S03 Episode 6: Shores of the Unknown

do anything. You might even forget you're wearing them, and their shoes are so stylish they go perfectly without wear whatever I want attitude. Alberts is all about loving mother nature too, because no one wants to leave a bad footprint. Each shoe is carefully crafted from natural materials that tread lightly on our planet, from ZQ certified Marino wool to a bouncy midsole made from sweet Foam, the world's first carbon negative EVA material made from sugarcane. So get comfortable

in your shoes. Get to know the wool runners, pipers and loungers at Alberts dot com. That's alll bi rds dot com. In February nineteen fifty three, a letter was published in the national British newspaper The Times with an extraordinary revelation. The letter, sent by an associate of ample Fourth Abbey in North Yorkshire, England, gave details of an ancient manuscript that had recently been discovered in the abbey's archives.

The text, dating to around twelve to ninety CE, described the various mundignities of the lives of the Benedictine monks who were thought to have lived there at the time, all fairly predictable, save for one startling detail. Whilst preparing food for a feast, it was written that when Henry the abbot was about to say grace, John, one of the brethren, rushed into the hall, claiming to have seen

a great portent outside. The monks stepped out together, where moments later they witnessed a large, round, silver thing like a disk, flying slowly above them. It is a story often repeated in the animals of Eufology, right up there with Ezekiel's biblical vision of glowing metal in the sky. It was, of course a hoax fabricated by two schoolboys of Ample Fourth College. As it transpired, there had never been an ample Fourth abbey as far back as the

thirteenth century. In later iterations, to accommodate this minor contrary detail, the story was changed, swapping ample fourth for the far more ancient and credible location of nearby Violent Abbey. We might say that the mutation of such a story is evidence of its fictitious origins. And yet, as a species of storytellers, we seem naturally predisposed to adapt our stories in our endless retelling of them, regardless of their veracity.

Sometimes it is only in small ways, a slight change of detail here or there, but never so much that we lose the principal truth of it. Other times they can become so reworked we are left to wander, much like the Theseus paradox. If any of the original truth remains at all, the stories become unmoored, creating realities all

of their own. It is as though the stories themselves are alive, living, organic things to be handled with care, which is why it is all the more compelling, particularly for those tellers of stories of a fourteen in persuasion, when their accounts remain stubbornly resistant to change. You're listening to unexplained, and I'm Richard McClane smith. The rain had been pummeling down for hours, though most of the children had not been put off by the torrent, glad for

any opportunity to run around outside. Ten year old David Davies had always preferred the comfort of the classroom, a place to read and work while the wind rattled the windows from outside. Aside from the unusually wet weather, it had been a fairly average Friday in broad Haven, the quaint coastal village overlooking the majesty of Saint Bride's Bay on the southwestern edge of Cumrie, also known as the

Country of Wales. At the local primary school, however, Fridays were always tinged with a certain magic, lifted by the promise of the approaching weekend. It was the perfect day, you might say, for David's friend Philip to concoct the story he was just preparing to tell him as he burst into the classroom full of excitement, talking wildly, he was barely able to get it all out as David tried his best to keep up. They had seen something at the far end of the playground, he said, some

kind of vehicle hovering above the ground. Soon others joined in who had seen it too. A ufo, said one. No, a flying saucer, said another. David listened incredulous as the tale grew bigger and bigger. They had watched it for thirty minutes, they said. One boy had even seen a man in a silver suit with spiked up ears climbing out of it. David laughed it away, and, not being one to believe such nonsense, resolved to expose the prank

at the first opportunity. And so it was that, at roughly three forty five pm, David found himself making his way over the small concreted playground and out into the boggy playing fields beyond to where this apparent UFO had been seen. The playing area prised of about two acres of land, bordered at the back by a small stream and pockets of woodland, beyond which the surrounding fields merged

into a series of soft rolling hills. With the wind and rain whipping at his face and his feet becoming increasingly sodden, as he approached the perimeter fence, David was beginning to wander why he'd bothered to make the journey. Stopping at the fence, he stared out into the trees beyond. It was only when he'd placed one leg over the fence that something in an adjacent field caught his attention, and then he saw it. It appeared to be attempting

to exit the woods, but had become stuck. At roughly thirteen meters in length, it was evidently mechanical, but oddly shaped, with a central dome and a red pulsating light on the top of it. Curiously, there was no sound, But what struck David the most was the strange color of it, a swirl of soft but vibrant shades like mother of pearl. For a moment, he couldn't take his eyes off it, But as the craft moved back behind the trees, an urge started to grow in his mind. He urge was

to run. Before he knew it, he was already halfway back towards the school, running as if his life depended on it. When he returned home that afternoon, David's mother was immediately concerned by his distressed state. Quite unsure who to contact, but convinced of his story, she placed a call to Randall Jones Pew. Pew was a member of the British UFO Research Association and well known in the local area as something of an expert on the subject.

Excited by the proximity of this latest apparent sighting, the amateur investigator drove immediately to the Davis family home in tears Cross to interview David. Not long after, the pair was stood at the edge of broad Haven School playground as David took him through exactly what he had seen. However, with the light fading fast and the rain continuing to pelt down, Pew decided to return the next day to

investigate further. The following morning, Randall returned with local journalist Few Turnbull, but found no track marks in the ground or any other evidence of a vehicle having recently been in the area, until something peculiar caught their eye. A wooden telegraph pole close to the area of the apparent sighting, listing at a forty five degree angle. The mud at its base ripped up from the ground as if it

had only recently been knocked over that weekend. David, along with the thirteen other children who claimed to have witnessed the craft, tried their best to come to terms with what they had seen, whilst parents did their best to reassure them that it had all been a figment of their imagination. The school's head teacher, Ralph Llewellyn, had been the first adult to hear about the incident, after being chased down by one excitable pupil shortly after lunchtime on

the Friday. Naturally, believing it to have been some kind of joke, he had assumed it would all blow over by the following Monday. However, when the children returned even more adamant that what they had seen had not been a mere trick of the mind, Llewellyn was forced to think again. Now a little unnerved by their sincerity, he invited all fourteen pupils who claimed to have witnessed the peculiar event, under exam conditions, to draw for him what

they had seen. Perhaps it was the therapeutic process of putting into pictures what they hadn't quite been able to articulate, or merely the sense that they were finally being taken seriously that brought a sense of calm to the school that morning. But if her teacher Llewellyn was hoping for closure,

he would be sorely disappointed. That afternoon, a strange atmosphere descended on the staff room as one by one, The teachers laid out the pictures side by side, despite not knowing that they would be asked to draw what they had seen and having little to no time to confer on the matter. Each of the children's pictures were startlingly similar.

After Hugh Turnbull's article about the apparent incident was published later that day, the town quickly became a center of national attention as journalists and news cameras flocked to the area. Few took the claim seriously, however, seeing as it was after all, based only on the evidence of children, and it wasn't long before the teachers and pupils began to tire of the attention, With interview requests being increasingly declined. The cameras soon left the incident, destined to disappear into

the mists of the strange but true. But all that was about to change. Two weeks later. One broad Haven school teacher, standing in the playground around ten thirty am had just become aware of a peculiar electrical hum when she caught sight of something moving in the distance at the far end of the playground. She would later describe it as being shaped like a saucer with a slight dome and a silvery metallic surface. It wasn't so much

moving a shimmering behind the trees. Later that day, shortly before lunch, two canteen workers, unaware of the earlier sighting, also saw something in the exact same spot. They watched as it moved up the slope towards the hills before disappearing altogether. As they explained their sighting to head teacher Llewellyn moments later, they also described a figure of what they took to be a man climbing into the vehicle

before it moved away up the hill. Only this wasn't a strange, unidentifiable craft, they thought, but merely an odd looking council vehicle, possibly attached to the local sewage works. Convinced this was what the children must have seen, the cooks determined to put an end to the story once and for all, and returned to the location the following morning, hoping to at least find some tire marks in the mud,

but when they got there, they found nothing. The council were contacted soon after to try and shed some light on the mystery, only to confirm that no trucks or any other vehicle had been anywhere near the school in the last two weeks. Although he would not go as far as to confirm the wildest of speculations, The school's head teacher, Ralph Llewelyn, maintained of his young pupils that he did not disbelieve they saw something they had never

seen before. It was certainly a novel series of events for the ordinarily down to earth community, and they were only just beginning. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself. Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make time for you. You deserve it. Tele Adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best, to feeling like your self again. With teledoc, you can speak to a licensed therapist by

phone or video. Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue, teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy to change counselors if needed. For free Teledoc therapy is

available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast. The sun had already dipped below the horizon by the time Pauline set off for the farm house, and with only the finest sliver of a waning moon above, darkness would

soon be upon them. Pauline and her husband, Billy, an expert dairy farmer, had moved to the area in nineteen seventy four to take over Ripeston Farm, located just four kilometers to the southwest of Broadhaven Village. On that night in March nineteen seventy seven, Pauline was returning in her car from the nearby town Saint Ismael, with her two twin daughters beside her in the passenger seat and her

ten year old son Kieran in the back. They hadn't gone far when Kiran first caught sight of something in the sky moving towards them. Oval shaped with a luminous quality, It appeared to be lit up from below by a soft, yellowish night that shone down to the ground. Pauline watched with alarm as it drew nearer and nearer, until finally it looked as though it might crash right through the windscreen,

turning sharply into the next road. Pauline watched with relief as the light flew straight over the car and off into the distance behind. Moments later, Kieran, who had been watching it out the back window, gave a sudden cry. The light had turned around and headed straight back in

the direction of their car. Hurry, mummy, it's getting closer, he shouted, as Pauline switched the lights to full beam and pressed down on the accelerator pedal, trying to keep the car steady as they sped down the narrow country roads. After finally pulling into the entrance to the farm, Pauline was convinced she had lost it until scanning the line of trees flanking the road to the right, she saw it again, just above the tree tops, as if it

were deliberately keeping pace with the car. Suddenly, the headlights began to flicker and the car's engine sputtered. Pauline banged on the dashboard, but it was to no avail. Moments later, the children screamed as the lights cut out, plunging them into total darkness, followed by the engine completely shutting down. When the car eventually rolled to a stop just short at the farmhouse, Pauline wrenched the crying and terrified children

from inside and raced them into the house. Another son, Clinton, having heard the commotion, arrived just in time to see the strange light flying off toward the coast. Husband Billy, who arrived a few seconds later, had seen nothing. While Pauline recounted what had happened, Billy jumped into the car and turned the key. Head Lights flooded the yard as the engine growled into life. Pauline could only look on with confusion. Just five minutes drive from Rippeston Farm lies

the neighboring farm of Lower Broadmoor. Both properties were in fact owned by Josephine and Richard Hewison, who lived and worked at Lower Broadmoor. It was only ten days after the incident with Pauline's car that Josephine awoke one Saturday morning to find something peculiar parked up in a paddock

at the back of her house. Staring at it through the bedroom window, Josephine struggled to process the incongruous, bulbous structure with its smooth metallic surface, Guessing it to be roughly five meters high and twelve meters wide, she watched it for a few minutes before running off to wake up her sons, but by the time she returned to the window, it had gone wandering into the paddock. Shortly afterwards.

It was hard not to feel a little stupid as her sons asked her to explain what she had seen. It was only then that one of them noticed that their pony was missing. The pony was normally kept fenced off in a small field bordering the paddock and a nearby greenhouse, rarely straying from this side of the field. They found it later that day, wandering about at the

edge of the adjoining field, half a kilometer away. Three weeks later, shortly before six am at Ripston Farm, Billy and Clinton herded sixteen heifers into an outside pen in preparation for their first milking of the day. Leaving them for a moment, Billy and Clinton headed off to switch on the milking machines, returning only a few minutes later

to find that each one of them had vanished. Hurriedly checking the gates, they found the more locked, bolted shut, with even the twine that Billy used to keep them secure still wrapped around them. Hearing the phone ring in the house a few minutes later, Billy was amazed to find a worker from Lower Broadmoor Farm on the other end, inquiring as to what Billy's cows were doing there almost two kilometers. The quiet coastal hamlet of Little Haven is

situated just another few kilometers north of Lower Broadmoor. Its pebbled shores and coal seams still visible in the cliff faces, a testament to its previous life as a vibrant hub for local fishing and coal mining industries that had been

steadily declining in recent years. When Rosa Granville and her husband took over the running of the local Havenfort Hotel in the early nineteen seventies, they were well aware of its associated history, the talk of a mournful woman in white who was said to haunt the building and nearby shoreline. But not being one for superstition, Rosa hadn't given it a second thought until the strange events of that spring

in nineteen seventy seven. It was in the early hours of Tuesday, April nineteenth, that Rosa finally made her way to bed after a long night of cleaning up after her guests at night. It was Rosa's habit to listen to Spanish music stations on the radio as she drifted off to sleep. That night, however, her usual station was playing up as she lay in the dark with her husband fast asleep beside her, waiting for the signal to strengthen, a crackle of interference was followed by a sudden burst

of static, before the radio finally cut out altogether. It was only then that she became aware of a gentle humming sound. Thinking she must have left the central heating on, she made her way out of the bedroom down the long hallway towards the fire escape that led out to the boiler house. But as she listened again, it soon became clear that not only was the strange noise nothing like the sound of the boiler but also it wasn't

coming from the boiler room. Unable to pinpoint it, she gazed out towards the lights bobbing up and down in the distant darkness, assuming it to be coming from one of the ships. Moored up in the bay. Returning to the bedroom, she was surprised to see a soft blue light leaking through the gap in her curtains. She quietly made her way to the window and pulled the curtains open. There in the field opposite was a peculiar light, like the cold blue flame of a blowtorch, pulsing on and off.

Concerned that someone was breaking into their outhouse, Rosa grabbed a pair of binoculars from the window sill and stared out into the night. Picking up the light, she saw that it was coming out of an object about two meters wide and oval in shape. Moving the binoculars to inspect the space beyond, she gasped. Standing between the object and the far side of the field, she could clearly see the outline of what looked like two humanoid figures,

but there was something deeply uncanny about their appearance. Not only were they unusually tall, but their limbs seemed oddly distended. Looking closer, she saw they were dressed in what looked like white plastic boiler suits. She watched as they bent down to inspect something on the ground, before turning to look in her direction, as if having sensed her presence, and where their faces should have been, she saw nothing

but a blank and empty space. Rosa continued to watch as they made their way up a short bank that boardered the field before disappearing from view. After hurriedly switching on the lights and waking her husband with a start, she ushered him over to the window, but when she looked out again, there was nothing but the darkness of the field, with no sign of the figures or the light anywhere. Back at Ripstone Farm, Pauline had barely left

the house since her encounter with the strange light. Though she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was that worried her exactly, she couldn't shake the unnerving sense that somebody or something was watching them. Three nights after the events at the haven Fought Hotel, at some time around six twenty pm, Pauline and the family had gathered around the kitchen table to eat when all the lights

simultaneously cut out. As the children nervously huddled together, Pauline and Billy found a torch and lit some candles until power was inexplicably restored twenty minutes later. Thinking little more of it, with the children having gone to bed, Pauline and Billy retired to the living room to watch television. It was past one am when Pauline, struggling to stay awake in the armchair, noticed through the window a silvery light flickering from a distant part of the adjacent field.

Not wanting to bother her husband, lying on the sofa opposite, conscious of his skepticism about the incident with the car, she did her best to ignore it. Twenty minutes later, a sudden burst of interference the television was followed by a cry from Billie. Pauline turned to find him sitting straight up staring at the window. What the hell is that, he asked, Pauline cried out in terror when she saw it too. Pushed up against the glass was the figure of what she assumed to be a man, standing at

least seven feet tall. He was dressed in a silver all in one suit which covered the entirety of the head, including what seemed like a large, square shaped helmet underneath, and in place of her face, a jet black visor. The figure appeared to be lit up from behind, and though it remained stationary, Pauline noticed that the window was rattling. She rushed to grab the children from their beds, leaving Billy to keep watch on the figure that remained staring

back into the room. After securing the children in the living room, Pauline ran to the phone and called the police when she returned shortly after the figure had gone. Terrified by what was happening, Pauline kept the children together while Billy made his way outside to investigate. However, after an extensive search outside the building, Billy found no sign

of the intruder. In the weeks and months that followed, a host of similar sightings were reported up and down the south coast of Wales, including one made by Pauline and Billy's twin daughters a few weeks later. They had been out playing by the cliff tops one morning when they claimed to have cited the peculiar figure once again walking about the fields before vanishing in the long grass. The collective incidents have since become known as the West

Wales UFO flap of nineteen seventy seven. Haven Fought hotel proprietor Rosa Granville was so sufficiently shocked and moved by what she had experienced that she even wrote to her local MP, Nicholas Edwards, demanding that the British Ministry of

Defense make an investigation of the area. Squadron leader J. A. Cohen of nearby Broady Royal Air Force Base was able only to confirm that whatever had occurred had no connection with operations at the base, though it has been speculated that a number of the sightings of men in silver suits may have been the work of local practical jokers. Any such sightings were recorded some time after the initial

event at Broadhaven School. Of the fourteen children who claim to have witnessed the mysterious craft on that wet and stormy afternoon of February the fourth, not one has changed their story or admitted to perpetrating a hoax of any kind. As David Davies recounted many years after the event, I did see something unexplained that day, and I will stick

to that story for the rest of my life. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small, massively appreciate it. All elements have Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain Smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. Feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.

Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you, tele Adoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download

the app or visitteldoc dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast today to get started. That's t e ladoc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast