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Windermere, 28 Aug 1977—Re-Entries Or Meteors?

BS3

Abominable Showman
Joined
Sep 20, 2021
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I wasn't particularly interested in UFOs as a child, but can very clearly recall my first exposure to the concept - a TV report sometime in the early 80s featuring a supposedly impressive case from 28 August 1977.

This involved a series of sightings, mostly by police officers, of two large, slow-moving lights moving around the area of Lake Windermere. A paragraph is devoted to it here:

http://www.nicap.org/chronos/1977fullrep.htm

This makes it sound a bit like there were sequential sightings over a period of about 30 minutes, though a check of the locations show that the 'object' would either have had to jump around a lot in that time or been much higher than the witnesses thought. To me this suggests space debris re-entry, or similar.

Leaving aside the 'black project testing' hypothesis, the sightings sound very much like the 'Cosford incident', which was certainly proved to be a re-entry - particularly the descriptions of a "catamaran like" or "kite like" object, filled in around the lights by the witnesses through the 'airship effect'. Now the thing is I can find a couple of references suggesting that Salyut 5 re-entered the atmosphere on 28 August, but the majority say 8 August. Two questions for anyone with a longer fortean memory, or better library, than me:

- Did anything burn up on 28 August, or were any fireballs reported?

- Did anyone ever publish a solution to this case or was it eventually forgotten about?
 
Cant remember anything about that one, Windermere is used by the
military for low flying by day and night and that seems a hell of a lot
of Police officers to be knocking about a relatively rural area at night
the place shuts down at 6pm, that's not to say nothing happened though
and a good few odd things have been seen over Morecambe Bay,
thanks for posting.
:omr::bthumbup:
 
Cant remember anything about that one, Windermere is used by the
military for low flying by day and night and that seems a hell of a lot
of Police officers to be knocking about a relatively rural area at night
the place shuts down at 6pm, that's not to say nothing happened though
and a good few odd things have been seen over Morecambe Bay,
thanks for posting.
:omr::bthumbup:

Yes, from the bit we do know about testing of the real 'secret stuff' in the past it tends to be done over the sea, at night. So there seems a limited possibility they could have seen something military being put through its paces given the location.

I think there might have been a lot more officers on the beat in rural areas in the late 1970s. I do clearly remember at least one being interviewed in the TV segment, which I guess would have been Constable Ian Mackenzie, describing the lights as initially appearing like car headlamps on a hilltop.
 
Thanks for the link, we simply don't these CE3 reports anymore:

March 7, 1977; Winchester, Hampshire, England
9:00 PM. Mrs. Jane Bowles was driving with a friend, Mrs. Ann Strickland, along a country road when their car stopped and a brilliant glow "like a white sun" lit up the area around them. An oval object was observed that was luminous and making a humming sound. A man emerged from the UFO, one similar in appearance to the one involved in Mrs. Bowles earlier close encounter. He was human like with long hair, a beard, and pink eyes. He approached, holding out his hands, and touched Mrs Bowles. His hands were warm to the touch like a human's. The man looked at Mrs. Strickland and then spoke in an unknown language. He gave something to Mrs. Bowles which she would not divulge, and then he returned to the UFO, which ascended into the sky with a hum and high-pitched noise. The women returned to Winchester, and Mrs. Bowles observed that her hands were red and swollen. She had to remove her wedding ring and she found the skin underneath raw. (Source: David F. Webb and Ted Bloecher, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Encounters, case 1977-12, citing Lionel Beer, BUFORA).

and:

April 7, 1977; Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales
5:00 AM. Mr. Cyril John, age 64, a former local political leader, was up early for an early start to London when he noticed a light shining in his bedroom window. Looking out he observed two objects. The first was a silvery-gray egg-shaped object with a bright orange-red light on top of it. It was about four feet across and was rocking gently in the air about 60 meters away. The second was a seven to eight foot tall humanoid figure, who floated in the air with arms out and legs bent back, like a "free fall parachutist." There was only about 35 feet between the man and the observer. No features could be seen on the figure's face, and it wore a uniformly silver-gray "boiler suit." It remained motionless in the air for more than 25 minutes. Then both the being and the ovoid object began slowly moving off, gradually disappearing from view in the distance. (Source: David F. Webb and Ted Bloecher, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports, case 1977-17 [A1719], citing Randall Jones Pugh, British UFO Research Association).

*sigh*
 
Thanks for the link, we simply don't these CE3 reports anymore:

March 7, 1977; Winchester, Hampshire, England
9:00 PM. Mrs. Jane Bowles was driving with a friend, Mrs. Ann Strickland, along a country road when their car stopped and a brilliant glow "like a white sun" lit up the area around them. An oval object was observed that was luminous and making a humming sound. A man emerged from the UFO, one similar in appearance to the one involved in Mrs. Bowles earlier close encounter. He was human like with long hair, a beard, and pink eyes. He approached, holding out his hands, and touched Mrs Bowles. His hands were warm to the touch like a human's. The man looked at Mrs. Strickland and then spoke in an unknown language. He gave something to Mrs. Bowles which she would not divulge, and then he returned to the UFO, which ascended into the sky with a hum and high-pitched noise. The women returned to Winchester, and Mrs. Bowles observed that her hands were red and swollen. She had to remove her wedding ring and she found the skin underneath raw. (Source: David F. Webb and Ted Bloecher, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Encounters, case 1977-12, citing Lionel Beer, BUFORA).

and:

April 7, 1977; Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales
5:00 AM. Mr. Cyril John, age 64, a former local political leader, was up early for an early start to London when he noticed a light shining in his bedroom window. Looking out he observed two objects. The first was a silvery-gray egg-shaped object with a bright orange-red light on top of it. It was about four feet across and was rocking gently in the air about 60 meters away. The second was a seven to eight foot tall humanoid figure, who floated in the air with arms out and legs bent back, like a "free fall parachutist." There was only about 35 feet between the man and the observer. No features could be seen on the figure's face, and it wore a uniformly silver-gray "boiler suit." It remained motionless in the air for more than 25 minutes. Then both the being and the ovoid object began slowly moving off, gradually disappearing from view in the distance. (Source: David F. Webb and Ted Bloecher, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports, case 1977-17 [A1719], citing Randall Jones Pugh, British UFO Research Association).

*sigh*

It's really interesting how the first is very much in the pre-60s "contactee" tradition, whereas the second has the more inscrutable, dreamlike quality of something from Keel or Vallée (in fact the whole 'encounter' sounds more like some sort of dream experience - which is probably what it was).

The 70s were definitely a time of transition in the phenomenon - I suppose with us having gone into space, and then the moon, in the previous decade, the idea of benevolent, nuts and blots Venusians (or whatever) no longer seemed tenable. So both ufology and the sightings themselves started to go in other directions, e.g. those suggested by Keel and Vallée. Since the 1980s these now seem very much of their time too.
 
I'm coming back to this one further to the Calvine thread because, of nearly all British sightings, it seems to me most likely to be something that might be testing of some sort of unconventional aircraft:

28 Aug 1977; Windermere, Cumbria, England
12:10 AM An on duty police officer PC IAN MACKENZIE observed two very bright horizontal lights in the vicinity of Langdale Pike that moved towards him and grew brighter. He ruled out any type of aircraft. At the same time PS JOHN McMULLEN also spotted the UFO from his location whilst walking through Keswick with three other officers. He described the object as being hang glider or diamond shaped. At 0020 hours PS JAMES TROHEAR and PC JOHN FISWICK also reported seeing the object from their position at the Fallbarrow Park Caravan Site on the shores of Lake Windermere. Other unnamed officers were also present at that location and saw the object. PS TROHEAR described the object as triangular or diamond shaped. At 0022 hours PC ALEXANDER INGLIS was driving home with three colleagues along the A591Keswick to Bothel road when they too caught sight of the lights. As the object approached them he pulled the car over to have a better look. Despite their efforts they could not make out a distinct shape of the object. All they could make out was two extremely bright lights attached to it and there was a faint purring noise associated with it. At 0025 hours PC JOSEPH MAW and a colleague spotted the object heading in the direction of Buttermere. It was traveling at a low altitude over the surrounding fells. At around the same time PC DAVID WILD spotted the UFO whilst out on foot patrol on the A592 Rayrigg Road to Bowness. He described it as kite shaped and that it was a very large structured craft. At 0030 hours a number of civilian witnesses also spotted the object. At the same time following a police radio request for officer sightings, two further officers, PS GEOFFREY MERCKEL and PC RONALD JONES observed the same UFO from their position at Skelwith Bridge on the A593 road. They described the object as being kite shaped as they watched it go out to sea over Morcambe Bay. Multiple police witness corroboration reported from several geographical locations. On and Off Duty sighting. 17 Officers (nine named plus a number of unspecified officers). Source - A Covert Agenda by Nick Redfern. Pocket Books 1998. Pages 131-132. (Reference: THE 5TH ANNUAL PRUFOS POLICE REPORT 2006 by Detective Constable 1877 HESELTINE British Transport Police )

There is a detailed re examination of this sighting, including maps and witness descriptions, in a BUFORA journal here. The investigator - Norman Oliver of Sandown Sam fame - implies there were similar sightings in previous months, notably something he calls the "Kent Flatfish".

Now part of me does think 're-entry' given the similarity to the later "Cosford" case championed by Nick Pope, but I haven't had a match with any actual debris confirmed yet. Moreover, Andy Roberts in his journal The Armchair Ufologist recorded a curiously similar sighting (two large slow moving lights, seen by many witnesses across part of northern England) on IIRC 2 Feb 1998.
 
For historic interest I've tracked down the Newington 'Skate' (flatfish, whatever) report in the BUFORA journal, March / April 78:

20220820_170521.jpg
 
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