Long-Leggedy Beasties on Windwhistle Hill

For at least 500 years, it has been a well-established English tradition to tell fireside ghost stories during the Christmas season, especially on Christmas Eve (Weir and Clarke, 2018). 

Early evidence of this fact dates from 1553, when Thomas Kirchmaier wrote:

"For these three nights are always thought unfortunate to be;
Wherein they are afraid of sprites and cankered witches' spite;
And dreadful devils, black and grim, that then have the chiefest might" (Weir and Clarke, 2018).

This Christmas, my family and I have been staying close to my grandparents in Somerset, specifically near Crewkerne and Ilminster. This area of the country is famous for its apple orchards - haunted by a fairy being called the Apple Tree Man (Briggs, 1979), whose good-will is required for the continued fortunes of the farmers. Somerset also plays host to the legendary Glastonbury, reportedly the site of both an entrance to the fairy kingdom (Briggs, 1979), and the final resting place of King Arthur (Green, 2009). Unsurprisingly, the whole county is a hotbed of weirdness. 

In the spirit of the traditional Christmas ghost story, I went searching for any unusual happenings around Crewkerne or Ilminster to regale my readers with. I was not disappointed.

A Light in the Mist

Approximately halfway between the towns of Chard and Crewkerne lies Windwhistle Hill. It is apparently so named because, as one travels down the A30, the wind makes an eerie whistling sound as it passes through the beech trees that line each side of the road. These trees previously made excellent hiding spots for highwaymen, who would rob and murder unfortunate travellers between London and the West Country (Malloy, 2022). 

The hill is also haunted by the ghost of a local witch, who was struck and killed by a stage coach long ago. A 17th century pub sits atop the ridge, whose former cellar was supposedly used both as a body disposal ground for homicidal highwaymen, and as a magical trap for the Devil himself (Holt, 1986).

All this provides a gloomy context for what transpired one dark September night in 1977. It was 21:30 at night, when Mrs. Kate Walker, her husband, and her two sons, were travelling home along the A30 through Windwhistle Hill. From a vantage point approaching the top of the hill, the Walker family were all able to see a large orange light ahead of them. It was off the road to their left, at the further end of the hill (Rosales, 2016). 

It was initially partially cloaked by fog, and at first none of them thought anything of it. There was a power station and electricity pylons nearby, seemingly offering a plausible explanation for the otherwise strange sight (Malloy, 2022).

However, as they drove closer to the object, the true strangeness of what they were witnessing began to sink in. It was cigar-shaped and enormous, probably between 200-300ft long. It was hovering, completely static in the sky, approximately 800-1000ft above the left-hand side of the road. 

"It was cigar-shaped and enormous" [x]

To the right of them at this point was the aforementioned Windwhistle Inn. Kate remembers peering at the pub and seeing it in total darkness, save for a single light in a little upstairs window, perhaps unusual for that time of the night. When the family glanced back up at the floating light, it had moved to be almost directly above them (Malloy, 2022).

Suddenly, time seemed to warp around them. The next thing any of them consciously remember was a cyclist's headlamp visible through the fog, coming down the road the other way, seemingly from nowhere. It passed them and moved along the road to Crewkerne (Mitrovic, 2021). The family completed their journey with a thick atmosphere of unease hanging over them inside the car. When they arrived home, Kate realised that roughly 30 minutes were completely unaccounted for in their memories.

Years later, memories of that fateful night began to return to the family. As they had been watching the light above them, their car engine had abruptly died and the headlights shut off, leaving only the spectral glow lighting the cold darkness around them. It felt as if the world was somehow in slow motion, and Mr. Walker's desperate attempts to restart the engine failed (Rosales, 2016). 

The Walkers' younger son claimed to have seen a dark shape outside the car window, which he described as being extremely tall. He got the impression that it was human, even though he knew it couldn't be on a deeper level. The thing bent down towards them and stared in through the window. His mother was missing from the front seat (Mitrovic, 2021).

Just a few days after their initial encounter with the UFO over Windwhistle Hill, the family found themselves driving through the same area. They were clearly much braver than many of us would be. Perhaps their stomachs turned slightly when they once again saw something strange on the left-most side of the road. Two figures were there, one of which was lying down and the other was standing. Thinking that maybe someone had been injured, they started to slow their car when the standing figure abruptly stepped out into the road (Malloy, 2022).

The dark shape only took one step, but nonetheless managed to get one of its feet into the centre of the road. The other foot was still on the grassy verge. At this point, panic was likely setting in. The shape was inhumanly tall, and its legs were "horrendously long and thin" (Malloy, 2022). Mr. Walker swerved to the far side of the road to avoid the figure, and then put the pedal to the floor. None of them looked back, but they all agreed that "no one could possibly have legs that long".

"A 17th century pub sits atop the ridge" [x]

Spectres Among the Singing Trees

Gloria Heather Dixon, of the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), has done extensive research into the Walker family case. With the help of fellow investigator Robert Moore, four further reports from the area around Windwhistle Hill were uncovered.

A woman told of how she and her husband had found themselves transfixed by the sight of a very large silver object, shaped like a spinning top, near Windwhistle Hill. It was November of 1959, and the couple first caught sight of the UFO at 11pm one night, and then felt as if they were somehow unable to stop watching it until 9am the next morning. They got the impression that they shouldn't tell anyone about what they had seen (Malloy, 2022).

Either in 1976 or 1977, a lorry driver felt his vehicle mysteriously escape his control while passing through Windwhistle Hill. He distinctly remembers the dreamlike sensation of his lorry somehow hovering over the road. An anonymous witness also told Moore that something very similar to the Walker family's experience had befallen her parents on the hill in 1975 (Malloy, 2022).

Sometime in 1991, a farmer in Cricket Malherbie (some 3km northwest of Windwhistle Hill) along with her husband and grandson, recalled seeing a tall humanoid figure peering through the window of their farmhouse. A few days later, the witnesses caught sight of a "saucer-shaped object" (Malloy, 2022).

Finally, a strange tidbit is present in Jenny Randles' (1990) book Mind Monsters. An unnamed service engineer was driving along Chard High Street (four miles to the west of Windwhistle Hill along the A30) at 8am on the 18th of February, 1975. He looked above him to see a winged animal, looking like a giant bird with a wingspan between 12-14ft. 

The edges of the thing's wings were alternately shaded, and Randles claims to have seen a sketch made by the witness which depicts the creature as resembling a long-extinct pterosaur. 

Tantalisingly, Randles also makes brief mention of "another UFO flap" in the area at the time, about which I can find no more information (Randles, 1990).

Bibliography

Briggs, K.M. (1979) An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. London: Allen Lane.

Green, T. (2009) Arthuriana: Early Arthurian Tradition and the Origins of the Legend. Louth: Lindes Press. 

Weir, A. and Clarke, S. (2018) A Tudor Christmas. London: Jonathan Cape. 

Malloy, T. (2022) The Spooky Somerset Road That is ‘a Hotbed for Supernatural Sightings’, Somerset Live. Available at: https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/spooky-somerset-road-a-hotbed-6887653 (Accessed: 27 December 2025).

Holt, A.L. (1986) East Somerset: Romantic Routes and Mysterious Byways. London: Charles Skilton.

Mitrovic, G. (2021) UFOs, Humanoids and Strange Phenomena of England. Admit Hub Ref Service. 

Rosales, A.S. (2016) Humanoid Encounters 1975-1979: The Others Amongst Us. CreateSpace. 

Randles, J. (1990) Mind Monsters: Invaders From Inner Space? Wellingborough: Aquarian. 

The Poole Pyramid: A Saga of Strangeness

Illustration by Traci Shepard

This is a story that has been told many times. The so-called Poole Pyramid is routinely counted among the exalted pantheon of the strangest entities ever to be associated with the UFO phenomenon. However, most retellings of this fantastical tale fail to mention that it was just one part of a family's much longer relationship with the unknown. It might have started in 1965, with two terrified boys witnessing something incomprehensible in their bedroom, but it winds its way onwards for many years afterwards. I am about to tell you a tale of multi-witness sightings, UFO car chases, and photographic evidence of flying saucers.

A Portal on the Dorset Coast

In 1969, Leslie Harris was a member of the Bournemouth-based Cosmic Research Group. Led by former government official Francis E. Hurley, this tightly-knit group maintained a library of books, pamphlets, and tapes relevant to UFOs. They conducted skywatches in the summer, and could often be seen delivering lectures to public meetings regarding flying saucers, approaching the issue from a metaphysical point of view [1].

Between these activities, Harris dedicated his time to investigating local Dorset reports of the strange and unusual. It was in this capacity that he first encountered L. Druce.

As far as Druce could remember at the time, it all began in October of 1967. He and his brother-in-law, B. George, were driving home through the autumnal dusk after an afternoon's fishing off the beautiful Portland coast. They had been accompanied by eight of their friends, but had eventually gotten separated from the rest of them on the road, seeing as George was an inexperienced driver currently being taught by Druce. They were passing through Lytchett Minster when George first noticed something odd.

"A cigar-shaped form, coffee brown in colour with a row of regular yellow lights"

Whatever it was, it was big. It was floating over St Peter's Finger Garage [2], and appeared to be about 70ft long and roughly 200ft off the ground. The car's engine abruptly stalled, leaving both men staring helplessly out of their window at a cigar-shaped form, coffee brown in colour with a row of regular yellow lights along it, resembling windows. Several others gathered around them, leaving their cars and staring up at the night sky in bewilderment and rapture. They watched the thing for five minutes, becoming increasingly unnerved until they decided to leave the scene. 

Luckily, their car was now starting as if nothing had happened. They set off down the road, only to see the UFO ascend slightly before beginning to follow them. It crossed from one side of the road to the other in order to keep pace with them, and they eventually stopped their car again when they reached the Oasis Cafe. The flying enigma came to rest in the sky above a police station opposite the cafe, and Druce decided to run into the building to fetch an officer. When a policeman accompanied him back outside, the object had vanished into the night sky. 

"It crossed from one side of the road to the other in order to keep pace with them"

However, just as the two men were about to explain what had happened, their need to do so was extinguished by the reappearance of the apparition. This time it looked completely different, resembling a blazing mass of coloured light, composed of bands of multiple different colours. It shone red, yellow, green, and blue in the dark night. Awestruck, the policeman staggered back into the station to alert his compatriots to the unfolding situation. 

Now two policemen were watching the thing, and it began an uncanny dance. The top section of the vaguely conical vision split off from the main body of the object, and went beneath it before rejoining. After flickering out of existence and back again once more, the UFO began to slowly move away from the witnesses. It suddenly gained speed and shot out of view, like a bullet from a gun, leaving all four men stood on the street with their sense of reality irrevocably shattered. The policemen took statements from the brothers-in-law, but they never heard anything more about it.

"A blazing mass of coloured light"

Druce told Harris that his legs had felt weak for the duration of the sighting, and that the hairs on his arms had stood up. George vomited on the journey back home. The men had perhaps been initiated into something that night.

Harris also notes that George had since seen an orange sphere "four times the size of a dinner plate" traversing the clouds near Old Harry Rocks in Studland, Dorset. He had also seen a floating yellow "scratch" in the sky on September 25th 1968, which he estimated to be one inch wide and eighteen inches long [3].

When You Notice It...

After witnessing the incomprehensible in the skies over Lychett Minster, Druce had become an enthusiastic believer in the reality of extraterrestrial visitation. On these grounds, he had maintained contact with Leslie Harris, and so he notified her on July 20th, 1971 that his brother-in-law had photographed something neither of them could identify five days previously. Harris promptly went to speak with George, and was able to disclose that his full name was Brian Arthur George, and that he lived in Poole.

It had been the evening of Thursday, July 15th, somewhere between 22:30 and 23:00, and George was just about to turn in for the night. His wife, Sallie, and his three-year-old son, Rory, were already asleep, leaving him as the sole conscious occupant of the house. In what was a normal nighttime ritual for him, he went over to his window and looked out at the night sky. 

As he did, he caught sight of a white, glowing object plotting a slow course across the sky. It seemed to be moving diagonally away from him, from left to right in his field of vision. The UFO appeared approximately the "size of a tennis ball at arm's length" and was roughly 30° above the horizon, probably moving west from a southeasterly direction, as seen in the southwest-facing window. George watched it for a few moments in confusion, before remembering that he had a polaroid camera nearby.

Clutching the blocky body of his Polaroid Swinger II in his hands and opening the window, he pointed the camera at the UFO and took a photo with a dazzling flash. Anxious to resume his observation of the saucer, he pulled the developing photograph out of the device slightly before it was finished and looked back up at the sky. The mysterious craft had vanished, but its image had clearly impressed itself onto the film. White patches had appeared along the top of the photo, likely caused by rushed viewing.

Brian George's full 1971 photo

Closeup of apparent flying saucer

Harris persuaded George to part with his sole copy of this photo so that he could get prints made, which he published in Flying Saucer Review in October of that year. He also reported that between his visit to Poole in July and the publication of his article, members of the George and Druce families had been having further strange experiences, including several dramatic UFO encounters. Brian George and his sister (Mrs. Druce) were also said to have some limited ESP abilities, including George's apparent skill for predicting the sex and time of birth of unborn babies [4]! 

It Notices You

What was to occur throughout the rest of 1971 was definitely not without precedent. Not only had Druce and George been tailed by a cigar-shaped object over Lychett Minster in 1967, but George had also had another eerie encounter sometime around 1970 while hunting rabbits on Canford Heath in Poole. He claimed that he suddenly became aware of two bright lights, one red and the other green, descending towards him. They were very close together, but he couldn't see any solid structure behind them. They made no audible sound. As one would, he initially thought he was watching an aircraft, but the lights were not flashing and continued to descend towards him at a steady 45° angle.

He started to grow uneasy as the lights got closer, and they appeared to land behind a clump of trees some 500-600 yards away. George was terrified at this point, fleeing the scene promptly.

Roughly one year later, Brian and Sallie were driving to Poole along Longfleet Road at 13:30, when they both noticed a "rocket-shaped" object climbing steeply into the southern sky above Poole Hospital. It was bright white in colour. Both witnesses momentarily lost it in the glare as it crossed over the sun, and soon after Brian was unable to continue observing it due to needing to drive.

Slightly over two weeks after Brian took his striking photograph, on Saturday, July 31st, Druce's mother and his sister Jenny saw a flying saucer. Jenny was the first to see it, looking out of her lounge window just after 23:00. Excited, she attracted her mother's attention and they both ventured outside the house to watch the strange object. A large, white craft shaped like a child's spinning top was floating at an elevation of approximately 75°. It moved slightly to the right and lost a little altitude before continuing to hover, with a slight vertical oscillation.

As they were observing the perplexing thing from outside on the street, another object started to emerge from it. This one was about a quarter of the size of the saucer, and resembled a string of five red-orange lights. Harris described it as worm-like when he briefly mentioned this sighting in his October article. Only the lights could be seen, but it gave the impression of a solid object. The streetlights went out as the serpentine apparition slowly and silently drifted away from them. In total, it took about 15 minutes to disappear. The saucer remained hovering, and the women watched it for a few more minutes before both grew tired and decided to retire to bed. Neither of them knew of Brian's photo.

Two days later, on August 2nd, Druce and Roy George (Brian's brother) were driving along the A31 towards Ringwood in their removal van. Three white lights approached them from their left at roughly 21:50, and began to keep pace with their vehicle. They were described as approximately the size of an old penny at arm's length, and appeared to be attached to a circular object, despite this not being visible. They noiselessly flew at an elevation of roughly 150-200 yards.

"They noiselessly flew at an elevation of roughly 150-200 yards"

The lights initially travelled in a straight line until the van cleared a line of trees, at which point they swooped much closer to it, getting to roughly 100 yards away. George began to slow the vehicle, intending to stop for inexplicable reasons. Druce was terrified and yelled at him to speed up, at which point he accelerated rapidly and the objects overtook them. They flew at least 600 yards ahead of the vehicle before turning back on themselves to the left, and abruptly retreating the way they had come [5].

Enter the Pyramid

It was at this point that Druce's two stepsons, Roderick (13) and Terence (14) told Harris that they had been through a frightening and inexplicable experience of their own some seven years ago. Seeing as Harris was writing in 1972, that would mean that the event took place in 1965. Terence had woken up in bed in the middle of the night, and had seen something utterly bizarre moving at the foot of his bed. It had a pyramidal body, taller than it was wide, composed of many-coloured triangles that slotted together, as well as spindly black 'arms' ending in crab-like claws. These appendages moved in an unsettling "waving" motion. 

Terence screamed in baffled horror, and Roderick woke with a start. He also saw the pyramid, just before it suddenly vanished. Mrs. Druce also confirmed to Harris that she remembered Terence being terrified of something in his bedroom that night.

The next afternoon, the brothers were walking home across a carpark when they saw it again. This time, it was entirely black in colour, and seemed to be stood next to a parked car. It was halfway up the car's window in height. Roderick had a side view of the thing, and he said that it had a sort of "beak" protruding near the top of its triangular form. Horrified, both boys ran off, and claimed to see the creature turn to watch them as they left [6].

Terence's drawing of the pyramid in his bedroom (left)
Roderick's drawing of the pyramid by the car (right)

The Wheel of the Year

The families' houses were perhaps unusually quiet throughout the rest of August and September, although I can imagine that they were all holding their breath for the inevitable return of the alarming phenomena. This return indeed came on Tuesday, October 12th. Druce's daughter, Suzanne, woke blearily from sleep at 3am on that day, and soon became conscious of a "whirring, swishing" sound that seemed to be coming from outside. Wandering over to her window and wiping the condensation from the glass, she saw nothing, despite the continuing noise.

Perplexed, she ran to her parents' bedroom and woke them up, whereupon they too could hear the weird noise. Mr. Druce told Harris that it sounded like the regular swishing of a skipping rope, and appeared to be passing overhead. He also looked outside, but was similarly unable to see anything unusual.

Precisely a week later, it was between 22:00 and 22:30 at night when Druce and his two brothers-in-law were driving along the M3. When they got between the Reading intersection and Winchester, they started noticing vibrant red points of light appearing in the night sky. Some of these were round, some were oblong. Some were stationary while others moved about in all different directions, with some being very close to the ground. They seemed to randomly appear and disappear. 

Although there were no more than 50 lights in the sky at any one time, the men counted at least 200 in total. 

At this point, they had stopped on the deserted motorway and were watching the UFOs dancing in the darkness from outside their van. A policeman rolled up behind them and told them to move along. No-one heard any sound, and it is implied that either the policeman was unable to see the lights, or they had vanished by the time the trio got back on the road. 

They continued driving until the Winchester bypass, where something even more unsettling happened. They stopped again, presumably at Brian's request, who abruptly left the vehicle and marched off into a pitch-black field by the side of the road. Thankfully, he swiftly returned, but appeared terrified. His pulse was racing, and he was so agitated that he was unable to speak for a moment, but was eventually able to answer when Druce asked him what was wrong. "Come see for yourself!"

Druce accompanied Brian out into the field while Roy remained in the van. They waded through the presumably wet October grass, before catching sight of something glowing white in the darkness. It was roughly 40 yards away, and was shaped like the letter M, 10ft tall and between 7-8ft wide. The incomprehensible thing seemed to silently hover some 2ft above the ground, and was slowly progressing over a rising incline to its right. Deeply unnerved, both men elected to return to the van.

When later questioned, Brian told Harris that he had initially only seen one of the arches, but that he had seen the full M-shape when he returned to the scene with his brother-in-law.

On October 24th, a red oblong hovered in the air in full view of the Druce household. Mr. Druce's two sisters, mother, and brother all saw the aerial geometry very clearly, as did everyone who lived in the house next door. It remained stationary in the air for many minutes before exiting the scene, and Druce's sister phoned him while watching it, telling him to look in its direction. He was unable to see it.

As mentioned earlier, Harris noted that Brian George, Mrs. Druce and her husband's mother have all had ESP experiences. The latter apparently had a gift for recognising certain places despite having never visited them before. Mr. Druce told Harris that he was growing tired of the inhuman attention, stating clearly that he was "fed up with it all".

As if granting his wish, no more reports of strange activity were forthcoming from the Druce or George families. Whether this was due to lack of reporting or genuine cessation of anomalous events, we will likely never know [7].

Sources and Notes

1. Topside, No. 32 (Summer and Fall, 1969)

2. St. Peter's Finger Garage no longer exists (or at least is not findable on Google), but there is a pub in Lychett Minster called St Peter's Finger. Perhaps this is the same location?

3. Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 15 No. 6 (November-December 1969)

4. Flying Saucer Review: Case Histories, Supplement No. 7 (October, 1971)

5. Flying Saucer Review: Case Histories, Supplement No. 9 (February, 1972)

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

Phantoms and Rituals in Staffordshire

Artwork from Hellebore Magazine

The origins of the ritual are still shrouded in mystery to this day. Folk knowledge asserts that it dates back to a long-lost pagan fertility ritual, and modern historians remain unable to state with any certainty where the practice comes from.

It was Monday, September 8th, 1986 – and Mick Dodds, his wife Lila [1], and his mother-in-law had spent a long day in the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, where they had borne witness to the age-old performance of the Horn Dance. As they put the village in their rearview mirror on the way to Stowe-by-Chartley, they had no idea that the ritual wasn’t done with them yet.

The Wildman's Hunt

After dropping Lila's mother back at her cottage in the nearby village of Stowe-by-Chartley, Mick continued driving northeast until he reached the A518 road that would take them home. It was nighttime by now, but both parties were looking forward to the drive that would take them through the idyllic West Midlands countryside and past the 11th century ruins of Chartley Castle.

Perhaps the couple's casual conversation was suddenly interrupted. Something large and dark lurched out of the field to the right side of the road, and Mick slammed on the breaks in shock. It was a massive stag, its velvet antlers glistening in the moonlight. The giant animal wandered across the road directly in front of their vehicle, leaving both Mick and Lila silent with awe. While they watched the deer, something else was quickly making its way through the field under cover of darkness.

Lila screamed with horror as the grotesque thing leapt out onto the road, seemingly in pursuit of the stag. It seemed to be a large primate, like a chimpanzee. Neither passenger registered how the stag reacted to this, however, because the chimpanzee only made it halfway across the road before stopping dead in its tracks and turning to look directly at them through the car's windscreen. It began to move towards them, picking up speed.

Red hot panic overwhelming his senses, Mick put the car into reverse gear and attempted to back away as quickly as possible as the ape began a flat-out charge towards their vehicle. The engine stalled. Just before it reached the car's bonnet, the chimp stopped and retreated. Fumbling to restart the engine, Mick accidentally flooded it and left them completely stranded and helpless. Maybe sensing weakness, the hairy thing charged again.

Just before it reached their car, it stopped once again. Was it mocking them? The terrified couple and the monstrous ape remained deadlocked like this about twenty seconds, and it made at least one more mock charge before beating its final retreat. It bounded off the road and into the dark field to the left of their car, presumably chasing the stag. It had never actually touched the car, and the passengers were (physically) unscathed by the encounter. 

Mick set about the gruelling process of restarting the engine, pale as a ghost and shaken to his core [2].

Clashing Antlers and Pagan Cults

At the start of this article, I mentioned the Horn Dance of Abbots Bromley. I feel that this is particularly relevant because of the contents of the performance, which seems to have been somehow reflected in that evening's weird happenings on the A518. 

The 'horns' of the ritual are actually antlers, held by six costumed men who perform what is perhaps a strange re-enactment of the clashing of rutting stags throughout the day on Wakes Monday (the first Monday after 4th September). They are accompanied by a motley crew of other characters who provide a musical backdrop for the ceremony, including a fool, a bowman, a hobby-horse, a triangle player, and a man in costume as Maid Marian.

Beginning at 8am at St. Nicholas' Church, the stag-men pass through key sites throughout the parish of Abbots Bromley, forming into two parallel lines at each location and methodically advancing towards each other. Their antlers are held at chest height as they pass, but they never actually collide with one another. This strange rite is repeated all through the parish for twelve hours, before a final dance is performed in the street at 8pm [3]. 

The first mention of a hobby-horse dance at Abbots Bromley dates from 1532, but does not mention the antlers. A 1686 source discusses the antlers in a description of a performance witnessed around 1630. It has seemingly been performed annually since then, with a short hiatus for the English Civil War. 

Before the Civil War, it was likely a Christmastide festivity associated with St Nicholas' Day and New Years Day. The antlers used have been dated to the 11th century, having been from domesticated reindeer perhaps imported from Scandinavia sometime between then and the 17th century.

Mainland European church documents from between the 4th and 11th centuries frequently denounce midwinter practices that were viewed as pagan, which included animal guising and ritual transvestitism, just like the Horn Dance we see today. These have frequently been interpreted as fertility rites.

While none of these references refer specifically to Britain, or to any time beyond the 11th century, 20th century folklorists frequently saw the possibility of a connection between these ancient practices and modern day rituals. 

Doubt has been cast on the pagan theory by modern scholars due to lack of direct evidence, and Ronald Hutton postulates that animal disguises and crossdressing may have independently arisen during medieval festivals as an easy way for ritual participants to express the suspension of normal social rules (distinctions between the sexes, and between humans and animals) that took place at midwinter [4].

A Place Between Places

Rituals in which the spirit world was invoked frequently involved the dissolution of normal social categories and boundaries. Initiation rites often feature a middle stage between the initiates' separation from their previous social roles and their reaggregation into a new position in society, which has been called liminal. This same quality of liminality (neither-here-nor-there-ness) has been identified in settings conducive to paranormal activity in the modern day [5].

One such setting between settings nowadays would certainly be a long road, such as the A518, the site of the Dodds' encounter. In fact, the Dodds are not the only people to have seen something strange along this road. Local resident Tom Goode told investigator Jim Foley of his recollection of seeing a large number of cars parked near Weston Bank (about 3 miles southwest of Chartley Castle) sometime around the summer of 1950. When he asked what the drivers what they were doing, he was told that they had seen strange objects in the sky and wanted to get a better look.

Apparently unidentified aircraft had been seen coming towards the road from near Stafford, and "hovered and darted to and fro". Tom stayed in the area for a little while, but was unable to see the lights. He dismissed this event as having been due to secret aircraft testing at a nearby airbase [6].

A newspaper article from the October 27th 1995 edition of the Post and Times, written by Rosemarie Davies, is also reprinted in Foley's excellent book on the folklore of the road. It details a poltergeist outbreak that took place over the course of three days at Lower Loxley Farm (approximately 3 miles northeast of Chartley Castle) one August in the 1890s. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, along with their 13-year-old maid, were horrified to repeatedly witness kitchen items and shoes pick themselves up and fly through the air at great speed, accompanied by loud knocking on the walls and ceilings. Stones were thrown at the house from outside, shattering windows up to the third floor. After Mr. Wilson called the police, they witnessed the strange happenings too, and then apparently threatened the maid with jail time if she did not confess to the whole thing.

There was only ever one incident in which the maid was seen to throw a small stone at the house, and she was frequently with the Wilson couple when all three of them witnessed strange things happening, well beyond her ability to accomplish. When spiritualist F. Brittain asked her about her experience of the three days, she said that she didn't have much memory of them and had felt as if "a bandage was wrapped tighly around her head, so tight at times that it hurt her". She described experiencing strange sensations all over her body at night, and fainting uncontrollably.

After the first night of activity, the maid slept in the same room as the Wilson couple. One night, Mr. Wilson noticed that she raised her head while breathing very heavily and making "peculiar noises in her throat" whilst the knocking sounds were occurring. The bizarre events ceased when the maid left the farm on the 21st of August, leaving behind more questions than answers [7]. 

Conclusion

I cannot remember exactly where I heard it, but I think it was on an episode of the podcast Strange Familiars with Timothy Renner. He said that when he investigates Bigfoot sightings, he will often ask the witness if they have seen anything else out of the ordinary. He is rewarded so often with further stories of strange lights and apparitions that he has come to expect this pattern. It seems that the same holds true for the 'British Bigfoot'.

Many sources grasp at a possible connection between manifestations of inexplicable phenomena and human ritual behaviour. If the area around what is now the A518 seems to be especially prone to strange happenings, then perhaps it is no surprise that such a modern remnant of an age-old boundary-defying ritual is still annually performed there too. Just like the costumed performers become something that is neither human nor animal, it seems that forces beyond our knowledge might take on similar costumes given the right circumstances...

Bibliography and Notes

1. Pseudonym, Mick's wife goes unnamed in the original source. 

2. Redfern, N. (2012) ‘Chapter Sixteen: A Monstrous Castle’, in Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot. CFZ Press, pp. 95–98.

3. Roud, S. (2008) ‘4th September: Abbots Bromley Horn Dance’, in The English Year: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Nation’s Customs and Festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night. Penguin, pp. 394–397.

4. Hutton, R. (1996) ‘Chapter Eight: Hobby-Horse and Horn Dance’, in The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford University Press, pp. 81–95.

5. Hansen, G.P. (2001) The Trickster and the Paranormal. Xlibris Corp.

6. Foley, J. (1998) ‘Tom Goode’s Story’, in The Road to Chartley: Ghosts, Legends & Stories of the A518 (Part I), pp. 38–49.

7. Foley, J. (1998) ‘Strange Goings-on at Lower Loxley’, in The Road to Chartley: Ghosts, Legends & Stories of the A518 (Part I), pp. 103-105.

Two Phantom Dog Tales

From here in Britain, it can be easy to assume that supernatural 'black dogs' are a primarily British phenomenon. Most areas of the country you visit have their own local names for the unpleasant creatures, and we even have pubs named in their dubious honour. One was immortalised in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. 

However, our black dogs are only some among many. Encounters with the hellish hounds stretch across much of the planet. Today I'm going to tell two stories, one of which was told to me directly by a friend, and the other I found in Flying Saucer Review. The latter is so weird that I can't help but tell it.

The Beast of Bhavnagar

People can only know me for so long before I inevitably ask them if they've ever had any encounters with the paranormal. I met Valerie (pseudonym) a couple of years ago and we've grown very close since then. She asked me about UFOs, and I started explaining my research into the topic. It was at this point that she volunteered to tell the story of a strange experience she'd had as a child. 

Valerie grew up in the city of Bhavnagar in the Indian state of Gujarat. In the early 2000s (probably 2005), she remembers sitting on a jhula swingset in the back garden outside her family's house. On the other side of the garden was another swingset owned by the neighbours, backed up by a tall wall. She cannot recall whether anyone else was outside in the garden with her at the time, but she knows that there was at least someone else in the house - possibly one of her grandparents or her sister. 

All of a sudden, something came over the wall behind the neighbour's swingset. Valerie described it to me as misty in texture, comparable to a cloud. It was in the shape of a dog or other four-legged animal, "very black and void-like". The spectral animal seemed to jump over the wall into the garden at great speed. Shortly after hitting the ground, the entity vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 

Valerie was young enough at the time that she couldn't "describe what [she] saw or make sense of it". She told herself that she might've just been dizzy or had some kind of waking dream. She remembers being "disturbed" by it, but deciding not to tell anyone else about it for fear that she wouldn't be believed or would be mocked [1]. 

Phantom hounds are not nearly as prevalent in India as they are in western Eurasia, but there are some mentions of spirits in the form of black dogs in religious lore. The Mahākanha Jātaka of the Pali Canon tells of how the god Sakka saw that mankind had fallen into a state of wickedness, and so he came to Earth with another god in the form of a fearsome black dog with tusks and chains around its body. He came to the city of Varanasi and pronounced the world doomed, allowing the monstrous hound to chase its residents. 

Before returning to his heavenly abode, Sakka and his dog went to king Usīnara of Varanasi. The dog roared with rage, and the king ordered the monster fed. The dog ate all the food in the city and was still hungry, at which point Sakka told the people that the hound would devour all those who lived in unrighteousness.

"Not to hunt game the Black Hound came, but he shall be of use
To punish men, Usīnara, when I shall let him loose."

Terrified into following the teachings of the Buddha once more, the population was saved from their fate at the jaws of the hellhound. Sakka revealed himself to be the King of the Gods, before disappearing back up into his otherworldly home [2]. 

UFO Road-Rage at Vereeniging

It was late at night on December 13th of 1963 when the police phone-lines in the Vereeniging district of the Gauteng Province of South Africa lit up with reports of strange lights in the sky. A dazzling object was seen passing over Keyterskloof, roughly 20 miles northeast of Vereeniging city proper. 

One Mr. Gericke, working on a farm near Keyterskloof, saw a "fiery object travelling low over the horizon" that night. He said that it lit up the whole surrounding area as it seemed to disintegrate, before disappearing with "a tremendous bang". The official explanation is given as a meteor. Shortly afterwards, two men approached the Afrikaans newspaper Die Brandwaag to tell their story, which suggests a different explanation for the eerie lights. 

These men were Leslie Immelman and WT Muller. Early in the morning on the 14th, they had been driving along Potchefstroom Road towards Vereeniging and were about 50 miles away from the city. They were unaware of the UFO wave then hitting the surrounding area. Leslie was a sworn skeptic of "ghosts, fairies and any such nonsense", but that was about to change. 

As they raced along the dark road, they passed something large and out of place in the road. Leslie later said that he initially thought it was a buck, and he impelled Muller to turn the car around so that they could look at it. They soon found that it was an "exceptionally large dog". Turning again to drive away from the strange dog, both men were stunned when the area around them was suddenly lit up as bright as daylight. 

This shock quickly turned to panic as a glowing object appeared ahead of them, moving towards their car at enormous speed. Instantly sensing that the UFO was going to collide with their vehicle, both passengers fled the car in terror. As they stood beside their car, the light dove down over their car before ascending again at a breakneck pace. 

Swinging like a pendulum, the object then turned back on itself and made another pass over the car. This time it hovered in place for a moment, bathing the road in its unearthly light. It stood still in the air roughly 50ft above the vehicle, and Leslie could see it clearly enough to describe it in detail. 

It was round in shape, and approximately 50ft in diameter. It glowed an incandescent orange, with a blue light on one end, which seemed to emit a fiery tail of electrical-looking sparks. It was this light that was responsible for lighting up the surrounding environment. The object was accompanied by a gentle humming sound and no noticeable heat. 

Turning to his companion in amazement, Leslie asked Muller if he was seeing the same thing, to which he responded in the affirmative: "Yes, but I don't believe it!"

Like a bullet from a gun, the object then shot away from the witnesses once again - travelling extremely rapidly southeast towards Parys before changing course northwest towards Potchefstroom. It made another pendulum swing down towards the terrified pair's car, and actually repeated this daring manoeuvre "five or six times" - each time "swooping low over us only to disappear into the distance". 

Leslie and Muller had decided to keep their experience to themselves until they saw the coverage of the bizarre 'meteor' flap at Keyterskloof. Both men later swore statements before a Commissioner of Oaths to say that their testimony was "gospel truth", as Leslie later put it. 

About six days later, on Friday the 20th of that month, residents of Krugersdorp (some 47 miles away from Vereeniging) were awoken by two defeaning explosions and an unexplained bright light. One Mrs. A Stoop says she heard a bang coming from an easterly direction at about 3am that morning, before seeing a blue luminous object "swinging... to and fro" over the town. This phenomenon lasted for about a minute before subsiding [3]. 

Conclusion

The latter story might appear to have very little do to with black dog folklore, but I contend that it is relevant to this specific category of zooform phenomena. A black dog reported from Budleigh Hill in Somerset was said to have gone "up in the air like a flash of fire" when it reached a stream of running water that it presumably could not cross. Another case from Dartmoor in Devon describes a shaggy canine entity that disappeared with a dazzling flash of light and the sound of an explosion [4]. 

Black dogs and other phantom hounds are found all across Eurasia and the Americas, with examples being known from as far afield as China and Guatemala. It seems likely that they are connected with the frequent mythological appearances of dogs as psychopomps, accompanying the souls of the dead. This archetype is not only present in Eurasia with famous examples like the Greek Kérberos and the Norse Garmr, but is also found in the lore of American civilisations such as the Aztecs and the Mayan Téenek people [5].

Sources

1. Personal correspondence. 

2. Translated by Rouse, WHD. (1901) 'Jataka 469: Mahā-Kaṇha-jātaka' in The Jataka, Vol. 1V. https://sacred-texts.com/bud/j4/j4033.htm

3. ‘On the Road to Vereeniging’ (1964) Flying Saucer Review, 10 (3), pp. 27–28. Translated by P.J. Human.

4. Bord, J. and Bord, C. (1985) ‘Chapter Three: Mysterious Black Dogs’, in Alien Animals: A Worldwide Investigation. HarperCollins, pp. 80–108.

5. Cutchin, J. (2022) ‘Chapter Two: Psychopomps’, in Ecology of Souls: A New Mythology of Death and the Paranormal - Volume One. Horse & Barrel Press, pp. 47–72.

The Flatwoods Seance

Looking up from the fog-shrouded fields of Braxton County, Tommy Hyer and Edward and Fred May saw a blinding light streak across the sky before apparently coming down on a nearby farm. It was September 12th of 1952, and the three terrified boys ran back to the May household to tell their incredible story. I imagine that most of this blog's readers will be familiar with what happened next. Accompanied by a local National Guardsman and two other children, the group ventured onto the farm - and were eventually met with one of the most bizarre beings ever recorded in the annals of UFO history: the now infamous Flatwoods Monster.

A Baffling Sequel

Twelve years later, it seemed that the Flatwoods Monster was not yet done with the human race. The strange story apparently transmitted to ufologist Gray Barker by its ill-prepared protagonists also seems to suggest that the entity involved with the 1952 events might not have been a material extraterrestrial, but rather some aberrant form from the spirit world.

Gray Barker's knowledge of the events was made public by Riley Hansard Crabb writing for the Borderline Sciences Research Foundation in 1967. Crabb had previously received a letter from the witnesses, but had not been in further contact with them until Barker investigated the case. Crabb's letter made it clear to him that the witnesses were college students who had picked up an interest in the flying saucer mystery, and had quickly concluded that the answer to said mystery lay in the metaphysical realm as opposed to outer space.

Norman Schreibstein and Ervin Vertleib lived somewhere in Pennsylvania, and they'd decided to establish a home-grown flying saucer observatory in Norman's home in early 1964. One of their first ventures into the ultraterrestrial world would yield far more dramatic results than many seekers could hope to receive after years of work. For reasons best known to themselves, they set their sights on establishing contact with the Flatwoods Monster. 

Contact!

Drawing used for the seance

To begin with, the boys elected to draw up a picture of the robot-like apparition on a large sheet of paper. They found a suitable model for this makeshift idol in the May family's witness sketches that had appeared in Gray Barker's Saucerian Bulletin. The drawing was stuck up on the wall of the observatory, the lights were turned out and the group all sat down the meditate. At this point, Schreibstein and Vertleib had been joined by individuals named Mark Kaplan and Patricia Morgan, as well as Norman's unnamed skeptical cousin. 

Upon sitting in the dark for roughly fifteen minutes, a light appeared above their heads in the room. The floating orb lazily circled the room. Another light briefly appeared and disappeared. Perhaps predictably, Schreibstein's cousin promptly fled the room. 

Showing boundless dedication, Vertleib reached out into the darkness. He felt a disembodied hand clasp his own and firmly shake it, as if in acknowledgement that contact had been successfully established. At this point, the group needed a way to properly communicate with the entity that was manifesting in their room - and they decided on a simple code for the floating light to follow - one circle for yes, two for no. 

Crabb doesn't say who was first to break the silence, but the first question they asked was whether the entity in question was the Flatwoods Monster. They received a single circle in response, signalling 'yes'. They next asked if the entity minded if they told others about their encounter, which was answered 'no'. The entity responded in the affirmative to a question on whether it was friendly, and then offered no firm answer when asked if it was limited to appearing at Norman's house. 

"If you are solid, give us some sign."

This final question was a mistake. This became clear to the group as the whole house started to violently shake, and deafening crashes were heard in the observatory room. In terror, someone flipped the room's light switch, causing the spiralling light to immediately vanish. Norman was appalled to see that his PA system and microphone had been smashed, and that the camera the group had been hoping to use to photograph the phenomenon had been thrown across the room and had had its lenses unscrewed. A model airplane had been broken as it hurtled to the floor, and it lay among chaotic heaps of books and other detritus.

Somehow undeterred by the threatening display, the boys swiftly turned the lights out again and sat around in their seance circle. The light appeared once more, floating just above Vertleib's head. He impulsively reached up and grabbed it - and was stunned to grasp a "sharp, metallic structure". This object remained in his hands for roughly ten seconds before it jerked itself away and continued its flight around the room. 

The activity in the room escalated one final time, as Mark and Norman felt humanlike fingers touch their foreheads and Patricia felt one touch her throat. The floating light started to lurch around, divebombing the seance participants and being met with screams of alarm. As if satisfied by the terror it had inflicted, the light dove into the Flatwoods Monster drawing and disappeared. Norman claimed that the drawing was hot to the touch shortly afterwards. Patricia soon developed a sore throat, and Mark and Norman had terrible headaches. 

Follow-Up

Three strange men showed up to Norman Schreibstein's house in September of that year. Perhaps they were curious about the letter he had sent to Crabb, or perhaps they were late to the punch in dealing with the seance. Although both Norman and Ervin were familiar with the concept of the Men in Black, Norman didn't recognise the figures at first. Instead, he assumed that the men had a genuine interest in flying saucers, and so happily allowed them access to the observatory. 

Bizarrely, the men seemed largely disinterested in the books and UFO memorabilia on display throughout the seance room, but rather focused their attention on the electrical equipment in the space. They carefully examined the PA system, and inquired about the specific make of his tape recorder. Crabb pointed out that Albert Bender experienced problems with his radio in the attic that played host to many of his encounters with the Men in Black. It was as they prowled around his observatory investigating various wires and dials that Norman started to feel a cold chill scuttle down his back - he suddenly knew that these 'men' were not human beings. 

Almost as if they'd sensed the shift in their host's awareness, the men turned to leave. Before they did so, however, they sternly told Norman to "get the hell out of flying saucer research if you know what's good for you" - as well as threatening him with "serious consequences" if he told anyone about their visit. It seems he later did this anyway and was entirely unharmed.

In the next few months, Schreibstein experienced four more visits from a phantasmal stranger. Crabb likened this character to a stereotypical CIA agent, and Norman described him as being "about 33" in age and being roughly 6ft in height. The man had dark skin and wore distinctive horn-rimmed glasses, as well as a strange ring on one of the fingers of his left hand. Perhaps predictably, the CIA man also warned Norman to leave flying saucer research. 

The boys were apparently not frightened by these tricks, and Gray Barker claimed that they actually had "other psychic experiences", which they were unfortunately not happy to be made public at the time of Crabb's writing. 

Source 

Who Flys the Saucers? by Riley Hansard Crabb, 1967

Honey, Aliens Shrunk the Kids

With a title like that, I really can't blame you for clicking on this article, and I really hope that you won't be disappointed. Today I have another case from the UFOs Northwest archives which involves the apparent abduction of an 18-year-old and his brother by otherworldly beings, which seemingly resulted in the two young victims becoming spontaneously shorter overnight...

The New Gloucester Abduction

It was 1973, the dreaded Year of the Humanoids, when an anonymous witness, his brother and two other friends - who were driving close to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in Maine - suddenly became aware of a bright UFO following them, visible in the window of the driver's side of the car. They were on the road towards Middle Range Pond when they first saw it, and they promptly decided to make a 'sharp left' towards Oxford, Maine in what was presumably an attempt to evade the odd object. After they got to the Oxford Plains Speedway, they turned around and headed back the way they had come.

They had just reached the apple orchard by the intersection between Route #26, Outlet Road and Quarry Road (the latter of which was known as Shaker Village Road at the time) when they noticed that they had seemingly slipped into the Twilight Zone. There were no other cars on the busy and usually well-travelled road, and the Sun had gone down 'awfully fast'. The stars were apparently abnormally large in the night sky, with the witness saying that it felt as if he could 'reach out to them'. The world around them appeared to have gone completely silent - with the usual chirping of the crickets being totally absent. In this odd state, the witness could feel and hear his heart pounding in his ears, and he said that it was like they 'were inside a vacuumed bottle'.

The UFO suddenly made itself visible once again - hovering above what is still the only tree that is placed slightly ahead of its fellows in the orchard. It was a large, round object which 'lit up orange' and was totally silent. The four dumbstruck witnesses just sat and stared at the aerial enigma for what they thought at the time to be roughly one hour. However, when they finally decided to return home, the person who would later report the incident to UFOs Northwest noticed that 'it became daylight way too soon', and requested that his brother - who was driving the 1967 Tan Chevy Nova in which the group was travelling - redirect them to the Auburn, Maine police department so that they could report the bizarre happening. However, they were apparently about to witness further strange events.

This is sadly where the narrative gets a little cloudy. The witness said that he would write back to the organisation detailing his further experiences, but failed to do so if I am interpreting the records stored on the organisation's website correctly. However, he did describe (confusingly in an earlier letter) the bizarre physiological effects that this event had on him and his brother. Trying to report their abduction - it was an abduction, the witness clarifies, saying that they 'were taken onboard' and released one day later - was apparently a mistake. Instead, he elected to go to a local hospital for a checkup, seeing as his nose was bleeding, the whites of his eyes had gone a 'deep orange', and his lungs ached when he breathed. He was understandably 'very concerned' about this, but his shock would only get greater when the nurse read his height as 5ft 9 inches, seeing as he was supposed to be over 5ft 10 inches tall. Telling her that she was incorrect, he had the nurse re-check the measurements only to find that he had seemingly lost an inch of height overnight.

Map of the terrain around the abduction

When he and his brother returned home, their mother was apparently very vocal in her alarm at the state of her children. She demanded to know what had happened and remarked that they were both shorter and that she wanted to know what had happened to their eyes. Presumably panicking at this point, the witness ran to his bathroom mirror and was horrified to note that, indeed, he 'didn't look right'. In an effort to prove to the local authorities that this had happened, he implored them to check his high-school medical records and the photographs taken on his eighteenth birthday, roughly two weeks before the apparent abduction event. He asked them to compare how he looked now and how he was recorded as being back then. 'How many 18-year-olds lose an inch overnight?'

Analysis

I'm not sure what to make of this case. I know that at least one case in which the height of a UFO witness spontaneously changed after the event, and so this report is not unique. The language used by the witness in the letters transcribed on the UFOs Northwest website make me think that he is either possibly executing a rather-immature hoax, or is genuinely emotional and panicked to an extreme degree by the memories he now possesses. I think that I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, especially since he said that 'the emotional experience of my abduction never stops'.

Source

UFOs Northwest - Man Recalls Abduction Experience, He Sustained Injury from Experience

Intergalactic Diva: The Pamela Stonebrooke Story

It's just human nature. If something exists, one of the ways we will try to explore it is by trying to have sex with it. Seeing as existence is required for this sexual exploration, I think that one of the best cases to be made for the existence of extraterrestrial life is the fact that many experiencers have claimed to have had some quite saucy encounters with the space invaders. You see my logic here? One of these experiencers is Pamela Stonebrooke, the self-titled Intergalactic Diva.

The Inside Scoop

The cover art of her album 'Alien'

Pamela's first alien experiences were of a non-sexual variety, and took place when she was somewhere between the ages of eight or nine. Her first odd experience was that of finding two strange scars on her skin. She had no idea where they had come from at the time - they had seemingly 'just showed up' - but when she grew older and more experienced she realised that they were likely the infamous 'scoop marks' left by extraterrestrial tissue sampling. She still has the scars on her shin, and she showed them to reporter Al Ridenour. These marks may have appeared without explanation, but her first consciously-recalled experience would be coming soon.

She eventually lost interest in the extraterrestrial phenomenon, and instead focused on her music career. Her talent was prodigious. Inspired by Billie Holiday, she assembled her first rock band at age sixteen - and after a tour through various cabarets and topless lounges (once she was of age, obviously) - she moved to California in 1975. Eventually, she was chosen to open the Playboy Club of Roppongi, Japan, and continued to perform with the top Japanese jazz musicians for eight years ater that. She then moved back to America to Los Angeles, where she quickly inserted herself into the local jazz scene as a platinum-haired wild child. However, she still maintained her interest in esoterica through the lens of astral travel and the New Age movement. She would later profess to be an experienced out-of-body traveller, and expressed some of her mystical leanings through her darker music throughout the ages. For example, she performed as Lilith in Exile and Incubus - both ironically named after malevolent spirits associated with sexuality. The irony will become apparent later.

It was 1994, and Pamela was working as a celebrity agent in Houston, Texas. She had not yet launched herself into her starstruck career as a jazz singer, but it seems that the space people didn't particularly care whether or not she had made it big yet. That day, she had just come home from working a long hours shift at her office, and had decided to go to sleep early. She closed her eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep - but when she woke she found that a scheduled return to the office would no longer be possible for her in that moment. She was curled in the foetal position in a dimly-lit metallic room 'shaped like a truncated pyramid', and the realisation quickly dawned on her that she was seemingly on board a spaceship. A line of small, grey-skinned beings walked into the room and looked at her. One of them - seemingly female - approached her and told her not to be afraid before requesting that she follow it. Perhaps realising that she had no other real options, she followed the Grey alien through a door into another room. The alien shut the door behind them and it instantly disappeared into the wall. When she turned from having watched the door vanish, she was startled to see that three female aliens of even smaller stature were looking up at her. She described them as being very frail like the other Greys, but with wispy hair like that of chemotherapy patients on their heads. They ran over to her, grabbed her arms and started calling her 'mummy'. A wave of fear suddenly crashed into her - leaving her dumbfounded with absolute terror before she suddenly found herself back in her bed. Staggering out of bed, brain still blazing with panic, she went to the bathroom to splash her face with water in an attempt to shake off what she perhaps thought was just a dream. 

The cover art of her album 'Experiencer'

As she was doing so, she had to roll up the sleeves of her kimono - and was horrified to see numerous small bruises on her arms. The reality of the experience came flooding back to her instantaneously, and she remembered when the aliens had grabbed her arms. Returning to bed, presumably with trepidation, she found herself unable to get a good night's sleep for obvious reasons. The experience continued to affect her in this way for 'nearly a year'.

Pamela would eventually agree to subject herself to hypnotic regression to try and retrieve further memories of alien contact - and she was terrified by what she uncovered. As she started to recall more and more, she came to the realisation that she had been subjected to several examinations by extraterrestrial Greys throughout the years - and that the aliens had been responsible for the four phantom pregnancies she had experienced. The aliens also showed her an apocalyptic vision of the future. She always found it 'pretty ludicrous', and actually spent the first year and a half after remembering it all feeling truly traumatised by it - but nonetheless she was able to embrace it as part of herself. She recruited an artist to draw one of the Reptilian aliens she now remembered having contact with, and even started a support group for people who had experienced similar phenomena. This support group, I presume, was what is referred to as having taken place in the Encino Women's Center in Los Angeles. An individual named Daryl Anka apparently made contact with an extraterrestrial metaphysician named Bashar in these sessions, and would relay messages of desire for intergalactic peace. Pamela told The Sun Online that she was able to overcome the embarrassment factor quite quickly and to tell her friends and family about what had happened to her. She used her musical talent - and career as a smoky-voiced jazz singer - to disperse some of the messages delivered to her support group by Bashar. Her song 'Alien' contains a segment consisting of her reading out a message from the extraterrestrial through a voice modulator. It's certainly an experience to listen to.

Scaled For Her Pleasure

A portrait of the alien entity involved with the sexual liason

It was 1998 - a few years after she had composed Alien - that her contact experiences took a turn for the erotic. She would eventually go on to have three encounters with an extraordinarily sexually talented Reptilian alien. The first of these illicit rendez-vous started when she woke from her sleep to discover herself already making love with a 'gorgeous blond man' whom she compared to a Greek god. She was shocked - seeing as she apparently never brought people home like she had evidently done that night - and eventually she concluded that she must've been having a lucid dream. She closed her eyes and relaxed, enjoying how 'comfortable' she felt with the unknown presence. When she next opened her eyes - however - this supposed dream became something far less conventional. The intercourse became more aggressive - 'the energy felt totally different' - and apparently the size of her partner increased inexplicably. The Greek god had morphed into a 6ft-tall reptilian humanoid with a vaguely alligator-like snout and scaly, snake-like skin. She realised that she was 'making love to a shape-shifting alien', and when the entity sensed that she was scared it simply whispered 'We've always been together, we love each other'. The telepathic communication she shared with the Reptilian was apparently so intense and sensual that she felt happy to simply surrender to the intensely enjoyable sexual experience. She described the Reptilian as being sly and slick, and as having a 'playful, kind of bad-boy attitude'. The orgasms she experienced as a result were like nothing she'd ever felt before - it was as if the climax extended to every single cell in her body.

She would eventually go on to appear on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell to talk about her experiences, and would often say that she had received letters and emails from women relieved to know that someone else had experienced something similar. She regards these correspondences as opportunities to help people who might otherwise be institutionalised or even convinced that they are possessed by demons. An alien revelation that the Earth may well be nothing more than 'one big, terraformed experiment' inspired her to create an album called Experiencer - and this name would also be shared by a book that she published in late 2001. However, she chose to publish it seemingly exclusively on CD - and seeing as that medium is now effectively defunct, the book has also vanished. Her website is also now down (a reptile dysfunction, anyone?). I fear that her story may soon vanish to the ether if it is not publicised in blogs like this.

Sources

'Alien Lizard Jazz Goddess' by Al Ridenour

'Screwed by the Aliens' by Timothy Beckley and Sean Casteel

'Are You... Experienced?' by Skylaire Alfvegren for LA Weekly

'Sex and Alien Encounters' on crystalinks.com

That Time an Alien was Shot Dead by Military Police

In a two-hour period between 03:00 and 05:00 on January 18th, 1978, unidentified flying objects were sighted over Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington County, New Jersey. Shortly after the sighting, a military policeman known by the pseudonym Jeffrey Morse was ordered to go to gate #5 of McGuire Air Force Base to allow a state trooper to enter the site after an alert had been issued. The trooper apparently wanted access to a runway area which led to the very back of the airfield and connected to a heavily wooded area which is part of the Fort Dix training area. The trooper informed Morse that a Fort Dix MP (Military Police) had been pursuing a low-flying object, described as oval shaped and featureless, glowing with a bluish-green colour. The object hovered over the MP’s car, and a ‘thing’ appeared in front of the car, said to be about 4ft tall and greyish-brown in colour. It had long arms, a slender body and a ‘fat’ head. The MP had panicked and fired five rounds from his .45 calibre handgun into the body of the creature, and another into the UFO above him, which then flew straight up to join with eleven other objects high in the sky. The alien then ran off into the woods and escaped over the fence between the two bases before collapsing and dying on the deserted runway to which the state trooper had requested access.

An artist's rendition of the incident

Morse Meets the Martian

By the time that Morse heard about the incident, there were already several patrols involved. Morse and the state trooper found the body of the alien near the runway, likely having climbed over the fence and died while running. Despite the aberrant turn of events, Morse and his colleagues still followed normal crime scene procedure, and attempted to rope off the area before the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) came over and took charge of the situation, relegating Morse to a background role, but he could still see what was going on from a distance. He claims that there was a ‘bad stench’ coming from the body, which he compared to ammonia.

An eyewitness sketch of the base's layout

At varying times during his patrol duty, Morse was within 40-70ft from the prostrate body on runway #5. He was never close enough to gauge finer details like facial features or its hands and feet, but as he revealed under additional interviews done for a MUFON symposium, he could see that the unclad, hairless body of the creature was wet, shiny and snake-like under the glare of truck headlights. This description fits the anatomical description so often heard from supposed military sources who have claimed to see such beings at crash sites, as well as by an intriguing medical source who says that they performed an autopsy on such a specimen in the early 1950s. These beings are often called ‘Grays’ because of their skin colouration, and are widely known in UFO literature, supposedly being the entities behind the famed Roswell Crash.

In that same MUFON interview, Morse was offered the suggestion that the entity could have been a deer or an escaped ape from a nearby military experimentation lab, but Morse immediately replied ‘No zoo nearby. We did have a problem with deer on the runway, but no one ever made such a big fuss over a deer’. Morse also claimed that there was a strong smell of ammonia in the night air, which is also a feature shared by many other UFO cases.

Eyewitness sketch of the body seen

Later that day, a blue beret-wearing team from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base arrived in a C-141 aircraft and approached the body. They sprayed the creature’s corpse with some kind of material projected from a portable tank before covering it with a white sheet, and by daybreak the body had been carefully set down on a platform with a wooden frame built around it. Finally, this frame was placed into a large, square metal container of silvery colour, which was estimated to be about 10x10ft with ‘undistinguishable’ blue markings. The mysterious men then loaded the box-in-a-box into the plane using a fork-lift and took off. Nothing more was said about the incident; no report was made, and Morse and his companion were told that they would be court-martialled if they said anything about their experience on that day.

Two days after the event, Morse and the other participants in the bizarre happening were summoned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, where they were subject to an intimidating interrogation about the weird occurrence and were once again warned to not talk about the incident. As a side-note, Morse has supplied the names of the interrogators from his memories of their name badges, and their identities have been verified. Obviously, their names will not be listed here. According to Morse, the people ‘told me about my duty to keep my mouth shut… I signed a form and it is supposed to bind me for life.’ Quickly after returning to McGuire Air Force Base, Morse had more questioning forthcoming, being debriefed about the event by his commanding officer – a lieutenant colonel whose name has also been confirmed. Shortly after the debrief had finished, each of the airmen who were involved in the encounter were transferred to separate overseas bases, with Morse being shipped to Okinawa, one of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.

The McGuire case is also interesting because a prominent UFO investigator named George Filer claimed to have been present at the base on the morning of January 18th in 1978, and told NIDS (National Institute for Discovery Science) that he had witnessed a commotion with red lights on one of the runways in question when he arrived at the base at 04:00. Filer further claimed that he heard from a Senior Master Sergeant at the McGuire command post on the same morning that UFO activity had been sighted by the control tower and captured on radar at Fort Dix, and that an alien had been shot and found dead on the runway at McGuire.

In one more strange incident, this time in October of 1986 when Morse went on a trip back to the United States to visit his family. He was ‘detained’ in California under rather obscure pretences. Outraged at the holdup, he filed a lawsuit against the California-based authority and notified the MUFON interviewer (named Stringfield) so that he could return to the US in January 1987 for court appearances. During Mores’s layover in the States, however, it seemed that he could learn nothing more about the cause or reason for his detainment, or the identity of the source who ordered the so-called ‘pick and hold’ operation. His legal probes had all been stalled in metaphorical red tape.

The aftermath of this bizarre event certainly highlights the strange issue of the alleged harassment of UFO witnesses, apparently in an attempt to intimidate them into silence. Among these methods are the infamous Men in Black, who will be discussed at greater length in a later article. If the story supplied by Morse can be confirmed to be credible, then it could go a great length to undermining the UFO coverup as a whole. Unfortunately, if the government really are behind the UFO coverup (which I personally doubt they are) then Morses’s knowledge about the subject makes him vulnerable to attack and retaliation, thus impeding his ability to live a normal life.

Despite the truly epic story that I have laid out for you, there are always going to be those who deny its veracity based on numerous different points. For example, the ‘Incident Report’ that Morse supplied has been disputed by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) because the style of writing and terminology used within supposedly does not follow proper Air Force style, thus providing grounds for the accusation that this admittedly-fantastic story is a hoax. One of the key points made by AFOSI was that the pay grades of the witnesses were given instead of their ranks on the official form. However, we must remember to view both the angles taken by the believers and the debunkers with equal skepticism, and this becomes worth it when we realised that the AFOSI statement is incorrect, and that pay grades are frequently filed in official Air Force reports instead of ranks.

Sources

I found this tale originally while browsing through the UFO Casebook. It is on this website that you can also read the official documents pertaining to the military's handling of the case. Further information is available on ThinkAboutIt Docs.