BUFORA
Date: October 1980
Location: Scottish Borders
Time:1600 hrs
The following incident is a preliminary report with a full report to follow in due course.
Stephanie (pseudonym) reported the following strange experience, which dates back over thirty years.
In October of 1980 Stephanie, her parents and her children were on a car journey from Banbury to Fife. While crossing the border around Jedburgh on their way to Edinburgh they observed a strange object and it appears that their journey took seven hours from the Scottish Borders to Edinburgh. Below is Stephanie’s written account of the events...
Written Account by Stephanie:
"Driving from Banbury Oxon to Anstruther Fife, my parents, father aged sixty-two, driver, mother aged 56, front seat passenger, myself aged thirty-two and my daughter twelve, son ten and son eight in the back seat.
We drove across the Borders on the road to Abbotsford; this is a B road, quiet and picturesque. As we crossed the border around 4pm we decided to stop at the next town for coffee. I was in the middle of the back seat with my daughter on my right and sons on my left. On my right was the south lane of the road and bordering that a narrow band of trees. I saw an object rise through the trees, it was completely horizontal as it rose, matt black with no windows, no sign of manufacture (as in bolts or panels); it was in one piece seamless. I would say it stayed at treetop height, the tree tops did not move, there was no wind. We were travelling around 45mph, the object paced us, my father slowed to a crawl and turned around in his seat, the object moved at our speed throughout. My father suggested stopping the car but my mother and I were afraid and persuaded him not to.
Above: Visual
The object was less than twenty feet from the car and less than twenty feet off the ground. It was triangular with a bulge where the cockpit would have been, about ten feet wingtip to tip and ten feet front to back... my father told me to take a picture, the camera was on the back window ledge but as I reached for it I was overcome by a terror. I felt that forty minutes had elapsed, but we had not gone far. I realised that my children were getting scared and I diverted their attention to a story book and continued to read.
The craft flew off behind the car at an amazing speed; it immediately reappeared about half a mile down the road for a few minutes before flying off at great speed. No cars passed during this time. When we arrived in the border town (I think it was Jedburgh) all the shops were closed, so we continued on to Edinburgh and my next memory of the journey was after 11pm driving round the ring road at Edinburgh. Everyone was stressed and my father and I had a shouting match; the one and only of our lives. He was stressed about the time, couldn't understand why we were running so late. I know it was around 4pm when we were on the border when we saw the object. We stopped at Jedburgh and used the public toilets; everywhere was closed and it was well past midnight when we arrived at Anstruther. I don't know the distance but am sure that is not 9 or ten hours travelling. I'm not sure of the distance from the Borders to Edinburgh but doubt if it is more than 100 miles. Yet it took us 7 hours". (Note: Approximate distance from Jedburgh to Edinburgh is 48 miles)
Further Observations from Stephanie in the form of email dialogue and telephone conversations:
When they reached the Scottish Borders it was about 4pm and still daylight, and they wanted to stop for a coffee and a break with the children...however for some reason there was nothing open in Jedburgh and she felt a sense of uneasiness as to why everywhere was closed.
There was some very unusual behaviour between her father and herself, as they reached Edinburgh about 11.00pm and they had a vociferous argument, which was very, very unusual. Stephanie explains this in her own words...’As we reached Edinburgh around 11.30 pm my father and I had the only 'row' of our lives, shouting at each other, I feel this must have been caused by some unacknowledged stress’
Stephanie goes on to describe further anomalies after the events;
"I did not talk to the children about the object; we had a holiday in Fife and, my parents travelled on to Aberdeenshire. They collected us after ten days and we drove back to Banbury. After a few days I called each of the children separately into a room and asked them to draw the object and describe what had happened; their accounts and drawings were identical with mine. I have never again discussed the details of this event with them.
I had bad sunburn the following week, on the east coast of Scotland in October! My periods stopped for 4 months although there was no chance of pregnancy. Over the years I found I could read Tarot and had 'gut' feelings which usually came true. Fourteen months later an object appeared between the roofs of two houses as the children and I were walking home, it was five houses down from ours, the object was not visible but three lights flashed side, centre and middle, we watched for several minutes until the children grew afraid and I rushed them off home, I looked out of the window when I got in, and watched the lights cross the bottom of my garden and move sedately over the field and out of sight. It seemed the same shape and size as the one we had seen before".
Stephanie also told me that she has problems with electrics in that she appears to affect electrical gadgets around her, such as lights, computers etc. She explains...
"I could not wear a watch for many years as they would gain time and would not work properly. We had exploding light bulbs in our house that continued until about five years ago (but by then not very frequently.) One day as my daughter and I sat on the sofa, the record player behind us began to play. It was not plugged into the wall. Most of the electrical appliances broke over many years; I was buying electric kettles every two months until it became a joke amongst our friends".
About two years after the incident Stephanie had the urge to write everything down that had occurred and still has this document in an envelope that she has never opened. I had asked her if she could possibly locate this, but so far she has not been successful in finding this account of her experiences.
Recently she sought the services of a hypnotherapist as she felt she wanted to find a way to recall what happened as everything seemed to be a blank from trying to find a place for the family to have coffee and then reaching Edinburgh seven hours later. She remembered a lady in BUFORA (Jenny Randles) had spoken on the problems with hypnosis and the BUFORA NIC (National Investigations Committee) had banned its use as a method of investigation into high strangeness experiences.
I explained to her the very real problems of hypnosis and that this would not elicit an objective truth of her experience and that hypnosis can be fantasy prone and very inaccurate in uncovering an unbiased and objective truth that is associated with experiences like this. There can also be dangers in exploring these experiences with the use of hypnosis. It appears that the hypnotherapist Stephanie used has conducted himself in a way that is responsible and there has been no new information forthcoming.
Stephanie told me that she has experienced many unusual incidents during her life of a paranormal nature. She states.... ‘I found that I was very sensitive to atmospheres, and picked up nuances in speech and so on, I often 'knew' what was going to happen’,
Life has been a constant of small strange events. I have never knowingly seen a ghost. Never created a vision, they 'come' to me. I learned to read Tarot and found I was really gifted, tremendously accurate.
Stephanie agreed for BUFORA AI, Tony Eccles, to follow up her report with an interview and Tony spoke with Stephanie at her home last October 2011. Tony will be documenting his interview with Stephanie in due course.
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FOOTNOTE:
It is significant that high strangeness narratives such as this one have become more prevalent within the last two years and they reflect some of the complex high strangeness cases that were reported to BUFORA during the nineties and at one time comprised eight per cent of reports to BUFORA... There could be many reasons for the increase of these reports and certainly there has been an escalation in the media’s interest in the UFO subject during the last year, in addition to the thousands of websites and articles devoted to addressing the many and varied issues that surround these curious reports.
BUFORA will focus on these strange and compelling cases in future articles addressing some of the core theories and possibilities as to the nature of these extraordinary human experiences.
Further information on electrical anomalies such as those experienced by Stephanie can be read under ‘Strange Places’ on the BUFORA website. The article is entitled ‘Night Shift’.
Gloria Heather Dixon
March 2012
Note: This was forwarded to me by BUFORA and when I asked about the update that was promised on this case I was told "I think that's it".
I do not believe that banning the use of hypnosis in certain cases helps. If there is some mental or physical -or both- trauma surrounding an event then a hypnotherapist, not Ufologist, should be involved but not one involved in UFO work. Hypnotherapy is just what it says and not "Let's dig into your brain about UFOs". BUFORAs stance as explained is not a good one. A hypnotherapist would be trained in helping people with problems so suggesting not consulting a hypnotherapist is doing the percipient a disservice.
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