The Watchers: The Secret Design behind UFO Abduction -Raymond E. Fowler

There are 386 pages in this book and to be honest I had only read through a few before I groaned. Fowler is a man who had the reputation of being a good old fashioned Ufologist who dug into cases until he solved them or they were left as unidentified.

Now I am beginning to wonder and re-assess.

Just how the whole Andreasson Affair as it is known stretched to so many books and won accolades I have no idea. I read the original book when it was published in...1979? At that time I thought the account was mind-blowing but I had concerns as things never sounded quite right -that dawned on me after the second reading.

Betty Andreasson (Luca after marrying another "abductee", Bob Luca) is a person with fundamental Christian beliefs -a little like Fowler. Normally a person's  faith is unimportant (some say that it is) but on reading the books it is evident that some aspects of Betty's experiences are tainted by those beliefs.  At one time this case was called "the best investigated abduction" but I am sorry to say that, in the abduction research, it can be called anything but.

Just as Dr Karla Turner's books are classic examples of how a rational person can be drawn into believing that they have undergone UFO abductions after no real interest in the subject so Fowler has provided us with a classic case of "Ufologist turned abductee". Investigating abduction claims can be mind blowing if you are not prepared and in Fowler's case he notes how even a standard CE3K would have been labelled as "crackpot claim" in the early days of his work. In the books we see him slowly stagger into the belief that he has been abducted from an early age and -as noted before- others do not verify things he believed happened when he was with them. Fowler also seems to put far more faith in hypnosis than he should have.

In this book, as with the previous ones, Fowler admits that he is totally blown away by the things Betty declares under hypnosis and how it indicates a technology we can only see as magical because it is beyond our understanding. We are led to one conclusion and hypothesis after another as Fowler tries to grasp just what is going on. At not one point, despite the incredible things Betty 'reveals', does Fowler even begin to question things. In fact he points out that he was basically on the edge of his seat waiting for the next taped hypnosis session to arrive in the post.

Now, whether Betty is prone to altered states -and some people (probably far more than we suspect) are- I do not know. The questions and study needed to ascertain this never seem to have been undertaken. To be fair, I do not think that the concept of altered states even entered the Ufology subject when this saga began. I was only made aware of it in the mid 1970s. Study the subject for yourself. A person can quite literally "zone out" in front of you and everything that happens to them in that state is real and happened. It actually did happen for them but did not happen for anyone else.

Again, I need to emphasise that this is not a mental illness. These people do not require locking up or referral for a psychiatric hospital. Their brains are active in a way that is normal for many people but not others. While some people see music in colours (synesthetes) others can see the world as numbers and equations. While some are highly literate others cannot be and suffer dyslexia and there are people with sharp mathematical minds  others suffer a numerical dyslexia known as dyscaculie. Musical geniuses and the tone deaf. Not everyone's minds work the same. We need to study how this all works far more and for UFOs and the "paranormal" I set out guidelines in UFO Contact?  

Think about the abductee who claimed to have started miscarrying a foetus and how the bathroom floor was covered in blood yet she got to a barn where she hid the hybrid foetus in a jar but then carried on normally. I've known women who have had premature births or lost babies in early pregnancy and they do not simply get up and on with the daily routine. And why did the abductees spouse not see all of the blood or his wife leavuing the house and bleeding profusely? The same reason an abductee claims to have had to go help the imbecilic alien hybrids hiding out on Earth to buy and move furniture and arrives home supposedly late but no one notices. The mind is a complex thing.

The problem with the Andreasson case is that hypnosis was used. Not in a sensible and measured way but with an almost cavalier manner. Because the hypnotist working with Fowler, Fred Max, could not make enough time for sessions and when Betty and Bob moved to Florida it was Bob who took over hypnosis sessions after Max implanted an hypnotic suggestion so that Betty could be regressed to the point covered in her last session. At this point I actually threw the book onto the floor. Bob had trained up with hypnosis and felt confident but let's make some points here:

(1)  Only a professionally qualified hypnotherapist should be employing regression hypnosis and here I am far from the way Max was using this.

(2)  Bob was not an experienced and qualified hypnotherapist and  without someone such as the investigator overseeing sessions and monitoring questioning this makes the sessions tainted.

(3)  Bob and Betty had discussed their UFO experiences and Bob was in his mind an "abductee" which makes his controlling the hypnosis sessions an extreme "no-no!" Do we ask bank robbers to investigate other bank robbers? The very idea that one person who claims to be a UFO abductee and who marries another claimed UFO abductee and that they discuss their experiences and he is put in charge of the regression hypnosis -that is almost unbelievable until you realise that you are talking about Ufology.

(4) Let's assume that Dr Leo Sprinkle was correct and that in some cases there may be a basic form of telepathy then where does that put us in this case? 

Even excluding telepathy this is on a par (almost) with David Jacobs and his phone sessions. Looking at it another way this could have been one big act with Betty and Bob deciding in advance what they were going to put on tape. As evidence those tapes are valueless. In fact, I think it can be safely said that the Andreasson books demonstrate that Dr Benjamin (who correctly used hypnosis on the Hills) and his worst fears were realised and that hypnosis was going to be misused and seen as a a tool to get unquestionable 'truth' from UFO percipients (again see UFO Contact?).

Looking at it from an investigation point of view the assertion is made that "so many people under hypnosis come up with the same descriptions and facts -so these have to all be genuine accounts!" No. People here or see TV shows and think "Odd. I'm sure that happened to me -does that mean....?" Waking up at various times naturally now becomes an "indicator of abduction" and "I have a scar and even my mother can't remember how I got it (30-40 years ago) -does that mean...?"  And time and again we read or hear "I was walking through the mall and I saw this alien face on the book cover and it struck a chord in my memory" -they buy the Streiber or Hopkins book with that image on the cover and start reading. After months or weeks at best, they contact a Ufologist who is told all the usual guff and he/she declares "Sounds like you are a UFO abductee" and I am sure that more than one sees a book or TV appearances coming up.  

There is a great deal of cross-contamination amongst alleged UFO abductees accounts and where things do not match no panic -we know Jacobs can put a twist on that and we have learnt that Hopkins "stacked the decks" to make things match. People read the Streiber, Hopkins, Jacobs and Fowler books to see whether they "might" be abductees and then you have the influence of TV shows. All of this gets into the memory and when the hypnotist says "Can you dig deeper and think of anything else about that incident?" in pops the appropriate false memory as 'fact'.

The hypnosis sessions with Andreasson spans the 1970s and into the 1980s (for this book published in 1990) and the number of sessions is something that any serious person should baulk at as the mind will build on one sessions revelations after another.  Hypnosis should only be used by someone who is fully qualified and only when it is necessary to help a possible percipient with something that is causing mental and or physical health issues. "Let's see...we had Part 1 then Part 2 so let's go for Part 3!" is not acceptable.

I do not think that Fowler deliberately exploited Andreasson and neither did he oversee the misuse of hypnosis. In fact he did not oversee the sessions carried out by Bob and he, like many Ufologists, fell into the false belief that regression hypnosis only revealed true events -hence he fell into the trap of self delusion -believing he is a UFO abductee- as well as false belief in that "aliens own our bodies and souls" and that we are so far beneath them technologically that we can do nothing and, possibly, maybe these are not extra-terrestrials. All based on jumping head first into a case he was not prepared for.

We have the first classic -Karla Turner then the second classic case of a Ufologist allowing himself to believe that he is a UFO abductee and the third classic; the Andreasson Affair where things started easily but soon spiralled out of control to the point where everything is abduction oriented. Turner, Fowler and Andreasson (as a case) should be must reading for anyone who is thinking of concentrating solely on CE3K/Alien Entity cases which are rarer than Ufologists would have you believe and the massive pop culture "Greys generational abduction of humans" has bogged the subject down for over three decades.

The book is fascinating reading but for the wrong reasons.

1941 Kidderminster, Worcestershire

 Source: John Hanson, Haunted Skies Vol. 1, pp 26-27

 

“Alison Richards, a woman in her late 60s, whom we met on a number of occasions at her Kidderminster home.  We were accompanied by Phil Hoyle of the Shrewsbury UFO Group, a man who specialises in counselling women claiming to have been the subject of alien abduction experiences.

“Alison outlined her early childhood memories, from when she was aged between five and six.

“These included a series of bizarre, frightening experiences while living with her badly crippled mother in a tiny cottage lit by gas and candles…

“At the time her father, a soldier with the Ninth Army, was away fighting in North Africa, during 1941:

‘When Mum went to bed she had to bandage on a metal splint to her leg, as her only way of getting about was to hop.

‘It was always an unwritten rule that if I needed her, perhaps because of sickness, I would always go to her, except for when I had a visit from what I can only describe as ‘horse beings’, who always entered the room from out of the linen cupboard, next to the window over the stairs, when I would scream and shout for her.

‘By the time my Mum had reached the bedroom they had left via either the window, or the linen cupboard.

‘I kept telling Mum what I had seen.  She insisted horses could not physically get into the house, but I knew they were real because, on at least four occasions, they actually hurt me.  I would end up with flesh gouged out of my left leg on the shin bone, about the size of a five pence piece (Approx. 20mm). The injuries to my leg, (which always happened after the shortest one came into the room), frightened my mother.

‘She thought, to begin with, that I had caught the leg on a loose mattress wire on the bed spring.  She and a neighbour thoroughly checked the bed but could find no trace of what was causing these injuries to occur, always in the same place on the skin.’

Hanson notes:

“Sadly, Alison died in August 2008.  however, knowing her quite well, we wondered if the ‘horse entities’ she described had parallels with the small beings often described as ‘greys’. Whose role in abduction phenomena are well documented”.

THS:  The illustration accompanying this account clearly shows two ‘typical’ Greys so with no other description it has to be assumed that this is what Alison was referring to.  I do wonder with the mass of accounts of ‘demons’, ‘aliens’ and ghosts as well as many other evil things coming out of bedroom closets and cupboards in the UK and US how many people think of bricking them up.

The annoyance here is that we have “horse beings” as a description yet an illo of Greys who can in no way, shape or form be called horse-like. It is interesting that these encounters happened at night and that the entities vanished one way or another before Alison’s mother arrived –but in the abduction scenario we are told that people sleeping in the bed next to the abductee and in other rooms cannot be woken.

People, through diet or illness can develop leg sores –I know of two people (male) who have had these for years. It happens so even if we rule out self-inflicted wound there is still no evidence of this being caused by ‘aliens’.

Obviously we have no case history.  Any corroboration of strange events or even when Alison first contacted Phil Hoyle or what actions he took.

Conclusion: Repeated dreams or hypnagogic –she was awake enough by the time her mother arrived. Like so many cases nothing of interest unless one is interested in the number of ‘abductees’ who exhibit signs of hypnagogia.

1961-04-18: Joe Simonton Pancake Encounter

September 1977 Somerset

This account comes from the British UFO Research Association and, sadly, although they also published this on their website BUFORA appears to not want to discuss the case or whether there has been any follow-up since.

Kate Walker (pseudonym) and her family underwent two extraordinary events in September
of 1977 whilst travelling from Yeovil to Chard in Somerset. Mythology and folklore surrounds the particular area of Windwhistle Hill.  John Heptonstall conducted the investigations and research into this case and interviewed Kate. 

 Windwhistle Hill lies at the southern tip of Somerset and stands over 700 feet above sea level where two coastlines can be seen from the summit -the Bristol Channel and the English Channel. Made of sandstone, limestone and green sand it is a covered by woodlands of tall beech trees.
 
Whynne Hammond in Ten Somerset Mysteries notes the mysterious side of Windwhistle

named very aptly because of the winds whistling through the tall tree-tops.  Strange lights, sounds, figures and shapes and other unusual and eerie phenomena have been reported in the area. In fact Yeovil and other Somerset towns and villages know strange orbs of light as "The Devil's Eye". A witch is also said to haunt the area. Local news services have also reported on the area:

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/spooky-somerset-road-a-hotbed-6887653
 

 

 
In September, 1977, Kate Walker her husband and two young sons, aged seven and six years old were returning home to Chard from visiting relatives in Yeovil. They left Yeovil at 21:30hrs and were driving on the A30 approaching Windwhistle Hill, a couple of miles outside of Chard and a very isolated area.
 
As they came to the top of the hill Kate and her family all observed a huge orange light diffused by cloud, to their left-hand side and at the far end of Windwhistle Hill. It seemed to be right beside the road, not very high up, and was partially obscured by cloud, but they did not feel any alarm as there was a power station and pylons further along. However, as they drove nearer to the light, it was easier to observe and Kate states it was massive and totally static and very low and bright. She describes it as
being cigar shaped and vast in size, maybe 200-300 feet, and she estimates the light to be approximately 800-1000 feet above them. As they got closer she noticed that the pub on the right hand side of the road, The Windwhistle Inn , was almost in total darkness, except for a light in a small upstairs window.
 
Kate looked at her watch to check the time as she felt it was strange that the Inn was in darkness so early as it was very popular and she remembers wondering why it had closed so early. The time was 22:10hrs and Kate looked up again at the light, which was almost on top of them by now right beside the road. She felt very uneasy and told her husband to 'put his foot down' The next thing she was clearly aware of was seeing a cyclist's headlamp coming the other way, which seemed to appear from nowhere, and continued on the road to Crewkerne.

Above: visual

 
Upon arriving home Kate discovered, curiously, that it was now 22:50hrs. Their journey from Windwhistle Hill should have taken them only ten to fifteen minutes maximum, therefore she felt there were twenty-five to thirty minutes that appeared to be unaccounted for. As her husband did not remark on this possible time discrepancy, Kate just forgot about it, but on reflection finds this odd due to the fact that their journey from Windwhistle Hill should have only taken a maximum of fifteen to twenty minutes.
 
A few days after this puzzling incident, Kate and her family were once again making the journey back to Chard after visiting relatives, and as they were coming over the brow of the same hill, and about 200-300 yards from the first incident, they saw in front of them on the left hand verge, two people, one who appeared to be lying down, and the other standing. Their initial thoughts were that someone had been injured and went to slow down, when to their astonishment, the person standing took one step out
in front of them..one foot remained on the grass verge at the roadside and other foot was right over the centre of the road!
 

 
 
Kate describes the figure as being 'abnormally tall with legs that were horrendously long and thin'.
Her husband swerved to the far side of the road, and around the figure, and they kept on driving and did not look back. They all agreed that there was no one who could possibly have legs that long.
 
Kate fully expected to hear something about this in the local paper, maybe someone being injured or taken ill on Windwhistle Hill, but she never heard anything about an incident there at all. She has commented to me that it seems very odd in retrospect that they all took these events so calmly and just got on with their lives, and never discussed it at all.

 
This story becomes more significant eighteen years later, when Kate, now remarried and her sons now aged 25 and 26 years, were intriguingly finally discussing the events  of that night. The three of them were together talking about family holidays and the places they use to go together when Kate ask them both whether they recalled the orange light they had seen beside Windwhistle Hill. This generated a conversation on their personal recollections of this night.
 
Her eldest son, Jeff's recollections refute the fact that they had driven under the object. He can recall Kate telling his father to 'put his foot down', but says that as he did so 'the engine died, and the headlights went out'. His father started to panic and tried to restart the car, but nothing happened. He goes on to say that at this point things became very strange and everything was in slow motion. He recalls his father lunging across the front of the car to the passenger seat and at the same time there was a very deep, humming vibration, slow and rhythmic. The passenger door was open, but he comments that he couldn't understand why his Dad lunged across the passenger seat as he had no recollection of his mother being in the passenger seat and all memory of her had gone. He then remembers his father punching the dashboard repeatedly, but everything was still in slow motion with no sound. He felt frightened and turned to ensure his younger brother was okay but Tony was looking out of the side window and seemed excited, but Jeff didn't know why, and his father was pointing and obviously shouting, but Jeff could not hear any sound and somehow things were different. He then realised his father was looking past him
out of the back window and was terrified. Tony was kneeling on the back seat looking out of the rear window and pointing at something saying "Look Jeff, look Jeff" and although Jeff could now hear him speak… his lips and movements were again in slow motion.
 
Jeff then realised that there was something behind the car and felt almost paralysed by terror. He put his head down and covered his face and then for some reason said he had no memory of Tony either in the same way as he had no memory of his mother, Kate. He felt there was only himself and his father in the car. He could then see a white light through his fingers so he looked up and the light was everywhere, inside and outside of the car. It was a very bright white light and he describes it as … like being inside lightning,… but it didn't hurt his eyes.

above: visual

 
His last memory is of seeing a dark shape outside the car, beside the window. He describes it as being very tall and bending toward the window looking in, and having the impression that the shape was human, although he knew it wasn't, which was the reason he was so afraid. Jeff's next memory is of looking back at the orange light and seeing the 'headlamp' coming towards them only a few yards away and he remembers saying 'where's he come from'. He then looked back and the orange light had gone. He
explains that initially he only remembered seeing the orange light, the cigar shape, feeling and  hearing  the hum and vibration.
 
Through the years fragmented memories of that night have returned, but as no one talked about it he felt he shouldn't mention it. He also recalls just after the incident that boys at his school were talking about strange sightings at Windwhistle Hill. Geoff's vague recollections of the incident are that he did lock the car door when his mother told him to and that he never looked behind, but can recollect knowing there were five black figures. He also feels, in his own words, that "all four of us were taken" and that when something looked in at him through his window, it was his turn to 'go'. This, Kate, emphasises is not just a feeling, but a conviction.
 
 
Geoff goes on to say that he seemed to recall these events more clearly in 1996 when he, his brother and Kate were finally talking about this incident. They were all surprised to find that they had varying memories of the event, except for their observation of the huge orange light and the time discrepancy
I would like to conclude this with Kate's comments in her letter to me where she writes;" I find it incredible thinking about it now, all these years later, that we could have dismissed it so casually at the time . We just never discussed it and life went on as usual. It has been a great relief to tell someone".
 
Robert Moore conducted research into this particular area in order to establish whether similar cases have been documented there. There were, apparently (though BUFORA could not supply any details) observations of unusual lights and an entity over a ten year period at Cricket Malherbie which is within 3km north west of Windwhistle Hill.
 
A newspaper article in the Yeovil Weekly News generated a number of unusual reports from around this area, some of which I would like to mention here.

Witness A tells of a strange incident experienced by her husband, grandson and herself in 1991, which involved what they perceived as a tall strange figure, which they claim was looking through the farm window followed a few days later by their observations of a 'saucer-shaped object.
 
Witness B tells of a similar experience to the Walker family on Windwhistle Hill in 1975, which happened to her mother and father (now deceased).

Witness C tells of a strange experience on Windwhistle Hill whilst driving a lorry either in 1976 or 1977. He claims that his lorry went out of control as though by some strange force. This took place over a distance of about 100 yards or so and then he seemed to recover normal control. He felt as though the lorry was hovering over the road whilst he was experiencing this.
 
Witness D. tells how she and her husband observed a very large unidentified object, silver and shaped like a humming top, near Windwhistle Hill in November 1959. They watched it as though 'hypnotised' from about 23.00 to 09.00 hrs the next morning and for some reason felt unable to tell anyone.

Witness E. was employed by Westland Helcopters at the time of Kate Walker's sightings and feels that the light she saw was probably a Sea King Helicopter, sporting a Nitesun beam, on trials.
 
Astronomical information would be speculative particularly since Kate cannot remember the date of the sighting just that it was late summer and probably September.

Another sighting of an unsual flying object was observed on 12th September 1977 as recorded by the Chard, Ilminster, Axminster Newspaper. This was described by the witness as an orange glow, fairly high in the sky and moving quite fast from West to South. This may or may not be important in establishing a date for the Walker family's sighting, as this sighting may not be related to their own observations but Kate is convinced that this would indeed have been the date of their sighting, particularly as her son Geoff remembers that this occurred a few days after his return to school following the summer holidays. In fact the 12th September sightings sounds like the one I investigated and the complete report was lost by BHUFORA along with others I forwarded.
 

BUFORA offered the possible explanation that power lines in the area created electromagnetic fields and these were responsible for the memories of this night "due to their effects upon the human brain as highlighted by Albert Budden's research. Could this interface be responsible for this family's
perceptions of these extraordinary experiences?"
 
John Heptonstall interviewed Kate and her son Jeff in 1997 and in his report he writes:

"This explanation cannot be ruled out if the transmitters were there in 1977. It could
certainly explain other strange experiences people have had locally. For example
Witness C's lorry being taken over and the very subtle effects an EMF event could
have on his brain activity as well as an effect on the motor and some types of ignition
systems being more susceptible to EMF events than others. I do not believe that EMF 

effects will explain most of the unusual events witnesses have recorded. For example, 

the Walker case would be more difficult to explain as EMF hallucination although not 

impossible".
 
 
BUFORA: "It is obviously becoming more and more apparent that we need to understand the
functions of memory and memory retrieval in a much more comprehensive way in
order to realise the fallibility of accurate memory retrieval specifically in relation to
an understanding of these inexplicable experiences.

"This is of course, significant and it is interesting that eighteen years later aspects of
the incident were specifically remembered in this way by Kate's eldest son, Geoff. At
the time of the incident Kate remembered only some odd things, such as the pub being
in darkness except for a light in an upstairs room. Geoff remembers this as being the
same colour as the orange light on the hill. Kate also remembers feeling something
was wrong and asking her husband to put his foot down. Furthermore, she feels that
there was something strange about the time involved in driving from Windwhistle to
their home in Chard. Kate's sister recalls vividly that Kate specifically commented to
their Mother about this incident remarking on the unusual orange light and the time
discrepancy. The younger brother, now in his twenties, did not wish to participate in
the interview with John Heptonstall as he only really remembered seeing the huge
orange light. Furthermore, he did not experience the same sensations about this
incident as Kate and Jeff."
 
BUFORA also notes that:

"Kate's vague recollections when discussed eighteen years on were not evident for her
immediately afterwards, but during their conversation Kate found she had vague
memories and a dreamlike recollection of:
 
• The engine cutting out
• Screaming at the boys to lock their car doors
• Something looking through her side window
• Five black figures walking up to the car from behind
• Her husband lunging to grab her and to pull her back, and then nothing."

Kate told BUFORA that the car was not stopped in the remote area because far from suspecting an accident had taken place she knew something was wrong -hence the car being swerved to avoid the figures.

 
Two to three months after their discussion and with these recollections on her mind
Kate contacted BUFORA and telephoned BUFORA in the summer of 1996.
 
John Heptonstall conducted his interview with Kate and her eldest son in 1997 and
documented this interview in a subsequent report to BUFORA. It is unfortunate that
Kate and her family have had no contact with her ex husband so he certainly
is not aware that Kate has contacted BUFORA. Furthermore, this is a sensitive family
matter and therefore it is unlikely that a BUFORA investigator could talk with him at
any future date in order to obtain corroboration and his version of events. However,
Kate hopes that at some stage she may be able to talk with her ex-husband about the
events that night, which would possibly add some vital information and create some
further understanding of the Walker family's experiences during both nights. John
comments too that something happened which caused both fear and concern for the
family.
 

BUFORA seems to grasp at straws to try to find a "rational" explanation and the organisation appears to be far more "It's never aliens" since the late 1980s and although I adopt a sceptical approach it is still open minded and I've had no contact with BUFORA higher ups who believe in anything other than psychological, misperception etc as a solution. 

A sceptical open mind is what these reports require as well as a lot of time and patience to get at, as far as possible, what happened.
 

Scott & Wendy Longley talk about their alien abduction experience, Casin...

5th March, 1971, Gilbert Camus Encounter near Condamine, Jura, France

 Report by Jean Tyrode in "Mystérieuses Soucoupes Volantes", book compiled by Fernand Lagarde and the ufology group Lumières Dans la Nuit, Albatros publisher, France, pp 108-115, 1976.

Above: Gilbert Camus beside his Peugeot 404

At 01:10hrs and under a clear moonlit sky and a very cold temperature of about -20°C, Gilbert Camus was driving home in his Peugeot 404 car, and had crossed the small village of Trénal. Arriving after the last house of Trénal on a portion of this road which is in straight line for the next kilometre, he drove at 100 or 110 km/h on the road hardened by freezing but deprived of snow and then noticed a rather intense and far away gleam, that he initially thought to be the public lighting of Condamine.

Camus then realized very quickly that the light was not opposite the road as it should be but more towards the line and in front of wood. he was puzzled and observed it with more attention; confirming that the light was well on the line. Continuing and without slowing down Camus very quickly approached the location where this light was. At this point he saw that the light was not a single source but six to eight lights located just in front of the wood, in a slightly marshy meadow on the right of the road. Getting even closer he saw that these lights were laid out regularly at ground level, on a line parallel with that of edge of wood, and that they were rectangles and of a soft bluish colour which seemed fluorescent- not dazzling at all. In total he could see eight lights.

Almost at the same time, he saw above these lights, a kind of dome-shaped object of a dull metallic appearance that shone a little under the moon which was behind and illuminated it. This dome had the vague shape of half-sphere, flattened a little and was was at a lower height than the trees at less than 8 meters and with a width of15 meters. He thinks that without the reflection of the moon on this dome he would probably not have noticed it. He could not distinguish the lower part where this dome and the lights below would join.

Above: location of the incident - sketch made by Ufologist Jean Tyrode at the time.

He was still driving and apparently without having reduced speed when he then arrived at the level of the third tree counted starting from the wood. Behind this tree, he saw three beings who were climbing to the top of the slope of the verge of the road and were at the level of his car's windowpane. They were on all four, like animals.

Camus described these three beings of almost black in colour chestnut, like tanned, with a head as large as a lion's head and "the shape of an ant's head, with a round lobe framed of two other lobes inflating like cheeks" but he could not distinguish the features of their faces. He passed very quickly in front of these entities and they made no movement.

He was frightened enough at this point but when Camus saw that in the meadow there were some twenty more of these creatures, some standing or almost upright while others were going down on all four as if they were looking for something on the ground. Apart from the noise of his car Camus heard no other sounds.

When he had just passed these beings a huge white or slightly pale blue gleam seemed to come from the rear and filled his car and also illuminating the wood. While Camus was looking at the rear view mirror he had the feeling that some ray was being projected at him. He had the time to notice that some of the beings in the meadow seemed of smaller size than the others and that they had the arms on the ground. But as he was hit by the light he stopped being frightened and was overcome by a feeling of not being in control of what he was doing and the car continued operating on of its own and it was impossible for him to direct it and to avoid an accident. He indicated that it was as if "there was failure of the ignition" and was astonished not to have had an accident. He also states that the car had slowed down considerably on 100 meters without him doing anything for that effect and the speed fell to a few 20 km/h whereas the fourth gear was still engaged. He noticed this fast deceleration, but did not feel the deceleration in his body as would have been the case in an sudden braking.

above; The blue line is departmental road D30, between Trénal in the East and Condamine if the West. Mr. Camus said he drove from Trénal to Condamine. The small wood is still visible, however, the "A" part was part of the wood at that time, although the trees have been chopped down now. The ellipse is the approximate location where the UFO trace was found, the yellow line is the ditch that this trace crossed. The yellow dots near the road is the place where he saw the beings and were the footsteps were found.

A few moments later, he noticed that the engine had become fluorescent but that stopped very quickly  before he had reached the wood with the car running at no more than 20 km/h. At this time, the car picked up speed again - although he did nothing (consciously) such as putting his foot down on the accelerator. Completely disorientated, Camus continued his journey at a speed of 50 to 60 km/h until he reached Condamine where he recovered and then drove home in Savigny.

At home, while taking his clothes off, he was amazed to see on its shirt seven or eight traces in the shape of rectangles which measured 4 to 6 cm out of 2 to 3 cm on the left side of his shirt. These traces were of a very shining gold yellow, like phosphorescent, and persisted only five to six minutes after he had taken his shirt off. The gleam of these traces had a similar appearance as that of the rectangles that he had seen on the right when he was on the road.

The next day he drove back to the place with his son to see whether he would find traces of the UFO but nothing was found "at the place where the 'monsters' were." In the meadow at the edge of the wood a kind of half-ellipse of which the large axis was of almost 10 meters length was found indicating a landing(?). The trace was in grass and 2 to 3 cm of depth. It crossed a drainage ditch over a length of almost 2 meters. At the place where this trace crossed the drainage the water was not frozen as elsewhere and his son later told investigators that water gave an impression of having been heated. In the vicinity of the half ellipse trace, snow had partly melted on a space of approximately 17 meters and had also melted at the place where the creatures were this having been noted at 15:00 hrs. There were footstep traces in the grass near the main trace which resembled those of shoes without heels, but with an abnormal length of 40 centimeters. Gilbert Camus took photographs of these footstep traces, said to be "of average quality."

Above: Gilbert Camus

A tree located behind the trace had a large branch that hung down and it appeared that it had been recently broken. This branch later fell apparently on its own. He stated that certain small yellow plants "had disappeared in the space occupied by the ellipse" and Ufologist Jean Tyrode noted that indeed at this trace, the yellow flowers of Leontodron Crispus type, were absent whereas there was many of them in the rest of the meadow.

Gilbert Camus, who was a well-known person locally (a radio-engineer who had a shop in Gevingey and another in Savigny in the Saone-et-Loire, and made frequent trips between the two places and used to make four trips per day on the secondary road D30 and it was on this road that he experienced his encounter) and he told his story to whoever wanted to hear it. Some two days later many locals had been to see the location and a good number of people also saw the traces, while freezing had won again in the drainage during the night. People who crossed the meadow noted that there were many fine prints, resembling those that birds could have left.

Three days after his encounter, Gilbert Camus found  rectangles of the same dimensions as those on his shirt appear on his undershirt but they were laid out at different places than on the shirt and of brown colour, or "chocolate" as he put it. These traces proved to be tough: the undershirt was washed in the machine and it took three or four washes to make them go away. While his shirt had shown traces, then his undershirt, his pullover on the other hand did not show any trace.

During the following day (the 6th), the green paint of his Peugeot 404 car faded and left quite visible green traces on the rags during washings. Camus stopped washing it thinking that the paint was going to come off. Jean Tyrode indicates that it looked correct to him that the car had lost its colour.

Before his encounter Camus had suffered from terrible headaches which followed a liver disease. These attacks of pain were unbearable and he despaired for a cure and at times these were so intense that he wished for death so as not to suffer anymore. However, after the encounter, he realized that his liver did not make him suffer any more suffer and at first did not attach importance to the fact but, as this apparent cure was maintained over time, he linked it to the encounter. More than six months later, the pains had not returned. Previously, he had been "unable to eat anything" but after the encounter he could eat anything without being inconvenienced at all.

The Ufologists of the area, from the Lumières Dans la Nuit (Lights in the Night) group, Jean Tyrode and Pierre Lonchampt investigated the location and spoke with the witness, rather quickly, it seems. Tyrode reports that sceptical people suggested Gilbert Camus as an alcoholic but that although he indeed enjoyed the good wine, it was unreasonable to claim that he was drunk every evening and his just seemed to be only gossiping from jealous people adding that it "is to better go visit him in the morning rather than in the afternoon." Tyrode took Camus's character as very sensible and honest; Lonchampt, too, insisted that the man was known in the area to be very honourable and that there is no doubt in his mind that Camus was truthful.

Lonchampt indicates that if the fine traces were perhaps those of birds, the other traces were too large to be human shoes as if someone had such big feet it would be known in the area. He excludes snow racket (snow shoes) because the shape did not match.

Ufologist Charles Garreau who had discussed the case with these investigators had suggested checking the military authorities and whether there were manoeuvring troops that night, but there wasn't. Colonel Sirven of 60e Infantry Regiment is said to have looked into this for over a month in vain and commented that soldiers under hoods and heavy clothes could have been an explanation in December, but that there was nothing in March.

Lonchampt notes anomalies in Gilbert Camus' story. A missing tree he said was on the left was actually on the right. Here I would like to point out that this is not really an "anomaly". A UFO observer once told myself and a colleague that a low level object that was sighted was near a tree on the right hand side of the road (the tree had a gouge in the trunk where something heavy had fallen from a lorry and hit it). So we went looking for the tree but there was no tree on the right hand side of the road...there was one on the left hand side of the road and it did have a gouged trunk. A photo was taken. This got us confused because the witness was adamant that the tree was on the right. I burst out laughing and said "I wonder...the observer was entering the village--" my colleague looked at me then the penny dropped. We went back to tell the observer we had found the tree but on the left not right hand side of the road. "Yes" came the nod and response, "enter the village and its on the right and when you leave the village its on the left", 

 The claimed speed of 100 - 110 km/h is doubted, as Lonchampt thereafter drove to the place behind the witness' car and he was going no faster than 40 km/h. Lonchampt adds that it would be much more logical that he drove at about 60 - 70 km/h to record all that he said he saw. In fact, Camus may have been travelling slower to maintain contact with the car behind whereas by himself at night he would be travelling faster.

In 2006, Camus' daughter again formally contradicted the allegations of alcoholism made against her father and confirmed the details of the case and considered it very regrettable that the Gendarmerie could not give her a copy of her father's statement, telling her that the official reports are only kept for 20 years (in the UK general police reports were only kept 5-6 years then destroyed to make more space for up-to-date files.

I gritted my teeth on reading that the clothes were repeatedly washed -taking any evidence down the drain.  That the shirt and vest had the marks but not the jumper almost suggests that the jumper was removed(?) before whatever left the other marks. The Peugeot was not, it seems, checked out for residual evidence -EM or other. At least I cannot find indications of this in the only source I have. 

Everything in the report seems to read like an old style UFO abduction case (before Hopkins et al destroyed the subject). We know that the time of the encounter was around 01:10 hrs -some sources I have seen state 22:00 and even 01:00 hours (incorrect)- but at what time did Camus get home?  Could he account for all of the time? (clearly from his account he could not).

There was much reticence to look too deep into these cases and and later use of hypnosis such as the Helene Giuliana case in 1975 was totally botched up and recognised as having been botched up. We will never know what happened that morning and the percipient held up under scrutiny and then faded back into every day life.

Winter 1977 Merseyside

 

(1)   MIGAP Report 1977 (on file)

(2)   Personal Files

 

 

The following is another sent to my by Brian Fishwick and MIGAP.  It may seem as though I am favouring reports by the group but I ought to make it clear that, though other UK groups were looking into reports, MIGAP came up with some very High Strangeness cases.  However, how the cases were investigated are good examples of the way UK UFO groups handled and  reported on them.

   At around 16:30 hrs, during “Winter, 1977”, Mrs S, who claimed a history of strange (paranormal) events, asked her son to take some rubbish out to the waste-bin in the back garden.  It was while he was doing this that her son saw a “large head” looking down at him and fled back indoors, leaving the waste bin behind.  Mrs S doubted the story and so went to get the waste bin.  It was then that Mrs S observed a huge figure.

   According to the report, the figure stood at around 9 feet (2.8m) in height, wore an all-covering white suit with a hood and visor. The footwear was described as “squarish”. This figure was staring at her but Mrs S began to shout at it to leave the garden but then ran indoors.  She decided that inside the house, looking out of the kitchen window was the best way to see if the figure did leave as told.  It did not.  In fact, according to the witness, the figure now began to move toward the house. Mrs S ran out of the kitchen into the front living room and joined her son.  

 

Above:  Sketch of the garden made by MIGAP. We can see the position of the dustbin but it is also worth noting (though no scale was given) that it was not a large garden and at least two properties overlooked it.  Apparently no enquiries were made at these houses, not those of closer neighbours, to see whether there might have been other witnesses.

   With her son, Mrs S contemplated the situation when a friend, Jenny, arrived and noticed the distressed pair.  Asking what was going on, Jenny listened and then decided to go to the kitchen window and look for herself.  The figure was still there so Jenny grabbed a hold of a sweeping brush and intended to go and “hit the joker”, assuming that it was a prankster.  Confronting the figure, Jenny found that it simply stared back at her and she retreated back into the house, unnerved.

   A four participant in the event now arrived in the form of Mrs S’s cousin, Don. He heard the story and realized that it was a prankster who needed a good scare themselves and grabbed a kitchen knife after seeing the figure was still there.  What exactly happened we have no idea other than that he came back into the house after a few seconds very frightened and claiming that the figure “was not human”.

 

   A fifth person now enters the situation. Comings and goings like this are not uncommon in many households, especially in built up areas where there are large families or groups of friends.  Jenny’s brother called around to see what was keeping her.  Now, this is odd as it seems to indicate that this was all taking place over a lengthy period –long enough for Jenny’s brother to wonder what was keeping her.  He was told what had gone on and decided to go to the kitchen window and look for himself.  He then called all the others into the kitchen and asked them to point out where the figure was because the garden was empty.

   All five now returned to the living room but after a while Jenny’s brother decided to double-check to put minds at ease.  As he walked through the kitchen door, he immediately saw a large head looking in through the window though he could not see a face due to the visor.  He ran back into the living room and told the group that he was going to the police.

   I need to point out that, even in 1977 not every house had a telephone and there were no mobile phones so the option would have been to go to a public telephone call box or head for the nearest police station.

   Mrs S and Don decided that by going upstairs they could look out and safely see what the figure was doing.  They opened a window and looked down to see the figure looking at something on the ground which they believed might have been the kitchen knife Don had dropped.  Don now started to shout at the figure which stood upright and looked up at them and then “pointed something at them” and the next thing they recalled was walking back down the stairs and feeling very calm as if they had taken tranquilizers.  Both felt strange but could not explain exactly the sensation.

 

Above :  illustration of the entity encountered in the Huyton case and there are similarities to AEs reported in other cases, however, what makes this one stand out is its height –very noticeable in a terraced British garden.

   Two police officers now arrived –presumably Jenny’s brother had contacted them- and  were told what had been happening and was asked to show them where the figure was.  Once in the kitchen it was not hard to see the figure and the officers decided to go and see just exactly who or what it was.  Once outside, the officers stood still for a few seconds then moved forward…the figure then “faded away.”

   The officers re-entered the house to discuss the matter and Mrs S asked what they were going to do?  Both were adamant that if they reported the incident they would be laughed at, however, they did promise to return the next day to look around and see whether they could spot anything.  They then left.

   It was now that Mrs S noticed the time. It was 21:30 hrs which shook her as she had thought the whole incident had lasted only one hour but it was more like five hours and the majority of that time was not accounted for.  As promise, though, the police officers did return the next day but could find no traces of where the figure had been so Mrs S asked, again, what they intended to do –what action would be taken?  They told her to just forget about it because there was nothing they could do.

   A week after the incident, Mrs S broke out in a rash but her doctor simply gave her some cream to put on it: Mrs S, herself, told investigators that she thought it might be a “nerve rash” (psychosomatic).  MIGAPs report concludes (1):

   “Since the incident she has made many sightings of strange objects.  Huyton has had quite a lot of (UFO) sightings over the past couple on months.”

   This is how the case report ended. There are points that need to be made and, hopefully, lessons can be learnt. The basic details given here is more or less what MIGAP presented.  It lacks the basics.

   The house Mrs S lived in –was it detached, semi-detached, a row of houses?  This is important for several reasons and the main one is that if there were a property on one side, or on both, of her house then, surely, someone must have heard Jenny, Don or Mrs S herself when they confronted the figure and told it to go –Don had shouted from an upstairs window.  Also, neighbours are nosey so a couple of policemen turning up would have alerted them to something going on. If no neighbour saw the figure or heard the ruckus then they ought to have at least remembered two policemen turning up.  That in itself might give us a date.

   We are told that the event started at around 16:30 hrs and ended at approximately 21:30 hrs.  There was no attempt by investigators to establish a chronology for:

   (1)  Jenny’s arrival

   (2)  Don’s arrival

   (3)  Jenny’s brother’s arrival.  His arrival time would be significant in that the report   states he arrived to see “what was keeping his sister” now, call around, chat for 10-15 minutes or maybe even 30 minutes is not enough to make someone ask “Now what’s keeping her all this time?” He must have looked at a clock or wristwatch and that would have given us something to go on.

 

   (4) With (3), above, we would know when Jenny’s brother arrived and could estimate, by careful questioning, roughly how long he was in Mrs S’s home.  This is important because it was after this that Mrs S and Don went upstairs to see what the figure was doing. That might indicate if any time was missing.  And this would also tell us where Jenny and Mrs S’s son were during this period.

 

   (5)  Mrs S noticed that it was 21:30 hrs after the police had left so how long had they been there?

   There is something else.  Police officers, even if not willing to make an official report, could have been identified and contacted privately.  Even had the officers just turned up and not identified themselves by name there is one way they could not hide who they were: what we used to call the “collar number”, though by this time they were known as “shoulder number” silver numbers appearing on epaulettes. It can be up to five digits and larger forces would also include a letter; the division call sign which indicates station area, etc.. Most people ignore these but they are usually still “seen” if not consciously.  Again, carefully handling percipients and listening to their accounts it is normally possible to get them to “remember something they never noticed”.  Two police officers backing up such an account would be interesting.

   So why note this case?  Well, either MIGAP were having their legs pulled or this is a genuine High Strangeness case.  But we do not have any signed witness statements or and statements dictated to investigators here.  We have seven witnesses, if we believe the report, but are left shrugging at the complete lack of a proper investigation that gives us the basics.

   This is why I wrote so many articles and spoke to so many groups, to get them to understand the importance of these cases and just how to get the information needed. In this case I did offer to travel from Bristol to talk to all the percipients but there was a serious “our case” attitude with groups.  It is very important to hear what those other witnesses say because, as we have seen, in an altered state of consciousness the percipient sees everything as being solid and real whereas seven witnesses rule out this explanation.

   Sad but this is all we know.

Taken from UFO Contact?  

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooperscharf/ufo-contact/paperback/product-23719040.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Spring/Summer 1977 Redditch. Worcestershire

John Hanson  Haunted Skies vol. 6  pp 186-188

 

Hospital DJ Terry Ingram was interviewing John Hanson and Dawn Holloway about UFOs and afterwards (off air) told them about a personal UFO sighting.  This took place at the British Leyland car factory, Longbridge, Birmingham:

“I was with another worker, ‘Big John’, and just finishing a break before going back into the cylinder block section, adjacent to Cofton Church.  ‘Big John’ suddenly stopped and pointed upwards exclaiming, ‘What is that?’ I looked up and was shocked to see this large cigar-shaped object, motionless in the sky, no more than ten feet above the roof.  It was so big, it blocked out the night sky.

“I would describe it as being thirty metres in length and forty metres in width.  It had a curved underside, which was constructed of metal panels of varying sizes –small, square, large, and rectangular.  It was just like standing under a jumbo jet.  I tried to rationalise the situation.  I hadn’t had a drink, but didn’t feel threatened.  After what seemed like a considerable length of time, it began to vibrate slightly and then shot forwards into the sky and moved away.

“As soon as it had left I became aware of the sound of the Pumping Station and stumbled into work in such a state, taking some time to convince the Foreman of what we had seen”.

This account is a fairly “normal” one of a standard UFO sighting. Ingram need not have mentioned the next part, in fact, in the past, ufologists would not have even referred to what happened next.  However, Hanson is putting together as complete a catalogue of events in his encyclopaedia as he can:

“About a fortnight later after the encounter with the UFO, I was at home, in Marley Crescent, Redditch, when, during the early hours of the morning, there was a loud and persistent knocking noise on the front door.

 

My wife urged me to go and see what was happening, thinking there was a family crisis.  I looked at the clock.  It was 3.00 am.  I shouted out, ‘Whose there?”  No reply.  The knocking went on, so I went down the stairs and saw what appeared to be the outline of a small child standing on the doorstep, through the glass panel set into the door.  As I reached the front door, thinking it was a neighbour’s child, seeking help, the letterbox lifted.

“Wary, I crouched down and peered through the letter box, feeling a wave of fear rise over me, with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, after sighting a pair of slanted red eyes, with jet black pupils.  I found myself unable to move with fright.  It was literally a creature from the depths of hell.  I watched, in horror, as the ‘creature’ slowly backed away, still keeping eye contact with me.  It stood on top of a drain cover, a few feet away from the house.  When I moved, so did it.  I stood up.  It did so and took a step towards the door but stopped, as if realising my wife was walking down the stairs.  It then turned around, crouched, and leapt up in the air over the tall fence and disappeared.

 

“I will never forget what I saw.  It was really horrible.  It was about 1.5 metres in height, with green scaly skin, pointed ears, long filthy teeth.  ‘He’ or ‘She’ had four fingers on its hand.  The ‘Thing’ was wearing what looked like ragged sackcloth, worn like a toga.  It also had a tail, resembling a lizard’s tail but with an arrowhead on the one end, quite substantive, and stood on its two back feet in a crouching mode”.

Ingram never sought publicity and confided in Hanson and Holloway as he felt it was time to tell someone.  He will now no longer respond to attempts to contact him.

 

It is a pity “Big John” was never found –might he calso have received a visit?

 

THS –this is, again, another entity case involving no UFO although the witness did observe a UFO previously with another witness.  In this entity report his wife urged him to go and see who was knocking so a second person heard this which leaves us to decide on the entity itself.  As Hanson points out, only one person knows for sure –Terry Ingram.

all illustrations by Terry Ingram and (c) 2022 Haunted Skies Project/J. Hanson

June 1977 Bewdley, Worcestershire

John Hanson  Haunted Skies  vol. 6  p. 230

Sky Scan/ Magic Saucer, Crystal Hodges

 

above: location of Bewdley

Mrs Mary Hill was caretaker of the Baptist Church and lived next door to it. She was in her bedroom at 2330 hrs, preparing for bed when she noticed a silvery-white object in the sky, transparent in appearance and at eye-level with her window.

 

“The light in the middle of the object became hazy.  I was astonished to see two ‘figures’ standing inside.  They were looking out –one was taller than the other and I thought he might be male: the other, a female.  After a few minutes, the light began to glow very bright and it swept away at an angle, upwards, very quickly”.

 

Above: aerial view of Bewdley (c) 2022 respective copyright owner

Sky Scan mislaid the file report but Derek Lawrence, their spokesman, told Hanson that Hill’s nephew, Lee Hatton, had initially contacted them over the sighting. The investigators found no reason to doubt the witness.

9th October 1973 Bicester, Oxfordshire

    This is one report that, even after chasing i9t since 1977, I have been unable to find the witnesses involved. The MoD incident book was destroyed after a few years as it was excess paperwork and it would have, at least, confirmed details and the names of the boys.

If anyone has any further information please get in touch.

  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).

above: Ploughly Road today

   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.

   According to Contact (UK) there “seems to be far more to this case” and though they had contact details they carried out no thorough investigation and despite by association with Lord Clancarty - 8th Lord Clancarty, Brinsley le Poer Trench founded the organisation in 1967- that was it; I could not get access to the information to carry out an investigation.

above: visual

   Both boys would now be in their 50’s so there is hope that it might be possible to trace them and find out what happened.

Above: entrance to MoD depot Biceste