Welsh UFO sightings from 1870. For sightings from other years please click HERE.
PRESS
November 1870
Cadoxton
The Brecon County Times of November 26th 1870 reported on the weird experience of a Mr. James:
AN EXTRAORDINARY GHOST STORY. It has been reserved for Cadoxton to discover that the ghosts of other days, and the spirits of the "Home" family, have still an existence in this year of grace 1870. Without further preface we enter at once to a proof of our assertion. A few evenings since, a very respectable workman, engaged at the Aberdulais works, but residing with his wife and family at Cadoxton, met with an adventure, which has become the theme of general conversation for some miles round the neighbourhood. It appears that his wife had left the house, and gone on business to town, while the children were attending the usual singing practice of the choir.
During their absente, he went with the manager of the works to the Green Dragon Inn, to enjoy a glass of ale; upon his return to the house, in the course of a short time, and after taking off his hat and coat, he was startled by hearing a terrible rattling noise, filling the house, and appearing to shake the very earth around him. He at once lost consciousness, and fell to the ground, where in his struggles with the unknown cause of his position, he wrenched off the bottom portion of the clock case, and, after some minutes of contest, he recovered his senses, to find himself in the road near the church.
He placed his hand upon his head to recover his thoughts, remembering that he had left part of his clothes at home, when the same extraordinary influence came over him again, and he felt himself "spirited" away to the vestry door of the church. Here he again was thrown down, and in his struggles with the powers that seemed to influence him, he clutched the long grass growing by the side, and held it most tenaciously. Then he again became unconscious, and in an instant found himself surrounded by a brilliant light in the interior of Jeffries' Dyffryn vault, a spot protected by walls and railings.
As soon as he recovered from his bewilderment, he was horrified to behold, standing before him, the seeming bodily presence of Mrs. Williams, one of the long departed tenants of the tomb. With trembling voice the apparition told him to count the coffins as they laid; the untortunate prisoner obeyed, and numbered off "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven," when the fancied spirit told him to "See that corner." He obeyed, and found some tassels torn from the coffin decorations; at her request he replaced them, and in an instant found himself in darkness.
His position now alarmed him, and he called loudly for help to his brother, who resided in the locality, but as he met with no response, he then invoked his wife's assisstance, when suddenly he found himself "spirited" again into the open air, and lying senseless in the churchyard. To escape over the railings into the road was the work of but a few moments. A friend here discovered him, and took him home, more dead than alive from fears, still clutching the fatal grass, and bearing terrible indications of the astounding events which had befallen him.
His wife also had been alarmed at his absence, and finding part of his clothes at home, and noticing the proofs of a struggle in the house, she gave way to her feelings, and soon aroused the neighbourhood. The following day, the hero of this extraordinary adventure attended to his usual duties, but the " sensation" caused by the narration of the circumstances we have recorded is certainly a "caution" for the 19th century.
PRESS
Sunday December 3rd 1870, night
Just a few weeks later the Brecon County Times of December 10th 1970 reported on another ghost story in the area:
ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY GHOST STORY. Following closely upon the strange adventures of Mr. James in the vaults of Cadoxton churchyard, comes another narrative of the "marvellous" which but for the well-known respectability of the hero of the adventure, we should hesitate to give publicity to. We give the facts as related by our informant, without comment, further than to say that the lengthy shadows of a November sun perhaps afford ample excuse for the romance. It is a characteristic feature of a Glamorganshire landscape that there is always public-house in close proximity to a church, and the Skewen is no exception to the rule. On Sunday week last, late in the afternoon, a-well-to-do, hard-working man — we suppress his name - betook himself, we are bound to confess, not to the spiritual sustenance offered at the "better place," but to the "liguid gems," at fourpence a quart, retailed at one of the landscape indispensables, near an old quarry on the road side.
After the usual enjoyment, night drew on space, and our hero, "screwing his courage to the sticking place," and buttoning up his coat closely around him, boldly started on his way homewards. He had gone but a short distance towards Neath, singing snatches of songs, when a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder, and he was ordered to "stop that horrid noise." He obeyed, and turning round, beheld a tall Mephistophlitic figure, with an apparently immensely high Tyrolean hat, long black bair, veiled face, and claw-like hands, standing before him; the figure beckoned; our hero shook his head, as if declining the honour of following the strange apparition, when suddenly a flash of light deprived him of sight, and he found himself whirling through the air at a fearful rate; gradually the speed lessened, and the unwilling traveller recovered his sight, and with it a consciousness of being in the midst of a terrible number of fires, where little and big demons were heedlessly sitting, enjoying a feast, which he at once discovered consisted of human remains, the scraps of coffine being piled carelessly about the unearthly spot he had been conveyed to!
To seize one of the demons' pitchforks and attack the whole body of imps before him, was the work of an instant; the fight was furious, and ended in the victim falling senseless among a pile of coffins, which stood in one corner. How long he remained in this position he is unable to remember, but, he affirms that he was conveyed by a beautiful fairy to a silver stream, where, amidst the sweetest music, his wounds were charmed and healed, and that he was then gently transported to his home, before daybreak, by the same mysterious agency which had befriended him, after his terrible conflict with the cannibal demons.
It is rumoured in the neighbourhood where the above extraordinary adventure took place that enquiries have been made for a man named William Thomas, a summons being about to be issued against him for breaking a lot of tin boxes, after running away from a police officer whom he met on the road and attacking the workmen during their supper time at the works, while he was in a state of drunkenness; one of the girls kindly washing his face, and led him part of the way home, after the stupid trespass.
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