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The Little Blue Man (Studham Common; January 1967)

Cavynaut

Cavynaut

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Does anyone have any recollection of this story?

Two girls were walking across a common (somewhere in the South East of England), when they encountered a little blue man, who apparently grinned at them,and then disappeared into thin air.

I thought I'd read it in 'The Readers Digest Book of Strange Stories and Amazing Facts', but having dug out my copy, I can't find a mention.

It's a story that has stuck in my head for a long time, and I would be grateful if anyone could shed any light on it.
 
Only thing I could find was this nutty story.


Date: 05/01/2003



a few years ago my older sister who was always the smart one in the family,she graduated with honors and attended harvard studying to become a doctor..on her spring break she went away for vacation..she was gone 3 months and was only supposed to be gone for only a week.. so we got scared and filed a missing persons report on her..shortly after she was found, running naked in the streets 300 miles away from her supposed vacation spot. screaming"get them out!!""get them out of my head","the little blue men are in my head eating my brain"the police thought she was on drugs, and arrested her..shortly after she became sickly ill and all communication with her failed as she became deaf and dumb..THE FAMILY then had no other choice but to send her away to the state mental hospital"belleview". where she sits today..I recently went to see her when something strange occured, I was helping the doctors feed her when some body yelled out "did you see that?''"did you see the blue man jump out of her ear and into his" is was at that moment I felt a tingling feeling and got a jolt of pain running through my head..I started screaming and quickly I was sedated..when I awoke I found myself in a straight jacket..now I know what happened to my sister, it,s now happening to me.the little blue men are eating our brains
 
Hmmm. How does one type in a straight jacket?

Actually, I'm half afraid I'll get several well-informed replies on this.
 
Thanks Pete, but the story I'm talking about, IIRC,was sometime in the late fifties/early sixties. I remember that it was entitled 'The Little Blue Man of (Name of Village) Common (or Down).
 
I'm beginning to wonder why the hell I bothered.

Let me reiterate, I remember hearing this 'fortean' story somewhere, if anyone has ever heard it, then perhaps they would like to comment.

Perhaps I've posted this in the wrong forum?
 
Google only turned up one link for 'The Little Blue Man' (about halfway down the page). It's in a story from some sort of Winnie the Pooh tribute page! :)

Quite Fortean, actually:
And so Michael was not alone any more. He walked with the Little Blue Man for many days and many nights, talking about all the weird things that little boys are used to talk about. They discovered many different questions and yet didn't find any answers. They laughed, ran and played silly games and when they were tired, they slept. And Michael couldn't understand how he could be happy once without having a Friend. One day, though, the Little Blue Man looked sadly into Michael's eyes and said:

- I've found the Answer. I have to go now.

- And what about me?! - the boy cried

- You have to find it yourself.
Click to expand...
 
'Duncan will be one man,' 'Farquhar will be two.'

Sorry, Can't help with the vanishing 'little blue man' story.

According to Katharine Briggs, in the excellent Penguin paperback edition of her, 'A Dictionary of Fairies' (1976), there are tales from the North of Scotland of, 'The Blue Men of The Minch.'
Katharine Briggs, 'A Dictionary of Fairies' (1976):
Blue Men of the Minch. The Blue Men used particularly to haunt the strait between Long Island and the Shiant Islands. They swam out to wreck passing ships, and could be baulked by captains who were ready at rhyming and could keep the last word. They were supposed to be fallen angels.

The sudden storms that arose around the Shiant Islands were said to be caused by the Blue Men, who lived in under-water caves and were ruled by a chieftain.

J. G. CAMPBELL in his Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands (p. 200) summarizes a tale of a Blue Man who had been captured sleeping on the surface of the sea.

He was taken on board and, being thought of mortal race, string twine was coiled round and round him from his feet to his shoulders, till it seemed impossible for him to struggle, or move foot or arm. The ship had not gone far when two men (Blue Men) were observed coming after it on the waters. One of them was heard to say, 'Duncan will be one man,' to which the other replied 'Farquhar will be two.'

On hearing this, the man who had been so securely tied sprang to his feet, broke his bonds like spider threads, jumped overboard and made off with the two friends who had been coming to his rescue.

In this story the creatures had human names. D. A. Mackenzie in Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life devotes a chapter to 'The Blue Men of the Minch'. They are believed in only in the area of the Straits of Shiant, and he brings forward the theory that the belief originated in the Moorish captives called 'Blue Men' who were marooned in Ireland in the 9th century by Norwegian pirates. The account is well documented, the chief source being The Annals of Ireland by Duald Mac Firbis, and it seen's likely that the theory has a solid foundation. If so, this is one more example of the fairy tradition being founded on memories of an extinct race.
[Motif: F420.5.2.7.3]
Click to expand...
 
Found it!

I woke up this morning with the words 'Studham Common' going through my head.

ufocat.com/on_this_day/January28.html
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20051023225945/http://ufocat.com/on_this_day/January28.html

1967 -- At 1:45 p.m. a group of school boys encountered a "little blue man" about three feet tall, wearing a helmet, on Studham Common in England. The humanoid said something unintelligible, and disappeared and re-appeared four times, leaving behind a cloud of smoke. (Source: Flying Saucer Review, July 1967, p. 3).
Click to expand...

Seems I'd got a few details wrong in my memory of this!
 
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Actually Cavynaut, that also reminded me of the Green Children story... I'm sure it has been discussed here before.

To sum it up, two green children appeared to some
bewildered villagers -- they spoke an unknown language
and displayed no clue about where they came from.
Their green skin coloring disappeared
over time and when they learned to speak they had
quite a tale to tell about their "previous life."

Anyone remember the thread?

TVgeek
 
Re: Green children

Can't find a thread on 'The Green Children of Woolpit' (Suffolk) which is odd, because the story crops up regularly in UFO/mystery books and is an ancient FT somewhere.

Its mentioned with a link on this thread:
forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5036&highlight=Green+children
It now has a dedicated thread:
Green Children Of Woolpit (And Maybe Spain)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/green-children-of-woolpit-and-maybe-spain.5036/

The story is also on the Woolpit website:
http://www.woolpit.org/greenchildren/index.htm
 
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Thanks, Timble... I just couldn't remember "Woolpit"... :)

TVgeek
 
Two girls were walking across a common (somewhere in the South East of England), when they encountered a little blue man, who apparently grinned at them,and then disappeared into thin air.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember this one, but not from the Reader's Digest book. I've got an idea it's in The UFO Encyclopedia which I think is by a chap called John Spencer. Not sure though.
If I remember rightly, the little blue man did not just grin at them, but wore a funny hat and ran around making mischief for a couple of minutes before vanishing in a puff of blue smoke! Anyway try the above book.

Big Bill Robinson
 
Reminds me of some ancient people of Britain (was it the Celts or earlier?) who used to paint themselves with blue wode. Perhaps even then someone who'd seen that and not understood, might think that they had blue skin.

Perhaps the blue man is a ghost of one of those people?
 
Yep, I remember the Little Blue man - as Big Bill mentioned he wore an odd hat (kind of three-cornered affair IIRC). Definitely read it in the late 70s, I'd have said it was UFO Encyclopaedia too, seem to recall in same section as Hopkinsville-Kelly Goblin (renamed "Kentucky Glowing Man" in several, somewhat plagiaristic books of the period).
 
Some accounts claim that the Hopkinsville-Kelly 'goblins' glowed - I think the original witness account also said the same thing (it also said that the 'goblins' were metallic and shiny in appearance, not green as some people think).
 
I was going to post this as a question but there is a reference to a blue man who appeared in Buffalo Bill's circus anyone know anything about that.
 
from the strange tale of the pauite messiah

Now the earth was bright again as we rode. I could see the hills and valleys and the
creeks and rivers passing under. We came above a place where three streams made
a big one-a source of mighty waters (Black Elk believes this to be the Three Forks of the
Missouri) - and something terrible was there. Flames were rising from the waters and
in the flames a blue man lived. The dust was floating all about him in the air, the grass
was short and withered, the trees were wilting, two-legged and four-legged beings lay
there thin and panting, and wings too weak to fly.
Then the black horse riders shouted "Hoka hey!" and charged down upon the blue man,
but were driven back. And the white troop shouted, charging, and was beaten; then the
red troop and the yellow.
And when each had failed, they all cried together: "Eagle Wing Stretches, hurry!" And all
the world was filled with voices of all kinds that cheered me, so I charged. I had the cup
of water in one hand and in the other was the bow that turned into a spear as the bay
and I swooped down, and the spear's head was sharp lightning. -It stabbed the blue
man's heart, and as it struck I could hear the thunder rolling and many voices that cried
"Un-hee!," meaning I had killed. The flames died. The trees and grasses were not
withered any more and murmured happily together, and every living being cried in
gladness with whatever voice it had. Then the four troops of horsemen charged down
and struck the dead body of the blue man, counting coup; and suddenly it was only a
harmless turtle.
 
Saw this one referenced on the #FolkloreThursday tag on Twitter, and thought I'd see if we'd ever covered it here.

Local press piece here from 2012 too:

dunstabletoday.co.uk/news/little-blue-man-account-is-out-of-this-world-1-4224766
Link is dead. No archived version found.
 
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I was reminded of the "Little Blue Man on Studham Common", to give the case its full name, when it was referenced in one of the articles on the Wollaston Gnomes I was looking at. Although the little blue chap is certainly a bit on the gnome / 'fairy' side of things he usually seems to have been filed under 'ufology', despite no UFO being seen at the time.

So yes, a bit of an odd one in that nearly every description of the case comes from a single source, an article by R H Winder in a 1967 Flying Saucer Review, although Winder does mention an earlier report in the Dunstable Borough Gazette of 3rd March 1966. Winder and Gordon Creighton interviewed the witnesses a few months after the Gazette's report (Winder's article is transcribed here for anyone who is interested).

The witnesses all wrote essays which were pasted into a notebook titled "The Little Blue Man on Studham Common" and which was kept by their school - Winder certainly saw it, describing it as "fascinating and convincing reading", but more recent enquiries suggest the book has disappeared in the intervening years. I'm not sure that anyone has tried to re-interview the witnesses since then. A few of the details given by Winder suggest there might have been some unusual natural stimulus exaggerated by the children into a 'figure', but at such a distance this one seems a pretty much unsolvable mystery.

Incidentally a few of the descriptions above don't quite match Winder's account: the figure didn't run around, but was instead seen standing still in four different spots ('disappearing' between each viewing); it didn't say "something unintelligible", but the witnesses claimed to hear a noise from the bushes near the figure that suggested speech of some sort; rather than a helmet it appeared to be wearing a hat shaped a bit like a sugar loaf, or a tall brimless bowler hat.
 
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Cavynaut said:
Found it!

I woke up this morning with the words 'Studham Common' going through my head.

http://www.ufocat.com/on_this_day/January28.html

1967 -- At 1:45 p.m. a group of school boys encountered a "little blue man" about three feet tall, wearing a helmet, on Studham Common in England. The humanoid said something unintelligible, and disappeared and re-appeared four times, leaving behind a cloud of smoke. (Source: Flying Saucer Review, July 1967, p. 3).

Seems I'd got a few details wrong in my memory of this!
Click to expand...
Great find, some details here, too:

“He was described as around three feet tall, with a blue beard and wearing an odd one-piece suit, a tall brimmed bowler-type hat, and a black belt carrying a black box on the front. They also described him as being bathed in a faint glow that seemed to emanate from”

The ufonaut with a belt and a black box was a common theme of humanoid encounters in that 1945-85 timeframe and has been commented on by a number of researchers who have identified parallels with “the little people” lore

https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/bedfordshire-news/mystery-studhams-little-blue-alien-5519458
 
Winder's description, after speaking to the witnesses, is interesting and qualifies the 'blue' part somewhat:

They estimate the little man as tall (by comparison with themselves), with an additional 2ft. accounted for by a hat or helmet best described as a tall brimless bowler, i.e. with a rounded top. The blue colour turned out to be a dim grayish-blue glow tending to obscure outline and detail. They could, however, discern a line which was either a fringe of hair or the lower edge of the hat, two round eyes, a small seemingly triangle in place of a nose, and a one-piece vestment extending down to a broad black belt carrying a black box at the front about six inches square. The arms appeared short and were held straight down close to the sides at all times. The legs and feet were indistinct.
Click to expand...
The "beard" is interesting: apparently it extended from the vicinity of the mouth downwards to divide and ran to both sides of the chest.
Click to expand...

Quite a nebulous figure in some ways.
 
Cavynaut said:
Found it! ...
Click to expand...

The original article appeared in Flying Saucer Review, Vol. 13 no. 4 (July / August 1967), on pages 3 and 4.

Here are the two pages comprising the article.

BlueMan-FSR-V13n4-Jul67-p3.png


BlueMan-FSR-V13n4-Jul67-p4.png

SOURCE (For the FSR issue): http://www.ignaciodarnaude.com/ufologia/FSR 1967 V 13 N 4.pdf
 
A Dutch researcher seems to have more recently (2012ish) tried to track down either some of the original witnesses or the notebook with their essays about their experience, but drew a blank as far as I know. Any locals out there?

It would also be interesting to get a copy of the original Dunstable Borough Gazette article. I find myself wondering how the tale would have been recorded if it had been a researcher with other Fortean interests, rather than Creighton and the other FSR people, who got their hands on it first.
 
Well...obviously I didn't look in the obvious place.

Theo Paijmans, the Dutch researcher, wrote about his findings in the 'Forum' section of issue 339 of FT (April 2016). This included a brief interview with the main (initial) witness, Alex Butler and a (present day) drawing by Butler of what he believed be saw.

Butler says that they certainly believed they saw something "extraordinary", but is fairly sober and circumspect, noting that they could have been frightened by the thunder and got into a "frenzy". His own view is that they could possibly have been tricked by an older boy from the same school hiding in the bushes under less than ideal visibility. The school uniform was...wait for it...blue. One thing Butler clearly remembers is the fright caused by the deep, speech like noises they heard apparently coming from the bushes.

The drawing isn't much like the descriptions given by Winder but is quite conventionally spaceman-like, so I wonder if Butler's memories are a bit influenced by stuff he saw since. He does note that his recollection was that the FSR people were fair and didn't lead them as witnesses. One interesting point is that several people contacted Paijmans not because they remembered the 'blue man', but because they recalled how odd the weather was at the time.
 
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The combination of thundery conditions, the odd deep noises, and the most striking thing (according to Butler) being the sudden disappearance of the figures with a puff of smoke, makes me wonder if we are actually looking at an elusive natural phenomenon - perhaps the ignition of gases from vegetation or something like that, which the boys perceived as a glowing 'figure'.
 
Here's Studham in 1964:

Studham-map-1964.jpg


School ("Sch") slightly left of centre

Here's a circle of 200 yards radius (vide R. Winder, Flying Saucer Review) around the school:

Studham-school-Fortean.jpg


Here's a Victorian OS map side-by-side with a 1960's OS map, showing a point 200 yards from the school, en route to the village by the obvious footpath:

Studham-Blue-Man-Fortean-starred.jpg


It appears to satisfy Winder's criteria, i.e. about 200 yards from the school, about 150 yards from the nearest houses (in 1967).

Copy & paste the following into Google Earth to drop onto the school:

51° 49' 45.98" N, 0° 31' 14.09 W

Unfortunately, this area of Bedfordshire is a Lidar desert for some reason, so I can't provide a topo illustration.

Edited to add: At (about) 1400hrs. on Saturday 28th January 1967 the sun was 18.06° above the horizon at azimuth 162.35°.

https://planetcalc.com/4270/

Sunset was at 1642hrs.

https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/sunrise-sunset/

maximus otter
 
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