The 40 year unsolved mystery of the school children who saw a UFO
GETTY/MEDIA WALES A UFO and Broadhaven School children drawings of UFOs February 1977
They are in their 50s now but the children of Broad Haven in west Wales still recall every scary detail of the chilly February lunchtime in 1977 when they saw a UFO land in the playing field next to their school. It was a shiny grey torpedo shape, its upper dome topped by a pulsating red light – and some of them say a silver-clad spaceman emerged from the craft. Headmaster Ralph Llewellyn was convinced it was a prank so he sat the 14 children down under exam conditions and asked them to describe what they’d witnessed – and to his astonishment their drawings were remarkably similar.
The children insisted they had seen a flying saucer and handed in a petition at the police station demanding an investigation.
The children insisted they had seen a flying saucer and handed in a petition at the police station demanding an investigation
Forty years on it is clear this was just the first of a spate of sightings. A few days later a teacher and three dinner ladies saw the UFO and as winter turned to spring along the rugged Pembrokeshire coast, locals reported lights hovering in the sky, a strange being in a metallic suit, animals cowering in the fields and ghostly figures peering into farmhouse windows. The Ministry of Defence sent a man to speak to the children because the school was close to RAF Brawdy, although for 30 years the MoD denied it had conducted an official inquiry and said there was no threat to security even though it was the height of the Cold War.
ALAMY Costal view of Broad Haven St Brides Bay in Pembrokeshire in Wales
Only in 2015 when secret documents in the national archives were featured in a book called The Watchers was it confirmed that a top-level inquiry had taken place. Among documents uncovered by author Neil Spring was a letter from the head of the MoD’s S4 wing to the RAF’s internal police force. The S4 chief wrote: “I have not even told the minister I am consulting you,” and called for a “discreet enquiry” after expressing bewilderment at the number of apparently “level-headed” witnesses to the strange activity. Once the children’s experience was publicised in local newspapers the area became a magnet for UFO hunters who tagged it the Broad Haven Triangle. Two months later Rosa Granville, owner of the Haven Fort Hotel, was in bed at 2.30am when she was woken by strange noises and lights. She said she saw an “upside-down saucer” next to the hotel and two “faceless humanoid” creatures with pointed heads. She told BBC Wales: “There was so much heat my face felt burned. There was light coming from it and flames of all colours.
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Then [the creatures] came out of these flames.” Mrs Granville fi red off a letter to her MP Nicholas Edwards in which she said the incident left her “agitated and disturbed and not the least bit desirous of another encounter”. She went on: “I would be pleased to hear of an explanation, it would greatly help to relieve the sense of shock I feel since my encounter.” At Ripperston Farm a few miles away Billy Coombs and his wife Pauline reported a series of strange events scaring their cattle. Mrs Coombs said she was driving her children to school one day when their car was followed by what looked like “a rugby ball that was on fire”. Then one night the Coombs dialed 999 when a 7ft-tall figure wearing “a spacesuit” appeared at their sitting room window. The constable who drove out to their farmhouse said later that in 26 years’ service “that was the most frightened family I have ever been to see”. Only one child has spoken at length about the school UFO.
NC Pupil drawings taken from Broad Haven School's 1977 UFO scrapbook
David Davies, who was 10 at the time, gave writer Spring a statement three years ago in which he said: “The object was pearlescent silvery-grey, approximately 40ft long, torpedo/cigar-shaped with an upper domed section that covered the central third of the vehicle and which was topped with a red pulsating light. "I was the last of a dozen or so children to see the object on that day.” In an interview later he said: “The sighting, despite only lasting a few seconds, is burned on my memory like a photograph. I’ve spent my entire life and countless thousands of pounds trying to find answers about what we saw. “It has been a lifetime’s fascination driven by a desire to get to the truth. My personal inclination is that our particular sighting had a terrestrial origin. However I have never ruled anything out. "Our sighting was not the last visit to the school though. Unbeknownst to the children and most of the small community, the craft returned a few days later and was on this occasion seen by a teacher and three of the canteen staff. “I have never in the last 38 years exaggerated or sensationalised the account of what I saw and have never suggested that what we saw was of extra-terrestrial origin.
WALES MEDIA Broadhaven school children drawings of UFOs February 1977
“Many suggestions have been made that what we saw was either an agricultural vehicle or an aircraft from nearby RAF Brawdy. I’d like to state categorically that this is not the case as the majority of the children at the school, myself included, came from farming backgrounds and would have been able to identify any agricultural vehicle and because of Brawdy’s proximity we were also familiar with almost every RAF aircraft in the skies.” After researching his book, Spring said: “I visited Broad Haven a sceptic and came away convinced that some of the locals knew far more about the mysterious occurrences than they are willing to reveal.” So was it all a hoax? Emlyn Williams, organiser of a conference to mark the 40th anniversary, said: “One child can lie but can a whole class? "Over 40 years at least one of them might have come forward to say they made it up – but they haven’t.” Broad Haven had a range of military bases within 40 miles. There was a top-secret rocket testing station at Aberporth while RAF Brawdy, near St David’s, trained pilots on Hawker Hunters.
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