ask a policeman
New witness comes foward in a classic British UFO case
FLAPPY VALLEY: PART ONE
Back in 2011, my fellow FT contributors Peter Brookesmith, Dave Clarke and Andy Roberts wrote an article debating Britain’s best-known UFO abduction ( FT269:44-47; 270:46-49). This celebrated case involves police officer Alan Godfrey, who in the early hours of 29 November 1980 was, he claimed, abducted from his patrol car after seeing a spinning, domed UFO at close quarters. He had been driving on duty down Burnley Road in the Yorkshire mill town of Todmorden (the area where the award-winning BBC police drama Happy Valley is set and filmed). These rugged surroundings have long been associated with UFO activity. Indeed, Godfrey’s case came in the middle of an ongoing flap.
I became involved in this investigation soon after the events happened, as my family come from the adjacent mill town of Bacup and my cousin married Alan’s sergeant. With PC Godfrey’s cooperation I devoted my book The Pennine UFO Mystery to his case and others from the surrounding valleys.
One point raised by the authors in their 2011 article was the lack of other witnesses to any part of the patrolman’s experience. They felt that if something unusual had occurred on that highway, even at 5am, someone should have supported PC Godfrey’s story.
This lack of corroboration was never total, as a report was made to Todmorden police that Saturday from a man describing a light in the early hours moving over the valley between Cliviger and Todmorden. Sadly, he never came forward again. Another witness in the town on the Saturday evening witnessed a light crossing the road close to the spot where Godfrey’s police car stopped. And at a farm near Walsden, on the moors above the valley, an even more intriguing sighting had occurred 37 hours after the Godfrey encounter. Walsden was the village where Alan was local bobby.
On that Sunday, a family witnessed a domed object bobbing up and down, in and out of the valley near electricity pylons. Initially, they thought it could be a power company helicopter, but after rushing outside for a good view they realised that it was impossibly silent. Moreover, they saw it again a few months later, right on top of their farmhouse, which confirmed that fact.
The farmer told me how then he and his wife were watching the TV news when the newscaster’s face suddenly blurred. “It was just like on Star Trek when they say ‘beam me up,’’ he told me with a puzzled look – concluding that “It was something I can’t explain”.
However, none of these sightings were directly corroborative of PC Godfrey’s encounter, allowing for much speculation by those sceptical writers about visionary experiences or misperception of an early bus traversing the highway. That theory was based on Alan reliving the incident under hypnosis during the investigation. He had said on first spotting the UFO: “It’s a bus” – before adding quickly, when its nature revealed itself to him on closer proximity: “It’s not a bus”.
In late 2014, Alan broke a few years of silence to aid a local charity fundraiser. As a result, one man revealed his intention to talk to the now retired policeman of what he knew. He said to me: “Hi, Jenny. I was on that road at 5am… at the same time as this was happening to Alan Godfrey.”
This witness, called Bob, was driving on Burnley Road that night in 1980 and, more importantly, had directly observed part of what had taken place. Though he did not see Alan Godfrey or the UFO he did encounter the physical effects that Godfrey described.
Like the authors of that earlier article, I am unconvinced of the reality of hypnosis claims regarding aliens. Andy Roberts further suggests that some of the details Alan perceived could have been influenced by subconscious recall of a futuristic modular house design that had been on display in Todmorden. It turns out, coincidentally, that Bob made some panels for that very Futuro house. However, I am utterly convinced that PC Godfrey is sincere and saw something he considered strange. Indeed, the physical effects he reported were for me a key reason why I am sure it was something real, not hallucinatory.
Bob – it transpires – was the driver of the works bus that Alan initially thought he might be seeing that night and that Roberts et al think he might have mistook for a UFO. Bob worked for the West Yorkshire passenger transport company (now First Bus) driving a double decker Fleetline to pick up other local drivers booked on the first morning services. He insisted there were no other buses on that road until he delivered these drivers to the depot at Millwood, on the road out toward Hebden Bridge. A couple were in Rochdale and Bacup, but none near Todmorden. In other words, if PC Godfrey did misinterpret a bus that night then Bob had to be driving it.
Around 4.50am Bob drove his Fleetline away from Millwood, heading west into the town centre, then north west onto Burnley Road to pick up the driver of the first bus heading for Halifax. This driver lived in Portsmouth, a village on the Lancashire border a couple of miles north west of where Alan Godfrey had his encounter that night. Bob was alone in his bus and had to get the driver back to the depot for 5.10am, so was pressed for time. He has always regretted that this prevented him getting out of the bus after stopping on the road to look and see what was happening.
It was clearly not the passage of his bus that created these strange forces, as he saw them ahead on the roadside as he approached, and then halted to investigate. It was about 4.55am, he believes, and he was on Burnley Road with the park to his left and the distinctive Ukrainian Club building to his right.
So what did he see? Here is what he told me: “All the litter and twigs on the road ahead of me were blowing like a whirlwind. The swirling was very unusual. Higher up the trees nothing was moving. But lower down on the trees and bushes and the road all this stuff was moving.”
As he drove towards this strange phenomenon and stopped right next to it, he could see in the light from streetlamps that there was a circle on the roadway.
“It was not the fact that the surface was a big dry patch that first alerted me. Instead, it was all the twigs in a strange pattern that drew me to look there. But closer up I saw the road was swirled dry. I stopped the bus right in the middle of it.”
It had rained through the night, but this had stopped shortly before. The road was still quite wet, but not in this region where the strange winds were creating mayhem.
“The dry patch went from one side of the road to the other… possibly over the river, but I could not see that far” (NB: This river – the Calder – is immediately left of the road between here and the park, but behind a low stone wall).
Bob stopped his bus, watching in astonishment. He did not get out, as noted, but was sufficiently intrigued to wind down his cab window and stick a hand out.
“The updraft was amazing. It was not a wind blowing at me, like a stormy day. The draft was going upwards from off the road into the sky. But it only went up to about four feet. I moved my arm above shoulder height and there was nothing at all. The trees here were very still. So I moved my arm back down and the strong updraft was still there hitting me.”
He left the area, with the effects continuing, picked up the driver, turned around and passed the spot again about 10 minutes later on his way back to the depot. There was no sign of anything unusual and he did not see the swirl.
Bob told me of this still vivid memory: “I want this to go public. Something bloody strange went on.”
In the second part of this report I assess what this evidence means and whether it adds a new dimension to our understanding of this major case.