Credibility In Ufology: Fact Or Fiction?

[Jayceedove]

I certainly agree that PC Godfrey isn't a 'trickster'; this is much more interesting than that. But he seems to have at least half an idea in his head that this was an internal experience of some kind, rather than a physical event. I'm fairly sure he is right about that. A daydream, including elements from the earlier sighting of a bus (plus a memory of the plastic house or photos of the same).

I don't suspect for a moment that the MOD were interested in any significant fashion until this Russian guy started poking his nose in. Now that really is interesting.

Much of the 'close encounter' phase of this case was an internal experience in my view. In fact they often are. I have frequently brought up things like this in my FT columns and in the book I make this point too related to this case.

I argue that nature abhors a vacuum, so if we create one by a period when the witness is 'out of it' and disorientated amidst that internal experience, they assume an experience must have occurring during the gap when quite possibly none did at all. But if you think there is a memory to retrieve and you use methods like hypnosis to find it you can quite possibly result in creating that memory to fill the gap that was never really there.

As I have also written in my columns for FT over the years, often close encounter witnesses are susceptible to other experiences and 'black outs' for short periods throughout their lives.

My view is that the litany of assorted phenomena that a witness later describes might all be 'gap filling' waking dreams that build themselves around the circumstances of the moment.

If you are in the bedroom at night you might plug the gap by seeing an entity or ghost.

If you are in an accident like falling off a cliff you might have an out of body or near death experience.

If you are on a road with something odd in front of you then you might have a close encounter.

I don't think it is hard to see most alien contact stories as emerging from the subconscious as opposed to a literal reality.

As you say even Alan has a struggle accepting that he was really in a carpeted spaceship with a bearded alien called Yosef and his big black dog.

That makes far more sense as a gap filling waking dream than as a literal reality.

I am certainly not saying anything beyond that. But am also very adamant that Alan is describing what happened.

His job is to tell us what he experienced.

It is ours to credibly build a way to interpret what it was that got experienced.

 

[Jayceedove]

You can find the podcasts here - http://theunexplained.tv/ - listen to the guy and make up your own mind. Both the UFO House and the Hypnotic Regression also do get addressed there, by the way.

Yikes, no idea where he got that photo from. About 60 lbs ago I think!

As for the interview it was Tuesday morning 8.30 and I was caught by him ringing and I sat on the stairs with my coat on ready to go out. I missed my bus. It is the first interview I have done for a long time. So rather out of practice.

 

[dr wu]

So...now I'm a bit confused. Did Alan Godfrey have a ufo experience that caused more images...or was this all in his mind...?
And if it was all internalized...what triggered the vision..?

 

[Jayceedove]

So...now I'm a bit confused. Did Alan Godfrey have a ufo experience that caused more images...or was this all in his mind...?
And if it was all internalized...what triggered the vision..?

Alan quite clearly saw something over the road. And it was in the same location where something clearly physically real was present over the road. That something had an energy field associated that caused problems with both UHF and VHF radio transmission and was blowing leaves off trees in a small localised area and swirling dry the wet road surface underneath. It emitted a bright burst of light (seen by others that night) that led to his period of unconsciousness/being spaced out/losing time/having an abduction.

There are other witnesses to the physical effects and other witnesses to the presence of an illuminated object departing from here.

So this at heart is a genuine close encounter with something.

In my opinion a UAP.

What is being argued about is whether the shape he 'saw' was influenced by something in his mind (such as the Futuro house). I can see the argument but I think too much is made of that possibility. That glorified prefab had been around town for years. It was familiar to everyone there. There were many other local UFO sightings. None appear to have used this as a template in someone's subconscious.

It is not an absurd theory but no more likely than he made the shape from out of a swirling rotating vortex that was over the road and that we have good evidence was really there.

Alan well describes how the thing was rotating and how it was semi obscured. He actually quite well describes the blotchy surface of a rotating funnel partly obscured by all the detritus that was swirling around it caught in the upward suction force the bus driver clearly describes.

It is very common in UFO sightings for witnesses to read more structure and shape into a fuzzy anomalous mass than is really present. It happens in countless cases and does not require the drafting in of the Futuro house to explain what is a perfectly natural human response to seeing a less than structured anomaly as a more structured one.

The mind loves creating order out of chaos. That is why we see faces in the leaves in trees and why many stories in FT report the hotdog that 'looks like Elvis' or whatever.

It doesn't, really. But we make it look so in our minds because we relate anything we see that seems unfamiliar to something more familiar. Once we perceive an order in an orderless form we cannot unsee it. This works like an optical illusion. Like that on page 1 of my ozfactorbooks web site. There is no UFO there. But we all see it!

I have just edited this as there is a nice example on the FT Facebook page tonight. A tree covered in todays snow that reveals to you instantly a seasonal figure. It is not there. But again there is no way you will fail to think that it is if you look.

This is the same process at work where more amorphous UAP are seen as structured craft because the human mind seeks patterns and wants to fill in gaps to form something familiar such as an actual object.

The bit where any physical reality is in doubt is whether there was an experience inside the UFO as recounted under hypnosis but for which Alan has never had any conscious recall.

That is certainly likely to be visionary IMO.

Not the actual case though.

 

[dr wu]

Jayceedove,
What are your thoughts on the true nature of the UAP.....as you call it? A natural event like ball lightning or something intelligently controlled? And what are your thoughts on Dr Vallee's ideas that have touched on similar themes in his books?

 

[Jayceedove]

I agree with a lot of what Jacques Vallee says and always have. The day I spent with him and Janine at their home in San Francisco is one of my fondest memories as I had wanted to meet them since I was at school and read Anatomy of a Phenomenon hiding in a park whilst escaping games! I was so star struck a major earthquake struck soon after. Happily they were fine!

As for the source of the UAP over Burnley Road.

I can only report, as I do in the book, what we know about it.

That the weather at the time was conducive to the formation of a vortex funnel. If it was a natural phenomenon generating electrical disturbances and considerable energy emissions then it seems to have had plasma inside of it. That could - if rotating - create the visual appearance of a revolving object with windows.

There are other cases in the area that seem to have featured very similar things. The object that stopped a car and created physiological effects on two men at Nelson in March 1977. Another sighting at Sharneyford between Tod and Bacup where the witness worked in a science lab and described what she saw as being like a ball of energy with plasma inside of it, actually being familiar with what that was.

Indeed just today I was put onto another case at Sharneyford of a similar phenomenon.

There are also records of events dating back to pre UFO days.

So there could be something innate to the area that is conducive to a rare and not yet fully understood energy phenomenon.

This would be my first stop option because it presumes less and explains most of the evidence.

However, again as I make clear in the book, I am not going to rule out that there might be something deeper going on. There have been quite a few strange anomalies in the Tod area reported out of context of UFOs. I have written a few of these up in my FT columns over the years and there are others.

Together they might suggest that there are things going on above and beyond a natural UAP that do result in apparent distortions in time and space that have hints that they might involve the breaking down of barriers at a level of inner space which might relate to the multiverse concept.

If so then the UAP might be further consequences of this or they could be the keys that unlock the doors in this region.

I have an open mind to the possibility, but, reasonably I think, we need to establish that these phenomena cannot all be accounted for as an interaction between a UAP and the consciousness of a witness before concluding that something more extraordinary is happening.

 

[eburacum]

For 'vortex tunnel' I read 'mini-tornado', 'whirlwind' or 'dust-devil'. These phenomena don't usually contain plasma or glow significantly, except when there is associated lightning.

Or are you suggesting the existence of an as-yet undocumented meteorological phenomenon? When this event occurred, the phenomena now known as 'blue jets' and red sprites' were almost completely unknown, but now people make a hobby out of chasing them. If 'vortex tunnels' are real, I would expect people will soon be chasing them round the world as well.

 

[Jayceedove]

The concept of a plasma vortex was created by meteorologist Dr Terence Meaden, editor of the Journal of Meteorology, over 30 years ago as an explanation for simple swirled crop circles that he was studying in the field alongside local UFO researcher, Ian Mrzyglod. They were doing this years before the media discovered them, as did the hoaxers creating all sorts of complex patterns.

He was proposing a rare vortex that linked to a plasma which was occasionally visible and which he felt was the reason some people argued they saw UFOs creating them.

At BUFORA we got involved in working with Dr Meaden and Paul Fuller (editor of The Crop Watcher and a BUFORA investigator at that time) and myself did quite a bit of work on the problem during the 1980s.

We published a special report for BUFORA (Controversy of the Circles) based on what was the first ever crop circle conference held in London before the media madness took root. Though it was well covered in The Guardian as I recall.

Paul and I eventually published a book together about the UFO link theory - Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved? (Robert Hale, 1993)

Dr Meaden got a bit side tracked into trying to make the complex (imo hoaxed) patterns fit his theory. But after a decade or so a conference of physicists and meteorologists from the UK,US and Japan was held in Oxford in June 1990. Paul Fuller and I presented a paper on the possible links between plasma vortices and UFO cases.

The scientists provided useful data on experiments conducted creating plasma vortices artificially and also looking for them in some unexpected places. Evidence was found in subway tunnels in Japan, for instance, where the scientists were given access whilst temporarily shut off.

The proceedings were turned into a book by Terence Meaden. Circles From The Sky (Souvenir).

The weather conditions were appropriate in November 1980 for such an event according to Meaden. That was then added to by the bus driver coming forward completely unaware of that theory but describing what he experienced that fits extremely well with the presence on site of an unusual vortex linked to the passing frontal system that was edging at that point.

So, yes, it is not a dust devil (those are heat driven so tend to be daytime and summer not 5 am in November) or a standard tornado (rarely generating optical effects - in fact most 'lights' reported in them are believed to be objects picked up by the vortex).

This one does have the potential to glow via the plasma - hence the name - but is a theory. Not proven. Though lots has been published on it in The Journal of Meteorology.

The idea was created within TORRO - the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation - that advises on the risks from vortices to planning authorities when building things like power stations. But I saw right away its possible ability to be a UAP that could have caused UFO cases. Hence why I spent much time on it in the 80s and 90s until the crop circle hoaxers inspired by the tabloids picking up on the subject in the mid 80s made research pointless as most of your time was wasted on their creations.

It is a viable theory for what was seen over the highway in Todmorden and I have argued it for some years.

But it is just a theory. You just have to judge it against the evidence and decide for yourself if you think it works.

I will only say that it might do.

 

[Roland Deschain]

Sorry but this UAP thing is just a variation on substituting one unknown for another and addresses few of the witnesses observations.

 

[dr wu]

Sorry but this UAP thing is just a variation on substituting one unknown for another and addresses few of the witnesses observations.

Well....what term would you use then instead of UAP or UFO and can you talk a little about how it doesn't address the witness observations in this instance?

 

[Jayceedove]

It isn't substituting one unknown for another though. UAP exist in the broadest sense of the term as there is plenty of evidence from cases over the years to show that.

Something like ball lightning could be considered as one.

So it is only the application of proper investigation methodology.

Which is: First you eliminate the ordinary and only consider anything else more extraordinary when that fails.

95% of UFO sightings are misperceptions. That's a long established fact.

You have to seek out all the possibilities here.

UAP - not necessarily called that until about 30 years ago since when it has been a common term in UFO research - have been used by the MoD for 20 years too. There is nothing new about considering rare atmospheric anomalies as possible UFO triggers. Because some cases have long proven to be just that.

It basically just means any as yet not fully understood phenomenon that likely has an explanation in terms of advancing known science such as atmospheric physics - as opposed to something theoretical such as aliens or time travellers etc.

It is for me self evidently the next thing you consider because it is the next in rank of viability that does not contradict known science.

Any good researcher should do two things in my view.

Only be dragged kicking and screaming towards something extraordinary once all other options have failed.

But not be afraid to accept that they have failed and contemplate those extraordinary possibilities.

I am certainly not saying UAP solve all of the unresolved 5%. Just that I am confident they resolve some of them.

Just what things do you believe it fails to match in witness testimony.

 

[hunck]

Jayceedove - re UAP, do you have a view on the 'balls of light' observed & videoed around crop circles? There's a few on youtube. Although I confess I've never seen a clear copy, there's a video of a helicopter hovering close to ground with one of these 'bol', and the military are known to take a keen interest in some of the formations.

 

[Jayceedove]

I have not had any association with crop circles since the early 90s. My view then was that many are hoaxes. Some are the result of weather as there are records dating back centuries. They often got associated with higher powers even then - though usually things like crop spirits or fairies.

But I am not sufficiently up to date with the last 25 years of research to comment on whether anything has changed.

 

[eburacum]

Yes; Project Condign, the MOD's report on unidentified sightings released back in 2006 suggested that 'plasma fields' could explain some of the more unusual sightings.

I have to say that I think that both the MOD, and yourself, are barking up the wrong tree here. Plasma does have a role in UFO phenomena, but almost exclusively as a component of our local star the Sun, which generates light and heat from plasma related phenomena and indirectly causes many sightings in various ways. The number of sightings that can be realistically explained by localised plasma phenomena is so small as to approach zero.

 

[eburacum]

Apart from the Sun, another type of plasma-related phenomena that frequently causes UFO reports is (of course) the glowing ball of atmosphere that surrounds a meteor. In fact these may cause more reports than reflected or refracted sunlight. But they have noting to do with vortices or crop circles either.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Well....what term would you use then instead of UAP or UFO and can you talk a little about how it doesn't address the witness observations in this instance?

OVNI?
Objet volant non identifié...

 

[eburacum]

Many sightings are not caused by flying objects, but they are caused by celestial or meteorological phenomena. Venus is not flying, for instance, neither is a lenticular cloud or parhelion.

 

[dr wu]

OVNI?
Objet volant non identifié...

French for ....UFO.

 

[dr wu]

Many sightings are not caused by flying objects, but they are caused by celestial or meteorological phenomena. Venus is not flying, for instance, neither is a lenticular cloud or parhelion.

Yes...so why is UAP not a good term..?

 

[INT21]

eburacum,

..
Many sightings are not caused by flying objects, but they are caused by celestial or meteorological phenomena. Venus is not flying, for instance, neither is a lenticular cloud or parhelion.

And there is a probability many are non of the above .

eboracum, why do you bother ?

INT21

 

[eburacum]

Yes...so why is UAP not a good term..?

It is.

I was objecting to OVNI, which includes the term 'volant'. Volant means flying. Many- if not most - misidentified objects are not flying, so OVNI is worse than useless, it is actively misleading.

 

[eburacum]

eburacum,

..
Many sightings are not caused by flying objects, but they are caused by celestial or meteorological phenomena. Venus is not flying, for instance, neither is a lenticular cloud or parhelion.

And there is a probability many are non of the above .


INT21

Yes; some UAPs are caused by flying objects; some are caused by stars and planets (unless you have a very broad definition of flying, stars and planets are not flying) and some are caused by optical or meteorological phenomena. UFO and OVNI are totally inadequate terms to describe these phenomena, but Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) works very well.

Of course we also need to consider phenomena on the ground and in the sea. Any suggestions?

eboracum, why do you bother ?

Just trying to clear up a few points here.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Yes; some UAPs are caused by flying objects; some are caused by stars and planets (unless you have a very broad definition of flying, stars and planets are not flying) and some are caused by optical or meteorological phenomena. UFO and OVNI are totally inadequate terms to describe these phenomena, but Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) works very well.

Agreed ... I made an effort to eradicate 'UFO' as a baseline or catch-all term from my vocabulary a long time ago. The 'F' ('Flying') tends to bias one toward interpreting the observation in terms of something aloft as a result of its own operation / capability. The 'O' ('Object') tends to bias one toward interpreting the observation in terms of a single discrete entity, all too often construed in the even narrower sense of an artificial craft.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Of course we also need to consider phenomena on the ground and in the sea. Any suggestions? ...

I tend to categorize reports in terms of where the anomaly was observed in relation to the witness. 'UAP', for me, refers to something observed aloft or above the observer.

Extemporaneously playing off this for the other cases you mentioned, I suppose I'd informally apply terminology something like the following ...

USP (Unidentified Surface Phenomena) - Connoting something observed on or in close proximity to the earth's surface.

I might further subdivide this category into:

USP-G (- Ground) for something observed on or in very close proximity to land surface(s), and
USP-W (- Water) for something observed on the surface of water

I think I'd prefer to reserve a separate category for what's observed beneath a water surface, e.g.:

USSP-W (Unidentified Sub-Surface Phenomena)

... largely because so-called 'USO's' are often reported on the basis of something other than direct visual observation (e.g., sonar).

I included the '-W' on the USSP because there's always the possibility of anomalies being detected beneath the ground (though off hand no examples come to mind ... ), and maintaining the distinction would require a '-G' addendum.

 

[Jayceedove]

I do not regard UAP as another synonym for UFO.

UFO describes every sighting prior to investigation in my eyes. If it gets explained in one of the known ways that it can do it becomes an IFO.

The unexplained cases remain UFOs.

However, that term is loaded with associations developed over the year and UFO and spaceship have long been almost the same thing in many people's eyes unfamiliar with the subject.

I don't know exactly when UAP was introduced in UK Ufology but it was before the MoD adopted it in the 1990s. They seem to have had similar logic in preferring it.

Paul Devereux used it in books around the same time I did (early 1980s) though in a slightly different context. He referred to Aerial whilst I have always used Atmospheric as the A in these three letters. Though Condign used Aerial too and implies an earlier USAF usage.

The reason for my choice of atmospheric instead of aerial should be apparent from what I said above.

Aerial still leaves open the prospect of a craft and indeed almost infers it by more common usage of the term. So it is really just another word for UFO which my use of UAP never was. I use the two terms quite specifically.

UAP - as in atmospheric - for cases which I fervently believe do exist that are triggered by fringe scientific phenomena on the edge of atmospheric physics - so to include things like unexplained fireball events (eg the one in November 1957 that changed the colour of paintwork on a ship), super ball lightning and potentially other things such as Meaden's plasma vortex.

UFO would then remain for cases that are still unresolved and where it remains possible that some kind of intelligence is involved.

Thus separating out the cases that I am 100% sure are caused by natural phenomena that we do not yet fully understand and anything else that might be unresolved but is genuinely a UFO in the sense that most people perceive that term - an apparent intelligently controlled object of unknown design and origin.

I am very sure that at heart the 'UFO Mystery' is a conflation of at least three quite different things:

IFOs - the vast majority of cases - simple and more complex misperceptions.

UAP - natural physical phenomena mostly tied to our atmosphere that offer potential of new scientific knowledge

UFOs - the 1% or so of cases left over that defy explanation by the other two and that imply an intelligence or craft is involved - but may well, of course, have other possible resolutions - many of which I have looked at in my FT columns.

I just find it helpful to clearly delineate like this because I believe the evidence allows us to conclude that these three distinct groups of 'UFOs' exist.

I also find that each of the three categories teaches us things and should be studied. But it becomes unhelpful to do that without being aware that we are really looking at three groups of different phenomena with entirely different sets of causes and potential causes. Linked only by the social construct built around the idea that they are all UFOs. And the psycho-social factors that then confuse any research unaware of the differences origin.

Which is why I personally do not use UAP in a looser sense. It removes the point of using it.

 

[Jayceedove]

As for those commenting on the non relevance of plasma. I am not sufficiently grounded in physics to argue.

But I would ask if you have specifically read the research into the idea of a plasma vortex in the sources noted earlier - such as the Journal of Meteorology or the proceedings of the Oxford conference I referred to.

The 1993 updated softback edition of the book - Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved? - (where the publishers left off the question mark, not us) has a short update on the conference at the end to flag up work that was going on then.

Aside from Terence Meaden (who is still going strong) there was research at the event presented by Yoshi Hiko Ohtsuki (Waseda University) and Tokio Hiroshi Kikuchi (Nihon University) and John Snow of Westeros (joking - of Purdue) that I recall.

A chapter explaining Meaden's explanation of how ionization occurs inside a plasma vortex to create glowing rotating phenomena is also in the book.

By all means dispute the theory. I am not clever enough to defend it scientifically. But half a dozen scientists in atmospheric physics from three continents at that conference were excited by the possibilities enough to do experiments and for me to at least take it seriously as a potential solution to some UFO cases.

In Todmorden in November 1980 - regardless of whether you accept the existence of a UFO or any specific cause for it - there was undeniably an unusual vortex over that road as Alan saw it and its effects, the bus driver felt and saw its effects and another police officer saw the after effects. So seeking a cause of that vortex has to be a part of understanding this case.

 

[eburacum]

Measden's theories seemed very promising about 25 years ago; even Stephen Hawking was prepared to consider that they were possible explanations for this sort of phenomenon. After twenty-five years with no real confirmation I remain skeptical.

 

[Jayceedove]

Which is fair enough.

But it remains true that his theory predicts the conditions as applied in the weather at the time of the sighting in Tod to be optimum for his vortex.

A passing frontal weather system and an area on the slope of a valley to channel forces.

And that regardless of what the UFO seen was or was not a vortex of some sort indisputably occurred there given the multi witness testimony.

That is a basis for consideration is all I am really saying.

In the book I also describe the Marple case that occurred in daylight and where multiple witnesses saw a 'UFO' in the form of a disk AND felt the same kind of vortex forces from its passage.

We know what this was because daylight and chance allowed that observation. The UFO was not in this case a plasma but was created from ambient local debris compiled by the various forces involved.

Whilst the two cases are not identical they show how circumstance and chance and resultant witness visibility of events controls how much data we have to determine what really took place.

What links both cases is geography and the presence of a very clear vortex that did things that it is easy to interpret as UFO related. When at Marple at least we know they were not except in the loosest definition of UFO.

 

[THA]

A propos Meaden, plasma vortices and explaining one unknown with another, consider this:

"Plasma vortices form in high-atmosphere aurorae because extremely low pressures there allow them to, and self-sustaining plasmas form only as part of a large weather system. Former MoD scientist Rodney Ashby (telephone conversations with Peter Brookesmith, 12 Feb and 22 Feb 2009) calculated that at ground-level atmospheric pressure an electrically-driven plasma of such size and duration would require millions of amps in energy to sustain it, which raises the question of whence that energy could have come: the object Godfrey saw was too small to create an electrical discharge without an external energy source. He also observed that any plasma of such size would have been as bright as an oxyacetylene torch, not a blotchily glowing ‘object’ with tolerably bright light coming only from underneath it, and would be functioning at comparable temperatures (3200-3500˚C). The resulting level of radiant heat would have scorched everything for tens of yards around it – a rather more dramatic side-effect than a small dry patch on the tarmac – and would have destroyed nearby vegetation and probably burnt Godfrey’s patrol car 100 feet away. A plasma could be formed by a release of nuclear radiation but would have a distinctive coloration, wouldn't form a vortex, and would also require an energy source, which would have left radiation traces. He also concluded that if Godfrey saw what he said he did, it wasn't a plasma vortex: a plasma would not reflect a car’s headlights, as Godfrey said the ‘UFO’ did, and would show an even distribution of light. The shape was wrong for a vortex, which takes the drawn-out form of a tornado, and would also have a uniform, not blotchy surface. This is not entirely to dismiss the possibility that Godfrey saw an unidentified atmospheric phenomenon of some kind, although the hypothesis does involve replacing one unknown with another."

—from "A Policeman's Lot", Brookesmith, Clarke & Roberts, Fortean Times No??, 2009

 

[Jayceedove]

I read that article. Which also attributed things to me without my knowledge.

As in to say, yes, I took part in an e mail discussion and have no problem with them quoting me, but as I had no idea the piece was being written and saw it on publication like you did I had no opportunity to correct what were inevitable misinterpretations. Or things I knew then that I was not at liberty to say.

Not to say the view is incorrect - as they were clearly trying to establish the UFO was something else.

I too would have been happy to demonstrate it was a bus and as I have noted made clear that I attempted to do just that with the help of the driver of the only bus it could have been.

Had it made sense of the data I would accept that explanation. But I could not make it work, sadly.

Alan coming upon a bus stopped and partly obscured whilst inside the vortex swirling around it fits the evidence much better than any other possibility for an IFO.

So I was excited that this might be the answer and why I spent so much time quizzing the driver and then frustrated that it failed to work.

There was quite clearly a significant amount of debris swirling around at the road surface level. Alan saw that from a distance and the bus driver from very close up.

Alan's observation of headlights reflecting off the 'UFO' could have just been bouncing off some of that. Though self evidently bus in a whirlwind is a far more likely source of an extraordinary IFO that would have flummoxed pretty much anyone.

If anyone can make that work against the problems doing so threw up when I tried.

The timings just do not hang together or match testimony from Alan given consistently from the start. And any sighting by Alan of the bus as the UFO has to have then involved him and the bus passing each other again with the bus going in the opposite direction because Alan was stopped on the road at that point and the bus returned straight back the same route. The road is not wide and it is hard to believe both men missed one another if that is what happened.

But both do insist they never saw each other at any point other than Alan consistently reporting from 1981 when I first quizzed him that he saw the bus passing him in Tod town centre before he left to go out and have the encounter.

That is entirely consistent with the bus drivers story but not with Alan seeing the bus later at the scene.