The Welsh Roswell: Did A UFO Crash In North Wales In 1974? - Richard's Room 101

What has become known in UFO circles as the “Welsh Roswell” or Berwyn Mountain incident splits the UFO research community into two distinct camps, those who believe that an alien spacecraft crashed on the Mountain range and those who believe the seemingly out-of-this-world events can be explained by a combination of natural phenomena and the popularity of shows such as the X-Files which feed the public’s need to believe in the unexplained. What is not in any doubt is that something happened on the Berwyn Mountain, North Wales on the night of January 20, 1974. The events on the mountain range were witnessed by the whole community. Police Constable Gwilym Owen stated, “there was a great roar and a bang. The Sky lit up over the mountains. The colour was yellowish but other people in the valley described seeing blue light.” 

   

Annie Williams who lives in the nearby town of Llandrillo told investigators about what she witnessed that January night. “I saw this bright light hanging in the sky,” she said. 

   

“It had a long fiery tale which seemed to be motionless for several minuets, going dim and then very brilliant, like a dormant fire which keeps coming to life. It would have been like an electric light bulb in shape, except that it seemed to have rough edges. Then fell somewhere behind my bungalow, and the earth shook.”

 

   

Other witnesses also reported the ground shaking as if something had crashed into the side of the mountain. David Hughes of the local village post office at Ysbyty Ifan reported that “The whole house shook violently and suddenly. It began quite suddenly, lasted for a few seconds, then stopped just as suddenly.” 

    

Hundreds of locals fearing a plane had crashed on the mountain phoned the emergency services, and within an hour police were searching the mountain. Five days after these mysterious events, on January 25, 1974, it was reported in the British press that an RAF mountain rescue team had also been dispatched to the area, but allegedly found nothing. One member of the public who heard an explosion and was convinced something had crashed into the mountain was district nurse Pat Evans. Thinking that a plane had crashed after contacting Colwyn Bay police she made her way up the mountain to offer assistance to the survivors while they waited for the emergency services to arrive. Instead of finding a crashed plane, however, she saw a bright ball of red light on the mountainside.

   

“There were no flames shooting or anything like that. It was very uniform; round in shape … it was a flat round”. As she watched, she observed the light change in colour from red to yellow and then white. Smaller “fairy lights” could be seen nearby. Too far away to reach on foot, the nurse turned back to head home, puzzled by what she had seen. 

    

 After the initial frenzy of media interest, the story gradually died down and was almost forgotten about, until the mid-Nineties when the Roswell UFO crash was approaching its 50th anniversary and the alien autopsy hoax was generating new interest in an old topic.

     

Alien bodies and Wreckage 

In 1996 retired police sergeant Tony Dodd published in UFO Magazine an account of a man who claimed he was in the British Army at the time of the Berwyn Mountain crash. According to this anonymous whistleblower in January 1974 his unit “received orders to proceed with speed towards North Wales.” After arriving at Llangollen, North Wales on the evening of January 20, Dodd’s source noticed a great deal of “ground and air” activity in the area. “We, that is myself and four others, were ordered to go to Llandderfel and were under strict orders not to stop for any civilians.” 

    

Upon arriving in the small Welsh village his team was then ordered to load two large oblong boxes into their vehicles and to take them to the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, England. Warned not to look inside, some hours later they arrived at Porton Down and delivered the mysterious cargo. 

      

It is then alleged that the staff at Porton Down opened the boxes still within sight of Dodd’s informant and others. Inside we are told were the remains of two alien beings “five to six feet tall” which had been put inside “decontamination suits.” The Porton Down staff removed the suits, revealing creatures to be “so thin they looked almost skeletal with a covering skin.”

     

The Army source also told Dodd, “Although I did not see a craft at the scene of the recovery, I was informed that a large craft had crashed and was recovered by other military units.” Even more bizarre was this former Army man’s claims that he was told by others in his unit that they had also delivered extraterrestrial beings to Porton Down, but that these creatures were “still alive.” 

    

While the claims of Dodd’s British Army source have never been proven to have really occurred, it is interesting at least that someone that nobody disputes investigated the UFO phenomenon for the British Government, Nick Pope, wrote a science fiction novel, Operation Thunder Child, in which alien creatures are taken for study at Porton Down. “In any contact with an extraterrestrial civilisation the key strategic objective would be to open lines of communication and facilitate peaceful contact. Secondary objectives would include information exchange, with a particular emphasis on science and technology,” Nick Pope told me in an interview for my Sci-Fi Worlds column in 2009.

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Another Crashed UFO in New Mexico? - Richard's Room 101

So entrenched has the 1947 Roswell crash become in the minds of many UFO researchers, that it is often overlooked that the Roswell incident was not actually the first crashed saucer story to enter the public consciousness. That distinction belongs to another alleged UFO incident in the New Mexico desert. This time near Aztec, a small town in the upper western portion of the state, hundreds of miles away from the Roswell crash debris field found by Mac Brazel’s on the Foster Ranch in the summer of 1947. 

  

In his 1950 best-selling book Behind The Flying Saucers gossip columnist Frank Scully alleged that a flying disk had been found on a ranch 12 miles from Aztec, New Mexico, in 1948, the year after the alleged Roswell crash. In Paul Kimball’s 2003 documentary Aztec 1948 UFO Crash UFO researcher Nick Redfern summed up the alleged events at Aztec: “The jest of the Aztec tale is that in 1948 a flying saucer complete with anywhere between 14 to 18 bodies crashed in Aztec, New Mexico and was recovered in high secrecy by the US government.”

   

According to Scully, he was told about the Aztec crash by a man he called “Dr. Gee”, who was supposedly a specialist in magnetic anomalies working for the US government at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where famously the Manhattan Project to develop the Atomic bomb had been centred. Dr. Glee explained to Scully that the alien vehicle used some kind of magnetic propulsion system to levitate and that this was the reason he was brought in by the US government.

  

In his book and talks, Scully claimed that Dr. Gee had been flown out by helicopter to the New Mexico desert in April 1948 to look at the wreckage of a flying saucer that had crashed there. The Doctor also allegedly told Scully that the deceased bodies of the spaceship’s alien crew, who were described as small humanoid beings just over three feet tall, were also found at the crash site. The bodies of these creatures were said to be hairless, with soft downy skin, and two of the crew may have still been alive for a short time after the impact of the crash. Later accounts of the Roswell incident would also involve the recovery of similarly described deceased alien beings. In their 1994 book The Truth about the UFO Crash at Roswell authors, Kevin D. Randle and Donald Schmitt wrote: “Stringfield, from his sources, said that he was able to draw a number of conclusions. According to Stringfield, the beings are humanoid, three and a half to four and a half feet tall … There was no hair on the head … In fact, there isn’t much hair on the bodies.” 

  

As well as the biology of the aliens found at the two crash sites, there are also similarities between the Roswell debris found by Mac Brazel a year earlier and the lightweight but durable metal the Aztec saucer was said to be constructed from. In Behind the Flying Saucers Scully wrote: “It looked like aluminium, but wasn’t of a metal known to this earth.” 

  

Another similarity to Roswell are the pictorial symbols similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics alleged to be on the inside of the Aztec craft. The son of Major Jessie Marcel, who was one of the men sent by Colonel Blanchard to investigate the debris found by Brazel on the Foster Ranch, also reported seeing strange purple writing that resembled hieroglyphics on pieces of the Roswell debris. In his book The Roswell Legacy published in 2007 for the 60th anniversary of the Roswell crash, Jesse Marcel Jr. described what he remembered being shown by his father back in July 1947. 

  

“As I looked at the piece, with the light reflecting on the inner surface, I could see what looked like writing. At first I thought of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but there were no animal outlines or figures. They weren’t mathematical figures either; they were more like geometric symbols-squares, circles, triangles, pyramids, and the like. Approximately one-fourth of an inch tall, they were imprinted on the inner surface of the beam, and only on one side. They were not embossed into the I-beam but seemed more like part of its surface.” 

  

The parallels between the alleged alien creatures and materials described by Aztec and Roswell witnesses are intriguing. In The Roswell Incident, published in 1980, the authors Charles Berlitz and William Moore even speculated that the Aztec crash story was a garbled version of the Roswell crash. 

  

There are some big problems with the credibility of the Aztec crash story, however. Scully’s book was debunked in two articles in True magazine published in 1952 and 1956. Written by San Francisco Chronicle reporter J. P. Cahn, the two articles revealed that Dr. Gee, who he named as Leo GeBauer, and Scully’s other main source Silas Newton, were in fact two slick oil conmen who had hoaxed Scully. 

  

The Aztec incident has been revived somewhat in recent years by a book by Scott Ramsey, a UFO researcher and successful businessman from North Carolina. One anomaly highlighted by Ramsey that should give sceptics pause for thought is a mystery road off of Hart Canyon which leads to what he believes was the crash site, a deforested area surrounded by trees with broken branches as if something had flattened the area. The mysterious dirt road doesn’t appear on any road maps of the area until around 2003, and it is unknown where the road came from or who made it. Ramsey suggests that the road was made by military personnel attempting to extricate the Aztec saucer after it was forced to make an emergency landing at Hart Canyon. This might seem like wild speculation, however, there is some physical proof at the alleged crash site that something happened there in 1948. 

  

Adding to the mystery is a concrete slab sticking up out of the ground at the alleged crash site. Like the road, there are no records or reasons why it should be there in the middle of nowhere. Ramsey believes the slab was made by the military to support one of the legs of a crane used to carry out the crashed saucer. Laboratory tests have also shown that the concrete slab dates to around 1948, the year of the alleged saucer crash.

  

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1986 UFO Cases

The 1980s were a boom period for UFOs with bestselling books like The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and William L. Moore and input from Stanton Friedman, Timothy Good’s Above Top Secret and Whitley Strieber’s Communion. There were also movies and TV series like Steven Spielberg’s ET: The Extraterrestrial, Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron’s Aliens, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and documentaries such as Unsolved Mysteries.
 
And if all that wasn’t enough in 1987 US President Ronald Regan even spoke about "an alien threat from outside this world" in a speech to the United Nations, and that same year the major US soap opera The Colbys featured a storyline in which the character Fallon reported being the victim of an alien abduction! In a guest article for this blog UFO author and historian Rupert Matthews wrote: "The Colbys TV series and Whitley (Strieber) book launched the abduction phenomenon into the mass media. Suddenly the television, magazine and newspaper world could not get enough abduction stories. Many researchers took to hypnotic regression of witnesses in an effort to get more details and more coherent versions of events. Sadly some researchers had little or no training in hypnotic treatments and made some key errors of technique that would later discredit their findings. Nevertheless UFOlogy in the later 1980s became dominated by abduction stories obtained largely by hypnotic regression. It seemed that the answer to the entire UFO riddle might finally be within grasp of researchers."
 
The decade also ended with Bob Lazar's famous allegations that he had worked at the secret Nevada Area 51 or Groom Lake base back in the late 1980's on a back-engineering program involving captured alien saucers. There’s no doubting then that the 1980s marked a turnaround in the popularity of the UFO subject after years of declining interest in UFOs following the US Air Force’s decision to close down their UFO investigation Project Bluebook in 1969.
 
One year that seems to stand out is 1986. What with it being 25 years now since the UFO events of that year I asked Nick Redfern, who blogs for UFOMystic, if there were any good 1986 cases I should research. Nick replied: "Probably the only two good ones I can think of for that year, is one which was a Jumbo Jet sighting of a UFO over Alaska. I'm pretty sure a Google search will find it. And I know there was a very good Brazilian military UFO chase/sighting in that year, and that the US Defense Intelligence Agency released its files on the case a few years ago, so they may be at the DIA website, as they have their FOIA-UFO files posted there."
 
A Google search found an AP article entitled "FAA Presses Investigation of Lights Seen Over Alaska" about the Jumbo Jet sighting Nick Redfern had told me about. The sighting took place on November 17, 1986 and involved an encounter between a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 freighter aircraft and three UFOs as it flew over Alaska, en route from Iceland to Anchorage.

According to the crew, "two small objects and one huge Saturn-shaped object were in sight and on radar for more than 30 minuets". The unidentified lights were "yellow, amber and green" and the largest one "showed up on the plane's weather radar".

The pilot changed course and altitude multiple times in an attempt to explain the unidentified objects and VHF radio communications were garbled at the time of the sightings.
 
In 2006 the pilot, Capt. Kenju Terauchi, was interviewed by two Kyodo News journalists about the sightings. The interview was picked up by various UFO websites. Here is an extract from the interview on UFOcasebook.com:

"Suddenly,” Terauchi said, "600 meters below, I saw what looked like two belts of light. I checked with the Anchorage control tower. They said nothing was showing on their radar." But something was emitting those lights, and whatever it was seemed interested in the jumbo, for it adjusted its speed to match to match the plane's – "like they were toying with us," said Terauchi.   That went on for seven minutes or so. "Then there was a kind of reverse thrust, and the lights became dazzlingly bright. Our cockpit lit up. The thing was flying as if there was no such thing as gravity. It sped up, then stopped, then flew at our speed, in our direction, so that to us it looked like it was standing still. The next instant it changed course. There's no way a jumbo could fly like that. If we tried, it'd break apart in mid-air. In other words, the flying object had overcome gravity."

 
But the strange events of flight 1628 were not over yet for Capt. Terauchi and his crew. UFO authority Richard H. Hall wrote about the third "gigantic" UFO Terauchi witnessed that night in the second volume of his The UFO Evidence:

About 5:30pm, while in the vicinity of Fairbanks, AK, Capt. Terauchi checked a white light behind the plane and saw a silhouette of a gigantic spaceship. It was walnut-shaped, symmetrical above and below, with a central flange. Capt. Terauchi said, “It was a very big one, two times bigger than an aircraft career.” At its closet point, the large object cast such a bright light that it illuminated the cockpit, and Terauchi could feel heat on his face. Radio communications again became garbled during the close approach. The veteran crew became frightened by the large object and requested permission to change course. After the course change they looked back and saw the object still following them. Increasingly fearful, they requested a descent to get away from the UFO (“We had to get away from the object.”) After they descended and turned again, the object disappeared. The FAA at first confirmed that several of its radar traffic controllers had tracked the B-747 and the large object, and that US Air Force radar had also done so. Later official statements backed away from this and tried to a ascribe the radar targets to weather effects. On December 29, 1986, the FAA issued a report saying, We are accepting the descriptions of the crew, but are unable to support what they saw.

More recently the Japan Air Lines flight 1628 sighting was featured on the History Channel's UFO Files series in an episode entitled "Black Box Secrets" and the case has gained a reputation as being perhaps one of the best UFO sightings ever.

Another good pilot aircraft sighting in 1986 happened on May 11, in Sedona, AZ. A pilot, Robert H. Henderson, and his wife travelling in a Cessna 172 saw a dome-shaped object make a head-on pass at them and fly beneath their plane at an estimated 1,200 mph.
 
There were a concentration of sightings in Brazil in 1986, including many physiological effects cases between March 19 and June 15. The best of which was the UFO chase case Nick Redfern had mentioned. The Telegraph ranked this case, known as São Paulo sighting after the airport where the UFOs were tracked from, number eight in a 2009 "list of 10 of the most famous UFO incidents in history". Telegraph contributor Sasjkia Otto wrote in the newspaper that on the night of May 19, 1986 “around 20 UFOs were seen and detected by radar in various parts of Brazil. They reportedly disappeared as five military aircraft were sent to intercept them."
 
The São Paulo case was discussed openly by high ranking Brazilian officials. It was first reported by Colonel (Ret.) Ozires Silva, president of the state-owned oil company Petrobrás, who was flying on an executive Xingu turbo-prop, when he and the pilot saw and pursued the mysterious lights for about 25 minutes. The incident was covered widely in the Brazilian media at the time, leading to a press conference at the Ministry of Aeronautics in Brasilia on May 23, with air traffic controllers and air force pilots involved in the scramble mission.

At the press conference the Minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier General Otávio Moreira Lima, said: “Between 20:00 hrs (5/19) and 01:00 hrs (5/20) at least 20 objects were detected by Brazilian radars. They saturated the radars and interrupted traffic in the area. Each time that radar detected unidentified objects, fighters took off for intercept. Radar detects only solid metallic bodies and heavy (mass) clouds. There were no clouds nor conventional aircraft in the region. The sky was clear. Radar doesn't have optical illusions. We can only give technical explanations and we don't have them. It would be very difficult for us to talk about the hypothesis of an electronic war. It's very remote and it's not the case here in Brazil. It's fantastic. The signals on the radar were quite clear."

The Minister also announced that a commission would study the incident. Air Force Major Ney Cerqueira, in charge of the Air Defense Operations Center (CODA), added: "We don't have technical operational conditions to explain it. The appearance and disappearance of these objects on the radar screens are unexplained. They are Unidentified Aerial Movements... The technical instruments used for the identification of the lights had problems in registering them. CODA activated two F-5E and three Mirages to identify the objects. One F-5E and one Mirage remained grounded on alert. A similar case occurred four years ago (1982 Commander Brito VASP airliner radar-visual incident). The lights were moving at a speed ranging between 250 and 1,500 km/hr. [150 to 1,000 mph] The Air Force has not closed the case."

Today São Paulo continues to be a UFO hotspot. In March 2011 a video shown on Brazilian TV of a disc-shaped object hovering in the clouds for a minute or so – before disappearing in a bright flash was widely circulated. The Telegraph writing that: "The television station explained the clip originated from two motorists who saw the object as they were driving near the town of Agudos in Sao Paulo state. They hopped out of the car to shoot the video with their hand-held camera. According to the TV station, the cameramen reported the earth shaking at the same time the unidentified flying object vanished in a blast of light."

In 2010 Brazil's government ordered its air force to officially record any sighting of unidentified flying objects.

There were other sightings in 1986. In Butler, PA, on January 7, a UFO emitted six light beams toward the ground. And around 20 minuets later in Pittsburgh, a silver-gray disk with body lights and mist formed around it was seen hovering above the city, before moving out of sight.

There was also a good landing case in Calalzo di Cadore, Italy on August 15 of that year. Strong physical traces were left at the landing site, and after a two hour memory loss the witnesses reported seeing two humanoid beings.
 
The 1980s then saw an increase in the popularity of the UFO subject, and while blockbuster films such as ET and bestselling books like Communion played a large part in this turnaround, solid UFO cases like those of 1986 were also important.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/05/us/faa-presses-investigation-of-lights-seen-over-alaska.html
http://www.ufocasebook.com/jal1628surfaces.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/6041498/UFO-Files-top-10-UFO-sightings.html
http://www.phenopedia.com/index.php/1986_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_UFO_sighting
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8357480/UFO-spotted-in-Sao-Paulo.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10947856
Richard H. Hall, The UFO Report: A Thirty Year Report Volume II, (Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2001) p.142-143.

The Truth Behind Roswell

The following guest article is by Rupert Matthews, author of the book Roswell.

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The Truth Behind Roswell

By Rupert Matthews

When I first started investigating the Roswell UFO Crash in detail there were two aspects that really surprised me. The first was the date on which the Flying Saucer was alleged to have crashed into the desert near Roswell: July 1947. The second was the date on which the investigation into the apparent crash had begun: 1978.

My previous reading on the Roswell Crash had, I must admit, been rather sketchy and had been restricted to secondary sources such as magazine articles or books written by people who had not been there. I had somehow come to form the impression that the crash had taken place in the 1950s and had been investigated at the time. Shows how wrong you can be.

As I started to work my way through the assorted eyewitness accounts given in interviews, written as letters or in books I was in for another surprise. Nobody had claimed to have seen a UFO crash near Roswell at all. One person had seen a UFO. Another had heard a loud bang and seen some scraps of debris. A third had seen the US military cordon off a large area of ground. A fourth had seen a crashed aircraft of some kind. A fifth had seen some dead bodies.

However, when all the various accounts were put together they did form a cohesive story that held together pretty well. Quite clearly something very odd and unusual had fallen from the skies on to the desert near Roswell in early July 1947. The United States Air Force had moved quickly to recover the object and had thrown a veil of secrecy around the whole incident. Those who had seen debris from the crash all agreed that it was composed of very odd materials that they did not recognise and that it had some odd properties.

But I kept getting pulled back to the two initial surprises. The early date bothered me. July 1947 was a long time ago, even further in terms of UFO research. The epochal sighting by Kenneth Arnold that propelled Flying Saucers into the international media had taken place on 24 June 1947 - just over a week before the alleged crash at Roswell. That timing had two important impacts on the Roswell story.

The first is that Flying Saucers (or Flying Disks as they were also termed in 1947) were a major news item across the media at the time. Everyone was talking about them, far more than is the case today. The second was that there was no generally agreed description of what a UFO was like (and even the term UFO had not been coined). These were very early days indeed. It was possible that almost any unusual object in the sky or falling to the ground would be described as being a Flying Saucer. So just because the people who saw the object that fell at Roswell called it a Flying Saucer does not mean that it was what we would today term a UFO.

Reading the very few descriptions of the object given by those who claim to have seen it, does not read like more recent witness statements of a UFO. The object was said to be roughly triangular or conical in shape with stubby little wings or fins. There does not seem to have been anything terribly odd about it all, it sounds very mundane.

The fact that investigations did not begin until more than 30 years after the event also bothered me. Several of the key witnesses had died over the years. Their accounts survived only second hand. A neighbour remembered what one man had told him 30 years earlier. A son recalled what his father had told him. Such accounts are intrinsically vague and lack detail. Crucially the person is not there for the investigator to ask for more detail or to seek out cross references. Other witnesses were still alive, but they were being asked to recall events more than 30 years old. The human memory is a notoriously frail and deceptive thing. Dates can be blurred and details merged. One of the witnesses who was able to give a very good and clear description of dead bodies could not be certain when he had seen them - he did not even know which year never mind the precise day. Even more alarming is the fact that we humans are rational creatures and we seek to rationalise events. We are all capable of misremembering events so that they fit into an accepted pattern better than what we actually saw. After 30 years all sorts of details could easily be forgotten or remembered incorrectly.

By the time I was half way through my research I had almost given up hope of ever finding out what had really happened at Roswell back in 1947. There were so many contradictions in the evidence, so many details that did not match, so many accounts that were vague.

But then I decided to take a step back from all the mass of fine detail and look at the bigger picture. There was one thing that all those people who had been in Roswell in 1947 did agree on. Something had happened and that something had been very odd indeed. True, some witnesses contradicted each other. True, some details that at first seemed linked to the crash turned out to be quite unrelated. True, some apparent facts turned out to be nothing of the sort.

But in the final analysis something fell out of the sky in early July 1947. The United States Air Force did move quickly to collect the wreckage, then quickly launched a determined effort to kill the story and keep the find secret.

Can I tell you what it was that fell from the sky? No. There are several possibilities that would fit the evidence - and an alien spacecraft is but one of those.


Rupert Matthews is the author of the book Roswell which is available on Amazon and from all good bookshops. You can find Rupert’s website at www.rupertmatthews.com. He also maintains a blog about the unexplained at www.ghosthunteratlarge.blogspot.com.

UFO Crashes in Britain

The following guest article is by Rupert Matthews, author of the book Roswell.

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UFO Crashes in Britain
By Rupert Matthews

The evidence for UFO sightings, and landings, in the UK is widespread, numerous and often compelling. But when it comes to UFO crashes, I find that most people simply shake their heads. “You mean Roswell,” they say. But I don’t mean Roswell. I mean UFO crashes in Britain.

Now, I would be the first to admit that the evidence pointing to the fact that any UFO had ever actually come down in Britain is nowhere near as impressive as that for UFO sightings or voluntarily landings, but that does not mean that it does not exist.

Take, for instance, the events at Conisholme, Lincolnshire, in January 2009. In the winter’s evening several locals reported seeing two orange-red spheres flying over this small village some miles northeast of Louth. The objects were trailing what appeared to be yellowish arms or threads behind them. Suddenly there came the most almighty bang, followed by a vicious whirling noise. Before long police were on the scene, cordoning off access to the nearby wind farm. Something had hit one of the enormous wind turbines, smashing one 65-foot long blade and mangling a second. Whatever had hit the turbine had not only done some impressive damage, it had also left behind a small quantity of lightweight material.

Opinions differ as to what had happened. The company that runs the windfarm, Ecotricity, refused to speculate. They merely confirmed that a turbine had been damaged and was being repaired. Some locals thought that a stealth aircraft from one of the nearby air bases had been to blame. Others said they knew what a stealth aircraft looked like at night - or rather what its jet engines looked like - and that the orange balls had not been that. They blamed a UFO.

Even if the wind turbine at Conisholme had been destroyed by a collision with a UFO, I am not sure that this truly counts as a UFO crash. Nobody reported the object having actually impacted the earth at all.

Other events reported in the press as being a “UFO Crash” turn out to be more or less routine sightings dressed up to make the headline more exciting. On 26 January 2009, for instance, a woman walking her dog along Baytree Road in Clevedon, Somerset, saw a cigar- or rocket- shaped UFO plummet to the ground accompanied by a shrieking or howling noise. The object came down in the playing fields of a school, rested there for a while, then the noise restarted and the object took off at high speed heading west. Dramatic stuff, but quite clearly the object did not crash - as the newspaper headlines next day had it - but had landed and then taken off again.

Rather better known is the Berwyn Mountain Incident of 1974. On the evening of 23 January several people in northern Wales and adjacent areas of England reported seeing green lights in the sky. The lights were reported to be spherical or saucer shaped and to be moving erratically in odd patterns and formations. Then, at 8.38pm, residents around the Berwyn Mountain in Wales heard a deafening rumbling explosion and the ground shook. People came out into the streets. One man said he had seen lights over the mountain just before the crash and speculated that an aircraft had crashed. Phone calls were put through to the emergency services. While waiting for more help to arrive, the local policeman rounded up a nurse and went up on to the mountain to see if they could help.

Not long afterwards a convoy of army trucks arrived, the men cordoned off the mountain and refused admittance to anyone. The policeman and nurse came back down under army escort. They said that they had seen lights and debris as if from a crash, but had been instructed to leave. The nurse would later say that she had got close to the crash and seen bodies that did not seem to be human.

The official explanation for the events at Berwyn are that an unusually large meteor hurtled across the sky at the same time that an earthquake struck Berwyn. Some geologists have speculated that the lights were the rare, and largely unexplained phenomenon, of earthquake lights which are sometimes reported in the air just before earthquakes strike. Others remain convinced that it was a UFO that crashed at Berwyn, though very little of the craft seems to have survived the impact.


Rupert Matthews is the author of the book Roswell which is available on Amazon and from all good bookshops. You can find Rupert’s website at www.rupertmatthews.com. He also maintains a blog about the unexplained at www.ghosthunteratlarge.blogspot.com.

RAF Rudloe Manor and the UFO Files

The following guest article is by Rupert Matthews, author of the book Roswell.

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RAF Rudloe Manor and the UFO Files
By Rupert Matthews

I think I first heard about the highly secretive military base at Rudloe Manor when I used to go down to visit relatives in Bath. That would have been sometime in the 1970s. We went to visit local sites, including Lacock Abbey, Solsbury Hill and Bath Abbey.

One time we went to see the Box Tunnel - that great engineering marvel of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. As we stood watching the trains thundering up and down the main line from London to Bristol I noticed a high wire fence topped by barbed wire and hung with notices indicating that dire penalties would come to anyone who strayed over the fence.

"What’s over there?" I asked my uncle.

He glanced at the fence. "Oh, some RAF place," he replied. "Very hush hush." And we went back to watching the trains.

That was during the Cold War, of course, and everyone who knew about Rudloe Manor assumed that the highly secretive things that went on there had something to do with tracking Soviet aircraft, intercepting Soviet radio messages or some other top secret defensive purpose. It never crossed our minds back then that Rudloe Manor had anything to do with UFOs.

It was not until some 20 years later that I began to hear rumours that the well guarded base at Rudloe Manor might have some UFO link. One of the boys I had been at school with was by then a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF. One time when he was on leave and we were down the pub I mentioned about RAF Rudloe Manor. He fixed me with a cool stare.

"I don’t know what goes on there," he said. "And I suggest you don’t ask too many questions. Brass hats can get very touchy about places like that."

"Interesting," I thought.

By the later 1990s the rumours had begun to take a more definite form. All the information came from serving or former RAF personnel who had worked at Rudloe Manor. Understandably, these people preferred to remain anonymous as they feared the government might prosecute them for breaching the Official Secrets Act. A perfectly reasonable concern, but it had the effect of making it impossible to check whether these witnesses had ever worked at Rudloe Manor and, if so, in what capacity. Inevitably this led some to suspect that the stories were not as reliable as they might be.

According to these reports, there was a vast underground complex beneath the apparently innocuous barracks and office buildings scattered in the grounds of the old manor house. This much could be checked out and was accurate. The manor had been taken over by the RAF at the start of World War II precisely because these huge underground caverns existed. They were the abandoned workings from which the much prized Bath Stone had been quarried out in the 19th century. Being deep underground the tunnels and caves were, of course, proof against German bombing. From 1940 onward a whole range of government and military units and installations were located in the tunnels of Rudloe Manor where they would be safe from the Luftwaffe. Much of what went on there at the time is now well known and while it was all vital to the war effort is hardly controversial.

When the war ended, however, the government did not return Rudloe Manor and its underground caverns to its prewar owners as happened to most wartime acquisitions. It was kept by the government. And it was kept very secret. It has since been revealed that one function of the caves was to house a government communications centre that would be activated if a nuclear war began. Other uses of the caves remain highly classified and top secret.

One of these top secret purposes is the Central Computer Complex (CCC). Quite what the CCC does is not entirely clear. Some say it controls the Trident nuclear missile firing systems, others that it has a role in 'sigint' or signals intelligence. Nobody really knows. One of the most intriguing of the few facts to come out of CCC is that there is another section of the caverns under Rudloe Manor that is accessed only through CCC (itself heavily guarded and accessed only by those with high security clearance) by way of a door that is guarded 24/7 and that only a few of those cleared to enter CCC are permitted to pass.

Now what can be behind that door? Obviously something highly sensitive.

Back on the surface, Rudloe Manor has long been the HQ of the RAF Provost & Security Services (PSS), which is responsible for all aspects of security affecting the RAF. It includes personnel from MI5 and MI6 who liaise with the PSS and - at least from time to time if not permanently - CIA personnel as well. We know from declassified government documents that the PSS collated and sifted UFO reports for several decades. They binned any reports that they felt could be explained as sightings of aircraft, birds, planets and so forth, then investigated those that remained unexplained. Several of those unexplained reports were swiftly taken off the desks of the lowly staff at PSS and sent for analysis "elsewhere" - to behind that door in CCC apparently.

In the early 1990s UFO investigators in Britain began to notice that there was a cluster of high quality sightings over the Box-Rudloe-Corsham area of Wiltshire. This reminded some of a similar cluster of sightings over Warminster, a few miles to the south, in the 1960s. Intrigued, investigators began paying more attention. The sightings were found to centre over Rudloe and to consist largely of UFOs without wings that pulsated with colours of blue, red or green. Often they were said to be diamond or conical in shape.

So what can we say with confidence about RAF Rudloe Manor. Well, it is top secret, contains vast underground caverns that are off limits to all but a very few people with top level security clearance, has been part of the RAF UFO investigation process and is a centre for UFO sightings. Beyond that we really don’t know. Some claim that the place is a liaison venue for the British government to interract with aliens. Others that objects retrieved from UFOs are stored there.

Perhaps one day we will know the truth.


Rupert Matthews is the author of the book Roswell which is available on Amazon and from all good bookshops. You can find Rupert’s website at www.rupertmatthews.com. He also maintains a blog about the unexplained at www.ghosthunteratlarge.blogspot.com.

A Room 101 Interview with Timothy Good

This fortnight in Room 101, it's the latest in our series of special text interviews. After many years of following his work, I'm finally getting the chance to ask best-selling author and UFO researcher Timothy Good some questions. From Above Top Secret (which many consider the Bible of Ufology) to Unearthly Disclosure and his latest Need to Know, Good has written some excellent books. I'm sure you will all enjoy this interview as much as I did...here we go... 

  

Richard Thomas: First things first. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions. I really appreciate it and I'm sure the BoA readers will too.

Your very first book, co-written with Lou Zinsstag, was George Adamski The Untold Story. What most impressed you about Adamski and have your thoughts on him changed much since writing the book?  

  

Timothy Good: Adamski's photographs (and films) impressed me a great deal. Also, his initial encounter near Desert Center, California, in November 1952, was witnessed by six people who signed affidavits testifying to the fact. I knew two of those people, and they weren't lying. His famous photos, taken with a plate camera attached to a telescope, have been authenticated by a number of qualified people. As for his films, the last and best one - showing a craft similar to the one he photographed in 1952 - was taken at Silver Spring, Maryland, in February 1965, witnessed by my friend Madeleine Rodeffer and three US government employees. The 8mm colour film was authenticated by Bill Sherwood, an optical physicist and a senior project development engineer for the Eastman-Kodak company in Rochester, NY. In May 1998 I was invited to the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office in the Pentagon, which at that time handled the unmanned spy planes programme. The director, Major Kenneth Israel, implied to me that the film was genuine. Unfortunately, copies of the film (sometimes shown in documentaries) are unconvincing, being darker and more contrasty than the original film. Individual frames light-enhanced by Sherwood show much more detail.

  

As for Adamski's claim that the aliens he met were from all the planets in the solar system - Venus and Mars in particular - this has understandably given rise to much ridicule. Most likely, this was a smoke screen to protect their actual origin. However, I don't discount the possibility that alien bases exist on the other planets in our system. Indeed, I think it quite likely that Venus and Mars, and several moons of Saturn and Jupiter, for example, qualify in this respect. Any adverse temperatures and pressures can be dealt with by means of advanced technology. And they most definitely have had bases on Earth for a very long time.

  

I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that Adamski held a US Government Ordnance Department card, which gave him access to US military bases and other restricted areas. He liaised with many high-ranking military personnel, including Lord Mountbatten and Lord Dowding on one occasion, and even - in 1963 - with President Kennedy.

  

Richard Thomas: I understand that you may have had what might be called a "contactee experience" yourself, what do you think happened?

  

Timothy Good: Yes, in fact I've had several encounters with beings I believe were from elsewhere. The first occurred at a diner near the Arizona/California border in November 1963 while I was on tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It would take me too long to go into all the details, but it involved an unusual young woman who - in the presence of three of my colleagues - responded very positively, but non-verbally, to my telepathic question as to whether she was from elsewhere. Just after we left the diner in our convoy of three coaches, I was astonished to see a road sign for Desert Center - I'd no idea we were anywhere near there. Quite a coincidence! 

  

The second encounter took place in the lobby of a hotel in the middle of New York in February 1967, between a rehearsal and concert with the London Symphony Orchestra. About half an hour after I'd transmitted a telepathic request for definitive proof that some aliens were living among us, an immaculately suited man walked into the lobby then sat beside me. Following my telepathic request to indicate by means of a certain sign if he was the person I was looking for, he did so immediately. Neither of us spoke. It was a cathartic experience for me.

  

Richard Thomas: One of your books is called Alien Base. What do you think of the possibility that Earth could have already been covertly colonised by extraterrestrials or, alternatively, that another intelligent species could have evolved here long before mankind?

  

Timothy Good: I'm convinced that Earth was colonized by ETs millennia ago, and that we humans are a hybridized species. Apparently, hybridization started at the time of Homo erectus. There are many different species of extraterrestrials. The abductions in more recent times seem to involve the use of humans for hybridization purposes. But for whose benefit? In the 1990's I spent a lot of time investigating cases in Puerto Rico and it's clear to me that the animal mutilations and abductions are related to the abduction phenomenon. For example, I interviewed a family who encountered bug-eyed creatures that had developed some human characteristics - specifically wispy traces of hair on their heads. Are they trying to adapt to our planet, and if so, why?

  

Richard Thomas: Over 20 years ago now, in Above Top Secret, you were the first researcher to make public the controversial MJ-12 documents. What are your current thoughts on the documents and MJ-12?

  

Timothy Good: As I have stated repeatedly in my books subsequent to Above Top Secret, the MJ-12 papers are forgeries. The purpose, in my view, was to smoke out some of the real MJ-12 members or those who were knowledgeable about the organization. The ruse worked. Several former military and intelligence personnel - e.g. Dr Eric Walker, a British-born scientist - have confirmed that MJ-12 existed (see Need to Know).

  

Richard Thomas: It is commonly believed in Ufology that the UFO cover-up began in early July 1947 after the famous Roswell Incident. So, when I read your latest book, Need to Know: UFOs, the Military and Intelligence, I was intrigued to learn of a possible 1933 UFO crash recovery in Milan, Italy. The possible existence of a top-secret group - Gabinetto RS/33 - allegedly set up after the supposed 1933 crash, to deal with "unknown aircraft" was also very interesting. How likely do you think it is that a UFO did crash and that an Italian MJ-12 like group was set up in 1933? 

  

Timothy Good: The UFO cover-up seems to have begun in 1933 with the top-secret RS/33 group. Other governments – that of Sweden in particular – also became concerned about intrusions of strange flying machines that year. Unfortunately we don't have an actual description of the type of unknown aircraft which came down in Italy. I think it possible that a UFO did crash, but I have no definitive information on that particular case. However, the RS/33 documents – which include descriptions of unexplained craft seen by pilots in 1936 - are evidently genuine.

  

Richard Thomas: What do you think of a possible link between Gabinetto RS/33 and flying saucers allegedly built by the Nazis during WWII? Perhaps you might have some thoughts on the Nazi "Bell" device discussed in Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point.

  

Timothy Good: Roberto Pinotti, who co-authored a book with Alfredo Lissoni on the case, believes that the alleged retrieval led to some German "reverse engineering". I don't know if that’s true. And as I said, we don't have (or at least, I don’t have) an actual description of the craft involved. As for the "Nazi hypothesis", one of the world's leading aviation historians, Bill Gunston, who wrote the foreword to Need to Know, believes there is no serious evidence that the Germans actually produced any highly advanced flying discs, though he concedes that they were beginning to work on a conventionally propelled craft with circular aerofoils. Re "the Bell", it definitely existed and a great deal of information can be found in both Nick Cook's book and Igor Witkowski's superb Truth About the Wunderwaffe , but there seems no evidence that its use was related to flying machines of any sort. As Witkowski concludes on the final page: "There is no evidence that the Germans mastered the production of 'flying saucers' with a revolutionary propulsion. One may on the other hand prove that they were attempting to use analogous bell-shaped objects as a weapon."

  

Richard Thomas: One of my favourite cases is the Berwyn Mountain Incident or "Welsh Roswell." What do you think may have happened in the Berwyn Mountains in 1974? And what do you think of the possibility of an MJ-UK group?

  

Timothy Good: I never investigated this case personally, so I keep an open mind. As to the possibility of a "MJ-UK", probably an equivalent team was set up, but I have no specifics. The top-secret "Flying Saucer Working Party" (1950-51) would qualify in many respects. Whatever the case, the UK is subservient to the US regarding these matters.

  

Richard Thomas: What are your thoughts on the recent UFO activity in the UK, particularly the police helicopter sighting near RAF St Athan, a military base outside Cardiff? Interestingly, when I asked Nick Pope about the sightings he said: "Some sightings have clearly been caused by Chinese lanterns, but the MoD appear to be using this as an excuse not to investigate." 

  

Timothy Good: I've yet to see a detailed official report, so I can't comment. Chinese lanterns (or "UFO balloons") have been responsible for nearly all the UFO sightings reported this year - and to a lesser extent, last year. They are a damned nuisance - particularly for us researchers. 

  

Richard Thomas: Given that your latest book is called Need To Know, how much do you think US Presidents and British Prime Ministers are allowed to know about UFOs? Also how much do you think big corporations might know?

  

Timothy Good: A number of US presidents have been briefed on aspects of the alien problem. They were told as much as they needed to know. However, Eisenhower and Kennedy, for example (and perhaps a few others) also had direct contact with extraterrestrials. The most knowledgeable president, in my opinion, is George H. Walker Bush. As for the present incumbent of the White House, a friend of mine asked him what he knew about the UFO situation. “Ask Cheney,” came the terse reply. I doubt that many British prime ministers have been told much. I think that Margaret Thatcher, thanks to her rapport with Reagan, learned a few things. As far as big corporations are concerned, I’m told that there is indeed a degree of corporate involvement.

  

Richard Thomas: In Alien Contact you interviewed Bob Lazar about his alleged experiences at S-4, a supposed ultra-top-secret facility near Area-51/Groom Lake where, according to Lazar, alien technology is being studied and reverse-engineered. How much of Lazar's story do you think might be true? And do you still think reverse engineering could be going on at Area 51? 

  

Timothy Good: Lazar claimed to be a nuclear physicist. He isn't. However, he is a talented engineer and launches his own rockets and drives and maintains a jet-powered car (or used to). Definitely something odd seems to have happened to him, but I remain dubious about some of his claims. Perhaps he was exposed to S-4 (which does, or did, exist) in case he came up with some original ideas. Or it could have been an experiment to test public reaction, knowing that he would tell the media. I just don't know. It's important to bear in mind that Lazar was drugged on several occasions by the security personnel at S-4. I have no idea what’s going on there now. 

  

Richard Thomas: Ben Rich, the second director of the famous Lockheed's Skunk Works and sometimes called the "father of stealth," once made the incredible comment that: "We now have the technology to take ET home." In light of this, how successful do you think any reverse engineering efforts may have been? And what are your thoughts on the idea of a secret space program? 

  

Timothy Good: In addition to having reverse-engineered some recovered alien vehicles, I believe that we’ve been given highly advanced technology – including spacecraft - by certain allied extraterrestrials. As Ben Rich stated at the University of California School of Engineering in 1993: “We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects . . . and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity.” 

  

Richard Thomas: One of the most interesting chapters in Alien Contact is called "Cosmic Journey." What was Cosmic Journey and what do you think about it now?

  

Timothy Good: The 1989 Cosmic Journey Project, supported by the US government, NASA and Rockwell International, was a proposal for an international touring presentation of space-related materials, such as a mock-up of the space shuttle, and even 6,000 square feet of UFO-related material. I was invited to become the official consultant on UFO research. The main portion of the show, I learned, would be the future of space and the technical advances predicted over the next 100 years. To my everlasting regret, I was unable to make the private meeting with the organizers in Florida, and recommended former NASA engineer Bob Oechsler to fill the position. The rest is history (see Alien Liaison/Alien Contact). Suffice it to say that Bob learned a great deal and claimed to have had some extraordinary experiences while working on the project – which eventually was cancelled. 

  

Richard Thomas: What are your plans for the future? Are you working on anything or have any new cases grabbed your attention recently?

  

Timothy Good: I’m always working on new cases. I have no plans for a new book, however - I’ve yet to sort all my files relating to the last one, which took several years of intensive work. There’s also the question of money. Unearthly Disclosure (2000), for example, cost me around £35,000 – flights, local transport (including hired planes), hotels, researchers, translators, on-site interpreters, a forensic specialist, and so on. As for (relatively) recent cases that have grabbed my attention, the mile-wide craft of unknown origin seen by multiple witnesses in January this year over Stephenville, Texas, impressed me, as did the radar-confirmed sighting by two airline pilots and passengers of two apparently mile-wide craft over the Channel Islands in April last year.

  

Richard Thomas: Thanks again, I look forward to your future books, interviews and lectures. 

READ RICHARD'S ROOM 101 COLUMN FOR BINNALL OF AMERICA

A Room 101 Interview with Nick Redfern

In what we hope will become the first in a series of special text interviews with noteworthy esoteric researchers, this fortnight in Richard's Room, I am interviewing none other than esoteric superstar Nick Redfern. Now, of course, he's a big name but there are lots of big names in esoterica, so you may be wondering: why Nick Redfern first?"

Well, quite simply, the series of events that led to my joining BoA is intrinsically tied to Nick Redfern. It all began two years ago when I sent Tim Binnall an email that asked if he could possibly ask a future BoA: Audio guest about the 1974 Berwyn Mountain incident or "Welsh Roswell." 

A few months later, he asked British Ufologist and author Nick Redfern about the Berwyn case while attending the UFO Crash Retrieval Conference IV. Then, about a year later, Tim had another chance to interview Nick and this time, on my behalf, he asked him about the Alien Big Cats phenomenon in the UK and related an ABC sighting my younger sister actually had here in Wales. The episode also saw me being brought further into the BoA fold, with Tim coining me as the "BoA UK Correspondent." 

So, when Tim suggested the idea of doing a series of text interviews for Room 101, Nick Redfern seemed like the natural first choice. Nick, of course, is a highly successful author from the UK who has written several books on UFOs and other esoteric subjects. In such a US-centric field, his decorated writing career has been a huge source of inspiration to someone, from the same side of "the pond," who hopes to become an esoteric author himself someday. At last a chance to interview the man myself ... 

Richard Thomas: First things first. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these questions. I really really appreciate it and I'm sure the BoA readers will too.

One of the first UFO books I ever read was Cosmic Crashes, a book you wrote detailing cases of alleged UFO crashes in the UK. One of the most interesting crash stories investigated in the book is that of a supposed UFO crash somewhere in the UK during WWII. The possible link to the JFK assassination was interesting. What do you think the truth of the matter could be? 

Nick Redfern: There have been rumours for many years of an alleged UFO crash - or Foo Fighter crash - in Britain at some point during the Second World War. Unfortunately, the details are very brief and no one has really been able to pinpoint with any real accuracy what exactly happened, where and when. However, there are stories of elements of the British Government and military supposedly examing such a device - and crew - at some point prior to 1955. The weird thing is that details of this story turn up in a controversial "leaked" document that has ties to the JFK assassination. And as bizarre as it may sound, there are many threads that link UFOs and the JFK assassination, which leads some people to suspect there is a direct connection. Needless to say, it's a highly controversial area, but it's one on which every so often a new bit of data will surface.

  

Richard Thomas: Perhaps the most interesting case discussed in the book though is that of the 1974 Berwyn Mountain incident or Welsh Roswell. The bit in the book about the alleged transport of dead alien bodies recovered from the crash site was particularly interesting. What do you think might have happened there? Do you think it was a genuine UFO (whatever they may be), the misinterpretation of natural phenomena, some kind of black project or perhaps something else? 

  

Nick Redfern: The Berwyn Mountains crash story of 1974 is one of the strangest and most enduring cases I've looked into. It's one of those that never goes away, even when down-to-earth explanations have been offered. Back in the mid-90s, I was of the opinion that a UFO had come down, then I changed my mind after reading the research of Andy Roberts. However, I still get accounts now and again from locals and retired military people (all specifically from RAF Valley, interestingly enough) of knowledge of bodies recovered and taken to Porton Down, Wiltshire. So, I'll be the first to admit that, today, it's one that continues to puzzle me. On the one hand, I am convinced that Andy has solved massive parts of the story. But, on the other hand, it's difficult to dismiss the testimony of the military people who have accounts to relate, and nothing to gain by spreading a false story. I think, though, that we have not heard the last of the case by any means!

  

Richard Thomas: In Cosmic Crashes, you also hypothesize about the existence of an MJ-12-like group operating in the UK, what you call MJ-UK. Do you still think there could be such a covert group and what about the alleged UFO ties with RAF Rudloe Manor?

  

Nick Redfern: The whole Rudloe-UFO saga has been a puzzle in itself. There's no doubt that the RAF's Provost & Security Services (who were based at Rudloe for two decades) have played a role in official UFO investigations. There are even a few declassified files available at the National Archive, Kew. But the big question is the extent, or otherwise, of those investigations. Some researchers have suggested - and particularly Matthew Williams in the mid-to-late 90s - that Rudloe's role went far beyond that officially admitted by the MoD. Others merely see it as a minor aspect of official UFO investigations that got blown up out of proportion by the UFO research community. As with the Berwyn case, I still get accounts now and again from people talking about how, at one point at least, Rudloe was involved at a far deeper level. But I will concede that actually proving this has not happened yet. 

  

Richard Thomas: In Body Snatchers in the Desert, you make a fair case that the famous Roswell incident might be explained by classified military experiments carried out after WWII. In light of this, what do you think about the work of Nick Cook (author of The Hunt for Zero Point) who suggests that many UFOs can probably be explained by US military black projects, perhaps even anti-gravity aircraft? 

  

Nick Redfern: There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that the UFO issue has indeed been utilised - and very successfully too - as a cover for classified military activity, such as the test-flying of prototype aircraft, etc. In "Body Snatchers" I reference a number of cases aside from Roswell that might be classic examples of fabricated UFO stories to hide something more down to earth. I definitely think Cook's work is valid and that he has uncovered some genuine material on very radical aircraft and that gravity manipulation and control is linked to that. Around the time of Roswell, however, I think it was more to do with radical designs, rather than super-advanced technology. 

  

Richard Thomas: The recent helicopter UFO incident in Wales happened near RAF St Athan, a military base outside Cardiff. Do you think there could be some kind of military explanation for this or any of the other recent sightings we've had in the UK?

  

Nick Redfern: Well, the Welsh one is interesting, but I think on examination many of the others were simply Chinese Lanterns. That's not me being a sceptic. Rather, while I believe there is indeed a genuine unsolved UFO presence among us, the fact is that most cases can be explained. And I put much of the recent UK wave in the second category. 

  

Richard Thomas: Maybe some of the many alleged UFO crashes since WWII can be explained by the Pentagon's billion-dollar black budget, but what about pre-war cases, in particular the 1908 Tunguska Event in Russia? Do you have any thoughts on that? 

  

Nick Redfern: As Tunguska is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, it's definitely back in the news with new books, magazine articles etc. There are some odd aspects to the story, such as reports of the "object" changing direction in flight, etc. I keep an open mind on the event, but I suspect that given its age, we'll probably never really know now.

  

Richard Thomas: In the 1977 spoof documentary Alternative 3 it is suggested that there is a secret space program. More recently, "UFO hacker" Gary McKinnon has claimed he saw evidence of what might be part of such a program while hacking into NASA and US military computer networks. In particular, McKinnon said he found a list of officers' names under the mysterious heading "Non-Terrestrial Officers," as well as a list of "fleet-to-fleet transfers" and ship names. What do you think of this? Any thoughts on the possibility of a secret space program?

  

Nick Redfern: "Non-Terrestrial Officers" is of course a provocative term that conjures up all sorts of imagery. I think, however, that like much of Ufology, we have a few fragments of a story with what McKinnon found. But what the term might mean is very much down to personal interpretation. 

Richard Thomas: What's the scariest thing that has ever happened to you during your investigations? 

  

Nick Redfern: I wouldn't say I've ever got scared on an investigation. I think on-site investigations can be very intriguing, sometimes adventurous and sometimes adrenalin-pumping. But I view it from a positive angle and one to be intrigued and excited by rather than a fear-driven, scared angle, which is more negative-driven.

  

Richard Thomas: Have you got any good advice for a young aspiring writer with an interest in UFOs and the paranormal?

  

Nick Redfern: Be enthusiastic about what you do, whether it's writing books, articles, lecturing, or doing research and investigations. There's nothing worse than seeing someone in the subject who has lost their spark and their zest for what they do. Also, don't worry about people's opinions. Do what you want because you want to do it; and don't be force-fed the opinions of others. And try not to be driven by belief systems. At some point, we're all guilty of that to varying degrees; however, wherever and whenever possible, just go where the facts take you. And if the facts go where you want them to go, that's great. But if they take you down a different path to the one you were expecting, then that's how it goes. And avoiding preconceived belief systems is the best way to deal with investigations, in my opinion. Richard: Thanks again and all the best, I look forward to your future books and articles.

READ RICHARD'S ROOM 101 COLUMN FOR BINNALL OF AMERICA

Welsh UFOs: The Real Torchwood - Richard's Room 101

For those left wondering about the title, Torchwood is a Doctor Who spin-off series about a covert group who research and combat alien threats in Wales. This fortnight, we're going to reflect on some key UFO cases in the principality, including the recent UFO sightings here and in neighbouring England. Interestingly, I had a possible UFO sighting in Wales, myself, which you can read about on the UFO Magazine Blog. The entry detailing my potential UFO sighting can be found here. 

  

Looking at UFO cases in Wales, we'll begin with what has been called the "Welsh Roswell," the Berwyn Mountain UFO incident of 1974. The Berwyn range is an isolated and sparsely-populated area of moorland located in the northeast of Wales. Basically, on the 23rd of January 1974, it is alleged that a UFO crashed there and that it, complete with dead alien bodies, was secretly recovered by the British military soon thereafter. It was the typical UFO crash scenario or, to put it another way, the Roswell incident all over again, in all but name, date and place. 

  

However, what makes the Berwyn crash particularly interesting, and all the more real, is the immediate reaction of the local residents. To begin with, no one was talking of UFOs and aliens, far from it. People thought that a plane had crashed on the mountain and was chiefly concerned about trying to save the lives of any survivors. The police were called in and set up a search team that was later even joined by an RAF Mountain Rescue Team. Apparently, after a long search, nothing was found. But with such a legitimate reaction, it would seem likely that something equally real must have crashed. 

  

Whatever this was, though, we still don't know. Astronomers believed that it might have been a meteorite landing, but no impact crater was ever found. Adding to the intrigue, in May 2008 the British MOD released a number of its classified UFO files to the public. There had been a lot of speculation that we might, at last, get to the bottom of the Berwyn mystery. But, strangely, no files relating to the Berwyn event were even released. If the whole case can be, as the sceptics suggest, explained away by natural phenomena (the combined misinterpretation of a meteor shower and an earthquake) perhaps we should ask why nothing about the case has been released in the MOD UFO files. 

  

Maybe something was found in the Berwyn Mountains after all. Of course, this wouldn't have to be alien, it could have been some kind of black aircraft or another secret weapon. The remote area would make for an ideal location for Britain or perhaps even its primary ally, the US, to test their secret aircraft.

  

The West Wales flap of 1977 is another major part of Welsh UFO history. Focused upon a strip of rugged coastline within the Pembroke National Park, the series of strange encounters made national headlines at the time, beginning with an exceptionally strange sighting near Broad Haven Primary School on the 4th of February.

  

During their lunch break that day, as many as 15 schoolchildren said they saw a silver cigar-shaped UFO land in the fields behind the school. Fantastically, some of the nine to 11-year-olds even went as far as to claim that they saw a silver man with pointed ears come out of the craft. Of course, people put this down to simple make belief but the children were so adamant they saw something real that they handed in a petition to the police. Further, their head teacher later asked them to draw the UFO and was amazed at how alike their pictures turned out.

  

After this, UFOs soon became the talk of the nation and by May of that year, as well as odd lights, people were also reporting strange sightings of mysterious humanoid figures wearing Nasa-like spacesuits, prowling the remote Welsh countryside late at night. Stranger still, though, is the flotilla of Fortean phenomena that allegedly engulfed the Coombs family at Ripperston Farm. 

  

The family reported repeated close encounters with strange craft and their occupants. For instance, on one occasion they were allegedly pursued along a country lane by a fiery object shaped like a rugby ball. Perhaps their scariest alleged encounter, though, was with a 7ft figure in a spacesuit, who suddenly appeared in their sitting room window late one night. This may well have been the work of a hoaxer. But whatever it was, the family's terror was certainly very real. Many years later, in 1996, the police officer that dealt with the incident went as far as saying that: “that was the most frightened family I have ever been to see.”

  

Interestingly, the Coombs family also made the weird claim that a herd of cows were somehow transported from a locked field into an adjacent farmyard. If this is in any way true, perhaps it could somehow be related to the famous cattle mutilation phenomenon? Exactly how we could only guess, however, some suspect that the US military may be behind many of the cattle mutilations in the American Southwest. Could they or the British military be behind the strange phenomena in Wales? It might explain the NASA-Esque spacesuits.

  

In a recent edition of Room 101, we asked whether the Bermuda Triangle might be a good place for an "alien" base. You can check that out here. This is interesting because the odd happenings at Ripperston Farm were probably best documented in Peter Paget's 1979 book The Welsh Triangle. 

  

Including most of the southeast corner of St Bride’s Bay, along with the towns of Milford Haven and Haverfordwest, Paget believed that aliens had indeed established an underground base in this Welsh equivalent to the Bermuda Triangle. It is certainly true that the area does seem to have been the focus of the 1977 wave. However, perhaps the range of military bases that were nearby (including a top-secret rocket testing station) might offer a more down-to-earth explanation for the UFO activity. 

  

More recently we've been having something of a new UFO flap in Wales and England. First, on the 8th of June, a South Wales Police helicopter was apparently forced to swerve sharply to avoid being hit by what they termed an "unusual aircraft" near RAF St Athan, a military base outside Cardiff. Then, only a matter of weeks later, we learned that a soldier (with three others) had in fact seen several "craft" spinning in the skies above his military barracks near Market Drayton, Shropshire. What's more, the sighting took place only two hours before the helicopter incident. Ultra-careful UFO researcher Nick Pope (who ran the British Government's UFO project at the MOD for three years) was so impressed by the sighting that he went as far as saying: "Now there has to be an official inquiry ... the military tend to make good witnesses ... it's not something an ordinary aircraft or satellite would do." 

  

Since then, UFO sceptics have tried to debunk the sightings as nothing more than wedding party sky lanterns. This, if true, means the British public should be very concerned that both their police and military don't know the difference between nuts and bolts craft and sky lanterns. True, a strong case can be made for the lantern explanation. In both cases, lanterns were realised in the right place at the right time. But, using a bit of common sense, would a sky lantern really move so fast that an experienced police helicopter crew could not capture any images before it vanished out of sight? 

  

Whatever the truth about these key Welsh cases is, perhaps we'll never know. Although I strongly suspect that there is probably some kind of military explanation for many of them, for all I know there could be an 'alien' base somewhere in Wales. It could be argued that dotingly believing in what might be called the "lantern hypothesis" is probably equally as bad as dotingly believing in the Extraterrestrial hypothesis. However, we can be sure of one thing, as we've seen the recent UFO activity in Wales is by no means new and no doubt there will be more to come in the future.

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