Project Hessdalen (Part 2) was established 24 March 1994 with the first international workshop on the unknown atmospheric light phenomena in Hessdalen. The preparation started in October 1993, at Østfold University College. It was Erling P. Strand (me), one of the five managers in Part 1, who started this Part 2 at the university college where he was working as a lecturer. Another lecturer at the university college, Bjørn Gitle Hauge, became part of the team of the two persons, who started Project Hessdalen Part 2.
We used our students to build an automatic station. It was given as tasks for their bachelor projects. The first student groups started in 1994. In 1998, and a total of 8 bachelor projects, the automatic station was installed and set in operation in Hessdalen. Since 1998 there have been 27 bachelor projects working with developing the Blue Box. The automatic station got the name Blue Box. Different kinds of instruments have been in operation for a shorter or longer term. The main instrument, a video camera, attached to a PC with analyzing software, has been in operation most of the time. The alarmpictures and video are sent to the website https://old.hessdalen.org/files/ every morning.
Project Hessdalen part 2 has also run Science Camps for young students, from 2002 to the covid year. The students stayed one week in Hessdalen, equipped with instruments and cameras.
There has been cooperation with italian scientists from the Institute for Radio Astronomy, who have run field works called Embla. There has been cooperation with the french Geipan and geophysists from France and Greek.
There is cooperation with German scientists from the University of Würzburg.
There have been many small workshops together with our collaboraton partners. Student groups from the University of Würzburg and from the University of Bologna have taken part in developing the Blue Box.
It has always been important to stay away from the word UFO, as long as Østfold University College was involved. Their will to support Project Hessdalen has become less and less during the last years. There may be several reasons for that, but this made it impossible to run Project Hessdalen in the form it had. A new form was needed. That, together with my (Erling P. Strand) retirement, made it nesessary to establish the new Project Hessdalen Part 3.