Ever since Taede Smedes saw a UFO when he was a teenager he has been fascinated by this mysterious phenomenon he dove into the stories of the Frisian village Gorredijk where the local community has reported many UFOs Smedes if you want stories about people being abducted by UFOs The professor of religious studies in Nijmegen is also a journalist with a big fascination for the occurrence of UFOs His previous book Maybe we’re not alone talked about UFOs in a general sense where exactly fifty years ago several UFO sightings were reported by its residents This story will be included in the newest Vox, which can be found on campus from March 19th onwards and is all about the night. What are students in Nijmegen up to while you’re lucid dreaming? Which people and animals are active on campus at night? You can read it in the newest Vox which reads like an exciting episode of Other Times (Andere Tijden Smedes does not try to find a conclusive explanation about what people saw in the Frisian village about fifteen kilometres away from Heerenveen or where they come from,’ he states at the beginning of the book All he does is reconstruct what has been sighted and reported in the first few months of 1974 His fascination with UFOs started when Smedes was fifteen and saw unexplainable flashes lighting up the sky in the backyard of his parent’s house in Drachten He called out for his dad in a panicked haze and together they watched the lights fly away but Smedes knew it had to be something else ‘I think my religious father didn’t want to know anything about the topic back then For a long time it has been a career killer to talk about a UFO sighting in 2017 The New York Times revealed that the American government has been carrying out serious research into UFO sightings (some of which have been seen by its own military) for years ‘That news broke the taboo a bit,’ according to Smedes It was the push he needed to actually start writing about it His first book was published by Walburg Pers associated with the Amsterdam University Press Bjinse Slof saw a weird light phenomenon in the sky When he shares this experience with anyone who wants to listen he is accused of alcohol abuse and other people in Gorredijk say he probably saw a floating pilsner bottle Slof once again sees a floating object; this time a triangular object with red lights that night other residents also noticed flying objects with red lights Residents started searching the sky from observatories to check if they could make the same observations from different locations After February 26th the sighting suddenly stop Those observations were unique occurrences for the Netherlands There have only been two reported incidents of multiple people sighting an unexplainable object at the same time In 1979 twelve soldiers in Soesterberg saw a black triangle with lights fly above their airbase The sighting in Soesterberg is the subject of a documentary by Bram Roza from 2023 Newspapers have been filled about Gorredijk in 1974 but a book on the subject did not yet exist Smedes contacted Museum Opsterlân in Gorredijk They were excited about his story and wanted to dedicate an exposition to the sightings in February 2024 finding eyewitness accounts turned out to be a tough job Most of the adults who saw anything back then are dead by now ‘Luckily I found a man who was 27 when it happened he died too.’ In 1974 AVRO made a documentary about Gorredijk Smedes also went looking for the adolescents they spoke to back in the day His neighbour is a teacher of Geert Meijer who installed the observatories around the village Meijer wrote an extensive article about the UFOs above Gorredijk The journal of Vlietstra has been invaluable for my book.’ Smedes was extremely excited to dive into the archives of Meijer they remain closed to him because Meijer’s children do not want to comply His son absolutely does not want to contribute to the book ‘because we don’t know what effect that might have.’ What he means with that Is the son scared of negative responses from the village or does he believe the stories about the American government having an interest in the village after the occurrences in Gorredijk For Smedes the story is not yet over; even after the publication of his book he keeps on hoping for access to the archives It took Smedes quite some effort to get the residents of Gorredijk to open up to him You could clearly notice they were scared to be judged and made fun of When I then explained that I was doing serious research into it and that I would not judge them for any of their stories Especially when I did so in Frisian did they lower their walls.’ In 1974 there was quite some division within the village People who had reported a sighting were being asked on the streets if they had seen anything fly through their sky recently When cafeteria owner Jan Boomsma talks to people on the television about what he has seen and Hans van Willigenburg asks him to speculate who might be inside of those UFOs I don’t know… Maybe rabbits?” The people in Gorredijk have bullied him with that for quite some time Smedes’s research runs into some trouble because of a lack of written sources The bits of newspaper in the journals of Willem Vlietstra were all from local newspapers of which most archives have been long lost which some see as the source of the sightings The same goes for the province and the police ‘It was often suggested that the American intelligence services were interested in the sightings’ ‘It was often suggested that the American intelligence services were interested in the sightings,’ Smedes states a village where the communists were popular And we know for a fact that the Pentagon always had a lot of interest in the communist ideas within UFO groups the Americans would always have collaborated with the Dutch government I do want to find out if there is a dossier in the AIVD archives and also if Geert Meijer One of the results Smedes found in his research is that the interest in UFOs of the population has its ups and downs The UFO age in 1947 started when Kenneth Arnold noticed nine flying objects in a row from his own aeroplane A few weeks later something crashed around Roswell; the debris was taken to the military base nearby It doesn’t help that the army released several different press releases afterwards One of them claims that they found a flying disk but later they assert it was a weather balloon and after that it suddenly is a secret project or some kind of test Smedes describes how throughout history the American government often has varying press releases and how they are sometimes being changed to reduce mass panic ‘There seem to be two types of views within the American government and one is very serious about the sightings During the space race with the Soviet Union After the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) was released you see a rise in interest for the subject among the public after which that interest died down completely during the nineties.’ Series like The X-Files also don’t help because that often results in conversations about conspiracies and aliens ‘Then you don’t hear anything about UFOs for quite some time until The New York Times releases an article in 2017 talking about how the American government has been doing research into it for years.’ Even though he does not discuss it at length in his book Smedes can also look at the sightings with his theological background ‘Light phenomena used to be explained in a theological sense I have noticed just how much people are impacted by a sighting they develop more consideration for other people Do you want to leave a comment? 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Read our privacy statement if you want to know more about how we use your data daily or weekly update with our articles in your mailbox This can be done anonymously using the form Wij maken gebruik van cookies.Lees meer hierover in onze privacy statement websitebezoek en gebruik wordt gemeten en gebruikersgegevens worden anoniem verzameld has announced the acquisition of MPC Industries Each product is adaptable to a wide range of industries and applications “The acquisition of MPC Industries by Tridon Europe and the Ideal Tridon Group is exciting for our company and the entire European market,” said Kris Tirry CEO of MPC we’ve always worked from the philosophy that working together and sharing knowledge helps us and others to excel and our mutual commitment to quality and customer service enables us to offer European customers the best source for their uniting solution needs with the manufacturing capabilities of Tridon Europe customers have a partner they can rely upon This combination adds tremendous value for our customers.” Ideal Tridon serves a diverse set of end global markets by offering a broad portfolio of highly engineered clamps “MPC Industries built a strong company led by its commitment to quality and customer service Its uniting products and culture of service align perfectly with the Tridon Europe and Ideal Tridon philosophy,” highlighted Rick Stepien “Combining our companies provides the most complementary and expansive platform for clamping hose and pipe support products in the world We could not be more excited about the future.” Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 15 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector - interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the Magazine is renowned « All Events The next IKF European Korfball Championship (IKF EKC) will take place from Saturday 13 till Sunday 21 October 2018 in the Netherlands in the cities Drachten Heerenveen and Leeuwarden; all in the northern province Friesland This IKF EKC will be competed between 16 national senior teams (*15 teams after the late withdrawal of Turkey) The first two matches will start Saturday 13 October in Gorredijk and Drachten The Royal Dutch Korfball Federation (KNKV) will be the organiser for this major European event in 2018 videos and last updates on IKF Social media profiles and using the hashtags #EKC2018 and #korfball: Sign In Subscribe Now Ponoka Funeral Home Dialogue and debate are integral to a free society and we welcome and encourage you to share your views on the issues of the day. We ask that you be respectful of others and their points of view, refrain from personal attacks and stay on topic. To learn about our commenting policies and how our community-based moderation works, please read our Community Guidelines. 2019 Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle is a Spanish national who works for an animal rescue charity and has lived in the small Frisian town of Gorredijk for the past seven years She is also standing for election to the European parliament on behalf of D66 on May 23 I met a man from Gorredijk while I was at a bachelorette party in Barcelona We had a long distance relationship for a while then it became serious and I decided to move to the Netherlands We had a daughter together but have since separated My first partner and I share the care of our daughter I first came here as an Erasmus student and did the third year of my degree at Utrecht University I was also working with Survival International a job which I continued to do remotely for a year which is a rescue centre for animals which have been abused or neglected We rehabilitate them and place them in new homes I was actually pregnant while I was at Utrecht and my fellow students did not dare ask me about it I was so big I could not fit on the college benches How do you describe yourself – an expat In some situations you could say I was an expat well-educated middle class people are always called expats and the rest immigrants Gorredijk and the Netherlands have become home to me I would say it is most likely that I will live here for ever I started learning it in Spain and I took some basic lessons But really I have learned just by doing it It is easy when you live in a small village if you are surrounded only by Dutch people it just happens naturally and became a seamless process I can’t remember when people started speaking Dutch to me and I started speaking it back to them I am also exposed to Frisian and it is my partner’s mother tongue I understand it but I don’t speak it So much of speaking a language is about the context I don’t know if stamppot is my favourite Dutch thing but I always eat it with a lot of pleasure It is something everyone in the family likes with boerenkool and with zuurkool – which is my personal favourite I think my favourite Dutch thing is the 35% off section at Albert Heijn where I buy organic meat I’ll wait until dinner time and then I will go off and see what they have I come back with loads of bakjes for the freezer I’ve also started studying the weekly special offer leaflet if feels less like a home and more like a place to visit My boss says I am more of a kaaskop than the real Dutch Migrants are often very critical of their home country There are things about Spain which are better than here Which three Dutch people (dead or alive) would you most like to meet Johan Cruijff – I’m a total Real Madrid fan but I really admired the man when he was alive as a coach and as a person Since I’ve been here I have learned a lot more about him and I really look up to is outlook on life Suze Groeneweg was the first woman to be elected to the Dutch parliament and a lot of events are being organised this year to celebrate 100 years since women were granted the right to vote People outside the Netherlands are often surprised by how traditional the country is when it comes to the role of women I used to listen to Guus Meeuwis‘ greatest hits in the car I learned a lot from him and I’d like to thank him for the free lessons It is such a beautiful area and it would be great if more people discovered it I would hate it if the lakes became like Giethoorn or Volendam Tell us something surprising you’ve found out about the Netherlands It might seem silly but I really don’t get why people congratulate other people on someone’s birthday I still can’t get use to the way you say ‘congratulations on your son’s birthday’ to someone I was also surprised about how warm and friendly people in the north are There is this idea that the Dutch are cold and keep their distance but I soon realised that all it takes is a moment for them to open up – if you show you are open too Not in the same way as the Spanish perhaps and there is a difference between here and the Randstad but Dutch people are If you had just 24 hours left in the Netherlands I would stay in the village with the family and we’d go for a bike ride put the children to bed and I would go to the kroeg and stay there drinking beer until the owner asked us to leave Raquel is eighth on the D66 list for the European parliamentary elections We could not provide the Dutch News service without the generous support of our readers Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day Many thanks to everyone who has donated to DutchNews.nl in recent days We could not provide this service without you Please help us making DutchNews.nl a better read by taking part in a short survey