That's very interesting and certainly provides much food for thought. I had also been wondering if the trip to Tarbrax late on a Monday night was to do with avoiding the police when doing something dodgy (I was thinking drugs...), or if it was in fact a cover for some other activity entirely. Perhaps they were just out cruising and looking for a 'good time'. Do we know much, or anything at all, about the people they were alledged to have been meeting? Their testimony about the two men's late arrival, behaviour and conversation would be very valuable.
The dogging site is presumably the secluded layby named
Little Vantage car park which is located about 2 miles northeast, towards Edinburgh, from the spot where Garry was photographed in the newspaper article you posted:
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Another aspect that occurred when thinking about this case is that, although the A70 couldn't be described as busy late at night, it is still a main trunk road and even between 10pm and 11pm you could expect a few cars to pass in each direction. The statistics
on this website show that an average of around 1500 vehicles per 24 hours were using this section of the road in 2000, which is unfortunately as far back as the data goes. There are houses dotted along the stretch of road in question. As far as I know no one else has ever come forward publicly to say they saw anything in the sky - or on/near the road - that could tie in with the encounter.
The information about the early hours pizza is new to me; Garry and Colin could easily have found a late night takeaway in Leith and much else besides. From the early 1980s Edinburgh City Council and Lothian & Borders Police took a pretty sanguine approach to the sex trade in the city; the council even had an inspection and licensing scheme for brothels and massage parlours. In 1992 the city's red light district was the area around Coburg Street in Leith, although the hoors were subsequently given their marching orders and the street was cleaned up and gentrified in the late 1990s. These days the council is much less relaxed about prostitution and strip clubs, and has tried to eradicate it altogether.
I think I need to buy Malcolm Robinson's book...
"Both men were by now quite distressed, and Garry recalls after getting out of the car at their destination, of ‘banging’ on his friends door. He was surprised that no one was answering and thought that perhaps they weren’t home, even although they had arranged to see them."
Robinson, Malcolm. The A70 UFO Incident: (Scotland’s First ‘Officially Reported’ UFO Abduction) (p. 4). Kindle Edition.
"Some minutes later however, Katrina, one of the occupants of the house, answered the door, whereupon she asked Garry where had he been? And did he know that he was an hour and a half late! Garry at this point was very confused, as he knew only too well, that this journey, (a journey that he had made many times before) should only have taken him around 3O to 35 minutes, how on Earth had it taken him an hour and a half!"
Robinson, Malcolm. The A70 UFO Incident: (Scotland’s First ‘Officially Reported’ UFO Abduction) (pp. 4-5). Kindle Edition.
" Indeed, when Katrina was later interviewed for the television series, ‘Strange But True’? Hosted by Michael Aspel, she had this to say, and I quote, “Garry was hysterical, he knows that I have got four kids. There is no way that he is going to come to my door, pound on it, push me right out of the road, and enter the way he did. Something dramatically happened to him”
Robinson, Malcolm. The A70 UFO Incident: (Scotland’s First ‘Officially Reported’ UFO Abduction) (p. 5). Kindle Edition.
"... banging on my friend’s door to tell them what happened. They actually came out to us saying, “God what time is it, it’s bloody late, its quarter to one, what are you doing here at this time”? We had no recollection of the time that had passed by”.
Robinson, Malcolm. The A70 UFO Incident: (Scotland’s First ‘Officially Reported’ UFO Abduction) (p. 35). Kindle Edition.
However;
It was a warm cool August night just after 11:3Opm, on the 17th of August 1992, when 29 year old Garry Wood and his friend 27 year old Colin Wright, left Scotland’s Capital city of Edinburgh
Robinson, Malcolm. The A70 UFO Incident: (Scotland’s First ‘Officially Reported’ UFO Abduction) (p. 3). Kindle Edition.
Although Garry and Colin differ on their accounts of when they actually left Edinburgh, however Malcolm believes they left at 23.30, so an estimated eta of midnight which is a very odd time to be delivering satellite tv equipment. This just doesn't add up to me and I personally don't believe there was any missing time other than perhaps the two men stopping en route for their own purposes.