Whatever the source of the phenomena, it is clear that
the authorities took the initial reports seriously. The emergency services
mounted one of the region’s largest ever air and ground rescue operations in
response to a suspected air disaster - an operation which involved almost 200
personnel and cost in excess of £50,000. For 15 hours emergency services from four different counties,
co-ordinated by South Yorkshire Police, were involved in searching up to 50 square miles of the most barren
Pennine moorland for wreckage from a suspected aircrash - a crash which we now
know never happened.
This report aims to clear away the aura of mystery which
has continued to surround these events, cutting through wild speculation to
reveal the truth behind the Howden Moor Incident. In the process, the twists
and turns of the investigation has led the author into the very core of the
melting pot of belief and experience which gives birth to the UFO phenomena and
provided a unique insight into the psychology behind those who promote beliefs
in Extraterrestrial Visitors and conspiracy theories. For while the Howden Moor
Incident was not initially UFO case, it has all the hallmarks of one and has
been promoted as such more recently by those who today have become the
self-styled proponents of modern belief in alien visitations.
It is a story which begins on a clear, cold spring night in the Peak District National
Park, a night when many necks were turned skywards in search of the spectacular
Hale-Bopp comet which at that time was prominently visible in the night sky.
However, this particular night something else was
stirring which would make this evening a very long one for the emergency
services, and spark a mystery which remains a uncompleted jigsaw puzzle to this
day....
The Aircrash Which Never Was...
This was how news of what was to become one of the most
controversial incidents in British UFOlogy was first broken by the local
newspaper the Sheffield Star on the morning of Wednesday, March 25, 1997:
“Emergency services from four counties were today
involved in a massive operation to solve an X-Files style air crash riddle in
South Yorkshire.
“The operation was launched after a suspected air crash
and explosion were reported on Peak District moorland near Sheffield. Police
treated the reports seriously because callers reporting the incident were so specific - even though air
traffic authorities had no official reports of missing aircraft.”
The Howden Moor incident began shortly after 10pm..... that
night, when the operations room at Ecclesfield Police Station in Sheffield began
to receive emergency calls from people living in the area of Bolsterstone, an
isolated village high on the moorland border between Sheffield and the Peak
National Park. The first call came at 10.15 pm..... from two farmers near Bolsterstone who asked the control room staff if they had received any reports
of aircraft coming down over the moors. They said they had seen a plane flying
low and disappearing over the highest point on the western horizon, formed by
the moors known as Featherbed Moss, followed by a “flash” and several plumes of
smoke. Shortly afterwards further calls were received both by South Yorkshire
and the Derbyshire forces, reporting “aircraft in distress” and another
reporting “a plane having gone down west of the Midhope Moors area.”
These circumstantial reports were enhanced by a report from Strines Forest by
gamekeepers who heard a large explosion and reported a “large orange glow”
visible on the horizon.
By 10.30 pm..... that night, with a number of consistent and
reliable reports at hand, an alarmed police controller had called out 40 police
officers and placed the county’s Fire and Rescue Service and Ambulance Service
on full alert in anticipation of a possible disaster involving a light aircraft.
The mAnner in which the events unfolded from that point onwards can be followed
precisely via the Major Incident Log produced by South Yorkshire Police [an
edited version of which appears as an appendix to this report], who co-ordinated
the search and rescue operation which lasted until 2pm..... the following afternoon.
At 10.53 on March 24 Chief Inspector Christine Burbeary had taken command of the
incident, and initial contact with Manchester Airport ascertained that no
distress calls had been received or aircraft reported missing. Furthermore,
nothing had been registered on the airport’s radar which covers a large segment
of the northern Peak District. Staff in both Sheffield and Derbyshire were now
placing urgent calls to both civilian and military airports who may have had
traffic flying above the Peak District. However, the message that came back from
everyone was loud and clear - “it’s not one of ours.”
By 11pm..... that night West Yorkshire Police’s helicopter had
reached the moors near Bolsterstone and was beginning a large scale search of
the area using its Night-Sun searchlight and hi-tech Thermal Imaging equipm.....ent
to detect signs of a fire or wreckage. It was joined at midnight by an RAF Sea
King helicopter from RAF Leconfield on the East Coast. Use of the Sea King had
been authorised by a Flight Lieutenant at RAF Kinloss in Scotland, a base which
co-ordinates airsea rescue operations around the coastline of north Britain. The
police log provides evidence that staff at Kinloss ran checks on military radar
but discovered nothing, but later checks with the British Geological Survey
found evidence of a “sonic boom” coinciding with the initial reports from the
Peak District moors.
Meanwhile on the ground, Fire and Rescue tenders from
stations in Tankersley, Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hathersage were racing
towards the moors, and staff at Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital were
reportedly warned to stand-by to receive possible survivors or casualties from
the “aircrash.” The fire crews rendezvoused at the Strines Inn, a public house
which stands in an isolated spot high on the moors, while others joined police
at the Bar Dyke road junction, from where a track leads west onto the wild moors
above the Derwent and Howden Reservoirs. However, with no clear information
concerning where the “crash” was located, and the possibility that it could have
occurred anywhere in a wild and inhospitable zone extending for more than 50
square miles, police and fire crews had no option but to call upon the Mountain
rescue service for assistance.
By midnight dozens of volunteers from the seven mountain
rescue teams in the Peak District were being contacted by phone, some roused
from beds, others asked to leave their places of work and join the search
operation. Sgt Mike Hope and a civilian, Mike France, the co-ordinator of the
Peak District Mountain Rescue Service (PDMRS), established their headquarters at
the service’s Hepshaw Farm base on Langsett Moor. The farm was later used as a
rendezvous base for the Sea King, which landed there on several occasions during
the course of the following 12 hours, picking up Mountain Rescue staff and equipm.....ent to help the search.
By the early hours of March 25 a total of 141 mountain
rescue volunteers from all seven teams were out on foot searching the difficult
and often treacherous terrain stretching from Broomhead Moor, west of
Bolsterstone, out towards the vast and uninhabited tracts of peat bog north of
the Howden Reservoir complex. Joining them were teams of police officers and dog
teams from the Search and Rescue Dog Association. The MRS commanders split this
large group of personnel into groups, each of whom were assigned sectors of the
moors to search on foot with help from dog teams. This was a long and
painstaking process but resulted in a thorough search which was able to rule out
any chance of overlooking a crash site.
The West Yorkshire helicopter had by this time found no
evidence to indicate an aircrash of any kind had actually taken place. However,
calls were continuing to police stations both in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire
reporting a low-flying aircraft, an explosion and a flash over the moors. One of
these corroborating reports came in shortly after 1am from a police Special
Constable who had seen what she thought was a light aircraft flying very low and
apparently on a collision course with the moors while she was driving near
Bolsterstone around 10pm...... Early the following morning, when police set up a
special phone line for the public to report sightings, they were flooded with
information from people who had seen low-flying aircraft and military jets
across a wide area from Chesterfield in the south to Thurgoland, on the border
between South and West Yorkshire.
Chief Inspector Burbeary said these later reports simply
served to confirm the earlier information that a plane had actually gone down on
the moors. Despite skepticism from her opposite number in the Derbyshire Police
- who refused to order his officers to join a similar search operation - Chief Insp Burbeary decided to scale up the search operation in the early hours and
called in additional mountain rescue volunteers. She said:
“My concern was that we could have about eight people
from a crashed aircraft lying on the moor seriously injured. It was an
exceedingly cold night and we had to find them straight away.”
By 7 am on March 25 the RAF, after consulting with the
Civil Aviation Authority, authorised the setting-up of what it called a
“Dangerous Flying Zone” with a ten-mile radius, centred upon the Howden
Reservoir where the search was centred. As a result, Air Traffic Control staff
at Manchester were notified and airliners stacking up at high altitude were
warned of the flying restrictions below their flight corridors. The Danger Zone
was established, as later admitted in Parliament, as a routine measure to allow
the two helicopters to complete their search unhindered by both military and
civilian aircraft, particularly TV camera crews. The Danger Zone was a temporary
measure to allow the two helicopters to complete their sweep of the moors with
the minimum of disturbance.
In the event, as dawn broke, the two helicopters made a
further two thorough checks of the moors maintaining radio contact throughout
with MRS volunteers on the ground, without finding anything. The Sea King
returned to its base at Leconfield at 2pm....., as Chief Inspector Burbeary gave the
order to scale down the operation. She admitted:
“We got nothing back from air traffic control, no reports
of aircraft failing to return, and eventually, having looked at all the
circumstances, the decision had to be made to call the search off. The
conclusion at the end of the search had to be that no aircraft crashed on the
moor.”
However, the experienced senior officer was forced to
admit that there had been a number of genuine reports of “phenomena”, including
a low-flying aircraft, a huge explosion in the sky, and smoke. Mike France, the
Mountain Rescue co-ordinator, remained as baffled as the police. He said his
teams - who knew the area initimately - had thoroughly searched up to 50 square
miles of the moorland with help from the helicopters.
“There was no scouring to the moor, there were no bits of
wreckage. There was no oil traces on the reservoirs,” he said.
Officially, South Yorkshire Police categorised this
incident as “unexplained” but senior officers remain convinced that the truth
about what really happened has still to be revealed. At the time, the closing
entry in the Police Log suggested the incident had been caused by a series of
unconnected events and concludes: “..enquiries reveal a combination of
circumstances that would lead people to believe a plane might have crashed.”
Today the police continue to remain open-minded about the
incident and have even considered the possibility that the Howden Moors event
was triggered by a plane involved in a drugs drop, or was caused by the
appearance of a phantom “ghost plane” which, according to local folklore, haunts
the moors surrounding the Ladybower and Derwent reservoirs. Their most recent
comment, prior to the screening of a BBC “Mysteries” documentary on the case in
October 1997, was:
“No explanation was ever found and we remain open-minded
about what was behind the sightings.”
Since that time a second TV documentary has appeared on
the case, alongside a flurry of speculation linking it with UFOs and sinister
Government cover-ups. The UFO mythology is littered with speculation about
secret military retrievals of alleged crash-landed flying saucers, and believers
are eager to seize upon any rumour which alleges such an event has occurred in
Britain and abroad. To the police, emergency service and local people who took
part in the events of March 24, 1997, the Howden Moors incident remains a
baffling mystery, but one of mundane proportions, and none of them has ever
seriously considered the involvement of Extraterrestrial visitors. However, the
weeks which followed the incident saw an influx of what one landlord described
as “fruitbats and assorted nutcases” who set out to search for evidence of UFOs
and associated cover-ups. It was not long before rumours were circulating
concerning mysterious burnt patches in fields, ‘Men in Black’, flying triangles,
objects removed from the moors on low-loaders and unmarked helicopters. The most
precise rumour concerned an alleged sighting of ‘body bags’ being pulled out of
a reservoir and flown by the Sea King to a waiting ambulance. In this instance it soon
became clear that the ‘body bags’ were simply equipm.....ent being transferred from
the Sea King to the Mountain Rescue HQ at Hepshaw Farm during the search
operation. The “ambulance” turned out to be the four-wheel drive rescue vehicle
used by the Peak District Mountain Rescue Organisation which was present at the
scene. Among the rumours was one which suggested that Yorkshire Water workers
who had witnessed the above scene had been “told to keep quiet” in true cover-up
fashion. However, this investigation quickly located the workers in question and
they were only too keen to discuss what they remembered about the incident. They
had been ordered to check up to three of the reservoirs in the Strines area for
signs of oil or debris which may have resulted from a possible crash, but they
claimed the search had been called off before lunchtime on March 25. It was at
this point they said they had been told by the police that the RAF had admitted
the incident had been caused by one of their jets on an night-time exercise,
which had accelerated to supersonic speed, causing a flash and a bang which had
been witnessed by a number of local people.
An official said: “The police told us to stand down as
the RAF had admitted the flash and bang had been caused by a plane involved in a
night-time exercise which had gone through the sound barrier. I got the
impression from the police that they had been wasting their time and if they had
known they would not have put as much effort into it [the search].”
This explanation is at odds with what both the Mountain
Rescue co-ordinator and the senior police officer in charge of the operation
claim they were told by the RAF at the time, namely that there was no military
operation. However, it fits neatly with what has since been discovered, and
suggests that someone is being economical with the truth. It should be noted,
however, that at least one senior officer who took part in the 15 hour search,
Inspector Jack Clarkson, remains convinced it was caused by a covert military
operation. His views can be read in the Opinions section.
THE EYE
WITNESS TESTIMONY
Monday, March 24, 1997 was a clear, cold
spring evening with a full moon and many people from Sheffield and the
neighbouring areas took advantage of the fine weather conditions to venture
out onto the Peak District moors west of Sheffield to watch the comet Hale-Bopp
which was at its brightest and most prominent in the night sky. The gazetteer
which follows follows chronologically the events of that evening from dusk
until midnight, using wherever possible direct quotations from witnesses
transcribed from shorthand notes taken during face to face and telephone
interviews.
Readers will note there appear to have been
two separate groups of observations; the first seeming to describe a formation
of low-flying military jets observed at intervals between 8.30 and 9.50
pm...... Then shortly after 10pm..... a single, low flying aircraft is seen
moving west across the moors on the northwest outskirts of the city of
Sheffield. It appears to crash and simultaneously a loud explision is heard.
This was the event which triggered the search operation. From that point
onwards, the appearance of the two rescue helicopters, the first of which
reached the scene at 11pm....., adds to the confusion as witnesses including
Sharon Aldridge and Dan Grayson quite clearly observed the West Yorkshire
Police helicopter performing its search pattern and associated this with the
“crashed airplane” scenario.
The influence of the media was also
important in the generation of rumour, as the events received widespread
coverage both in the local and national media, in newspapers and on TV and
radio. This resulted in a flood of calls to the police from further witnesses
who had sighted aircraft and other flying objects on the night of March 24 but
had not deemed them out of the ordinary until they heard the news reports
about the search for the downed plane on the radio the following morning.
Det Insp Christine Wallace, who collated
more than 40 reports for the South Yorkshire force, told us later how these
described mainly low-flying aircraft but also UFO type craft, the observations
spanning several hours and originating from areas outside the zone of the
search and rescue operation. A summary of these reports can be found in the
Police Log, but only the most significant are discussed
here.
[dusk].....
Derwent Valley, Derbyshire. Park Ranger Brian Jones hears “an horrendous
noise” in the sky and sees a low-flying helicopter flying across the valley
towards Glossop. It carries a red and a white light. The same helicopter was
seen and heard by several other residents in the Ladybower/Bamford area but
has not been identified.
7.40pm...... Sighting in police log from a
Bryan Haslam of Keighley, West Yorkshire, who had seen an object in the sky
while travelling from Sheffield station. He was in the Barnsley area when he
saw “a triangle
shaped object with lights all around it hovering...” The police log of the
incident reads: “...[caller] does not think it was a plane. Thinks we are
wasting our time.”
8.30pm..... Gavin Stewart, driving on the
M62 in West Yorks sees “an aircraft with its lights on travelling at 1500 feet
nose down at a rate of knots. The
aeroplane disappeared over a ridge and he expected to see flames but saw
nothing more.” He reported the sighting to South Yorkshire Police after
hearing about the search for the crashed plane on the radio.
8.30pm..... Paul Bradley was outside the
Little Chef restaurant on the A61 Chesterfield by-pass in Derbyshire when he saw
a formation of three military jets on the horizon. He said the formation were
flying northwest towards the Derbyshire moors. Later the same night, around
10.15pm....., he said he saw more military jet activity while in the Shiregreen
area of Sheffield.
9.25pm..... Mr Rhodes of Ridgeway, near
Mosborough, Sheffield: “On the night of the incident I was watching the sky
for the comet. At 9.25 I saw a bright light travel from my right (Dronfield)
to my left (Ridgeway). I know this was the time because every night I always
stand outside at this time. I saw the light dip, then I heard what I thought
was a bang. I thought nothing of it until I heard the news about the crashed
plane. I don’t think my sighting had anything to do with the aeroplane as it
was nowhere near Bolsterstone.It was mysterious but I think it can be
explained as a meteorite. Since
the time I reported it to the police I’ve been contacted by the BBC,
alien magazines, UFO investigators and other
assorted nutcases.
9.30pm..... Tony Moore and Paul Byson,
watching the comet from the Shiregreen area of Sheffield,
area of Sheffield, saw what they described as a formation of fighter jets
flying directly above them in the direction of Derbyshire. A number of
other witnesses in Sheffield and northeast Derbyshire reported similar
sightings, including an entire football team in Dronfield. At around the
same time, a radio journalist from Hallam FM reported hearing “a loud
humming noise” from above his car while comet-watching on the Peak
District moors. This lasted 2-3 seconds, faded away and then returned,at one
point “resembling a bird flapping its wings.” Despite pointing a
torch skywards he was unable to see anything above him. It was only after
hearing of the search the following morning that he connected the two events.
9.55pm..... Series of sightings in the
Dronfield/Chesterfield area of Derbyshire, of
aircraft travelling in a north/northwest direction towards the Peak
District including jet aircraft and at least one light aircraft.
Emma Maidenhead [pseudonym] at Dronfield
heard two jet aircraft
pass over her home just before 10pm....., and went upstairs to the
bedroom where she heard “a low humming noise.” Then she saw what
she described as a triangle fly across the street. She told investigator
Martin Jeffrey: “I saw a triangle with the
corners cut off. There were two pink lights on the
front and I saw blue lights all around it. The triangle was a wide as the
street, it was really bright and just above the rooftops. It flew pretty slow
heading for the moors.” Max Burns describes the object
Emma saw as a “huge triangular object, 2-300ft across” and said it passed over
her house at a height of 200ft. He said it had pink/cerise lights around the
front and “an almost blinding electric blue light underneath.” The
UFO made a humming noise like an “like wet powerlines/electrical substation.”
She claimed the UFO lit up the whole street as bright as day. Less than a minute
before this object disappeared towards the moors two more jet
aircraft screamed overhead. Emma also claimed to have seen helicopters
in
the sky and said: “It was like an air show..I
have never seen as much air traffic in the sky at the same time.” Emma then rang
UFOlogist Max Burns and the pair travelled in Emma’s car into Derbyshire, where
they were stopped at the Ladybower Dam by a police patrol and saw helicopters
searching the moors to the north.
Shortly before Emma’s sighting a retired
RAF officer, John Brassington, heard two very low level fighter jets scream
over his house in Dronfield, so low they shook the foundations. He was certain
they were Tornado fighter jets. These aircraft were heard minutes after
he had distinctly heard a single-engined light aircraft flying low and
circling above the area. He was convinced the light aircraft was flying
illegally as it was so unusual to hear one at that time of the night over a
built up area. He said: “I think the RAF had the right to be in this area
flying at night, but I think the light aircraft was on an illegal flight, that
was why I phoned the police the following day when I heard about the search
for the crashed plane. I can assure you that if the RAF say nothing was going
on that night they are talking a load of rubbish. Those jets were so low they
shook the foundations of my house.”
Shortly before 10pm..... an off-duty police
sergeant at Edale in the Peak
District saw a formation of fighter jets pass
overhead. He said it appeared one low-level jet was being pursued by a formation
of Tornadoes flying in a V-formation behind it. The formation of jets was flying
at low-level and appeared to the eye as a large triangular object in the sky.
10pm.....? An 81-year-old woman pensioner
at Woodlands View, Stannington, on the outskirts of Sheffield, watching the
comet from her bedroom window
saw a long dark cigar shaped object flying in a
westerly direction across the moors from Bradfield towards Strines and the
Peak District. She said it was surrounded by an eerie “glow” as if it was on
fire, and was “very low” in the sky, almost at rooftop level. Speaking
afterwards, she said: “I was watching for the comet from my window which has a
panoramic view over the moors when I saw what I first thought was a plane come
over
the top of the hills beyond High Bradfield. It went towards Strines in
the west and was shaped liked a long cigar which looked as if it was on
fire
because it glowed. I couldn’t make out any
wings and it made no noise at all. The light just glowed, it didn’t flash, and
it was very queer looking.” The pensioner reported the sighting to Hammerton
Road police after
hearing about the search. Police there said she was a clear-headed,
reliable witness who was familiar with the night sky.
10-10.05pm..... Police special constable
Marie-France Tattersfield was driving a car with her husband Steve, a light
aircraft pilot. They were heading along Brightholmlee Lane near the hill village
of Bolsterstone looking for a good viewpoint for comet Hale-Bopp.
Suddenly what looked like a large four-seater
aircraft flew directly across their path, coming from the direction of Grenoside
across the Morehall
reservoir, heading west towards Broomhead Moor. They clearly saw lights on the
wings, but could not identify what kind of plane it was - whether prop-driven or
a jet. There were four to six windows on the side of the plane, all brightly
lit. She said:
“It was a very clear night so we decided to
go and have a look at the comet We left the house about 9.20 and decided to go
towards Bolsterstone. It was then that we saw a light aircraft which was on my
right. It was very unusual because all of its lights were on and it was very
bright. We
watched it for a while. It was very low and all the time it looked as if
it was coming down.
“It was the weirdest thing I have
ever seen. It was a big aeroplane and was well below the legal altitude for
night flying, it must have been no higher than 500 feet.. All its windows were
lit up which made it look even more odd as no light aircraft would fly blind
at that time of night over these hills.”
The couple carried on driving until they reached the top of the
moors...”it was in front of us all the time with the lights still on and then
it disappeared behind some tall confiers.” During this period Marie-France
heard what she thought was a boom or bang in the area. The couple reported
their sighting to Ecclesfield Police Station at 1 am the next morning, after
they saw the lights of helicopters searching the moors near their home.
10.10pm..... A farmer and his mother at Edge
End Farm, Bolsterstone, rang 999 after
seeing what they thought was an aircrash. The police report describes how
they saw “a low flying plane travelling in a west south westerly direction
and apparently having come from the direction of Deepcar. Both he and his
mother commented on the low level of the aircraft and its low speed. He was able
to see clearly the planes’ navigation lights. A short while later he saw an
orange glow followed by several plumes of smoke.” The plane disappeared in the
direction of the moorland ridge formed by Featherbed Moss and Margery Hill where
the search was later concentrated. Both witnesses later told police they could
detect “a strong smell of burning” following the appearance of the orange glow.
The pair were later interviewed further by police and provided further details.
Press spokes- woman Gillian Radcliffe later told us how Mr Morton said the
aircraft he saw was “flying so low he instinctively dipped his head as it passed
over his head...he said he had lived here 30 years and had never seen anything
like it before.”
10-10.15pm..... Farmer David Robinson was
attending to his lambs at Windybank Farm,
Upper Midhope, when he saw what he described as “a light aircraft”
flying over the nearby reservoir from the direction of Stannington towards
Langsett. He said: “It was lambing time and I left my house at 10pm....., as
I looked towards my left I could hear a plane. Then it flew across me
towards Midhope. I could not see any lights except for two red lights
on each wing. The next day two ordinary policemen called and interviewed
me. I see planes flying low all the time and thought the whole thing was a
charade.”
10-10.15pm..... Midhope Moor, near
Langsett. Possibly the most detailed observation of the “mystery aiircraft”
was by gamekeeper John Littlewood. He was out on the moor in his four-wheel
drive vehicle when he saw two red lights in
the sky approaching from the direction of Stocksbridge. As he watched
the lights approached and it became obvious they were attached to the
wings of an aircraft. He said: “It was definitely a plane and it was a big
one; it was like an old time plane but different to a Lancaster, and not a
Hercules because I’ve seen these too. It came right over the top of me and I
could see there were no lights on it like you usually see on aircraft, just
two red ones. It was making a loud humming noise and it came from Stocksbridge
straight over the top of me and disappeared towards
Dunford Bridge and Woodhead. It was very long, slow and low, probably
about 500 feet in altitude.It was a clear night and I could clearly see the
outline and it was making quite a noise. I just thought ‘What the hell is
that?’ and took it to be a military plane, but I could not understand why it
had got just the two lights on its wings. The planes I regularly see have the
usual flashing strobes but this one was different. Later when I got home I
found my neighbours little girl at Upper Midhope saw the lights through the
bay window of their house and had run out to tell her dad she thought she had
seen ‘a flying saucer.’ It was only the next day when I heard that people had
heard explosions and there had been a search that I thought any more about
it.”
Mr Littlewood reported his sighting to
Inspector Jack Clarkson at Deepcar police station some weeks later. His
sighting does not appear on
the police log of the incident.
10.06? pm..... Hollindale Cottage, Strines.
Gamekeepers Mike and Barbara Ellison are watching TV when they hear “a
terrific explosion” in the sky
outside their home on the moors. Mrs Ellison said: “We had just sat down
to watch the news and we heard an almighty bang to the extent that it cut out
the noise of the TV; you could not hear anything else but the ringing. It was
a a very loud “boom or bang”...We immediately got up and rushed out and
proceeded up onto the moor to have a look and see if we could see anything.
The explosion was so severe I expected to see
carnage, aeroplane, fire. But there was nothing - just nothing there to
find.” After an initial sweep of the moors, Mick Ellision phoned 999 to report
the explosion; call logged by Sheffield Police incident room and adds
confirmation to suspicion that a plane has gone down. Mr Ellision sets off in
his range rover to search the moors and notes “an eerie red glow in the sky to
the south.” He is joined by community PC Mick Hague, who also saw the glow. He
believed it was caused by the cement works in the Hope Valley to the south and
suggested the clear weather conditions had deceived witnesses into believing
the plane they saw was close by when it could have been many miles away.
10.05-10.30 Peak Park Warden Hilary Ambrose
spots a strange light on the moors as she drives eastwards over the Woodhead
Pass towards her home in Penistone. As she arrived at Salters Brook Bridge at
the top of the moors she said she became aware of a light on the moors to the
south. Initially she thought it must be a fire, but when it was still visible
after driving for a further mile she decided to stop her car at Fiddler’s
Green. The light was still visible and appeared to be hovering at ground level
in the area of Featherbed Moss or the Shepherd’s Meeting Stones on Howden
Moor. The light was stationary and did not flash or project a beam, and
appeared to be “bright white” in colour. Discounting fires, bright stars or
planets,she thought the only other explanation could be someone on the moor
with an extremely bright flashlight. When she heard about the search of the
moors the next day she reported her sighting to the head warden and returned
to the spot the following night with Glossop Rescue Team commander Phil Shaw.
The timing of the observation suggests Mrs Ambrose could have seen the lights
of Mick Ellison or PC Mick Hague’s landrover who had begun to search the moors
west of Strines shortly
after 10.10pm.....; but the timing rules out the lights of the search
teams who did not reach the moors until just before 11pm......
10.30-11pm..... Sharon Aldridge and a
friend called JoAnne, who were staying at the
Strines Inn had decided to drive to Boot’s Folly which stands on a hill
above the Strines Reservoir. to photograph the Hale-Bopp comet. While
standing on the hill they heard what Sharon described as “a weird noise.”
She said: “It was very strange, the weirdest
noise I have ever heard and
very very loud and came from behind us. It was not a plane noise, and the
nearest I could describe it was like a meteorite. The best way I can describe it
was like a giant childrens’ windmill, very loud and longish. We
both looked behind us but could not see anything. It was a freezing cold
night and it was very frightening. As we began to walk back to the car a
helicopter appeared and circled us with a flashlight on. When we got to the pub
[Strines Inn] there were fire engines there. They said there had been reports of
a light aircraft going down. I went up to them and described what we had seen
and heard. It was odd because at first the fireman said a light aircraft had
gone down and then later when I asked he said it was a jet. Later in the night I
saw a plain clothes police car come up and the police questioned Jo the next day
about what we had heard.”
Sharon added: “We heard rumours about ghost
planes and smugglers but the noise we heard was not like a plane and there was
no splash or anything. UFOs were never mentioned until Max came to the pub and
started asking us about it.”
10.35pm..... Teenagers Leon Rockley and
Alex Hardy film a low-flying light aircraft from their home in Doe Royd
Crescent, Parson Cross, in north Sheffield. The pair were outside using a
hand-held camcorder to film the Hale-Bopp comet when the plane appeared in the
sky. “It was just a flashing light in the sky to the south at first and came
nearer and nearer until you could hear the droning noise of its engines,” said
Leon. “It was flying very low for the night time and was going towards Deepcar
or Stocksbridge. It came towards us and you could see a clear white strobe
light underneath, and and lights on the wings. Then it banked and turned and
the lights looked as if they were in a triangular formation.” Police examined
the footage but could not identify the plane and concluded that it did not
take their inquiry any further.
Det Insp Christine Wallace said: “There’s
no doubt it shows a fixed wing aircraft with lights on the wings which makes
it look like a triangle when it turns. But we don’t know where it came from or
where it went because we checked all possible sources including civilian and
military
airfields.” The timing of the observation, recorded at the end of the
tape,rules out this aircraft as being responsible for the sightings 30 minutes
earlier in the Bolsterstone/Howden area of the Peak District.
10.54pm..... The crew of a mobile Derbyshire
Police traffic patrol car report seeing what they believed to be “a plume of
smoke” rising into the air to the
west of the Woodhead area while heading for the suspected crash zone (see
entry no.32 in police log); similar unexplained smoke is spotted later near the
Strines Inn and fire crews are asked to direct a spotlight in the
direction from which the smoke appeared. The West Yorkshire Police
helicopter (Y99) searches the area but finds nothing.
11.45pm.....? Businessman Dan Grayson, watching the horizon to the west from his
home
in Stannington sees what he describes as “a bright red light
stationary in the sky” towards Glossop. “I thought it was Mars at first
but
then it moved off and split into two. The two lights then flashed off
and
disappeared. Shortly afterwards I saw a helicopter in the same area which had a
number of lights on it; this was visible for about three or
four minutes. I did not think it was anything strange at the time and
after
wards I realised I must have seen the rescue
helicopter.”
In Max
Burn’s report on the incident Mr Grayson is described as having
watched a huge triangular shaped UFO hovering silently for 15 minutes
between 11.30 and 11.45 [while the search was on-going] at an altitude of 200ft,
before it moved off while being shadowed by an “unmarked helicopter”. He is
described as saying the object was “not of this world.” When asked in September
1998 if he had seen a triangular UFO Mr Grayson said unequivocably: “No I did
not, and I have never claimed I had seen a triangular UFO.” The timing of the
observation suggests
this witness saw either the Sea King or the West Yorkshire Police
helicopter, which at the time were both flying in the area he describes. The
lights he observed were clearly those of the night-sun searchlights used by both
machines.
TRACKER BY RADAR?
Claims have been made that a UFO was tracked
on radar at 9.55 pm..... that night by the Royal Signals based at RAF
Linton-upon-Ouse in North Yorkshire. The claim, made by Max Burns, is based upon
information allegedly supplied by an un-named radar operator who was a
schoolfriend of a fellow DJ in Sheffield. Burns claimed this schoolfriend had
excitedly called up his colleague on the morning of March 25 and told him he had
“tracked a UFO on his radar screen at 9.55 for a ten minute period the previous
night, at the end of which the UFO had “shot off the screen.” When pushed for
more information this myserious radar operator allegedly said: “I am not allowed
to discuss it and if I do I will be in breach of my national security oath.”
This turn around was claimed to be a direct result of the military authorities
imposing a wall of silence around the case.
Press inquiries with the public relations
office at RAF Linton-upon-Ouse on March 25 had resulted in the following
statement: “We are the only people in this area who would be flying above the
region, and we were not practicing last night. We can confirm nothing was
picked up on radar either.”
Checks with RAF Linton-upon-Ouse
ascertained that the base is not part of the UK’s air defence network and its
radar has a very limited radius for use in training rookie pilots. It
certainly could not have been used to detect a UFO almost 100 miles away over
the Peak District. In fact, the base public relations officer, Flight
Lieutanant Philip Inman was able to provide evidence that the base, and its
radar, was closed on the night of March 24, 1997. He pointed out the Royal
Signals personnel are part of the British Army, and although some are attached
to radar and communications centres operated by the RAF, this would be
unlikely to be the case at Linton-upon-Ouse, which is a small base primarily
used for training purposes. It is left to the reader to draw conclusions as to
the reliability of the “evidence” provided by the mysterious “radar operator”
who continues to remain anonymous.
The police log for the night of March 24
does in fact reveal that a check of radar tapes was in fact made by Lieut
Stilwell at the RAF’s Air Sea Rescue Centre at RAF Kinloss at 12.04am on March
25. He told the police: “...we have consulted with all radar information for
that particular area and surrounding area, [and] nothing significant is
indicated from the readings around that particular time.”
Additionally, the radar operated by Air
Traffic Control at Manchester which covers the region directly above the
flightpath of the “UFO” was checked by controller Jeff Carter at 12.35 am and
revealed “nothing in the area at the time.” Checks by Derbyshire Police with
East Midlands Airport and RAF HQ at West Drayton revealed they had no reports
of missing aircraft. As a result the Derbyshire force “stood down” at 12.25am
and refused to the take the incident seriously as a possible aircrash,
