• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Gnomes In Little Red Cars? (Wollaton Park Gnomes; 1979)

omniboy

omniboy

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
May 17, 2009
Messages
24
Does anyone have the deets about a group of English schoolkids that claimed they were chased around in a park by little men in little red cars? This half-remembered story just popped into my head the other day and I would love to hear the particulars about it.
 
It was at Wollaton Park, Nottingham, in September 1979.

According to the Bord's "Modern Mysteries of Britain" (1987):

...four children aged between eight and ten claimed to have seen about sixty Little People riding around in little red and white cars. Angela Elliott described what happened:

We heard this little tinkly bell. We started running and these little men came out of the bushes. There were about 60 of them in 30 cars like bubblecars. They were half my size and looked old.They had greenish faces with crinkles in themand long white beards with a bit of red on the end. They were laughing in a funny way and driving over swamps near the lake. We were frightened and ran to the gate. I don't think they liked the lights outside because they didn't follow us to the street.
Click to expand...

The section goes on to describe the Little People as wearing yellow trousers, blue tops and caps with bobbles on them like nightcaps. Angela said they'd seen them before, in the summer, and despite their fear the Little People seemed "friendly and joyful".

There's another report, from Kilkhampton in Cornwall, of a little man driving around someone's garden in a tiny red car. This was about 1940. The description given is extremely similar to the Wollaton Park one. And a little man in a little plane, complete with flying helmet, in Hertford in 1929.

How's that?
 
I'm torn between whether it's most inspired by Noddy or a bunch of Shriners (as seen in The Simpsons).
 
Anome_ said:
I'm torn between whether it's most inspired by Noddy or a bunch of Shriners (as seen in The Simpsons).
Click to expand...

My first thoughts exactly though Noddy arrives in the late 1940's where as two of those sightings pre-date that.
 
Good point about the Shriners - here's an example:

Originally posted photo is MIA. Here's a replacement ...

ShrinersInLittleCars.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
1940 and 1929 do tend to suggest neither of those options. And the little plane won't really work with either of them.
 
stuneville said:
It was at Wollaton Park, Nottingham, in September 1979.

According to the Bord's "Modern Mysteries of Britain" (1987):

...four children aged between eight and ten claimed to have seen about sixty Little People riding around in little red and white cars. Angela Elliott described what happened:

We heard this little tinkly bell. We started running and these little men came out of the bushes. There were about 60 of them in 30 cars like bubblecars. They were half my size and looked old.They had greenish faces with crinkles in themand long white beards with a bit of red on the end. They were laughing in a funny way and driving over swamps near the lake. We were frightened and ran to the gate. I don't think they liked the lights outside because they didn't follow us to the street.
Click to expand...

The section goes on to describe the Little People as wearing yellow trousers, blue tops and caps with bobbles on them like nightcaps. Angela said they'd seen them before, in the summer, and despite their fear the Little People seemed "friendly and joyful".

There's another report, from Kilkhampton in Cornwall, of a little man driving around someone's garden in a tiny red car. This was about 1940. The description given is extremely similar to the Wollaton Park one. And a little man in a little plane, complete with flying helmet, in Hertford in 1929.

How's that?
Click to expand...

That's pretty good! That's exactly what I was thinking of.

Any links that you know of?
 
http://naturalplane.blogspot.ie/2012/11 ... nomes.html
OR
https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2012/11/the-wollaton-park-driving-gnomes.html

I first heard about this story in Graham Hancock's Supernatural, which also included one of the children's sketches of the gnomes. The story was featured in FT 31.


Here's the 1940 Cornwall sighting from Janet Bord:
Over six years before the Wollaton fairies were reported in the media, I had corresponded with Marina Fry of Cornwall, who wrote to me giving details of her own fairy sighting when she was nearly four years old, around 1940. One night she and her older sisters, all sleeping in one bedroom, awoke to hear a buzzing noise (one sister said 'music and bells'). Looking out of the window they saw a little man in a tiny red car driving around in circles'. He was about 18 inches tall and had a white beard and a 'droopy pointed hat '…he just disappeared after a while.[25]
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
UFO in Wollaton Park?

The gnomes in cars of 1979 get mentioned from time to time on the board. I see they have this dedicated thread!

I was unaware until today of a UFO picture taken in the same park around 1965-66.

As an oddly-framed image of the purported subject - children at play - it arouses suspicion as a hoax, especially since the photographer - one G. G. was the "official photographer" of a youthful UFO group.

As so often, experts - in this case, Kodak - could find no fault with the film or the camera.

I think it must just be a weird park! :huh:

Wollaton Ghosts Here.

A White Lady and Mystery Light Here.

Flying Cars and Flying Bedsteads in the Area.
 
Last edited:
Did you see the Wollaton Park gnomes? Nottingham's most bizarre phenomenom under new investigation
By LynetteP | Posted: February 14, 2017

15855084-large.jpg

A British folklore writer is trying to track down witnesses to the famous Wollaton Park gnomes sighting nearly 40 years ago.

The extraordinary encounter, where six primary schoolchildren claimed to have seen gnomes with Noddy-style caps driving bubble cars around the park, was widely reported by the Nottingham Post and national press and has long fascinated enthusiasts of unexplained phenomena.

Now writer and historian Dr Simon Young wants to conduct an in-depth study into the tale, which happened in September 1979.

The children - Angela Elliott and brother Glen, Andrew Pearce and his sister Rosie, Patrick Olive and Julie (surname unknown), all aged between eight and ten, were on an early evening walk when they claimed to have spotted 60 little men, half their height, with long white beards wearing blue tops and yellow tights. The youngsters spent 15 minutes with the 'gnomes' whose little cars could jump over logs and any obstacles in their path.


Read more at nottinghampost.com/did-you-see-the-wollaton-park-gnomes-nottingham-s-most-bizarre-phenomenum/story-30134603-detail/story.html
Link is dead. No archived version available.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I love this story! It keeps on coming back.
 
I had forgotten this story and thanks for the bump. [Edited - because I said I knew nothing about the story but have already posted on this thread! Memory, eh?!]

If you don't want to stump up for the book, here's the author Simon Young's thoughts on the story in a short form - it's genuinely fascinating. (The Nottingham Post link no longer works.)

https://www.strangehistory.net/2022/01/31/dark-thoughts-on-the-wollaton-gnomes/
 
Last edited:
Excellent analysis by the Beachcomber:


"Three of the children were interviewed about what they saw in the Swamps. The descriptions were remarkably detailed. They talked of the colour of the beards and clothes (trousers with patches). They talked of the hats of the gnomes and also of the colour of their cars. They stated confidently that there were thirty cars with sixty gnomes: each of the three kids repeated these exact numbers. It would have been absolutely impossible to see these things under normal night-time conditions.

Both the headmaster who asked the questions in the transcript, Robin Aldridge, and Marjorie Johnson in her report recognised that the lack of light was a real problem. The headmaster asked the children individually how they had seen things given the lack of light. Patrick talked of the gnomes glowing in the dark (‘They showed up’); Andrew claimed that there was a light in the trees (‘we seen a light in the trees hanging’). Marjorie Johnson, who believed the account, insisted that fairies have their own light and can be seen in the dark. Almost all derivative accounts, including contemporary newspapers, just skimmed over these awkward details."

And:

"Reading between the lines it appears that the half dozen Wollaton kids (and perhaps local kids generally) had a private folklore about the park and some mysterious beings that lived there. This could be taken as useful proof that the Wollaton children really did see gnomes on that Sunday night in 1979. Or, alternatively, this could be the context that we need to explain how a dunking in the mud in the dark,* perhaps associated with some minor stimulus, became an encounter with a flotilla of gnome cars.

The mystery remains: the conversation will continue.

* My guess would be that the two children falling in the mud was central to the experience. All three kids put it in the heart of their account."


So is Wollaton Park the Rendlesham for British fairy researchers...?
 
No observations here, other than a) that analysis is indeed excellent and b) I now find myself with the urge to repeat the phrase "flotilla of gnome cars", a la Fort and "vast black thing, poised like a crow".
 
According to one of the online retellings of this, there is a second-hand story of a confession that the whole thing was invented at the instigation of one of the older kids.

Having read through the information linked above this wouldn't surprise me, perhaps in the context of something initially made up to scare the younger ones but which took on a life of its own - maybe even to the point where it seemed real.

The puzzling bit is why gnomes. In 1979 you'd have imagined lots of other, more scary things that could have been made up. Simon Young accurately observes that there may have been a pre existing tradition to draw on, perhaps largely unnoticed by adults.
 
BS3 said:
The puzzling bit is why gnomes. In 1979 you'd have imagined lots of other, more scary things that could have been made up. Simon Young accurately observes that there may have been a pre existing tradition to draw on, perhaps largely unnoticed by adults.
Click to expand...

Here's one possible explanation ...

The popular book Gnomes by Wil Huygen was first published in English in 1977 as a hardcover edition. The even more popular softcover edition was issued in 1979.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Here's one possible explanation ...

The popular book Gnomes by Wil Huygen was first published in English in 1977 as a hardcover edition. The even more popular softcover edition was issued in 1979.
Click to expand...

This is a very, very good spot - although Huygen's gnomes were much smaller than the sort of things indicated by the children; speaking as someone who grew up at the same time in a similarly working class environment as that suggested here, neither does the cultural context feel quite right to me.

Noddy is a more obvious point of reference but this, to me, feels too old fashioned and childish to form the basis of this kind of story amongst 9 or 10 year olds. Having said all that, casting my mind back to the stories that circulated in primary school - the brother of a friend who'd seen a landed flying object on some waste ground and was tripped over by something invisible; the person who heard mysterious voices in the school building - there is a definite feel of those tales that were passed around with an almost ritualistic assurance they were true, even as we somehow understood they were not. If that makes sense.
 
Last edited:
I did note, when I listened to the podcast about this, that a couple of children ran away from the wood, saying they'd seen something (after falling in the mud) and the others ran with them, giving the chance for a kind of group hysteria fuelled by stories spreading among the group (if your friends are running and telling you that there's something terrifying going on behind you - you run, and pick up what was going on later). I wonder if we are coming into 'marsh gas' territory too - that stagnant mud may have held gases that caused the two kids who fell to see 'something', and that the story just grew as stories among children will, until they were all convinced that they saw something.

Which would also account for the consistency of some parts (what they saw) because this is what they'd talked about whilst walking around before going home - a kind of 'did you see the big one with the hair?' 'Err, yeah, I think so,' 'And did he have a hat on? I'm sure he was wearing a red hat!' 'Um, yes, now you come to say it...yes, he did, a big red hat!' And then the inconsistent parts, like the source of the light they saw this all by, was the part that they didn't talk about, because it didn't occur to them.

So, does anyone else think that this may actually be a genuine case for 'swamp gas?'
 
catseye said:
I did note, when I listened to the podcast about this, that a couple of children ran away from the wood, saying they'd seen something (after falling in the mud) and the others ran with them, giving the chance for a kind of group hysteria fuelled by stories spreading among the group (if your friends are running and telling you that there's something terrifying going on behind you - you run, and pick up what was going on later). I wonder if we are coming into 'marsh gas' territory too - that stagnant mud may have held gases that caused the two kids who fell to see 'something', and that the story just grew as stories among children will, until they were all convinced that they saw something.

Which would also account for the consistency of some parts (what they saw) because this is what they'd talked about whilst walking around before going home - a kind of 'did you see the big one with the hair?' 'Err, yeah, I think so,' 'And did he have a hat on? I'm sure he was wearing a red hat!' 'Um, yes, now you come to say it...yes, he did, a big red hat!' And then the inconsistent parts, like the source of the light they saw this all by, was the part that they didn't talk about, because it didn't occur to them.

So, does anyone else think that this may actually be a genuine case for 'swamp gas?'
Click to expand...

The Little Blue Man of Studham Common has a lot in common (unintentional pun) with this case, I think.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top