Post by Crickinneck on Nov 16, 2010 3:56:41 GMT 10
Berwyn Mountains incident
Last updated: 08 October 2009
Information on the so-called 'Welsh Roswell' incident, a mysterious event regarded by enthusiasts as a UFO crash in the Berwyn Mountains in 1974, is still under discussion today - with another witness coming forward in July 2008 for a new TV investigation.
Update, August 2010
Background to the so-called Welsh Roswell
The Berwyn Mountains incident happened on January 23, 1974, and was triggered by sightings of lights in the sky, and a tremor. Officials quickly descended on the area as people living in and around the villages of Llandderfel and Llandrillo, near Corwen, tried to make sense of what had happened
Reports of the time said the villagers ran from their houses, fearing a second tremor, and then they saw a blaze of light on the mountainside. Some say they saw an egg-shaped craft on the ground with a pulsating orange and red glow.
Police and military officials were called in but only ever released the briefest of information [see below]. Then, in May 2008, a number of Welsh UFO sightings were made public [Find out more via BBC News Wales], but nothing further was issued about the Berwyn incident which has been given an incident number by the MoD [ref Air 2/19083]. Some of that data gleaned from the files in The National Archives states:-
Berwyn - witness accounts
Gwynedd Police Constabulary Major Incident Log - explosion - 21.10pm PC receiving 999 calls of UFO.
A witness who saw an object on the hillside said in a statement: 'Saw bright red light, like coal fire red. Large perfect circle. Like a big bonfire. Could see lights above and to the right and white lights moving to bottom. Light changed colour to yellowish white and back again.'
A message in a police log said: 'There's been a large explosion in the area and there is a large fire in the mountainside. I am speaking from ... and can see the fire where I am.'
Telex message to chief constable Gwynedd constabulary. 22.00pm approx 23/1/74: Saw bright green lights, object with tail - travelling west. Saw about Bangor direction - dropped down.
At approx 10pm on 23/1/74: Saw a circular light in the sky at an estimated height of 1,500 feet. This object exploded and pieces fell to the ground. Mr ... estimates the pieces would have fallen into the sea between Rhyl and Liverpool.
The story refused to go away and was back into the headlines in July 2008 when TV's Channel 5 launched a new series, Britain's Closest Encounters, in which its opening programme focussed on Berwyn - and a new witness.
Retired gamekeeper Geraint Edwards, of Llandderfel, was reported in the Daily Mail newspaper, as seeing a UFO a couple of weeks later in the same area:
"It was definitely a flying saucer. It was a pity I didn't have a camera because it was there for at least 10 minutes, just hovering. We were on the way down to play darts when something caught our eye in the south-east, so we stopped.
'It looked like a rugger ball, but the ends of it were more pointy. When it took off, it just went like lightning on the same line as it hovered. I wrote it down in my diary. It was 6.45pm on the Friday night. If we were coming back from the pub, people would be saying, 'They've had one or two.' But we were going TO the pub."
source: www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northeast/guides/weird/ufos/pages/berwyn.shtml