saccharinetrust1981
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I found no thread about this so I decided to make one.
I apologize in advance for the lack of information since there's only one thread in a Swedish forum, one podcast episode and one paywalled Swedish article about this.
Upphittat lik Esrange 1979.
Mysteriet: Vem var den döde mannen?
Den döde ingen saknar – Besynnerliga Berättelser – Lyssna här
(his police sketch is used in the thumbnail for the podcast, it cannot be found anywhere else on the internet)
43 years ago, 20-25 kilometres (15 miles) from Kiruna and 15 kilometres (9 miles) from the nearest town a man's body was found deep in the woods near space base Esrange.
This was deep into the forest, there were no actual roads around there and it was impossible to get around without a vehicle.
During this season the ice had started to melt as well so you couldn't cross any rivers, etc.
There are conflicting statements as to who found the body, the newspaper says:
The podcast has a snippet of a radio rapport from 1979 where they say that two fishermen found the body on June 12th 1979.
The man had long blond/light brown hair, 177 cm tall (5'9"), except for his period-appropriate sideburns, he was clean-shaven.
Eye colour could not be determined due to decomposition. It is estimated that he was there for about a month, there was fly/larvae activity on the body.
One of his front teeth were knocked out.
He was dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, an anorak shirt, six t-shirts and a blue windbreaker which is very unusual since it gets very cold during the spring nights in Kiruna.
In his left jean pocket, there was both Swedish and Danish currency.
In total, he had 134 SEK (14 dollars).
Beside the body were the remnants of a campfire, bloody teabags, a bloody toilet-roll, a glass, a coffee pot, two broken matchboxes, a strong rope that was 5 mm (0,1 inches) broad 6,5 metres (21 feet) long, burned blue finger gloves, some sugar and a pack of band-aids.
The man had no ID or other papers that could help with the identification.
The police were shocked because people that hike there aren't usually poorly equipped especially when they hike as long as he did.
When they moved his body upside down there was a white box with Gillette razor blades in it. Two of them were used, and on the white box, there were bloodstains.
The box was found on the ground under the left hip.
On the right wrist, there was a cut about 5 cm (almost 2 inches) long and 1 cm (0,3 inches) wide. There were cuts on the left arm as well.
The cuts were too superficial to cause his death.
The coroner determined that he had died of hypothermia.
It's estimated that he was closer to the younger end of the age range.
There were no signs of foul play.
He was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Conflicting information again.
According to the article, there were no cars around the area and no one came forward about giving the man a lift despite the case being highly publicised.
A policeman said: "If he had not walked there, perhaps all the way from Kiruna, someone would've noticed him. People are very vigilant in these areas and it's quite noticeable if someone is walking there along the way but no one had seen the man".
The podcast says that some people thought they saw him and that a couple had offered the walking man a ride to which he just answered "go" (as in "get away from me").
They thought that something was up because he was hiking without a backpack, just two bags.
The man had told people that he was from Switzerland and that he was going to be a doctor in that he hadn’t gotten his license yet.
He spoke with an accent and broken Swedish but people could understand him.
But sadly, when the couple was shown a picture of the man, despite the decomposition, they said that it wasn't him that they tried to pick up and the cops are back to square one.
Sometime later a weird letter is left at the train station in Kiruna, addressed to a wanderer that we can call "Mr Koch" that back then didn't have an address.
The train station employees leave it to Swedish authorities and they start following up on the letter. Could the unidentified man be "Mr Koch"?
After an investigation, they find out that "Mr Koch" is alive and well in another European country.
He had simply gone home and forgotten the letter.
According to the article fingerprints and descriptions (probably of the body and crime scene) were sent to Interpol and then to police in Norway, Finland and Denmark.
The man got cremated, the things around the body were thrown out and the case got closed since they determined that there was no foul play.
The only thing left is a folder with papers.
Could the man have been a spy since he was found near the only space base in Sweden (highly unlikely)? Could the man have been the swiss man the couple had offered a ride to? Could he just have been a depressed man that tried to kill himself and the family hasn't made a connection yet?
So many questions are left unanswered.
I personally tend to believe that the fishermen found him since that is said in the police report.
I also do find it odd that a swiss man was seen in the area around that time and was never seen again, maybe he just changed clothes and burned the other ones since there had been a campfire there? Maybe that's why the couple said it wasn't the man they saw?
I apologize in advance for the lack of information since there's only one thread in a Swedish forum, one podcast episode and one paywalled Swedish article about this.
Upphittat lik Esrange 1979.
Mysteriet: Vem var den döde mannen?
Den döde ingen saknar – Besynnerliga Berättelser – Lyssna här
(his police sketch is used in the thumbnail for the podcast, it cannot be found anywhere else on the internet)
43 years ago, 20-25 kilometres (15 miles) from Kiruna and 15 kilometres (9 miles) from the nearest town a man's body was found deep in the woods near space base Esrange.
This was deep into the forest, there were no actual roads around there and it was impossible to get around without a vehicle.
During this season the ice had started to melt as well so you couldn't cross any rivers, etc.
There are conflicting statements as to who found the body, the newspaper says:
The podcast has a snippet of a radio rapport from 1979 where they say that two fishermen found the body on June 12th 1979.
The man had long blond/light brown hair, 177 cm tall (5'9"), except for his period-appropriate sideburns, he was clean-shaven.
Eye colour could not be determined due to decomposition. It is estimated that he was there for about a month, there was fly/larvae activity on the body.
One of his front teeth were knocked out.
He was dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, an anorak shirt, six t-shirts and a blue windbreaker which is very unusual since it gets very cold during the spring nights in Kiruna.
In his left jean pocket, there was both Swedish and Danish currency.
In total, he had 134 SEK (14 dollars).
Beside the body were the remnants of a campfire, bloody teabags, a bloody toilet-roll, a glass, a coffee pot, two broken matchboxes, a strong rope that was 5 mm (0,1 inches) broad 6,5 metres (21 feet) long, burned blue finger gloves, some sugar and a pack of band-aids.
The man had no ID or other papers that could help with the identification.
The police were shocked because people that hike there aren't usually poorly equipped especially when they hike as long as he did.
When they moved his body upside down there was a white box with Gillette razor blades in it. Two of them were used, and on the white box, there were bloodstains.
The box was found on the ground under the left hip.
On the right wrist, there was a cut about 5 cm (almost 2 inches) long and 1 cm (0,3 inches) wide. There were cuts on the left arm as well.
The cuts were too superficial to cause his death.
The coroner determined that he had died of hypothermia.
It's estimated that he was closer to the younger end of the age range.
There were no signs of foul play.
He was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Conflicting information again.
According to the article, there were no cars around the area and no one came forward about giving the man a lift despite the case being highly publicised.
A policeman said: "If he had not walked there, perhaps all the way from Kiruna, someone would've noticed him. People are very vigilant in these areas and it's quite noticeable if someone is walking there along the way but no one had seen the man".
The podcast says that some people thought they saw him and that a couple had offered the walking man a ride to which he just answered "go" (as in "get away from me").
They thought that something was up because he was hiking without a backpack, just two bags.
The man had told people that he was from Switzerland and that he was going to be a doctor in that he hadn’t gotten his license yet.
He spoke with an accent and broken Swedish but people could understand him.
But sadly, when the couple was shown a picture of the man, despite the decomposition, they said that it wasn't him that they tried to pick up and the cops are back to square one.
Sometime later a weird letter is left at the train station in Kiruna, addressed to a wanderer that we can call "Mr Koch" that back then didn't have an address.
The train station employees leave it to Swedish authorities and they start following up on the letter. Could the unidentified man be "Mr Koch"?
After an investigation, they find out that "Mr Koch" is alive and well in another European country.
He had simply gone home and forgotten the letter.
According to the article fingerprints and descriptions (probably of the body and crime scene) were sent to Interpol and then to police in Norway, Finland and Denmark.
The man got cremated, the things around the body were thrown out and the case got closed since they determined that there was no foul play.
The only thing left is a folder with papers.
Could the man have been a spy since he was found near the only space base in Sweden (highly unlikely)? Could the man have been the swiss man the couple had offered a ride to? Could he just have been a depressed man that tried to kill himself and the family hasn't made a connection yet?
So many questions are left unanswered.
I personally tend to believe that the fishermen found him since that is said in the police report.
I also do find it odd that a swiss man was seen in the area around that time and was never seen again, maybe he just changed clothes and burned the other ones since there had been a campfire there? Maybe that's why the couple said it wasn't the man they saw?
