The Great UFO Cover Up? : Berwyn Mountains, Wales, Jan 1974

reply to post by nomadros


Great find and plenty of data there to mull over. It is interesting that a scientific paper even takes on the UFO topic like that. It is very matter of fact and is a great addition to this thread.

In fact I like the Berwyn case because it is one which has a lot of information for everyone interested in the topic. For the sceptics they can point to the hard proof of the scientific data and the police and other records.

For the believers the eye witness testimony, UFO speculation and things like the Phantom Copters over the UK (which were going on in nearby Cheshire and Derbyshire for months running up to the Berwyn Case) point to something more.

For anyone else you simply have to make your own mind up.

Thanks again nomadros

Britain's Closest Encounters - Berwyn Mountain Mystery

reply to post by mirageman


I found this a bit hard to work out but this is what I got from the stories. The Upton family saw a disc shaped craft that was in four parts or it was four crafts in one. There was an explosion that separated the four craft sending two or three into the sea and one or two into or near the mountain.

I thought it was three in the sea because three came out of the sea but this " The epicentre of the earthquake was at Bala Lake. That is where one of the craft came down. The other one smashed into the mountain side at Berwyn." suggests that two came down on land. It's possible that one of them was able to fly off and maybe join the others in the sea, unless there was five crafts.

I believe all four or five of the craft got away because of the sighting of four UFOs together then one on its own by the boy in Sunderland the next day. I do believe the photoflash operation was used to find the craft that went into the sea. I don't believe the Welsh people were confused by other crashes in the area.

I'm not so sure about the Alien bodies, it seems a bit strange to me that Aliens would leave their dead behind if they were dead, but I don't know what Aliens would or wouldn't do. I haven't watched the videos since you first posted this thread, that's probably where I'll find the other information I remember hearing about this case.

Just to let you know, I've just ordered that book, the £4.48 one.

You keep dragging me back to this case LEL01. Not that I mind as it has intrigued me for a long time but sorry I have no real idea of how many, if any UFOs and aliens were involved in the case. The more you dig the more confusing things get. Watching the videos will add some clarity but also draw more questions and inconsistencies.

I can’t even remember when I became aware of “Berwyn” although I would hazard a guess at sometime in the early-1990s when I was younger and convinced that something crashed and aliens were taken away from the scene.

I had no internet and so most information had to come from TV,books, magazines and VHS. When Nick Redfern seemed to concede that Andy Roberts explanation capped it all nicely I felt there was nothing more left and that it was just another story of genuinely confused witnesses and some very rare natural events coinciding - nothing more than that. But then I came back to it about a year ago and found that this tale will lead you off in a number of different directions.

The meteor, the earthquake and the lights are pretty much facts and are undisputed. What has never been explained is what Pat Evans saw pulsating on the slope of Cader Berwyn.

Then there is the military exercise “Operation Photoflash” in the Irish Sea. What was that all about?

During the late afternoon and early evening of 23rd January 1974 there was an exercise from Jurby Range on the Isle of Man.

“The exercise was called ‘Photoflash’ and coastguards were advised to expect at least 10 aircraft taking part and at least 80 flashes around the Liverpool Bay area and the North Wales coastline.”

The Liverpool Daily Post had a copy of a Maritime and Coastguard Agency Coastguard (MCA) document that had been obtained by Russ Kellet on their webpage on the story (although it was tiny and unreadable). Now it has gone. Click here to view the changed archive page

Another individual also tried to gain a copy of this document via FOIA around 9 months after the news story was printed and despite referencing the newspaper report and a number of enquiries was eventually told:

The National Archives would only hold information relating to this if the information was on a registered file and it was deemed important enough to keep for posterity. As it was an MOD exercise it is very unlikely that we would have had a registered file.

www.whatdotheyknow.com...

Now if the original document was fabricated I would expect the MCA to actually state this as the MoD have done with documents that were clearly forged. Instead it simply disappeared from the Daily Post website and all knowledge of it was denied by the MCA. Which suggests someone let a document out about an exercise that the military didn’t want made public or it never existed at all.

Now something about the aircraft crashes.

RAF & NATO aircraft have come down in Wales a number of times as they often fly low over the Bala area in training . Here is a clipping from the Guardian of August 1987 showing where and when they occurred.

Scott Felton claims a light aircraft came down in 1982 not a Harrier and there was little disturbance to locals. Now although this was 8 years after the event some people may confuse both events if asked about them 10 or 20 years later. A Harrier did crash in the Corwen area, which is less than 10 miles from Llandrillo. Scott Felton has lived in the area for a long time and would be familiar with how far away Corwen and Llandrillo are. The Berwyn Hills are mentioned as the crash site Is Felton accurate with his statements or is he stretching things to fit his own theories?

Then there are the Phantom Helicopter sightings in nearby Cheshire and Derbyshire that went on throughout late 1973 into early 1974. People assumed they were helicopters , and in some cases, genuine flights were mistakenly reported due to the publicity the media gave to them. However other sightings had all the signs of a UFO flap.

Just weeks after the Berwyn sightings everything simply wound down in both sightings and investigations .

There was a secret meeting on March 21st 1974 organised by the Home Office in London and attended by Special Branch detectives, MoD officials and high ranking officers from the Derbyshire and Cheshire police.

They wanted the military to commit resources to tracking the culprits. The British military refused due the risks and costs involved.

Coincidentally the stories of phantom helicopters disappeared as well. The case was quietly closed by Special Branch as unknown in October 1974. The Berwyn UFO had been forgotten by the time David Essex was No.1 in the pop charts with “Gonna Make You A Star” and wasn't fully revived until the 1990s. It's still a mystery.

reply to post by mirageman


Thanks for the extra information, sorry for dragging you back to this. I should have said that I just used what the witnesses said because the other guys were what made it seem hard for me to work out what happened.

Pat got confused by seeing the lights because she didn't think the rescue teams could have got there so fast, so she turned around and went home getting stopped on the way by the military. So we know the military was there pretty quick, I think the lights Pat saw could have been the military and a UFO. With all the things that happened that night, I can't believe she would confuse it with other crashes.

I think the explosion was the UFO but I don't know if they had an accident or if they were hit by a meteor, they might even have been shot down by the military. There is or was a top secret rocket testing station at Aberporth, so my guess is ET was messing with their tests. I'm not surprised that the US Navy had an underwater research station nearby as well, I will let you know if I learn anything new.

You might want to have a read of this about the Berwyn incident. Scott L Felton knows more about this incident than anyone else around. He also does a pretty good job of showing how a certain self confessed hoaxer was also involved directly in the dissemination of deliberate misinformation about the case.

The Cover up

There's a link here to Conwy groups page, it does make interesting reading indeed.

The Conwy Group site

Well something crashed into the mountains...interesting case.

Just to confirm, Police did not receive 999 calls from witnesses.

They received calls on the emergency phone line 999...just like in the US the line is 911 and Australia it is 000.

reply to post by FireMoon


Thank you, it was a great help to be pointed in the right direction, it all looks a lot clearer now. i don't think the explosion was on the UFO anymore, but I have been wondering if the explosion caused the tremor. I believe UFOs were there because of the rocket testing station so what Felton said about the military plans for that day made sense to me.

So there was no crash, no meteors and no confused locals, just a cover up of the military going after the UFOs or UFOs stopping the military from doing whatever it was they had planned for that day. Scott Felton has clearly put a lot of time and effort into getting to the truth about this, I hope he gets the proof he's after one day, he deserves to after all he's been through.

reply to post by LEL01


Yes basically that's what Scott Felton's theory is. He thinks the military were aware that a UFO was in the area and it landed around 9:30pm. However the earth tremor brought many outside and they saw the UFO in the skies over North Wales.

Firemoon is also correct. There is a certain element within British Ufology who seem determined to de-bunk cases and discredit researchers through some very questionable means at times. The same appears to have happened to Scott Felton's research on this case.

To be honest Scott Felton is one researcher who's views on the phenomena in general are similar to my own.

I've actually just found another document he wrote which I've scanned through. "Debunking the Berwyn Debunkers". Although I'll need to go through it in detail to digest it all properly. Click here to download Debunking the Berwyn Debunkers.

This clears up (in my mind) the situation with the Harrier crashing in 1982. It was a Harrier but a trainer aircraft and there was no need for a large military presence to guard secret weaponry as it was trainer aircraft so was cleared away rapidly.

It's also interesting that he notes that police from outside the area were drafted in and the local mountain rescue unit was not engaged to ensure that the UFO was not found by locals. There's other good stuff in there to mull over.

If you'd rather listen than read then here's a rare radio interview with Scott in 4 parts of about 10 mins each

Part 1 : www.youtube.com...

Part 2 :www.youtube.com...

Part 3 :www.youtube.com...

Part 4 :www.youtube.com...


He's definitely still more Scouse than Welsh!

However we do have to remember that his theory, whilst well researched, is only one standpoint on the case. He makes no mention of a military operation off the coast in the nearby Irish Sea. Nor does he think aliens were killed or captured. But he does suspect this was an extra-terrestrial craft.

Felton's theory that the UFO had been around before and after the major night of the sightings also fits with at least a few of the "phantom copter" sightings that were occurring just across the English border in the weeks and months before. Albeit circumstantially.

Russ Kellet's story is a lot more speculative in my opinion. Although that Marine & Coastguard document is a strange part of the case. Was it real and the MoD tried to conceal all proof?

I'll go over the National Archives document on the case again as well, to see if that contains anything I've missed or got wrong when I originally wrote this up.

Who knows, almost forty years after this incident occurred, maybe something will crop up to shed a bit more light on this case?

reply to post by mirageman


I was reading at the Conwy group site that Felton thinks other UFO researchers are influenced by sci-fi TV and movies, then I found the interview you posted. One of the first things Felton said was "when we think of the vast Distance they have to travel to get here" I wish people wouldn't say that. Does he not know they live in a rock under the sea or maybe a council house in Sunderland, most of us really don't know where they travel from or how they get here.

He makes some good points about why the UFO didn't crash and why there probably wasn't any Alien bodies but I think he went into sci-fi mode with his ideas of a cleanup operation, that's just my opinion. I'm still undecided about the bodies, who were the group of men who said they saw this ? Even Felton thinks it's possible one craft came down to help another. We shouldn't leave out the part where Soldiers knocked on a woman's door asking to use her phone because their radios were down. Did the UFOs stop their radios from working ?

I think we know what Pat's lights were, the large light was a UFO and the small lights were "orbs" while we don't know what the orbs are I think they must be controlled by "them" they might have been checking out or fixing any damage to the craft or possible other craft.

Scott Felton only talks about 2 USOs and I can't find anything to suggest he spoke to the fishermen who claim to have witnessed it, although when I got to that part at Conwy group site the words were printed on top of each other so I might have missed something.

Russ Kellet is saying there were three USOs and he claims to have spoken to a fisherman who saw one come out near Puffin Island. I don't know if the document was real but we do know the PTB keep this stuff hidden from us so it could be. If the photoflash operation happened it must have been seen by other people but they probably didn't know what it was. Russ claims to have fragments of one of the craft, I wonder if he visited the farmer's daughter.

I haven't been thinking about the "phantom helicopters" but if the MOD refused to help out the Police Special Branch then maybe it was because they knew who it was. I'm starting to see why you're making this connection, were they looking for the UFOs and were all of the sightings really helicopters ? I noticed in one of your links that people claiming to have seen a black triangle UFO were told it was a helicopter. They tell us anything but not the truth.

reply to post by LEL01


Well, well, I did a bit more digging to refresh myself on the case. The MoD UFO files DEFE 24-2045-1.

First we have a letter (dated Aug 5th 2001) enquiring about the mysterious "Operation Photoflash" mentioning 80 flashes expected by the local Coastguard from around 10 aircraft. It also ask questions of two squadrons of fighters operation round Puffin Island and Capel Curig, and a bogey not identifying itself that was brought down near Llandrillo with five occupants taken away. It goes on to state that a battle group became disorientated, suffered 14 casualties and lost 2 helicopters around the North Wales coast. Then scribbled onto the document are the words

PS A number of the ships from the battle group were from the USA

For those reading not familiar with the area in question where events were taking place here is the coastline of North Wales/North West England, the Irish Sea and the Isle of Man. Capel Curig is marked with an "A". Sorry for the low quality of the map. The Menai Straits between Anglesey and the Welsh mainland is barely visible and the River Mersey has also disappeared.


Puffin Island is a small uninhabited island just off the coast of the much larger island of Anglesey. It is privately owned and landing is prohibited without permission.



Now taken alone this letter is merely posing a lot of speculation at the MoD.(Could it have been sent by Russ Kellet?)

However the reply is interesting for it's vagueness.



Russ Kellet of course claims that the Marine & Coastguard provided the documented proof of Operation Photoflash. A document that has subsequently vanished without trace.

The problem I have with his evidence is that none of it seems to be in the public domain and his witnesses are anonymous. The MCA document has vanished.

Kellet has also made a few claims

I spoke to a fishermen who saw one come out near Puffin Island, his colleagues at the time told him to say nothing about it because it was considered bad luck, and he never spoke about it for years.........

I have correspondence with a group of men who told me they were moved on by military personnel on the roadside at Llandrillo where one of the craft came down.

They said they saw aliens getting out the craft who were helping two of their own who were injured.

“They were then loaded onto the back of a flat back truck and taken away.


Source: www.phantomsandmonsters.com...

All very interesting but not one witness is named. If he has has the original MCA document then let's see it. What about that correspondence as well? Oh and the part of the UFO he claims to own. Is he just going to keep it as a souvenir.

My own take on this is that the military were up to something in a corner of Britain through late 1973 into early 1974, Perhaps for a while before and for some time after. Were they tracking something or testing something? Maybe both?

The request for assistance from the RAF by Special Branch for tracking down the phantom helicopters was brushed off not long after Berwyn. And then it all went quiet. My guess is the military knew more than they were letting on.

What I'd like to know is if the claims that US Navy ships were in British/Irish waters in Jan 1974 of can be verified anywhere?

reply to post by mirageman


I read it all too, and it is very well presented, calm and constructive...
A very interesting story, an obvious cover up, it was a star travellers craft that had ignited and the other small lights were trying to rectify the damage or minimizing the damage, probably taking away stuff they don't want us to have, like advanced tech or advanced weapons.... anyway, a good story and thanks for posting

reply to post by mirageman


Good find, I did see letters in one of your links but I don't think it was this one. An article by David Clarke said, the US Navy had an underwater research station in Wales so there probably was US ships or at least one ship there. It's at the bottom of page one in this link, it's not proof of anything but with everybody including the UFO researchers keeping the evidence to themselves, every piece of information helps.
Link

In the last link you posted Russ Kellett said "There is conclusive evidence because of other documents I have that mention these objects on that night from Newcastle down to the Home Counties up to Coventry being seen in the sky." Now remember the lad in Sunderland saw UFOs the next day, I can confirm that UFOs were seen in the North East around that time. I don't have dates and I can't prove it but my brother saw one. I can't ask him about it, he died years ago and all I know is that he saw it about 10 miles south of Newcastle and about 30 miles west of Sunderland.

Russ Kellett also said “Five witnesses who were there on that night, who I know through a friend, said there was a crashed craft by the side of the road near Llandrillo." This makes me think that somebody might have got confused (not the locals) and 5 witnesses became 5 Aliens or the other way round, I got the 5 Aliens from the letter, the bogey and the 5 occupants. The story is that 2 crates were loaded onto the truck after Aliens helped their injured friends, so were they dead or just injured ? Do you think these witnesses are the same guys who were on the mountain ?

I believe the UFOs were there to stop the rocket testing and anything else the military were up to that would have been a danger to us and "them" it seems to be what they do. So it makes sense to think that the military would go after the UFOs and I do think the explosion was caused by the military. I also believe the underwater research station was to look for USOs. Looking at where the phantom helicopters were might give us a clue to where the UFOs went to get away from the military after their trip to Sunderland.

reply to post by LEL01


I have to say that although I believe something odd was going on in Britain in late 1973 and early 1974 I think there is a lot to sift through to get at the real truth here.

The different researchers are all pointing in different directions and I am still not convinced by the "alien" stories that Russ Kellett appears to be promoting. Even though I think that the military were up to something I am still undecided as to what?

Here's another web link from 2006 linked to Kellett

The story began when a group of four men were travelling home on the evening of January 23 1974. ......They were near a field in Llandrillo when they saw an unidentified object land on the ground. Arriving promptly on the scene, the army ordered the men to leave but not before they caught a glimpse of five humanoid creatures, two of which were in distress.

The military surrounded the area and told the men not to speak of what they had just witnessed, but the men later set up meetings to discuss their sightings. The plot began to thicken as more and more witnesses spoke out, and after years of research, Russell discovered that there had also been an earthquake that night. He said: "My investigation is very detailed and has a lot of background to it and I have documents and witness statements that really are mindblowing.


Source: www.ufocasebook.com...

There are numerous witnesses who have spoken out on gone on the record but none who have mentioned anything more than loud explosions and strange lights. This stuff by Kellett is all very vague. Even if he has to "protect" the witnesses. He has seemingly researched the case for a decade and a half but produced little in the way of verifiable evidence that he has put into the public domain other than nameless witnesses with no real specifics of times and locations given nor why these people where there. It's all a little unconvincing.

One thing I have found is pictures of the fragment of the alleged UFO. But again his story of how he obtained it is lacking any detail and smacks of the same sort of talk Ray Santili came up with when he produced alien autopsy footage.

The metal was picked up by someone who was on the mountain at the time. They have since died and it was passed to me about a year ago.I passed it to a jeweller who showed it to an expert but they have no idea what it is.

Source: www.ufo-blogger.com...

Two appear to be the same image (but who knows how long they will last on the internet?)

Pic 1

Pic 2


A further photo giving idea of the size of the metal fragment is also below.

Pic 3

Also interesting to note that across the pond in late 1973 there were also strange things going on

Karl12 has a good thread here : www.abovetopsecret.com...

Back in the UK in January 1974, light tanks and infantry were deployed at London Heathrow Airport supposedly to defend against possible terrorism. But maybe there was an even stranger reason?

There may be absolutely no links whatsoever to the events at Berwyn in 1974 at all. But I often think researchers get so focused on minutiae, and perhaps fail to look at the bigger picture.

I'll continuing digging away at this case but focus my attention away from anything Russ Kellett has produced as evidence for the reasons given above.

reply to post by mirageman


I have to agree with you, the alien story just doesn't add up but that could be down to bad researching and bad reporting. We need more information before we can decide if it's true or not, we have too many unanswered questions. Have you even heard or seen a description of the UFO or the Aliens ? If he has witness statements and documents he should prove it not keep them to himself.

The best thing we have for the Photoflash Operation is the strange response from the MOD, they seem to be making excuses for "references such as you described may have been heard on their radio frequencies" when the original letter never said that they heard anything "on their radio frequencies". Maybe I got the wrong idea about that.

I don't think he should be claiming that he has fragments of a UFO when he doesn't know what his lump of metal is. It could be from the meteor shower they had earlier in the month or nothing from out of this world at all. We are wasting our time on these stories, I'm happy to put them to one side.

I have to agree with you again, these researchers are not looking at the bigger picture. There are endless connections to be made and questions to be asked, this is why I believe the UFOs were there to stop the rocket or any other testing the military were doing, because of all the other reports from different places. Are these the same Aliens and UFOs I'm reading about in 1977 ? Let me know if you want to talk about that book.

Light tanks and infantry at London Heathrow Airport, that has a strange feel to it, it made me think of a case in America where a UFO landed at an Airport and just sat there. It could have been to do with the IRA but with all the bombs that went off while I was working in London, I never once saw a tank. Members who live in London might have more information about that, I had no idea what was going on outside of my own life in those days apart from the IRA bombs, everybody knew about them.

Thanks for the Karl12 thread, his threads are always good. I'll let you know what I think when I find the time to read it and watch his videos.

Who knows if there is a link with the events of 1977 or Aberporth or any other events? The tanks at Heathrow were supposedly there to protect the aircraft from terrorist attacks. Some believed it was a practice run for a military coup as the British establishment believed Britain was descending into social chaos. But maybe there was another reason that the military were there?

The more I dig the more I end up going down a road I'd never have thought of.

I came across the Phantom Choppers case whilst looking into this case and that took me into a different direction. Whilst Russ Kellett's research seems to have little of substance that "Photoflash" document is still intriguing and the MoD didn't exactly refute it.

I'm trying to find out more about Aberporth at the moment. There is a case from 1968 of a rumour that a missile test brought down an Irish aircraft in March 1968. The MoD denied it of course.

The most popular theory is that the St Phelim was hit by a rogue missile fired from the Royal Aircraft Establishment's range at Aberporth in Dyfed, then Britain's most advanced missile testing station


Source : Guardian website

However I haven't got much further at the moment. But I will come back to this case thread if I turn up anything. Maybe the UFO was something the military launched and didn't want us to know about?

reply to post by mirageman


I see, you're thinking the UFO was something the military did, while I'm thinking the UFO was there to stop the military from doing whatever they were up to. I wasn't thinking about it that way but I guess it's possible, we know the military and the MOD won't tell us the truth.

So I was probably looking at Karl12's thread in a different way to you, I only found a few things that were similar to this case. Objects covered with red, green and blue lights, an officer said it was oblong and covered with lights. The Sunderland sighting was long and black with red, green, yellow and orange lights going around it. CB radios affected and in Wales soldiers radios were not working and mysterious flashing lights were reported.

reply to post by LEL01


I think it's a possibility that the military may have been testing something ultra secret and were happy to let it become a UFO story. Or, like you, maybe they were testing/firing something and a UFO was trying to prevent it. The MoD documents that have been released are useful for some research but they very rarely reveal anything more than the responses given to enquiries by members of the public. I can't believe that some cases are not investigated in a lot more depth and of "no defence significance" and everything has now been released.

I haven't found much out on the Aberporth base to link to this case but I have tracked down the "alien" story which comes from a retired military officer using a pseudonym James Prescott.

.....Retired police sergeant and UFO researcher Tony Dodd said he spoke with the British Army source, to whom he gave the pseudonym “James Prescott." Prescott informed Dodd that in January 1974 he was stationed at an Army barracks in the south of England. “I cannot name my unit or barracks as they are still operational,” said Prescott, adding that on the night of 18 January, his unit was put on “stand-by to move north at short notice."

Twenty-four hours later, the unit was directed to make its way towards the English city of Birmingham and then “received orders to proceed with speed towards North Wales."

On arrival at Llangollen, North Wales on the night of 20 January, Prescott said, the unit noticed a great deal of “ground and air activity” in the area. Extraordi- nary events were unfolding. But it was shortly after l 1:30 p.m., by Tony Dodd's account, when things really began to take shape.

Prescott told him: “We, that is myself and four others, were ordered to go to Llandderfel and were under strict orders not to stop for any civilians." The team soon reached Llandderfel, whereupon they were ordered to load two large oblong boxes into their vehicle: “We were at this time warned not to open the boxes, but to proceed to [the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at] Porton Down Wiltshire, England] and deliver the boxes.“

A number of hours later, they reached Porton Down and the mysterious cargo was quickly taken inside the facility. The staff at Porton allegedly opened the boxes while Prescott and the others looked on. Inside the boxes, to Prescott’s amazement, were “two creatures which had been placed inside decontamination suits." The Porton staff then began the careful task of opening the suits.

Said Prescott: “When the suits were fully opened it was obvious the creatures were not of this world and, when examined, were found to be dead. What I saw in the boxes that day made me change my whole concept of life. “The bodies were about five to six feet tall, humanoid in shape, but so thin they looked almost skeletal with a covering skin. Although I did not see a craft at the scene of the recovery, I was informed that a large craft had crashed and was recovered by other military units.” According to Prescott, his team were not the only ones to transport bodies from the crash site:

“Sometime later we joined up with other elements of our unit, who informed us that they had also transported bodies of ‘alien beings’ to Porton Down, but said that their cargo was still alive." Prescott added that this was “the only time I was ever involved in anything of this nature. This event took place many years ago and l am now retired from the Armed Forces”,

Source : Click Here p174

This is the story Nick Redfern was originally convinced by as well. Make of it what you will.

Assuming the story is true then why wasn't a helicopter used? I am not sure of the road network across the UK in 1974 but North Wales still has no motorways and the journey would have been a long one in an army truck. Also why would troops from the South of England be despatched. I could understand if it was a special unit but the witness states "This was the only time I was ever involved in anything of this nature".

Still far too many questions about this case.

Another interesting case to look through a documentary, thanks for that

What a BRILLIANT thread.......

lots of questions, excellent information....i am enjoying this one....

Thank-you..

PDUK