A courting couple, a builder's wife and a deckchair attendant all saw something strange in the sky on the night of Saturday, May 21, 1977. All the sightings were near Poole, Dorset.
Eighteen year old tax officer Karen Iveson and her boyfriend, apprentice technician Cliff Rowe, nineteen, had just parked their car on a lonely road near Parley Cross when a beam of light struck the back of it.
"We couldn't see what was causing it, but it scared us a little, so we decided to move on," said Cliff. Back on the road, they saw what had disturbed them. Karen said: "A large, silvery disc-shaped object hovered over a field, and a silver green cone- like beam of light shone down from the centre of it. We stopped to watch, and it seemed to stay there for ages. Then it suddenly veered off fast and dropped behind some trees, much lower than any plane could go. We both panicked afterwards. It was not like anything I'd ever seen before."
Builder's wife Pauline Fall, 31, saw the same thing only miles away as she drove down a dark country lane near the village of Longham. A beam of light fell across the car bonnet four or five times,"as if something was tracking us", but at first Pauline could not see where it came from. "One minute there was nothing in the sky, the next there it was, looking like the underside of a big dinner plate," she recalled. "Out of the centre came a silvery white light, narrow at the top and widening into a cone. It was solid light, as if a line had been drawn around it."
"I'm not normally one to panic, but the pit of my stomach went ice-cold. A friend with me was unnerved too." Pauline kept driving for home to Wimborne, husband John thought from the look of terror on her face that she must have had an accident. Her hands were as cold as ice, and it was an hour before warmth began to creep back into them. Odd things happened to Pauline's car after that night. Petrol consumption shot up, and the engine, perfectly all right when John was at the wheel, inexplicably cut out when Pauline was driving. She refused to take it out alone at night for four months.
"I've done a lot of soul-searching, but I haven't found a logical explanation for what I saw," Pauline said. "I just wish someone could tell me what it was, where it came from, and what it wants from us."
The third person to see the craft was deck-chair attendant Richard Morse, 27, who spotted a flickering light behind clouds as he hurried to a bus in Poole. "I thought it was the Moon, then I saw the Moon in another part of the sky. Just looking at it made me feel weird. It was a flying saucer shape with another shape on top and a beam of white light from its centre to the ground. Time seemed to stand still as I watched, then the thing started to move off, banking very fast, before it disapeared. It wasn't like anything from this planet, I was really glad to hear others had had similar experiances that night, because my friends were starting to think I was mad!"
Along the coast at Parkstone, Dorset, Mrs Ethel Field had a strange encounter in March, 1978, when she left her husband and daughter watching television to bring in washing from her back garden. "Suddenly I saw this object in the distance, rising from the sea," she said. "It ascended and came closer. It was circular with a dome on the top. Beneath it were several lights, shielded by hoods that looked like eyelids. When the lids slid back, there were spotlights lighting the ground.
"I was frightened and stunned. It hovered directly above me. The lights were so strong that I put my hands up to screen my eyes. "Then I saw two figures standing in front of an oblong window. They had longish faces and were wearing silver suits and what looked like skull caps. They seemed to be standing at some controls. I felt that some power was holding me where I stood. I waited, shielding my eyes. Then one of the figures turned away from me to look at his companion. The minute he did that, I felt a release and ran petrified to call my husband and daughter. They laughed at me and wouldn't leave the T.V."
Mrs Field spent several sleepless nights worrying about what she had seen. Then red blotches appeared on the hands that the light had hit. Soon her hands were raw, with skin flaking and scaling all over them. "I went to several doctors about it, but only one listened seriously to what I told him," she said.
BACKWARDS IN TIME
Salesman Alan Cave, 45, of Taunton, Somerset, remembers the precise moment he became a "time traveller". As he was driving, One October morning in 1981 from Bath to Stroud, his car passed directly beneath a strange, orange, cloud like object in the sky. "I know it was exactly 11 o'clock" said Alan, because a newsreader announced the headlines on the car radio. But then I glanced at my watch and it said 8 o'clock. My digital pen said 9. Both were right when I set out. "Then the speedo started going back - it was weird. It lost 300 miles, though a mechanic has since told me it was impossible."
Alan doesn't believe in flying saucers "but something very odd occurred in those few seconds and I wouldn't like it to happen again."
The British Flying Saucer Research Bureau later said they investigated several reports of a UFO in the same area. They added that checks on aircraft movement had not provided an explanation.
SCARY NEW YEAR
Weird sightings were reported throughout Britain on New Year's Eve, 1978. Schoolboy Andrew McDonald, 13, claimed he was buzzed by a UFO as he rode his bike home through Runcorn, Cheshire.
"I heard a hum like a high pitched engine" said Andrew. "I looked up and there was a big white light with a very bright trail above me. It stayed with me for about ten seconds, then soared up into the sky. I could feel it trying to lift me off the ground." Andrew was so unnerved that he could not cycle any further.
End.
