The Spitsbergen saucer
The account
Norwegian fighter pilots spotted a silver disc crashed on the Arctic ice, which was supposedly taken away for study.
What investigators found
No Norwegian authority confirmed the crash, and researchers consider the report a press invention.
The story
In 1952, West German newspapers reported that Norwegian Air Force pilots had found a wrecked metal disc on the island of Spitsbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago. The versions mentioned instruments bearing strange inscriptions and experts called in to examine the find. Some articles suggested a Soviet origin; others, an extraterrestrial one.
The story spread across Europe, but there was never any official confirmation. The Norwegian military denied it, and the names of officers cited in the reports could not be traced. Researchers who reviewed the story concluded it was a fabricated report that played on the Cold War atmosphere. Even so, it keeps turning up on lists of UFO crashes.