Okay, here are some of the Finnish events
The Magnificent Rocketship of Silvo Sokka
For a few days in October 1948, Finland was abuzz with news of an attempted spaceflight performed in the backwoods of Savonia prefecture. A letter was mailed to a local newspaper, ostensibly by an 'Engineer Ganzeuge', which described a youth by the name of Silvo Sokka having just boarded a small rocket and successfully taken off in it. 'Ganzeuge' wrote that he had lost contact with Sokka shortly after the takeoff, but described Sokka as an indispensable aid in science and engineering. A few hours later, Sokka was found alive and well in the back yard of a farmhouse. He described the rocketship as being seven meters long and weighing two tons, as well as its name being 'the Silverstar'. Sokka was soon further interviewed by reporters from large newspapers, whom he also provided with a diagram of the rocketship and a description of the launch equipment. The story also attracted the authorities, as the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 forbade all rocket technology in Finland, and Sokka would have broken several laws with such a contraption nevertheless. On October 11th Sokka finally caved in and admitted to having made up the whole story, apparently as he had been intent on leaving his family to work in Sweden and needed a cover story, ridiculous or not. He never faced any criminal charges for the event, but his family changed their surname to 'Salke', to avoid association with the embarrassment of the story.
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The Death of Ruben Oskar Auervaara
Ruben Oskar Auervaara, born Ruben Oskar Janssen in Turku in 1906, spent the majority of his life in prison. It was also in a cell at a Helsinki police station that he died on May 27th 1964, apparently by hanging himself. He had been arrested again for a crime he had been honing his skills in for decades, namely romance cons. While his upbringing was modest - he was the son a storage worker - he interacted with the upper class to a degree in his youth, particularly the Rettig family that operated a large business by the same name, and worked as a bellhop at the luxurious Hotel Phoenix. This gave him the necessary knowledge to later work as a con man among the wealthy. After a decade of petty crime and prison sentences for such, in 1935 Auervaara began his romance con career. His modus operandi was to flip through the 'personal' pages in newspapers and write letters to upper-class women seeking romantic company, who he would then defraud of all their money and property he could. He also adopted several bogus identities, such as a fighter pilot or the lord of a mansion. He became nationally known in early 1945 after he was arrested and his face was published in several newspapers, alongside a request that his targets approach the police. He was not deterred by being this and escaped to Sweden, but was extradited and was sentenced to prison in Finland. He was released for the final time in 1959. For a while, he attempted to reform himself and married for real, but his arrest in the spring of 1964 put an end to this. The cause of his death has not been conclusively ruled a suicide, and speculations exist that he had been murdered by jealous criminals instead.
For a few days in October 1948, Finland was abuzz with news of an attempted spaceflight performed in the backwoods of Savonia prefecture. A letter was mailed to a local newspaper, ostensibly by an 'Engineer Ganzeuge', which described a youth by the name of Silvo Sokka having just boarded a small rocket and successfully taken off in it. 'Ganzeuge' wrote that he had lost contact with Sokka shortly after the takeoff, but described Sokka as an indispensable aid in science and engineering. A few hours later, Sokka was found alive and well in the back yard of a farmhouse. He described the rocketship as being seven meters long and weighing two tons, as well as its name being 'the Silverstar'. Sokka was soon further interviewed by reporters from large newspapers, whom he also provided with a diagram of the rocketship and a description of the launch equipment. The story also attracted the authorities, as the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 forbade all rocket technology in Finland, and Sokka would have broken several laws with such a contraption nevertheless. On October 11th Sokka finally caved in and admitted to having made up the whole story, apparently as he had been intent on leaving his family to work in Sweden and needed a cover story, ridiculous or not. He never faced any criminal charges for the event, but his family changed their surname to 'Salke', to avoid association with the embarrassment of the story.
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The Death of Ruben Oskar Auervaara
Ruben Oskar Auervaara, born Ruben Oskar Janssen in Turku in 1906, spent the majority of his life in prison. It was also in a cell at a Helsinki police station that he died on May 27th 1964, apparently by hanging himself. He had been arrested again for a crime he had been honing his skills in for decades, namely romance cons. While his upbringing was modest - he was the son a storage worker - he interacted with the upper class to a degree in his youth, particularly the Rettig family that operated a large business by the same name, and worked as a bellhop at the luxurious Hotel Phoenix. This gave him the necessary knowledge to later work as a con man among the wealthy. After a decade of petty crime and prison sentences for such, in 1935 Auervaara began his romance con career. His modus operandi was to flip through the 'personal' pages in newspapers and write letters to upper-class women seeking romantic company, who he would then defraud of all their money and property he could. He also adopted several bogus identities, such as a fighter pilot or the lord of a mansion. He became nationally known in early 1945 after he was arrested and his face was published in several newspapers, alongside a request that his targets approach the police. He was not deterred by being this and escaped to Sweden, but was extradited and was sentenced to prison in Finland. He was released for the final time in 1959. For a while, he attempted to reform himself and married for real, but his arrest in the spring of 1964 put an end to this. The cause of his death has not been conclusively ruled a suicide, and speculations exist that he had been murdered by jealous criminals instead.
