The Domsten Encounter (Domsten Blobs), 1958

Friday 19 December 1958. Stig Rydberg, 30, and Hans Gustafsson, 24, were driving home after a night out. Their road ran between Helsingborg and Domsten, near the Öresund coast. It had a reputation as a haunted stretch.

Around 3 a.m. they drove into heavy fog and stopped. Among the trees, about 150 feet from the road, there was an odd glow. They walked toward it, past a "no camping" sign. In the clearing sat a disc, by one account about 15 feet wide and 3 feet high, resting on three legs. "It seemed to be made of a peculiar, shimmering light that changed color," Gustafsson said.

Around it moved three or four beings, about a dozen in later English retellings. Limbless. Bluish-grey. Roughly 4 feet tall. "They were like protozoa, just a bit darker than most, sort of a bluish color, hopping and jumping around the saucer like globs of animated jelly," Rydberg said.

Then they came for the men. They flowed over arms and legs and pulled with a suction-like force toward the craft. Gustafsson clung to the signpost and was lifted until he was horizontal. "It almost seemed as if the creatures could read my mind," Rydberg said. "They parried every move before I made it." He broke free, ran to the car and kept sounding the horn. The beings let go at once and went back inside. The craft rose with a high-pitched whistle. The air smelled of ether and burnt sausage. It had lasted about five minutes.

Both men said they were badly shaken, with heavy bruises and bloodshot eyes. Rydberg said he did not sleep for three days. They reportedly told no one for three days before going to the police. On 9 January 1959, Helsingborg police questioned them for more than 11 hours. Medical and psychiatric checks reportedly found both men sound. Sven Schalin, a SAAB aerospace engineer, interviewed them with Dr. Ingeborg Kjellin. Sceptical, they still found no natural explanation.

The story ran in Helsingborgs Dagblad and Se magazine. In 1966 Brad Steiger retold it in Strangers from the Skies and gave the creatures a name. The "Terrible Flying Jelly Bags."

Until 1989, Sweden's leading UFO researchers counted it among the best Swedish observations. That year Clas Svahn and Anders Liljegren of AFU published their study, Domstensfallet. Three people said the men had admitted it was "en bluff." Artur Gustafsson, Hans's brother. Christian Johansen, a companion. Martha Christiansson, Christian's mother. There had been no girls present and no fog on the route, and the timelines did not agree.

The inspiration was a Tom Trick story in Hemmets Veckotidning, the Swedish run of the American strip Brick Bradford. Liljegren said it held "exactly the same story these guys came up with." Flying saucer book advertising and the road's haunted reputation played their part. The motive was money and attention. In 1959 and 1960 the men gave paid lectures and radio talks around Sweden and the other Nordic countries. In Copenhagen the story grew to include beautiful Venusians, in the style of George Adamski.

Håkan Blomqvist holds up the 1989 study as a model of "third way ufology": neither believing nor debunking, but critical investigation built on an archive. The jelly creatures live on in podcasts and cryptid wikis. A monster story that outlived its own confession.