Often dismissed as ‘tin foil hatters’ or labelled as conspiracy theorists, those who are passionate about the extraterrestrial are rarely taken seriously.
Fear of ridicule commonly causes people to bottle up their experiences and prevents them from sharing their stories anywhere except in guarded inner circles.
It comes after the devastating consequences of divulging tales about alien encounters were laid bare when one man lost his job, his health and his marriage for talking about the moment he came face to face with a UFO.
But, recently, the topic of other-worldly visitors has become less taboo – with some encounters allegedly being caught on camera, making them far more difficult to explain away as a trick of the light or a vivid dream.
Over the years, several Brits have stepped forward to share astonishing accounts of their unearthly encounters and what they believe to be compelling evidence of life outside our universe.
From Britain’s most bizarre cold case that saw aliens blamed for a miner’s death, to a woman who believes aliens were responsible for mutilating farm animals, below are some of the reports too chilling to ignore.
Mid-air Mystery 2024
Shocking footage taken by passengers on a flight from London to Copenhagen captured what seemed to be an unidentified flying object (UFO) from their plane window.
Several of those onboard, including one from Birmingham, reported seeing a ‘floating blob-like shape’ that ‘morphed and changed directions’ in mid-air.
The UFO reportedly remained visible, floating over the North Sea for between five and 10 minutes before disappearing, the passengers claimed.
Shocking footage taken by passengers on a flight from London to Copenhagen captured what seemed to be an unidentified flying object (UFO) from their plane window. An astonishing video taken by someone on board seemed to show dark object at a similar altitude to the plane, silhouetted against a colorful sunrise with a sea of clouds beneath
An astonishing video taken by someone on board seemed to show dark object at a similar altitude to the plane, silhouetted against a colorful sunrise with a sea of clouds beneath.
At first, the UFO appears elongated and horizontal before it then morphs into a spherical shape.
In a another clip the object looks as if it’s reverting back to its original form but is facing the opposite direction.
The sight left onlookers puzzled, uncertain about what accompanied then in the sky that day.
The ‘most spectacular UFO photo ever captured’
On August 4, 1990, two young men were working as chefs in a hotel in Pitlochry, a beautiful Highland Perthshire town, just outside the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.
At 9pm, after a long day in a hot kitchen, they drove about 13 miles north along the A9 to Calvine, a spot on the edge of the Cairngorms, for a walk in the hills.
They hadn’t gone far when they saw a huge, solid, diamond-shaped object, about 100ft long, hovering silently in the sky above them. Terrified, they hid in some bushes and looked up.
On August 4, 1990, two young Brits were on a walk when they saw a huge, solid, diamond-shaped object, about 100ft long, hovering silently in the sky above them. They managed to capture the incredible image above
Minutes later, they heard the scream of a jet aircraft going north: In 1990, RAF Leuchars in Fife had two squadrons of Tornado fighters on 24-hour standby to intercept Russian intruder aircraft.
The jet came back and circled the ‘thing’ before heading off on its original course, as if the pilot had seen the object too and had come back for a closer look.
Eventually the two men stuck their camera out from where they were hiding and fired off six frames. At that point, the object shot vertically upwards and disappeared way, way up in to the sky.
Convinced they’d just seen a UFO, they took their photos to the Daily Record, one of Scotland’s leading newspapers. But no story was ever printed: The paper passed the pictures on to the Ministry of Defence.
And then, the photographs simply vanished — along with the two young chefs.
Until 2022, when the missing picture — a photograph one MoD insider described as the most spectacular UFO picture ever captured, and the Holy Grail in terms of hard evidence that these things really exist – was published by MailOnline.
It’s a picture the MoD and The National Archives have tried their utmost to keep hidden.
While the information would normally have been released after 30 years, the Ministry has not released the original photo and wants the names of the witnesses sealed for a further 54 years — until 2076 — because of ‘privacy concerns’.
UFO as big as a football pitch caught on camera
A stunned stargazer managed to capture a video as a huge UFO flew over his home last year.
Richard Grecian, from Cambridgeshire, told Cambridge News how, as a ‘big believer’ in UFOs, he often looked around to see if there was anything unusual happening in the sky but had never seen anything before.
Describing his experience he said: ‘It was dark and as a believer I love looking up in the skies especially at night and on that night I looked up to see this huge thing slowly and silently flying across our house.
A stunned stargazer managed to capture a video as a huge UFO flew over his home last year. Richard Grecian, from Cambridgeshire, told Cambridge News how, as a ‘big believer’ in UFOs, he often looked around to see if there was anything unusual happening in the sky but had never seen anything before
‘It was only about 200ft up on the sky so it was very low and about the size of a football pitch.
‘It had a row of lights across the front of it, but by the time I got my phone out to record it, I only managed to record it from underneath it for about 13 seconds.’
Unfortunately, the camera only managed to capture a faint outline of the object, but upon closer inspection lights appear to be shining underneath the big black shape.
However, Richard said it had been clear in the sky to the naked eye.
Britain’s most bizarre cold case
Perfectly placed on top of a 10-foot pile of coal, a police man found the body of a smartly dressed man.
But his grizzly discovery in a derelict scrap yard would become perhaps the least unusual part of a bizarre unsolved mystery that continues to baffle experts to this day.
It’s June 6 1980, Thatcher is Prime Minister, ABBA have just released Super Trooper and cinemagoers have packed out theatres to watch the hotly anticipated sequel to Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back.
Polish-born coal miner Zigmund Adamski (pictured) was found dead on top of a pile of coal in Todmorden five days after he went missing. He strange burns which littered his body and were covered in a ‘strange ointment’
But in the small West Yorkshire market town of Todmorden, nestled within the Calder Valley and surrounded by the rolling hills of the Pennines, the other-worldly goings-on were not only restricted to movie theatres.
In Tingley, some 30 miles from Todmorden, Polish-born coal miner Zigmund Adamski was preparing to leave his home for what would unknowingly be the last time.
Five days later, The 56-year-old’s body was found in Todmorden by PC Alan Godfrey.
From the outset the crime scene was peculiar. While Mr Adamski was wearing a suit, his shirt, wallet and watch were all missing.
His hair had been cropped and ‘roughly cut’, according to PC Godfrey, and Mr Adamski only had a small amount of stubble despite having been missing for days.
He would later remark that the miner looked as though he had been ‘Frightened to death’.
Most bizarre of all were the strange burns which littered his body across his neck, head and shoulders.
These burns were covered in what coroner James Turnbull described at the time as a ‘strange ointment’ that couldn’t be identified.
Exhaustive checks failed to reveal any record of Mr Adamski having been treated at any hospital during his missing five days.
Conspiracy theories about Mr Adamski’s disappearances were rife but the theory that gained the most traction and support was that he was the victim of an alien abduction (stock image)
The West Yorkshire town of Todmorden where Zigmund Adamski’s body was found
The post-mortem examination concluded that Zigmund had died of heart failure due to ‘ischaemic heart disease’ and emphysema and the coroner recorded an open verdict.
With local authorities unable to deduce how Mr Adamski ended up in Todmorden, conspiracy theories were rife.
One was that, with the Cold War raging and Poland firmly behind the iron curtain, the KGB could have been involved. This could have explained why the coroner was unable to identify the ointment on his burns.
Another theory claimed he could have been hit by ball lighting – which is a rare and unexplained phenomenon where spherical balls of light appear and last longer than traditional thunderbolts.
But, the theory that gained the most traction and support was that Mr Adamski was the victim of an alien abduction.
It was then none other than PC Godfrey who would pour fuel on to the fire of this final conspiracy theory when the copper claimed that he was the victim of a alien abduction.
The remarkable story can be found below.
Policeman kidnapped by aliens
On a wet road in West Yorkshire, early in the morning of November 28, 1980, a policeman, coming to the end of his night shift, received a report from Todmorden, a small market town in the Calder valley, where people were complaining that a herd of cows had escaped from a field and were wandering around their gardens.
The officer in question was PC Alan Godfrey, then a 33-year-old married father of two, based at ‘Tod nick’.
He set off to take a look. As he turned his Ford Escort panda car into Burnley Road at about 5.15am, he saw what he thought was a broken-down bus, blocking the road.
Early in the morning of November 28, PC Alan Godfrey was coming to the end of his night shift claims he saw ‘a diamond-shaped object, about 20ft wide and 14ft high, literally hanging in the air about 5ft off the road’
Mr Godfrey said: ‘He said: ‘It was spinning slowly, and the leaves on the road underneath were spinning in the opposite direction. It looked very real; real enough that if I’d got out of my car and thrown a brick at it, it would have made a clang’. Pictured: A sketch of the UFO by Alan Godfrey
Only, it wasn’t a bus. ‘As I inched closer, driving at a crawl, I saw a diamond-shaped object, about 20ft wide and 14ft high, literally hanging in the air about 5ft off the road.
‘It was spinning slowly, and the leaves on the road underneath were spinning in the opposite direction. It looked very real; real enough that if I’d got out of my car and thrown a brick at it, it would have made a clang,’ Mr Godfrey recalls.
Looking at his watch, the policeman was surprised to see it was 25 minutes later than it had been just moments before. Weirder still, his boot was split open and an itchy mark had appeared on one of his feet.
When he reported his close encounter, he was met with ridicule and disbelief.
He underwent hypnosis and claimed he had been in a strange room being examined by several little creatures and a tall, humanoid figure with a beard.
Again, his claims were derided, and he later said he had been hounded out of the police for refusing to give up on his story.
After sharing his experience Mr Godfrey (pictured) was ridiculed and hounded out of the job he loved, he slumped into alcoholism and his marriage broke up
Instead of getting out of the car, Mr Godfrey turned on his blue light and tried to call in the incident. Yet curiously, neither his car radio, nor his personal set, was working.
‘Then my policeman’s instincts kicked in and I decided to make a sketch, just as I would if I’d come across a road traffic accident, to show the positions of the vehicles involved.’
There was then a ‘brilliant, white, blinding flash — a bit like having your photograph taken with the flash gun in your face’, and the next thing he remembers he was driving, stunned, in the opposite direction, back towards the police station, having lost several minutes of time.
The object had vanished but the patch of road surface was bone dry.
Far-fetched claims indeed. Could Mr Godfreysimply have been overtired? Might he be a fantasist?
When you meet Alan Godfrey, a plain-speaking, affable Yorkshireman with two police commendations, he’s not the swivel-eyed oddball one normally associates with kooky UFO stories. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool beat bobby who has ‘no time for daft buggers’.
Mr Godfrey (pictured) said: ‘Was it an alien craft I saw, or was it of this earth? I don’t know. To be honest, it’s such a long time ago that it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe me or not. It happened’
‘It was a factual event. It was real,’ he says, as he revisits the spot — a non-descript, busy main road, with a stream and a park on one side — on a comparable cold, blustery day, 41 years later.
‘Was it an alien craft I saw, or was it of this earth? I don’t know. To be honest, it’s such a long time ago that it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe me or not. It happened.’
Whatever ‘it’ was nearly ruined Mr Godfrey’s life. Ridiculed and hounded out of the job he loved, he slumped into alcoholism and his marriage broke up.
Mysterious sheep massacre
One of Britain’s top UFO hunters believes aliens have invaded Wales and are killing its sheep.
Self-described UFO-ologist, Helena Worth, 41, says compelling evidence suggests extraterrestrials are responsible for a string of grisly mutilations which took place in 2023.
The cause of sheep deaths in the Cambrian Mountains, which has often seen multiple carcasses spread several miles apart, has previously been blamed on ‘big cats’ and the presence of the ‘The Beast of Bont’.
But Ms Worth thinks an ‘other worldly’ explanation is more likely.
She told Examiner Live: ‘With cattle and sheep mutilations it’s always very precise cut marks or something an animal couldn’t do.
The cause of sheep deaths in the Cambrian Mountains (pictured), which has often seen multiple carcasses spread several miles apart, has previously been blamed on ‘big cats’ and the presence of the ‘The Beast of Bont’
‘And there often aren’t any footprints up to the animal, so there is no evidence humans are responsible so maybe it could have come from above.’
For years, farmers in and around the Cambrian Mountains have feared a large cat is responsible for killing the livestock.
Rumours of a frightening feline roaming the Ceredigion area reach as far back as the 1970s when a series of sheep were found eaten.
There have been a string of cases since including the killing of 12 sheep in 1981 in the village of ‘Bont’ – giving the beast its name – and the slaughter of 20 in 2012.
In 2023 local farmer Jonathan Davies also reported the killing of his sheep to the police.
He said: ‘Two of my sheep were skinned… there was no actual body left. Just the skin. It was so tidy – it was like someone had been there with a knife and skinned them.
‘I’d never seen anything like that before. Only the head was left.’
Mr Davies claims he was told by Dyfed-Powys Police that a big cat could have been responsible for killing his yearling ewes.
But Ms Worth thinks certain details of the ‘big cat’ theory don’t add up.
She explained how after the livestock are killed they are found ‘clean cut with all the inners taken out’ with no blood on the ground nearby.
Ms Worth thinks if an animal was responsible for the killings it would ‘leave a mess’.
Baffled Birmingham doctor films UFO
This is the moment a suspected UFO was captured on camera floating above a Birmingham suburb.
Doctor Mohamed Salama told how he was shocked after recording the 38-second clip on his mobile phone.
The video seems to show two bright circles of light moving apart before the UFO then shoots off, rotating as it goes behind a cloud.
This is the moment a suspected UFO was captured on camera floating above a Birmingham suburb. Doctor Mohamed Salama told how he was shocked after recording the 38-second clip on his mobile phone. Dr Mohamed Salama does not believe the object was ‘a plane, star, drone or laser’ due to its fast speed and sudden direction change
Dr Mohamed Salama does not believe the object was ‘a plane, star, drone or laser’ due to its fast speed and sudden direction change.
The amazing footage was taken in Harborne, at 10:31pm, on Sunday, July 24, 2022.
The doctor said he was outside his home taking out the bin ready for collection when he witnessed the sight.
He told BirminghamLive: ‘I saw this UFO in the sky. It was very fast. It wasn’t going in a straight line. It was rotating, so I pointed my Samsung camera phone up to take the footage.’
He said: ‘I saw a UFO flying very quickly in different directions over Harborne sky. It was very high in the sky, above the clouds.
‘It changed its direction very quickly and travelled on the horizon in seconds. I have never seen something like this before. It definitely was not a plane, star, drone or laser.’
He added: ‘I have never believed in UFOs until yesterday. This was extremely strange and my first time seeing something like this.’
Terrifying alien abduction
A British man claimed he was abducted by ‘reptilian’ aliens in 1989 after being woken up in the night.
Philip Kinsella, from Bedfordshire, described being levitated and moved through his house before being strapped naked to a board, where he claims a probe was inserted into his body.
Recalling his alleged first sighting of the alien figure, Mr Kinsella told The Sun: ‘That image was the most raw and unforgettable – I will never forget their faces. They looked like dinosaurs, but they were reptilian, about seven to eight feet tall.’
Philip and his twin brother Ronald claim to have had four unsettling UFO encounters, including capturing footage of ‘three white hovering objects’ in 2016.
Although Philip vividly remembers his alleged abduction, he said that most people’s memories are wiped by the extraterrestrial beings.
Philip also revealed how he suffered some disturbing physical symptoms after his extra-terrestrial experience, including frequent and severe nosebleeds.
