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UFO House For Sale

Tribble

Killjoy Boffin
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Apr 21, 2015
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...that is, a Futuro house from the 1960s. Did you know the Swedish Air Force had two of them, mounted on concrete pillars as observation posts? Well, they're both being removed - one is off to the Swedish Air Force Museum in Linköping and the other is up for sale.

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http://www.thefuturohouse.com/Futuro-House-Stratjara-Sweden.html

http://www.futurohouse.net/

http://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/ufo-hus-plockas-ner

http://www.gd.se/halsingland/soderhamn/nu-kan-du-sla-till-kop-ett-mystiskt-ufo-hus-i-skogen-3
 
How many miles does it have on the clock?
 

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Aha...! I've actually seen a damaged alien spaceship being moved on the back of an RAF transport truck, partly-wrapped in tarpauline, before being taken into a hanger by more than twenty men in uniform.

Honestly!!

Unfortunately it was made of fibreglass....for the seminal sci fi TV series Invasion: Earth (it was all loads of fun, and I'm pleased it looked so much-more realistic on-screen, than it was 'in the plastic')
 
Honestly!!

Unfortunately it was made of fibreglass....for the seminal sci fi TV series Invasion: Earth (it was all loads of fun, and I'm pleased it looked so much-more realistic on-screen, than it was 'in the plastic')

That's only what they want you to remember. Sounds like you've had a false memory implanted. ;)
 
The Futuro house has come up again on another thread, and that reminds me that there used to be one in Todmorden. It is invoked as one explanation for what Alan Godfrey thought he saw on the night of his, um, experience.

I used to live just down the road from Tod, and I often wondered where it actually used to be. So, for my own future reference (prompted by failing to record the address of Fred Dibnah's mother's old terraced house (edit: it's on Alfred Street, Bolton), with the miniature mill chimney), let the record show that its usual location (they moved it down the road on at least one occasion, as post #7 shows) was more-or-less here (note this is Rochdale Road, not Burnley Road as some reports claim).

Then and now pictures to prove:

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Futuro house location - 2010s.jpg
 
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Although they look intriguing, nothing about that design looks comfortable or convenient. Even as 'observation posts' the windows seem to be angled slightly upwards, so you couldn't see the ground easily (so you wouldn't know if enemy troops, or spies, or bears were attacking the foot of the post).
 
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It's a long time ago but I used to pass the one near Todmorden, I seem to remember it being between Waterfoot and Tod
on the left heading for Tod in a sort of layby with a high stone wall behind it, then one day it had gone.
 
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on the left heading for Tod
On the left as you headed for Tod? That would put it on the other side of the road, then. Interesting. Mind you, apparently the three-storey building in the background of both pictures was also part of the old Waterside Mills complex. All that the black-and-white picture really shows, I suppose, is that the house was in that spot at the time the photo was taken.
 
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Here's more on the history of the Futuro houses ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futuro

They originated in Finland, and (as indicated in the first post above) multiple ones ended up in Sweden as well.

They were originally valued as all-in-one units that could be used as seasonal cabins or vacation homes and readily dismantled for relocation if need be. I'm not sure they were promoted as permanent / primary housing in Scandinavia.
 
Written on the side in the photo it says Waterside Plastics, they were at Waterside mill Todmorden
and were the company that made it under licence at their Rochdale plant so that one had not traveled
far from home. Isn't the pic on the wagon taken in Whitworth? probably on it's delivery flight, it looks
familleyer I was involved in long distance horse rides around there following the old pack horse trails.
 
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Isn't the pic on the wagon taken in Whitworth?
I'm pretty sure that's Tod: if you look above the right-hand third of the house as it sits on the wagon, you'll see that same slightly odd canopy over the factory clock as in the first of my two pictures. That canopy had gone by the time Google took the Streetview image in my second picture, as had most of the mill complex on the opposite side of the street - it hosts a Morrisons, now. Any ideas what function that canopy might have served, or was it purely decorative?

The house was only going half a mile or so down the road - according to this page, which is full of tantalising details about the Tod Futuro house, they shifted it to stand in front of a medical centre as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of Tod officially becoming a town. That urbex site suggests it might have been the same place where Harold Shipman was working when he began his killing spree... Funny place, Tod.

the company that made it under licence at their Rochdale plant
That Futuro house site reckons they were actually made in Tod, at Waterside Mills (which building gave the plastics firm its name). It's on Rochdale Road - could that be a source of confusion?

ETA: by quite a bizarre coincidence, it turns out there has been another Futuro house in Krasnodar these past 40 years or so. The coincidence being that Krasnodar is my wife's home town...
 
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That bit above the clock does look strange, still there in the modern pic just covered in,
wounder if it admitted light to the clock mech?
 
Yesterday on TV there was a trailer for I think Salvage Hunters, the one with the guy from North Wales,
in the background of one of the shots among allsorts of other stuff was what looked like a UFO house.
 
Needs curtains! I can see that's in an isolated location, but the privacy factor seems to be non-existent. I guess nobody throws stones in there.
 
Needs curtains! I can see that's in an isolated location, but the privacy factor seems to be non-existent. I guess nobody throws stones in there.
I see a lot of fancy homes like this, designed by architects trying to be 'rad'. They never think of privacy. There are even bedrooms and bathrooms that provide a 'fish in a bowl' effect, all lit up at night. Nice.
 
I see a lot of fancy homes like this, designed by architects trying to be 'rad'. They never think of privacy. There are even bedrooms and bathrooms that provide a 'fish in a bowl' effect, all lit up at night. Nice.
Do you have any address, I ask for a friend.
 
There was a burger joint called MegaTron at Alconbury. It opened in 1990, later became a McDonald's and was demolished in 2008

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I wanted to buy it to live in, but with hindsight it's probably for the best that never happened.

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There was a burger joint called MegaTron at Alconbury, which later became a McDonald's and then closed.

I wanted to buy it to live in, but with hindsight it's probably for the best that never happened.

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I went in there once when it was open. My friend J dragged me over there one day.
 
In the bbc report above the still with the van at the bottom and the wall behind the house is as I remember it.
 
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