Mid Sweden University

The purpose of this study is to find out how editorials in various Swedish newspapers interpreted the ghost flights. The study shows how the phenomenon was interpreted based on defense and security policy. Through text analysis 44 editorial articles from the period 1934-1938 were investigated which showed that the most editorials interpreted ghost flying as military flights. The agenda of swedish liberal and moderate newspapers was to interpret military aviation as a reason for establishing an independent air force and in giving the military greater authority to make security decisions for the country. The Social Democratic agenda in editorials was to downplay loud defense interests. And the communist editorial agenda was more ideologically expressed in countering imperialist and warlike interests. Local Norrland newspapers were more likely to express hopes for greater military efforts for Norrland's sake and the development over time shows that it was the newspaper Norrskensflamman and Aftonbladet, political and ideological antagonists, that were the ones who kept the debate about the ghost flights alive until the outbreak of the Second World War.