The Mysterious Norwegian Woman...............Arion

*Note: Much of this information comes from the Doe Network.

Everybody loves a spy story, and we've all seen the adventures of James Bond on the big screen. It seems as though spies live a fun-filled world of martinis, glamorous parties, automatic pistols and cunning booby-traps. But the real life of spies is filled with mysteries and unanswered puzzles, and none is more mysterious than the mystery woman of Norway.

On the morning of 29 November 1970, a maid entered a hotel room in Isdalen, Norway, and found a woman, dead. The body had been deceased for several days. Also, horrifyingly, it had been partially burned in the ashes of a fire in the fireplace! Located next to the body was a St. Hallvards liquor bottle, 2 plastic bottles smelling of gasoline, a glass that had contained sleeping pills (later identified as Fenemal), and a silver spoon with the monogram filed off.

Witnesses at the hotel recognized her as a pretty woman who had checked out of the Hordaheimen hotel, also located in Norway. She had signed the guest book with a false name.

Later witnesses said that she had leased storage lockers at a nearby railway station. When the boxes were opened, the mystery deepened because inside the police found clothing, a wig, several eyeglasses (no prescription), similar silver spoons, 500 German marks and 130 Norwegian crowns, also a black notebook with number and letter codes.

Police later theorized that the code was some sort of logbook--possibly her travel route and contacts in Norway. All labels had been removed from the clothing, and all identifying things removed from the luggage. In short, there was no way to possibly figure out who the woman was, or where she had come from. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that there were no leads!

To further complicate the case, police found she carried nine passports, all from different countries, all in different names!

She was described as being a brunette, pretty, and obviously well-traveled for she spoke German, English, Belgian and French, all with an unknown accent.

Working with sketches of her description, and after laboriously decoding her logbook, the police were able to come up with a record of her travels:

•March 20, 1970 - she travels from Geneva to Oslo.

•March 21-24, 1970 - she lives at Hotel Viking in Oslo using the name "Genevieve Lancier".

•March 24 - flies from Oslo to Stavanger, takes the boat to Bergen, stays the night at Hotel Bristol using the name "Claudia Tielt".

•March 25 - April 1- stays at hotel Scandia in Bergen, still as "C. Tielt"

•April 1 - travels from Bergen to Stavanger, and on to Kristiansand, Hirtshals, Hamburg and Basel, Germany. That was the last trace of her in Norway until she returned six months later. It is possible that she assumed a different identity while in Germany.

•October 3 - travels from Stockholm, Sweden to Oslo, Norway, and on to Oppdal, Norway, which was a popular ski resort. She stayed the night at the hotel there together with Italian photographer Giovanni Trimboli.

•October 22 - stays at hotel Altona in Paris.

•October 23 - 29 - stays at Hotel de Calais in Paris, France.

•October 29 - 30 - goes from Paris to Stavanger and on to Bergen, Norway.

•October 30 - November 5 - checks in to hotel Neptune using the name "Alexia Zerner-Merches"; she meets an unknown man at the hotel.

•November 6 - 9 - she travels to Trondheim, Norway, and stayed at the Hotel Bristol using the name "Vera Jarle".

•November 9 - goes to Oslo and on to Stavanger where she stays at Hotel St. Svitun using the name "Fenella Lorch".

•November 18 - goes with the boat Vingtor to Bergen where she stays at hotel Rosenkrantz using the name "Elisabeth Leenhower" from Belgium.

November 19- 23 - stays at hotel Hordaheimen, stays in the room a lot and seems watchful.

November 23 - leaves the hotel in the morning, pays in cash and goes to the railway station where she places 2 pieces of luggage in a depository box.

November 29 - she is located dead in Isdalen.

The Norwegian police claim she committed suicide. Espionage experts say she was a spy, trying to arrange a buy of some kind of radioactive material or some sort of clandestine information. Others say that the answers to her identity will be found in a vault in Moscow. There are other rumors which theorize she was killed by someone she was close to.

The truth about the mystery woman has never been revealed. However, a book has been written about this case by Tore Osland & Isdals Kvinnen: Operasjon Isotopsy, or in English, Operation Isotope.

Who was she, and what was she trying to accomplish?

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