Britain's X-Files 2017
Fortean Times|September 2017

DAVID CLARKE sifts through the latest batch of UFO files released by the National Archive

Britain's X-Files 2017

A collection of miscellaneous UFO files were opened at Britain’s National Archives in June. DAVID CLARKE picks out the highlights from a mixed bag of fortean oddness.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE PLAYGROUND KIND

“We were playing at netball in the yard with Mrs Williams and she was showing us how to throw the ball into the net when I saw an object high in the sky.” In immaculate handwriting, ten-year-old Gwawr Jones reported her UFO experience in a letter addressed to the Commanding Officer at RAFValley in North Wales.

The letter, endorsed by her teacher, arrived with a collection of drawings showing an identical flying saucer, produced by her school pals. “I shouted at the others and they looked up and saw it,” her account continued. “It had a black dome on top and a silver cigar-shaped base. It was travelling smoothly across the sky in a northerly direction. It remained in our sight for about three minutes.Then it went behind the only cloud in the sky and reappeared again for about one minute, then disappeared.”

Gwawr was one of nine youngsters, aged eight to 11, who saw the silent object from Rhosybol School in Anglesey, North Wales, on the afternoon of Wednesday, 16 February 1977. Their teacher, Mair Williams, told the Western Mail: “It was a really bright afternoon and the object was flying very high towards Bull Bay… I took the children back into school, separated them and then told them to draw what they had seen. It was really astonishing – their drawings were all similar. I never believed in these things until I saw this!”

Their extraordinary story was one of dozens that reached the Ministry of Defence’s UFO desk, S4 (Air) in 1977. 1 A covering note, from RAFValley, adds “[we] can offer no positive explanation or identification.”

この記事は Fortean Times の September 2017 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

この記事は Fortean Times の September 2017 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

FORTEAN TIMESのその他の記事すべて表示
Lightning Or Legendry?: The Chase Vault Moving Coffin Mystery Revisited
Fortean Times

Lightning Or Legendry?: The Chase Vault Moving Coffin Mystery Revisited

The moving coffins of Barbados have been a staple subject of books on the unexplained for over a century, and yet no one has so far provided a wholly satisfactory solution to the mystery. BENJAMIN RADFORD argues that we might have been looking in the wrong place...

time-read
10+ 分  |
November 2019
The Haunted Generation
Fortean Times

The Haunted Generation

Bob Fischer Rounds Up The Latest News From The Parallel Worlds Of Popular Hauntology...

time-read
3 分  |
November 2019
The House On The Borderland In Search Of William Hope Hodgson
Fortean Times

The House On The Borderland In Search Of William Hope Hodgson

In his new book, EDWARD PARNELL goes in search of the ‘sequestered places’ of the British Isles and explores how these haunted landscapes shaped a kaleidoscopic spectrum of literature and cinema. Here, he arrives in Cardiganshire to look for the house in which the neglected master of weird fiction William Hope Hodgson wrote one of his greatest works.

time-read
10+ 分  |
November 2019
Fortean Traveller: 117. The Mediæval Crime Museum, Rothenburg, Germany Fortean Traveller
Fortean Times

Fortean Traveller: 117. The Mediæval Crime Museum, Rothenburg, Germany Fortean Traveller

STEVE TOASE feels the thumbscrews tighten as he explores a grisly collection exploring the history of mediæval torture and its relationship with the law

time-read
7 分  |
November 2019
Where Ghosts Gather
Fortean Times

Where Ghosts Gather

In 1977, Usborne published World of the Unknown: Ghosts, the children’s book that inspired a generation of junior forteans. Four decades on, following a concerted fan campaign, the book is back in print... and the perpetually haunted BOB FISCHER tracked down its pleasantly surprised writer, Christopher Maynard, to discuss its genesis and unexpected impact.

time-read
10+ 分  |
November 2019
A Bang On The Head
Fortean Times

A Bang On The Head

MARK GREENER explains how traumatic brain injury can change personality, creating serial killers and even vampires.

time-read
7 分  |
November 2019
Out Of The Shadows
Fortean Times

Out Of The Shadows

In an extract from a new book celebrating the history of Boscastle’s Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Professor Ronald Hutton introduces the photographs of Sara Hannant, which aim to bring a range of enigmatic objects from the museum’s unique collection to life.

time-read
3 分  |
Christmas 2016
The Face In The Window - Windowpane Ghosts And Lightning Daguerreotypes
Fortean Times

The Face In The Window - Windowpane Ghosts And Lightning Daguerreotypes

One of the most fortean of lightning phenomena is the “lightning daguerreotype,” where a face or figure, often recognised as a particular deceased person, is mysteriously etched upon a windowpane. Chris Woodyard traces some of the fenestral flaps of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

time-read
10+ 分  |
Christmas 2016
Bodies On Ice
Fortean Times

Bodies On Ice

Couple who went missing 75 years ago ... found by chance in thawing Swiss glacier

time-read
2 分  |
October 2017
happy old christmas
fortean times

happy old christmas

you thought it was all over, but due to the orthodox refusal to accept the new fangled gregorian calendar, many people – from margate to memphis – will still be celebrating christmas in january. ted harrison goes in search of some stubborn old traditions...

time-read
8 分  |
january 2017