Welsh UFO sightings from 1894. For sightings from other years please click HERE.
January 25th 1894, 21:30
Llanthomas
Charles Fort wrote in New Lands (1923) of lights associated with earthquake activity. 'According to James G. Wood, writing in Symons' Met. Mag., 29-8, at 9.30 P.M., January 25, 1894, at Llanthomas and Clifford, towns less than 20 miles west of Hereford, a brilliant light was seen in the sky, an explosion was heard, and a quake was felt. Half an hour later, something else occurred: according to Denning (Nature, 49-325), it was in several places, near Hereford and Worcester, supposed to be an earthquake. But, at Stokesay Vicarage, Shropshire (Symons' Met. Mag., 29-8), was seen the same kind of an appearance as that which had been seen at Llanthomas and Clifford, half an hour before: an illumination so brilliant that for half a minute everything was almost as visible as by daylight.'
The Times reported on a brilliant meteor, so the Met. Mag asked readers for eyewitness accounts. Correspondents from Wales reported:
9.30 p.m.- At Llanthomas, near Hay, a working man walking along the road, was "startled by the sudden appearance of a very brilliant light in the dark sky; it seemed to be right overhead, and, as he looked up the sky seemed to open, and the light spread out gradually so bright, that you might pick up a pin in the road. The whole lasted quite a minute, and was accompanied by a rumbling sound towards the mountain E.S.E."
At the same place a woman described the light as coming through the window blind and lighting up the whole room for quite a minute it not more, and followed by a "rumbling, bumping noise." Both these persons are positive that the time was 9.30 and not 10 on the same place my correspondent reports that it was noticed to be remarkably warm just before the concussion occurred, and that several flashes of lightning were seen during the night.
PRESS
March 1894
Penarth
The Western Mail of March 22nd 1894 reported:
SEASIDERS ARM AND TURN OUT IN FORCE
ONLY A HARMLESS DONKEY AFTER ALL
The Penarth phantasmagoric gorilla appears to be making things "hum a bit" in the charming summer retreat of the Cardiff bon ton. Bailiff Lewis, of Cwrt-y-vil, claimed a day or two ago that an incorrigible roving horse under his charge was entitled to the credit which had been most unfairly given to the "gorilla," but the dreadful monster of the woods is not to be "laid" so easily when there are imaginative minds about.
The other night, for instance, two fair maidens had been strolling through St. Augustine's Churchyard just as the shudes of night were silently creeping along the landscape and looking up its varied features in a sombre embrace, when they suddenly saw an apparition peering over the churchyard wall, which so "sceered" them that they ran shrieking towards the friendly shelter of their domicile.
"The gorilla? The gorilla!" were the cries that pierced the night air, something in the manner of the "Excelsior" of Lougfellow's good young man, and within a few minutes there was a "call to arms," the neighbours gathering unto themselves a variety of weapons which would form an interesting collection in any local museum. A council of war was held, and it was felt that the protecting arm of the law should be requestioned.
So the police were called, and the police, in order to make their onslaught on the new seaside terror more effective, called out the fire brigade, the members of which were determined to force upon the gorilla a plentiful supply of pure water. The mixed calvacade cautiously advanced towards the spot where the hairy midnight marauder was supposed to be in hiding, and were preparing themselves for the grand coup de grace, when the cause of all the pother put his head over the churchyard wall, flapped his long ears together in astonishment at the sight of so incongruous a group as that he saw before him, and put his head to one side as if desirous of knowing what all the fuss was about.
It was a donkey - and a fellow feeling took possession of those who thought they had seen "gorillas" of that stamp before in huckster carts and Newmarket barrows."
PRESS
April 1894
Newport
The South Wales Echo (23/04/1894) reported that a house in Mountjoy Street was said to be haunted - and that a group of boys who had taken to loitering and keeping watch for the ghost had broken all the windows by throwing stones. Charles Edwards was lucky to get the case dismissed from the police court with a caution.
Sunday 26th August, 1894 | 22:30
Llanberis
Found this sighting of a 'disc' in the night sky via Charles Fort's Book of the Damned, gleaned in turn from Nature 50/524:
Extraordinary Phenomenon. Having recently had before me your number of the 6th inst, I feel very desirous to bring under your notice, for insertion in your journal, the description of a most extraordinary and singular phenomenon as was observed by me at Llanberis, N. Wales, on Sunday, August 26 last, about 10.30 p.m.; especially as I perceive that the time of my observation coincides precisely with the time recorded in that number by John W. Earle, at Gloucester, describing his observation of a remarkable meteor which he discovered.
I was outside the hotel in Llanberis at 10.30 p.m. admiring the lustre of the stars — for it was a cloudless night - when, gazing upwards into the region of Cassiopeia, I was startled by a sudden flash from a brilliant effulgence of white light situated proximately to the two stars of greatest magnitude in that constellation, which immediately resolved itself into a clearly defined disc, about three times the diameter of Jupiter.
After a brief interval I observed a body of brilliant orange colour discharged from the disc, which was projected directly towards Perseus. This body assumed a form resembling an elongated flatfish, but terminating in a point, the disc forming a nucleus to the apparition, which was marvellous to behold; but its visibility proved to be only of short duration, for the white disc, or nucleus, suddenly disappeared, leaving the orange-coloured mass quiescent for about half a minute, and then I saw it fade away gradually, and it vanished out of my sight.
The appearance of this strange body did not occupy more than five minutes of time; its dimensions in length I estimated was about fifteen degrees of arc. I likewise noticed an important fact - that it evidenced no motion in space. During my professional career, including Arctic and Equatorial services, a great part was spent in nightly watchings, in which all sorts of meteoric phenomena came under my notice, yet I never beheld one which manifested such marked singularity and distinctiveness combined. I could only regret that no one was at hand to affirm what I saw.
With reference to the meteor observed by John W. Earle in Ursa Major, I wish to mention that a building excluded that constellation from my sight, therefore it establishes a very interesting and important fact that these two extraordinary phenomena, one in Ursa Major, the other in Cassiopeia, were so distinctly notified by two observers so remote from each very same moment. - Erasmus Ommanney, Admiral. 29 Connaught Square, W., September 24.
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