson, about his work and his writing, about the interplay between his life and work and society at large." (p.ix.)

"He had a keen interest in the sciences and new technology...Everything to do with space fascinated him. At a friend's house he read Allers magazine, stories of encounters with the unknown, about spaceships and flying saucers." (pp19-20.)

Stieg at high school was reading science fiction, "Asimov's books became cult reading for Stieg...he and his friend Ruine Forsgren planned their Asimov inspired stencilled fanzine...he was chairman of the Scandinavian Science Fiction Association for a year in 1980 and editor of its Journal." (p.23.)

Grenada:

"The informal description of Grenada and its capital, in The Girl Who Played With Fire reveals that Stieg Larsson was well acquainted with the island..." (p.47.) It turns out that Stieg and his partner visited Grenada in 1981 to study the revolution which had recently taken place.

In 1979, the reign of Eric Gairy came to an end. "He demanded absolute loyalty from his supporters, threatened anyone who showed any inclination to oppose him and built up his image as a great mystic with supernatural abilities. It was said, for instance, that he could walk on water, and he himself became progressively more obsessed with the idea that alien spacecraft had landed on his island." (p.53.) On the coup which occurred, 'There was singing and dancing in the streets of St George's on that first day of the revolution: "Freedom come, Gairy Go, Gairy go with UFO." (pp54-55.)

Conclusion:

I think I can now rest easy. Larsson got his Grenada UFO information from his visit to the island of Grenada. He probably mentioned it in his book, due to his prior interests, and to flesh out the Grenada connection.