Personal UFO Sighting 1977. North West England.

Seeing as the 'Citizen Hearing On Disclosure' is or has come to an end, I thought I'd relate my own personal experience of a UFO sighting I was witness to along with a few others. I'm doing this because I was able to find a photograph of the place where I witnessed the UFOs, and with some very basic Photoshop skills, am able to provide a visual aid to my story.

All I am going to do is relate it as I remember it. I am making no statement as to what the objects were in the sky, I am calling them UFOs because they literally were 'unidentified flying objects'. I'll see if I can attach the image at the end.

In 1977, I was nearing seventeen years old, and living away from my parents in the East Lancashire town of Burnley, England, and was in need of finding suitable accomodation somewhere. A friend of mine at the time said he knew someone whom was willing to provide me with a room in her house whilst I found a more appropriate place for myself. She already had a lodger, and so my staying there would help to supplement a little more income for her. She wanted to meet me first to judge whether I'd be suitable for the room.

I don't remember the actual date, but I do remember it was a mid-week day, probably Tuesday, and it was late January. I was working as an apprentice 'sparky' (Electrician), but was sleeping on my friend's sofa, so I was happy to go meet with the lady. Having returned to my friend's house after work, I had a bath and something to eat, we both set off to walk the couple of miles to Palatine Square where the lady lived.

It was between 19:00 and 19:30 that my friend and I turned onto Burnham Gate off Trafalgar Road (where the Hop Pub used to be), and walked towards the concrete bridge that spanned both the road and the railway up to Albion road. It was dark, with overcast cloud, and as we neared the concrete steps (see picture) I noticed a chap stood near the bottom of the steps looking up the road. As we drew closer, he must have heard us talking and turned to us both and asked if we had seen the lights? We hadn't, so we asked "What lights?"

He said just a minute, and then pointed up into the sky and said, "Those lights. I've been watching them now for ten minutes." We looked up to where he was pointing and saw what he had been watching.

Three orange globes, one large and two smaller ones, were putting on a rather unusual display. The larger of the three globes was about the size of a basket ball from the distance we saw it. It was slowly floating around and blinking on and off every couple of seconds or so. The other two smaller globes were fast movers, zipping about and sometimes slowing down to the same pace as the larger one. The smaller ones did not blink on and off.

They would sometimes disappear into the low cloud, and you could see them light the cloud up, the larger one causing flashes. They gave no noise, but were absolutely silent. Suddenly, one of the smaller globes seemed to be absorbed or disappear into the larger one, whilst the other smaller globe continued to fly at incredible speed and at impossible angles around the big one. As the larger globe continued to float languidly along, the smaller globe appeared once more out of it and hovered in one place, unmoving, for about a minute or so, then shot off straight up through the cloud and disappeard from view. The other smaller globe, then seemed to join with the larger one, reappear a minute or so later, hover, and shoot off up into the cloud the same as the other small globe. We continued to watch the larger globe, flashing on and off, until it was finally obscured by the high rise flats.

My friend asked the chap what he thought they were, but he said he had no idea, so my friend suggested them to be UFOs. The chap just shrugged and shook his head.

As I needed to get to the house we had to leave him stood there. Once we attained the walkway over the road and railway, we could see them once more, just below the cloud, but away across the town moving towards Pendle Hill.

The East Lancashire area is better known for the Pendle Witch Trials, certainly not for UFOs and lights in the sky. Nothing like that had ever happend like that before in the area, so it was very unusual indeed. There are no military bases near Burnley, and the nearest airports are Manchester, Blackpool and Leeds, around 40 miles away. As far as I am aware, there is nothing in the Burnley area that would demand the attention of extraterrestrials.

Originally posted by elysiumfire
She wanted to meet me first to judge whether I'd be suitable for the room.

Sorry but it made me laugh when I read that bit and looked at your avatar

Awesome I always seem to enjoy (and believe) these first hand ATS accounts of ufo's more than others.. Just seems more tangible than a blurry photo or pixleated video.
Cheers
Thanks for the share

VoidHawk:

Sorry but it made me laugh when I read that bit and looked at your avatar.

Yeah. I think it is a little too sinister looking to depict a wise old man. Think I'll have to change it?

To be honest, looking at the image I provide, it reminds me of that old american ET series called 'The Invaders' starring Roy Thinnes. The image actually shows the actual place, but it all looks rather sinister. The photograph is from the late 60's I believe. My photoshop skills are not up to much.

As much as I remain on the scrptic fence, I cannot deny that I find the subject very facinating. I used to read a lot of material on it during the 80's and 90's, but then left it alone for awhile. One of my favourite authors was Timothy Good, and I thought I'd supply an interesting interview with him that was filmed in Denever in 2007...

vimeo.com...

Enjoy.

reply to post by elysiumfire

Yeah. I think it is a little too sinister looking to depict a wise old man. Think I'll have to change it?

NO definitely not, its a fine picture. It just made me laugh when combined with that sentence in your op.


Thanks for the link I'll watch that in a few mins.

I find myself jumping on and off the fence these days.
To think there's nothing else out there is a little silly really, personally I think there just has to be, its so vast, and looking at our own tiny little planet we see that every little nook and cranny is teeming with life, so why should it be any different out there.

But do THEY come here?
I believe there must be people out there that are millions of years more advanced than we are. And with that much advancement I don't think distance would be a problem for them. So yes, I absolutely believe they could be visiting us.
My problem is believing they would come here and then fail to show themselves, or fail to hide themselves.

I suspect a very small percentage of sightings MAY be real, but I think most are military.

If you haven't heard of the Australian...visitation! check out the link in my sigy.

Great account, mate, S&F! To save a little time I'm gonna quote myself from another thread that I'm sure many here will find interesting. I'll link it below.

You are not alone, OP! There are many sightings of the sort from times ancient as evidenced in Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck's Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times

I've had my own eye-opening up-close and personal OBOL experience:

I was 14 and on a 5-day camp-out with about 20 other Boy Scouts in the foothills of Lookout Mtn in Alabama 20+ years ago. 4 of the 5 days were spent in a relatively safe & easygoing pasture of a scout-friendly citizen. We had some badge classes and spent a lot of our leisure time in fierce competitions of mumblety-peg.

But one night we went to camp in the "mountains," better described as large foothills. After dinner we broke off in pairs and cliques and explored the various trails leading to the top which I estimate to be around 600 ft and situated among many foothills of similar size.

Two scouts had remained at the top longer than the rest of us and it was rather late in the evening when I and a friend were meandering a trail and talking near the top when the two scouts up top called down to us in very excited voices to come up that they had just seen a ufo. We scrambled up to the top and the two scouts indicated an adjacent and taller mount and said they saw a big glowing orange ufo land there.

I was skeptical, but was intrigued by how excited they were, cutting each other off in their zealousness to describe what they saw. We settled in and continued talking all the while steadily looking at the adjacent mount top.

Maybe 20 minutes passed when there appeared a brilliant double-flash that emanated from and illuminated the top of the peak, a second of darkness, and then maybe 100 ft over the tree tops "it" pulsed into life. Perspective wise, I would say it was about high-moon size in appearance.

At full pulse it looked like liquid metal or 'plasma' swirling around inside. Then it would dim at about the same speed it lit. It would dim to nothing. We couldn't see anything and then a good bit higher in the sky it would pulse to light again a few seconds later. Not counting the double-flash of the apparent lift-off it lit and dimmed 6 times, each time higher in the sky and after the 6th nothing. We watched for a long time, but that amazing glimpse was over but for the heavy-duty questions it raised in me.

It was a clear night and a clear phenomena of some kind. I was an Air Force brat that never missed a Blue Angels show or an opportunity to witness various test-flights. I knew it wasn't flares and it doesn't fit with any description of ball lightning that I've come across. Conventional craft was out of the question because of characteristics and size.

Even at that age, I knew what we saw couldn't be easily explained. Since the internet came along, I've searched for folk who have seen the same thing and have now found quite a few.

It's too bad that chinese lanterns do cloud the issue up to a degree. Good thread, OP...I know there are others here at ATS that have seen what seems to be the same phenomenon.

I'll be back with some excerpts from from the Vallee/Aubeck book and some links I think you might find interesting.

Fire in the sky - The Orange UFO Mystery

reply to post by elysiumfire


Thanks for sharing your sighting. I think it's important to share sightings even though some would say they are useless without photos etc. you just never know who else might find your story supports theirs.

I wondered if you ever heard of the Todmorden UFO flap in 1980? It's only a stones throw away from Burnley. There was a mysterious death and later the policeman investigating claimed he saw a UFO and was abducted!

James Turnbull, the coroner who dealt with Zigmund’s death, says it’s the biggest mystery of his career. The coroner was baffled because although Zigmund had been missing for five days, he only had one day’s growth of beard. He says, "The question of where he was before he died and what led to his death just could not be answered." James also said a strange ointment that appeared to have been used on Zigmund’s burns could not be identified by forensic scientists. Exhaustive checks failed to reveal any record of Zigmund having been treated at any hospital during his missing five days.
It was at this point that questions began occurring, regarding the origin of this inexplicable ointment and who applied it to Zigmund. ....
It was not just the usual investigators, the police and coroners, who were attracted to this case. One of the most famous UFOlogists of all time, also called Adamski offered his own amazing theories on the tragedy. He believed aliens from outer space abducted the Yorkshire miner by mistake. The speculation of an extraterrestrial encounter was fuelled by the policeman who originally found Zigmund’s body, Alan Godfrey.
Six months after finding Zigmund’s body, Alan was again on duty in Todmorden at 5 am. He claims he also encounter a UFO, which made headlines all over the world. Alan says, "I wish I'd never seen the UFO, particularly because of the effects on my children." "It's not easy having a policeman as a father but when he's a policeman who saw a UFO its even worse."

www.bbc.co.uk...

There have also been many sightings in the Burnley area to the present day.

www.burnleycitizen.co.uk...

Dr.hammondStoat

I wondered if you ever heard of the Todmorden UFO flap in 1980?

Yeah, I am quite familiar with Todmorden and PC Godfrey's experience, and the Adamski case (which is still unsolved). I am originally from Colne (want to move back there), but live elsewhere, yet still in sight of Pendle Hill.

Interesting story. Because in the early months of 1977 there were a number of sightings across Britain. Many were in the "Dyfed Triangle" area of Wales. Sightings went on from early February through to the early summer of 1977. At Broadhaven school there were even reports of a landed spaceship and silver suited alien. You may remember that story appearing in the news around the time?

Other reports in the area also mentioned people seeing spacemen of some sort. The RAF actually investigated this mini UFO flap.

I wrote up a small thread about that case here.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I am not saying there is a link to your own sighting but a UFO flap was going on in Britain at the time.

Now this one is even more intriguing.

Even closer to Burnley there was another account that occurred in the early hours of March 9th 1977. Brian Grimshaw and a fellow (unnamed) night worker at a textile factory in Nelson, Lancs. were driving towards the factory.

Both spotted a glow in the clouds above Pendle Hill. A bright object then dropped below the cloud cover, hovered and then slowly approached the vehicle. Grimshaw stopped the vehicle leaving the engine running. The driver got out and described seeing a a round ball of light. As it got closer, Grimshaw could make out the shape of the object was a cigar shape with pointed ends and shiny black. It seemed about 100 ft in length and there were was an array of multi-coloured lights all going in a straight line underneath.

The witnesses thought there were oval windows on the side in the middle and seemed to be lit up inside. They also noted what appeared to be two objects similar to oil drums in shape at the back of the object. During the two or three minutes of the sighting the object also appeared to be surrounded, but not covered by, a grey mist. The car headlights dimmed and the engine cut-out. As the object moved off towards Manchester the car re-started. Both witness reported headaches, nausea and in the case of Grimshaw a weeping left eye for days after the incident.

Again we can't say that the incident has anything to do with your sighting but then again maybe there was?

A nice account, thanks for sharing. Have you seen this 2009 video before - any similarities to what you saw? No idea if this is a debunked/hoax event or anything. All the best!

Mirageman:

...in the early months of 1977 there were a number of sightings across Britain.

Indeed so, and it looks to have culminated in the 1980 Rendlesham Forest encounter. I know I have stated that I have not seen anything like that ever since then, but it is not quite true. I'll quickly relate another story which occurred last year.

A friend and I went to Glastonbury last year in May, as I always wanted to visit the place, but also to visit Stonehenge and Avebury stone circle to photograph them. We drove down from East Lancs. and finally arrived at around 17:15.

We quickly established our lodgings and went into Glastonbury for a well-earned pint in the George and Pilgrim pub. This where and when I discovered my most favourite tipple Tribute (real ale), which you can now buy at Sainsburys and sometimes Tesco.

Anyway, we had quite a boozy night, and once we got kicked out of the Riflemans around 23:30, we made our way rather merrily back to our lodgings, which happend to be at the foot of the Tor. My friend suddenly had the bright idea of going up to the top of the Tor, and I in my inebriated state agreed.

It was now midnight, pretty dark, and we had thin broken cloud cover, with stars peeking through the breaks. Unwisely, we chose to ascend via the most tortuous route, not up the easy path, but straight up over the terraces, where slick, wet grass, thistles and nettles, were waiting to greet us.

I have a torch app on my phone, and it was by this light we made our slippery way up. Once we got to the top I laid down on my back in the grass, looking up at the clouds and the stars. A few minutes passed when I noticed one particular star slowly gliding across the sky. I immediately thought it to be a satellite, as it moved very similar to one. I pointed it out to my friend, who saw it and then said, "That's no satellite, it's just stopped!"

I looked again, but couldn't make out which star I was supposed to be looking at, none were moving. Suddenly, my friend pointed out another star moving very similar to the first, but approaching from a different direction and angle. This I could make out, and I thought it to be the first star, and mentioned that it was.

My friend said, "No, it isn't, the other one is over there." He was pointing to another part of the sky over our heads. I saw now that there was indeed two objects that looked exactly like stars, and then the second object, just shot across the sky very fast and disappeard altogether. The first one disappeared behind cloud, and we never saw that one again either. After a few more minutes waiting to see if they would reappear, we decided to make our way down to our lodgings.

Half way down my friend took a tumble down the hill, but luckily, he managed to stop himself by falling face first into a bunch of thistles. In the morning at breakfast, we told our hosts of our little escapade up Glastonbury Tor at midnight, and told them about the objects we had seen. They confirmed that they too have seen them lots of times, but did not know what they were. During this visit, Glastonbury certainly lived up to its mystical reputation..

MarkyMint:

...any similarities to what you saw?

I have seen that video before, but my encounter was nothing like what is depicted in Mexico.

reply to post by elysiumfire

haslingden moors is a hot spot for unexplained aerial sightings at night .

and it is quite close to todmerdon and bacup so the fact that you saw something in burnley comes as no suprise

After rigorously researching I discovered that a small weather experiment was being conducted in the region, henceforth it was probably some over zealous new employee's, having just been hired a month before, excitedly conducting a batch of mundane & ordinary atmospheric data tests and sampling for later study at the local Uni where many students could benefit from the work at hand.

For those of you who would like to know more regarding the Todmorden UFO and PC Godfrey, here is a British UFO programme that features the event, with the actual people participating...

www.youtube.com...

...the accents are West Yorkshire, quite thick brogue. Its a facinating programme.

Great job of getting your sighting across. I can tell that it is just as 'burned' into your memory as mine (the ones I know sure that I remember). When skeptics drag out the old line about how memories fade or get modified I can't help but grind my teeth! I can't get that moment when I looked to the NE expecting to see a puff of smoke from someone's wood stove out of my head. Months later when a friend sent me a link, I knew instantly that the man reporting his sighting had seen what we had. Instead of a puff of smoke, I saw (as he described it) a spot in the constellation Lynx that looked like someone had "peeled away a little piece of the sky"! That strange distortion is what that object with lights around the perimeter popped out of...

In 2008 I had no intention of trying to capture anything during the lunar eclipse because of the crappy weather. By the time we got home from a shopping trip the cloud cover had all gone. I don't know if I had a premonition about it or not, but I charged the camcorder battery as fast as I could and got outside.

If you recall, this is the night that everyone had made such a fuss over the Russian satellite that's orbit had decayed and the plan was to shoot it down if it threatened to hit the "lower 48".

Nobody has been able to tell me what this was... I've been told that it wasn't the Space Shuttle, the ISS, the Hubble or any known satellite. The Russian satellite was just entering the Western Pacific at the time I filmed this.

I wish our camcorder had been capable of getting a better picture. This thing was far and away the brightest object in the sky. It was extremely bright golden in color and had a flutter to it that doesn't come through well on the video. You'll notice that it is silent compared to the jet that is attempting to follow it. Also, compare the size to the jet. Peter Davenport dismissed this out of hand as "obviously just some satellite". In relation to the size of the jet I have to ask, "Well then how d@mned big WAS that satellite???"