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Warminster Wiltshire UFOs

jonnash4

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Oct 23, 2001
Messages
17
hi folks....
Just wondering if anyone could help us with our research into the UFO events in Warminster WIlts during the 1960s especially the work of Arthur Shuttlewood, this is for a school project in the warminster area. Any infomation at all would be extremly helpful. If you can help at all either send me a message using this forum or email me at [email protected]

cheers,
Jon Nash
 
I would just like to say how disappointed I am, after reading the subject line, to find that this wasn't about a debilitating effect that Warminster was having on UFOs.
 
'The Warminster Mystery' was about the first 'true' UFO book I ever read.

Didn't some people who'd seen the ufos also claim to have made contact with the occupants?

Carole
 
I was just about to post that link, August!

Great minds, eh?

Carole
 
graylien said:
That book used to be free?

If you WayBack his site you get the free version. It does appear to have been rewitten for the book so if you were interested in the case it'd seem worth getting the book but the online info should whet your appetite.
 
Warminster is also a garrison town, most garrison towns and UFO's go hand in hand.
 
Warminster Wilts UFO

I met Arthur Shuttlewood at a Space and UFO get-together (can't remember the place) in the sixties. Very nice guy as I recall. The Warminster thing was a bit of a damp squib and fizzeled out shortly after - basically just watching lights in the sky.

If you want something more interesting try Google "The Battle of Los Angeles 1942". Rense has some good stuff. I don't think FT has covered this important sighting. Thousands of witnesses and thousands of anti-aircraft shells fired at the craft. Fighter planes were seen to attack but this was denied by the military. Also interesting is the disagreement between the navy and the US army. Got to be a first in all areas of saucer research.
 
We did discuss the Battle of Los Angeles at one point; my opinion is that the smoke from the shells formed a layer which was illuminated by the searchlights. This can be easly seen in the image on the Rense site; none of the searchlight beams carry on past the illuminated area. If there had been a discrete object in the search lights at least some of the beams would have carried on past the edges of the craft.

None did.

Thousands of observers saw the events; few accounts agree on the number of objects or the shape of the objects. Perfectly natural if the 'objects' were no more than light playing on clouds.
Basically a non event.

The official history of the 'battle';
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist9/aaf2.html
 
"my opinion is that the smoke from the shells formed a layer which was illuminated by the searchlights".

I think you need to read the witness testimonies more carefully. It seems that scientific/skeptical reasoning has all but put paid to this kind of evidence as unreliable. For example: The MoD report is saying - between the lines - that all UFO sightings are suspect and this in turn makes all perception of what ever subject suspect as it may be due to magnetic fields influencing the brain.
I for one am about to dig out my tin-foil hat and a good earthing rod ;).
If you read the press reports and compare them with the army and then the navy argument I think you will have a Fortean event based on this alone?
 
Oh it isi certainly a Fortean event; but it is most useful as a demonstration of the unreliability of witness reports.

Some of the witness reports are as follows
C Scott Littleton 'a single glowing blob'
Air raid Warden Katie 'a single orange object attacked by planes' (no planes were in the air at that time)
(Acting Commander of anti-aircraft battery) 'just smoke'
(Ernie Pyle) 'could not see airplane'
(Bill Henry) --ditto--
Additionally several people reported multiple objects, some reported dogfights in the air; 'an experienced Navy observer with powerful Carl Zeiss binoculars said he counted nine planes in the cone of the searchlight.'
none of this really took place, as it was almost certanly nothing more than lights on smoke;, but it is a fascinating example of how observers misinterpret observations in extreme circumstances.
 
Tell me GOO what would it take to convince you that several million people are not all lying and if they are, then this alone is worthy of a proper study?
Let’s look at photography for now. Most saucer pictures are fuzzy, but the ones that are clear are said to be too good to be true. What would constitute a good picture that is evidence that there is something saucer shaped flying in the blue? Multiple witnesses are no good as the MoD has said that some little understood plasma balls are affecting our brains in ways that are unclear and so we must rely on some kind of picture that is independent of the brain.
Lets look at an example of the usual selective thinking: I don’t know anyone who is happy about the Apollo photographs of astronauts on the Moon. But because they are NASA property there must be a good reason for them to tamper with them. UFO pictures are subjected to the most stringent tests and even if no faking is found they are often debunked for other reasons. The reasons are often more fantastic than the event, like the Zamora balloon theory. (See threads UFO’s or Hot Air) “Even by April 1964, there were only some 20 hot-air balloons in the entire United States". Yes, there were hot air balloons, but how many looked like an upended car? Yet, I can point you to pictures of UFO’s that do indeed look like an upended car. If I wanted to perpetrate a hoax, an upended car would be the last thing on my mind. This is the logic so sadly lacking.
To return to the 1942 event: where did the witnesses get the meme for the glowing object in the sky with planes attacking? They were expecting the Japanese and your panic theory should have resolved the “smoke cloud” into a Japanese plane. Airplanes at the time were all alike with two wings at the front and two at the back; ad to this that the term flying saucer was five years in the future.
I do not pretend to know what flying saucers/UFO’s are; they are intangibles. But to pretend that they don’t exist is to exhibit a kind of tunnel vision that is hard for myself to understand. They represent an icon that challenges the very nature of our preconceived concept of reality. If you do a Google search of reality you will come up with nothing and that is the sum total of mans knowledge on the subject. If you apply UFO critical/skepical criteria to any subject in the universe you will end with it becoming unreal.
 
This thread was supposed to be about the Warminster UFOs; there was very little of substance in them either -except the fact that they were a very Fortean phenomenon too.
The Warminster Thing was cooked up by a bunch of Wiltshire saucer chasers; they went out night after night and saw UFOs- at least partly because a whole bunch of other people were hoaxing them night after night.

The Los Angeles event was also easily explained; just war jitters.
I have analysed the only photo using a number of graphic tools; the best explanation is a layer of smoke (from the shells) illuminated by a number of overlapping searchlights.
But that doesn't matter- both the Warminster Thing and the Battle are fascinating incidents, and fully Fortean despite the fact that they almost certainly did not involve extraterrestrials.
 
Re: Warminster Wilts UFO

> The Warminster thing was a bit of a damp squib and fizzeled out shortly after - basically just watching lights in the sky. <

A very slow fizzle - it extended well into the 1970s, and only really died about the same time as the transition from the old wave to the new wave (around 1977).

The narratives surrounding the Warminster UFO still had the power to effect behaviours (or, if you prefer, the Warminster UFO was real and led to contacts) right into the 1970s. I've just edited a book for a guy who went there with his friends in 1976; he and his friends were subsequently "visited" by "entities".

If anybody is interested in a bit more Warminster history, see:

www.ufo-warminster.co.uk

Cheers
Steve
 
A cosy community confronted by the paranormal.


There are a number of U.K. UFO events which
have gone down in UFO History and folklore both
on a local and international basis. Of these the
incidents which immediately spring to mind are
“The Rendlesham Forest Incident”, RAF Cosford etc…

However, in the 1960s and early 1970s a whole
series of UFO and paranormal incidents occurred
in and around a quiet and comfortable, typically
English country town located in Wiltshire lying just
to the south west of Salisbury plain.

The town, of course, is Warminster and the UFO
sightings and paranormal events which befuddled
this town ultimately featured on the front pages
of the national press. Not only were UFOs observed
in the Wiltshire skies but strange humanoid beings
were seen in the local countryside, beings that
disappeared when approached. The inhabitants of
Warminster did not just to have to tolerate UFOs
but strange ghostly apparitions.

See: http://www.thewhyfiles.net/warminster.html

Including an article by Kevin Goodman of
http://www.ufo-warminster.co.uk/

Warminster - The Forgotten Enigma
UFO Warminster is edited and hosted by
Kevin Goodman and Steve Dewey.

Geoff Richardson
www.thewhyfiles.net
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I remember reading about the Warminster sightings about 15 years ago. It's been quiet there recently hasn't it?
The connection with Stonehenge, Avebury Henge, and Warminster was discussed extensively. All 3 places when drawing a straight line from one to the other forms a triangle. People were saying that UFO activity had something to do with this, but I haven't heard much from that area for years.
 
If you draw lines connecting any 3 places you'll get a triangle, doesn't mean they are in any way connected though.
 
Ringo_ said:
If you draw lines connecting any 3 places you'll get a triangle, doesn't mean they are in any way connected though.
...they could lie on a straight line, however

(and then people start jumping up and down and shouting LEY LINES, LEY LINES! :roll: )
 
Ringo_ said:
If you draw lines connecting any 3 places you'll get a triangle, doesn't mean they are in any way connected though.
This is absolutely true, unless, as Rynner has correctly pointed out, they are all in a straight line, when they would then form, 'an alignment.' :)
 
as a kid my family would trainspot at westbury (5 miles away) and we would go to warminster when it got dark, quite a scary place going up elm hill and parking at the golf club or cradle hill


i remmeber once we slept in the car at cley hill,
 
Ringo_ said:
If you draw lines connecting any 3 places you'll get a triangle, doesn't mean they are in any way connected though.

Yes I know, I was just stating about what they were talking about at the time. And of course Rynner is correct also.

You know what it is like when there is a UFO wave in an area, people come up with all sorts of theories, however outlandish they are. :roll:
 
When I was a child, up until my late teens, my family would often have days out in Wiltshire (even though we lived in the Midlands).

My family were interested in trains and often spent time at Westbury station. I, on the other hand was interested in the paranormal and took an interest in Warminster and the UFO stories.

I visited many of the areas mentioned whilst it was dark; Elm Hill leading to Cradle hill, Cop Heap, sleeping overnight at Clay Hill carpark etc....

I read many paranormal stories and associated with the are, such as a man who walked into a grass bank at Cradle Hill, and the man trying to sleep overnight in his car at Upton Scudamore.

Has naybody ever had their own unexplainable personal exeriences in the area?
 
ChrisBoardman said:
I read many paranormal stories and associated with the are, such as a man who walked into a grass bank at Cradle Hill, and the man trying to sleep overnight in his car at Upton Scudamore.

The man trying to sleep overnight in his car...was that you?
 
ChrisBoardman said:
http://thecid.com/ufo/uf19/uf6/196397.htm

Luckily I remembered his name....

if you search on Willy Gehlen upton scudamore there a re a few accounts on the net.

To be fair that link is not the same as the story I read. I once had a book on warminster and it mentioned the silhouette of a tall figure but nothing about an orange light or sighting of a UFO speeding away. It mentioned him waking up a couple of times and the rear hatch door was open.

The book was an orange hard back book about warminster ufos, I think it was by arthur shuttlewood but it was not 'the warminster mystery'.
 
I lived there for a few years and never saw a thing. Although it does sit right on the edge of Salisbury plain and has a very very heavy military presence.

I lived in Wiltshire for nearly my whole life and have never seen a thing that i would attribute to UFO's or Aliens, and that includes crop circles.
 
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