The Broad Haven Triangle / Ripperston Farm Case

[BS3]

Having said all that, I do note that in his article Evans suggests that Josephine Hewison's sighting on 26 March (the 50 foot aluminium-coloured "jelly mould" in front of her greenhouse) may have been genuinely "paranormal" in the sense that there is nothing that obviously explains it, unlike many of the other incidents.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

The thing is that I guess the witness wouldn't have expected to see welding there at night either. A normal thing seen under unusual circumstances - the ideal conditions for misperception, in other words. However given the presence of things connected with the ROC post that might require welding, or maybe oxyacetyline cutting, it's plausible that some welding could have been going on, even if it wasn't an everyday sort of occurrence.

According to:

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/broadhaven-roc-post-pembrokeshire-group-dec-07.25167/

... these bunkers used Battleship padlocks:

"Nowadays they are a little dated in technology but still solid as a rock as a high security padlock"

https://www.padlocks.co.uk/products/lever-padlocks/union-battleship-1k11

Can see how a key might get stuck in the mechanism requiring the padlock to be cut or worse still perhaps the Private Pike of the Broad Haven ROC had lost the keys. Certainly a bunker that they were unable to lock shut would represent a significant security risk and potential embarrassment in 1977.

Well, it is a theory, however we should still consider what the witness Rosa believes she saw (abnormally long legs and arms and pointed, faceless heads) and also particular the location she believes this took place i.e. in her field and not by the ROC post. I don't give much weight to finding depressions in the grass etc as these could very well be natural. We also have to consider that the ROC were all retired off once the bunkers were closed and declassified and yet no-one has come forward to spill the beans on what happened that night.

 

[BS3]

It was a bit of an eye-opener to read that the Coombs family had a couple of neighbours, Brian and Caroline Klass (!), living immediately adjacent to them during all this strangeness but that no-one actually sought confirmation from the Klasses of what was going on.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

It was a bit of an eye-opener to read that the Coombs family had a couple of neighbours, Brian and Caroline Klass (!), living immediately adjacent to them during all this strangeness but that no-one actually sought confirmation from the Klasses of what was going on.

You can see the two buildings here:

I suspect from the Evans article that they didn't get along all that well

 

[Robbrent]

Like all the old cases the zone is now completely flooded by theories and so called explanations that it's impossible to investigate by hindsight

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Like all the old cases the zone is now completely flooded by theories and so called explanations that it's impossible to investigate by hindsight

Yet it pulls at me like a magnet, no doubt due to being 8 years old when the whole 'Welsh Triangle' broke in the mainstream press and featured on an 'John Cravens Newsround'. Then a couple of years later Paget's 'Welsh Triangle was one of the first UFO books I ever read. Also, the rural landscape, people, coastline, RAF base and dairy farming in West Wales were very much like my north Devon surroundings at that time.

 

[catseye]

You can see the two buildings here:

View attachment 74286


I suspect from the Evans article that they didn't get along all that well

COMPLETELY off topic, but I love the way the dog is staring at the photographer! I really hope (knowing Border Collies as I do) that he/she had a good sturdy gate between them and the dog.

 

[SimonBurchell]

With thanks to @lordmongrove for finding this online stash of 'Unexplained' magazines, here is the analysis of the so-called Welsh Triangle events by Hilary Evans that I hadn't read for nearly forty years:

https://archive.org/details/the-unexplained-part-44-optimized/page/874/mode/2up?view=theater

It does not make comfortable reading for anyone like my teenage self that took the Peter Paget and Pugh & Holiday books at face value and debunks some of the less credible claims. As regards those Broad Haven schoolchildren who claimed to have seen a cigar-shaped UFO:

View attachment 74212



I don't agree with all her conclusions - especially as regards the entity in the window of Ripperstone Farm being hoaxers* - but this article represents a worthy dose of realism after the national media sensationalised the events.


* There are witnesses to Billy and Pauline Coombes being genuinely frightened and the humanoid/entity did not vanish (do a runner) after it had their attention but lingered for many minutes, even after Billy had rung the farm manager. So given the location several miles from town and the layout of the site, any hoaxers would have had to do a serious amount of trespassing just to reach the farmhouse and therefore there was a significant risk of hoaxers being apprehended either at the scene or whilst making their escape. Much easier to scare some people down in the town.

Just a quick correction - Hilary Evans was a bloke.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

COMPLETELY off topic, but I love the way the dog is staring at the photographer! I really hope (knowing Border Collies as I do) that he/she had a good sturdy gate between them and the dog.

Actually glad you mention that as the dog was in the front room with them that late night when the entity/humanoid/hoaxer in the silver suit and visored helmet appeared at the window. You would expect a farm dog like thetas to go bonkers and be desperate to get out there and have a go but the Coombes report it was instead cowering in the corner of the room with its tail between its legs

 

[Fanari_Lloyd]

Yet it pulls at me like a magnet, no doubt due to being 8 years old when the whole 'Welsh Triangle' broke in the mainstream press and featured on an 'John Cravens Newsround'. Then a couple of years later Paget's 'Welsh Triangle was one of the first UFO books I ever read. Also, the rural landscape, people, coastline, RAF base and dairy farming in West Wales were very much like my north Devon surroundings at that time.

I still find it interesting, too, even after years. I found the Dyfed Enigma book very interesting, too. I do love that part of the world anyway, and used to spend many holidays around there as a child and before the Welsh Triangle news broke.

 

[catseye]

Actually glad you mention that as the dog was in the front room with them that late night when the entity/humanoid/hoaxer in the silver suit and visored helmet appeared at the window. You would expect a farm dog like thetas to go bonkers and be desperate to get out there and have a go but the Coombes report it was instead cowering in the corner of the room with its tail between its legs

I dunno, Collies are very clever dogs. If it had been an ordinary person at the window I would expect it to go bonkers, but the fact it didn't would indicate to me that this was either a person who smelled very weird (chemical suit?) or was not behaving like a human (model/dummy?). Or alien, of course.

My last collie struggled with my friend's son, who is autistic. The lad had body language that the dog couldn't read, which made a dog who was usually very friendly to people behave in an 'alert, but standoffish' way.

 

[BS3]

Yet it pulls at me like a magnet, no doubt due to being 8 years old when the whole 'Welsh Triangle' broke in the mainstream press and featured on an 'John Cravens Newsround'. Then a couple of years later Paget's 'Welsh Triangle was one of the first UFO books I ever read. Also, the rural landscape, people, coastline, RAF base and dairy farming in West Wales were very much like my north Devon surroundings at that time.

Despite the obvious holes, it's a great one as flaps go. It's got underwater bases, the military, bonkers poltergeist stuff, teleporting cows, multiple witness sightings, dog reactions, and sinister, inscrutable silver-clad geeks all over the place. The entities don't so much come in peace as menace people incomprehensibly. I can't help wondering what Keel would have made of it.

 

[BS3]

I dunno, Collies are very clever dogs. If it had been an ordinary person at the window I would expect it to go bonkers, but the fact it didn't would indicate to me that this was either a person who smelled very weird (chemical suit?) or was not behaving like a human (model/dummy?). Or alien, of course.

I assume it was a Border collie; if it had been an actual Welsh collie it would probably have taken the head off whatever was in the window. Beautiful dogs but a bit...harsh

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Despite the obvious holes, it's a great one as flaps go. It's got underwater bases, the military, bonkers poltergeist stuff, teleporting cows, multiple witness sightings, dog reactions, and sinister, inscrutable silver-clad geeks all over the place. The entities don't so much come in peace as menace people incomprehensibly. I can't help wondering what Keel would have made of it.

Great summary.

Although once the tabloids got involved it was always going to turn a bit Silly Season and whilst there are potential rational explanations for much of what went wrong (still not buying the hoaxers beyond the one blatant case), there still remains an element of the unknown at the heart of it and long may that continue. Thankfully we have detailed accounts of what went on nearly 50 years ago and will we ever experience such a flap again or was this a 20th Century phenomenon?

There still remains the lingering possibility that one of the Coombes children will come forward as adults and provide new information. Thus far, we have only heard from the Broad Haven school children as adults sticking to what they believe they saw and Rosa Graville's daughter (Haven Fort hotel sightings) backing up her mother's accounts

 

[BS3]

Great summary.

Although once the tabloids got involved it was always going to turn a bit Silly Season and whilst there are potential rational explanations for much of what went wrong (still not buying the hoaxers beyond the one blatant case), there still remains an element of the unknown at the heart of it and long may that continue. Thankfully we have detailed accounts of what went on nearly 50 years ago and will we ever experience such a flap again or was this a 20th Century phenomenon?

There still remains the lingering possibility that one of the Coombes children will come forward as adults and provide new information. Thus far, we have only heard from the Broad Haven school children as adults sticking to what they believe they saw and Rosa Graville's daughter (Haven Fort hotel sightings) backing up her mother's accounts

I think there's a lot of value in there as an outbreak of Fortean stuff. Even some of the weaker sightings have interesting elements - while Deborah Swan's, as mentioned earlier, was reported by a child out looking for flying saucers, the actual sighting (a small, oddly moving silver football thing) isn't exactly what you'd expect a witness to fabricate under those circumstances.

There's certainly room to question what it was exactly the witnesses were seeing - whether that was mundane stuff, military activity, their own anxieties projected onto the sky and surroundings, or something else. And indeed, whether this process might have been encouraged by anyone beyond eager ufologists.

For me it also has a certain appeal as it all seemed very close to home...something underscored by the rather domestic, cosy quality to a lot of Pugh's book. In childhood UFOs seemed more of an American phenomenon (presumably as nearly all the 'classic' cases in books were located there) so stuff like Pembrokeshire certainly added a frisson of excited anxiety to evening walks home through the Welsh countryside.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

I think there's a lot of value in there as an outbreak of Fortean stuff. Even some of the weaker sightings have interesting elements - while Deborah Swan's, as mentioned earlier, was reported by a child out looking for flying saucers, the actual sighting (a small, oddly moving silver football thing) isn't exactly what you'd expect a witness to fabricate under those circumstances.

There's certainly room to question what it was exactly the witnesses were seeing - whether that was mundane stuff, military activity, their own anxieties projected onto the sky and surroundings, or something else. And indeed, whether this process might have been encouraged by anyone beyond eager ufologists.

For me it also has a certain appeal as it all seemed very close to home...something underscored by the rather domestic, cosy quality to a lot of Pugh's book. In childhood UFOs seemed more of an American phenomenon (presumably as nearly all the 'classic' cases in books were located there) so stuff like Pembrokeshire certainly added a frisson of excited anxiety to evening walks home through the Welsh countryside.

"For me it also has a certain appeal as it all seemed very close to home...something underscored by the rather domestic, cosy quality to a lot of Pugh's book. In childhood UFOs seemed more of an American phenomenon (presumably as nearly all the 'classic' cases in books were located there) so stuff like Pembrokeshire certainly added a frisson of excited anxiety to evening walks home through the Welsh countryside."

So true...! In 1977 I was nine when John Craven featured the sightings on 'Newsround' and my stepbrother and I would dare each other to walk down the lane after dark and beyond the last streetlight where the 'giant spacemen" might get us. Then a couple of years later we went on a caravan holiday to West Wales (Welsh stepdad) but not as far as Dyfed sadly, Still, it was in a local shop that I purchased my copy of Paget's 'The Welsh Triangle'and this further fulled my interest in the case (and some nightmares!). Then as a teenager a small gang of us would go and camp in the local woods and sit around a fire smoking cigarettes (cider too if we were lucky) and discussing these events in hushed tones whilst glancing up at the stars. events that as you rightly state were so 'close to home"...

 

[BS3]

"For me it also has a certain appeal as it all seemed very close to home...something underscored by the rather domestic, cosy quality to a lot of Pugh's book. In childhood UFOs seemed more of an American phenomenon (presumably as nearly all the 'classic' cases in books were located there) so stuff like Pembrokeshire certainly added a frisson of excited anxiety to evening walks home through the Welsh countryside."

So true...! In 1977 I was nine when John Craven featured the sightings on 'Newsround' and my stepbrother and I would dare each other to walk down the lane after dark and beyond the last streetlight where the 'giant spacemen" might get us. Then a couple of years later we went on a caravan holiday to West Wales (Welsh stepdad) but not as far as Dyfed sadly, Still, it was in a local shop that I purchased my copy of Paget's 'The Welsh Triangle'and this further fulled my interest in the case (and some nightmares!). Then as a teenager a small gang of us would go and camp in the local woods and sit around a fire smoking cigarettes (cider too if we were lucky) and discussing these events in hushed tones whilst glancing up at the stars. events that as you rightly state were so 'close to home"...

Yes, this is so close to my own experience, although I was just too young to remember the reporting at the time (earliest news memory in 1978).

Despite the sinister sort of atmosphere, one important thing about this pre-1980s flap is the lack of actual threat. Cattle aren't mutilated; merely teleported. The spacemen do not abduct anyone, just chase (unsuccessfully) after you or stand there with "wiggling fingers" like pantomime villains. They don't travel through walls and enter houses, staring in at the window instead. This is just the right level of creepiness before things went off the rails into government conspiracyland a few years later.