During the 1970s Broad Haven in South Wales (UK) hit the headlines becoming a prime location for UFO sightings.
Please note: the information in this compilation article comes from multiple sources and the copyright belongs to each source for the relevant material.
The UFO flap was dubbed the name ‘Broad Haven Triangle & The Dyfed Triangle’ after the Bermuda Triangle. An article written in ‘The Sun’ titled ‘Spaceman Mystery of the Terror Triangle.’
In February 1977 it is reported that 14 schoolchildren saw a UFO craft in the field beside their school and when asked by the headmaster to draw the craft, the pictures all looked very similar.
The oddest of all would have to be the apparent sighting of a 7ft creature in a silver suit late one night in April 1977.
On February 5th a group of schoolchildren in Broad Haven ran excitedly into their school and told their teacher that they had just seen a silver-suited spaceman coming out of a spaceship.
The teacher did not believe them and carried on with the lessons as normal. On getting out of school, however, they claimed they saw the spaceship again.
They told friends, parents and everyone they could think of, but no one would take them seriously.
The next day, they handed in a petition to the police, demanding the incident be investigated properly. All the fuss caused the headmaster to take the UFO sighting more seriously.
He gathered all the children involved in the incident together and asked them to draw what they had seen. The drawings that resulted were highly consistent, showing a saucer-shaped UFO with a dome on top.
That year in Wales large numbers of people claimed to see UFOs or to have bizarre, paranormal experiences of other kinds.
The Witness statements
On Friday February 4th 1977, during lunchtime at Broad Haven Community Primary School, a group of boys - Michael Webb (10), David Ward (10), and Shaun Garrison - playing football saw a strange cigar shaped object land in a field beyond the school grounds. Shaun remembered: "It was flattish and had 10 or 11 windows and a door with a runway leading from the door and it was silver." David added: "He wasn’t a very tall person, and he didn’t look very nice either."
Michael Mathieson Webb said: "it was silver and a cigar shape with a big dome and a red light flashing on top ... We couldn’t believe it at first. One of the boys ran down the hill to tell Sir, but he didn’t believe it. I watched it for between three and five minutes. It had a flashing red light and I’m sure it was a spaceship. It definitely wasn’t a helicopter. Everyone is sure that they saw something. It seemed cigar-shaped with a large dome on the top. I was frightened when I saw it."
Philip Rees (10) remembered: "Shaun and David [Ward] came running in and said that there was something there. So me and some other boys went up to the top of the playing field. We saw something silver and disc-shaped. There seemed to be a door opening from the object. David Davies [sic, presumably meaning Ward] and Tudor Jones saw a figure. They said it was silver. The object had a dome on top of it, with a light. It was a very dull day, but I did see something." Philip's first sighing was at about 1:30pm, and he claimed the UFO was still there when he went back into school at 2pm. "My friends and I asked the headmaster to have a look at the object, but he refused. A couple of my friends saw movement of a figure, but I did not. I was frightened. Two friends, Tudor and David, were very frightened."
Jeremy Passmore (9) also saw the UFO during lunch break: "I saw the UFO when it was dinner time. It was silvery green and it had a yellowy orange to red colour light. It was a disc at the bottom and a sort of dome on the top with the light on top. It was about 300 yards away. It moved a minute and then disappeared. It did have a noise, but I didn’t hear it. We felt very scared. David George wanted someone to go to the toilet with him. Tudor Jones was nearly crying because he was scared he was going to be disintegrated or something so we all rushed in. Some of our school did not believe us. We tried to make them believe us but they would not." In answer to specific questions from Peter Paget, Jeremy stated that the sighting lasted not less than 5 minutes, the object was on the ground, and he saw a "person" in a silverish suit about 350 yards away.
David R. George (9) saw both the object and the humanoid. Initially after 1.00pm and then again at 3.35pm. He stated that the object was huge and silver-coloured. It was shining and humming, and looked like a saucer with a point. He saw the occupant who was silver suited, and whose features were not seen apart from "odd long" ears. He also said that one boy was so frightened that he cried.
Tudor Owen Lloyd Jones (10) didn't deny his terror. He reported seeing an object at ground level, behind a bush, and stated that he saw a "man" which lead to him becoming very scared.
Paul Williams was seemingly also with this group and recalled: "We saw something come out of it. It had a helmet. We ran and told Sir and when we went back it wasn’t there." Other children known to have seen the craft were Martin Evans, Michael George, Andrew Lewis, Andrew Evans, and Lesley Neohorn.
As the day progressed the craft moved along the perimeter of the field, witnessed by children and members of staff.
Today the figure most associated with the school sightings is David Davies, as the only one of the children still willing to talk openly to the media. Then aged 10, Davies wasn't part of the other boys' friendship group and recounts that as the weather was bad that day he stayed indoors during break, only hearing about the UFO when classes resumed after lunch. Deciding he would debunk these rumours when school let out at 3:30pm, Davies walked to the top of the playing field and saw nothing but Philip Rees and others trying to get a closer look.
As the other boys trailed off, and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, he figured he'd climb over the fence and go through the small stream to see this spot. He was only halfway over the fence when he saw it, hovering above the ground. About 45 foot long. Iridescent silver finish. A central dome covered the middle third, with a slowly pulsating red light. The sighting lasted about ten seconds with the craft hovering - perhaps trying to take off - before disappearing back below the tree line.
Davies says he felt no fear, only amazement. His instinct was to stay and look, yet he couldn't overcome a strong urge to run away like his life depended on it. It was as though the suggestion had been placed in his head and there was nothing he could do but obey. When he reached the front of the school he got into his taxi and went home, where his mother could see he was agitated.
Class teacher Mrs Morgan later said: "I saw it too, you know. It was real! When they went, a little whirlwind of dust came across the playground. It was almost as if they were saying goodbye."
At 4:50pm David Davies' mother rang Randall Jones Pugh, a local BUFORA (British UFO Research Association) co-ordinator, who she knew well as he had only recently retired as the local vet and was also the brother-in-law of the owner of the farm they were living on. Pugh drove straight over to their home in Tiers Cross to interview David, and they then went back to the school to see the field but by now it was 6pm, dark, and raining heavily. They tried again the following day, this time with Andrew Lewis and Western Telegraph (the local newspaper) journalist Hugh Turnbull in tow.
Although they searched the area thoroughly they could find no physical evidence on the ground, possibly as a result of the rain the previous night. A nearby telegraph pole however was found to be damaged, with the crossbeam hanging at an angle. When Peter Paget began his investigation in July, he interviewed the boys and their parents, and was taken to see the landing site which he described in some detail:
'Guided by two of the boys, I visited the exact spot over which the craft had been seen. The hillside behind us was quite steep, very uneven and muddy and, I thought, inaccessible to anything but a tractor. We were in a smallish field hemmed in by high trees and traversed by a 450-volt sub-station power line supported on wooden poles. No helicopter pilot in his right mind would come down here, and access by a light aircraft could not possibly have avoided a complete disaster. One of the boys pointed out a particular power-line pole, which, he stated, the UFO had at one point touched. He indicated where the cross-T-piece metal was bent, and indeed it was out of true on this side by about thirty degrees.
A little to the left, a substantial branch on one of the trees was strangely discoloured, the leaves being more yellow than on the rest of the trees. “Most of the other children won’t come here anymore,” stated my guide, “as they say it’s haunted now.” (I noted that this implied that he was braver than the rest.) A short distance away the headmaster, Mr Llewhellin, had interviewed all the children separately and also collectively afterwards and then asked them to go away into different rooms and independently draw what they had seen.'
BBC Newsround featured the story that afternoon, including a short telephone interview with Ralph Llewellyn. Media interest quickly intensified with articles appearing in newspapers around the country - and further afield - until in the absence of a secretary to help deal with enquiries Mr Llewellyn had to leave the school telephone off the hook.
Ripperston Farm
The Coombs family, who were employed at the Ripperston farm, had a number of very strange experiences.
Among these were sightings of UFOs from their car; a 7-ft silver-suited being with a black visor appearing outside their window; constant mechanical disturbances, including their car and television set repeatedly breaking down and having to be replaced; and their cows seemingly being teleported from one field to another!
Another of the most famous incidents occurred around the Haven Fort Hotel in Little Haven. The owner of the hotel, a Mrs. Rose Granville, claimed she had seen a saucer-shaped UFO outside of the hotel window.
Strange humanoids, wearing whitish boiler suits, emerged from the UFO and walked around for a bit as if gathering something. Mrs. Granville went to fetch other residents of the hotel to show them, but found the UFO and its mysterious occupants gone by the time she returned.
Mrs. Granville wrote a letter to her local MP who promptly asked the Ministry of Defence to investigate. As a result, Mrs. Granville received a visit from an RAF officer who listened to her story and said he was mystified by it all.
Nicholas Edwards, MP for Pembrokeshire, was soon dragged into the affair.
The Broad Haven UFO flap was one of the most important in British #UFO#UAP history and once again proves Wales is a hotspot.