The Yeovil Alien

This story appeared on a good few online 'news' web sites and, as is my rule, whatever I thought about it personally it needed to be looked into. I never dismiss a report until I have the facts.  

Here is what the newspapers wrote:

The Sun

SPACE COWBOY Alien sighting reported in Yeovil as man claims he saw sinister seven-foot creature wearing cowboy hat at bus stop

By CARL STROUD

22 Dec 2016, 11:41Updated: 22 Dec 2016, 12:49

Alleged encounter leaves motorist so spooked he has not been able to sleep since

A SINISTER seven-foot alien wearing a cowboy hat has been spotted at a bus stop in Yeovil.

The alleged extra-terrestrial was black, had no face, spikes down its side and “silky” hair.

 Panicked driver sent sketch of extra-terrestrial to local paper after witnessing it at bus stop

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Panicked driver sent sketch of extra-terrestrial to local paper after witnessing it at bus stop Credit: SWNS:South West News Service

The spooked driver who claims to have witnessed it outside Yeovil College in Somerset says the encounter has left him so terrified he hasn’t been able to sleep since.

He said: "I was driving up the road as I normally do and I saw this dark looking figure by Yeovil College. It looked quite tall and had this big Stetson hat.

"I slowed down to have a closer look and thought it's not a man, it was about 7ft tall.

"It had this long thin tube coming from the top of it and spikes coming out of the side. The middle bit of it was like moleskin and hairy.

"The thing wasn't moving at all and was in this box that had sparks coming out of it. It was like something out of science fiction."

The man, who does not want to be named, drew a sketch of the creature, which he claims he saw on the afternoon of December 15, in the hope someone will tell him what it is.

In the drawing he notes that the beast, which was black in colour, wore a "weird" coat and had "silky hair".

The image also shows a long, rectangular body and a thin tube coming out of the hat, which looks like some kind of flute or long pipe.

The alien doesn't appear to have a face.

The man sent his drawing to his local paper and added that he wishes he had never stumbled upon it.

He added: "I just keep thinking I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's just mad.

"I'm struggling to sleep because of it and have been looking online seeing what it could be but am at a loss."

                                  -fin-

Then there was the Mail's account which was the same. In fact, every story on this I have seen is identical. And that suggests it was all copy and paste from a release sent in.

The Mail
By ANTHONY JOSEPH FOR MAILONLINE 

PUBLISHED: 13:28, 22 December 2016 | UPDATED: 16:08, 22 December 2016

Terrified motorist convinced he saw a 7ft alien wearing a cowboy hat at a bus stop has sketched an image of the sinister creature to show the world
He claims to have seen the sinister-looking figure outside Yeovil College 
It unnerved him so much he hasn't slept since and had to sketch an image 
In his sketch, the alien doesn't appear to have a face but was wearing a hat

A motorist says he was left terrified after spotting what he is convinced was a 7ft silky-haired alien, wearing a cowboy hat, waiting for a bus.


The driver said the sinister-looking figure, standing outside Yeovil College in Somerset, unnerved him so much he hasn't slept since and had to sketch an image to show the world.

The 'alien' had no face and a long thin tube coming from the top of it.

The creature-spotter, who has asked not to be named, said it was standing outside the college at a bus stop as he drove past.

He said: 'I was driving up the road as I normally do and I saw this dark looking figure by Yeovil College. It looked quite tall and had this big Stetson hat.

'I slowed down to have a closer look and thought it's not a man, it was about 7ft tall.

'It had this long thin tube coming from the top of it and spikes coming out of the side. The middle bit of it was like moleskin and hairy.

'The thing wasn't moving at all and was in this box that had sparks coming out of it. It was like something out of science fiction.'

The man drew an annotated picture of the alien, which he claims he saw on the afternoon of December 15, in the hope someone will tell him what it is.

In the drawing he notes that the beast, which was black in colour, wore a 'weird' coat and had 'silky hair'.

The image also shows a long, rectangular body and a thin tube coming out of the hat, which looks like some kind of flute or long pipe.

The alien doesn't appear to have a face.

The man sent his drawing to his local paper and added that he wishes he had never stumbled upon it.

He said: 'I just keep thinking I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's just mad.

'I'm struggling to sleep because of it and have been looking online seeing what it could be but am at a loss.' 
                                         -fin-

No one appears to have tried talking directly with the witness. You might think local journalists would jump on this "silly story" to sensationalise it but no.

So, I put out an appeal (and, yes, I was called an "alien hunter"!) because if this witness was so stunned and wanted to know what he had seen he would see the appeal and get in touch, right?

No. I tried everything but no one else appears to have reported this strange site. It was rather suspicious that this happened next to a college.  In fact, based on the description it seems that the alien looked more constructed...if anything was actually seen.

In my opinion, and I am open to being convinced otherwise, this was a college hoax. Allegedly one unnamed person saw this and that was it -the sources could not even tell me the original story source but, as with Cannock Chase, I knew that journalists were/are not shy to carry out a little hoaxing (oddly one journalist named was not at that paper and had no contact details online (!).

Unless there are other witnesses coming forward this has to be classed as a hoax.

The Appeals Still Open -any info welcome

Appeals made to newspapers that received no responses (rather like the Buckfastleigh appeal!)

Oxfordshire 1974

I am hoping that one of your readers may be able to help me get information on an uninvestigated UFO report from 1974. If one of the witnesses involved, who would now be in their 50's, or even one of the MoD Policemen who were one duty reads this I hope they might consider -in confidence- coming forward with their side of the account:

I am an author but also researcher and I have no interest in embarrassing or publicly naming witnesses.  My main aim is to determine exactly what happened that evening and that is all.

On the evening of the 9^th October, 1974, two 13 year old boys entered the station office of the Ministry of Defence Police at the Central Ordnance Depot, Bicester, Oxfordshire.  Both were described as appearing to be in a state of fright.  It seems that a “thing”, resembling a large, hunched man, had followed them along the Ploughly Road from the village of Ambrosden towards Lower Arncott; a distance of a quarter mile (0.8 km).

   This “thing” was accompanied by a light in the sky; neither the object nor the entity made any noise.  The boys were so shocked that they had to be treated by the MoD police officers; a dog and handler were sent to check around but saw nothing. A doctor later diagnosed one of the boys as suffering from severe shock.

Bardney  1976

  I am hoping that one of your readers may have been or know someone who was a witness to some UFO sightings in Woodall Spa and Bardney back in the summer of 1976.  I believe that one or more of those involved moved to your area at some point. One wrote to a UFO investigator at the time:

'On Sunday afternoon boys are allowed to go to Bardney. In the summer term, 1976, about mid-June, we saw a "stick man" jolting along. It was black with a round head, not making any noise. It was about 15O yards away from us, and it was quite hard to see’.

  At the time the sightings were all dismissed simply because the witnesses were youngsters.  No attempt was made to look for any other reports in the areas and that was it.
   I would like to hear from any of the boys -especially regarding the Bardney sighting- in strict confidence. I am a researcher and my interest is in finding out what actually happened and to hope that one or more witnesses will come forward so that the record can be corrected and their accounts included in records.

Nottinghamshire 1979

On the 23rd September, 1979,  six or seven primary school children went for an early evening walk in Wollaton Park in Nottingham, when they were approached by what they described as "gnomes in small cars” .  This has become known as "The Woollaton Park Gnomes case".

At the time the children spoke to their headmaster who recorded what they claimed happened.  Those children would now be adults in their late 40's.  There was never any thorough investigation since "They are just kids" was the standard response but I would be very interested in hearing from any of those involved in confidence.  I am an author and researcher but my prime interest is really in getting to the facts and what happened.

Was it just a game the kids thought up or are they still willing to state that this really happened? As I said, all in complete confidence as I can imagine they might feel a little embarrassed (either way) but I would be very interested in actually hearing from one of those there at the time rather than read the constant inaccurate rehashing on web sites.

And, of course, Buckfastleigh

On the 3^rd October, 1978, three teenagers left a youth club in Buckfastleigh, Devon. The trio were given pseudonyms at the time of Shirley, Mark and Paul.

Investigation procedures at the time as well as protocol on dealing with witnesses were not what they are today. 

We know that the trio observed a number of unidentified objects in the sky above the village and some unidentified figures on three occasions.  We might normally be cautious but a retired gentleman named Harry observed the objects himself after the nervous trio knocked on his door –his cats also behaved oddly.

The teens were traumatised and the girl identified as Shirley was said to have been most affected.

1978 seems a very long time ago now but I am trying to locate the teens and gather as much information about observations that evening as I can.  If they read this, or any family members do, then please get in touch. I cannot over-emphasise that I deal with witnesses in the strictest confidence and have done so for over 40 years.  My interest is purely for research and so I hope that the trio will consider getting in touch with me.

I can be contacted via email at aopbureau@yahoo.co.uk or blackto@hotmail.com or via Face Book Messenger –Anomalous Observational Phenomena page.

If anyone out there reads this and THEY were one of the witnesses PLEASE get in touch.  If anyone knows the witnesses please pass this along.  We have lost so much real data that these reports deserve to be looked into.

This Image from Hubble Telescope Is Absolutely Mind Blowing

Stanton Terry Friedman (July 29, 1934 – May 13, 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/stanton-friedman-ufologist-dead-1.5135588

Old Cases and ufology failed: Buckfastleigh and others

Last October I posted the following item and also contacted various news outlets:

Buckfastleigh, Devon: 1977 -witness appeal

It is a long shot but you never know...

On the 3^rd October, 1978, three teenagers left a youth club in Buckfastleigh, Devon. The trio were given pseudonyms at the time of Shirley, Mark and Paul.

Investigation procedures at the time as well as protocol on dealing with witnesses were not what they are today. 

We know that the trio observed a number of unidentified objects in the sky above the village and some unidentified figures on three occasions.  We might normally be cautious but a retired gentleman named Harry observed the objects himself after the nervous trio knocked on his door –his cats also behaved oddly.

The teens were traumatised and the girl identified as Shirley was said to have been most affected.

1978 seems a very long time ago now but I am trying to locate the teens and gather as much information about observations that evening as I can.  If they read this, or any family members do, then please get in touch. I cannot over-emphasise that I deal with witnesses in the strictest confidence and have done so for over 40 years.  My interest is purely for research and so I hope that the trio will consider getting in touch with me.

I can be contacted via email at aopbureau@yahoo.co.uk or blackto@hotmail.com or via Face Book Messenger –Anomalous Observational Phenomena page.

My thanks in advance

Terry Hooper-Scharf

CE3K/AE Project

It was one of several appeals I sent out that month looking for percipients in UFO entity cases that were never investigated or were simply dismissed by ufologists because they involved entities or young persons.

I have no idea whether any of those involved in the incidents read the requests and even if some had they were treated very badly at the time by ufologists so they might not be inclined to come forward.,

During 1976 a colleague, in UFO International which I had founded, offered to look into a report of a large oval shaped object landing near to a witness' home close to Bristol.  He was going to be working in that area and I had no reason to not trust him. I was told that the report was a fake and the person in question a "Ufonut". That was it and I had to make do with a verbal 'report' as the man in question could not be bothered wasting time writing up what he had learnt. In a conversation with another group member I was told that this 'investigator' "Couldn't be bothered after the fella told him that someone had left the object and walked around it".

I exploded with anger.  We were talking about a Close Encounter of the Third Kind rather than just a landing that might involve natural phenomena. So I confronted the investigator (in private) and basically asked WTF was going on?  He told me how the man had seen the object land nearby and wartching it had seen "someone or something come out and move about for a while".  What did the man describe?  How long had the incident lasted? Did he see the object take off and did he check the landing site -and did the 'investigator' check?

No. It seems that once "something coming from inside the object" was mentioned he had switched off as he "knew" he was talking to a "nutter". Now, since I had dealt with entity/CE3K cases and talked and written about them that was pretty damn insulting.  In fact, the same person (not daring to use my name) later wrote a piece "Are you a UFOnut" that was a personal attack on me. Turns out he was even part of the Aerial Phenomena Enquiries Network (APEN) which was renowned for hoaxing and so on (I have files with my solicitor naming the other prominent British ufologists involved in APEN).

Not long after the same 'investigator' told me that a witness in another case was "Pretty useless. He was a blackie and you know what they are like". For me that was it and I distanced myself from him as well as other factions in ufology who seemed to be almost mentally retarded in their attitudes and racist attitudes. It wasn't just teenagers being treated disgustingly.

Did I try to follow up the two reports?  Yes. The witness near to Bristol refused phone calls and correspondence and I gathered that he had been treated very rudely. As for the other witness who was as Bristolian as me: he was very polite and pointed out that he would never speak to another ufologist because of the attitude and what was said to him (he never elaborated).

All of these, like the Buckfastleigh case, were high priority events that needed proper investigation but are now lost. I doubrt that we will ever know what went on but Buckfastleigh definitely appears to have had some type of activity going on because, years before I made my appeal, others had reported CE3Ks/possible abductions in and around the area in the space of a month.  It took me weeks of searching before I came across vague references and then details of what happened. and guess what? The organisations the events were reported to never made any follow-up and until I mentioned the cases and they checked they had no clue -but if I found anything out....?

At the time of publishing UFO Contact? I was unaware of these other incidents and it appears -if it turns out to be genuine- that one percipient has physical scarring that his doctors cannot explain but appear to have involved a major medical procedure.

We'll see.

There Are ALWAYS Hoaxers

Last year, after a local news service reported that "an alien hunter" (me -I had no idea!) was heading to Somerset I received a number of emails. 

One from a woman who claimed that she and others had seen UFOs "numerous times" over Yeovil and that her son and others were lifelong experiencers.  So I politely responded to the woman and people named. Nothing. Not a single word came back.

Hoax? Who knows.

As I explained in UFO Contact? what I termed "Ruth Syndrome" offers a lot of explanations for UFO abductions as well as Bigfoot reports and even the paranormal. Not all, though.
Another message I received last year was from a young man who claimed that he and his girlfriend were out sky-watching (looking for UFOs) at a location while watching Netflix. 

 Strange lights, carry battery running down, odd noises and even his companion seeing him walk back down a lane with several small misty figures.

It all sounded like a typical abduction scenario and I am sure that Hopkins and Jacobs would have loved this. Hey, his girlfriend was in the next room -he gave me a Face Book page link and I never got the chat to the young woman. What I did do, however, as standard practice, was run a background check on the person in question -including social media- and his girlfriend.

Well, it seems that 'his' girlfriend was actually engaged to another man and there was no mention of the reportee on any of her social media. Odd?  

Car battery died and the 'girlfriend's' phone "acted weird" when the lights appeared...then it was "we may have run down the battery with Netflix" (he means her phone was plugged in. It became more and more obvious that there was a strong fishy smell coming over the internet so, as he would not give me an address to send him a sighting report form I sent it via FB Messenger. He never completed it so, while the iron was still hot I gave it one final attempt:

The only indicator of time is when you say Karis saw you come back down the lane -4 am. I would like to narrow down the time of events. I’m assuming that the skywatch had been discussed that evening so at what time did you set off and why did you decide on that location in particular?

If you could write down what time you left and got to the location that helps. I’m guessing you decided to watch Netflix because nothing was happening so can you recall the time or what you watched as that takes us closer to when things started. Was the car engine running or was it just the phone plugged in when things started?

1) The car engine died but was it working okay when you started it to drive home?

2) Your girlfriend’s phone went “a bit weird”? Was this at the same time as the engine died and how did the phone go weird –has it worked okay since?

3) You used a torch to mimic the movements of the objects so that had no problems with functioning?

4) When the object flew over both (?) of you did you feel anything physically?

5) When you heard movement around you did you use the torch to see what was making the noise?

6) K***** was nervous but at what point did you leave her alone in the car to go into the field?

7) K**** saw you come back down the lane so the first question is when did you leave the field and walk off leaving her in the car and why did you go down the lane?

K***** saw greyish, vague shapes walking along with you thought that they might be children has she thought much about this part of the night in the hopes of recalling what she saw better?

A lot I know but I want to get as much detail as possible –writing an account of what happened that night often helps recollection of witnesses as well as the investigators.
I had kept John Hanson of The Haunted Skies Project posted throughout the exchanges and sent him a final set of notes on the case. As far as I could determine it had all been an ill-thought out attempt at a hoax as the person in question even noted the UFO abduction book he had been reading.

Unbelievably, when I checked with Ufologists in 2017-2018 I found that they were accepting similar accounts -some quoting previously reported incidents- as genuine. Some Ufologists had promoted reports that they had taken details off from other sites and declaring them genuine but never investigated and, making it even worse, the original sources tended to be internet sites that would not respond to requests.

When you consider that the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) operate almost the same way (it is a money making endeavor after all) and is outrightly dismissive and rude to serious researchers you get to realise why you can never take a reported case for granted.  At the same time highly credible cases are ignored and excuses given as to why they cannot be investigated.

In the UK there is no such thing as credible UFO investigation and research organisations. Money and personal agendas are the guiding factors.  This is a sad turn of events and makes the exceptional work of John Hanson and the Haunted Skies Project and books even more important.

Hoaxers (for one reason or other) are always out there and accepting a snippet from a newspaper or internet item is not scientific nor an investigation.  You are incapable of doing the work or do not want to...go and get involved in something else.

Hi.

A few questions that might help better than the report form. Firstly, I know there is a Vallis Road in Frome so I am guessing that is where you had the first sighting? I cannot find any “Bayleaf” in Somerset so can you give me an exact location or at least the nearest village/town.

Cheers

A few spluttery lines and that was it. No phone number to contact him and a girlfriend who was not a girlfriend and more than a few hints on social media that he was out to get some publicity for work he was doing.

Ultima Thule Reached...Now let's spend money on active SETI/CETI Probes

We really need to send out in random directions several smaller probes that are equipped with signal sending and receiving gear.

New Horizons: Nasa probe survives flyby of Ultima Thule

By Jonathan AmosBBC Science Correspondent

• 2 hours ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46729898

Image copyrightNASA

Image captionAlice Bowman is congratulated on the confirmation of flyby success

The US space agency's New Horizons probe has made contact with Earth to confirm its successful flyby of the icy world known as Ultima Thule.

The encounter occurred some 6.5bn km (4bn miles) away, making it the most distant ever exploration of an object in our Solar System.

New Horizons acquired gigabytes of photos and other observations during the pass.

It will now send these home over the coming months.

The radio message from the robotic craft was picked up by one of Nasa's big antennas, in Madrid, Spain.

It had taken fully six hours and eight minutes to traverse the great expanse of space between Ultima and Earth.

Controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland greeted the reception of the signal with cheers and applause.

"We have a healthy spacecraft," announced Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman. "We've just accomplished the most distant flyby."

This first radio message contained only engineering information on the status of the spacecraft, but it included confirmation that New Horizons executed its autonomous flyby observations as instructed and that the probe's onboard memory was full.

A later downlink on Tuesday will see some choice images returned to give scientists and the public a taster of what New Horizons saw through its cameras.

If there is one note of caution it is that the timing and orientation of the spacecraft had to be spot on if the probe was not to shoot pictures of empty space! As a result, there'll continue to be some anxiety until the data can be examined.

"The highest resolution images taken at closest approach required perfect pointing, almost," said Project Scientist Hal Weaver. "We think, based on everything we've seen so far, that was achieved."

Image copyrightNASA

Image captionTaken from a few hundred thousand km: A last image on approach to the target

Ultima is in what's termed the Kuiper belt - the band of frozen material that orbits the Sun more than 2 billion km further out than the eighth of the classical planets, Neptune; and 1.5 billion km beyond even the dwarf planet Pluto which New Horizons visited in 2015.

It's estimated there are hundreds of thousands of Kuiper members like Ultima, and their frigid state almost certainly holds clues to the formation conditions of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago.

The vast separation between New Horizons and Earth, coupled with the probe's small, 15-watt transmitter, mean data rates are glacial, however.

They top out at 1 kilobit per second. To retrieve all of the imagery stored on the probe is therefore expected to take until September 2020.

What's so special about the Kuiper belt?

Several factors make Ultima Thule, and the domain in which it moves, so interesting to scientists.

One is that the Sun is so dim in this region that temperatures are down near 30-40 degrees above absolute zero. As a result, chemical reactions have essentially stalled. This means Ultima is in such a deep freeze that it is probably perfectly preserved in the state in which it formed.

Another factor is that Ultima is small (about 30km across), and this means it doesn't have the type of "geological engine" that in larger objects will rework their composition.

And a third factor is just the nature of the environment. It's very sedate in the Kuiper belt.

Unlike in the inner Solar System, there are probably very few collisions between objects. The Kuiper belt hasn't been stirred up.

New Horizons' chief scientist Alan Stern says: "Everything that we're going to learn about Ultima - from its composition to its geology, to how it was originally assembled, whether it has satellites and an atmosphere, and that kind of thing - is going to teach us about the original formation conditions in the Solar System that all the other objects we've gone out and orbited, flown by and landed on can't tell us because they're either large and evolve, or they are warm. Ultima is unique."

Media captionWhere is Ultima Thule? BBC Science Editor David Shukman explains

What does New Horizons do next?

First, the scientists must work on the Ultima data, but they will also ask Nasa to fund a further extension to the mission.

The hope is that the course of the spacecraft can be altered slightly to visit at least one more Kuiper belt object sometime in the next decade.

New Horizons should have just enough fuel reserves to be able to do this. Critically, it should also have sufficient electrical reserves to keep operating its instruments into the 2030s.

The longevity of New Horizon's plutonium battery may even allow it to record its exit from the Solar System.

The two 1970s Voyager missions have both now left the heliosphere - the bubble of gas blown off our Sun (one definition of the Solar System's domain). Voyager 2 only recently did it, in November.

And in case you were wondering, New Horizons will never match the Voyagers in terms of distance travelled from Earth. Although New Horizons was the fastest spacecraft ever launched in 2006, it continues to lose ground to the older missions. The reason: the Voyagers got a gravitational speed boost when they passed the outer planets. Voyager-1 is now moving at almost 17km/s; New Horizons is moving at 14km/s.

The BBC's Sky At Night programme will broadcast a special episode on the flyby on Sunday 13 January on BBC Four at 22:30 GMT. Presenter Chris Lintott will review the event and discuss some of the new science to emerge from the encounter with the New Horizons team.