Welsh UFO sightings from 1985. For sightings from other years please click HERE.
A letter to the South Wales Argus (23/11/1985) suggested there was a need for a new UFO group in south Wales, given the upsurge of interest in the press and on Red Dragon FM. A few profile pieces on ufologists appeared in newspapers around Wales, as shown below, and coverage was given to various tales of lights in the sky. The most interesting case of 1985 - the alleged abduction of a teenager in Pwllheli - wouldn't become public knowledge for some years however.
CONTACT
Friday February 8th, 03:00
Pwllheli
19-year-old witness was walking home alone along a main road, having spent the night with friends listening to music. He heard a humming noise, the kind associated with generators, and knowing there shouldn't be any in the vicinity looked for the source. He found it in the form of a glowing craft hovering over a nearby field.
Humanoid figures then approached him and forcibly took him aboard the craft, which set off and eventually docked with a mother ship. There he was given a medical examination and communicated with telepathically. He was taken back to the field and let go, where he wandered dizzily back to the road. There a policeman found him and drove him home - there he determined he had about an hour and half of missing time, confirming something really had happened in the field.
I'm going to write a standalone post on this case with all the relevant journal pieces, but for now here's a succinct overview from UFO Data magazine:
MOD FILES
Friday March 1st, 18:30
Morriston
"Clear Sky. The witness and a friend’s husband were in a garden in a village location near Swansea, when they saw a round, white object, 3 or 4 times the size of a star, very bright, and moving backwards and forwards faster than a jet, in a position at a 45 degree angle over the DVLC building near Morriston. The witness could hear a sound like that of a piston engine, but not like a normal aircraft sound. They watched the object for about half an hour." (SUFON case summary)
April 4th
Haverfordwest
Witness - a farmer, driving his van near Haverfordwest - saw a red, spherical ball of fire in midair ahead and above the road. It lit up the van, then there was a big bang and the windscreen shattered completely. The incident was recorded as ball lightning.
PRESS
April
Cwmbran
PRESS
April
Cwmbran
Green and blue lights were seen in the night sky by multiple witnesses, including police officers on the beat in Croesyceiliog and Llantarnam. They were eventually traced to source on Llantarnam Industrial Estate where local firm, Laser Systems, were demonstrating their new disco laser lights for foreign businessmen.
In the early 90s laser light displays would come to be the go to explanation for any and all UFO sightings in Wales.
PRESS
May
PRESS
May
Tywyn
21 dead lambs - all white Welsh ewes - were found dead on farms belonging to Mr Richard Lewis and Major Norman Corbett, each with a puncture wound about the size of a 10p coin on their side. Similar wounds had been found on dead lambs the year before.
(Re. the other story in the clipping, I'm sure I remember reading something about it before... Cue my Google search history looking even weirder than usual!)
Tuesday May 28th / Wednesday May 29th
Myddfai
Olive Dewhurst-Maddock, a professional musician from Cumbria, told Jenny Randles that she was with her husband and friends watching the sun set over the Towy Valley, from the slopes of a farm at Myddfai in rural west Wales. At c. 19:30 they were watching clouds build up after a warm day. In Mind Monsters (1990) Jenny wrote:
There then followed an event about which Olive asked me: 'Could this be blind chance or was there more to it?' The clouds started to form into the shape of a UFO. Hanging in the air above the Brecon Beacons it was an amazing spectacle: a dome on top, a row of portholes around the rim and rays of light being projected form the base, presumably sunlight, although reminiscent of searchlight beams. Olive watched for several minutes and it seemed to stay in one place. She felt a kind of 'oneness' and remained gazing up in stillness and silence.
As she puts it: 'I felt astounded, but not surprised. It seemed inevitable and familiar.' Later she commented on her strange decision not to bring it to the attention of the others (and they seem not to have 'seen' it.) 'The whole thing was unremarkable, in an unaccountable way... At no time did I think of the shape as anything more than an extraordinary cloud ... I felt it was "natural", but significant.'
The phenomenon vanished by 'dissolving' apparently more quickly than ordinary clouds would do. Superficially we have nothing but a coincidentally-shaped cloud. Yet the strange state of consciousness which Olive displayed has all the features we have seen in the Oz factor and hints at deeper things. Did she 'manufacture' the UFO from the cloud in some truly fantastic way? Especially as we note that she was personally interested in the subject and had read books on the theme.
PRESS
Wednesday May 29th, 02:00
Cwmbran
Jane Thomas of Cae Derwen, Two Locks and a secretary with Torfaen council, saw a large square object above Twmbarlwm from her window while getting a drink of water. She watched it for about ten minutes, observing the object hovering, then start to bounce before it seemed to change shape and ascend very quickly.
Miss Thomas said there also seemed to be two large lights like field lights travelling towards it. It was a clear night with a full moon and she was convinced it was not a trick of the light.
UFOWATCH
Wednesday July 17th, 19:00
Tredegar
Anthony Weed (14) was with about 12 friends playing football and saw a disc-shaped object in the sky at an altitude of at least 1000 ft. It was rotating as it moved slowly and deliberately through the sky. Anthony compared it to a huge dustbin lid. It was silver-grey in colour.
UFOWATCH
Wednesday July 17th, 19:00
Tredegar
Anthony Weed (14) was with about 12 friends playing football and saw a disc-shaped object in the sky at an altitude of at least 1000 ft. It was rotating as it moved slowly and deliberately through the sky. Anthony compared it to a huge dustbin lid. It was silver-grey in colour.
There were no obvious lights visible, being a daylight sighting.
They watched as it moved down the valley and out of sight.
Duration of sighting: 10-15minutes.
"The U.F.O. I saw was silver/grey in colour. It was difficult to judge the size of the object because it was at least 1000feet in the air. The only way I can describe this U.F.O. is that it looked like a huge dustbin lid. There were no obvious lights visible as my sighting was in daylight. The U.F.O. was obviously rotating as it moved slowly but deliberatly through the sky. Me and about 12 of my mates watched as it moved down the valley and out of sight. I know this sighting was a long time ago but it still remains very vivid in my memory, and some 20 years on,I am still unable to explain what me and my friends saw that summers evening while we were all playing football."
CONTACT
Late August, daytime
Llanfair TH
Witness was driving home on his motorbike when he saw a dome shaped object on the ground with large windows. Corroborating witness was later found. Margaret Fry investigated and submitted a report to NUFON #123:
CONTACT
November 11th, 17:00
Bylchau
Mr. H, an agricultural sales rep, was driving home along an isolated road (the A543) across Denbigh Moors. He saw a 'yellow egg' rise from the ground, hover twice, and then disappear into the clouds. He said he stopped the car but did not get out. When Margaret Fry investigated she determined he would have had to get out to see the object at that point, and felt Mr. H may have been masking a closer encounter as he was wary of talking to her.
Mr. W, a farm worker, saw a very similar object at the same time. He was in Llansannan, about 3 miles to the north west. The two did not know of each other's sighting until three weeks later.
Another witness saw a yellow light at around the same time from their home in Rhuddlan, 10 miles north east.
Margaret Fry's reports on this case were published in NUFON #120 (July/August 1987):
PRESS
November
Cardiff
"Two witnesses saw 6 round lights, in two triangular formations, flying together, going slowly and silently over the rooftops in the Taff Well area of the city. They were low enough to be obscured by the roofs of the houses opposite as they passed over the city. It was a very overcast evening, with light rain, so clearly the objects had to be below the cloud base that evening. The South Wales Echo printed a half page report of this event."
Margaret Fry submitted her report on the case to Awareness V21/N4.
PRESS
December, 05:40
Shotton, Deeside
Three witnesses saw a large yellow / white light travelling in an arc. Jenny Randles of NUFON opined it could have been a satellite, or an aircraft with landing lights on.
CONTACT
CONTACT
Late August, daytime
Llanfair TH
Witness was driving home on his motorbike when he saw a dome shaped object on the ground with large windows. Corroborating witness was later found. Margaret Fry investigated and submitted a report to NUFON #123:
CONTACT
November 11th, 17:00
Bylchau
Mr. H, an agricultural sales rep, was driving home along an isolated road (the A543) across Denbigh Moors. He saw a 'yellow egg' rise from the ground, hover twice, and then disappear into the clouds. He said he stopped the car but did not get out. When Margaret Fry investigated she determined he would have had to get out to see the object at that point, and felt Mr. H may have been masking a closer encounter as he was wary of talking to her.
Mr. W, a farm worker, saw a very similar object at the same time. He was in Llansannan, about 3 miles to the north west. The two did not know of each other's sighting until three weeks later.
Another witness saw a yellow light at around the same time from their home in Rhuddlan, 10 miles north east.
Margaret Fry's reports on this case were published in NUFON #120 (July/August 1987):
PRESS
November
Cardiff
"Two witnesses saw 6 round lights, in two triangular formations, flying together, going slowly and silently over the rooftops in the Taff Well area of the city. They were low enough to be obscured by the roofs of the houses opposite as they passed over the city. It was a very overcast evening, with light rain, so clearly the objects had to be below the cloud base that evening. The South Wales Echo printed a half page report of this event."
Margaret Fry submitted her report on the case to Awareness V21/N4.
PRESS
December, 05:40
Shotton, Deeside
Three witnesses saw a large yellow / white light travelling in an arc. Jenny Randles of NUFON opined it could have been a satellite, or an aircraft with landing lights on.
CONTACT
December 12th
Penrefail
Margaret Fry described the following sighting in her book Link To The Stars:
On the l2th December l985 it was an extra sunny day, so at mid-day Ron [Fry's husband] and I motored down towards the coast. On our return journey going upwards towards our rural mountain village, we came to a point just before the crossroads by Penrefail petrol station, where there are fields either side of the road, with electric pylons going across them.I suddenly noted a small dirty-white bar with blunted ends, about 3ft to 4ft long, it was travelling rapidly below the height of these electric wires strung from one pylon to the next. It created a ripple of wind behind it, so seemed pretty powerful though small.I was begging Ron to stop; if we had came to the cross roads it would have passed beside the car, we had about five cars behind us, so Ron was unable to slow down.
CONTACT
December 29th, 00:30
Meliden, Prestatyn
Two witnesses, female students driving home from their evening part-time job, saw an object described as a green / yellow light come from nearby quarries. It seemed to slow and enter some clouds, before reappearing and travelling lower and lower to land in 'The Meadows', just off the A547. The witnesses turned the car around and went after the UFO, getting out and going up to the hedges. However it was pitch black and they saw nothing.
When travelling over the fields the object had been low and close and resembled a domed disc with red lights on each side. Upon landing it was a brilliant white football with a 'red rotation' to it.
At 01:15 the sky lit up and a disc was seen by many people in the area.
Margaret Fry investigated and had her report published in NUFON #120.
On Sunday March 23rd 1986 four members of Contact's data research headquarters - Derek Mansell, Geoff Ambler, Mike Soper, and David Ridge - visited Margaret Fry in north Wales. They spoke with Mrs J and Mrs W, and their respective daughters Kathryn and Alison, who had all had sightings in Jan 1986 and Dec 1985. The HQ team commented that the witnesses "seemed cheerful, relaxed and honest" and published a summary of their conversation in Awareness V14/N2:
(Possibly related to a case on the SUFON database : 20th December - On this night a red ovoid object rose from a quarry in Meliden, into the clouds. Source: 'Earth Lights Revelation' Paul Devereux , page 73.)
? 1985, Late night
Aberystwyth
Hearing her young daughter screaming, the witness ran to her room and was confronted by a tall, yellow-glowing humanoid figure peering at her from behind her daughter's door. The figure was very tall and wore what resembled 'a spaceman's suit.' The figure appeared to be startled and as the witness approached, it shot quickly away towards the hallway and disappeared from sight. A search of the house failed to find anything.
Source: 'Humanoid Encounters 1985-1989 2016 page 13 citing UFO Sightings in the UK.
SUFON
SUFON
? 1985, 19:00 or 20:00
Port Tennant, Swansea
Port Tennant, Swansea
A man was driving home with his mother, to Bonymaen along Bog Road, near the site of Tir John Power Station, as they came round a bend in the road, they suddenly saw ‘an object’ near the ground which shot up in the air as they got near it, nearly hitting the car, before shooting off.The experience frightened them as they thought it was going to crash into them. No further details are known, of what the object was like etc, as the informant, the man’s sister, explained that her brother has now passed away, and their mother is in her 90s and suffering from dementia.
Repost of comment on original post:
ReplyDeletePAUL HUGHES, 3 AUGUST 2023 AT 09:38
Hello! Very interesting site! In the article with the heading "CONTACT, Late August, daytime
Llanfair TH", the man on the motorbike returning home is my father!
After finding this site and reading this article again, I asked him about the night in question (now 38 years later) and he he still recalls the events of sighting the landed UFO as if it was yesterday - and can't explain it. The next morning, we went to the location of the sighting and there was a distinct outline in the grass. Not depressed or scorched, but the grass was noticeably darker in distinct pattern.
I am also one of the "two schoolboys" who had witness the "classic" triangular UFO over the course of several nights, which led me to contact Margaret Fry originally. At the time I also told Mrs. Fry of a UFO I had witnessed a few years earlier.
All these years later, I still can't explain the sightings, and the memories are still very vivid.
It's nice that there's still some record of these events and appreciate that someone spent the time making them available to a wider audience.
Regards,
Paul