Terry Lovelace / Devil's Den UFO encounter (1977)

[Eponastill]

I expect you might know of this incident (it definitely rang a bell for me) - Terry and his friend were medics in the USAF, and they went on a camping trip in Arkansas, and wound up in a spot that they weren't really supposed to be in. During the night they saw a huge UFO, and strange beings, and in the morning 'realised' they had been abducted by them (all this with a strange oz factor air). Also they were extremely dehydrated and their skin was burnt. They dashed home, but his friend had left his bag behind and it contained his identification - when the authorities caught up with them they stopped the two men speaking to each other. Plus there are various other weird circumstances and happenings.

Today I listened to the recent podcast from 'Mysteries and Monsters' in which Paul Bestall interviews Terry Lovelace - it's excellent because Paul is a very good listener and lets his guests speak without egotistical banter and interruption. Terry Lovelace talks very compellingly and you very much get the impression that he his telling the truth (his truth at least) about whatever the hell it was he experienced. It's pretty out there stuff to a non-fortean I'd have thought but you don't feel like he's exaggerating, in fact his story is pretty straightforward really. (Being a fan of fairies I can't help thinking of inherently strange places and strange lights and otherworldly beings and being kidnapped, but that's beside the point, as the podcast is essentially a discussion of what he describes as happening, rather than what it might have 'been').

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's one of the few mentions of this incident already posted on the forum.

From Terry Lovelace, at Devil's Den:

"I woke up at 3:00 AM to brilliant multicolor lights, white, yellow, and orange illuminated the inside of our tent. Through a rear small net-window I saw the forest behind us was lit-up like a night game at the ballpark. I noticed my clothing and boots were all askew.

I pushed Toby aside, so we could both look outside toward the meadow. There was an enormous UFO as large as a five-story office building. It was a triangle with each leg being about a city block in length. It was fifty feet tall and sat stationary, thirty feet over the meadow floor. There was a noise too. It was a low bass hum or drone. Not so much loud as it was powerful. It was like standing nest to a running diesel train engine or a large industrial machine.

We saw what I first took to be children walking around the meadow underneath the triangle. There was a column of white light, about thirty feet in diameter shining down from the center of the triangle. We watched as these little people walked into the light and just dissolved, one by one until they were gone. The hum stopped and the corner lights all returned to brilliant white. The white cylinder from the middle stopped and the thing rose about like a hot air balloon. It made a one-third (clockwise?) rotation and continued its ascent, picking up speed until it was high in the sky and then gone. "

COPIED FROM:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...ounters-newspaper-articles.65811/post-1859255

 

[Eponastill]

Here's one of the few mentions of this incident already posted on the forum.

Thank you Enola, I did have a look and thought it was quite strange the case didn't have much discussion or its own thread, so I hope you don't mind me adding it. I think it probably merits one as it's got lots of 'classic weird features' and Lovelace has written a book and often talks about it (although only relatively recently I think).
It sounds somewhat 'Close Encounters' but I see the film didn't actually come out until the end of the year.

 

[feinman]

Here he is:

I hadn't heard all of the details before. It kind of reminds me of this:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/events-near-coal-creek-wa-usa.67121/#post-1949675

 

[EnolaGaia]

Thank you Enola, I did have a look and thought it was quite strange the case didn't have much discussion or its own thread, so I hope you don't mind me adding it. I think it probably merits one as it's got lots of 'classic weird features' and Lovelace has written a book and often talks about it (although only relatively recently I think). ...

It's an interesting case, and certainly substantive enough to warrant its own thread. I just wanted to note the extent to which it had been mentioned / discussed before.

I'm still not certain how much or how often Lovelace mentioned the incident between 1977 and the publication of his book (2018?). His blurb at GoodReads suggests he remained quiet about the incident until 2012 ...

I'm a 64-year-old retired lawyer and former Assistant Attorney General with an extraordinary story to tell. Every word of it is true. For fear of losing my job and damage to my reputation in the legal community, I kept a secret. I was silent for forty years until circumstances in 2012 compelled me to eventually speak out. ...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show...devils-den-a-true-story-by-terry-lovelace-esq

It was 2012 when the mysterious object was discovered on X-rays of his leg. According to his introductory summary at his website:

https://www.terrylovelace.com/about/

... it was 2017 when he first publicly spoke about his experience and decided to write the book.

 

[dr wu]

A classic alien and abduction encounter.....almost textbook. But a triangle ufo rather than a silver saucer and with more than just a few aliens.
A real alien abduction event....or something else.?

 

[feinman]

What is interesting about the event --if it happened, is the laser-like beam of purple light that seemed to be scanning the area before the central light beam came out the the object and the small robotic humanoids began to cruise around looking like they had sore feet. Seems like some kind of hologram to me. Area was scanned to determine topography and then "creatures" projected and re-absorbed.

 

[Victory]

It's got everything.

Strange spaceship, flashing lights, laser type lights, "Oz factor still air", abduction of "trusted" a man working in the military by aliens, who carry out experiments on him, and an implanted microchip type device discovered years later.
Plus PTSD and worse for the abductees.

So it's either a well crafted work of fiction or it's a genuine "five star template" for abductions.