The Broad Haven Triangle / Ripperston Farm Case

[BS3]

Incidentally I wonder if anyone has seen a copy of the 1996 Western Mail newspaper article in which local businessman Glyn Edwards claimed responsibility for some of the 1977 humanoid sightings.

This seems to often be represented as a confession that he wandered around in the guise of a 'spaceman' several times, but I've also seen a suggestion that he was only talking about the incident at Haven Fort Hotel (19/4/77), which he happened to pass on the way back from a Round Table fancy dress party. Does anyone know which is correct?

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Incidentally I wonder if anyone has seen a copy of the 1996 Western Mail newspaper article in which local businessman Glyn Edwards claimed responsibility for some of the 1977 humanoid sightings.

This seems to often be represented as a confession that he wandered around in the guise of a 'spaceman' several times, but I've also seen a suggestion that he was only talking about the incident at Haven Fort Hotel (19/4/77), which he happened to pass on the way back from a Round Table fancy dress party. Does anyone know which is correct?

I very much doubt he was wandering around isolated Ripperstone Farm but the Haven Fort is plausible.

Personally I feel his personality-type is someone who is a bit of a wag and local legend on the pub scene and likes a bit attention. I say this from my experience of working in hospitality and rural pubs. It was always fascinating what got discussed amongst locals over a few beers and can see how a suggestion many years after the events that it might have been ‘so-and-so’ (in this case Glyn) would elicit a (false) confession.

I say this because he failed to offer up a single, fading photograph of him in his suit or any other corroborating evidence or witnesses. Cameras would have been flashing at these social events and I feel there should at least have been one photograph, even just with him in the background. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, the Haven Fort lady clearly described two humanoids, not one .

 

[Paul_Exeter]

The Haven Fort Hotel lady denied she had been the victim of a hoaxer following Glyn Edward’s claims:

“In his report, Flt Lt Cowan did mention the possibility that "a local prankster" was at work, and when contacted recently, he said the description of aliens from many witnesses "fitted exactly the type of protective suit that would be used in the event of a fire at one of the local oil refineries at Milford Haven". This indeed seems to have been the case as in 1996, the Western Mail carried a report in which a 44-year-old businessman Glyn Edwards admitted he had wandered around the area in a silver suit in 1977 as a prank. The fact the RAF did an investigation of a UFO encounter is unique, as far as I'm aware Dr David Clarke "Alien sightings were all the rage, so I took a stroll around for a bit of fun," he is reported as saying. However, Mrs Granville remains insistent that she had not been the subject of a hoax. "You will always get silly people pretending, but what I saw was definitely humanoid," she said. Looking back now, Mrs Granville said she wished there had been an explanation from nearby RAF Brawdy”​

https://expedhistory.weebly.com/exped-history.html

Sorty about the font from the copy and paste…!

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Notice he says alien sightings “were all the rage”. I will need to check the timeline of events to see how soon into the Welsh flap tis humanoid case and the Ripperstone farm humanoid at the window cases were in comparison with the highly publicised school sighting.

He also stated that e female landowner had gone to get a shotgun (or words to that effect). Seems unlikely this was Rosa the hotel owner as licences are usuall6 only awarded to landowners for vermin control and sport and thee was no mention of a shotgun in the three books on this subject (iir). Also to reiterate, Rosa the hotel lady reported two humanoids.

I don’t know Glyn Edwards and so might be doing him a disservice, but personally his ‘confession’ lacked details such as places, times and corroborating evidence/witnesses. His is easy to find online and became a company director in 1980, so not sure of his occupation in 1977 but nowadays he sells office equipment.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Delighted to find this on the internet:

https://www.babiafi.co.uk/2022/02/the-dyfed-enigma.html

It is an online copy of 'The Dyfed Enigma" which has long since been out of print.

Rosa the hotel lady saw the two humanoids and an illuminated rugby ball shaped object at around 02.00 am on a Monday morning (18/04/77). Was our mate Glynn really wandering around in a fire suit in deserted Little Haven at 02.00 am on a Monday morning? The pub would have shut at 10.30pm and its unlikely there was any sort of dinner dance happening on a Sunday evening (not in my hotel experience). Must have been quite boring for him to say the least...

So a long answer to your question BS3, but I'm ruling out his involvement in the principal Haven Fort Hotel sighting.

 

[BS3]

Looking through The Dyfed Enigma again I was surprised by a couple of things about the Broad Haven sighting. First was that the sighting by staff was in fact a whole 13 days after the original incident, not 3 days (as I'd thought).

Second is that one of the children appears to say "up from the bush popped a cigar-shaped object and then we all ran. The cigar object seemed to be tugging an object which was silver". Does this mean he saw one object pulling another? Do UFOs often pull trailers, or is this another clue to what they were seeing?

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Looking through The Dyfed Enigma again I was surprised by a couple of things about the Broad Haven sighting. First was that the sighting by staff was in fact a whole 13 days after the original incident, not 3 days (as I'd thought).

Second is that one of the children appears to say "up from the bush popped a cigar-shaped object and then we all ran. The cigar object seemed to be tugging an object which was silver". Does this mean he saw one object pulling another? Do UFOs often pull trailers, or is this another clue to what they were seeing?

One of the boys even says he thought it was a farm muck-spreader but it was "too low".

The idea it was a farm vehicle or vehicles was apparently ruled out by a UFO researcher or researchers taking a look at the field and deciding no vehicle could navigate the mud, which is not exactly scientific and they were not farmers accustomed to driving two- and four-wheel-drive tractors.

You will notice from this book that the Spock-like alien is mentioned by one of the witnesses as being apparently seen by one of the other boys, yet it wasn't seen by himself. I'm firmly convinced from the evidence I have read that this other boy invented the Spock-like alien with the pointed ears over the weekend and probably as a consequence of feeling left out after having missed the entirety of the actual sighting. Yet if you look at the media reports his account and drawing of Mr Spock the alien is given equal if not greater prominence to the drawings by the boys who actually saw the 'vehicle'

As you have seen, I will defend the later witnesses who encountered flying craft, landed craft and silver-suited humanoids as I have yet to read a convincing explanation of what it was they all witnessed. However, I'm more and more certain these schoolchildren witnessed a farm vehicle they could not recognise and to reiterate, at no point was it airborne.

 

[BS3]

One of the boys even says he though it was a farm muck-spreader but it was "too low".

The idea it was a farm vehicle or vehicles was apparently ruled out by a UFO researcher or researchers taking a look at the field and deciding no vehicle could navigate the mud, which is not exactly scientific and they were not farmers accustomed to driving two- and four-wheel-drive tractors.

You will notice from this book that the Spock-like alien is mentioned by one of the witnesses as being apparently seen by one of the other boys, yet it wasn't't seen by himself. I'm firmly convinced from the evidence I have read that this other boy invented the Spock-like alien with the pointed ears over the weekend and probably as a consequence of feeling left out after having missed the entirety of the actual sighting. Yet if you look at the media reports his account and drawing of Mr Spock the alien is given equal if not greater prominence to the drawings by the boys who actually saw the 'vehicle'

As you have seen, I will defend the later witnesses who encountered flying craft, landed craft and silver-suited humanoids as I have yet to read a convincing explanation of what it was they all witnessed. However, I'm more and more certain these schoolchildren witnessed a farm vehicle they could not recognise and to reiterate, at no point was it airborne.

I think there are a couple of possibilities with the usual argument about the 'inacessible' field. The first is that due to some peculiarity of the terrain, the object was a bit further away than the witnesses assumed, closer to the sewage farm.

The second is that the 'morass' found by the researchers / witnesses was there precisely because a vehicle had churned it up. Heavy rain during the period (and the witnesses do seem to talk about rain quite a lot - as someone familiar with this part of the world I'm not surprised!) might have meant that any specific tyre or track marks were obscured.

Either way I'm not convinced by a simple assertion that vehicles couldn't possibly have accessed the spot - as you said farmers are pretty good at manoeuvring heavy machinery. I still think if a tanker was involved (and a humming noise - maybe some pumping going on?) there's a small possibility that slurry was being discharged into the watercourse nearby which might explain reticence around claiming responsibility.

Thinking of the area around my own primary school, we were very familiar with the topography but in limited way. Across the road from the gates was a steep field, a stream, and then a wooded former colliery site with old buildings and the like, but we had no idea of the finer details of what was actually in there (vehicles involved in reclamation and the like would occasionally 'appear' among the trees, but how exactly they got onto or about the site was a mystery). Perhaps there's an element of that here, perhaps not.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Incidentally, a classic example of a leading question from a UFO researcher, especially when you consider he was talking to a primary school child:

'Were there any portholes or windows or anything that you could see?'

"portholes"? Really? talk about trying to push the interview towards the extraterrestrial...!

Then we have the evidence that these young minds were already buzzing with 1970s UFO excitement:

"Pugh now turned to Michael Webb.

'What was your reaction, Michael, when David first spotted this craft and you first saw it?'

'I thought it was a UFO.'

'What made your thoughts run on those lines?'

'Well, a few days ago, up in Yorkshire, there was this sighting of a space-ship. It was exactly the same as we saw and ... well, nothing could have got into that field, man-made.'

'So the craft in the Yorkshire sighting was very similar to the one you saw in the field here and that made you think it was a UFO instead of anything man-made?'

'Yes.'"

Notice Pugh refers to it as a "craft" yet to reiterate at no time was this "craft' airborne.

 

[BS3]

Incidentally, a classic example of a leading question from a UFO researcher, especially when you consider he was talking to a primary school child:

'Were there any portholes or windows or anything that you could see?'

"portholes"? Really? talk about trying to push the interview towards the extraterrestrial...!

Then we have the evidence that these young minds were already buzzing with 1970s UFO excitement:

"Pugh now turned to Michael Webb.

'What was your reaction, Michael, when David first spotted this craft and you first saw it?'

'I thought it was a UFO.'

'What made your thoughts run on those lines?'

'Well, a few days ago, up in Yorkshire, there was this sighting of a space-ship. It was exactly the same as we saw and ... well, nothing could have got into that field, man-made.'

'So the craft in the Yorkshire sighting was very similar to the one you saw in the field here and that made you think it was a UFO instead of anything man-made?'

'Yes.'"

Notice Pugh refers to it as a "craft" yet to reiterate at no time was this "craft' airborne.

Yes, I'd noticed a few lines of questioning that would be torn to shreds in current ufology.

As the introduction makes clear, Pugh came to the subject having seen a UFO in Spain. He may therefore have had an underlying concern to validate what he had seen, ie. he was proceeding from certain assumptions (he also left the field after an apparent Albert Bender style experience, but that's another matter!)

 

[Paul_Exeter]

I think there are a couple of possibilities with the usual argument about the 'inacessible' field. The first is that due to some peculiarity of the terrain, the object was a bit further away than the witnesses assumed, closer to the sewage farm.

The second is that the 'morass' found by the researchers / witnesses was there precisely because a vehicle had churned it up. Heavy rain during the period (and the witnesses do seem to talk about rain quite a lot - as someone familiar with this part of the world I'm not surprised!) might have meant that any specific tyre or track marks were obscured.

Either way I'm not convinced by a simple assertion that vehicles couldn't possibly have accessed the spot - as you said farmers are pretty good at manoeuvring heavy machinery. I still think if a tanker was involved (and a humming noise - maybe some pumping going on?) there's a small possibility that slurry was being discharged into the watercourse nearby which might explain reticence around claiming responsibility.

Thinking of the area around my own primary school, we were very familiar with the topography but in limited way. Across the road from the gates was a steep field, a stream, and then a wooded former colliery site with old buildings and the like, but we had no idea of the finer details of what was actually in there (vehicles involved in reclamation and the like would occasionally 'appear' among the trees, but how exactly they got onto or about the site was a mystery). Perhaps there's an element of that here, perhaps not.

No attempt seems to have made to establish what type of farming was taking place on the farm owned by the farmer who owned this field. If he was a dairy farmer then slurry is a serious problem during the Winter months and heavy rain can cause slurry lagoons/storage to overflow. So borrowing a tanker and illegally discharging the slurry into a 'fast flowing' stream is unfortunately something that happened then and now. It is perhaps telling that the owner of this field doesn't seem to have volunteered himself for an interview...?

The canteen ladies thought they had seen a sewage lorry:

"Shortly after this incident on the same day, two ladies who work in the school canteen went outside the school and saw an object on the ground where the original sighting had taken place. They saw a figure climb into the machine and watched as the vehicle moved up a slop and disappeared behind trees. It was still raining, and as visibility was poor the canteen workers decided they must have seen a local council truck used for carting sewage."

Notice the inherent bias in the retelling of their experience:" It was raining, and as visibility was poor". Here Pugh has highlighted that the visibility was poor, and yet:

"This time the witnesses were adults. The first was a teacher at Broad Haven Primary School who happened to be leaving the buildings by a side entrance which faced the now notorious little field. This lady, who wishes to remain anonymous, provided us with a signed statement, as follows: 'On leaving school (side entrance facing east) something shining caught my eye. I stopped and could see a large object, oval-shaped, with a slight dome. Colour: shining metal. I also noted ridges and stepped back

intending to call someone, and then heard a humming noise and watched the object glide away to the left, in a field amongst trees. I know the area very well as I have frequently walked there. The time was approximately 10.30 a.m. and it was pouring with rain. Distance: about 200 yards.'

This teacher describes the object as silvery, sharply defined and saucer-shaped. It was almost at ground-level when she saw it glide away to her left. The actual sighting lasted between four and five seconds."

It was pouring with rain when the teacher saw the object and yet Pugh furnishes us with her detailed description of the object and presents it as fact - no poor visibility this time.

 

[BS3]

Vacuum slurry tankers are cigar shaped, quite low, and often have "ridges". I imagine designs weren't that different in 1977.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

View attachment 57585

View attachment 57586
Vacuum slurry tankers are cigar shaped, quite low, and often have "ridges". I imagine designs weren't that different in 1977.

Good find.

Note the wide, voluminous tyres especially designed with muddy fields in mind. The tractor itself could have been out of sight on slightly higher and drier ground and hidden behind trees or bushes (note how many times trees and bushes are mentioned in the narrative). The farmer then backed the tanker down towards the stream to discharge the load. he then had to give it a good tug with his tractor to get it back up onto, higher and drier ground, as noted by the boys.

This seems to be the closest farm to the field:

https://mountainfarm.co.uk

I base this on seeing a sign for the sunflowers they grow on Google maps on the turning to the farm buildings closest to the UFO field. of course farm ownerships change over time as does the produce they grow and livestock they farm. However, the land around Broad Haven is classic livestock farming terrain (similar to the land in Devon where I grew up).

I doubt they were growing the sunflowers in 1977 but note that today they do have a small herd of Hereford cattle and we know cattle =


Never thought I would find myself googling the history of farm slurry tankers:

"We launched our first tanker in 1964 with a capacity of 3 m3. The picture below is of one of our first slurry tankers (6 m3)."

https://samson-agro.com/about-us/our-story/

There is an illustration there from the 1960s that pretty much fits the bill if it was silver.

 

[BS3]

Good find.

Note the wide, voluminous tyres especially designed with muddy fields in mind. The tractor itself could have been out of sight on slightly higher and drier ground and hidden behind trees or bushes (note how many times trees and bushes are mentioned in the narrative). The farmer then backed the tanker down towards the stream to discharge the load. he then had to give it a good tug with his tractor to get it back up onto, higher and drier ground, as noted by the boys.

This seems to be the closest farm to the field:

https://mountainfarm.co.uk

I base this on seeing a sign for the sunflowers they grow on Google maps on the turning to the farm buildings closest to the UFO field. of course farm ownerships change over time as does the produce they grow and livestock they farm. However, the land around Broad Haven is classic livestock farming terrain (similar to the land in Devon where I grew up).

I doubt they were growing the sunflowers in 1977 but note that today they do have a small herd of Hereford cattle and we know cattle =


Never thought I would find myself googling the history of farm slurry tankers:

"We launched our first tanker in 1964 with a capacity of 3 m3. The picture below is of one of our first slurry tankers (6 m3)."

https://samson-agro.com/about-us/our-story/

There is an illustration there from the 1960s that pretty much fits the bill if it was silver.

Yes I think Pembrokeshire was largely dairying in that era - the same as where I grew up, until the Milk Marketing Board was done away with and all the smaller dairy farms finished in the 1990s.

At least one of the accounts I have seen mentioned a reddish or orange (can't remember which) flashing light on the 'object' which again suggests agricultural vehicle lighting.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Yes I think Pembrokeshire was largely dairying in that era - the same as where I grew up, until the Milk Marketing Board was done away with and all the smaller dairy farms finished in the 1990s.

At least one of the accounts I have seen mentioned a reddish or orange (can't remember which) flashing light on the 'object' which again suggests agricultural vehicle lighting.

It appears that Pugh downplayed the light, which was 'flashing yellow' in other accounts of the narrative. perhaps it was a bit awkward for him, given how determined he was to demonstrate this was an alien craft. If the farmer had hired in the equipment from a contractor, which I know to have been common practice for small farmers at that time - then it may well have come equipped with a pesky flashing yellow light that couldn't be turned off.

Or it was on the sewage truck. Perhaps a driver got his sewage track stuck and his colleagues were attempting to free it? But to my knowledge from reading the accounts the object was seen in a farmer's field and some distance from both the sewage plant and the track that leads to the sewage truck. Slurry can be a huge problem for farmers if the weather or time of year doesn't permit muck spreading on the fields and that's what my money is on.

Edit: back in 1977 it wasn't the law for a farm tractor to display a flashing yellow beacon and so this ought to be taken into account, although it may simply have been an errant indicator light that the tractor driver knocked 'on' whilst focused on reversing the tanker. From the perspective of the witnesses this flashing yellow light would have been above the tanker if the tractor was on higher, drier ground in the steeply sloping field.

 

[BS3]

Having said all the above it's been a real nostalgic pleasure to read 'Dyfed Enigma' again, only enhanced by the fact that I know all those places quite well (in a non-Fortean capacity).

Brings back a little of that childhood sensation of rather frightening wonders to be found maybe over the next hedge - the feeling of being "both enthralled and upset", to quote Mrs Tibbs of Johnston in the book.

 

[BS3]

On the subject of the amber flashing light.

It looks like the requirement to fit them to any slow moving vehicle came in with the 1984 vehicle lighting regulations. I agree I don't remember seeing them on tractors and the like before then.

The regulations in force in 1977 seem to have been the 1971 vehicle lighting regulations, which as far as I can make out suggest that amber warning beacons should be fitted to any breakdown, road clearance, road cleaning, watering or repair vehicles or anything doing stuff involving roads. I'm wondering whether a tractor used for breakdown work / towing might have had one.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

On the subject of the amber flashing light.

It looks like the requirement to fit them to any slow moving vehicle came in with the 1984 vehicle lighting regulations. I agree I don't remember seeing them on tractors and the like before then.

The regulations in force in 1977 seem to have been the 1971 vehicle lighting regulations, which as far as I can make out suggest that amber warning beacons should be fitted to any breakdown, road clearance, road cleaning, watering or repair vehicles or anything doing stuff involving roads. I'm wondering whether a tractor used for breakdown work / towing might have had one.

The yellow flashing light was not in every witness report over the 13-odd day timeframe of this ‘object’ being witnessed by teachers, canteen staff and the children. In fact I seem to remember it was only reported once. I personally feel the driver may have accidentally flicked on an indicator whilst wrestling with the trailer in the difficult conditions. Or perhaps left the indicator on after turning off the road and into the field. A flashing yellow light isn’t really a feature of the better UFO reports over the past decades.

 

[BS3]

After reading a bit more Dyfed Enigma I will say there are a very large number of dog reactions featured in it. I don't know if this reflects more on the British affection for pets, or the fact that Pugh was a retired vet.

There's a cosily domestic quality to some of the sightings: "I was eating a biscuit when this terrific red glow came out of nowhere".

 

[Paul_Exeter]

After reading a bit more Dyfed Enigma I will say there are a very large number of dog reactions featured in it. I don't know if this reflects more on the British affection for pets, or the fact that Pugh was a retired vet.

There's a cosily domestic quality to some of the sightings: "I was eating a biscuit when this terrific red glow came out of nowhere".

I know! I love the one were the farm woman is basically washing up at her sink and looks up to see a UFO blocking the view of their greenhouse Goes to get someone, they come back and it has gone... Have to say I am quite envious of these mundane sightings.

 

[BS3]

For me the weak bit of the book is when it almost inevitably goes off into ley lines, orthoteny, etc but I suppose there it's just reflecting its age and the concerns of Holliday. I was quite surprised to see it was published by Fabers, a large mainstream publisher.

It certainly has a very different feel to the American ufological books of the same sort of era, though I think with people like Fuller, Keel and even Keyhoe, the subject over there was quite fortunate to attract people who could spin an exciting, well-written narrative.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

For me the weak bit of the book is when it almost inevitably goes off into ley lines, orthoteny, etc but I suppose there it's just reflecting its age and the concerns of Holliday. I was quite surprised to see it was published by Fabers, a large mainstream publisher.

It certainly has a very different feel to the American ufological books of the same sort of era, though I think with people like Fuller, Keel and even Keyhoe, the subject over there was quite fortunate to attract people who could spin an exciting, well-written narrative.

It was by far the better of the three main books written at that time (The Uninvited, The Welsh Triangle).

Peter Paget's 'Welsh Triangle' was a personal account of his first-hand investigations, but this was the guy who ran that UFO centre in Warminster, thus his worked lacked any objectivity and he made some pretty 'out there' unsubstantiated claims, such as that there were two alien satellites orbiting our planet, who knew?. He then became fixated on the idea that a rock formation off the coast was an alien base from which the UFOs were operating, a claim based on some dubious long-range sightings of what were in all likelihood seabirds (the actual inhabitants of these rocks). Indeed, Jenny Randles later visited the separate witness locations and could barely see detail on the rocks, never mind being able to witness "humanoids entering a huge door". Ultimately, Paget reached the conclusion he had already decided upon before he met the first witness.

"The Uninvited' followed the pattern of the other two books but included a rather dramatic finale in which Pauline Coombes (the principal Ripperstone Farm witness) found herself being abducted onto a giant flying saucer on which there were many other local women, the implication being that some sort of hybrid breeding programme was taking place. Quite how the just this author got this information is highly questionable as quite early on, and following the initial media hysteria, Pauline refused to talk to anyone but Peter Paget and the only conclusion is that it was a work of fiction.

The focus on animal reactions in Pugh's book does at least suggest what is being witnessed is no mere hallucination, the problem being that you have only the word of the witness as to how the animal behaved.

.

 

[BS3]

It was by far the better of the three main books written at that time (The Uninvited, The Welsh Triangle).

Peter Paget's 'Welsh Triangle' was a personal account of his first-hand investigations, but this was the guy who ran that UFO centre in Warminster, thus his worked lacked any objectivity and he made some pretty 'out there' unsubstantiated claims, such as that there were two alien satellites orbiting our planet, who knew?. He then became fixated on the idea that a rock formation off the coast was an alien base from which the UFOs were operating, a claim based on some dubious long-range sightings of what were in all likelihood seabirds (the actual inhabitants of these rocks). Indeed, Jenny Randles later visited the separate witness locations and could barely see detail on the rocks, never mind being able to witness "humanoids entering a huge door". Ultimately, Paget reached the conclusion he had already decided upon before he met the first witness.

"The Uninvited' followed the pattern of the other two books but included a rather dramatic finale in which Pauline Coombes (the principal Ripperstone Farm witness) found herself being abducted onto a giant flying saucer on which there were many other local women, the implication being that some sort of hybrid breeding programme was taking place. Quite how the just this author got this information is highly questionable as quite early on, and following the initial media hysteria, Pauline refused to talk to anyone but Peter Paget and the only conclusion is that it was a work of fiction.

The focus on animal reactions in Pugh's book does at least suggest what is being witnessed is no mere hallucination, the problem being that you have only the witness' word that the animal behaved in that way.

.

Anecdotally I think animal reactions were a key part of the understanding at the time of what UFOs were about. Back in my Welsh primary school only a couple of years after the events of Broad Haven, we were given a story-writing exercise where the teacher fed us a few lines about seeing a UFO and we had to fill in the rest. I remember one of the ideas we were given was a dog reaction.

I was reminded a bit of Warminster at times, the Arthur Shuttlewood books are a real trove of now inadvertently-hilarious 60s ufology beliefs as it was in the process of changing into more general New Age stuff. It's easy to forget Warminster was only just finishing as the Welsh Triangle stuff got underway (I suppose this is one reason all these books attracted mainstream publishing support, whereas these days they'd be put out through niche publishers, if at all). Holliday is in fairness a lot less credulous than Shuttlewood.

I feel with a lot of the more dramatic elements of these books it's a case of them being, essentially, for "entertainment purposes". The general public might enjoy being thrilled or mildly scared by UFO tales but I get the idea that they don't really care whether the phenomena are real or not - the only people who do are ufologists and UFO witnesses seeking to understand their own experience.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Anecdotally I think animal reactions were a key part of the understanding at the time of what UFOs were about. Back in my Welsh primary school only a couple of years after the events of Broad Haven, we were given a story-writing exercise where the teacher fed us a few lines about seeing a UFO and we had to fill in the rest. I remember one of the ideas we were given was a dog reaction.

I was reminded a bit of Warminster at times, the Arthur Shuttlewood books are a real trove of now inadvertently-hilarious 60s ufology beliefs as it was in the process of changing into more general New Age stuff. It's easy to forget Warminster was only just finishing as the Welsh Triangle stuff got underway (I suppose this is one reason all these books attracted mainstream publishing support, whereas these days they'd be put out through niche publishers, if at all). Holliday is in fairness a lot less credulous than Shuttlewood.

I feel with a lot of the more dramatic elements of these books it's a case of them being, essentially, for "entertainment purposes". The general public might enjoy being thrilled or mildly scared by UFO tales but I get the idea that they don't really care whether the phenomena are real or not - the only people who do are ufologists and UFO witnesses seeking to understand their own experience.

Agreed. The 'Welsh Triangle' original cover was quite sensationalist and did not at all convey itself as a serious attempt to study the phenomena. Oh, and the use of "Triangle' was so 1970s...! I bought my copy in either 1979 or 1980 from a stand-alone display in a gift shop whilst on holiday in Wales, so it clearly shifted some copies. 'The Uninvited' was written as a bit of a horror novel and this was reflected in the cover, not a bad read if I recall but let down by descending into fiction (Lee Brickley would have enjoyed it).

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Not sure if this has been flagged up before but another one of three main books on the Ripperstone Farm and South Wales UFO flap of 1976-78 - 'The Uninvited' by Clive Harold - is now available on Kindle:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uninvited-...679758185&sprefix=clive+harold,aps,109&sr=8-1

This is the book my mate bought after I had first read 'The Welsh Triangle' by Peter Paget and 'The Dyfed Enigma' by Pugh and Holiday. The fundamental difference is that Clive Harold includes a rather sensationalist conclusion along the lines that that prime witness Pauline Coombes of Ripperstone Farm was taken aboard a UFO and that there were other human women there involved in some sort of breeding programme. This is not featured in either of the other two books and yet Paget in particular was much closer to the Coombes family than any other investigator or journalist and eventually they would talk only to him. Therefore, I can't help but conclude Harold's account veered away from the true witness testimonies and into fiction, but would love to be proven wrong.

 

[lordmongrove]

The Ripperston Farm Extraterrestrials.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

The Ripperston Farm Extraterrestrials.

Thanks, a good find as she rightly includes the paranormal goings-on and indeed gives them equal importance as the actual UFO sightings. These have too often been overlooked by the popular media in favour of those Broad Haven school kids and their sighting of some sort of grounded object

 

[BS3]

The whole thing really does have the feel of a poltergeist writ large, all the more so because the occurrences centre on one family and their house. I'm again drawn back to this idea of "parasociology", where you can imagine these events operating within a larger, multiple-witness framework, and in this case with some amount of the originating stimulus provided by off-base military exercises.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

The whole thing really does have the feel of a poltergeist writ large, all the more so because the occurrences centre on one family and their house. I'm again drawn back to this idea of "parasociology", where you can imagine these events operating within a larger, multiple-witness framework, and in this case with some amount of the originating stimulus provided by off-base military exercises.

I agree. If I recall correctly only the young Ripperstone Farm children actually saw a structured UFO in close-is proximity. What the adults saw was more akin to a manifestation than a spacemen, but the 1970s was the age of the moon landings and so a white figure with blacked out face was likened to an Apollo astronaut.

Indeed, the 'UFO' the young children saw - windows, steps, lights - sounds suspiciously like a helicopter (there was a nearby NATO base and of course air-sea rescue helicopters operating.around the coastline). The other day I was watching a helicopter operating across a valley from me and with a strong wind blowing I could barely hear it, so add in the sound of the sea as well and you potentially have a 'silent' object. Also, the children didn't actually see the strange, floating humanoid figures enter the 'UFO', this was an assumption.

Again, a great shame this poltergeist-type activity has been largely forgotten.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

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:

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.