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. 

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

Where Did Lillian Carney Go?

An old photograph of the Aroostook River (circa 1920)

One Sunday - August 8, 1897 to be precise - Mr and Mrs Carney decided to go out blueberry picking in the Mullen Bog, which is apparently situated just west of Aroostook River in Masardis, Maine. This entire region is surrounded by dense forests and secluded lakes, and is just 15 miles from the Canadian border. They brought their daughter, Lillian, with them. She was only six years and five months old at the time, and so when she wandered away from her parents a search party was quickly organised. She would not be seen again until 46 hours had elapsed - and she had a bizarre story to tell her rescuers.

An Unnatural Sunshine
As soon as her parents realised that she was missing and that she could not be located after an initial hour of searching, they called for assistance - and were rewarded with an extensive search that lasted until midnight that night. On Monday morning, 200 concerned citizens joined the search effort - combing every inch of the forest 'without finding a trace of the lost child'. The distraught family and their friends ended up staying in the dense woods throughout both nights.
One day later, on Tuesday morning, 300 men turned up to the ever-growing search effort. It was roughly 10am when one Mr. Burt Pollard found Lillian 'two or three miles from where she started'. She seemed to be perfectly calm and collected, and was asking for her mother. There were some wild berries in her hand, but she said that she wouldn't want to eat them for fear that they might negatively impact her health. Guns were fired as joyful signals and the steam whistle at the Simpson Mill sounded to alert people that the child had been found. Tired but satisfied, everyone returned to their daily business.
When questioned about what she had seen while missing, she said that 'the sun shined all the time in the woods' - which has struck many a researcher (including David Paulides) as being extremely odd. The original newspaper source felt the need to clarify that the moon had been shining brightly for some of the time she was alone in the woods, but this also strongly implies that it was also partially cloudy for some duration of the period. When further asked about her experience, she claimed to have heard some people talking a day previously (these were presumably the search party) but had kept still for fear that they might've been 'tramps'. She also claimed to have seen 'little things' roughly the size of her cat, but had clapped her hands to scare them away. The newspaper speculated that these could've been rabbits.
It is interesting to note the similarities between this 1897 case and the more modern Missing 411 phenomenon. People who are victims of this bizarre phenomenon usually swiftly vanish without a trace, and then turn up (either alive or dead) quite close to where they originally disappeared from. This is certainly true for Lillian. Another odd link between this case and the Missing 411 phenomenon is the activity of berry-picking, which has been noted by David Paulides as being a strange constant in several cases.
We also have the manner in which the child seemed to have been unaware that anyone was looking for her, and remained perfectly calm throughout the whole ordeal. I would almost say that she experienced something like a jump forwards in time - there one moment and then not there anymore until 10am on Tuesday morning. Where did she go? Well, Paulides implied on a podcast called Where Did the Road Go? that he is of the opinion that the so-called sun seen by Lillian was actually some artificial light-source. What would artificial lights have been doing in the 1800s?

Sources
Lewiston Evening Journal - Aug 12, 1897
'The Devil's in the Detail' interview with David Paulides on Where Did the Road Go? Podcast