There are many eyewitness stories about the so-called devil’s glades, or damn cemeteries, where the earth is scorched, where animals and people die. The geography of such lost places is diverse – the Circumpolar Urals, Siberia and the Far East. “UFO” has written about them more than once. However, there are similar clearings in Northern Europe. One such anomalous zone, which the Norwegians call Snomannen’s lair, will be discussed.
The wild man Snomanenn is a heraldic symbol of Lapland, the Sami believe that this creature lives in remote forests beyond the Arctic Circle.
The “lair” is located in the north of Norway in a nature reserve near the town of Lakselv on the shore of one of the longest and most majestic fjords – Porsanger. In the reserve there are lakes with crystal clear water, surrounded by impenetrable forest wilds, where even gamekeepers rarely go. There are moose, wild boars and bears. There used to be farms in those places, but then the locals moved to Laxelv. One of the former farmers told the famous Norwegian paranormal researcher Tur Svenson about the so-called Snomanenna lair. This is a circle with a diameter of 30-60 meters, there is bare, like scorched earth, on which animal skeletons lie. The tree branches hanging over the clearing are charred, as if from a nearby fire. Allegedly, in the middle of this clearing there is a hole where animals fall through. Some burn to the bone trying to get to her.
In 1994, Svenson decided to find the zone, which an old farmer told him about. He came to the reserve on the shore of the fjord.
The first thing Swanson did was talk to the rangers. The young huntsman with whom he talked said that it was the first time he had heard about the “devil’s cemetery”. The second, a stocky elderly man who looked like an ancient Viking with the corresponding name Eric, had been working in the reserve for ten years. He said that he had heard about a certain burnt-out clearing in the forest, but he had never seen it himself. He also said that the huntsman who worked here before him was missing. They searched for him, but they didn’t find him. The wife of the missing huntsman claimed that he had fallen underground in the lair of the Snowman.
Eric’s children, who were picking cranberries in the forest swamps, said they saw a furry creature that looked like a monkey, Snomanenna. Eric just laughed and thought that the children were joking. The huntsman agreed to help the guest find the anomalous zone. The search took about two weeks. The men went to the forest for the night. The old farmer did not give any landmarks, he only noticed that next to the lost place, people begin to feel bad, they get hot and the temperature rises.
Svenson already wanted to leave, and only chance helped to find a clearing.
Eric often took his dog, the shepherd Martha, with him to the forest.
That day, the dog did not want to go into the forest at all, wagged its tail and whined. In the forest, Eric and Tur came across a blockage and began to bypass it. Martha lay down on the ground and began to howl, refusing to go any further. Then the huntsman tied her to a tree, and the men continued on their way. Something suggested that the goal of their journey was close. After walking about a kilometer, the travelers noticed a gap similar to the gap from the cut. Suddenly, a strange stone got in the way.
There are many large boulders in the forests of Norway, these are traces of glacier activity. However, this stone was similar to an artificially carved stele and had a height of about a meter and about half a meter in circumference. It was almost a regular cylinder, a diagonal cross was carved on its surface, and under it the Latin letter “C”. Involuntarily, the thought of Snomanenna came. Swanson took out a compass and discovered an amazing thing – the arrow stopped pointing north, but instead randomly rotated around its axis.
Looking at the electronic clock, the paranormal discovered that they show a strange time and date – 7 o’clock on September 15, 2300. The mechanical watch on the huntsman’s hand showed 8 hours and 15 minutes. Meanwhile, the time was around noon, and the date was July 22, 1994. Swanson took out his camera to capture the cylindrical stone stele. As soon as he pressed the button, everything around him somehow changed. The sky instantly darkened, as if before a thunderstorm. Tur’s head began to spin, he felt weak and was forced to sit down on the ground. His companion must have felt the same way. Eric turned pale and, breathing heavily, said: “Listen, you shouldn’t go any further.” Swanson decided not to give in to fear.
They agreed that Eric would wait near the stele, and the Tour would go on alone. Just in case, he will leave notches on the trees along the way. Eric spread out his sleeping bag and instantly began to snore. Swanson was even surprised that he fell asleep instantly. “No other way, the tricks of the Snowman,” Swanson tried to joke to himself.
He went deeper into the forest. Trees grew quite rarely. There was no grass under them, and the ground was somehow strange, dry, yellowish. Tur tried to leave a notch on a pine tree and found that it was impossible to do so. The ax handle became absolutely blunt, and the trunk of the tree was as hard as stone. The researcher of little-studied phenomena was not surprised. He knew that in abnormal zones, cutting tools become blunt.
Further along the way, black, like charred trees began to come across.
And then a gap appeared behind them – the same clearing. It was small, about twenty meters across and in shape close to a square. In the corners of the square there were the same stone steles as the one where the cross and the letter “C” were carved. The ground in the clearing was covered with something resembling fumes or ashes. There was a pit in the middle of the clearing, and smoke was billowing above it. Suddenly, strange sounds resembling the grinding of iron sheets against each other were heard. It was unclear where the sound came from. Swanson felt a chill, his whole body stiffened.
The sky turned black again. Despite the fact that it was July, snow fell from low clouds.
Tur tried to pull himself together and took out his camera again to capture the clearing. He did not dare to step on it. Instead, he took a dry branch lying around and tried to throw it to the pit. The branch did not reach the pit, fell to the ground and instantly burned, crumbling into dust. Then Swanson rummaged in his backpack and threw a metal tent peg into the clearing. The peg fell into the clearing and spun like a top, a bluish flame flared up, and the peg disappeared, as if burned. The tour didn’t play with fire anymore and turned back. The main thing was done – he determined the approximate coordinates of the anomalous zone. Svenson was in a hurry, although he was overcome by weakness, terribly sleepy. Tur understood that it was impossible to lie down on the ground.
Eric was waiting for him at the stele, snoring peacefully. The tour woke him up, and they quickly walked away from the lost place. The farther they went, the better they felt, the sky was brightening. At last they reached the place where they had left Martha.
Arriving home, Swanson found that none of the photos taken in the forest had turned out. The following year, Swanson came back to the reserve with his friend, Ist. However, they did not find the clearing, although they used a map made by Swanson.
Eric said that he had never gone to the “lair of the Snowman” and would never do it, because his life is dear to him. He noticed, however, that old-timers say that Snomanenn is not so simple and often drags his lair from place to place. So it’s very difficult to find that clearing.
