A UFO and Little Green Men in Emilcin

by Charles Lear

Every year, around May 10, people from all over the country come together to celebrate the anniversary of a famous UFO encounter. They gather around a monument erected by a group dedicated to all things paranormal and listen to a local tour guide recount the event and the circumstances surrounding it. While this sounds like one of many celebrations in spots throughout the United States, this particular event occurs in Poland, in the little eastern village of Emilcin. The report of a local farmer there, 42 years ago, captured the imaginations of generations of Poles and stirred up a fair amount of speculation and conspiracy theories.

In the early morning, on May 10, 1978, Jan Wolski, a 71-year-old farmer, was heading home through the woods in a horse drawn cart.  In a documentary film made that same year, “Odwiedziny, Czyli u Progu Tajemnicy” (A Visit, or on the Threshold of Mystery), Wolski describes what happened next. He saw two creatures, about five feet tall, ahead of him. As he got close, they split up so he could pass between them. They then jumped up into his cart and started babbling in a strange language. They had slanted eyes, green skin and webbed hands. They were wearing black one-piece outfits with hoods and had a hump just above their shoulders. According to Wolski, “they were polite when they jumped on, so why not let them sit down.”

Two journalists, Krystyna Adamska and Henryk Pomorski interviewed Wolski on tape in July and he gave them a detailed account of the events that followed. Wolski came to a clearing and he saw a white, rectangular craft with what looked rotating drills in tubes on each corner. It was hovering about five meters above the ground and close to the size of a bus. Using gestures, the creatures told him to stop. The horse was scared by the craft and one of them grabbed the reins. Once the carriage was stopped, the creatures jumped down and gestured for Wolski to follow.

    When they got to the craft, there was a small elevator that went up to a door on the side facing them. One creature got on the elevator. Wolski got on with it and they rode up together. Inside the craft, he saw several black birds lying on the floor at the base of the opposite wall. They seemed to be paralyzed. There were also two other creatures like the ones who had brought him there. He saw 8-10 benches, big enough for a single person to sit.

The creatures, still using gestures to communicate, told him to get undressed. He took off his jacket and started to unbutton his shirt.  As he undid the top two buttons, the creature that rode up with him undid the bottom two. When his shirt was off, he was made to understand that they wanted him to undress completely.

Once he was undressed a creature came up to him. It had an object in its hand that Wolski described as “an appliance in a form of two dishes combined…” It held the device up in front of him and then rotated him, holding his arm. It then lifted his arm up, did something with the device on his side, and then moved on to his back and his other side. He was then given a signal to get dressed. As he did so, he looked around and noticed there were no windows or lights. The entire inside was black with a grey tint.

The creatures began eating some sort of food that was shaped like “icicles.” They were breaking off pieces and putting them into their mouths. He was offered some and he declined by shaking his head. As he went to leave, he took off his cap to say goodbye and the creatures bowed.

Wolski drove to his house and arrived there just before 8:00 a.m. He told his three sons that there was a craft floating in the air and that they should go see it. They alerted some neighbors and a group went out to the field followed by Wolski. When they got there, the craft was gone but they saw lots of small rectangular footprints all over the area.

Polish UFOlogist, Zdzisław Blania, heard about the case shortly after it happened. He arranged for Wolski to be examined by a psychiatrist and Wolski was reported to be sane. Blania found a six-year-old boy, Adam Popiołek, who had also seen the craft. Worried that it was going to crash into their house, he alerted his mother, but when she came out, the craft was gone. Blania became the person to talk to about the incident and he gave numerous interviews to the press. He published a book titled, “Zdarzenie w Emilcinie” (The Emilcin Incident) in 1996.

In the fall of 1978, “Odwiedziny, Czyli u Progu Tajemnicy” was aired on Polish television. The case became widely known and tourists soon flocked to the site. Wolski recalled there being as many as 14 busses at a time.

Grzegorz Rosiński, artist of the popular Thorgal comic books, created a comic strip depicting the encounter titled, “Przybysze” (Incomers), which was first published in 1980 in the magazine Relax. Many Poles took pride in having their own aliens, but others determined to find a more prosaic explanation. An article by Marek Kępa, posted Jul 17, 2017 on the Culture.pl website, looks into some attempts to solve the mystery.

According to the article, police investigated and concluded that Wolski had dreamed the whole event. Another explanation was that the story was cooked up by the communist regime to direct public attention away from the badly slumping economy at that time. While these conclusions didn’t have much to back them up, a thorough analysis was undertaken by author, Bartosz Rdułtowski.

Blania died in 2003 and Rdułtowski bought his archives from his sister. In his 2013 book, “Tajne Operacje PRL i UFO” (The Polish People’s Republic’s Secret Ops and UFOs) Rdułtowski presented evidence that Adam Popiołek’s statement was influenced by Blania but he was unable to make a conclusion as to the source of Wolski’s story. He did, however, come up with an interesting hypothesis.

According to Rdułtowski, Blania and another UFOlogist, Witold Wawrzonek, had made a bet around a month before the incedent. Blania claimed he could get someone to hypnotize Wawrzonek and implant false memories. Wawrzonek didn’t think this was possible and accepted the bet. The hypnotist was successful and Wawrzonek lost.

Wawrzonek, a hypnotist himself, wanted to get back at Blania and planted the Emilcin story in Wolski’s brain. He knew Blania would investigate the story and publicize it and Wawrzonek intended to reveal the truth to make a fool out of him. His plan failed because Blania worked so quickly to bring credibility to the story, that no one would have believed Wawrzonek had he tried to debunk it.

Despite the attempts to explain the case away, it still has its proponents. One group went so far as to raise money for a monument to mark the event and preserve it at as a part of Polish history. The Nautilus Foundation was formed in 2001 by journalist Joanna Karwat, film producer Małgorzata Corvalan , director Jarosław Żamojda and journalist Robert Bernatowicz . The group is dedicated to studying and investigating the paranormal and, in 2005, due to their efforts, a memorial was raised consisting of a piece of granite with a steel cube on top. A polished section of the granite has the text: “10 maja 1978 roku w EMILCINIE wylądował obiekt UFO Prawda nas jeszcze zadziwi…” which means “On 10 May 1978 in Emilcin a UFO object landed. The truth will astonish us in the future…” There is also a sculpture depicting one of the creatures described by Wolski. A time capsule was buried there in 2011 to be opened in 3011. Make your reservations early, those of you in the future.