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UFOs Assaulting / Attacking / Harassing People

Cloudbusting

Not your average chicken
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Jul 19, 2020
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I was inspired to start this thread due to a story I was told recently. The details are slightly vague but I'll relay what I know.

Apparently many years ago (we're taking a few decades here) two people my Grandad knew almost got 'assaulted' by a UFO. They were working on an allotment minding their own business when suddenly an object flew towards them out of nowhere, and appeared to start targeting them. They described it as a smooth metallic egg type shaped object a bit bigger than a human head. It darted around for a little bit narrowly missing them, and smashed through the window of a nearby greenhouse in the process. After some time it stopped then shot off at speed in the direction of the nearest city, and they never saw it again.

As far as I'm aware there were no other witnesses and there was nothing in the news about this object. Apparently the incident really shook them and they had to drink some brandy afterwards to steady their nerves! Of course it sounds like made up nonsense but I believe they had the mick taken out of them for a while afterwards (one was a serving copper).

It's such a strange tale and I wondered whether anyone knew of any similar cases? I feel like I have read about similar objects but I can't place them.

I wondered whether it could be a drone but it seems unlikely given the time. In any case, I can't understand why this object, whatever it was, would target them? So bizarre.
 
I wondered whether it could be a drone but it seems unlikely given the time. In any case, I can't understand why this object, whatever it was, would target them? So bizarre.
An alien drone.
 
I was inspired to start this thread due to a story I was told recently. The details are slightly vague but I'll relay what I know.

Apparently many years ago (we're taking a few decades here) two people my Grandad knew almost got 'assaulted' by a UFO. They were working on an allotment minding their own business when suddenly an object flew towards them out of nowhere, and appeared to start targeting them. They described it as a smooth metallic egg type shaped object a bit bigger than a human head. It darted around for a little bit narrowly missing them, and smashed through the window of a nearby greenhouse in the process. After some time it stopped then shot off at speed in the direction of the nearest city, and they never saw it again.

As far as I'm aware there were no other witnesses and there was nothing in the news about this object. Apparently the incident really shook them and they had to drink some brandy afterwards to steady their nerves! Of course it sounds like made up nonsense but I believe they had the mick taken out of them for a while afterwards (one was a serving copper).

It's such a strange tale and I wondered whether anyone knew of any similar cases? I feel like I have read about similar objects but I can't place them.

I wondered whether it could be a drone but it seems unlikely given the time. In any case, I can't understand why this object, whatever it was, would target them? So bizarre.

Depends on the character of the men. There's always fantasist and people who will make stuff up but on the whole working men back then we're extremely honest. That's what makes the Dechmont woods story so compelling, Bob Taylor was obviously an honest sort.

Incidentally, when I was a kid, some boys in a local play park claimed they were chased by an object not dissimilar to what you described. Would be almost 30 years ago now. No one has ever believed them but they still stick by their story today.
 
I was inspired to start this thread due to a story I was told recently. The details are slightly vague but I'll relay what I know.

Apparently many years ago (we're taking a few decades here) two people my Grandad knew almost got 'assaulted' by a UFO. They were working on an allotment minding their own business when suddenly an object flew towards them out of nowhere, and appeared to start targeting them. They described it as a smooth metallic egg type shaped object a bit bigger than a human head. It darted around for a little bit narrowly missing them, and smashed through the window of a nearby greenhouse in the process. After some time it stopped then shot off at speed in the direction of the nearest city, and they never saw it again.

As far as I'm aware there were no other witnesses and there was nothing in the news about this object. Apparently the incident really shook them and they had to drink some brandy afterwards to steady their nerves! Of course it sounds like made up nonsense but I believe they had the mick taken out of them for a while afterwards (one was a serving copper).

It's such a strange tale and I wondered whether anyone knew of any similar cases? I feel like I have read about similar objects but I can't place them.

I wondered whether it could be a drone but it seems unlikely given the time. In any case, I can't understand why this object, whatever it was, would target them? So bizarre.

The best l can come up with is that a local radio-controlled aircraft enthusiast had built a flying replica of something like the Avrocar, and the model’s controllability was on a par with that of the full-sized original.

Avrocar-2.jpg


maximus otter
 
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I'm another vote for ball lightening. I don't think we quite understand what it is yet, do we? Some kind of plasma that appears to have intelligence - but is, perhaps, just attracted to electricity? So, in the absence of any electrical items it may be attracted to the human body and therefore would seem to 'follow' or 'attack' people.
 
Depends on the character of the men. There's always fantasist and people who will make stuff up but on the whole working men back then we're extremely honest. That's what makes the Dechmont woods story so compelling, Bob Taylor was obviously an honest sort.

Incidentally, when I was a kid, some boys in a local play park claimed they were chased by an object not dissimilar to what you described. Would be almost 30 years ago now. No one has ever believed them but they still stick by their story today.

I have to agree, I find it bizarre that some people claim police officers and pilots can't be mistaken or lie when it comes to UFO type phenomena. That said my Grandad seemed pretty convinced they hadn't just made it up.

Ah that's interesting, you don't mind me asking, was this in the UK? What part of the county?
 
I have to agree, I find it bizarre that some people claim police officers and pilots can't be mistaken or lie when it comes to UFO type phenomena. That said my Grandad seemed pretty convinced they hadn't just made it up.

Ah that's interesting, you don't mind me asking, was this in the UK? What part of the county?
It was in Scotland, late 80s.
 
Re. The suggestions for ball lightening, interesting theory but I'm not convinced in this instance. When the story was relayed to me I was told they were adament it was a solid physical object. Unfortunately there wasn't much detail around the damage it caused to the greenhouse so we can't gleam much insight from that.

I'm really intrigued by the avrocar suggestion from @maximus otter but would it have been public knowledge several decades ago? I seem to recall it was originally classified but have no idea when it was released into the public domain.

The idea of some sort of remote controlled object is intriguing. Something I found interesting was that I got the impression it was able to travel a considerable distance seemingly 'unaided'. I know which allotment they were in, and they described it flying off into the distance and towards the nearest city. Knowing the geography of the area, that tells me it was able to travel easily 5 miles a fair height above the ground.

I'm also intrigued that they claimed it was smooth and featureless, however, if this incident was as frantic and unexpected as they claim, I'm less likely to give credence to this. I imagine they could have easily overlooked smaller details.
 
The best l can come up with is that a local radio-controlled aircraft enthusiast had built a flying replica of something like the Avrocar, and the model’s controllability was on a par with that of the full-sized original. ...
There's little chance of understanding this incident without more detailed information about the setting.

Cloudbusting: Can you specify what decade it may have been in which this happened? Also - did your grandfather give any clues about the weather conditions that day?

Radio controlled helicopters were being developed by hobbyists during the 1960s, but commercial kits weren't available until the very early 1970s.

Unless the men were working in the rain or it was storming nearby I have a hard time giving much credence to the ball lightning hypothesis.
 
... I'm really intrigued by the avrocar suggestion from @maximus otter but would it have been public knowledge several decades ago? I seem to recall it was originally classified but have no idea when it was released into the public domain. ...
The Avro Canada project (Project Y) that led to the specific Avrocar version of a VTOL craft was leaked to the Canadian press (Toronto Star) in 1953. At that time only a design concept / model existed, which coincidentally resembled Kenneth Arnold's own initial sketch of the UFOs he'd seen in 1947:

Project_Y_mockup_colour.jpg
At the time the Toronto Star ran the leaked story Avro was hoping to get funding to continue the design work.

A LOOK magazine article in 1955 advised the American public about saucer-style aircraft being considered or developed for military use. It included illustrations of a non-Avro design concept.

In addition, there were plenty of speculative descriptions for circular-winged / saucer-like aircraft floating around in the popular press.

Information about the Avrocar projects for the USAF and US Army was published in (e.g.) popular science / tech magazines in the 1960s.
 
There's little chance of understanding this incident without more detailed information about the setting.

Cloudbusting: Can you specify what decade it may have been in which this happened? Also - did your grandfather give any clues about the weather conditions that day?

Radio controlled helicopters were being developed by hobbyists during the 1960s, but commercial kits weren't available until the very early 1970s.

Unless the men were working in the rain or it was storming nearby I have a hard time giving much credence to the ball lightning hypothesis.

I'm afraid I don't have much more detail! I think it may have taken place in the 70s, but it could have been earlier to be honest. I don't know what the weather conditions were like but I imagine the weather wasn't too bad given the work they were undertaking. As I recall they went back home (which was nearby) for a drink to steady their nerves, before heading back to carry on with the work.
 
Intriguing case.

An object rather similar to this was reported in West Wales during the 1976-78 'Welsh Triangle' wave. It was described as the shape and size of a rugby ball and followed a car being driven by Pauline Coombs. It kept pace with them above a hedgerow even when she floored the accelerator.

(Source: The Welsh Triangle by Peter Paget).
 
Fascinating account, albeit `slightly vague` is a bit of an understatement (`some people my grandfather knew`, `a few decades back` - and not even a location).

Brad Steiger once published a book with the self-explanatory title of Flying Saucers Are Hostile.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5996635-flying-saucers-are-hostile

This was nothing more than a compendium of press reports of people being frightened or hurt by various aerial phenomena. In retrospect many of these cases were things that we would now call `ball lightning` and involved small, black UFOs cavorting about much as the OP mentioned.

However, if we are to take on board the insistence that this was a physical object then the event seems pretty unprecedented.

In fact there's no need to frame it as a `UFO` phenomena at all. It could be a poltergeist attack. Or a bumble bee-like cryptid.
Or someone from the future sending back a drone and having a bit of fun with old-timers.
 
Fascinating account, albeit `slightly vague` is a bit of an understatement (`some people my grandfather knew`, `a few decades back` - and not even a location).

What can I say? It's not my experience, and I got the story second hand from someone who is now in their eighties. Regarding the lack of location, I don't wish to reveal where I live on a public forum... even with this information and an exact date I doubt anyone here would be able to 'crack the case' definitively, especially given the time that has elapsed since.
 
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UFOs hurt a lot of people in Colares, Brazil in 1977 with light beams.

UFO captured Frederick Valentich in Australia.

In 1948 Captain Thomas Mantell died when a UFO shot down his P-51 Mustang near Fort Knox, Kentucky.
 
My wife's uncle (he died 5-6 years ago) told the story of him, his wife and two daughters being harassed by a UFO on a country road in New South Wales, Australia many years ago.
He claimed that a glowing metallic object flew only feet above the roof of their car for some distance, terrifying them all. It kept pace no matter how fast or slow he drove.
He was a highly religious (Catholic) man and the story was even mentioned at his funeral, so steadfast was his belief that something out of the ordinary happened to his family that evening.
 
My wife's uncle (he died 5-6 years ago) told the story of him, his wife and two daughters being harassed by a UFO on a country road in New South Wales, Australia many years ago.
He claimed that a glowing metallic object flew only feet above the roof of their car for some distance, terrifying them all. It kept pace no matter how fast or slow he drove.
He was a highly religious (Catholic) man and the story was even mentioned at his funeral, so steadfast was his belief that something out of the ordinary happened to his family that evening.

This wasn't the Knowles family case was it? It's quite a well known incident if so!

[Edit] Actually, thinking about it, it couldn't be - that was a woman and three sons. Interesting comparison with another South Australian case though
 
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This wasn't the Knowles family case was it? It's quite a well known incident if so!

[Edit] Actually, thinking about it, it couldn't be - that was a woman and three sons. Interesting comparison with another South Australian case though

No, although there are similarities. I never heard the story first hand although both my wife and father in law have both told it to me.
 
The AVRO vehicle could only hover a few feet off the ground and was horribly unstable. It’s hard to see how a small model of it could do any better, much less dance around and harass people. Any drone-like craft of that size would need helicopter blades that would be obvious to the eye and ear.
This story reminds me a little of the Kera Incident, in terms of the size and maneuverability of the object.
 
If the greenhouse frame was made of metal that could have attracted ball lightening,
one chased a bloke I knew when he was driving a tractor.
 
Ball lightning tends to move around, looking for a good earthing point.
My sister had a glowing ball take a shortcut through her lounge one day, during a thunderstorm. It crossed the lounge and went into the wall socket, making a slight fizzling noise as it disappeared.
 
Quite nicely done, those.

Although I'm not convinced there is anything in the Mantell case not explicable by a balloon, when in the 1970s someone (APRO? NICAP?) reinterviewed Albert Pickering, the air controller at Lockbourne Tower about what he saw at 7.00pm he gave an account of something on the face of it far stranger than what was recorded by Project Sign (or in the video above).
 
I don't trust Pickering's estimates at all. Even if the overcast had only been at 1200 feet, the distance to an object at 30 degrees above the horizon would be twice that, 2400 feet. But the true height of the overcast was apparently 10,000 feet, making the distance anything up to 20,000 feet. or 3.7 miles.

Since the overcast was breaking up, this means the object may have been astronomical, a planet, star or perhaps a meteor, since it was (apparently) moving.
 
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Very hard to find information on this case nowadays, but here is a 1973 incident from Cape Girardeau, MO, in which a trucker claimed to have been temporarily blinded by a "ball of fire" emitted by a UFO. We even have physical traces in the form of damaged spectacles!

https://www.semissourian.com/blogs/flynch/entry/62235

The 'turnip-like' object suggests that, just possibly, he might have had an unlucky encounter with a fire balloon or similar.
 
I don't trust Pickering's estimates at all. Even if the overcast had only been at 1200 feet, the distance to an object at 30 degrees above the horizon would be twice that, 2400 feet. But the true height of the overcast was apparently 10,000 feet, making the distance anything up to 20,000 feet. or 3.7 miles.

Since the overcast was breaking up, this means the object may have been astronomical, a planet, star or perhaps a meteor, since it was (apparently) moving.

The thing that bothers me is that Pickering's memory is quite different to what he apparently told Project Sign in 1948. The movements recalled in both 1948 and 1977 are not remotely meteor-like in either case, but the changed story (with an assertion that his recollection was quite clear) is a red flag.
 
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