BBC Documentary on the Warminster UFO Flap.

This is a pretty fascinating (and entertaining) BBC documentary dealing with the Warminster UFO flap of 1965 where several town residents are interviewed about strange sounds and objects being witnessed in the skies around the area - for those that are interested, there's also a great timeline and website here dealing with eyewitness reports, newspaper articles and corrections in data.


BBC:

Warminster will always remain an enigma. It is now largely forgotten in the annals of British UFO history.

Whether Warminster was a cultural/social event or a genuine Ufocal, far too much time has now passed for any accurate investigations to be made.

One thing is certain however. Despite all the new research into the phenomena in this quiet Wiltshire town all I can say is this: something strange did happen there..

BBC Video Link

Footage is also shown below from quite a lively town hall meeting about the strange reports along with some articles taken from the main link - there's also another interesting segment in the vid around 1:10 dealing with two police officers witnessing a very unusual object in October, 1967.

Bizarre film from 1965, where an entire town in England claimed to have been terrorised by a series of unexplained lights and noises in the sky.

Newsclipping 1, 2

Stephen Sindoni also gives more info below and discusses journalist Arthur Shuttlewood's role in the Warminster flap -seems like quite a dubious character to me but considering he wrote a book on the subject suppose it's only fair to include him, he also appears in this video around 4:55 describing a quite fantastical 'levitating' incident.

In the mid-1960s a sleepy Wiltshire town became the unlikely epicentre of a UFO phenomenon.

Warminster, in West Wiltshire, became known globally for what was enigmatically called "The Thing". The Thing took many forms by those who claimed to have observed it between 1965 and 1977.

The first sign of The Thing was during the Christmas of 1964, when residents heard a loud, unidentifiable whine. The strange sightings were reported in the Warminster Journal. Local journalist Arthur Shuttlewood was instrumental in making the phenomenon national news and in one year more than 1000 sightings of unidentified flying objects were recorded.

They continued to be seen on a regular basis between 1965 and 1977, and in many ways formed a key chapter of the 1960s . Although there have been few sightings in recent years, Warminster is still seen by many as synonymous with UFOs.

link

I watched something else on this case but don't think I've seen the doc, was an interesting watch and also slightly depressing to note, that hearing all the witnesses etc. ufology hasn't really budged at all in over 50 years. Same questions, same problems and absolutely no progress.

On the whole, I think something really weird went on down there, possibly military but possibly not, going on what the witnesses state. Hearing a vicar trying to expain it all away with guided missile and rocket man theories was priceless

reply to post by karl 12


i love this thread so much.

I'm half way through the BBC documentary I'm up to where Colonel Allen is trying to debunk with a blue towel, a picture he drew on a piece of paper and his colour film.

lol it looks nothing like the ufo the younger guy had taken

there were two craft being described, a saucer shape and a cigar shaped.
i wonder if the occupants of the crafts were friend or foe's to each other.

in my opinion the people who saw then were telling the truth. they know what they saw and heard.
isn't it odd that only the woman could here the sound though.

reply to post by Whateva69


For some reason I thought about this video:



There is also another video of a cigar shaped UFO which Gary Heseltine mentions, also filmed by a police officer, however it isn't easy to find, but it's good footage if you can track it down, think it's somewhere on the Prufos website (see my signature). Cigar shaped UFOs have been spotted in the UK for years.

Weird how only the woman heard it, maybe different frequency levels or something.

Originally posted by Zcustosmorum

On the whole, I think something really weird went on down there, possibly military but possibly not, going on what the witnesses state. Hearing a vicar trying to expain it all away with guided missile and rocket man theories was priceless

Hey my friend some of the eyewitness object descriptions do sound extremely strange and I'm not too sure about the military aspect but there's an interesting report here from a few years later in which a Royal Marine was 'genuinely bewildered' by a UFO encounter in the same location - this thread from Stealthyaroura also describes a pretty freaky incident around the same area in 1967 (you're not wrong about that vicar either ).

Testimony


"It was a giant plate of light. It lit up the whole horizon with a glare. It was flying low over the landscape and appeared to be spinning"
Police Constable Eric Pinnock - Warminster



"The objects were cigar-shaped and 'covered with bright lights which winked and blinked... They were various shades of gold and yellow..."
Hilda Hebdidge, Warminster



"The cigar-shaped glow hung, a brilliant spectacle in the sky for a good twenty five minutes or more. There was a distinct dark circular patch or aperture at the base of the fiery object, which threw off a halo of red-orange light. The craft was horizontal, not vertical."
Patricia Phillips and family, Heytesbury



"... a large red ball in the south which rose into the sky and hung down, opening up once more into a flaming pojer. It had a black base at its rim...It was the size of our front room to my eyes – it was so close... A sizzling or crackling sound, not unlike eggs and bacon frying in a pan, could be heard..."
Dora Horlock, Warminster



"Fantastic spectacle... shining Thing going sideways... Porthole type windows... To my eyes it was the size of... a bedroom wall... Windows were lit up..."
Kathleen Penton, Warminster



"Woken by a terrible droning sound. It made the bed and floor shake. I went over to the bedroom window and looked out... about 200 yards above the range of hills... was a bright object like a massive star... domed on top and huge in size, and unwinking light of uncanny brilliance."
Rachel Atwill, Warminster



Its speed and change of direction were almost unbelievable.'
Terry Pell, Warminster

Cheers.

reply to post by karl 12


I've often wondered about the ley line theories, been too many UFO encounters in the same areas for it to be coincidence,

reply to post by karl 12


Was the Warminster thing a real event ?
Arthur Shuttlewood's involvement would have many believing not but if we strip away the reported UFO sightings there does seem to be a core truth about the event involving strange noises heard in the area over a period of time , the UFO sightings seem to come in and intensify later with Shuttlewood's involvement.

Sometime later that Christmas morning, over thirty soldiers at Knook camp, about four miles from Warminster, were rudely awoken by a loud noise. A sergeant told Arthur Shuttlewood that the sound was similar to that of a huge chimney stack being ripped from a roof and being scattered in pieces across the whole of the camp. The guard was alerted, but nothing developed beyond the extraordinary sound.

At 6.12 that morning Mrs Marjorie Bye was walking to the Holy Communion Service at Christ Church in Warminster. As she approached the church the air about her filled with 'menacing sound. Sudden vibrations came overhead, chilling in intensity... descending on her savagely, caught her... in a grip of steel, a peculiar droning.' Before she had reached the church wall 'shockwaves of violent force pounded at her head, neck and shoulders and numbed her. Helpless, she was pinned down by invisible fingers of sound. Wailing, whining, droning - frightening!' What happened shocked her greatly, making it difficult for her to reach the sanctuary of the church. Indeed, such a phenomenon would have been most disturbing; at 6am on Christmas morning, Warminster would have been dark, and the roads quiet. '

These four events are the true genesis of the phenomenon, all witnessed, in one case by as many as thirty individuals, in one night. Not one UFO seen. The unidentified noises continued on an ad hoc basis from then until at least June 1966. Roughly nine cases are described in The Warminster Mystery in which the only unusual phenomena are noises
www.ufo-warminster.co.uk...

I think it's an interesting case muddied by the involvement of Shuttlewood , were the noises a natural phenomenon , military or something else ? ... It's a mystery

reply to post by karl 12


Warminster is a major location for Crop Circles.

Just a coincidence maybe .........................or ?

"The Thing" celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Over in Blighty the UFO Called "The Thing" Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary In Warminster. In addition to bizarre sounds, and cigar-shaped objects, Alejandro Rojas enumerates other queer phenomenon happening around western Wiltshire..

It was 50 years ago this month that the first news article on the hapless housewife who was terrorized by “The Thing” appeared in the Warminster Journal. According to an article by the Western Daily Press, a group of UFO researchers have decided to celebrate the 50th anniversary with a conference. It will be held at The Old Bell Inn in Warminster in August, 2015.

link

File On The ´Thing´ Remains Secret (pdf)

Hi Karl,

I always thought that the UFO on Shuttlewood's book looked vaguely similar to the "Flaming Pie" on McCartney's album of the same name.






I'm not saying there is definitely a link there but I know Timothy Good played on at least one of Macca's albums back in the 1980s.

Overall though Warminster is one of those cases that baffles me. It's almost like an old Doctor Who story in some respects with it's highly strange tone. I remember reading about it a very long time ago as a kid and I think I watched the original BBC documentary back in the 90s?

I'm still none the wiser.