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Exact date in May not known Ambrielle Jones and her partner David had just returned home from shopping to find her daughter and her friend sitting in the back garden. Ambrielle went into the house to fetch some drinks and they sat around chatting in the sunshine. Suddenly a helicopter appeared to rise up above the trees. It was bright yellow - a Sea King Rescue helicopter - David told her later. His memory is slightly different to hers. She remembers it coming towards them and she could see the pilot and co-pilot quite clearly, as they passed overhead. She remembers it being only about two feet [!] above her head, but there was no wind or noise [!]. It was completely silent. It was only later after her daughter and her friend had gone that Ambrielle and David commented on the 'helicopter' and realised that what they had witnessed was completely impossible. They also differed in their memory of it. David thinking that it was going away from them and she saw it coming towards them. When she mentioned it to her daughter later she had no memory of it at all, which Ambrielle found to be very strange. Some years later David decided to regress Ambrielle. During the session, Ambrielle said there were Americans in the kitchen. David asked her to describe them and she could see their dark brown uniforms with a crest which was subsequently identified as special forces. Ambrielle could then see them in a field looking at sheep. She did not know at the time that the Americans were in Wales in connection with UFOs or that there were cattle mutilations in this area. We think that the helicopter seen by the family could very well be a 'screen-memory' projected to make them think what they were seeing was a helicopter. SUFON visited the site in 2018 and were struck by the fact that their garden has many trees and merges into dense woodland over which power lines run. It would be impossible for a helicopter to fly so low over the site. Source: SUFON Files: Ambrielle Jones interviewed by Steve Drewson, Mike Maunder, and Emlyn Williams with Mark Rayworth 21 March 2017. Image of area from Google Earth in 2005 The Garden at PONT-AR-LLECHAU, LLANGADOG, DYFED

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report Author: Dave Hodrien Release Date: 29/07/2025   Note: For reasons of anonymity pseudonyms have been used   Over the years I have investigated hundreds of UFO/UAP sightings. In the vast majority of these cases the object(s) seen remain airborne. In rare cases they are seen to descend to or take off from the ground. However this case is rarer still. In this stunning incident, which took place back in the autumn of 1971, a UFO/UAP was observed on fire. According to the elderly witness, who I shall call “Howard”, this object then fell out of the sky and crashed into the Clwedog Reservoir situated in Powys, Wales.   I was put in touch with Howard by his son, who reached out to me on Facebook Messenger in early 2025. Through numerous phone calls I gained an in depth overview of what took place, the details of which will now be shared. Crash Incident Overview   Back in October 1971 Howard was 28 years old. At the time he lived with his wife and two young children on the North Eastern edge of Hafren Forest, approximately 1 mile away from the village of Staylittle. Aerial map indicating the edge of Hafren Forest (A) and Staylittle (B)  Every Monday to Friday he worked night shifts at a company named BRD in Newtown, situated about 15 miles to the East (The company has since disbanded). In order to get to and from work he would drive his Austin 1100 along the B4518 past the North East edge of Clwedog Reservoir. Aerial map indicating Hafren Forest (A) and Newtown (B): On the evening of Friday 22 nd  October Howard set off for work at the usual time of 9pm. It was a wonderfully clear night, with a particularly bright moon in the sky, and the stars fully visible. It was dry, still and not particularly cold.   About 5 minutes into the journey he was driving along the B4518. For a Friday evening it seemed unusually quiet, and there were no other drivers on the road.   Suddenly there was a loud whoosh sound which came from the air over the grass-covered fields off to the right of the road. At the same moment his car engine stopped and he ground to a halt. Looking to the right from where the sound had come from he was astounded to see a disc-shaped object entirely engulfed in flame.   It was quite close to the road, only about 100 yards away, and at quite low altitude, probably only a couple of hundred feet. Not only were there flames completely covering it, obscuring the exact shape, but also what looked like sparks shooting off it. Aerial map indicating the approximate position where the car stopped: Mock up of the burning UFO on top of photograph of the location based on witness description Howard estimates that the object was between 25-30 feet in diameter. It was travelling on a very slight downward trajectory, and looked like it was in trouble and was going to eventually crash into the ground if it continued on its current course. It was travelling quite fast, in excess of 100mph.   Sitting in the now stopped car, he watched the object for over 30 seconds as it made its way across the fields. Sadly he had no photographic or video camera on him. In the distance ahead was the brow of a hill, beyond which was the main part of the reservoir. Mock up of the UFO as it moved towards the hill: He was convinced that the object, on its gradual decline, would not clear the top of the hill. However as it reached the summit it just about cleared it, and then disappeared out of sight beyond. Howard was intrigued to see where it went, but at present the car engine would not start. He got out and lifted up the bonnet.   The Austin 1100 had a transverse engine setup. In a setup of this type, the number 1 spark plug lead and cap is the spark plug nearest the front of the vehicle. When Howard checked he found that this plug was hanging loose and appeared to have been disconnected. He reconnected it and then tried starting the car again. Luckily it started absolutely fine. Example photograph of an Austin 1100 He continued driving along the B4518 in the direction of the hill. He was hoping to see whether the object he had previously witnessed had crash landed so wanted a good vantage point. There is a small car park at the summit, but he felt this would not give him a clear enough view of the surrounding area. Modern photograph of the entrance to the car park He continued along the road a little more just so he was over the brow of the hill. He then pulled in at the side of the road and got out. Off to his right he now had a clear view of a large part of the Clwedog Reservoir. Modern photograph of Clwedog Reservoir The bright moonlight lit the water up extremely well, he could even see the vegetation on the far bank. There was no sign of any burning object or debris. However half way across the reservoir, over the deepest part of the water, he could make out a domed disc-shaped object which appeared to hovering a short distance above the surface. Mock up of the UFO/UAP over the surface of the water Aerial map indicating the position of the witness (A) and the position of the UFO/UAP (B) It was roughly the same size as the burning object he had previously seen, about 25-30 feet across. From his position he could only make out the upper half. It appeared dark gun metal grey in colour. On the side of the central dome he could make out a row of rectangular-shaped windows. These looked slightly lighter than the main body of the object, but were not glowing. There was a singular red light on the outer rim of the object which did not change in brightness.   As he watched he realised the object was rotating slowly in a clockwise direction. If it wasn’t for the light and rectangular windows this may not have been noticeable. Apart from this slow rotation the object appeared completely motionless.   Howard watched it for approximately 15 minutes. During this time no other vehicles came along the road. Even if they had they may not have noticed the object over the water. After this time, without any warning, the object started to ascend vertically at a slow speed. It continued until it was about twice the height of the hill, approximately 400-500 feet up. It then halted briefly.   He could now see the underside of the object. There was a second dome underneath, slightly larger than the upper dome. But apart from this there were no markings or other lights visible. Mock up of the UFO hovering over the reservoir Aerial map indicating the position of the witness and the path the UFO/UAP headed away on  About 10 seconds later as it reached the dam it greatly increased in velocity and shot away like a bullet to the South West on a straight and level course. It had completely vanished from sight in less than a second!   Howard was absolutely stunned by what he had just witnessed. He knew that both the burning object and the object over the reservoir were completely anomalous, and the second object had clearly been under intelligent control.   He got back into the car and continued his drive to work. Later on he informed a work colleague about the sighting. They did not take the mick, but neither did they didn’t seem particularly interested.   Howard decided not to tell his wife about what he had witnessed due to the fact that they lived remotely on the edge of a forest, and he did not want her to get concerned. However over the weekend he decided to contact the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) via phone and inform them about the incident.   When he drove back into work on Monday evening his work colleague showed him an article in the Shropshire Star newspaper. The article stated that there had been several other sightings of UFOs in the vicinity earlier in the evening on the same day as his sighting! Unfortunately Howard did not keep a copy of this article, nor does he remember the specific details of what was reported. He was just aware that the sightings had taken place within the border of Montgomeryshire (now known as Powys). But he believes they may have been previous sightings of the UFO/UAP he witnessed.   Possible Related MIB Incident   Howard never heard back from BUFORA after sending them the completed chart. In the Spring or Summer of 1976 the incident crossed his mind, and he decided to reach out to them by hand-written letter.   A couple of days went by. By 1976 Howard was no longer working for BRD, and instead had an early morning shift at the local Post Office from 5am till mid-day. When he got back in from his shift he got himself some lunch and then went for a nap around 1pm.   At around 3pm he woke up and happened to look out of the front-facing window. It was now that he noticed two men in dark suits, hats and dark sunglasses approach the front gate. They opened the gate, walked down the path and knocked on the door.   Howard did not like the look of the men and was suspicious regarding what they wanted, so pretended he was out and did not answer the door. He watched as the two men left and walked back out of sight.   Son’s Testimony   Throughout his life Howard has mentioned the incident to his son on numerous occasions. His son provided the following statement regarding these conversations.   "The only thing I remember when growing up as a youngster was with him talking about what he had seen but I also vaguely remember seeing paperwork with drawings on them of the UFO, which I believe he had done himself. I assumed the drawings he had done he still had. But they must have been the forms he had sent off."   Incidents Analysis   What Howard witnessed back in 1971 could well be extremely significant – the possible crash of a UFO/UAP into Clwedog Reservoir. UFO/UAP crash cases are extremely rare but do occur from time to time. Could this really be a crash incident which has up until this point been largely kept from the public’s knowledge? There are many aspects worth considering.   Although at present we only have Howard’s detailed testimony to go on, after talking with him in depth about the incident I have no doubt that it occurred as he described. He answered my questions immediately when asked, and it was clear that the experience left a lasting impression on him, hence why he able to recollect it in such good detail decades on. He freely mentioned passing the details on to BUFORA, and his son also confirmed that he recollects his father talking about what happened.   Regarding the burning object, a mundane explanation we need to look into would be a meteorite. At close proximity a meteorite about to reach the ground would very likely be audible. The air disruption caused by the passing of such an object could potentially dislodge one of the spark plugs inside the bonnet of a nearby vehicle, which could explain what happened to Howard’s car at the time.   However there are numerous details which do not fit with this explanation. Meteorites tend to have a burning tail visible behind them as they travel across the sky. Howard did not see a tail, it was just a disc-shaped object covered in flame emitting sparks.   Also if the object was close enough to cause a shockwave and make an audible sound it would have to have been quite close. Meteorites move extremely fast, and are usually only visible for a few seconds before burning up completely. They also tend to descend at a noticeable angle. The object Howard saw was only descending very gradually, and he observed it for around 30 seconds as it approached the hill, so was moving far too slowly to be a meteorite.   It was the wrong shape for a crashing aeroplane or helicopter, and was moving too quickly to be an airship or other large inflatable on fire. The sighting occurred decades before drones were commercially available. Therefore there is the distinct possibility that this was a genuine advanced craft which was in trouble and about to crash.   When Howard reached the summit of the hill he then saw a disc-shaped object hovering over the reservoir. One question to ask is whether this was the same object or not. Could the object have entered the water temporarily, dousing the flames on it, and then it re-emerged unscathed? As Howard stated, it was approximately the same size and shape as the object he had seen on fire.   However he has a different theory entirely. Howard believes that the initial object was a craft, and that it did come down and crash into the water, sinking to the base of the reservoir. He then thinks that a second craft arrived, potentially in an attempt to rescue the crew and/or technology from the crashed craft. He theorises that the initial craft may have sent out some kind of SOS and that the second one was hovering near to where the first one had sunk.   The object seen over the reservoir was clearly not a normal aircraft of any kind. It hovered for an extensive period of time so could not have been an aeroplane. Nor could it have been a helicopter. It had a different appearance, was slowly rotating (something a helicopter would have no need to do), and did not have normal navigation lights. Although helicopters do have red lights, they also have white static, white strobe and green lights, some of which would have also been visible. Diagram indicating normal helicopter navigation lights The rotation and lighting also put a novelty shaped hot air balloon out of the question. After dark hot air balloon pilots are required legally to hang a white strobe warning light from the basket, which would have been visible.   It was too large to be a remote controlled model, and there would be no reason for someone to fly such a model after dark over the reservoir in the first place.   In addition to this, the sudden increase in speed which the object performed when it left the vicinity put mundane explanations out of the question. We do not possess any military aircraft that can perform such a manoeuvre today, let alone back in the 1970s.   From the witness’s detailed testimony everything points towards this incident being a genuine sighting of either a crash of an advanced craft with a second craft intentionally there to assist, or a singular craft which was on fire and then used the water of the reservoir to put out these flames.   It is unfortunate that Howard did not have a camera with him at the time, as the sighting was quite extensive so he would have had plenty of time to take photographs or video footage. However this is fully understandable as he was just on his regular voyage to work.   It is also unfortunate that he did not retain the article from the newspaper reporting the other sightings in the area. The Wikipedia page for Shropshire Star indicates that it began circulation in 1964:   However when searching for the newspaper on The British Newspaper Archive website the stored articles for the Shropshire Star sadly only go back to 2 nd  January 1986:   I reached out to the website to ask why this might be the case. Below is their official response E-Mail: As you can see they did not provide a response regarding why Shropshire Star articles prior to 1986 were not on their site, but did advise going to the British Library. In searching their catalogue I did manage to find Shropshire Star newspaper:   However after chatting online with support staff I was informed that no digital copies of the paper exist, and in order to attempt to track down an article I would need to visit the newsroom at either St Pancras, London or Boston Spa. I intend to visit one of these newsrooms in the near future and attempt to locate the article. If I am successful in doing so it will be added to this report.   Regarding the potential “Men In Black” visit which took place 5 years later, there are multiple possibilities. It is possible these men were actually investigators from BUFORA and had come round to visit unannounced to discuss the sighting in more detail. He had after all sent off the letter to them a few days before, and this would have had his address on. Another possibility is that they were just smartly dressed civilians, for example salespeople attempting to sell a product, or a religious group who wanted to talk.   Of course, there remains the possibility that they were genuinely Men In Black sent out from a governmental or military body who wanted to ask questions about what happened or warn him off talking about it. They could potentially have intercepted the letter he sent and only discovered he had witnessed it at this time, which may have tipped them off regarding Howard’s involvement and address. If so this would explain why they did not visit him sooner to the incident itself.   We will likely never know for certain because he decided to not answer the door, and the men did not make a return visit to the property. Howard informed me that at the time of these incidents he had no real interest in UFO/UAPs and it was only many years later that he learned about visits from Men In Black and their association with the subject.   I would like to thank Howard for getting in touch and going over what took place. It is good to get this potentially important incident down on official record. I hope to obtain some direct drawings from Howard in due course. If you have information regarding any of the incidents which are discussed in this report please get in touch.   Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025

Part Two BELGIAN UFOLOGY: WHAT FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS ARE TO BE EXPECTED AFTER THE PETIT-RECHAIN FIASCO? SOBEPS IR: Sobeps Investigation Report. VOB1: First SOBEPS report on the 1989 Belgian ufo wave. VOB2: Second SOBEPS report on the 1989 Belgian ufo wave. I. Introduction On July 26, 2011, the news that the famous Petit Rechain picture was a fake made the headlines around the Ufo world and elsewhere. Between 26/07 to 03/08, from India to China, through South America and the United States, the GEIPAN French Survey Program inventoried 86 communications on this topic. Immediately warned by a call on his cellphone, Mr. P. Ferryn, Chairman of COBEPS, then on vacation in France, asked Prof. Meessen to be put in relation with the self designed author of the falsification and issued the following statement the next day: II. "The facked Petit-Rechain picture does not put in question the extraenity hypothesis of the Belgian Ufo wave." From "La Dernière Heure" of July 27, 2011: "President of the Belgian Committee for the Study of Space Phenomena (COBEPS) Patrick Ferryn, considers that the false Ufo picture of Petit-Rechain (Verviers) (...) doesn't suffice to downgrade the whole ufo wave over Belgium of unidentified flying objects sightings that started in November 1989 and lasted several months. This photo was the result of a hoax, his author has now admitted. The President of COBEPS stresses that his confession put an end to a case which had been scrutinized by several specialists including a professor of the Belgian Royal Military Academy. M. Ferryn had himself attempted to demonstrate (...) that this document was a forgery, not an easy task as the picture, taken on a dark background with no front or background, did not allowed any dimension or distance estimation, making thus very difficult to reach any conclusion about its genuineness. On 29 November 1989, fourteen gendarmes of the Eupen region had observed a strange aerial phenomenon in the sky (...) and 150 additional notifications were collected that corroborated their claims. During the following months, other phenomena of the same type were observed in the Liège region, in Brabant, Brussels, in the suburbs of La Louviere. All in all, the whole Southern Country of Belgium seemed to be mainly affected by this unexpected UFO wave." III. Yearly COB statistics Since nearly 40 years, I have been collecting and regularly updating the COB with all UFO notifications (see definition below) which I have been able to collect. Most of them come from the SOBEPS archives, for which I was an active member as a field investigator since July 1972. Without pretending to be complete, this database represents IMO the most detailed and complete complitation I know for Belgian ufo cases. Table I gives cases figures for the 1989-1993 period: Grand Total: 1,282 COB: means "Catalogue des Observations Belges". While being sometimes referred as "Franck Boitte's catalog", I for many reasons disagree to this appellation, the most important being that it's the result of a collective and cumulative effort from the part of the many SOBEPS most of the time obscure investigators who over the years contributed to the elaboration of this always open to revision catalog. COB characteristics The COB starts at the early years of the Ufo lore (1947 and before) and extends to the recent years. Every entry is divided into 5 parts: 1/ Identification line Entry sequential number in the file/location/province/date/local time/"E" if there exist an IR/type of object described (TR, RE, SV, etc.). Page 3 sur 40 2/ Number and identification of witness(es) For reasons of privacy, only their initials - when known - are indicated. Under special circumstances, and only if it helps to discriminate between cases, the full names are punctually communicated to researchers whose past realizations and seriousness are recognized and provided they asked for them. 3/ Weather and sky conditions (when known) 4/ Narrative With more or less details, depending on cases 5/ Additional information Source/credibility/strangeness ratio (on 5)/GEIPAN appreciation (Pan-A,-B,-C,-D)/index number of the 1:10.000 IGN staff map. COB basic rules To be included in the COB, a minimum number of prerequisites are to be met: 1. The case must fall within the Belgian borders. Exceptions exist when the case occurred at sea or very close (10 miles or less) of the borders. 2. Location, date and time must be reasonably known. A few examples of cases that will not find their entry in the COB are: 2.1. when only the year is known, 2.2. when location is absent, erroneously spelled or even doesn't exist. 3. As in classical literature, each input refers to a certain unity of time, action and location. I limited the first parameter to ten minutes and the second to a radius not exceeding 1 mile. In other words, multiple observations relating to the same (or group of) witness(es) separated in time by more than 10 minutes and/or witnesses moving over a mile give rise to distinct COB entries. 4. Some cases which do not specifically refer to the UFO lore (so-called "religious" apparitions, "ghost" hauntings, orbs, crop circles, etc) are included when well documented and possibly related to ufo events occuring in the same period of time and vicity and interesting enough. Here is an input example for a very basic COB entry: sur 40 90- 1/#21Waterloo - Brabant - 12.01.1990 - 07h20 - E 2: Mrs C.B., teacher and Miss V.T., school student. Moon azimuth 290°, elevation 6°. As the witnesses were in the av. d'Argenteuil, they remarked two black well delimited straight lines across the moon surface. SOBEPS IR. CR = 2, ET = 0; LN Pan-B: chemtrail or clouds. 393 Number of notific(ations): I consider to be a notification any communication related to the Ufo subject, whatever its origin, support, nature, credibility, qualification and whether it was investigated or not, etc. Number of witn(esses): In the majority of cases, at least those which were investigated that number is precisely known. In others (newpapers, …) it may be vague ("many", "family X.", "a group of students", etc). Invest(igated): Number of cases for which there exist an Investigation Report (IR, RDE in French). Pan-D: Cases for which no plausible explanation could be found after they had been investigated. This denomination refers to the GEIPAN classification: Pan-A: definitely identified (stars, planes, forgeries, etc.) Pan-B: probably identified. Pan-C: insufficient information (the IR was incomplete; biased or badly lead) Pan-D: no explanation to date. Doc(uments): Number of cases for which there exist a photographic or camcorder "evidence" (there were no cell phones at the time). Which doesn't imply all of them are Pan-D. I can naturally not certify that some occurrences have not escaped my or my partners' attention. Still being a W/P, the COB database is regularly expandind corrected as time goes by. Inversely, some overlappings have been discovered here and there, due to the presence of duplicates. But I think safe to say that the figure of 1,282 for the 89-93 period is accurate, minus or plus one hundred cases. V. Global analysis I don't see any reason to consider that the statistical time daily or wave yearly UFO occurences distributions should comply either to a 24 hours or a 12 months periodicity based on the Roman calendar. I have anyway kept a 12 months distribution for convenience, Page 5 sur 40 even if my own intuitive opinion events sequencing leads me to consider a 28 day lunar calendar to be more appropriate. This has several consequences. As it had been the case for the1987-1988 period, 1989 started with very few incidents with a mere 11 entries for the 01-09 period. SOBEPS had virtually fallen in a state of hibernation at this time. The last IR I had personnally completed dated back to Oct. 18,1981. After Sept. 30, for a reason that still remains unknown, those figures dramatically increased during the next three following months. COB contains 12 notifications in October, 205 in November, 227 in December, making a total of 444 notifications for the last quarter of 1989 to be compared to 320 for the first half-year of 1991. Despite a legend that the media helped to anchor in the public opinion, the wave did not began on November 29, but a month sooner, at a time when SOBEPS had fallen into a kind of limbo for many months if not years, making it inefficient to ring the alarm bell as the number of observations totally unnoticed increased. As an example, on a gathering I had in Brussels with some non ufo buff friends on October 15, one of them called my attention to a recent observation made by his father, a former until then skeptical airline pilot and POW1 I knew well, whose description made its UFO nature indisputable. Then, suddenly, and unexpectedly, in a single day, November 29 totalized ~150 notifications (~34% of 444). See Tables II & III for details. In this sample, the TMA was computed on a fixed 10 days basis moving on by 5 days. Last column in Table II shows that the wave started smoothly around Oct. 10 and reached its peak during the 29/11-09/12 period after which it started to slowly dwindle. As media contamination had not had the time then to induce mass reporting hysteria (bruit de fond), the signal/noise ratio was then still high. Table I shows that after 1990, despite the hype and armchair confabulations of social psychologists, the number of notifications was no more on the increase but rather regularly deflating. In my opinion, this suffices to show that something weird was actually occuring on in the southern part of Belgian sky, and more precisely along its Germany border during the last quarter of 1989. But what ? The datas also clearly show that the (northern) Flemish part Belgium along the same border was spared by that rash of sightings. Again : why? A possible reason, yet not completely satisfying for this lack of Flemish reports, could have been the lack of active investigators in the North half of the country. As we have seen, SOBEPS was dormant at the time while very disappointed with the lack of results of his 40 years extanded studies and utterly demotivated, Bonabot had put his GESAG association in complete hibernation since 1985 before practically disbandying it three years later. Before 1991, nobody had replaced his team in the North half of Belgium. Opposite to the debunkers' dire predictions, the number of notifications decreased inexorably during the second half-year of 1991. In apparent paradox, at the same time, the number of IR increased. Yet, all things considered, this is finally normal: with virtually the same staff of increasingly experienced and motivated field investigators, the number of notifications deemed worthy of reporting was at the same time diminishing in both volume and quality. The evolution in percentages of Pan-D cases confirms this tendency to the reflux of the tide: with the exception of the 01->06.1991 file (59.6%), they all stand below or around the overall 51.5% average, while the 10->12.1989 files (89-2, 89-3) stand far above. This strengthens the idea that independently of the number and enthusiasm of the investigators, an objective real Page 9 sur 40 phenomenon unfolded during the last quarter of 1989, when something weird actually took place, the subsequent data being more or less contaminated by a process of media contagion and growing mass hysteria. About 897 cases, more than two out of three notifications, were investigated and gave birth to an IR. Considering that those results were achieved by a small group of enthusiastic volunteers with limited resources in qualified personal, fundings and analytic facilities, I personally find this to be a remarkable achievment and would again like to cheer up the efforts of these 124 investigators or so whose names have never been mentioned anywhere. I have build a list of their names. Everybody knows how easily statistics can be made to say what you want them to and how their presentation can be misleading. The above figures do not take into account the preselection made by "rule of thumb" and thus without any scientific justification of the notifications that reached SOBEPS headquarters. While about one third came by post or from gendarmerie reports, most (at least in principle) were automatically recorded on 90 minutes audiotapes, nearly 500 of which have been stored. They of course contained many repetitive calls from the same witness(es) who eagerly requested someone would come to assist them and please take their account into consideration. Among those calls, were only considered as "attention worthy" those that met certain unspoken criteria. For example, notices where the caller simply forgot to clearly mention where to call him back, others which seemed too obviously trivial or in the contrary coming from an apparently emotionally distraught person ("contactee"), were almost immediately snickered down and thrown to the waste basket without even getting the status of a signaling form, let alone, or very exceptionally and only by mere luck, investigated. As in so many sociological polls claiming to be scientifically carried on, we catch here, hand in the bag, a sneaky way to systematically biase a sample to its roots by screening it so as not to take into account the in a way or another notifications that are "too way out". Conversely, the contactor (most of the time, a group of witnesses) who was "every day hanging on the phone" asking, as I have seen many examples and could give names, that they be ASAP dispatched a preferably experienced investigator on site, were more likely to be listened to than the shy one who will only call once, even if his narrative often outweighed in interest the precedent notifications that most of the time had mundane explanations: stars, satellites, airplanes, etc. Even then, the analysis of communications coming from too far out places or places where no active investigator was available were simply postponed before, as the ininterrupted flow of reports went on, they finally fell into oblivion. Small communities of enthusiasts - some of which eventually will later on turn over to become investigators - who claimed repeated observations would prove very difficult if not impossible to ignore, and would gradually extend their influence as the wave unfurled, monopolizing the front stage and making already overbooked unpaid investigators lose a considerable amount of time to listen to their generally uninteresting and unsubstantiated stories. This is the dark side, never mentioned by the debunkers or armchair ufologists, of the investigation side of the ufo business and also a trick known by all pollsters who have been using and abusing of this situation for years to manipulate public opinion, mainly in economical, political or religious issues. Page 10 sur 40 VI. As other documents exist, the bogey Petit-Rechain picture is not enough to invalidate the entire Belgian wave. This is the kind of affirmation you see blooming on the net now. Skeptic psychologist JeanMichel Abrassart links this way of reasoning to the "cognitive dissonance syndrome", a concept which was documented by Leon Festinger. As I asked myself if there was any validity to the above (VI) declaration, I came to the conclusion we must concretely consider how this statement factually applies to the Belgian wave. But let us first consider a few side aspects. VII. Reports with "traces" Under "trace", I mean cases including any material or indication that could imply that an unexplained phenomenon corresponding to the rather large UFO spectrum took place. All in all, this corresponds to the (nowadays insufficient and certainly no longer appropriate, but at the same time best known) Prof. J.A. Hynek CE2 category. Three situations are to be considered: ground traces, radar echoes and effects on the witness(es). The question is: "Out of the 1,282 COB entries, how many "traces" are present and what is their possible scientific value, if any?". My intention here is to demonstrate that, aside an historical point of view, the results are rather frustrating. VIIa. Ground traces I only found two cases of claimed landings having left possible ground traces. At closer look, both appear to be of very little value: 90-1 / #279. Stockay St-Georges - Liège - 04.05.1990 - ~ 23:15 - E M. J.D., retired archaeologist and his wife. He had been checking his greenhouse and was about to go home when he heard the barking of nearby dogs. Intrigued, he lifted his head to the sky but didn't notice anything of special interest. Turning back to the ground, he saw in a field, 100 m away from him, a pyramidal or conical illuminated shaped object toppled by what looked like "a bright white mushroom cone" floating about one feet above the ground. Mr. D. approached about 50 m before he was stopped by a wired fence. During the next few minutes, he remained there, contemplating the object whose color suddenly changed from white to orange while its upper part rose. Under it appeared on the object a small evased looking cavity over which the upper part fell back again. Surprised, but not really alarmed, the witness called his wife, who could also observe the landed structure. In her opinion, there were two small antennas on top. The couple then decided to rejoin their nearby home to ask their son G. to come to videotape the scene. But when they came back, there was nothing more to be seen. The next day, M. J.D. went to the meadow where he says he discovered four circular diggings about 1m in diameter in the ground and a thin layer of yellowish powder sprayed on the grass. Strangely behaving for a former archaeologist, he didn't cared to collect any sample or make phictures of them. When the investigator came to interview him a week later, it had been repeatedly raining and every possible material element had disappeared. Observation duration: 5 minutes. Investigators: P.Vidal for EUROUFON and R.Tercafs for SOBEPS. Eurufon News No. 1, September 1990; INF 83, 15-16, INF 85, 32; VOB1, 217 CR=3, SR = 4; CE2. Pan-D 418 Interestingly, G.D's son declared that on April 14, 1990, he had observed at the same place a "gigantic low flying cigar" (COB entry #198). He made artistic representations of what his parents reported, which he completed by hieroglyphs that he calls "cabalistic", "magical" or "aliens". Though still considered "Pan-D", this case becomes impaired as soon as we question its context. Mrs. G. Van Overmeire, at the time Head of SOBEPS Investigation Network, categorized those events in the realm of "ufological-mystical wishful thinking". Now let us consider the only other case which might be labelled a "ground trace": 90-1/ #114 Flémalle - Liège - 06.03.1990 -??h - E A "mysterious trace" was discovered on the estate property of M. L.D. (in another version, of a teacher, Mrs. J.). It consists in "a large 3-4m in diameter rather oval mark where the grass changed to yellow." In an alternate version, the "trace" was made of two circles separate, the first approx. 4m, the second 8m in diameter where the grass was more "dense and dark" than it should "normally" have been. This "observation" (no ufo was actually seen) was simultaneously reported to SOBEPS by the Amay gendarmerie and by M. S.B., a then SOBEPS ® enthusiasitc investigator, who filmed the scenery. The investigation group gathered up two representatives of the local police, long time SOBEPS consultant Mr. Jean-Pierre Auquière, laboratory assistant at the Catholic University of Louvain, Mr. Michel Voue, physicist and Prof. Gillet, from the laboratory of Plant Biology, both appointed to the University of Namur plus some local journalists. On April 23, Prof. Gillet issued a verbatim record: 1 / [I noted] the presence of a few small strains on the ground that follow the main footprint trail in the direction of the prevailing winds the week before the trace was discovered. 2 / A thin trail rather straight to the main trace, in the same direction. 3 / Dry grass from the upper end of the sheet with a chlorophyll deficit. 4 / No notable radioactivity on the Geiger counter. Prof. Gillet concludes "[there is] nothing in all this [that] confirms the existence of a Ufo landing trace" and refers to probable fungal mycelium or the localized contamination by a chemical defoliant. Notes: 1/ An article on UFOs had appeared the previous day in the newspaper "La Lanterne". 2/ Data are imprecise. 3/ Seen the existence of Prof. Gillet's report, I have exceptionally marked "E" for "investigated" in the header of this case, although there is no IR to be found in the SOBEPS archives. 4/ The survey was conducted at very short delay, which is a positive point. 5/ The negative conclusions of Prof. Gillet had the paradoxical consequence that SOBEPS was accused by some ufologists (such as M. S.B.) to be "government appointed in trying to hide the truth away from public knowledge." 6/ No Ufo was claimed to have been observed. CR=4, SR=1;TR Pan-A: mycelium coupled with defoliant soil contamination. 425 VIIb. Radar screen echoes The first radar blip or rather series of radar blips which comes immediately to mind was registered on the 30-31 March 1990 night during an incident that lasted about two hours. Two FAB F-16 planes were scrambled in pursuit of a (at start, a group of) supposed UFO(s) that were said to be simultaneously visually visible from the ground and on radar screens. But it was from different groups of people as they desperately remained during all the chase visually invisible to the F-16 pilots. I will not again return to the heated discussions that incident have aroused. I want only to remind that the main - and might I say, only remaining - proponent of the view that those echoes resulted from the presence of one or more unknown aircraft(s) is Prof. Meessen who has heavily engaged his reputation as a scientist and devoted considerable time and an equally large number of pages on his website and elsewhere to promote his conviction that the radar echoes were due to the presence of a "alien airbone craft" until he, under the repeated attacks of his skeptical opponents, had finally to acknowledge that the whole affair resulted "in all likehood to a clutter of rare atmospheric phenomena aggravated by a poor calibration of the FLIR embarked F-16 radar system (then in full replacement maintenance), coupled by a confusion from the ground witnesses with twinkling planets and stars." This is a short abstract of the facts: 90-1 / #155 Ramillies - Brabant wallon - +30.03.1990 - 22:40 - E 1: Mrs. R. Cloudless sky, ground temperature near 0°, it freezes. No visible moon. Mrs. R, housewife constable, was having a chat at her home in the company of some female friends, when she drew their attention to "funny moving lights in the sky". She called her husband who in turn, relayed the information to his colleagues, and at 23:00, to Glons NATO radar station. Twenty gendarmes on duty to carry out road alcohol checkings patrolling on a territory of about 400 square miles were diverted from their mission to look at the starry sky. They quickly remarked the presence of multicolored pindrop lights "substantially brighter than stars or planets" which were seemingly moving erratically and regularly changing color. According to their statements, including the one of Captain P., of the Wavre Brigade, eight different "triangular" changing shapes were spotted. Observation duration: 2h20" Notes: 1/ There was a temperature inversion over the southern part of Belgium that night. 2 / See Wavre, and Ramillies 900417, 900430. VOB1, 225, 339 CR=4, SR=2; NL Pan-B: probable stars and local temperature inversion. 408 90-1 / #156 Ramillies - Brabant wallon - 31.03.1990 - 01:00 The FAB scrambled two F-16 in order to intercept the supposed UFOs. Ground observers reported tat upon their arrival, seven objects immediately faded out into nothingness. The latter started performing evasive maneuvers that involved sudden horizontal and vertical accelerations with the emission of rapid outbursts of light changing from white to red. Page 15 sur 40 Although no pilot was ever able to visually see any object, both obtained very sharp radar echoes of electronic lock-on whose images were published in Paris Match February 13, 1997 under the signature of French free lance journalist, M-Th. De Brosses. VOB1, 339 CR=4, SR=2; NL Pan-C 408 90-1 / #161 Ramillies - Brabant wallon - 31.03.1990 - 01:05 Report of Flight Captain Yves Meelbergs', one of the two F-16 pilot: "Night scramble, that is to say two fighter jets were sent at less than ten minutes delay to intercept and, if possible, identify an (sic - initially eight were said to have been observed by the gendarmes to begin with) unknown flying object observed by several witnesses on the ground and also detected by several stations and air traffic control radars of the F-16 jet planes. Soon after the take off we (...) spotted [the UFO] very clear on the radar screen specifying its altitude, speed and direction. When we received [echo], it was at 5,000 feet (~1 600 m) and moving at a speed [not exceeding] 50 miles (90 km/h). In aviation terms this amounts to almost hovering (...). During the lock-on radar, target was 48 km (sic) distant. When we set sail on it, it did not initially react. But when I found myself halfway, I saw its speed accelerating to fantastic proportions. The same reaction was verified by the second pilot. Sudden acceleration to Mach 8, 9 or 10 (9,000, 10,000 or 11,000 km / h). Incredible. As the radar is limited to Mach 2 (1,800 km / h)2 , the pilot can only give a relative estimation of the speed increase he sees. It's like the thing had intended: "OK guys, you have had enough now." And these changes of altitude: from 10,000 feet to suddenly 60,000 to 70,000 feet in a split second. A pilot in a technologically advanced aircraft simply would not survive such altitude variations. At that time, we got more radar contact and locks-on but we could find little more information on the tape. I heard later on that the NATO bases in Belgium, Germany and England had been put on red alert that night. (emphasis mine, FBE). Reporter: "What was in your opinion the nature of this UFO?" Pilot : We never found a clear and satisfactory answer. But we can say what it was not: a temperature inversion or a U.S. stealth aircraft. Given the multitude of testimonies from different [ground] sources, the only objective fact is that there was indeed a [material] object in the sky that night (...) Yet, there will always be skeptics! But according to experts, the inversion [hypothesis] must be ruled out. And then just go to the many eyewitnesses to understand that the phenomenon was neither of atmospheric origin nor to be attibruted to simple minded characters... The size of this object [on the radar screen] was really impressive." Reporter: Twenty years after the incident, what is your opinion on this rash of UFO observations? Pilot : I remain open to any possibility and I still meet people who are trying to find a rational explanation. Let's say the subject is somewhat taboo for some people... But I know that most witnesses are reliable people whose story is fairly consistent, a fact quite rare in this kind of observation." 2: Mach conversion into km/h actually depends on various parameters such as the altitude and the hygrometric density of the surrounding atmosphere. Page 16 sur 40 VOB1, 173-188, 225-235; Humo Magazine, Jan Hertogs, 24.9.1996. http://www.mondenouveau.fr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=251&Itemid=7 9 CR=4, SR=3; LN Pan-C 408 Apart from this to say the least unconvinging serie, I discovered five additional less mediatised reports: 89-2 / # 131. Eupen - Liège - 29.11.1989 - 18:30 - E Gendarmerie MDL Chief A.C. Clear and cloudless sky. Sunset at 16:42, moonset at 14:46, HL. On advice of his colleagues Von Montigny and Nicholl, he called Bierset airport. He was told they had no information there, but that an AWACS had been sent for identification purposes. "Subsequently, Bierset called me back to say that they didn't know (sic) [how] to detect any [unidentified] target on their radar and that it had to be moving beneath 1,000 m." (...). Observation duration: 10 minutes. Enq. Patrick Vidal CR=4, SR=2; ND Pan-D 436 90-1 / #137 Zaventem (Brussels) - Brabant - 18.03.1990 - 20:30 Airport ground radar spotted 44 very sharp zigzaging echoes over an area ranging from Brussels to Liege, in the direction of Luxembourg. Since they did not have the transponder signal, they could have been caused by the trajectory of a UFO. Those tracks joined the one of a civilian airplane and interwoven with it. Source: Prof. Meessen's diaries. No IR. VOB2, 407 314 90-1 / #192 Namur - Namur - 12.04.1990 - ~21:29 2: Gendarmerie first sergeant L.L. and a motorist. Followed by a car, he was driving in the direction of Charleroi when he noticed through the car windshield two large bright white lights coming in his direction. He stopped his car and realized what he had first taken for street lighting belonged to a dark triangular object whose size, with outstretched arm, reached 5 cm. It was moving in the direction of Suarlée. The other driver who had stopped too said: "Happily you are there, otherwise I would have thought I had been dreaming." The witness added: "I have seen many AWACS flying over the country and that object was just not that one or any other plane." Observation duration: 2 minutes. Page 17 sur 40 Note: The Chief MDL Marc P. at Floreffe gendarmerie who ensured that evening the survey clearance of Namur states he received many calls from colleagues and civilian witnesses at the same time and warned SOBEPS and Glons, without no known result. VOB1, 190 473 91-2 / #8 Zaventem - Brabant - 26.08.1991 - 21:30 - E 2: M. V., air traffic controller in Zaventem and Mr. X. According to a 21:30 phone call to the ACC, M. V. and another man saw "a luminous mass with red, white and green streaks moving slowly in the direction of Halle (SW)." At 21:39, two small diverging echoes appeared on the ACC radarscope. At 21:52 an swapping from Bertem to that of St Hubert antenna made the blip to disappear deom the screens. Turning back again to the Bertem antenna made the echo become visible again while CRC Glons as well of the BELGA Center had no radar contact. Which led to suppose once more that the target was flying at an altitude of less than 1,000 m. At 220:13 p.m., final disappearance of the echo on all radar screens. Observation duration: 23 minutes. The file was transmitted by the Zaventem ACC on basis of M. S.M's report. Investigated by Fritz Devos and Patrick Vantuyne for Pro Ceeti. Pan-D 315 92 / #4 Moresnet - Liege - 21.01.1992 - 17:50 - E 1: M. G.P.'s wife. From her home, she observed "an immobile strong light mass" at 10-15 elevation. As it started moving, she filmed the object during thirty seconds with a Sony camcorder video 8CCD Handicam System. It had the appearance of two yellowish-white joint round headlights and was drifting at a distance of approximately 700 m and an height of 150 m above the ground. As it continued to grow in size, it changed into three points of light with a smaller center, aimed towards the direction of Montzen before it disappeared behind a hill. Upon immediately calling the 101, Mrs. P. was put in communication with the first MDL H. who checked with the CRC Glons radar. He was told they had had nothing out of the ordinary on their screens. MDL H. relayed back the info to SOBEPS and sent a detailed report. The film only shows a bright moving object without any details. Observation duration: 2 minutes INF84, 4, VOB2, 42-43 CR=2, SR=1; ND Pan-C 431 Page 18 sur 40 This amounts to six cases, none of which is really convincing and comply to Hynek RV definition (in the last there was no radar echo at all). Asked about those reports, the former Director of SEPRA J-J. Velasco diplomatically answered to a question from a viewer in the 20:00 p.m. News of TF1 on November 8, 1990: "SEPRA has no been mandated to investigate UFO cases that fall outside the limits of the French territory," while stating on another occasion: "The French surveillance system is provided by transhorizon radars that overreach the Belgian territory to the German border. I've not been informed that anything unusual was ever registered on its screens during the Belgian Ufo wave". Another limitation is that the conditions for a good radar record and those for a good visual observation are conflicting. Visual reporting is the more detailed with a low flying object while conversely radar can not detect objects flying at low altitude. Additionnally, civilian radars do not detect targets that are not equipped with a transponder and it is furthermore highly difficult for private investigators to obtain records of military origin since they are not conserved for no more than a few weeks. Finally, such cases are only useful when they corrobate other (visual) ones for which there are reliable eyewitnesses. Those recordings can then be compared to check if a recorded radar blip was also visually observed at the same time by the same witnesses and when this is the case, give accurate estimates of its speed and trajectory. In most cases, these data are not accessible to private investigators. In France, all radar data, be them local or issued from of neighboring countries, are collected and processed by the STRIDA (information processing system of air defense) network whose detection range extands to a radius of 450x450 km." Sources: http://scienceetovnis.eklablog.com/des-controleurs-radar-civils-ou-militaires-p61395 http://www.defense.gouv.fr/air/technologies/equipements/radars/radar and: http://benzemas.zeblog.com/394176-detection-radar-des-ovnis-les-cas-radar-optique-ro/ # ixzz1YbMJujGb As practically all observations occurred below radar coverage, one may wonder how ubiquitously those "ufos" knew about radar technical limitations? VIIc. Effects on the witnesses Another surprising feature of this wave in regard of the high number of close encounters is the almost complete lack of effects on humans, animals and machinery: • Cases where car motor engine went dead: none. • Cases where witnesses suffered from skin irritation, burns, conjunctivitis, blood poisoning, vomiting: none. • Cases where the witness says to have been paralysed: none. • Cases where the witness says to have experienced anxiety, insomnia, depression: 3 occurrences, without direct correlation with the circumstancial evidence. In one of them, MW was already in bad shape before his observation. • Cases with electrical blackouts or domestic disturbances of TV reception: 3. Finally, I will mention two bordeline cases of "personality disorders", one of them I was sent to investigate: Page 19 sur 40 90-1#66 Ferrières - Liège - 06.02.1990 - 00:05 - E 1: Miss M-C.D., hairdresser, 22 years old at the time. She phoned SOBEPS telling she wanted to speak to its president, M. Bougard,who happened to be there. She explained him what had occurred the evening before. On Bougard's request, she was sent a questionnaire that she returned back completed to SOBEPS. In it, she mentioned two additional witnesses, one of them a municipal local officer. When I went to her place, my efforts to meet Miss D. proved fruitless. Here is what seems to have happened from an interview I finally managed to get from her aunt: M.-C. was lying on her bed in the house located behind the village church which she inherited from her adoptive parents. Around midnight, she heard a noise that sounded like a car motor in the street. She feared its origin could be caused by the unwanted visit of a former lover with who she had gone into sentimental trouble. At the same time, through the curtains, a bright white beam of light coming down from the front wall facing the church illuminated the room. There was a bright spot of blinking light like a car headlight coming from behind the nearby steeple of the church. At the same time, rectangular green fluorescent lights geometrically patterned appeared on the floor. When she walked over one of them, it immediately switched off to reappear at another place. Increasingly concerned, the young girl looked up and saw that the main light now seemed to be hardly at 20 m from away from her. Losing all control, she hurriedly ran out of the house without even caring to cover herself and ran to seek refuge to her aunt living not far away. After I had criss crossed her relative for several hours, Miss D. eventually phoned her and after many delaying hesitations, she accepted to have a brief phone conversation with me. The only information I could get from her was, "You 'd rather ask M. Bougard as I already told him everything." What concerns the other two witnesses announced, I managed to meet the municipal secretary who said he had not seen or heard anything of an Ufo nature while the other, only known by her first name, could not be located. Enq. F. Boitte #73 of 04.08.90 INF84, 26 CR=1,SR=4 Pan-A: Ufo phobia 496 To my knowledge, the second case was never investigated and still less archived: Charleroi(?) - Hainaut - end 12? .1989 - evening 3?: Family X. As they were sitting for supper, their attention was drawn to a blinking light outside. The son, a youth of twenty years, rose to try to check what it was. As soon he opened the door, he instantly fell lifeless on the ground while the light disappeared. During the next half hour, he drifted in a delirious cataleptic state during which he pronounced garbled indistinct words. Called to the rescue, the family doctor could only prescribe sedatives to calm him down. This case was transmitted for evaluation to the SOBEPS Investigation Network Manager. With the parents' agreement, he went in search of a hypnotist who would get into a more detailed account on what happened. After having found noone willing to fulfill this role, he finally gave off. Page 20 sur 40 VIII. Picture evidence Let us now consider among the 1,282 notifications thoses where the presence of document(s) such as pictures, videotapes was signaled and try to assess their quality. I found 78 cases, a mere 6% out of the total which are summed up in Table IV:  1e col: sequential entry number 2e col: sequential entry number in the corresponding yearly file ... 5e col: MW: Main witness initials 6e col: m=male: f=female … 8e col: province initials: Bt=Brabant; Ht=Hainaut; Lg=Liège; Lu=Luxembourg; Na=Namur. Belgium is divided into 9 provinces. All the above five provinces are situated in the (French speaking) south half of Belgium. 9e col: P= picture; C = film. 10e col: observation duration (minutes) 11e col: film duration (seconds) 12e col: evaluation according GEIPAN classification 13e col: kind and amount of flaws: 1: probable (or sure) satellite 2: planet (Venus, Jupiter, …) or stars 3: probable (or sure) airplane 4: electric perturbations, fireworks, public lighting, reflections 5: unexploitable document: blurred, fuzzy, camera shifting, lens deflects, unexposed film, too distant target, ... 6: unreliable source, not credible witness(es) 7: no IR 8: MW is a repeater 9: no known analytic result for the document, unknown or unreferenced document, document was never transmitted or get lost 10: forgery The detailed anglo-american translation of those 78 cases in COB format is too voluminous (a 30p. A4 formatted file) to be included here. I can be eventually obtained against a fee from the lady who kindly accepted to translate it by a direct asking to my email address. WN: Total number of witnesses. A"?" means that number was estimated ("many","several", …). Average WN/ Photographic cases: 196/78=2.51% Sources SOBEPS IR: Investigation Report Eurufon: dissident team founded by P. Vidal LOR: R. Lorthioir, an independent, unreliable investigator NUFOC: Flemish (skeptical) Ufo team UEC: ? Miscellaneous: In some cases, witnesses were also ufo investigators: MM. S. Box, P. Ferryn, J. Mesnard, D. Moinil, S. Surpierre, P. Vidal. In the 30 entries (38.5% of the total) marked ®, witnesses (some of them at the same time investigators) who reported to have observed ufos at various locations/dates are to be considered as repeaters. X. A note about the so-called "Henrardi" picture Before going further on, I must briefly say some words about the "Henrardi" picture. Notwithstanding the rules expressed above (no place and date known), the insistence of a reviewer of this communication convinced me to make it a COB entry formatted as follows: 90-1/ #314.? -? - 19? .06.1990 -?pm Mr. J.S. Henrardi Unknown at SOBEPS, this "witness" claims to have realized two pictures whose existence was revealed in 2003 representing "a flying triangle with cut edges "similar" to the PetitRechain one". Issue #111 of Inforespace, p.21 revealed the first mention of the existence of these two pictures appeared on 21 December 2005, on the site: http://www.iwasabducted.com in the pages entitled "Triangle UFO flap in Belgium" and was later on relayed at: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_d% 27Henrardi P. Ferryn in the INF #111 article wrote: "Two photographs resembling strongly to the Petit-Rechain picture have appeared on an U.S. web site without any reference, analysis or explanation. The real date and time when they were taken is alternatively announced as November 29, 1989 or June 19, 1990. When I inquired to him, P. Ferryn present COBEPS President answered me on August 8, 2012: "We know nothing about this case. Our association as well as former SOBEPS has never been informed of it. This copycat facsimile of the Petit Rechain photograph has been exhibited on the net [in the USA] for ages. The many requests for information I made to the site webmaster and various other U.S. sites on which it appeared have remained unanswered to date. No one has ever been able to give me the coordinates of this "Henrardi", or even to reply me. Needless to say he is totally unknown in the Belgian archives. This image reappears periodically here and there without any aditional info. That's all I can say about it". More recently, the first photo was reproduced again in a the picture section of a book entitled "Le Feu des Magiciens" (Jerôme Huck, http://laboratoire.vulcain.pagerperson-orange.fr ). For 7 (#14,21,22,34,46,51,62) out of the 78 notifications, no evaluation can be given, as they have not been investigated at all. Among the 71 remaining notifications, there is only one (#54 in the above table) with 0 flaw is fit to replace the ominous PR (#54) slide. It is the Moignelée-Sambreville (Namur), whose date is uncertain, but for which a bona fide IR exists. The Moignelée-Sambreville pictures are reproduced in the picture section of VOB1 (ill. 7-16bis. a-d). While being still considered a Pan-D, that notification could in my opinion be possibly downgraded to a meteorological balloon launching. There is no way to test that hypothesis as the investigators (Grede-Moinil) didn't check that issue when it was feasible; additionally the IR gives no indication on the speed and direction of the wind. 34 (#1,2,3,4,6,7,9,10,12,16,18,19,23,24,25,26,27,35,40,41,42,43,50,53,55,56,57,59,64,66,72,74,75,78) present only 1 flaw and as such could be considered as would be candidates for further scientific evaluation. Out of them, 15 can still be considered as probable Pan-D, the combination of the two criteria (1 flaw and Pan-D) making them the most valuable: 1,2,6,9,12,16,18,23,50,53,55,59,74,75,78 Page 32 sur 40 A closer look on those 15 Pan-D cases that present only one flaw leads to the following observations: Even if those reports don't make me very optimistic, only those two categories summing up 15 notifications could be of possible scientific interest in order to comfort an outlandish origin of the 1989-1993 Belgian unidentified objects. Only a prolonged, painstaking and minute re-examination of those cases and the eventual localisation of the 7 claimed photographic evidence documents flawed #9 could save a reasonable "alien" hypothesis picture evidence for the 1989-1993 VOB. This only represents a mere 0.5% out of a total amount of (see Table 1) 1,282 notifications. 3. Probable or certain aircraft: 7 cases, 7.4% 7. No IR: idem. 4. Electrical disturbances, rocket fireworks, lighting, reflections: 4 cases, 4.2% 1. Satellite likely or certain: 1, 1% 10. Deception (Petit Rechain): 1, 1% In once case out of 4, the witness obviously did not knew how to make a profitable use of the habitually sophisticated equipment he held in his hands. In other circumstances, the material proved inadequate. Using a flash to photograph an object more than 20 m distant is simply ridiculous, but most of witnesses simply ignore it as this bia comes again and again like a litany. We are finally left with one single exploitable case : 90-1 / # 25 Moignelée-Sambreville - Namur - between 13 and 17/8/1990 - ~ 22.30 - E 3: M. David T., 15 ½ years, his grandfather, a neighbor, M. Marcel T. Pleasant evening, clear skies, no wind. While chatting with a neighbor on the terrace of his grandparents' home, David noticed towards the E a distant yellowish-white form. It was not standing still, but animated by a whirling counterclock motion. He immediately called his grandfather who went in search for a camera. When he came back with it, the phenomenon had faded away by extinction, before it reappeared further to the left. It emitted four flashes, each one separated by 4 seconds from the previous one. After that, the phenomenon faded away a second time, then a third time before moving on again to the left. It finally completely disappeared. Observation duration: ~ 4 minutes Inv. G. Grède and D. Moinil. VOB1, 412-413 CR=3, SR=3; ND Pan-D 476 VIII. My comments on the Moignelée-Sambreville case Investigators believe the three witnesses to be sincere and credible. Unlike the Petit Rechain picture, there is a foreground to be seen on the phictures. The clear horizontal streak seen on shots #1 and 2 is a rope used to play badminton. Its height compared to the building in the background on shot #1 shows that the photographer was very close of it. On shot #2, the photographer has slighlty moved forward. Also note in the lower left corner the presence of branches, weed or shrub. Mr. Moinil is a professional photographer. Following VOB1,412 "having carefully examinedd the original negatives and engaged various recovery tests on site [he believes] that the pictures cannot be those of a short distance small object [model]" for the following reasons: 1 / Foreground (the greenhouse less than 10 m away from the witness, the horizontal wire fence) is blurred, which means that the camera was set on infinity and therefore the object was necessarily at greater distance than 20 m. 2 / The flash was set to 1/30th of a second, causing a replication of certain details. 3 / The sideways illumination of the spheres (see shot #4) cannot have been caused by the flash, as would have been the case with a nearby object. Even if, seen the circumstances, the falsification seems to me excluded, I (FBE) find regrettable that the date is not known more precisely, the absence of azimuth ("in the direction of E") and the absence of any information on the possible presence and what the illuminated portion of the moon was. The, possibly due to a feeble wind, rotation hypothesis seems compatible with the hovering of a weather balloon. I do not know if investigators have questioned that possibility. As it is not explicitly stated that the phenomenon was silent, the assumption of a possible plane seems equally feasible. Apart from these reductive three possibilities, I do not see any others. Page 36 sur 40 Despite these very light restrictions, the Moignelée-Sambreville pictures become now what I consider as the only available candidates capable of replacing the Petit Rechain. VOB1 ends with: "(...) we are foreseeing additional research (…) to substantiate these preliminary findings" (413). Has this analysis been carried on since then? Permit me to doubt it. XI. How the 89-93 Belgian Ufo wave began The wave reached its peak on November 29th 1989. But, as I explained and as Table III demonstrates, it had started unnoticed a good month before. When on Tuesday 30, I heard on the TV News release about the von Montigny-Nicholl gendarmes repeated observations on the previous day, my first reaction was that it was a hidden camera gag for a new de Funès style "Les Gendarmes de Saint Tropez" remake. SOBEPS Chief Investigator J.L.Vertongen phoned me the following day, telling me SOBEPS was drowning under a pile of notifications awaiting to be investigated and asking me if I 'd be willing to participate? When yes, a gathering was to be held on the GB Eupen Supermaket parking lot around twelve a.m. on December 3rd Sunday. That's when the above picture was taken and I'm very proud of it. The seven people there were what was left of the SOBEPS Investigation Team at the time. Let's rather say six, as the lady's - who later on was to become my second wife - experience in investigating ufos was zero. It was the Grenz Echo reporter who took the picture who asked her to stand on it. Seen the criticizing and humbug that would follow those early investigations, it is enlightening to note who was there, and who was not. Except J.L. Vertongen and me, most of the other people there had no or little UFO investigation experience. For example, MM. Bougard and Clerebaut were respectively SOBEPS President and General Secretary. Their main ocupation dealt with public relations and administrative tasks and didn't dealt with field investigations. XII. Overall conclusion It comes as a surprise that among these 1,282 COB entries, out of which, without having counted them, I estimate ~10% were Close Encounters less than 100 m away from MW, we are unable to find one single photographic document or more widely speaking "trace" clearly indicating the presence of an unconventional object. The whole by SOBEPS collected "evidence" - including a photo taken by P. Ferryn with two other SOBEPS members at Ramillies on April 1, 1990 - are of distant objects. They are blurred, indistinct, ambiguous, lending themselves to every possible interpretation and/or misidentification. The Ramillies picture only shows nearly invisible teeny dots where, are we to believe the witnesses' description, the silhouette of a huge silent low flying platform had been expected to appear. In order to this discrepancy, SOBEPS analyst Pr. Meessen has proposed an explanation involving a sophisticated physical mechanism which unfolds as below : "realizing" (how?) it was being filmed, the UFO emitted (why?) infrared radiation beams that destroyed the silver grains impression on film by what is called the "Herschel effect". But it also has been advocated that, even if actually present, that effect would have been far too weak to blurr or erase the photograph and the picture represents nothing else but the one of a regular or possibly experimental (Ferryn's opinion) airplane on his way to land on the 18 km distant Beauvehain or further distant Zaventem airport. In an email dated October 30, 2012 he adressed me, Mr. Ferryn wrote: "Beauvechain airport was at the time not properly equipped to support Boeing 747 landings. Please note I never boasted the picture I took illustrated an "extraterrestrial platform". I actually still wonder what kind of earthly or unearthly aircraft I photographed." The almost noiseless hovering could have resulted in this plane had cut its engines to spare fuel, and it actually was moving much higher than estimated by the witnesses. Additionnally, it was only recently revealed that if one draw a straight line between the azimuth where the UFO appeared to the witnesses's position, it directly leads to Beauvechain Airport. Neither Bierset, Beauvechain or Zaventem were not consulted on the possible presence of a landing airplane at the time of the facts. Here is the map I finally managed to design after much positioning-orientation difficulties for this observation. As usual with important cases, no IR was written and archived. I stress again that the SOBEPS reporting procedure foresaw every report to be accompagnied by a map of Belgium indicating witnesses' situations and ufo trajectory. A recommendation as a matter of fact seldom fulfilled. More generally speaking, Ferryn wrote me on October 1, 2011: "The Petit Rechain photograph was the only one of the whole Belgian wave - and even of the whole Belgian ufology - which reveals the famous"mass carrier" lights so frequently described in both SOBEPS books." This lack of documents is very frustrating to anyone willing to tackle the problem from a really scientific point of view, and match the eminently disillusioned remark of the then director of GEPAN, M. C. Poher: "Of all the UFO pictures I examinated which have not proven to be deliberate fakes, I've never seen a mere single one where an unidentified object appears with a sharp and close definition. " He made this declaration during a casual break conversation with participants of the Second International Workshop on UFOs organized, like the previous year, with the participation of many European ufologists such as the late P. Guerin by journalist J.C. Bourret and the Grenoble municipality support, on June 16-17, 1976. What finally is left of the 89-93 Belgian Ufo wave? The residue is a rather impressive body of anecdotal, often strange and thrilling incidents that in my opinion only "prove" that definitely "something strange" happened in the eastern part of Belgium along the German border during this period and especially between October and December 1989. After that, the events became overmediatized, leading to an almost hysterical climate of "UFO hunting" in a guillible and easy to confuse public. As Dolan's second Ufo book clearly documents, it's striking to realize that at the same time, the rotting Soviet Empire had its share of equally unexplained sightings, as if the two continents which had been for more than fourty years engaged in a cold war that on a few occasions theatened to turn into a very heated confrontation, had during that whole period been under the close scrunity of a Fleming's kind of SPECTRE behind the scenes organization. Page 39 sur 40 Acknowledgments After a first French version of this article appeared in the autumn 2011 # 68 issue of UfoMania, I was fortunate enough this publication aroused the interest of Vicente Juan Ballester Olmos, Fotocat Webmaster (see : http://fotocat.blogspot.com ) who persistingly asked me minute details on photographic cases. During a six month period of sometimes painstaking exchanges, his welcomed insisting interventions helped to correct some discrepancies as well to improve the text both in number of cases and precision. Thank you Vicente for all your work and dedication. I also cheerfully want to thank Dr. Jean-Pierre Rospars who spent many hours of his scarce spare time to revise a first version of this paper and to improve my sometimes wobbly and approximate american-english into a more readable and consistent form. It was an honour and a pleasure Jean-Pierre to be helped by someone like you. Thank you to you too, Chris, to have accepted this publication for the Canadian Ufo Survey. Only by a wide international info exchange can we hope to make some progress in the understanding of this so elusive and exciting subject. Further reading F. Boitte, "Analyse des Rapports d'Enquête de la période 89-91 (1ère partie)" Inforespace 84, août 1992. F. Boitte, "Analyse des Rapports d'Enquête de la période 89-91 (2ème partie)" Inforespace 85, décembre 1992. R. Perry Collins, "The wave of "wing" reports: more on the "boomerang ": "as large as two football fields": March of 1983 to Nov. 1985 eastern United States triangle shaped reports. Flying Saucer Review vol.31-3, 1986. R. Dolan "UFOs & the National Security State: The Cover-up exposed, 1973-1991", Keyhole, 2009. Lorne Goldfader, "Ufo Report for Canada, 1990-1992": reports on Canadian triangle and wing shaped objects observations, Flying Saucer Review vol.38-4, 1993. Chris Rutkowski, "The Canadian wave: an analysis", International UFO Reporter, vol.15-4, Juil-Aug. 1990: analytical reporting on 1989 137 Canadian cases. Chris Rutkowski, "The 1991 Canadian Ufo Survey", Uforic: analytical reporting on 194 1990 & 165 1991 Canadian cases. J. Vallée & M. Costello "Ufo Chronicles of the Soviet Union: A Cosmic Samizdat", Ballantine Books, March 1992: Vallée's on the spot investigation on the (in)famous October 1989 Vorojnev landings. Franck Boitte november 2012

Part One By Sobeps/Cobeps SOBEPS (an acronym for Société belge d'étude des phénomènes spatiaux , "Belgian society for the study of space phenomena") was a UFO investigation group, famed for its investigation of the black triangle incidents in Belgium, known as the Belgian Wave , in 1989 and 1990. The Belgian Wave and the photos of Ramillies By Auguste Meessen Abstract. We restore the truth, since two UFO-skeptics distorted basic data concerning the beginning of the Belgian wave in 1989 and the observations made at Ramillies, in 1990. We also provide more detailed information about these observations and the associated photos. Their analysis confirms that the visually observed lights left no trace, while other lights were documented. We explain these facts by means of the Herschel effect, with intervention of infrared and ultraviolet light. Results of complementary photographic tests are also reported. Introduction Jean-Michel Abrassart claimed1 that the “psychosocial hypothesis” is sufficient to account for the beginning of the Belgian wave on November 29, 1989. Actually, he assumed that a single misperception led to a contagion process, nourished by mass excitement and other false observations. He believes, indeed, that the whole UFO phenomenon results only from human errors. Roger Paquay tried 2 to discredit a particular UFO observation, made at Ramillies during the night of March 31 to April 1, 1990. Although one of the three witnesses took very remarkable photos, Mr. Paquay claimed that the passage of a Boeing 747 would be sufficient to explain these observations and the photos. Moreover, he tried to discredit the observers and investigators by stating that “in the excitement of the moment, (they) immediately adopted an ETH interpretation and neglected important data.” Is this true or not? This question is relevant for a much larger debate, concerning the reality of UFOs. They can have various forms, but constitute a distinct class of flying objects, characterized by outstanding performances and a specific behavior. Their origin is unknown and they produce phenomena that we do not understand. However, the central difficulty is that UFOs display a very advanced technology, suggesting an ET origin. This raises complex problems that some persons try to solve by simply negating the reality of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is attested by a great amount of converging evidence, derived from observations that were made on a worldwide scale and throughout history. Is this fact of fiction? The first authorized answer came from the Headquarters of the American Air Material Command. In September 1947, it issued an evaluation3 that was based on observations made by pilots and competent ground personnel. These reports were analyzed by Intelligence officers and engineers of the Air Institute of Technology as well as various Research and Development establishments. The primary conclusion was that “the phenomenon reported is some- 1 Abrassart, J.M. (2010): The beginning of the Belgian UFO wave, SUNlite, vol. 2, 6 pp.21-23, http://home.comcast.net/~tprinty/UFO/SUNlite2_6.pdf 2 Paquay, R. (2010): The March 31, 1990 Ramillies UFO observation, ibida, pp.24-26. 3 Twining, N.F. (Sept. 23, 1947): AMC Opinion Concerning “Flying Discs”. Letter to the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces, for instance in D.M. Jacobs: The UFO Controversy in America, 1975. 2 thing real and not visionary or fictitious”. General Twining said nothing about the possible origin of these “Flying Discs”, but recommended to the Commanding General of Army Air Forces to “issue a directive assigning a priority, security classification and code name for a detailed study of this matter”. A Russian origin was not excluded, but this confirms only that the material reality of these objects was not questioned anymore. After the Manhattan Project and during the arms race of the Cold War era, the study of very advanced technologies was a matter of National Security and subjected to strict secrecy. However, other reports, like those of Ruppelt (1956) and Hynek (1977), emphasized the need of independent scientific studies. This is still true today, but some authorities are now afraid of telling the scientific community and the whole world that the UFO phenomenon became a classified matter for Secret Services. The resulting strategy of concealment and debunking is more and more counterproductive, since world politics is also a matter of credibility. Moreover, the UFO phenomenon raises questions that could be very important for science and the future of mankind, as exemplified by the energy problem we are facing. UFOs seem to have solved it. The cover-up causes at least confusion, since uncritical persons think that anything could happen, while so-called “skeptics” ardently defend their belief that real UFOs cannot exist. Instead of promoting an objective and rational study of observed facts, they distort them. The articles of J.M. Abrassart and R. Paquay provide instructive examples of this attitude. Mr. Abrassart claims that I got interested in the UFO phenomenon, since my son asked me “if it was possible to explain it”. No, he was then 13 years old and asked me only whether “flying saucers” are real or not. I told him that I didn’t know, but that I would try to answer his question. When I studied the data, I realized that numerous and apparently very trustable persons had seen flying objects that display very unusual properties and consistently produce very peculiar physical effects. The most obvious characteristic property of UFOs is that they are able to fly without wings, propellers and visible motors. Nevertheless, they can remain stationary and move with tremendous accelerations in complete or nearly complete silence, but the surrounding air can be luminous. Some witnesses reported even that the intensity and color of this light changed during sudden accelerations. I concluded4 therefore that the propulsion system of these objects could involve plasma effects. As physicist and University professor, I thought that his raises interesting problems and that they should be studied. J.M. Abrassart and R. Paquay pretend that I am a priori in favor of the ET hypothesis, but it can easily be verified that I examined all conceivable possibilities4 . Some persons advocated already the “psychosocial hypothesis”. It requires that all UFO observations result from misperceptions or hallucinations, which is unrealistic when one considers the ensemble of known facts. Thus, I rejected this hypothesis. A terrestrial origin of these mysterious objects is excluded for the same reason. The “paranormal hypothesis”, generalized to include also parallel worlds and other purely speculative statements, is unverifiable and therefore useless. The “ET hypothesis” requires that technically very advanced civilizations could have emerged elsewhere in our Universe. This is plausible, since physical laws and possible types of matter are the same everywhere in our Universe. Biochemical processes and neurological evolution 4 Meessen, A. (1973): Réflexions sur la propulsion des ovnis, Inforespace, 8, pp. 31-34 ; http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/ReflexionPropulsion.pdf 3 should thus also be very similar5 , but stars and planetary systems did not appear simultaneously, everywhere. The possible existence of much older and more advanced civilizations than our own is thus a logical consequence of present-day knowledge. Could they have discovered how to manage interstellar space travel with the easiness suggested by the frequency of UFO observations? That is the key question. We are unable to answer it by reasoning alone, since we don’t even know what we ignore! However, we can observe, analyze and try to understand what happens in the terrestrial atmosphere, to find out if the UFO phenomenon could be a cautious, but perceptible demonstration of their presence. They are not in a hurry and it would be rather wise, to avoid direct contact until our society is ready to accept it. This possibility deserves to be considered, but I insist that for me, it is only important that the ET hypothesis allows for rational scientific studies. It is a “working hypothesis” and nothing more, but this means also that we have to prove or to disprove it. Some persons think that we would be unable to understand the science and technology of very advanced ET civilizations. They would know much more than we do, of course, but their technology would also have to involve known physical laws. We can thus try to understand at least a part of the UFO phenomena in terms of our present knowledge, eventually applied in innovative ways. In this regard, the basic problem would be the same if UFOs were products of some secret, but very advanced terrestrial technology. The attitude of so-called “skeptics”, claiming that UFOs cannot exist, simply obstructs clarification, but purely speculative statements are also inadequate. My first intervention in this field consisted thus in rejecting propulsion theories that did not agree with basic physical principles. It is not acceptable, for instance, to postulate the existence of some kind of anti-gravity force that would allow an object to act on itself. I had already learned enough about observed facts, however, to realize that they cannot be discarded because of inadequate explanations. The search had to go on. Actually, the fundamental question was and still is for me: are the propulsion systems that we are using today the only possible ones? Aviation resulted from observing and thinking about bird flight. Now, we can do the same for UFOs. Combining observed facts with known physical laws, I progressively developed a model of Pulsed EM Propulsion6 . It uses normal concepts7 and remains a tool for further investigations. Since J.M. Abrassart and R. Paquay tried to impute me another motivation and defended their conceptions in a rather antagonistic way, we have to examine their arguments. The beginning of the Belgian wave J.M. Abrassart pretended1 that when this wave began in 1989, I “took it, a priori, as a unique opportunity to have, at last, conclusive proof that the origin of the phenomenon is well and truly extraterrestrial”. No, I had to convince myself of the reality of the alleged facts, by inter- 5 de Duve, C. (1994) : Vital Dust, Life as a cosmic imperative, Basic Books. 6 Meessen, A. (1985, 1986) : Des signes de civilisations extraterrestres ? Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 156, pp.443-481 ; 157, pp. 149-178 ; (2009) : http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/RQSc.pdf 7 Meessen, A. (1988) : Analysis of physical aspects of the UFO problem, First European Congress on Anomalous Phenomena, SOBEPS, pp. 128-150. 4 rogating trustable witnesses. Progressively, I arrived at a more global picture of this unusual wave. Its sudden and very massive start, combined with the fact that so many witnesses consistently described a new type of UFOs, imposed the conclusion that so many persons could not simply have invented what they told us. Their own perplexity proved also that their observations were genuine. Moreover, these objects had common characteristics. Thus, I wrote: “the sociopsychological hypothesis has to be definitely abandoned”. J.M. Abrassart refuses to accept the evidence, since he is radically opposed to the ET hypothesis, without explaining why. He is free to believe what he wants, of course, but not to claim that all UFO witnesses have “fantasy-prone personalities”. This term allows, by definition, for misperceptions, uncontrolled imagination and distorted or false memories, but this does not prove that it applies to all witnesses of UFO phenomena. They belong, indeed, to the general population and have social responsibilities in various professions. To assert that they are so suggestible and influenced by hearsay and media reports that this could lead to an accumulation of erroneous UFO observations, in particular for the Belgian wave, is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof. Mr. Abrassart knows that his dogma is severely challenged by the Belgian wave, since it began on November 29, 1989 with 143 reported observations for this evening and early night. Thus, he tries to minimize the impact of this fact, by claiming for instance that these 143 observations are worthless, since they were not collected “on the same day, but later on”. This is irrelevant, since it would be equally absurd to require that all or at least most of the witness accounts for a given criminal affair have to be collected the day the events occurred. Moreover, many other observations were made and investigated during the Belgian wave, but he claims that even the ensemble of all these UFO observations resulted from misperceptions or hallucinations. He assumes that this is possible because of psychosocial contagion. The validity of this “hypothesis” can be checked by applying the usual scientific procedure. It requires that we draw logical consequences of the proposed hypothesis and compare them with actually observed facts. I explained already (on June 27, 2009) how this can be done to the members of EuroUfoNet, including Mr. Abrassart, but he continues to spread his former ideas as if nothing ever happened. Thus, I recall the core of my argument. The psychosocial hypothesis implies that the total number N of reported observations should vary in the course of time in such a way that dN/dt = aN(1–bN). This means that on the average, every reported observation has a certain chance a to generate other observations, but the increase of N is only proportional to N as long as N is small compared to N1 = 1/b. This relation necessarily leads to an initial exponential increase. It starts with N = 1, since the contagion process had to be initiated by one event, assumed to be erroneous. However, when N increases, the media and the public get more critical or simply tired. The rate of increase diminishes and finally, vanishes when N tends towards N1. This equation applies to a limited region, like Belgium, where a progressive spatial diffusion of rumors does not have to be considered. The resulting equation has a nice mathematical solution, but it is sufficient to consid- 8 Meessen, A. (1991) : Les observations décisives du 29 novembre 1989, Vague d’OVNI sur la Belgique (VOB1), SOBEPS, pp. 11-49. 5 er a typical curve (figure 1). It corresponds to a = 0.04 per day and N1 = 400. The initial exponential increase would be faster for a greater value of a, but the inflection point will always be situated at the level N1/2. Any other number N1 would preserve the shape of the curve for a given value of the contagion probability a. To end up with 400 purely fictitious reports would already be highly extraordinary, unless we are ready to believe that a lunatic asylum is a good model for the general population. However, the essential point is that the shape of the predicted curve cannot be adapted to the actual evolution of reported observations. It corresponds to the continuous curve of figure 1, well-established for the Belgian wave9 . The obvious conclusion is that the rumor theory is unable to account for real statistical data. Many of the 143 observations, made on November 29, 1989, occurred in a relatively small part of Belgium. Later on, other parts became involved and after 20 months, SOBEPS had gathered more than 1000 observations (figure 1, for September 1, 1989 until May 1, 1991). The daily statistics are even available up to December 1, 1993 (VOB2, illustrations). They reveal that more observations (of the order of 25) were reported and investigated for some particular days. These singular peaks cannot be attributed to contagion processes, since these observations were independent from one another and did not result from media reports . We should also take into account the fact that in the vast majority of cases, the witnesses saw the object at sufficiently close range to perceive structural details. They were amazed about the complete or nearly complete silence of these objects. This made them more critical in regard to their own perceptions, which is surely not in favor of the psychosocial hypothesis, but Mr. Abrassart never considered possible objections to his beliefs and categorical assertions. He simply postulated that witnesses of UFO events have to be in error, since what they report can’t be true! Having studied psychology, he claimed even1 that they are “schizotypical”. He never met them, but assumed that they are “filled with hope” to see extraordinary things, that 9 Bougard, M. (1994): Media et phénomène OVNI. Approche statistique sur un éventuel effet de rumeur, Vague d’OVNI sur la Belgique (VOB2), SOBEPS, pp.323-386. The figure appears on p. 360. 0 100 200 300 400 500 1000 800 600 400 200 0 Days Number Nov. 29, 1989 Reported observations Psychosocial hypothesis could be of ET origin. This is not verified by interviews with the witnesses. Moreover, we notice in figure 1 that UFO observations occurred already before the official start of the Belgian wave on November 29, 1989, but these observations remained unreported until later on. The reason is that these witnesses could not make sense of what they saw! I interrogated a witness of this group who was particularly trustworthy, since he had a technical education and high social responsibilities in Eupen. He had seen a triangular platform near Raeren. It was flying slightly above treetop level and descending over meadows, in complete silence. It could not be a conventional aircraft and at that time, it was generally believed that UFOs are round, disk-like objects, called “flying saucers”. This witness did not talk about his observation, because of his own perplexity. Such a reaction contradicts the psychosocial hypothesis. The police officer’s sightings When the gendarmes Hubert von Montigny and Heinrich Nicoll of Eupen discovered on November 29, 1989 a strange triangular platform, they were very surprised. They did not expect (or hope) to see a craft of ET origin, but thought that it had to be some new type of military aircraft8 . My drawing (figure 2) corresponds to their description, but Mr. Abrassart tried to minimize the strangeness of this object and the trustworthiness of the police officers. He concealed, for instance, the information that this object was motionless when they discovered it, and that they saw it at close range. Its center was less than 150 m away from them, while they estimated the length of its basis, between the cut-off edges, to be 30 to 35 m and the height of the symmetric triangle to be 25 m. Three very luminous beams emerged from enormous round sources, situated near the edges of the triangle. The beams had sharply defined boundaries and their internal volume was luminous. This is remarkable, since it had frozen and the air was dry. In the middle of the lower 7 surface, there was a red blinking or pulsating light. The police officers had stopped their car. Expecting to hear engine noise, they lowered the window on the side of the object, but to their great astonishment, there was no sound. Nevertheless, an addendum of Abrassart’s article1 pretends that “it seems entirely plausible” to explain these facts by assuming that the two gendarmes simply saw a helicopter! This assertion stems from Renaud Leclet and a group of UFO skeptics, who proclaimed this absurdity in 2008. They applied it even to the entire Belgian wave, including the observations made at Ernage on December 11, 1989. One of the three witnesses was a colonel at the Belgian Staff. We reinvestigated this case with great care and provided detailed information. Our report10 has been written in collaboration with General De Brouwer, who was Head of Operations of the Belgian Air Staff during the Belgian wave and is himself an experienced pilot. He proved that the helicopter hypothesis is irrational and totally inadequate. Neither Mr. Abrassart nor the editor mentioned our report, which shows that their aim is not to allow everyone to evaluate the evidence, but to propagate their beliefs. Concerning the observations of the gendarmes von Montigny and Nicoll, Mr. Abrassart mentions some erroneous statements of journalists, who investigated this case only in a very superficial way. He also repeats the assertion of Wim Van Utrecht that near the barrage of La Gileppe, the police officers were not observing the luminous object, but the planet Venus. Actually, they saw the object moving towards the illuminated tower and stopping over it. Venus was then somewhere else in the sky and did surely not stay over this tower during about one hour, as the object did. I provided detailed data on the second part of the observations of the gendarmes and even the verbatim transcription of a long interview of Hubert von Montigny 11. I discussed also the erroneous attempts of Wim Van Utrecht to account for these observations in terms of meteorological effects. However, Jean-Michel Abrassart prefers to repeat flawed conjectures, to sustain his own preconceptions and to go on with lobbying. He did not mention that 8 other persons saw the same object before it arrived at La Gileppe. The observations of the two gendarmes lasted two hours (from 5:20 to 7:23 PM) and not only “a certain amount of time”. They did not observe “red filaments” emanating from the object, when it stayed over the tower of La Gileppe. They saw two narrow red light beams that emerged from it and became progressively longer in a symmetrical way. It is very astonishing that these beams were laterally visible over a distance of 4.3 km. Moreover, they suddenly disappeared, while two red-orange balls subsisted at their extremities. These balls went back to the object, turned around it and disappeared. After a pause, the same process was repeated and this happened about every 5 minutes. J.M. Abrassart simply stated that the beams came back towards the object, “went round about it and went away again”. He did not mention the balls and the pauses. This misrepresentation seems to indicate that he is still hoping for some meteorological explanation, but this is impossible for the really observed facts. The ability of careful and responsible observations belongs to the basic professional skills of gendarmes, but as we mentioned already, Jean-Michel Abrassart proclaims that they had a 10 Amond, A., De Brouwer, W., Ferryn, P. and Meessen, A. (2009): Ernage 1989: The Facts and their Analysis, http://www.cobeps.org/pdf/ernage_rapport.pdf (COBEPS, études, recherches, réflexions: English version). 11 Meessen, A. (1997, 2008) : Étude approfondie et discussion de certaines observations du 29 novembre 1989, Inforespace 95, pp. 16-70 ; http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/Gileppe.pdf 8 “fantasy-prone personality” and even calls them “schizotypical”. How can he combine this outrageous assertion with their very strong insistence8,11 that their colleague Albert Creutz, who was in charge of radio dispatching, should contact the Belgian Air Force to verify if they knew something about the object they had discovered? Jean-Michel Abrassart invents himself a story when he claims that the gendarmes “greatly enhanced the strangeness of this sighting” and even that only one of them had seen the beams and “explained” to the other one what he saw. The truth is that Heinrich Nicoll was sitting in the car, to remain in radio contact with the dispatcher, while Hubert von Montigny was standing outside, but both of them observed the “show” over the illuminated tower. I reported that they made different comparisons. Nicoll thought that the beams could be measuring systems, while von Montigny compared the rapid progression of the beams and the returning balls with the harpoon of underwater divers. This indicates independent thinking, but Mr. Abrassart replaces facts by fiction. He distorts not only the information that I provided, but pretends even that I “just put the final touch to the deformation of witness statements”. He wants to believe that I am only looking for “proof in favor of the extraterrestrial hypothesis!” This is patently false, as everyone can verify through my analysis of the radar signals detected by civil and military ground stations or the scrambled F-16 jets12. J.M. Abrassart declares even that I “committed a gross methodological error” or knowingly omitted information about the beginning of the Belgian wave, to “manipulate the reader”. He also tries to criticize my fact-finding interview of the gendarmes, by suggesting that I asked “leading questions” when I simply asked for more details. He tries to justify his idea of psychosocial contagion, by assuming that “people who saw something strange in the sky that night” were inclined to think that it “might be from another world”, since policemen had also seen such things. This assertion disregards that the gendarmes never mentioned the ET hypothesis. Moreover, the media and the public knew only a minor fraction of reported UFO observations, when they occurred. The probability (a) for psychosocial contagion has thus to be reduced in the same proportion. The frankness of the gendarmes, when they described some of their observations on TV could encourage other persons to report what they had seen, but not to invent similar stories. There is a difference. J.M. Abrassart ends his article1 with the statement that “we can quite simply say that (…) the beginning of the Belgian wave is entirely compatible with the idea of sociopsychological contagion”. It may be simple to say this, but it is flatly contradicted by well-investigated facts. They concern the statistics, the global convergence of witness accounts and their scientific implications. Some of them will be illustrated by means of the following analysis. Visual and acoustical observations at Ramillies Patrick Ferryn, Lucien Clerebaut and the student José Fernandez made these observations during the night of March 31 to April 1, 1990. They had interviewed the gendarme Renkin, who caused the scrambling of two F-16 jets of the Belgian Air Force during the preceding 12 Meessen, A. (1991) : La détection radar, VOB1, SOBEPS, pp. 351-396 ; (1994) : Observations, Analyses et Recherches, VOB 2, SOBEPS, pp. 387-432 ; (2007) : Étude approfondie des mystérieux enregistrements radar des F-16, http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/radarF16.pdf 9 night. Since Patrick Ferryn was responsible for the evaluation of alleged UFO photos and videos, he wanted to profit from this occasion to take pictures of airplanes under favorable conditions. The gendarme advised the investigators to go to a place in his vicinity, far away from street lights, but situated under an air-traffic corridor. Patrick Ferryn described what happened there13, but Roger Paquay attacks this case2 by modifying the facts according to his beliefs. The first example of the liberties he takes with available information concerns the place where the observations occurred. It had only been described in general terms, to keep the account as short as possible, but Mr. Paquay is not short of imagination. He states that the witnesses were “located at the crossroads of N91 and N29”. These national roads connect Namur to Leuven and Gembloux to Jodoigne. Their crossing could not be a quiet place, protected from streetlights. It does not even belong to the municipality of Ramillies. The actual place is situated at the center of the gray circle on figure 3 (50°37’59”N and 4°53’47”E on Google maps). This corresponds to the intersection of the village street and a rectilinear street that belongs to the Ravel system (Réseau Autonome de Voies Lentes). These streets follow former rails and are reserved to bicycles, pedestrians and horsemen. At this place, there were and still are no houses, but there are trees at La Taignère (LT). Fig.3: The object flew at low altitude along the red line, exactly over the witnesses. Ferryn, Clerebaut and Fernandez arrived there at about 9:30 PM on March 31, 1990. The photographer P Patrick Ferryn installed his camera (a Nikon F2) on a tripod and took some pictures of airplanes. He used a sensitive film (1600 ASA) and decided to keep the same exposure time (1/125 s) for all pictures he would take that night. The focal distance of the telephoto lens system (Super-Komura 1:5) was 300 mm. The sky was clear and ideal for taking pictures of airplanes. All pictures were taken with a setting at infinity. The silence of the night at this isolated place was so complete that the sound of the planes was clearly audible, although they were flying at high altitudes. Having observed the sky for more than two hours, the group reentered the car. It was facing the SE and SEE. Patrick Ferryn spotted there a yellowish light that appeared in front of them at the local horizon. He had observed many planes in the past, but never saw one with lights of this color. Thus, he wanted to take pictures of this “plane”. 13 Ferryn, P. (1991): Videofilms et photographies, VOB1, SOBEPS, pp. 397-422 and figures 7.18 a,b and c. Ramillies-Offus Grand Rosières RAMILLIES Rue de Ramillies Rue du village 1000 m Ravel 2 Chaussée de Namur 320° Rue Gilbert Detry N91 LT N 10 They immediately left the car and observed the approaching light. While it slowly rose above the horizon, the single light got progressively resolved in a pair of two lights and then two pairs of lights, which is normal for approaching light sources. P. Ferryn took already two pictures of this object when it was still quite far away. Then he looked very carefully during 10 to 15 seconds through the viewfinder of his camera, to take the best possible picture at about 45°. Since he expected to see a plane, he was very astonished to see that the front part of this object was a large illuminated arc. It carried two pairs of very brilliant sources, projecting “four impressive beams” of white light in the forward direction. The lower surface was dark, but well visible, because of its luminous boundaries. There were no structures on this surface. The rear part was brighter and the center was reddish. When I met Patrick Ferryn in the afternoon of the following day, which was Easter Sunday, he showed me drawings of the object when it came closer (figure 4a) and when it flew overhead (figure 4b). The object was a great triangle with curved sides and round corners. P. Ferryn had already asked José Fernandez and Lucien Clerebaut to make a drawing of the object, as they had seen it. Their drawings (figure 4c and 4d) are independent, but the essential features are identical. Fernandez had focused his attention on the curved frontal part, on the divergent and progressively attenuated beams and on the central light. He remembered that there was no tail, but not precisely, how the rear part was shaped. Thus, he drew two lines to indicate that the object did not have the typical tail of airplanes. Lucien Clerebaut, the General Secretary of SOBEPS, who received numerous phone calls from witnesses and asked them if they had seen structural details, observed the object with powerful (10x50) binoculars. Nevertheless, he saw no wings, no tail and no other elements that are characteristic of planes. During my investigation14, he told me that he wanted to be “absolutely sure” that this object was not a plane. José Fernandez told me that he had expected to see a plane and was therefore very astonished to discover a large curved front side instead of the fuselage and lateral wings. Patrick Ferryn visually observed the object when it flew overhead and took a picture of the departing object, again at about 45°. After that, the contours were still visible during a short time. 14 Meessen, A. (2000) : Analyse et implications physiques de deux photos de la vague belge. Inforespace 100, 5- 40 ; (2001) : http://www.meessen.net/AMeessen/Photo1/ c a b d 11 Since the witnesses thought that the approaching object was a plane, they expected to hear engine noise, and were very astonished that they did not hear it, although the environment was very silent. Patrick Ferryn still remembers that before this event, he heard dogs, barking far away. In general, he became only aware of planes, flying at high altitudes, because of their sound. Clerebaut told me that he began to hear a very light whistling sound when the object was already overhead. The two other witnesses noticed it only when they saw the rear-side of the object. Nevertheless, Patrick Ferryn still thought at this moment that it could be a prototype of a new class of aircraft, since it followed a straight path at constant velocity. In spite of all these facts, R. Paquay claims that the witnesses were “biased towards interpreting this as an extraterrestrial/exotic object (thereby invoking the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis)”. This should suggest that the witnesses were not objective, but expresses only his conviction. Since the witnesses saw the arriving object, they could estimate quite well that it was flying at an altitude of 300 to 500 m13. It was even so low that Patrick Ferryn verified if it would not be better to change the focal distance, but he returned to the initial setting at infinity. The triangular object flew over them at a velocity of 100 to 150 km/h14 and its size was so impressive, that it seemed to be comparable to that of a Boeing 747, the “jumbo jet” of that time. After the departure of the object, the three witnesses discussed, of course, what they had seen. Their perceptions were independent, but since they agreed in their descriptions and evaluations, Roger Paquay claimed that this was “ONE UNIQUE testimony” (his emphasis). This reveals again how he treats testimonies and witnesses. He did that also for the case of Ernage10, but omitted even to mention the second drawing of Patrick Ferryn (figure 4b), which was available to him (7.17b in VOB1). It could have cast some doubt, of course, on his claim that the witnesses simply saw a conventional aircraft. Paquay’s airplane hypothesis His apparently rational argumentation is mainly based on a “measurement” that Patrick Ferryn made when he was carefully looking through the viewfinder of his camera towards the arriving object. The object was centered and when he took the third picture, the clearly visible luminous arc extended slightly beyond the reference circle that contains the frosted part for distance adjustments. It is limited (for type K of Nikon F cameras) by a circle that occupies exactly one third of the length of the rectangle of 24x36 mm pictures. On the negative, the third image of the object, taken at about 45°, should thus cover a width w = 12 to 13 mm. Since the picture was taken with a setting at infinity and since the focal distance was fixed at 300 mm, the distance between the film and the optical center of the lens system was d = 300 mm. This allows us to determine the ratio of the horizontal size S of the object and its distance D from the camera: S/D = w/d = 0.040 to 0.043 = tgα. The angular width of the object (α = 2.29° to 2.46°) was thus 4 to 5 times larger than the apparent diameter of the Moon. Roger Paquay tried to distort these facts. He stated (in more complex terms) that the width of the image was 1/3 of the diagonal of the negative, which yields w = 43.27/3 = 14.4 mm and α = 2.7°, but the object was not inclined that way. Since P. Ferryn had mentioned13 that “the span 12 of the object was estimated to be comparable to that of a Boeing 747”, Mr. Paquay postulated that it had to be such a plane. It could not be a B 747-400, where S = 65 m, since this type entered only in service in 1989 at Air New Zealand, while the first B 747-300 flew in 1982 for Swissair and then for the Belgian company SABENA. Its wingspan S = 59.5 m. Mr. Paquay used this value, but assumed that the distance D = 300 m, so that S/D = 0.2 and α = 11.3°. This result should suggest incoherence, but the witnesses had stated that the object was flying at an altitude of 300 to 500 m. At 45°, the distance would be greater by the factor √2, which yields D = 400 to 700 m. Moreover, we can only assert that the ratio S/D ≈ 0.04, because of Ferryn’s viewfinder measurement. It follows that the size S ≈ 16 to 28 m. These values are lower than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, but this was merely a guess, since no direct comparisons were possible. Moreover, a full triangle (figure 4) is much more impressive than a slender plane (figure 5). Anyway, Patrick Ferryn had verified if it was necessary to change the distance setting. He found that this was not necessary, which was equivalent to another measurement: the object was not closer than the front limit of the field of depth for a setting at infinity. This hyperfocal distance can be calculated15, but its value depends on the accepted diameter for the “circle of confusion”. Usually, one requires 0.03 mm for 24x36 mm negatives. For f/5 and a focal distance of 300 mm, the hyperfocal distance is then 596 m. The lowest value of the distance D would thus be close to 600 m and the altitude could be as low as 425 m, which is compatible with the estimated upper limit of 500 m. If the object really were a B 747-300, we would get S ≈ 60 m, D ≈ 1500 m and an altitude of about 1000 m, but such a plane is very noisy. The witnesses should thus hear it before it was overhead. Moreover, they would necessarily have seen the red and green position lights, the fuselage, the wings, the protruding turbo-jet engines and the tail of the alleged plane. Roger Paquay did not show the profile of a Boeing 747 (figure 5). We provide also a recent picture of the observation site and the landscape in the direction where the object appeared (figure 6). The Moon was partially visible in the opposite direction (304°) at low elevation (7°). With Patrick Ferryn, I determined that the heading of the object was close to 320° (figure 2). http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html When I consulted General De Brouwer, he insisted on the fact that “the B 747 is a large aircraft and is very expensive to operate. Such aircraft fly on strict mission and are not used for training or sightseeing flights. It is excluded that such an aircraft would land at Beauvechain, since this military airport is not equipped to accept jumbo jets. Moreover, it is closed on Sundays”. April 1, 1990 was even Easter Sunday. Only two of the F-16 jets would be on standby. “When preparing to land at Brussels airport, any aicraft has to proceed to a point that is in the axis of either runway, at approximately 10 nautical miles from the runway threshold. At Ramillies, the lowest possible altitude for the Brussels TCA (Terminal Control Area) would be 4000 feet or 1200 m above sea level.” Since the local altitude is close to 150 m, the aircraft would fly at least at an altitude of 1050 m above the ground, which is higher than the reported value. “At this stage, the normal speed of a B 747 preparing to land at Brussels airport would be 250 Kts or approximately 450 km/h. To be able to fly, the speed can never be lower than 250 km/h.” This is also incompatible with 100 to 150 km/h, estimated by the witnesses. Since the landing lights of a B 747 are situated on the wings, close to the fuselage, they would illuminate its sides. By contrast with the darker sky, this would facilitate identification. Mr. Paquay was not concerned about possible inconsistencies in his statements. His only justification of the plane hypothesis was that he observed the landing lights of an approaching B 747 (at the airport of Bierset, near Liege). At a distance of 15 to 20 km, he saw a single light. When the plane approached, he saw 2 and then 4 lights. This happened also at Ramillies13, but does not prove that the object had to be a plane, since increasing angular resolution is a normal property of visual perception for approaching light sources of given diameter. Paquay’s airplane hypothesis is unrealistic and unable to explain the observed facts. The photographic documents When the film was developed, it appeared that airplanes passing at high altitudes had left small spots. This was also true for the first and second picture of the object, but the third and fourth pictures of the object were anomalous. A positive copy of the negatives (figure 7) shows that there were only small spots and not what should have appeared. Indeed, Patrick Ferryn had seen in his viewfinder that the illuminated front curve of the arriving object covered at least one third of the width of the negative. The fourth picture should also yield a similar result, but this was not true! Close-ups of paper copies of the four pictures of the object (figure 8) show that there was only one point on the first picture and two points on the second one. That seemed normal, since the object was still far away, but the third and fourth pictures were startling. The curved arc, which had to be luminous to allow for the viewfinder measurement, did not show-up. Even the two pairs of brilliant front lights were absent on the third picture The negative for the third picture (figure 9a) shows that the group of lights covered only 4.2 mm instead of the expected 12 to 13 mm. Underexposure was excluded, since planes left traces for the same exposure time, although they were flying at high altitudes. One of these traces (figure 9b for the negative 7) corresponds to two separate lights (figure 9c). There appear more lights for somewhat lower altitudes (figure 9d for the negative 19). Designating the spots on the two first pictures by A, B and C, we get D, E, F, G on the third picture and perhaps a smaller red spot (H?). They are reinforced on figure 9a, but appear more clearly on a close-up of the negative (figure 10). The lines EF and DG are parallel, but the distances DE and FG are not equal and the red point H is not centered. Since DG = 4.2 mm on the negative, it follows from figure 10 that EF ≈ 0.3 mm. However, if the curved arc (figure 4a) did correspond to 13 mm on the negative, the external spotlights should there be separated by 6.6 mm and the internal ones by 4.5 mm. The spacing and even the relative positions of the recorded lights are different. Thus we have to conclude that visible lights left no trace, while photographed lights were not visible A close-up of the fourth picture of the object (figure 11) reveals that there are only three lights instead of five and the red spot J is more pronounced than H. It is situated below the line IK, while H was situated above DG. The relative disposition of these lights is neither identical, nor symmetric (IJ/JK = 0.98, while DH/HG = 0.92). We could imagine a central bulge on the underside of the object, so that the lights E, F and H were only detectable from the front side, while the light J was seen from the rear, but none of the witnesses saw this structure. Thus, we conclude that different invisible lights were photographed at different moments. The single spot A on the first picture (figure 8.1) and the two spots B and C on the second one (figure 8. 2) can be explained by increased resolution of fixed light sources when the distance is decreasing. The visual acuity of the human eye is usually limited to an angle θ of about 1’. D E F G H I J K 16 This value can be determined in a phenomenological way, but it results from the wave nature of light. Even if light were scattered by an ideal point, it would not produce a point-image when this light is collected by a lens. There is an interference effect that limits the angular resolution to θ = 1.22 (λ/A), where λ is the wavelength and A the aperture or diameter of the lens. The angle θ is expressed in radians. For the eye and a brilliant light source A ≈ 2 mm, but λ ≈ 550 nm for visible light, while 1 radian = 180.60’/π. Thus, θ ≈ 1.1’ for human vision. This applies to the visual observations at Ramillies (VOB1, 7.18a), but the same formula is also valid for a photographic lens or lens system. For the telephoto objective16, f = 300 mm and the maximal aperture A = f/5 = 60 mm was used, of course. It follows that the value of θ is 30 times smaller than for human vision. The same formula applies to IR light (λ > 700 nm) or UV light (λ < 400 nm), with obvious adjustments. The angular resolution would always be limited, so that the appearance of one or two spots on the two first pictures does not prove that visible light was photographed. Moreover, the right spot on the second picture (figure 8.2) reminds us of the red spots H and J. We have thus to expect that the four pictures of the object displayed the same properties: only optically invisible light was photographed. The distance is irrelevant, since air is transparent to IR and UV light. Can these facts be explained or are they physically impossible? Paquay’s assumptions He strongly believes that the object was a plane and that the pictures were underexposed. He attacks even Patrick Ferryn, by stating that “a professional photographer should have known (that) if the exposure time is too short, the film may not have been exposed and there would be nothing to see.” Sorry, even the four brilliant light sources were not photographed and planes that were flying at much higher altitudes produced small photographic traces, although the exposition time was always the same (1/125 s). Only four of the 19 pictures that were taken at Ramillies during that night concerned the object. High flying planes appeared on 7 negatives (5, 6, 7, 14, 15, 18 and 19), while no traces was found on the eight remaining ones. Either these planes were too high or more probably, the camera was not pointed in the right direction. Indeed, the lights were very small for visual perception, but it is sure that some planes were photographed (see figure 9 b, c and d). They were flying at customary high altitudes, while the triangular object passed at about 500 m above the ground. Although Mr. Paquay had not seen the two first pictures of the object, he declared that nothing did appear on them. His claim is contradicted by figure 7 and 8. He disregarded even the published fact that high flying planes had produced small traces. He reproduced the third picture (figure 8.3), but assumed that the witnesses must have seen the four prominent lights that appear there, without verifying at least if they could correspond to the four brilliant light sources of the object (figure 4) or at least the landing lights of the hypothetical Boeing 747. For him, only visible lights could have been photographed. The dark adapted human eye may have detected more structural details, of course, but if the object had been a plane, why did 16 http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/27037133/CANON_FL_Mount_SUPER_KOMURA_Sankyo_Kohki_Uni_Auto_300mm_F5_Lens.html 17 the witnesses not see structural details and the position lights? They have to be present and sufficiently brilliant to be perceptible by other pilots at rather large distances. Mr. Paquay knew that the illuminated frontal arc appeared also on Ferryn’s second drawing (figure 4.b), but he concealed this document, while he treated the witnesses as if is they were lying or inventing fables. He claimed, indeed, that the frontal arc was “a pure mental interpretation (pareidolia) that occurs when an observer mentally links points of light that are separate in a dark sky”. He insisted: this was an “illusion”. How could he know? He was not there and can’t prove that there were only separate lights. He simply expresses what he believes, but assails the witnesses. If the object had been a Boeing 747 or some other plane, the witnesses should have seen at least the red and green position lights and have heard loud engine noise. Roger Paquay claims that “the yellowish light seen initially probably was due to atmospheric refraction, because after that, the witness referred to it as white light.” P. Ferryn answers that the lights of planes, appearing at the horizon in the same direction, did not appear yellowish. From a physical point of view, it is well known that color dispersion by atmospheric refraction would require very special conditions and much greater distances. I recently found that such effects are possible for UFOs, but the essential point is now to find out if it is possible to account for the photographic documents without denying or distorting anything? Explanation by means of IR and UV light After the development of the film, Patrick Ferryn immediately saw that the third and fourth photographs of the object did not correspond to what he had seen through the viewfinder. At first, he thought that nothing was on these pictures. In a long phone discussion, we considered and rejected many possibilities, but there remained one logically acceptable solution17. The object could have emitted infrared light that the witnesses could not see, but that could pass through the lens system, together with visible light, and eventually erase the latent image. I discovered the following day that such a process does exist. It is the “Herschel effect”, but I wanted to understand how this is possible. Thus, I undertook an extensive study of the scientific literature concerning the physics of photographic processes. It was fascinating to unravel the secrets of this magnificent machinery. Indeed, the formation of a latent image is a “technical wonder”, in the sense of cooperative coincidences. It requires a great number of minute silver-halide crystals, dispersed in gelatin. The crystallites of AgX, where X stands for chlorine, brome or iodine, are arrangements of Ag+ and X¯ ions. They alternate along three orthogonal directions, but the silver ions are easily dislodged by thermal agitation. Some of them are thus in interstitial positions, which leads to temperature dependent “ionic conductivity” when an electric field is applied. Moreover, photons of visible light liberate electrons from X¯ ions. They are excited (from the valence band to the conduction band) and can then easily move inside the crystal. This internal photoelectric effect leads under the action of an electric field to high “photoconductivity”. Another essential element is that small AgX crystals have many surface defects. 17 Meessen, A (1991) : L’effet Herschel, VOB1, SOBEPS, pp. 423-435. 18 A local excess of Ag+ ions leads there to an effective charge +e/2. A free electron resulting from illumination will thus be attracted to this place. By capturing a free electron of charge -e, it acquires the charge -e/2 and attracts then a silver ion. The captured Ag+ ion restores the initial charge +e/2, so that another photoelectron and a second Ag+ ion can be trapped. These cycles are repeated until all photoelectrons liberated during the exposure time settled somewhere. Finally, we get an ensemble of surface defects, where free electrons and silver ions were alternatively trapped. This yields small metal grain that contain n silver atoms, where n can have any value between 1 and about 10, but these grains are only numerous and relatively great in those crystallites that were illuminated. They constitute the “latent image”. During the development, the size of the metal grains is enormously increased by means of chemical processes and the resulting silver particles are very efficient light absorbers. Why can the latent image be erased by infrared light? Photons of IR light do not have enough energy to liberate electrons inside AgX crystals, but it is sufficient to liberate more weakly bound electrons from silver grains. When such a grain contains n Ag atoms and has acquired the charge -e/2 by trapping an electron, an IR photon ejects one electron from this structure. It acquires the charge +e/2 and liberates an Ag+ ion. This happens spontaneously to reduce the energy. The new charge –e/2 makes this center ready for ejection of another electron. It appears thus that photons of IR light dismantle what photons of visible light had constructed. It is also important to know that the chemical development of the latent image is only possible when the metal grains contain at least 2 or 3 silver atoms. Because of this threshold, very small metal grains will not react to chemical development. Since hopping of Ag+ ions towards negative surface defects is thermally activated and therefore somewhat retarded, great silver grains are quite numerous when a latent image is formed before a subsequent exposition to IR light. Simultaneous exposition to visible and IR light, with short exposure times will only leave very small metal grains that will not react to chemical development. The Herschel effect is then more efficient and can even be complete. This would account for the observed facts. Roger Paquay claims that my experiment “proves only the existence of the Herschel effect”. No, that would not be necessary, since this had been demonstrated, but only for specially prepared films, used in laboratory experiments17. I had thus to check if the Herschel effect could be complete for modern film material and an exposure time of 1/125 s. It is true that we have no direct evidence of an emission of IR light by the triangular object at Ramillies, but we got convergent indirect evidence. This is usually sufficient, in science. Mr. Paquay wants to defend his “plane hypothesis” and tries therefore to show that my experiment was irrelevant, but he makes two important errors. The first one is that he claims that “the Herschel effect is weak. In the laboratory, it required 150 W at 30 cm, without the lens”. He seems to ignore that glass is transparent to IR as well as to visible light. I eliminated the lens only to determine at once the effect of IR light for all frequencies of visible light17. The lamp was a commercial one, with a heated filament, emitting light with a large (nearly black body) spectrum. I had thus to realize the experiments with one or two filters, to eliminate all visible red light and more or less of the close IR light. Mr. Paquay did not mention these filters, but the Herschel effect was demonstrated in spite of them. The second error is that he 19 believes that if the object had emitted sufficiently strong IR light, it should have heated the skin of the witnesses. They would have felt it. This applies to IR sources of the heated filament type, since our skin contains C-H and C-N bonds that are most strongly set in vibration at about 1200 nm. IR light of this wavelength is present in sunlight and heat radiation, but IR light begins at 700 nm, and today, we use solid-state LED systems that emit IR in a relatively narrow band at 880 or 940 nm, for instance. Their energy conversion is very efficient and they prevent detection by thermal sensations inside the skin. You can easily verify this by means of television remote controls, while most digital cameras are able to detect this IR light. Mr. Paquay claimed also that “the Herschel effect hypothesis is not very probable and inconsistent with the data”, since the emission of IR light would require a “very advanced technology”. UFOs cannot exist for him, but we might expect that he heard about heat-finding (IR sensitive) missiles, belonging now to conventional military technology. He claims even that the UFO would have to know that “a camera (was) pointed at it” and that the craft cannot project IR light in the direction of the camera “in a time shorter than 1/125 s”. That is not necessary. On the contrary, it would be very logical that an object, flying at low altitude in the darkness of the night, was exploring the ground by means of IR light and IR cameras. We do that also to observe animals without disturbing them. The IR light would then be projected on a relatively large region on the ground in the forward direction. This could also be done towards the rear or even all around the object. Satellites are exploring the Earth with IR cameras, but they don’t have to emit IR light. Thermal radiation is sufficient. By the way, this proves that the terrestrial atmosphere is very transparent to IR light. Roger Paquay thinks that military satellites should have observed an IR emitting object, but its radiation had not to be directed towards the sky. Satellites could detect IR light that was scattered by the ground, but they are not observing every spot on Earth, all the time. Even if this happened at Ramillies, how could we know? Paquay’s objections to the Herschel effect are futile and astonishingly naïve. Initially17, I tried only to solve the puzzle of visible light that had not been photographed. In the meantime, Patrick Ferryn discovered that some minute traces were present on the third and fourth pictures. The film had thus been exposed, but it was still necessary to explain why the latent image formed by optically visible light was not “revealed” by the development process. We solved this puzzle, but the more detailed analysis of the photographs, presented here, made us aware of another important fact. There were photographic traces that did not correspond to visible light. This could even apply to all four pictures of the object. It is thus not sufficient to consider the Herschel effect for visible light. There had to be other sources, emitting invisible light, leading to the formation of latent images that were not completely erased by IR light. UV light would be adequate, since it is strongly absorbed in AgX crystallites (by exciting electrons from the valence to the conduction band). This process is so efficient that during only 1/125 s, it would already lead to the formation of greater metal grains than for visible light. The simultaneous exposition to IR light is then not sufficient to reduce all these grains below the threshold for photographic development. The Herschel effect is operative, but not complete. 20 Can the presence of UV light be justified? Yes. This is very easy, once we have realized that UFO propulsion calls for pulsed ionization of the ambient air, so that an oscillating EM field can efficiently act on the resulting charged particles. The direction of the applied forces will change, indeed, according the sign of the applied electric and magnetic fields. The ionization has thus to be pulsed at the adequate rate, but the charged particles disappear by recombination. Free electrons will be accelerated, however, and become able to excite molecules of atmospheric air. Their de-excitation will mainly lead to an emission of UV light. This yields strong photographic traces, as demonstrated by our analysis of the Petit-Rechain color slide14 . The model of Pulsed EM Propulsion allows also for an emission of UV light at different places, with different intensities at different instants. The sources of UV light did not have to coincide with those of visible light, of course, and cascades of de-excitation processes can be somewhat different, so that this could lead sometimes to red traces. Moreover, UV as well as IR light would have the same effects when the object was still far away, since the propagation is always rectilinear and the terrestrial atmosphere is transparent to IR and UV light. It is true that UV light is absorbed by glass, but usually not for UV that is close to the limit of the visible spectrum, especially for good quality lenses14. We learned thus something new that strengthens our previous arguments! I exchanged already some emails with Mr. Paquay concerning the pictures taken at Ramillies (on September 8, October 9 and December 8, 2006). I corrected an error (by a factor 10) that he made in applying a law of geometrical optics and another error concerning the possible sources of IR light. Nevertheless, he presented (on August 24, 2010) nearly the same text on EuroUfoNet than on SUNlite2 . I did not react, since I was busy with research about the ball lightning phenomenon. My momentary silence could have encouraged Mr. Paquay to think that he had succeeded in discrediting the Belgian wave and the photographic evidence of Ramillies pictures. Sorry, this is not the case. It may be interesting to note that Ball Lightning (BL) is also a very mysterious phenomenon. It is different from the UFO phenomenon, but in both cases, we get plasma effects in air at normal atmospheric pressure. Any clarification that can be achieved on one side could thus be useful on the other side. Actually, I could develop a theory that explains all known properties of the BL phenomenon, even those that seem to be paradoxical (ISBL-10). It is interesting to note that there were also “skeptics” who tried to solve this problem by simply negating the reality of BL. They proposed that it has to be a visual after-effect of ordinary lightning or that it results from an action of the magnetic field of a lighting stroke on the brain. These claims prove, however, that they did not even care to study the observed facts. There are thousands of reports and even statistical laws concerning the very remarkable properties of BL. It is useful and even necessary to mention that in 2006, Mr. Paquay asked Patrick Ferryn to get the negatives of the Ramillies photos. This was impossible, however, since they were then in Paris, for examination by the late Professor André Marion of the “Institut d’Optique”. When they came back, Roger Paquay did not request them anymore and his negativistic attitudes did not favor further contacts, but everyone can now judge himself by means of the data that we presented and analyzed here. 21 Complementary photographic tests We have proven in various ways that the object, observed and photographed at Ramillies, could not be a Boeing 747 or some other plane. Nevertheless, we wanted to verify Paquay’s “plane hypothesis” in a more direct way. How would planes visually appear and be photographed, if they were flying at low altitudes? In February 2011, Patrick Ferryn went thus to a place in Kraainem that is only 3 km away from a landing strip of Brussels airport. He was accompanied by Leon Brenig, physicist and professor at the Free University of Brussels. They observed arriving planes, preparing to land, and P. Ferryn took there a set of pictures at about 45°. He used the same camera, the same type of film (Fujicolor 1600 ASA) and the same exposure time (1/125 s) as in Ramillies. The sky was also cloudless and completely dark. The first essential conclusion was that it was practically impossible to see the external circle of the unpolished part of the viewfinder, even for planes that had lit their landing lights. This confirms that in Ramillies, the object carried not only separate lights. The frontal arc was luminous and visible in the viewfinder up to its edges (figures 4.a and 4.b). This was not an illusion, as Roger Paquay dared to claim. No plane displayed such an illuminated arc, of course. We show only two negatives and a magnified excerpt of another negative (figure 12 and 13), since they are representative of the ensemble of pictures, taken that evening The positive copy of negative 14 (figure 12) shows an arriving Boeing 747 that had not yet lit its landing lights. It was not possible to determine if it was a B 747-300 or B 747-400. It was photographed from below at about 45°, but at an instant where the strobe lights at the wingtips were more powerful than the red and green lights. The red light is always situated on the left side of the axis of the plane, when one looks along the flight direction, like the pilot (figure 5). It is only slightly visible on this picture. Actually, all characteristic structural elements of the plane were visible. The logo on the tail (T) appeared even on the photograph, as well the front light (F), fixed on the lowered landing gear. The lights were white, but they appear yellowish on the 20-year-old film that Patrick Ferryn had saved. T R G F LL << turbo-jet-engines R T < G R LL << 22 On the negative, the length RG is 15.8 mm (since 8 complete holes correspond to the length of the negative, i.e. 36 mm), but the distance between the wingtips was shortened by projection. If this line had been parallel to the plane of the negative, the width of the image would be w ≈ 16.0 mm. Since the picture was taken with a setting at infinity, the distance between the negative and the optical center of the lens system was d = 300 mm. We conclude that the size S or wingspan of this plane and the distance D between it and the camera were such that S/D = w/d ≈ 0,053. Since the size S ≈ 60 m for a B 747-300 and S = 65 m for a B 747-400, it follows that the distance D ≈ 1132 m or 1226 m. At 45°, the altitude was then 800 or 867 m. This plane was thus higher than the triangular object at Ramillies. Nevertheless, the red and green position lights, as well as other isolated lights and all characteristic elements of the plane were clearly visible by the naked eye. Paquay’s assumption that the picture had to be underexposed is also not correct. When the landing lights (LL) are on, even the front part of the closest turbo-jet engines can be photographed (figure 13). It should be noted that the landing lights are situated at different places for different planes. The red wingtip light (R) is also visible on negative 6, but not the green one. However, the green position light appeared on many other pictures, as shown by the insert for the negative 5. This photo corresponds to an Airbus A320, where S = 34 m. It arrived head-on, but its image is magnified on figure 13. On the negative, the width was w = 8.41 mm. We can thus calculate the distance D = S.d/w = 1210 m. At 45°, the altitude of this plane was close to 850 m and thus also higher than the object at Ramillies, but the red and green lights at the wingtips appeared on the picture. We have to stress the fact that Professor Léon Brenig saw also the characteristic elements of these planes. This applies not only to the steady red and green position lights or to blinking lights and the illuminated tail logo, but also to cabin and passenger windows, which did not appear on the photos. Even the front part of the fuselage, the engines and parts of the landing gear were clearly discernable when they were illuminated by landing lights. These photographically documented tests confirm that the object of Ramillies was not a plane. Conclusions The articles of Jean-Michel Abrassart1 and Roger Paquay2 are very instructive and even of some historical interest, since they will document how so-called “skeptics” were still treating the UFO phenomenon in 2010. They distort the facts, to adapt them to their beliefs or preconceptions. They drop important elements for the cases they discuss and don’t consider a large ensemble of observed facts, defining the UFO problem. Moreover, they treat the witnesses and investigators as if they were liars or fools. Jean-Michel Abrassart did that for the beginning of the Belgian wave, since he claimed that the two gendarmes - who attentively observed an unconventional flying object during more than two hours - are not trustworthy. He stated even that they have “fantasy-prone personalities” and called them “schizotypical”. A psychologist who qualifies persons in such a way, 23 without any thorough examination and without even having talked with them, violates all professional ethics. This is not simply a matter of freedom of opinion or speech. Mr. Abrassart does not consider the contents of numerous witness accounts and study their technical or scientific implications in an objective and rational way. He simply postulates that all UFO observations have to result from perceptual errors or imagination, facilitated by rumor propagation. He cannot and could never prove that this is true. Actually, he knew that his statement would be false, if it failed for some particular case. That’s why he tried to show that the beginning of the Belgian wave is compatible with the psychosocial hypothesis. We tested the validity of his “psychosocial hypothesis” in a rational way, by applying the usual scientific procedure. It is sufficient to consider the logical consequences of the proposed hypothesis and to confront them with actually observed facts. The mechanism of psychosocial contagion necessarily implies an evolution of the total number of reported observations that cannot be fitted to the statistical data for the Belgian wave. The hypothesis of an accumulation of erroneous reports, because of psychosocial contagion and rumor spreading is patently contradicted, in particular because of the sudden and very massive beginning of the Belgian wave. This is confirmed by its later evolution and by the fact that so many witnesses consistently reported a new type of UFOs. This argument is not biased by ideology, beliefs of preconceptions, but results from mathematical reasoning, book-keeping and interrogation of independent witnesses by many investigators. Other claims of Jean-Michel Abrassart were also contrary to observed facts and detailed reports. The psychosocial hypothesis can thus not account for the Belgian wave and all UFO observations do not result from errors or illusions! Roger Paquay followed a different path, but his aim was also to negate the reality of the UFO phenomenon. He tried to attack the observations made at Ramillies and the associated photographic documents. He knew that in science, the validity of ideas must be justified by confronting them with actually observed facts, but he does not want to accept facts that are contrary to his preconceptions or beliefs. Thus, we presented and examined these facts in a much more detailed way. It appeared that the visual and acoustical observations made at Ramillies cannot be negated or distorted as M. Paquay did. His “plane hypothesis” and his assumption that the photos were “underexposed” are flatly contradicted by a series of controllable facts. It became also obvious that he concealed some facts that would have contradicted his ideas. This happened in particular for figure 4.b. We provided also additional information, demonstrating that the object seen and photographed at Ramillies was not a Boeing 747 or some other conventional aircraft. The new analysis of all photographic documents revealed even that they are more interesting and instructive than we had realized until now. Indeed, we had only tried to solve the paradox that visible light had been photographed, but left no traces. We could explain this fact by means of the Herschel effect17 and this was done in a scientific way, by considering why IR light can erase the latent image that had to be formed by visible light. We had experimentally verified that this process is effective for the film material and the short exposure time, used at Ramillies. Even the presence of IR was justified, as being useful for observing the ground when the object was flying over the countryside at low altitude in the darkness of the night. Moreover, 24 this IR light can be emitted in a narrow spectral band, so that it is not detected by heat sensations in our skin, as this would happen for traditional sources of IR light. The enlarged analysis of the available data demonstrated that there were also traces of light that was not visible. This could also be explained by means of the Herschel effect, since UV light produces a more robust latent image. The required UV light results from pulsed ionization, belonging to the propulsion system. This study strengthens thus the idea that the triangular object of Ramillies was not a conventional aircraft and confirms that UFO propulsion involves plasma effects. Thank you, Mr. Paquay. Discussions can help to clarify ideas. When Patrick Ferryn photographed the arriving object at about 45°, he made two comparisons that are equivalent to measurements. He determined the angular size of the object by means of the great circle, visible in his viewfinder. Moreover, he verified that a setting at infinity was sufficient to get a sharp image. The first element determined the ratio of the size S of the object and its distance D from the camera (S/D ≈ 0.04). The second element provided the lowest acceptable values for the distance and altitude of the object. It was compatible with the estimations of the witnesses, based on seeing the arriving object. It was most probably flying at an altitude of about 500 m above the ground. If it had been a Boeing 747, the witnesses would surely have heard engine noise and have seen at least the red and green position lights, as well as the blinking lights. Its speed would necessarily be higher than 100 to 150 km/h, assessed by the witnesses. Paquay’s hypotheses or claims are not correct. Complementary tests proved that many structural details of planes, flying at altitudes of about 800 m near Brussels airport, were clearly visible with the naked eye. Some of them appeared even on photographs. This was different in Ramillies, although the object was observed with powerful binoculars and through the viewfinder, coupled to a telephoto lens of 300 mm focal distance. Paquay’s statement that the presence of a large continuous illuminated arc simply was an “illusion” is unfounded and unacceptable. The main conclusion is that so-called skeptics proved once again that they are not skeptical enough to be self-critical. The author thanks Patrick Ferryn for providing all necessary photographic documents and complementary information, General De Brouwer for comments, Jean-Marc Wattecamps for calling attention on the SUNlite articles and for some specific hints, as well as my colleague Pr. Léon Brenig for witnessing the tests near Brussels airport. Cobeps Website https://www.cobeps.org/en/home.html Welcome on what was formerly the official website of the non-profit association SOBEPS (Belgian Society for the Study of Space Phenomena).Please note that on June 11th, 2007, the General-Assembly has voted for the dissolution of the association, a measure effective since December 31st, 2007. Therefore, this site has been modified and the reasons that account for such a decision are explained in detail in Michel Bougard’s last editorial “Dissolution”. A new team called C OBEPS (Belgian Committee for the Study of Space Phenomena) will ensure the continuation of some of the activities of former SOBEPS. This committee reassembles some former collaborators and investigators regrouped by Patrick Ferryn (co-founder of SOBEPS with Lucien Clerebaut, in 1971) and Leon Brenig (physicist, professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles).The designation COBEPS is not fortuitous, as the basic approach remains the same as the one of the defunct association, i.e. the scientific approach of the ufo phenomenon with no prejudice concerning its nature or origin. Yet, the means of action of COBEPS will be somewhat different. There will be no magazine, no premises, no library, no subscription or no book selling. While acting of the kind the committee wants above all to privilege a simple but effective structure. The main objective of COBEPS is to continue to collect sightings that might occur in Belgium. Therefore, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have been the witness of a ufo sighting or if you know some people who would accept to testify (upon request we guarantee that we will respect their desire for anonymity). During the preparation of a TV program dedicated to the 1989-91 Belgian ufo wave, filmed by the RTBF for the program entitled “Questions à la Une” (aired on October 24 th , 2007), we discovered a great number of witnesses who did not show up when these exceptional events occurred. We would like to get in touch with them and to give an account of these original sightings. Should the case occur, COBEPS would be delighted to publish some feature articles on the website, as well as some news about SETI, exobiology and the search for exoplanets. Our website is in French. Yet, please feel free to write to us in English; we will gladly answer you using this language. Thanks for your understanding. Would you like to join us or to learn more, please email us at: info@cobeps.org Downloadable Pdf`s from Cobeps website https://www.cobeps.org/pdf/Ramillies.pdf https://www.cobeps.org/pdf/belgian_wave_130310.pdf

This is a story of the greatest hero you've never known. From being a World War 2 Fighter pilot Ace, a “Ghost” pilot in the USAF, to helping create the precursor to NATO. He investigated UFOs on a secret joint committee, had his own UFO sighting and managed Britain's nuclear weapons program at the Atomic Woomera Rocket Range in Australia. Welsh Fighter Pilot Ace Tom Dalton-Morgan, during WW2 had 22 kills, he was also RAF intel, after the war he ran the secret Woomera rocket range in Australia and was part of a secret US/UK UFO committee. Discusses an ‘object’ retrieval from the Woomera test range in 1959, the material could not be cut, it was a perfect sphere. Dalton-Morgan was born in Cardiff , Wales, on 23 March 1917 and attended Taunton School On 21 October 1935, he accepted a short service commission with the Royal Air Force  (RAF) in the rank of acting pilot officer  (on probation), and trained as a pilot, [4]  being confirmed as a pilot officer  on 26 August 1936. [5]  He was promoted to flying officer  on 26 April 1938 and was later sent to join No. 22 Squadron RAF , flying the Vickers Vildebeest torpedo bomber. [6]  He was later seconded to war at the Air Ministry  in London. In April 1940 Dalton-Morgan applied to return to flying, and was promoted to flight lieutenant  on 26 April. [7]  He was then appointed to No. 43 Squadron RAF  ("The Fighting Cocks") as a flight commander in June 1940. With minimal fighter experience as a fighter pilot he flew Hawker Hurricanes  from RAF Tangmere  (part of No. 11 Group RAF ). Battle of Britain Dalton-Morgan's first 'kill' came on 12 July 1940 when he shared in the downing of a Heinkel He 111  bomber. On 13 August 1940, the Luftwaffe  began Operation Eagle Attack , which the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe  ( OKL ) began a major effort to destroy RAF Fighter Command  in southern England. At 06:25, Dalton-Morgan was scrambled with 43 Squadron to support 64 , 87  and 601  Squadrons. The RAF formations intercepted 20 Junkers Ju 88s  from I. and 18 Ju 88s from II./ Kampfgeschwader  54 . They were escorted by V.(Z)./ Lehrgeschwader  1 . The German objective was to attack RAF Odiham  and RAF Farnborough . No. 43 Squadron intercepted the Germans between Guildford  and Brighton . Dalton-Morgan attacked a Ju 88 from the stab   staffel , perhaps piloted by Oberleutnant Kurt Erdmann. He damaged the rudder and engine but was struck by return fire or became the victim of one of the escorting fighters; possibly Unteroffizier Walter Gerigk. Both the Ju 88 and Hurricane crashed and the German crew were captured by a local policeman. Dalton-Morgan had taken off without properly changing because of the rapid scramble, and he had difficulty and convincing the local constabulary he was not a member of the German crew. [8] Quickly returning to his squadron, Dalton-Morgan was soon flying combat sorties and shot down four more enemy aircraft over the next three weeks. In early September 1940 he added three Messerschmitt Bf 109s fighters to his tally. On 6 September he again came worse off in combat with Bf 109s and he was wounded in the face and knee and was forced to crash land his Hurricane. Distinguished Flying Cross  (DFC) was gazetted on 6 September 1940: [9] This officer has shown great resolution as a fighter pilot and has led his flight, and at times his squadron, with conspicuous success. He has displayed great courage and determination in the face of heavy enemy odds, and has destroyed seven enemy aircraft. His behaviour in action has been an inspiration to the pilots in his flight. Once more returning to No. 43 Squadron on 7 September, Dalton-Morgan now took over command and relocated the squadron to Northumberland  to refit with new fighters and to train replacement pilots. Pilot trainer Following the end of the Battle of Britain in October 1940, Dalton-Morgan concentrated on passing on his experience to new pilots. He also worked on developing the Hurricane fighter into a night-fighter with great success. He soon accounted for six further 'kills' flying his Hurricane at night. One of his most successful periods was over the nights of the 6 and 7 May 1941 when he shot down three Luftwaffe bombers over Glasgow . He was promoted to temporary squadron leader  on 1 June. [10] On 8 June he shot down a Junkers Ju 88 and two further 'kills' followed. On 24 July he intercepted another Ju 88 off May Island . Despite his engine starting to fail he pressed home his attack and downed the enemy bomber. His engine then completely quit and he was forced to land on the water, a highly dangerous exercise. He was later picked up by the Royal Navy. For this attack he received a Bar  to his DFC on 31 May 1941: [11] This officer has displayed exceptional skill both as a squadron commander and an individual fighter. During two consecutive nights in May 1941, he destroyed three enemy aircraft bringing his total victories to 13. Squadron Leader Morgan has contributed in a large measure to the high standard of operational efficiency of the squadron On 2 October 1941 he shot down another bomber, off Berwick-on-Tweed . Finally, in February 1942, Dalton-Morgan was rested with a tally of at least 14 aircraft shot down and several damaged. Distinguished Service Order After a short period working as a fighter controller at RAF Turnhouse , near Edinburgh , he was promoted to temporary wing commander  on 1 June 1942, and promoted to squadron leader (war-substantive) on 26 August. [12] [13]  He returned to operations in late 1942 to become leader of the Ibsley Wing . Commanding eight fighter squadrons, Dalton-Morgan organised long-range offensive sorties and bomber escort duties over northern France. He damaged an Bf 109 in December 1943, and then shot down a Focke-Wulf Fw 190  fighter and damaged another during a sweep over the French port of Brest . He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order  on 25 May 1943: [14] Since being awarded a bar to the D.F.C. in May, 1941, this officer has destroyed four enemy aircraft, bringing his total victories to 17 aircraft destroyed. 4th Fighter Group Dalton-Morgan's bomber escort experience saw him attached to the 4th Fighter Group  of the US 8th Air Force and flew over 70 combat sorties with the group. Promoted to wing commander (war-substantive) on 12 December 1943, he served as operations officer with the 2nd Tactical Air Force . [15] In the buildup to the Normandy Landings he was part of the planning team organising the roster of ground targets. Shortly before the end of the war, he learned his brother John had been killed after being shot down in a de Havilland Mosquito . Post war After the war he remained in Germany with 2nd Tactical Air Force. He was promoted to the substantive rank of squadron leader on 1 September 1945 and attended the RAF staff College , becoming a senior instructor at the School of Land/Air Warfare. [16]  Promoted to wing commander on 1 July 1947, he commanded the Vickers Vampire  equipped Gutersloh Wing before taking command of RAF Wunstorf . [17]  He resigned from the RAF on 4 April 1952 with the rank of wing commander. [18] On leaving the RAF, Dalton-Morgan joined the joint UK/Australian weapons testings facility , at Woomera , which he managed for the next 30 years before retiring in Australia. In January 1945 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire  and mentioned in despatches  in 1946, the same year he also received the US Bronze Star Medal . His grandson Rhys. Here’s what I’ve been working on for the last year. This is the story of my grandfather who investigated UFO’s for British Intelligence, had his own UFO sighting and managed the Atomic Woomera rocket range. This is a story of the greatest hero you've never known. From being a World War 2 Fighter pilot This is a story of the greatest hero you've never known. From being a World War 2 Fighter pilot Ace, a “Ghost” pilot in the USAF, to helping create the precursor to NATO. He investigated UFOs on a secret joint committee, had his own UFO sighting and managed Britain's nuclear weapons program at the Atomic Woomera Rocket Range in Australia. That man was my grandfather. Group Captain Tom Dalton-Morgan. e, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ93uYGp20g An excellent article by Bill Chalker Australian ufo researcher “Tommy Leader”: Tom Dalton-Morgan and the 3% UFO solution In my 1996 book “The OZ Files – the Australian UFO story” I drew attention to Ken Llewellyn’s account of Tom Dalton-Morgan’s UFO sighting at Woomera, in South Australia, which apparently took place in the late 1950s. I also described the story in my Australian chapter in the 2012 book “UFOs and Government – A Historical Inquiry” – “The Australian Military and the Official Government Response.” From the OZ Files:  “AN INSIDER REVEALS THE RAAF PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE   “It came as a great surprise to many when the RAAF Senior Public Relations Officer in Canberra, Ken Llewellyn, wrote a book called Flight into the Ages, about ‘incredible true stories of airmen on the earth plane and beyond’. The book, released in February 1992, carried the disclaimer that it did not represent the official view of the RAAF on paranormal activities. It described ghost encounters, past lives, psychic experiences, and most interestingly of all, accounts of UFO experiences…   “(One) of Ken Llewellyn’s prominent sources was Group Captain Tom Dalton-Morgan. He had been part of a combined Royal Air Force and United States Air Force committee in the late 1940s investigating UFO sightings. It had concluded that most reports could be explained except for 3 per cent. Dalton-Morgan was the Officer in Charge of Range Operations at Woomera between 1959 and 1963. In about the late 1950s, shortly before the test firing of a Black (K)Night rocket, he received a radio call from Percy Hawkins, the Recovery Officer, reporting an exceptional bright light at about 4,500 metres travelling at high speed directly towards the test site, Dalton-Morgan and his team, who were about 140 kilometres south-east of Hawkins’ position, were able to view the incoming light from their elevated control building. They watched it fly in, then orbit around the range buildings some eight kilometres to the south. When the UFO was east of the control building, it seemed to accelerate and climb very steeply away. Dalton-Morgan concluded, ‘I am unable to conceive of any object, plane or missile during my posting to Woomera that was able to perform the manoeuvres seen by my team. Observers at the control tower and the launch site all agreed on the brilliant white-greenish light; the high degree of manoeuvrability, including rate and angle of climb; complete lack of sound; the lack of positive identification of the vehicle fuselage because it was a dark moonless night; and the exceptionally high speed of which it was capable.’ Clearly Tom Dalton-Morgan’s report was a significant story, and he had a very impressive life.  Here is how the UK Telegraph reported Tom’s passing in their 24 September 2004 issue: “Group Captain Tom Dalton-Morgan, who has died in Australia aged 87 (on 18 September), was one of the RAF's most distinguished Battle of Britain fighter pilots; he later achieved considerable success during the German night attacks on Glasgow before playing a prominent role in co-ordinating fighter operations for the D-Day landings. “Dalton-Morgan had virtually no experience as a fighter pilot when he was appointed a flight commander of No 43 Squadron - "The Fighting Cocks" - in June 1940. The squadron was flying Hurricanes from Tangmere, near Chichester, and together with others in No 11 Group, bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe attacks. “He quickly established himself as a fearless leader. On July 12, he shared in the destruction of a Heinkel bomber; but he was forced to bale out the following day when he destroyed another and then was hit by crossfire. With no badges of rank in evidence - he was wearing pyjamas under his flying suit - he was "captured" by a bobby who placed him in the cells along with the German bomber crew he had just shot down. “Despite being slightly wounded, Dalton-Morgan was soon back in action, accounting for four more enemy aircraft in the next three weeks. In early September, he shot down three Messerschmitt fighters. After one engagement he was wounded in the face and knee, and had to crash-land. His DFC praised him for "displaying great courage when his behaviour in action has been an inspiration to his flight". “Despite his wounds, Dalton-Morgan returned to take command of the depleted squadron after the death of the CO, and took it to Northumberland to train replacement pilots. “A descendant of the buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan and the Cromwellian general Sir Thomas Morgan, Thomas Frederick Dalton-Morgan was born on March 23 1917 at Cardiff and educated at Taunton School. He joined the RAF on a short service commission in 1935, and trained as a pilot. “Following service with No 22 Squadron, flying the Wildebeeste torpedo bomber, he joined the training staff at the Air Ministry. In April 1940 he applied to return to flying, and was appointed to No 43. “After the Battle of Britain, Dalton-Morgan's primary task was to train new pilots for service with the squadrons in the south. He was also required to establish a night-fighting capability with the Hurricane; a task he achieved with great success. Few enemy night bombers fell victim to single-seat fighter pilots, but Dalton-Morgan, hunting alone, destroyed no fewer than six. “Three of his victims went down in successive nights on May 6-7 1941, when the Luftwaffe embarked on a major offensive against the Clydesdale ports and Glasgow. On June 8, Dalton-Morgan achieved a remarkable interception when he shot down a Junkers bomber, having made initial contact by spotting its shadow on the moonlit sea. After two more successes at night, he was carrying out a practice interception on July 24 with a fellow pilot when he saw another Junkers. “Dalton-Morgan gave chase and intercepted it off May Island. Despite his engine failing and fumes filling the cockpit, he attacked the bomber three times. He had just watched it hit the sea when his engine stopped. Too low to bale out, he made a masterly landing on the water, but lost two front teeth when his face hit the gun sight. He clambered into his dinghy before being rescued by the Navy. “His station commander, Wing Commander H Eeles, commented: "I consider this to be a classic example of how a first-class fighter pilot can attack an enemy while his engine is failing, shoot it down, force land on the sea, and get away with it." Dalton-Morgan was awarded a Bar to his DFC "for his exceptional skill". He scored another night victory on October 2, off Berwick-on-Tweed. Finally, in February 1942, after 18 months in command, the longest spell by any of No 43's wartime commanding officers, Dalton-Morgan was rested, having shot down at least 14 aircraft and damaged others. “After a spell as a fighter controller at Turnhouse, near Edinburgh, he returned to operations in late 1942 to become leader of the Ibsley Wing. Here he had eight fighter squadrons under him, with the task of mounting long-range offensive sorties over northern France and providing scouts for the tactical bomber squadrons. After damaging an Me 109 in December, he shot down a Focke Wulf 190 fighter and damaged another during a sweep over Brest. He was awarded the DSO in May 1943, which recorded his victories at the time as 17. “His experience of escort operations led to his being attached to the 4th Fighter Group of the US 8th Air Force, which was just beginning long-range bomber escort work. He flew more than 70 combat sorties with the group. Promoted group captain early in 1944, he served as operations officer with the 2nd Tactical Air Force. “For a period he worked on an air-to-ground fighter control system with Major John Profumo, whom he rated as the most capable and generous Army officer he had met. Dalton-Morgan engaged in planning fighter and ground attack operations in support of the campaign in Normandy, then moved to the mainland with his organisation after the invasion. Years after, his CO at the time (later Air Marshal Sir Fred Rosier) commented: "It would be impossible to overstate Tom D-M's importance and influence on the conduct of fighter operations for and beyond D-Day". “A month before the end of the war in Europe, Dalton-Morgan learned that his only brother, John, who also had the DFC, had been shot down and killed flying a Mosquito. Dalton-Morgan remained in Germany with 2nd Tactical Air Force after the war before attending the RAF Staff College, and becoming a senior instructor at the School of Land/Air Warfare. Later he commanded the Gutersloh Wing, flying Vampire jets, before taking command of RAF Wunsdorf. “On leaving the service in 1952, Dalton-Morgan joined the UK/Australian Joint Project, at Woomera, where he managed the weapons range for the next 30 years before retiring in Australia. “He made regular trips home to visit the missile testing range at Aberporth, to see his family and to attend service reunions. He was a vice-president of the Hawker Hurricane Society. Dalton-Morgan was recognised as one of the RAF's finest fighter leaders. Slightly scarred by his wounds, he had the dashing good looks of the archetypal fighter pilot, and always attracted the greatest admiration from his air and ground crews. In an article on leadership written after the war, one of Dalton-Morgan's former pilots wrote: "He had an awesome charisma; some sort of special aura seemed to surround him. He was the epitome of leadership, he was a born leader." “He was appointed OBE in 1945 and mentioned in dispatches in 1946, the year President Harry Truman awarded him the US Bronze Star. “Tom Dalton-Morgan died on September 18, the eve of the annual Battle of Britain Anniversary service at Westminster Abbey, which he had hoped to attend. “His first marriage in 1939 ended in divorce. In 1952 he married Dee Yeomans who had been widowed during the war. She and their six children, together with a son and daughter from his first marriage, survive him.” Tom Dalton-Morgan certainly lived up to his biography title: “Tommy Leader”, which writer Clive Williams helped to put together. The book was published in 2007.  Whenever I enquired about the availability of “Tommy Leader”, it seemed it had become a collector’s item, and was valued as a memoir of a “Battle of Britain” air war hero, and was generally very expensive and hard to acquire.  Tom Dalton-Morgan was a significant presence, in his capacity as being in charge of Range Group operations for the UK/Australian Joint Project, as described in Ivan Southall’s popular 1962 book “Woomera.” Tom’s UFO story was not mentioned, even though UFOs got a mention – “the question of the numerous unidentified flying objects alleged by scores of thousands of observers to have been seen in the earth’s atmosphere during past centuries.  These so-called flying saucers either exist or do not exist. There cannot be a half-way house,” wrote Southall, even mentioning his own personal indirect experience, of a “foo-fighter” kind.  “Members of my air crew, from different gun turrets and the astro-dome, observed several dozen unidentified lights over the Bay of Biscay on the night of 10th-11thAugust 1944, and kept them under observation for 40 minutes. Our aircraft, Sunderland P/461, was the only machine of Allied or Axis origin in the area, though I did not know it at the time.  As pilot, on a strict patrol, and frankly not anxious to make contact with so numerous a force, I saw nothing.  I was facing in the wrong direction.”  Southall wrote, “Woomera, perhaps better fitted that any other place on earth to observe and track these mysterious manifestations, cannot produce a single item of documentary or photographic evidence to prove that they are real or unreal. Butement (the Australian Department of Supply Chief Scientist) says: “Flying saucers representing something extra-terrestrial are extremely unlikely.  I think we have to look to the earth for the answer.” J.D. (the Principal Officer, Range Group), too, points out that Woomera has been in a unique position to secure the evidence during the period of maximum sightings, but has failed to do so, and not from any desire to turn a blind eye.  The flying-saucer theory has its adherents in Woomera and any one of them would have given a month’s pay to prove it. Among the operators there are a few who have observed puzzling phenomena, but none can state dogmatically that this was a flying –saucer or this was not.” Ivan Southall’s comments in his book “Woomera” (1962) were not reflected in compelling arguments from people like Norm Gerrard of the Radar & Electronic Tracking Group, WRE (Weapons Research Establishment) who was working at Woomera, and whose views were strongly amplified a decade later in a Department of Supply internal memorandum from the Radar and Electronic Group: “Regarding Recent Symposium on UFOs” which discussed a 1971 ANZAAS UFO symposium.  This 3-page internal Department of Supply memo dated 2 December 1971, was written by Gerrard and sent through the Controller Research & Development to (Tom) T.F.C. Lawrence, then Deputy Secretary, Research & Engineering, Department of Supply, in response to Lawrence's enquiry of 25 November 1971.  Gerrard was a veteran of the Department of Supply and in Peter Morton's "Fire across the desert - Woomera & the Anglo-Australian Joint Project 1946-1980" (1989) was described as "a quiet conscientious man who had worked on radio and radar in (V.) Bosher's instrumentation section of Bomb Ballistics Group. He duly spent some months with (F.H.) East (the RAE expert) at RAE (in Britain) and then returned to take over the scientific direction of the VT (variable time) fuze trials (1952-53)." Gerrard emphasised in his memo to Lawrence that the views expressed were his own and not WRE's. He described the ANZAAS UFO symposium held in 1971, the work of some of the scientists, particularly highlighting that of Dr. Michael Duggin, who he described as "probably the leading advocate of serious UFO studies in Australia."  I described Mike Duggin's impressive contributions in my article  "The Australian scientist who was a potent part of the UFO "Invisible College"  - Dr. Michael Duggin (1937-2016) - a tribute" which appeared in slightly different forms in both the Australian magazine "Ufologist" and the UK e-magazine "UFO Truth". Norm Gerrard gave a good insight to the views of the scientists present on the subject of UFOs and science and also highlighted the limitations of the symposium.  His own views, while not advocating "a deliberate search for U.F.O.'s", did highlight that he thought "the official Australian investigation should not be as biased as the Department of Air (RAAF) effort appears to be, and I would like to see that effort assisted by more scientists to make careful analyses and correlations of existing reports, looking for similarities which might suggest intelligent control, or purpose, or method of propulsion or communication."  He was apparently unaware of Harry Turner's secret attempt to do precisely this (described to some extent in the JIO & DSTO files) and the fact that Harry himself attended in an undisclosed capacity, while his secret research associate Mike Duggin took the public profile.  Gerrard stressed to Lawrence "that we (should) keep an open mind on U.F.O.'s and would like to see some scientific effort devoted to the investigation of U.F.O. sightings, because it may throw light on the exciting possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligence." Southall’s commentary on UFOs & Woomera would also be greatly challenged by compelling sightings that had already occurred at Woomera, such as Tom Dalton-Morgan’s well witnessed experience from the late 1950s and a striking 1954 radar visual Woomera encounter described to me by nuclear physicist Harry Turner.  He had been involved in the war time pioneer radar research and told me that this radar case impressed him the most in his secret study of the DAFI UFO files and led him to advocate attempts to secure more radar cases. Turner’s classified report on Australian Air Force Intelligence files up to 1954, indicated that radar at the restricted Woomera rocket range facility in South Australia picked up a UFO on May 5th, 1954, when at about 1630 hours 3 witnesses saw a “misty grey disc” at a 355 degree bearing, at some 35 miles, and at an altitude of more than 60,000 feet. The object appeared to have an apparent diameter of about 10 feet. The visual observation which lasted 5 minutes was aided by binoculars. The object travelled south then west, with the radar echo confirming a speed of 3,600 mph! The case, originally classified secret, indicated that the UFO was witnessed by an English Electric scientist and a radar operator. The EE scientist was outside talking to the radar operator when the radar confirmed the presence of a UFO. The scientist watched the object with binoculars. One of his functions at Woomera was to monitor rocket tests. He was experienced in observing movement in the sky. The radar tracked the UFO until it went out of range, however they were able to confirm distance and size. Some tests were being undertaken with a Canberra bomber in flight. The UFO was moving in formation with the Canberra. The Canberra crew could not see the UFO, but both the plane and UFO were confirmed on radar. This was the description of the case he gave to me back in the 1980s. Fortunately the case file has emerged which confirms the account Turner supplied to me.    5 May 1954 Woomera SA approximately 1630hrs 5 minutes 3 witnesses.
Three documents containing statements by the two key men involved and a covering letter forwarding the statements, from the Superintendent Long Range Weapons Establishment Range, Woomera, to the “Chief Superintendent”, which stated “The persons reporting were separated by a distance of approximately three hundred yards and give corroborative accounts of what each observed.”   A statement dated 6 May 1954, indicated, RE: “UNIDENTIFIED TARGET OBSERVED ON RADAR 5TH MAY, 1954
Sir,
At about 1600 on 5th May, an unidentified Target was observed on radar AA Number 4 Mk. 6.
The target appeared on High Beam at a range of about 60,000 yards Bearing 355degrees approaching ‘R’, described a Hyperbols (sic) over ‘R’ and went out at a bearing of approx. 90 degrees. On its way out it passed behind Spotting Tower, “S2”. I timed it over 15,000 yards 10 seconds which would make its speed approximately 3600 M.P.H.  KEANE observed this occurrence with me. Since the target was followed to 70,000 yards on High Beam the height would be greater than 60,000 feet.” The remaining statement (7 May 1954), “Vickers-Armstrong” stated:  “REPORT ON A FLYING OBJECT SIGHTED ON 5TH MAY, 1954
I was at Range R1 (Post R1), the Radar Post, standing by the Security Officer’s Hut, and looking towards the radar Post at approximately 1645 hours, observing one of our trials through binoculars.
This object appeared to be travelling towards me or directly across a path of the approaching Canberra (aircraft). When it got to the path of the Canberra it turned to my right and was going in the direction from which the Canberra had just come.   “When it got directly over the Canberra it slowed down. During this time, I found it very hard to believe what I was seeing, so I shut my eyes and then looked again through the binoculars and the object was still stationary over the flight path of the Canberra. Since it appeared to be the same relative size as the Canberra through the binoculars, I thought it would be possible to see it with the naked eye. However, when I looked over the top of the binoculars the object had either gone or I could not see it with the naked eye, and when I looked again through the binoculars I could not pick it up.  The object appeared to be travelling about three times as fast as the Canberra, but of course it is impossible to estimate, since I did not know what height it was. It was perfectly circular all the time and a dark grey colour, and gave the appearance of being translucent. It did not glisten at all when it turned or was it shiny.”    Given Harry Turner’s experience in early radar development in wartime Australia, it is clear why he was impressed with the May 1954 radar visual case at Woomera.   I was approached recently by the grandson of Tom Dalton-Morgan, Rhys Dalton-Morgan, who was trying to get more information about him, and his apparent UFO involvement. Rhys has had a difficult time navigating both British and Australian military archives, with only very limited information being gathered.  I recommended he contact Dr. David Clarke who had undertaken outstanding research into the early days of official British UFO research. Dr David Clarke's recent exploration  of the early secret days of UK UFO investigations (Fortean Times, Issue 445)   Rhys contacted David indicating,“I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m the grandson of a Battle of Britain Ace, Group Captain Tom Dalton-Morgan or Thomas Fredrick Dalton-Morgan. I was given your name by Bill Chalker. I live in Sydney, Australia and have been doing some research into him of late. I requested his file from the national archives in the UK, but they told me they don’t have it or it hasn’t been transferred from the ministry of defence yet. I’ve had similar issues with the national archives and department of defence in Australia and the US. While doing my own research, I recently discovered a chapter from his history that has been completely unknown to the family. Apparently he had been apart of a joint RAF and USAF committee in the late 1940’s investigating UFO’s.  Now my grandfather was a private person and very matter of fact. But as time has gone after he passed, it has been discovered that he has an interesting history, much he never spoke of. From being a secret “Ghost” pilot in the US 8th Air Force, to being a participant in the formation of the Western Union Defence Organisation, to then managing the Woomera Rocket Range in Australia for the Weapons Research Establishment for 30 years.
A lot is not known about him.  I was wondering if you might have any information or resources I may be able to follow up to find out more about his history. Do you also know anything about this joint RAF and USAF committee in the late 1940ʼs investigating UFOʼs.  Cheers, Rhys  Dear Rhys, 
Thank you for your email regarding your grandfather and his interest in UFOs.
 As you have spoken to Bill Chalker, I guess you must be aware of the account published in Ken Lewelyn's 1991 book Flight into the Ages? This refers to Tom Dalton-Morgan's UFO sighting at the Woomera rocket range in the late 1950s? 
Lewelyn's account also refers to the 'joint RAF and USAF committee' that investigated UFOs in the 1940s, from information provided by your grandfather. 
I have checked my files and found that I interviewed your grandfather by phone on 4 November 2002. Unfortunately, I did not record this so I have only brief shorthand notes... I recall he was about to leave for a trip to Australia at the time and I have his address noted as Jasmine Cottage, Wendover.
 The notes cover his Woomera experience and generally confirm the account in Lewelyn's book. He said it was reported to both RAAF HQ and to London - but he heard nothing back.
 Not surprised that you have had little success at The National Archives. Virtually all the MoD/Air Ministry files on UFOs covering the period 1949-1961 were destroyed, so no chance of tracing original documentation.
 Your grandfather, in the interview, did confirm that he served on a joint US/UK committee that investigated UFOs in the 1940s and 50s... and that he had asked to be on it (he did not explain why) - it included both military and civilian pilots. All he could remember was that all the sightings they were asked to examine were resolved except 3% 'which were unknown' I have not been able to find any trace of this 'committee' apart from the existence of a MoD 'Flying Saucer Working Party' that existed circa 1950-51 and produced a report that is in the archives DEFE 44/119 see:  https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/national-archives-ufo-files-7/flying-saucer-working-party/ 
 and
 https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/radar-uaps/mod-dsi-jtic-report-no-7-unidentified-flying-objects-1951/ 
  The FSWP was terminated in 1951 but continued in 1952 under Professor RV Jones when responsibility for UFOs was transferred to the Air Ministry.
 The FSWP certainly liaised with USAF Intelligence and CIA on UFOs and CIA were present when the report was completed and circulated in London.
This maybe the committee your grandfather refers to? 
If so I suspect if any further evidence is in existence, it will be held by the US National Archives either Project Grudge or Project Bluebook.
Hoping this is useful.
 Have you discovered anything else? 
bests Dr David Clarke
Tweets: @shuclarke
Website:  http://www.drdavidclarke.co.uk/   Blog:  https://drclarke.substack.com/ I thanked David for assisting Rhys.     Fortunately, Rhys had a copy of Tom’s biographical book “Tommy Leader” and confirmed that it included an account of his Woomera UFO experience.   Here is Tom Dalton-Morgan’s account from the book “Tommy Leader":   “One night at Woomera when we were setting up to launch a Black Knight vehicle there was a most unusual incident.  I was in the Control Room talking to Alan Mole who was setting up for the countdown to launch.  A call came for me over the intercom from Percy Hawkins, our Recovery Officer, who was down range near the expected impact areas of the Black Knight and launch vehicles.  He reported a very bright light that was heading towards the Range head.  I stepped out on to the balcony of Test Control building followed by Alan Mole and others. “Sure enough we soon picked up a very bright light heading at high speed towards the Rangehead.  It appeared to be at about 5,000 ft.  As it orbited around us, we could see what appeared to be a circular outline of the vehicle.  A cabin protruded from the top of the vehicle, it was brightly lit and showed up the circular outline of the vehicle.  As it passed behind us it accelerated and climbed away, almost vertically, to the East and disappeared.  No sound came from it.  The apparent circular shape of the vehicle, its speed, rate and angle of climb were beyond that of known aircraft of the time.  Our Rangehead radar failed to pick it up.  I reported the incident immediately to RAAF HQ in Canberra to RAAF Base Edinburgh and to Defence Research Establishments.  It was seen by our Recovery Team down range and by at least six of us at the Rangehead.  I would say that it was one of the three percent of such sightings that could not be easily explained away.” From the references such as “Fire Across the Desert”, “Woomera”, C.H. Hill’s “A Vertical Empire – History of the British Rocket Programme” (2012), and Wikipedia’s Black Knight entry, and the information we currently have on the Tom Dalton-Morgan Woomera UFO report, it would appear the date of the sighting would come from 5 possible Black Knight Woomera launches, namely 7 September 1958, and 12 March, 11 June, 29 June and 30 October 1959.  Ken Llewelyn in his book “Flight into the Ages” reflects, “It was a very sensitive time, with missiles being cleared for nuclear capability …. Tom cannot recall the exact date of the incident, and the official report is now buried in Defence Department archives, but it is one of great interest …. High security surrounded the firing of the Black (K)Night because it was specifically designed to test the fusing system for a nuclear bomb and to obtain data on the radar signatures of an incoming nose cone, somewhat similar to a nuclear warhead.”  Such security issues, one would think would not be an issue that would effect release of files more than 60 years later, but its seems such issues run into deep time. Rhys Dalton-Morgan advised me on 24 June 2024, “The Defence Department or Information Access Unit specifically have come back to me today and said no records on Tom could be located. I know that's nonsense because I've spoken with the national archives on the phone, who can see on their end DST have released files on Tom then taken them back.”  We hope, with persistence, progress may be made on the release of Tom Dalton-Morgan’s file, which may also answer many questions and provide more detailed information about Tom’s sighting.    So there we have it, “Tommy Leader: Tom Dalton-Morgan and the 3% UFO solution”, determined by his time on a joint US/UK committee that investigated UFOs in the 1940s and 50s, an apparent fore-runner of the 1950-51 MOD Flying Saucer Working Party, and his own well witnessed late 1950s UFO sighting at Woomera in Australia, just prior to a Black Knight launch. Somebody’s “Big Science” checking out our “Big Science” out there, down Woomera way, something seemingly beyond our abilities, perhaps something of a non human intelligence.  Tom Dalton-Morgan certainly thought it wasn’t one of ours. posted by Bill Chalker at 3:41 AM https://theozfiles.blogspot.com/2024/06/tommy-leader-tom-dalton-morgan-and-3.html 1 Comments:   Geoff  said... Very interesting Bill, particularly the UFO's interest in the Black Knight series of tests in 1959.Ties in with their interest in Atlas and Thor missile tests just 3 years later in 1962. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/614788 - This is the Atlas 8F test in the Atlantic Missile Range on 19 September 1962. At the 4:40 mark, an object is filmed travelling alongside the Avro Mark 4 Re-entry Vehicle (RV) in its terminal flight phase. At this point the RV is travelling at 20,000 feet per second, or Mach 18. AARO has categorized this footage as a UFO in the National Archiveshttps:// apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0861789.pdf - This is the post-flight test report of the Atlas 8F test in the footage referenced. On page 22 (14 in the original document, which has been scanned into the archive out of order) it states that several objects were filmed by the on-board cameras installed to watch the booster separation sequence. These objects' "identification or origin could not be determined".37 days later, the Thor missile carrying the Bluegill Triple Prime nuclear weapon aloft separated its Avco Mark 4 Re-entry Vehicle at an apogee of 170km altitude, and once again the RV was followed by a UFO in its terminal flight phase down to detonation altitude of 48km. The detonation and subsequent destruction of the UFO was filmed by the EG&G aircraft filming the early stage fireball expansion from two KC-135 aircraft at 35,000 feet.Department of Energy (1962). Starfish Prime Interim Report By Commander JTF-8 https://archive.org/details/StarfishPrimeInterimReportByCommanderJTF8Timestamps 00:19:25, 00:49:00 to 00:50:41, 00:50:41 to 00:50:50, 00:51:42, 00:51:47Tom Dalton-Morgan sounded like an exceptional person and leader, overcoming the odds on several occasions in combat. His eyewitness accounts should be taken very seriously.Geoff 5:36 AM Post a Comment << Home About Me    Bill Chalker   Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Coordinator of the Sydney based UFO Investigation Centre (UFOIC) & the Anomaly Physical Evidence Group (APEG). Information about sightings and research are most welcome. Author of "The OZ Files - the Australian UFO Story" (1996), "Hair of the Alien - DNA and other forensic evidence of alien abduction" (2005), and "UFO History Keys - Examining the UFO controversy from a historical perspective" (2011). Enquiries via billozfiles@tpg.com.au or P.O. Box 42, West Pennant Hills, NSW, 2125, AUSTRALIA. In "HAIR of the ALIEN" (order via www.amazon.com ) my primary focus is promoting a forensic scientific approach to examining the alien abduction controversy, concentrating on the DNA approach where compelling biological evidence is available. View my complete profile Previous Posts "The Bill Chalker UFO Encounter: An Australian Res... THE TULLY THING “Against the Odds” – the new Donald Keyhoe biograp... Limina - the Journal of UAP Studies - has landed The Washington DC UFO “Merry-Go-Round”, the Austra... The 1868 "UFO vision" of Frederick William Birming... CUFOS and the Australian connection On the steps of a "magnificent obsession" - UFOs, ... Confronting UFOs and UAP - Remembering October 1973 The early days of the public UFO drama in Australi... Sky map by AstroViewer ® Get the HTML code  for this sky map    Here you can find out about Project Sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sign And you can view 72 page Project Sign Document https://archive.org/details/ProjectSIGN

7TH OCTOBER 2010 LOUGHOR ESTUARY, NORTH GOWER 7th OCTOBER 2010 – LOUGHOR ESTUARY, NORTH GOWER Between 8 PM and 9 PM - Dark, Dry, Cloudy. Witness: Jonathan Davies. Jonathan's Statement to SUFON My daughter who was 2 years old at the time was standing pointing out the conservatory window saying ‘bright’. I walked over and took a look and their hovering in the sky next to my neighbours large tree, at the back right of the tennis court there was a large egg shape orange ORB I will describe it as a small sun, and it was as bright as the sun, it was to the east of my house and across the estuary from Burryport and Llanelli South Wales. At the time I had thought the tide was in over the salt marsh but I think but I might have been wrong about this, as it was dark and the pics I took do not show any water reflection. After being stationary for a few moments the object shot downwards and to the right and it landed, it happened and moved so fast I thought it had crashed or was in trouble. Then the bright orange light went out and was replaced by a much smaller light blue colour but every few seconds I'd say at 5 second intervals it would emit massive pulsing flashes of various colours and the colours were very very bright, they were as bright like a light house, the colours kept changing Green, Red, Orange, Blue, White - I had binoculars and I had to take my eyes away from them every time the colours changed as the flashes were so bright, I remember saying wow my god every time they changed, as they were so shocking to watch. This all happened for over an hour. I took pictures with a new camera I had just bought for use for my business, I had not yet learned how to use it and was not then aware it had a video function (idiot). About 15 minutes after it arrived another similar but much larger object appeared, it was bright white and round - it was opposite to me on the other side of the coast and above Burryport / Llanelli (see pic below) the sky was overcast so it was not stars and not Chinese lanterns as this object was very large and stayed in same position for long periods + it was white coloured. This is the white object that appeared over and between Burryport/Llanelli - below were the street lights it was below cloud level. Once the original object had landed or was hovering, (dependant on the tide) I heard what I thought was a twin rotor helicopter very noisy, it came from the direction of Gowerton, this headed towards the object, it had 2 lights on it, it came up to the object quite slowly and it had a strange looking spot light on it like a very straight beam, but as soon as the light reached the 1st object the spot light went out and the helicopter would disappear only to reappear where it had originally appeared miles in land this happened at least 5 times, it was very strange. I have thought about this since and I believe it was used as a distraction for anyone watching the original landed craft, and I think the helicopter was not real and was a type of holographic image with sound -, I think the landed craft was in some sort of difficulty and the false helicopter was simply to distract. Another green coloured craft came in from the south (direction of the sea) and seemed to be like a rescue mission for the landed object, they both moved off slowly in the direction of the sea - south. as they moved away this all came to an end and the large white object over Llanelli vanished at the same time, they helicopter vanished, their are pics that show this and you can see that they are moving from the different pics of the background orange lights of the opposite coast street lights. That night I phoned the police and asked if they were aware of any crash or had they had any other reports of the incident they said no other reports and it was not their helicopter and they had no other reports of anything strange in the area., Next morning I contacted the coast guard and had the same response as the police, I also contacted the two local air bases at Pembrey and St. Athan, both bases close at 5.30pm and they said nothing to do with them and finally I contacted Swansea airport and they knew nothing. I worked from home and the office over looked where the UFO landed, next day after this all happened I watched two black vans on the causeway at the approximate location where the object had landed 3 men seemed to be searching around the area. This was very unusual in itself because in 2 years of living at the property I had very rarely seen anyone in that remote area and only ever seen the farmer who had salt marsh sheep/lambs on the land, when the tide was out.. As a follow up a few weeks after this all happened I asked the farmers who hold the key to the locked gate over the track to the causeway, and he told me that he had not opened it for anybody ever as their was no need to and it was private land, and he was very surprised to hear by what I told him about the vans and men. At the time this happened I sent some pictures to Nick Pope who headed up the investigation into UFOs at the Ministry of Defence. He replied and said the pictures are baffling and intriguing and asked me to get them analysed with the BUFORA which I have done but never had a reply. You will see the causeway (track) this is what the vans travelled on, you will see it goes to the castle this is where the gates are locked to the road, and I confirm I myself found these locked when I went to the castle with my wife for a visit and this was when we found out from the farmer that the gates are always locked. The Swansea and Gower area of Wales has a very strong magnetic anomaly This is not my 1st sighting - this happens a lot to me and always has. Presentation on this case and other experiences Jonathan's case was also featured in the magazine Shadows of the Mind

THE MYSTERY OF THE DODLESTON MESSAGES A BIZZARE RECORD OF COMMUNICATION THROUGH TIME (credit Ken Webster The Vertical Plane) In 2019 Gary Rowe came and gave us a talk on North Wales cases, while he was here he told us of a case he investigated in 1985 called The Vertical Plane, he gave us a brief account and he then left for North Wales where he lives. A couple of months later we stayed overnight on the top of Moel Famau with a friend from Buckley, while we were there he mentioned he had a paranormal type event when he noticed marks on his back, those marks were actually numbers 2109. As we weren`t far from Gary Rowe we paid a visit so Gary could hear the account.. After our trip to North Wales we started to get quite a lot of emails and messages asking about Gary Rowe as wanted to talk to him about The Vertical Plane. We`d arranged for Gary to come and give us a talk all about it but Covid came along in which we couldn`t have meetings for about 16/18 months. meanwhile emails and messages still came. Our meetings started back but sadly Gary had some health issues and couldn`t attend our meetings, so we arranged with Gary to go and interview him in North Wales. Gary talked about his part in the investigation which started about a year after events started at Meadow Cottage, how he got involved and some other bits and pieces. After filming Gary he mentioned he was in the new revised edition of the book, so we had a look and found out there was an image of Gary from our 1st interview with Gary in North Wales, the image was credited to Swansea Ufo Network. That took us back a little as we`ve had so many synchronicities, chance meetings,other small signs that have been pointing us in the directon of Dodleston and The Vertical Plane since 2019, the last month has been pretty hectic when it comes to synchronicities, chance meetings and all sort of weird happenings, is it a bit of coincidence that since 2019 we`ve been on a journey involving 2109 as it`s been following us round ever since, it`s as if we are being pulled into it for some reason. After visiting Gary we seem to have a couple of things to research before we are able to edit and release Gary`s account of his investigation so it may be a few months yet as Chester/Dodleston is a long journey so we may have to make a few visits but hoping by end of the year it`ll be finished (credit Gary Rowe) Gary was the investigator involved with The Vertical Plane which involved messages from the past and future on a BBC Micro Computer in 1984/1985. It`s the first time that Gary has talked about his involvment on any public platform or in public, we are very privileged that Gary granted us this interview. If you haven`t read The Vertical Plane then you really should do, messages from the 1500`s and possibly from the future, is 2109 a date , group of people from the future or some form of AI from the future. We`ve included a link to purchase the book if you haven`t read it yet, its a fascinating read https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vertical-Pla...

The Egryn Lights, or the Harlech Lights Flap, was a wave of unexplained light phenomena that occured in Gwynedd, North Wales, in around 1905. One day a huge arc, like a kind of aurora, was seen spanning from the mountains into the sea. After that, the lights came. At the time there was a religious revivial which had been started by a Mary Jones, who preached at a small chapel in Egryn between Barmouth and Harlech. The lights soon came to be associated with the revival. Journalists from London and other cities flocked skeptically to the area, but were soon shocked by the lights and wrote back a series of very intriguing articles. Kevin McClure summarised these events in a well known book of the 1980s called Stars and Rumours of Stars. Old Waves The area has a history of strange lights. As Fiery Exhalations in Wales notes, the 1905 flap wasn't the only one in the area: there was another in 1693 and 1694. At this time it was called the Harlech Meteor, meteor being the general name for any unexplained light, which at the time included what we now call meteors. Pennant's Tour in Wales, Vol. II., p. 372, ed. 1810, describes the phenomenon as follows: “Winter of 1694. — A pestilential vapour resembling a weak blue flame arose during a fortnight or three weeks out of a sandy, marshy tract called Morfa Byden, and crossed over a channel of 8 miles to Harlech. It set fire on that side to 16 ricks of hay and 2 barns, one filled with hay, the other with corn. It infected the grass in such a manner that cattle, etc., died, yet men eat of it with impunity. It was easily dispelled: any great noise, sounding of horns, discharging of guns, at once repelled it. Moved only by night, and appeared at times, but less frequently; after this it disappeared A few decades later, John Mason Neale, in The Unseen World (1847), describes the same incident after recounting his own experience with a Will-o'-the-wisp: “Of a less innocent kind was the celebrated Harlech meteor of 1694. Between Harlech and the Caernarvonshire side of the Traeth Bychan intervenes a low range of marsh land, running up some way into the country. Just before Christmas, 1693, a pale blue light was observed to come across the sea, apparently from the Caernarvonshire coast, and moving slowly from one part of the neighbouring country to another, to fire all the hay-ricks and some of the barns which it approached. It never appeared but at night. At first the country people were terrified at it; at length, taking courage, they ventured boldly close to it, and sometimes into it, to save, if it might be, their hay. As summer came on, instead of appearing almost every night, its visits were confined to once or twice a week, and almost always on Saturday or Sunday. It now began to cease from firing ricks, but was hurtful in another manner; for it poisoned all the grass on which it rested, and a great mortality of cattle and sheep ensued. At length it was traced to a place called Morvabychan, in Caernarvonshire, a sandy and marshy bay, about nine miles distant from Harlech. Storm or fine weather seemed to make no difference to this meteor; but any loud noise, as shouting, firing guns, blowing horns, appeared to prevent its doing mischief. It was seen for the last time in the August of 1694.” Outline of Events December 1904 5th — Mary Jones starts her revival work at Egryn Chapel. She sees a large auroral arc, stretching from the mountains into the sea, and what she calls a star. The meeting at Egryn Chapel was not well attended. 8th — Mary Jones holds a second revival meeting at Egryn Chapel, this one much better attended. 15th — The Barmouth Advertiser gives the first media report of Mary Jones, but not the lights. In the week that followed, the same paper reported “close upon 40 converts” being enrolled. 22nd — Three people see a large light to the south of Egryn Chapel, with a “bottle or black person” in the middle and “some little lights scattering around the large light in many colors.” January 1905 2nd — A man sees three lights in formation like a Prince of Wales feathers over a farmhouse. In what is described as probably the same sighting, a woman saw lights between Dyffryn and Llanbedr in early January too. 5th — Mary Jones attends a meeting at Pensarn. A Machynlleth train driver reports seeing a strange light “shooting out of ten different directions, and then coming together with a loud clap”. A strange light was also reported near Towyn. 13th — The Cambrian News publishes the first mention of the lights in the press. 16th — Mary Jones writes to the SPR saying that she had seen the lights several times, and that they started about six weeks ago. 31st — Beriah Evans sees five separate lights with Mary Evans around Islawrffordd and Egryn Chapel. He went on to write a famous article about these events which was published on 9th February. The Times claimed that the revival in South Wales was at somewhat of a peak. February 1905 9th — (Thursday) An article by Beriah Evans is published in the Daily News and the Guardian, giving his account of the lights of 31st January. This article prompts the Daily Mail and the Mirror to send journalists to investigate, and the media frenzy last for about a week. 10th — (Friday) Mary Jones gives a service at Bryncrug, and according to Beriah Evans, lights are seen not just as the meeting but also by various people as they walk home. 11th — (Saturday) Mary Jones is at Bontddu and lights reportedly pale the lights of her room. She gives a service in the evening. The Daily Mail reporter sees several lights around Egryn Chapel. The Daily Mirror reporter rides back with Mary Evans in the dark, and as they enter Barmouth they see a strange kernel of light above their carriages. 12th — (Sunday) Possibly on this day a clergyman with Mary Jones sees a light travel from Islawrffordd and alight on the roof of Egryn Chapel. 13th — (Monday) Stationmaster R. Bowen at Towyn sees the light through a telescope, heading towards Harlech. He had also been observing the lights in January. The Daily Mail correspondent, Bernard Redwood, and two others, also attempt to conduct a scientific investigation of the lights by Egryn Chapel. They only see a distant flash to the north. Mary Jones was in a village fifteen miles away. 14th — (Tuesday) The Daily Mirror journalist sees a bar of light by Egryn Chapel, and though some standing by him see it, others just a little further off hadn't observed it. 20th — The Times reports that the revival in South Wales is starting to lose its power due to its main proponent, Evan Roberts, suffering a nervous breakdown. 24th — The Cambrian News start to take a peculiarly harsh line towards Mary Jones and the light sightings. March 1905 4th — According to the Atlanta Constitution, a light follows Mary Jones's carriage back from a meeting at a place whose name is sadly not legible in the record. 5th — According again to the Atlanta Constitution, a reporter from the Express saw lights from a summit of the road apparently north from Egryn Chapel and before Islawrffordd. The lights were visible in the hills behind Egryn Chapel. 10th — Mary Jones holds a revival meeting at Arthog, but no lights are seen there. 13th — The Rev. H. D. Jones sees a strange light accompany them and Mary Jones from Ty'n-y-Drain near Llanbedr a mile of the way to Egryn. The light turned sharp left to follow them at a junction rather than going straight on. 15th — Lights are seen by a lady at West End in Pwllheli, where Mary Jones is holding a meeting. 25th — Mr. L.M. and others see a variety of lights at Capel Bethel in Llanfair, where Mary Jones was holding a meeting. Some of the lights sprang from a field adjacent to the chapel. April 1905 13th — Strange noises are heard by Miss Jane Jeffreys, with whom Mary Evans is residing. 19th — A party sees lights at Froncysyllte: “We posted ourselves on the north end of the Pontcysyllte (Aqueduct) at 11.30pm, and watched continuously for over an hour over the valley of the Dee, and particularly over some fields near the Argoed farm. Twice I distinctly noticed a large ball of fire rise from the earth and suddenly burst luridly.” Mary Jones was in the area. 20th — Mary Jones had been preaching at Wrexham, and the lights had been seen there. May 1905 25th — In the early hours of the morning, Rev. E.W.E. reports seeing lights towards Penrhys Hill, near Ystrad in Rhondda, from his home after attending a meeting with Mary Jones. 27th — Dr. R.J.M. sees a light at Libanus in Rhondda, where Mary Jones was holding a meeting. Sightings Auroral Arch 5th December 1904 (1) On Mary Jones's first meetings: “She was full of expectation but the first meeting, on a Monday evening, chilled her very heart. However, another was announced for the Thursday. It was better attended, and people took part more readily, she herself making the first attempt.” — British Weekly, Rev. Elvet Lewis, 26th Jan 1905; via McClure (2) On Mary Jones: “It was quite recently that she first saw a mysterious star in the air before her, pointing out the way. It was not like any ordinary star, being infinitely more powerful and looking like a brilliant white light hung in the air only a short distance away. She followed the path it indicated and won converts by the revival message she was taking round the neighbourhood.” — Daily Mirror, 13th Feb 1905, p.6 (3) “The 'stars' and 'lights' appeared for the first time on the night that Mrs Jones commenced her public mission at Egryn. The star was heralded by a luminous arch, of the character of the 'Aurora Borealis', one end resting on the sea, the other on the hill-top (a distance of well over a mile), bathing the little chapel in a flood of soft effulgence. The star soon after appeared, its light flooding the chapel itself. Ever since then, up to the middle of February, the star and the lights have always accompanied Mrs Jones' mission.” — Occult Review, Beriah Evans, March 1905; via McClure Devereux cites the Manchester Guardian, 9th February, one of the famous series of articles by Beriah Evans, for the same information as in quote (3) above. Presumably Evans's piece in the Occult Review reused material from his earlier series. Black Bottle 22nd December 1904 (1) At 5:18pm, three observers saw a large light “about half way from the earth to the sky, on the south side of Capel Egryn, and in the middle of it something like [a] bottle or black person, also some little lights scattering around the large light in many colours. Last of all the whole thing came to a large piece of fog, out of sight.” — Psychological Aspects of the Welsh Revival, A. T. Fryer Prince of Wales Feathers 2nd January 1905 [?] — “I saw the light you refer to one night at the beginning of January (between 10 and 10.30pm). At first I saw two very bright lights, about half a mile away (it was between Dyffryn and Llanbedr) one a big white light, the other smaller and red in colour. The latter flashed backwards and forwards, and finally seemed to have become merged in the other. Then all was darkness again. It did not appear in the same place again, but a few minutes after we saw another light which seemed to be a few yards above the ground. It looked like one big flame, and all around it seemed like one big glare of light. It flamed up and went out alternately for about ten minutes, very much in the same way as some lighthouses.” (SPR Letter) Shooting Clap 5th January 1905 — “On Thursday night of last week Mrs Jones attended a meeting at Pensarn, where hundreds of people congregated. The chapel can be seen from the railway and as a train, driven by a Machynlleth man, was passing, a strange light was seen shooting out of ten different directions, and then coming together with a loud clap. ‘Never do I wish to see anything like it again,’ said the driver in relating his experience. Both he and his mate saw the light which, since then, has been seen by other people, but in a different form.” (Cambrian News, 13th January) Towyn Observations Mid January 1905 — “Mr R Bowen, the stationmaster at Towyn, yesterday stated to a correspondent that he had seen in the Manchester Guardian that Mr Beriah Evans claimed to have seen a luminous star which made a dart towards the hills of Dyffryn, and other erratic movements. The star was observed by Mr Bowen about a month ago. It is a large, luminous body, with 3 large sparklets emanating from it, apparently about a foot in diameter, similar to that observed round the moon, (this seems to refer to a yellowish ring seen around it) and generally accepted as an indication of a coming storm.” (Manchester Guardian, 17th Feburary) Late January or Early February 1905 — “One night it remained practically in the same position from 6.30 to 7.50pm When sought for again, it had travelled in 12 minutes from a point opposite Towyn to the North-West, and stood opposite, as far as he could judge, Bardsey Island.” (Manchester Guardian, 17th Feburary) Beriah Jones's Lights 31st January 1905 — “We had just passed the level-crossing of the Cambrian railway in the fields, when Mrs Jones directed our attention to the southern sky. While she yet spoke, between us and the hills, and apparently two miles away, there suddenly flashed forth an enormous luminous star flashing forth an enormously brilliant white light, and emitting from its whole circumference dazzling sparklets like flashing rays from a diamond. [...] the star made a sudden huge jump towards the mountains, returning almost immediately to its old position, and then rushing at an immense speed straight for us. [...] And a second light, very different in character from the first, became [...] perceptible at some distance below the star, both obviously rushing towards us. As the train drew nearer the 'star' disappeared. With a rush and a roar the train was past. [...] the mysterious star reappeared nearer, and if possible more brilliant than ever. Then it vanished as suddenly as it had first appeared. [...] In a moment, high up on the hillside, quite two miles away from where the 'star' had been a moment previously, a 'light' again flashed out, illuminating the heather as though bathed in brilliant sunshine. Again it vanished - only again to reappear a mile further north evidently circling the valley, and in the direction for which we were bound. [...] So far the 'light' and 'star' had been equally visible to and seen alike by the five who formed our company. Now it made a distinction. Having left the fields and proceeded some distance along the main road, all five walking abreast, I suddenly saw three brilliant rays of dazzling white light stride across the road from mountain to sea, throwing the stone wall into bold relief, every stone and interstice, every little fern and bit of moss, as clearly visible as at noonday, or as though a searchlight had been turned on that particular spot. There was not a living soul near, nor a house from which the light could have come. Another short half-mile, and a blood-red light, apparently within a foot of the ground, appeared to me in the centre of the village street just before us. I said nothing until we had reached the spot. The redlight had disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come - and there was absolutely nothing which could conceivably account for its having been there a moment before.” (Daily News, 9th February) The Bryncrug Lights 10th Feburary — “at Bryncrug, between Towyn and Abergynolwyn, twenty-five miles from Dyffryn, the chapel where the meeting was held became bathed in mysterious light. After the meeting a professional gentleman returning homeward suddenly saw a gigantic figure rising over a hedgerow, with right arm extended over the road. Then a ball of fire appeared above, a long white ray descended and pierced the figure, which vanished. This extraordinary manifestation was witnessed simultaneously by a prominent local farmer from another standpoint. A party of youths returning from a Bryncrug meeting saw a ball of fire preceding them high above the road. Hastening forward they overtook the light, which then remained still. They knelt in the roadway, bathed in this mysterious light, and united in prayer, while the light remained stationary." (Daily News, 16th February) Defective Arc-Lamp 11th February 1905 — “At 8.15pm I was on the hillside, walking from Dyffryn to Egryn. In the distance, about a mile away, I could see the three lighted windows of the tiny Egryn chapel, where service was going on. It was the only touch of light in the miles of countryside. Suddenly at 8.20pm I saw what appeared to be a ball of fire above the roof of the chapel. It came from nowhere, and sprang into existence simultaneously. It had a steady, intense yellow brilliance, and did not move. [...] It seemed to me to be at twice the height of the chapel, say fifty feet, and it stood out with electric vividness against the encircling hills behind. Suddenly it disappeared, having lasted about a minute and a half. [...] The minutes crept by and it was 8.35pm before I saw anything else. Then two lights flashed out, one on each side of the chapel. They seemed about 100 feet apart, and considerably higher in the air than the first one. In the night it was difficult to judge distance, but I made a rough guess that they were 100 feet above the roof of the chapel. They shone out brilliantly and steadily for a space of thirty seconds. Then they both began to flicker like a defective arc-lamp. They were flickering like that while one could count ten. Then they became steady again. In the distance they looked like large and brilliant motor-car lights. They disappeared within a couple of seconds of each other. [...] I set off to walk the four miles to Barmouth, stopping here and there for ten minutes to watch for fresh lights. [...] Just after half-past ten I was startled by a flash on the dark hillside immediately on my left, and looking up I saw I was comparatively close to one of the strange lights. It was about 300 feet up the hillside, and about 500 feet from where I stood. It shone out dazzlingly, not with a white brightness, but with a deep yellow brightness. It looked a solid bulb of light six inches in diameter, and was tiring to look at. I ran at the stone wall by the side of the road, climbed it, and made a run for the light. It was gone before I had covered a dozen yards, and I could find nothing but the bare hillside. When I reached the road again I looked back along the way I had come, and saw in the roadway near the Egryn Chapel another of the bright lights.” (Daily Mail) Bontddu Glow 11th February 1905 — “At Bontddu, near Dolgelly, on Saturday, the brilliant effulgence of a star paled the lights of the room she occupied. Returning homewards after a meeting, her carriage was suddenly bathed in mysterious light descending from a radiant ball in the heavens. Many Barmouth people witnessed this as they were rushing to meet the carriage on entering the town.” (Daily News, 16th February) Kernel of Fireworks 11th February 1905 [?] — “at 10.30pm [...] I then told Mrs Jones how anxious I was to see the light for myself, and she said she would pray that it might appear to me. I made arrangements to drive back behind her carriage. Both drivers consented to drive without lights. In the first carriage were Mrs Jones and three ladies, in my own with me, the Daily Mirror photographer, a keen witted, hard headed Londoner. [...] For three miles we drove in silence, and I had given up hope. It was close on midnight, and we were nearing Barmouth when suddenly, without the faintest warning, a soft shimmering radiance flooded the road at our feet. Immediately it spread around us, and every stick and stone within twenty yards was visible, as if under the influence of the softest limelight. It seemed as though some large body between earth and sky had suddenly opened and emitted a flood of light from within itself. It was a little suggestive of the bursting of a firework bomb - and yet wonderfully different. Quickly as I looked up, the light was even then fading away from the sky overhead. I looked up to see an oval mass of grey, half open, disclosing within a kernel of white light. As I looked it closed, and everything was once again in darkness. Every one saw this extraordinary light, but while it appeared to me of snowy whiteness, the rest declared it was a brilliant blue.” (Daily Mirror journalist, to the Society for Psychical Research) [Cambrian News says Sunday; Beriah Evans in the Daily News says Saturday; Daily Mail says Saturday she was at Bontddu. But if the sighting was on the 11th, why didn't the Daily Mirror journalist see the light that bathed the Bontddu room? Perhaps because that refers to where Mary Jones was staying, and not the meeting?] Chapel Roof Arcs 12th February 1905 [?] — “At seven o'clock I and my wife and a minister and his wife set out with Mrs. Jones from her house. We had just got outside the gate when we saw an extraordinary sight immediately over our heads, but high up in the air. It was an irregular mass of white light. It travelled with lightning speed in the direction of Egryn Chapel, a mile away. Arrived there, It suddenly took the shape of a solid triangle with rounded angles. I should estimate the length of the sides as 5ft. Immediately over one corner of the chapel it hovered, and, in spite of the distance, we could see every slate on the roof. The inside of the triangle sparkled and flashed as if set with a thousand diamonds. The brilliance of it was almost terrible. For a moment, while we stared spellbound, the mystic light rested there, and then, like the lightning flashes, described an arc in the air and again settled on the opposite corner of the chapel.” Northern Flashes 13th February 1905 — “On Monday night the star was kept under observation through a telescope by Mr Bowen, and it travelled nearer to the land at 10.30pm. When opposite Harlech, as near as he could guess, it suddenly disappeared, and although watched for some time did not reappear. The night was clear, with a frost in the air.” (Manchester Guardian, 17th Feburary) 13th February 1905 — “suddenly in the northern sky a brilliant flash appeared, and shortly afterwards a second one, the first flash being followed by a distinct report. This light appeared momentarily, and did not seem to partake of the characteristics of lightning, but was peculiarly like the illumination produced by a magnesium flash lamp. Our delicate instruments did not respond in the slightest degree, and what these flashes really were it is impossible to conjecture.” (Daily Mail) Rainbow Bottle c.13th February 1905 — “It [a large square of light, half a mile from the observer over the tops of mountains a mile from Egryn Chapel] did not rest on the mountain-top, but was poised in mid-air about ten feet above. Between it and the mountain was a mass of white cloud. In the middle of the square was a bottle-shaped body, the bottom bright blue and the rest black. Out of the neck came a mass of fire of every conceivable colour. This [...] spreading on all sides, descended in a rainbow shower to the surface of the mountain. In less than a minute all was darkness.” (Daily Mirror, 16th February, via Devereux) Bar of Light 14th February 1905 [?] — “For several hours I had been watching with the Daily Mirror photographer near the little Egryn Chapel. We took our stand at 6.30 PM, and by ten o'clock had seen nothing. Then 400 yards away I saw a light which I took for an unusually brilliant carriage lamp. When I went in its direction and was about 100 yards from the chapel, it took the form of a bar of light quite four feet wide, and of the most brilliant blue. It blazed out at me from the roadway, within a few yards of the chapel. For half a moment it lay across the road, and then extended itself up the wall on either side. It did not rise above the walls. As I stared, fascinated, a kind of quivering radiance flashed with lightning speed from one end of the bar to the other, and the whole thing disappeared. ‘Look! Look!’ cried two women standing just behind me; ‘Look at the Light!’ [...] Within ten yards of where that band of vivid light had flashed across the road, stood a little group of fifteen or twenty persons. I went up to them, all agog to hear exactly what they thought of the manifestation — but not one of those I questioned had seen anything at all!” (Rider's Review) Gleaming and Scintillating 5th March 1905 — “‘That,’ he said, pointing to a high brick structure which faced the road, ‘is Egryn chapel, where the revival started, and where already some fifty converts have been added to the church. I hope we may see the lights,’ he said, and added, half apologetically, half pityingly: ‘It is not given to every one to see them. Spiritual things are not discernable of all men.’ The road now rose quickly, and at the summit the farmer suddenly stopped, excitedly seized my arm, and shouted triumphantly: ‘Yonder are the lights!’ He pointed with outstretched arm and shaking finger to the spot where, among the uncertain shadows, the dark outline of the chapel appeared to rest upon the hills. Beyond I saw some half-dozen lights. They gleamed, scintillated, jumped, and then vanished, to reappear at brief intervals.” Ty'n-y-Drain 13th March 1905 — “Mrs Jones was holding a revival meeting at a Methodist schoolroom, Ty'n-y-Drain, a mile and a half from Llanbedr in the direction of the mountains. [...] It was about 11 o'clock at night, Monday, March 13th, with a little drizzling rain, but not very dark. [...] After proceeding some distance the mysterious 'light' suddenly appeared above the roadway, a few yards in front of the car, around which it played and danced, sometimes in front, at other times behind Mrs Jones' vehicle. When we reached the crossroads where the road to Egryn makes a sharp turn to the left, the 'Light', on reaching this point, instead of following the road we had travelled and going straight on as might have been expected, at once turned and made its way in the direction of Egryn in front of the car! Up to this point it had been a single 'light' but after proceeding some distance on the Egryn road, it changed. A small red ball of fire appeared, around which danced two other attendant white lights. The red fire ball remained stationary for some time, the other 'lights' playing around it. Meanwhile the car conveying Mrs Jones proceeded onwards, leaving the 'lights' behind. These then suddenly again combined in one, and made a rapid dash after the car, which it again overtook and preceded. For over a mile did we thus keep it in view.” (Barmouth Advertiser, 23rd March) The Pwllheli Light ... Llanfair Lights 25th March 1905 — “The night which I am going to relate you my experience was Saturday evening, March 25th, 1905, when Mrs Jones, the evangelist of Egryn, was conducting a service in the Calvinistic Methodist Chapel at Llanfair, a place about a mile and a half from Harlech, on the main road between Barmouth and Harlech. My wife and myself went down that night specially to see if the light accompanied Mrs Jones from outside Egryn. We happened to reach Llanfair about 9.15pm. It was a rather damp evening. In nearing the chapel, which can be seen from a distance, we saw balls of light, deep red, ascending from one side of the chapel, the side which is in a field. There was nothing in this field to cause this phenomenon, ie. no houses, etc. After that we walked to and fro on the main road for nearly two hours without seeing any light except from a distance in the direction of Llanbedr. This time it appeared brilliant, ascending high into the sky from amongst the trees where lives the well-known Rev.C.E. the distance between us and the light which appeared this time was about a mile. Then about eleven o'clock when the service which Mrs Jones conducted was brought to a close, two balls of light ascended from the same place and of a similar appearance to those we saw first. In a few minutes afterwards Mrs Jones was passing us home in her carriage, and in a few seconds after she passed, on the main road, and within a yard of us, there appeared a brilliant light twice, tinged with blue. In two or three seconds, after this disappeared, on our right hand, within 150 or 200 yards, there appeared twice very huge balls of similar appearance as that which appeared on the road. It was so brilliant and powerful this time that we were dazed for a minute or two. Then immediately there appeared ascending from a field high into the sky, three balls of light, deep red. Two of these appeared to split up, while the middle one remained unchanged. Then we left for home, having been watching these last phenomena for a quarter of an hour.” (Mr L.M., to the Society for Psychical Research) Froncysyllte Lights ... Wrexham and Rhondda ... Approximate distances from Egryn Chapel: Bardsey Island — W 35 miles Barmouth — S 4 miles Bontddu —ESE 7 miles Bryncrug —S 11 miles, by Tywyn Dyffryn — N 3 miles Harlech — N 11 miles Llanbedr — N 5 miles Llanfair — N 10 miles Pensarn — N 6 miles Towyn — S 12 miles (Tywyn) There`s a lot more information on the link below Source - http://inamidst.com/lights/egryn

A UAP which appeared in the sky around 2 15 am on January 3, 2012 in Denbigh, North Wales. The video shows a UFO which appeared in the sky around 2 15am on January 3, 2012 in Denbigh, North Wales. The video is the Original video taken by Nathan when we visited The Pritchards in April 2017, it hasn`t been edited, enhanced or stabilized. Brothers Nathan and Alex Thomas saw several lights rotating in a circular formation out of the window of their home. Nathan Thomas (14) and his younger brother, Alex live in Bryn Garth on the western edge of Denbigh. They heard a loud bang caused by bins blowing over and looked out of their rear bedroom window, which faces north, and saw a group of white lights flashing and pulsing, possibly in the sky and seemingly on a hillside which lies about a mile to the north-west, near a quarry. Nathan said: 'When I saw the lights I looked back into my room in case it was something reflecting on to the glass, but I opened the window and they were definitely in the sky.' His mother, Linda Pritchard who also saw the lights described them as amazing and said they were circulating over two houses in Bryn Garth which back onto Cae Howell field, Denbigh. 'He woke me up, and his brother Alex and my grand-daughter Kiera. We all witnessed it, we were shaking and the dog kept barking. Nathan's first thought was this is a space-ship. The police just said it was lampers, but how can it be lampers at 3 am and its definitely in the sky' said Mrs Pritchard. Alex managed to film the lights on his new video camera. The video shows a definite disc-shaped object, as the lights along its sides flash on and off, sometimes in sequence, and at others seemingly in a random pattern. To his bemusement, he saw the bright lights flashing in the distance over a farmer's field. Photo with Crest Mawr Wood on Left hand side looking towards Denbigh The picture below was taken around a year later and you can see the woods were felled Alex said, 'It was a disc shape and I could see mini explosions in the light but it definitely wasn't fireworks because we had the window open and there was no sound. After we stopped filming we watched it for about half an hour and then next minute it was on an angle and was spinning and they confirmed there were no helicopters out on January 3. After watching them or some time he decided to wake his brother Alex, who described the lights as "amazing". They couldn't hear any noise from the lights and so decided it could not be fireworks. Nathan grabbed his hand-held camera which he'd got for Christmas and filmed the lights from his bedroom window. “When I saw the lights I looked back into my room in case it was something reflecting onto the glass, but I opened the window and they were definitely in the sky,” said Nathan. His mother Linda who also saw the lights described them as amazing and said they were circulating over two houses in Bryn Garth which backs onto Cae Howell playing field, Denbigh. “Nathan got a video cam for Christmas and it was the first thing he had ever filmed,” she said. “He woke me up, and his brother Alex and my grand-daughter Kiera, we all saw it, we were shaking and our dog wouldn't stop barking. Ms Pritchard. “Nathan’s first thought was this is a space-ship, the police just said it was lampers, but how can it be lampers at 3am and it is definitely up in the sky.” Nathan’s brother, Alex. “It was a disc shape and I could see mini explosions in the light but it definitely wasn’t fire works because we had the window open and there was no sound at all.” Alex. “After we stopped filming we watched it for about half an hour and then next minute it was on an angle and was spinning and then it just stopped, the lights went out and it was gone." Image Copyrights Respected. The above image shows diseased tree`s at Crest Mawr Woods back on the 4th April 2009 (timestamp is shown) which disproves claims that they only appeared 2012, they were felled back in 2013/14 due to disease. Here`s an up to date image taken in 2023 showing what area looks like now Crest Mawr Wood (alt. - Crêst) is a Site of Special Scientific Interest to the north west, adjoining Denbigh Golf Club and the Tarmac Quarry, an historic and ancient deciduous woodland. This woodland is endangered due to environmental pressure and competing land use in the area

During the 1970s Broad Haven in South Wales (UK) hit the headlines becoming a prime location for UFO sightings. Please note: the information in this compilation article comes from multiple sources and the copyright belongs to each source for the relevant material. The UFO flap was dubbed the name ‘Broad Haven Triangle & The Dyfed Triangle’ after the Bermuda Triangle. An article written in ‘The Sun’ titled ‘Spaceman Mystery of the Terror Triangle.’ In February 1977 it is reported that 14 schoolchildren saw a UFO craft in the field beside their school and when asked by the headmaster to draw the craft, the pictures all looked very similar. The oddest of all would have to be the apparent sighting of a 7ft creature in a silver suit late one night in April 1977. On February 5th a group of schoolchildren in Broad Haven ran excitedly into their school and told their teacher that they had just seen a silver-suited spaceman coming out of a spaceship. The teacher did not believe them and carried on with the lessons as normal. On getting out of school, however, they claimed they saw the spaceship again. They told friends, parents and everyone they could think of, but no one would take them seriously. The next day, they handed in a petition to the police, demanding the incident be investigated properly. All the fuss caused the headmaster to take the UFO sighting more seriously. He gathered all the children involved in the incident together and asked them to draw what they had seen. The drawings that resulted were highly consistent, showing a saucer-shaped UFO with a dome on top. That year in Wales large numbers of people claimed to see UFOs or to have bizarre, paranormal experiences of other kinds. The Witness statements On Friday February 4th 1977, during lunchtime at Broad Haven Community Primary School, a group of boys - Michael Webb (10), David Ward (10), and Shaun Garrison - playing football saw a strange cigar shaped object land in a field beyond the school grounds. Shaun remembered: "It was flattish and had 10 or 11 windows and a door with a runway leading from the door and it was silver." David added: "He wasn’t a very tall person, and he didn’t look very nice either." Michael Mathieson Webb said: "it was silver and a cigar shape with a big dome and a red light flashing on top ... We couldn’t believe it at first. One of the boys ran down the hill to tell Sir, but he didn’t believe it. I watched it for between three and five minutes. It had a flashing red light and I’m sure it was a spaceship. It definitely wasn’t a helicopter. Everyone is sure that they saw something. It seemed cigar-shaped with a large dome on the top. I was frightened when I saw it." Philip Rees (10) remembered: "Shaun and David [Ward] came running in and said that there was something there. So me and some other boys went up to the top of the playing field. We saw something silver and disc-shaped. There seemed to be a door opening from the object. David Davies [sic, presumably meaning Ward] and Tudor Jones saw a figure. They said it was silver. The object had a dome on top of it, with a light. It was a very dull day, but I did see something." Philip's first sighing was at about 1:30pm, and he claimed the UFO was still there when he went back into school at 2pm. "My friends and I asked the headmaster to have a look at the object, but he refused. A couple of my friends saw movement of a figure, but I did not. I was frightened. Two friends, Tudor and David, were very frightened." Jeremy Passmore (9) also saw the UFO during lunch break: "I saw the UFO when it was dinner time. It was silvery green and it had a yellowy orange to red colour light. It was a disc at the bottom and a sort of dome on the top with the light on top. It was about 300 yards away. It moved a minute and then disappeared. It did have a noise, but I didn’t hear it. We felt very scared. David George wanted someone to go to the toilet with him. Tudor Jones was nearly crying because he was scared he was going to be disintegrated or something so we all rushed in. Some of our school did not believe us. We tried to make them believe us but they would not." In answer to specific questions from Peter Paget, Jeremy stated that the sighting lasted not less than 5 minutes, the object was on the ground, and he saw a "person" in a silverish suit about 350 yards away. David R. George (9) saw both the object and the humanoid. Initially after 1.00pm and then again at 3.35pm. He stated that the object was huge and silver-coloured. It was shining and humming, and looked like a saucer with a point. He saw the occupant who was silver suited, and whose features were not seen apart from "odd long" ears. He also said that one boy was so frightened that he cried. Tudor Owen Lloyd Jones (10) didn't deny his terror. He reported seeing an object at ground level, behind a bush, and stated that he saw a "man" which lead to him becoming very scared. Paul Williams was seemingly also with this group and recalled: "We saw something come out of it. It had a helmet. We ran and told Sir and when we went back it wasn’t there." Other children known to have seen the craft were Martin Evans, Michael George, Andrew Lewis, Andrew Evans, and Lesley Neohorn. As the day progressed the craft moved along the perimeter of the field, witnessed by children and members of staff. Today the figure most associated with the school sightings is David Davies, as the only one of the children still willing to talk openly to the media. Then aged 10, Davies wasn't part of the other boys' friendship group and recounts that as the weather was bad that day he stayed indoors during break, only hearing about the UFO when classes resumed after lunch. Deciding he would debunk these rumours when school let out at 3:30pm, Davies walked to the top of the playing field and saw nothing but Philip Rees and others trying to get a closer look. As the other boys trailed off, and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, he figured he'd climb over the fence and go through the small stream to see this spot. He was only halfway over the fence when he saw it, hovering above the ground. About 45 foot long. Iridescent silver finish. A central dome covered the middle third, with a slowly pulsating red light. The sighting lasted about ten seconds with the craft hovering - perhaps trying to take off - before disappearing back below the tree line. Davies says he felt no fear, only amazement. His instinct was to stay and look, yet he couldn't overcome a strong urge to run away like his life depended on it. It was as though the suggestion had been placed in his head and there was nothing he could do but obey. When he reached the front of the school he got into his taxi and went home, where his mother could see he was agitated. Class teacher Mrs Morgan later said: "I saw it too, you know. It was real! When they went, a little whirlwind of dust came across the playground. It was almost as if they were saying goodbye." At 4:50pm David Davies' mother rang Randall Jones Pugh, a local BUFORA (British UFO Research Association) co-ordinator, who she knew well as he had only recently retired as the local vet and was also the brother-in-law of the owner of the farm they were living on. Pugh drove straight over to their home in Tiers Cross to interview David, and they then went back to the school to see the field but by now it was 6pm, dark, and raining heavily. They tried again the following day, this time with Andrew Lewis and Western Telegraph (the local newspaper) journalist Hugh Turnbull in tow. Although they searched the area thoroughly they could find no physical evidence on the ground, possibly as a result of the rain the previous night. A nearby telegraph pole however was found to be damaged, with the crossbeam hanging at an angle. When Peter Paget began his investigation in July, he interviewed the boys and their parents, and was taken to see the landing site which he described in some detail: 'Guided by two of the boys, I visited the exact spot over which the craft had been seen. The hillside behind us was quite steep, very uneven and muddy and, I thought, inaccessible to anything but a tractor. We were in a smallish field hemmed in by high trees and traversed by a 450-volt sub-station power line supported on wooden poles. No helicopter pilot in his right mind would come down here, and access by a light aircraft could not possibly have avoided a complete disaster. One of the boys pointed out a particular power-line pole, which, he stated, the UFO had at one point touched. He indicated where the cross-T-piece metal was bent, and indeed it was out of true on this side by about thirty degrees. A little to the left, a substantial branch on one of the trees was strangely discoloured, the leaves being more yellow than on the rest of the trees. “Most of the other children won’t come here anymore,” stated my guide, “as they say it’s haunted now.” (I noted that this implied that he was braver than the rest.) A short distance away the headmaster, Mr Llewhellin, had interviewed all the children separately and also collectively afterwards and then asked them to go away into different rooms and independently draw what they had seen.' BBC Newsround featured the story that afternoon, including a short telephone interview with Ralph Llewellyn. Media interest quickly intensified with articles appearing in newspapers around the country - and further afield - until in the absence of a secretary to help deal with enquiries Mr Llewellyn had to leave the school telephone off the hook. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-38723643 Ripperston Farm The Coombs family, who were employed at the Ripperston farm, had a number of very strange experiences. Among these were sightings of UFOs from their car; a 7-ft silver-suited being with a black visor appearing outside their window; constant mechanical disturbances, including their car and television set repeatedly breaking down and having to be replaced; and their cows seemingly being teleported from one field to another! Another of the most famous incidents occurred around the Haven Fort Hotel in Little Haven. The owner of the hotel, a Mrs. Rose Granville, claimed she had seen a saucer-shaped UFO outside of the hotel window. Strange humanoids, wearing whitish boiler suits, emerged from the UFO and walked around for a bit as if gathering something. Mrs. Granville went to fetch other residents of the hotel to show them, but found the UFO and its mysterious occupants gone by the time she returned. Mrs. Granville wrote a letter to her local MP who promptly asked the Ministry of Defence to investigate. As a result, Mrs. Granville received a visit from an RAF officer who listened to her story and said he was mystified by it all. Nicholas Edwards, MP for Pembrokeshire, was soon dragged into the affair. The Broad Haven UFO flap was one of the most important in British #UFO#UAP history and once again proves Wales is a hotspot.

CLOSE ENCOUNTER: Researcher and broadcaster Richard Hall with 76-year-old Robert Hall in the back lane where the pensioners says he was grabbed by an alien in 1940 before his uncle killed it with a shovel. IT is a sunny spring day in 1940. Soldiers are marching south along Saltwell Road, in Gateshead, towards Low Fell. Nearby, five-year-old Robert Hall is playing with his friends in the maze of red brick Tynside terraces, not far from the train tracks. Earlier in the day, he had seen something whizzing about in the sky and, after he tired of playing with his friends, he decided to go to his Hedley Street home around the corner. Robert, a retired window cleaner, says he was confronted by an aircraft the like of which he had never seen before. He described it as “a big egg-shaped thing surround by bright light”. Robert says it was then that he spotted strange-looking creatures standing in the back lane. He says three of them were built like men, but ranged from 2ft to 4ft in height, one looked like Big Foot while another had long flowing hair and a coat that partially covered a skeletal body and bat wings. “Other children were petrified and in shock. They were trying to get over the railway, but there was barbed wire and they were getting cut and were screaming,” he says. The story sounds like something from a low budget sci-fi film but the man telling it is no attention-seeking youngster. Robert Hall is 76 and he has been telling the same story all his life. And now he is telling it in a television programme that has brought his story to a worldwide audience. Recalling what happened, Robert says the creatures spoke to him in perfect English, with no accent, and asked if they could examine him. “I told them it was 1940 and we were at war with Germany,” he says. “They took blood out of the back of my neck and put some jelly on. I kept my eyes shut. I was so frightened I was shaking.” After 20 terrifying minutes, he was allowed to go. “I was up that street like a shot,” he says. “My parents thought I was kidding and so did the soldiers.” The next day, Robert says, two men with black suits came to the house and warned him that if he said anything, he would disappear. One close encounter would be fascinating enough, but the pensioner says things took an even more sinister turn a few days later when an alien tried to snatch him off the street. He says a grey alien, fitting the common description of an extra terrestrial with big eyes and a large head, grabbed him. “He was on me in a couple of seconds,” he says. “I fell over the kerb and bashed my toe. My Uncle Ernie saw what was happening and bashed its head in with a coal shovel.” The alien’s body was allegedly put in a coal sack and Robert was sent to find a local policeman, Sergeant Brookes. He says the Army was called and took the body to a church. Robert says strange small triangular marks appeared on his left cheek, which remained until he was about 12 or 13, before disappearing, leaving no trace. Seventy years after his alleged close encounter, Robert’s story has become the subject of a television documentary. RESEARCHER and broadcaster Richard Hall, who is not related to Robert, studies all things out of the ordinary for his digital television programme, The Rich Planet Starship, and richplanet.net In 2008, he was giving a lecture on UFOs at the Caedmon Hall, in Gateshead, when he was contacted by Robert, who lives nearby. Richard, who is 43 and lives in Sunniside, but is based in Consett, says: “It is a fascinating story and it is a very, very early case in terms of modern day grey alien abductions.” Richard says other abduction cases were reported in Brazil in 1957, and in the US in 1961, increasing throughout the Sixties and Seventies. “There is a case of a recovered UFO in Missouri where small alien creatures were allegedly recovered and, obviously, we have got Roswell in 1947 (an alien spacecraft allegedly crashed at Roswell, in New Mexico). “But this predates all of that, which makes it a very interesting case.” Richard carried out a three-month investigation into Robert’s claims. He verified that street and shop names checked out. He also managed to confirm there was a Sgt Brookes working the area at the time. Richard says Robert’s description of the creatures – the small stature, the grey skin, the large eyes, the craft itself, elliptical shape and the metallic surface with the bright light – are common features of alien abduction stories “There’s also the fact that they tried to interfere with Robert’s neck. “I don’t believe that they took blood, as Robert claims,” he says. “They were possibly trying to put something in. “Interestingly, Robert says the creatures had a short, white hand-held device which could subdue or immobilise somebody and there’s the triangular marks that were left on his face. “These are all things that we find in abductee cases, again and again.” Richard’s investigations are ongoing and he is keen for anyone who can back up Robert’s claims to get in touch with him. Robert, who has four children and three grandchildren, is sincere and earnest about his alien encounter all those years ago. Richard, who has met Robert’s sister, says it is a story he has stuck to since he was a little lad. Robert says: “I got the p**s taken out of me for years, and at school the teacher would say ‘there’s the boy who believes in little green men’. “They weren’t bloody green, they were grey. I will take it to my grave.” Source: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/opinion/leader/9104870.alien-killed-coal-shovel/ Copyright: Richard Hall & The Northern Echo