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23 AUGUST 1963 – LANGLAND

MYSTERIOUS OBJECT IS SEEN IN SKY OFF LANGLAND LARGE AS DOUBLE DECKER BUS WITH RED-ORANGE GLOW

By an “Evening Post” Reporter

Still wondering whether he could believe his eyes, Swansea bank manager, Mr W. D. Evans, told me today of the mysterious object he saw in the sky off Langland soon after midnight.

As large as a double-decker bus, shaped like a jelly-fish, and emitting a red-orange pulsating glow, it travelled silently from east to west on a steady course between 40 mph and 60 mph at between 2,000 and 3,000 feet, he said.

And, smilingly, he added: “I had not been drinking. It was a fantastic experience. Looking back on it now, I find it very hard to believe it happened. It was extraordinarily eerie.”

So convinced was Mr Evans, an ex-R.A.F. operations control officer, that what he had witnessed for a full minute-and-a-half was unearthly, that he rang Swansea police and gave them a full description.

DISAPPEARED

He called out near neighbour in Beaufort-close, Langland, Mr Desmond King, a production manager, who saw the object for about 15 seconds before it disappeared low down in the direction of Mumbles lighthouse.

Mr Evans’ wife also saw the object, and the police had reports from two taxi drivers who had seen things in the sky. One of them thought it was a flare which had come down at Southend.

Police searched the beach at Southend but found nothing.

R.A.F. air traffic control at Uxbridge were informed but they had had no report of a distress flare.

SOUNDLESS

Said Mr. Evans: “My wife and I were returning home after taking an accident case to hospital. Looking up, towards Langland Bay Golf Club, I saw this thing which I first thought was a very large flare.

“But it passed directly overhead, completely soundless and on a definite track, unaffected by the wind. There was a tremendous glow from the thing.

“It was obviously going to a plan. It was either controlled from the ground or from inside. But who could live in such an inferno?

“The fact that it was so low and such a tremendous spectacle, cuts out any suggestion of a meteor.

LIKE JELLY FISH

“It was the shape of a shuttle-cock or jelly fish, and travelled low, steadily and majestically. It was something sufficiently unusual to be quite frightening.

“I have always been sceptical about flying saucers, but this is something clean outside normal human experience so far as I am concerned.”

Mr King confirmed that the object emitted an orange light, was moving in a straight line at a steady altitude, was silent and travelling from east to west.

FASCINATED

“I had not seen anything like it in my life. I was quite fascinated, but cannot think of any explanation. It was nothing like a meteorite, and I would not have thought it was flare,” he said.

Coastguards on look-out duty at Mumbles saw no object to seaward.

“From reports we have had from police, the object must have come from landward. In our view, it was a rocket of flare by some unauthorised person. There was no distress flare last night,” said a spokesman.

Source: South Wales Evening Post Friday 23 August 1963.

SUFON note: The report says twice that the object was travelling east to west, but this is contrary to the fact that Mr and Mrs Evans first saw it over Langland Bay Golf Club, which is to the west of them. Furthermore Mr King said it disappeared in the direction of Mumbles lighthouse, which is east of his location in Beaufort Close, Langland, in which case it would have been travelling west to east.

Also the coastguard said the object had originated from landward, which again suggests a west to east course.

Therefore it is safe to assume that the Evening Post reporter has had his compass bearings mixed up [Emlyn Williams].