UFO Sightings in Winchester, Hampshire 1976 & 1977

In this post we’re going to recap on the paranormal activity and the UFO sightings in Winchester, Hampshire, as reported by Mrs Joyce Bowles and several other witnesses.

The encounters were investigated in the 1970s by BUFORA, the British UFO Research Association, and by staff from the Flying Saucer Review.  Their findings were published in the BUFORA journal, Volume 5 No 6 March/April 1977, and in the Flying Saucer Review journal, Volume 22 No 5 1976.

Links to both can be found below this video, along with a copy of the BUFORA article on the subject, which has been reproduced with the permission of BUFORA.

Paranormal Activity Before The UFO Sightings

Before we look at the UFO sightings themselves, we should also include Mrs Bowles’ sightings of several ghosts in her house.

In 1972, Mrs Bowles reported paranormal activity in her home at 45, Quarry Road, Winchester, four years prior to the UFO incidents. She claimed to have seen several ghosts, and had enlisted a local priest to carry out two exorcisms of the property, but to no avail. 

“The first thing I saw was a lady, a nun, up in my bedroom”, she told a BBC reporter in 1972. “She was dressed in all black, and I glanced across to see her at the bottom of the bed, towards the wardrobe.” 

It seems this wasn’t the only sighting.  It is interesting to note that she assumes it is a nun. In previous reports she had described the apparition as a ‘white robed lady’.

“What did you feel when you saw her?” asked the reporter. Mrs Bowles thought for a moment and said, “Well, I went cold. I couldn’t say anything.  Under my breath I said ‘oh my God’. I just turned and shut my eyes.”

Mrs Bowles turned to a local priest, the Reverend Ramsdale Whalley for help. The BBC reporter put it to him that he had carried out two exorcisms without success. The Reverend replied, “I wouldn’ say without success. For the simple reason that, when I first went there, it was apparently…that something evil was there, and that evil has been done away with.”

So, it appears that Joyce Bowles was no stranger to paranormal activity.  She also recounted how there had been poltergeist activity in her property, with objects flying of the mantlepiece and leaving marks in the living room door. 

UFO Sightings in Winchester, 1976 & 1977

The First Close Encounter

On the evening of 14th November 1976, Joyce Bowles, accompanied by her friend and neighbour Ted Pratt to whom she was giving a lift, drove out of Winchester along the A272 road to pick up her son who was visiting his girlfriend in the nearby village of Chilcomb.

Once they had driven out of Winchester, their journey took them past the Bronze Age barrows on Magdalen Hill Downs and the cemetery further along the straight road. At the Percy Hobbs roundabout, named after the pub of the same name that closed in 2011, they turned right to complete their journey into Chilcomb.

Their short journey took them past the turning to Cheesefoot Head (site of a crop circle that appeared several years later), where the A272 continues on that this mundane journey turned into an extraordinary event.

They both spotted a large orange light low over the fields of Chilcomb.  The light was obscured by hedges and trees as they continued down the road then reappeared. They then took a sharp left turn into Kings Lane about 70 yards down the lane, travelling at about 20 to 25 miles per hour.

The car veered to the right and the engine started to rev up of its own accord.  The car was now travelling down a wide grass verge and Mrs Bowles was struggling to keep the car under control. Her passenger, Ted Pratt, grabbed the wheel as the car approached some trees, but the car then came to a stop.

Ted Pratt later described it as if they had hit an invisible barrier which ‘gave’ as they struck it and returned them to a normal stopping position.

It was then that they both saw a cigar-shaped UFO hovering in front of them with what appeared to be a cockpit illuminated by a soft light in which stood three occupants.

According to Mrs Bowles, one of the occupants left the craft and started to walk towards the car. She described hearing a whistling sound like that of a whistling kettle.  She described him as wearing a boiler suit with a polo neck collar and a seam down the right-hand side.  The being then reached the driver side of the car, put an arm on the roof of the car, and then looked at the startled occupants

Mrs Bowles described him as a tall man about six foot one or two with very pink and piercing eyes. She said he had long blonde hair, sideburns, and a dark beard. 

“We realised that three figures were watching us from a window in the cigar,” said Mrs Bowles. “Then one of the figures materialised by the Mini. He peeped through my window at the dashboard controls and walked to the back of the car. Then he and the cigar-shaped craft simply vanished.”

The 6-ft-tall figure wore a “silvery boilersuit” and had long blonde hair and a dark beard. His eyes were pink and “as bright as the sun”. Mrs Bowles found his gaze “horrible”, whereas Mr Pratt felt only “peace and tranquillity” when the entity stared at him.

Ted Pratt then said that as he looked at the dashboard the engine restarted even though the ignition was turned off. As the engine started, the car’s headlights shone at four times the usual brightness. As the figure looked at them both Joyce Boles said she felt fear, but Ted Pratt said he experienced calm and tranquillity

According to Mrs Bowles’s account, the figure then appeared to move around the car at which point she leaned over to stop Ted from leaving the car. “No Ted, don’t get out,“ she told him, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again the figure and the object had gone.

Eventually after a few minutes they were able to compose themselves and continue their journey, but on the following Monday Mrs Bowles said that she had a blotchy rash on the right side of her face, neck, and shoulder.

She also claimed that she had received a mysterious phone call in which she was warned not to speak of the event. If she did so she was told to expect a visit from a government official, l but Mrs Bowles expressed her earnest wish to tell her story and give a full account to the press.

The Daily Mail carried out an investigation and found eight other accounts of glowing cigar-shaped UFOs in the skies above Winchester that weekend suggesting some corroboration for the sightings mentioned by Joyce Bowles and Ted Pratt.

The Second Close Encounter

That would have been that except six weeks later the couple were repeating the journey when they had another encounter.

This time they found themselves aboard a craft and interacting with the occupants. They were shown star charts and had some brief conversations. Eventually they were returned to their vehicle but found themselves on an unfamiliar road.

The Third Close Encounter

The following spring in May 1977, Joyce Bowles was driving again this time with her friend Ann Strickland in the passenger seat. The couple saw a glowing cigar shaped object and the car coasted to a halt.

An occupant from the craft approached Mrs Bowles with arms outstretched, looking at them both, but heading for Mrs Bowles. Both women were terrified and the occupant began to speak to Mrs Bowles in broken English.

He told her something important but which she felt unable to divulge. “He said something to me which I understood but I can’t tell anyone what it was. I wouldn’t dare”, she said. The entity then returned to the craft which rose to the skies with a high-pitched hum.

Ann Strickland’s account of the experience corroborated Joyce Bowles’ account.

The Fourth Close Encounter

In the final incident, in June 1977, Joyce Bowles was driving and Ted Pratt was once again her passenger.

Ted Pratt gave this account of the final meeting. He said that the UFO’s occupants had sandy hair and were wearing dull metallic suits. He recalled that they said something about trying to help mankind and about war.  They said they were concerned that Man would destroy himself and pollute the atmosphere. Then they just said goodbye and returned to their spacecraft, which soared away into the sky and disappeared out of sight.

Aftermath

Representatives from BUFORA and the Flying Saucer Review seemed to conclude that the the accounts were earnest and genuine, and not the work of an overactive imagination. The accounts from all the witnesses were consistent, with minor discrepancies one would expect from different eyewitness accounts. It also seems unlikely that Joyce Bowles was trying to draw attention to herself. 

After first reporting the incidents, she was subjected to a lot of press attention, which became tiresome and irritating, with no apparent reward for herself, financial or otherwise.  All she and her fellow eye witnesses received was the usual ridicule of a sceptical press and public.

BUFORA Journal Vol.5 No.6 March/April 1977 

Encounter One 

The two witnesses in the Winchester case of 14 November were Mr Ted Pratt and Mrs Joyce Bowles, who have noticeable Wessex accents. Mrs Bowles, aged about 42, is an extrovert mother of four sons who lives with her husband in a semi-detached council house on the eastern side of Winchester. 

She works at Winchester Railway Station and owns a new white British Leyland Mini Clubman Estate, registered in July 1976. Mr Pratt, believed to be about 60, who lives at the small hamlet of Nether Wallop, appeared on television wearing glasses. 

He and his wife were visiting the Bowles family on the evening in question. He is understood to have retired for health reasons. One of Mrs Bowles’ elder sons was visiting his girlfriend in the nearby hamlet of Chilcomb. His mother regularly drives the mile journey to collect him, and in fact probably knows the road like the back of her hand. 

That Sunday evening there had been a touch of frost in the air, which is thought to have thawed by the time she and Mr Pratt set out. They left her house about 8.45 p.m. in her Mini Clubman.  From her home on the east side of Winchester, she drove east over a high concrete bridge which straddles the A33 Winchester by-pass road. A straight piece of road, the B3404 leads past a school and hospital on the north side and a little further on there is a cemetery on the south side. 

A mile and a half from the bridge just mentioned, there is a major roundabout where the B3404 joins the A31 to Alton, Famham and eventually Guildford. The roundabout and adjacent road are illuminated by a glare of orange sodium lights.  Mrs Bowles drove round the roundabout to come back towards Winchester along the dual-carriageway of the A31, which leads down Magdalen Hill Down. 

After three quarters of a mile the dual carriageway ends and it was about this point that Mrs Bowles said, “I saw two lights, the first was higher than the second, which in turn disappeared behind the scrub (to her left), thus in neither case were they high in the air. II drew Mr Pratt’s attention to them.” 

She also told us that although they were orange they were redder than sodium lights. In an independent interview with Dr Geoffrey Doel, Mr Pratt not only confirmed seeing the lights, but described them as a bright  orange-red object some 40 feet long, flying at about 800 feet a quarter of a mile away. The lights/object were seen in the general direction of the lane to Chilcomb and it is supposition that this related to what followed. 

At the bottom of the hill, Mrs Bowles took the lane for Chilcomb, which meant that she would have had to brake fairly sharply to negotiate the hairpin bend in second gear. She also flashed her headlights to warn traffic coming up the lane. According to her description, as the Mini was going down the straight piece of lane, it shuddered and rattled (as though perhaps the ignition had stopped firing?) and the steering appeared to lock. Both Mrs Bowles and her passenger struggled with the wheel, but to no avail. 

On their right was a 280 yard length of 20-30 feet wide grass verge (measured from the signpost in the hairpin). This is clearly used as a picnic spot—probably by courting couples also, and is level with the 12 foot lane. Mrs Bowles thought the car was carried sideways, lifting olf the ground onto the grass, rather than skidding off the road. It came to rest in the middle of the grass, parallel with the road. 

It is interesting to note that Mr Pratt gave a much more dramatic account of the car leaving the road. He reached over to the other side of the steering column and switched off the ignition. When they looked up they saw a cigar shaped object partially illuminated by the car’s headlights, an estimated 5 to 6 yards (15 metres) slightly to the right in front of their white mini. 

Initially Mrs Bowles appeared reluctant to return to the lane with us and agreed eventually on condition that she would not have to get out of Arnold West’s Volkswagen ‘ caravanette.’ She no doubt felt safety in numbers on arriving near dusk, as she joined us on the grass verge. It was interesting to watch her trying to recall the exact position of the car and the object on the night of the encounter, and silently lent a lot of emphasis to her description. 

While at the site, she said that during the encounter she had heard a whistling sound. There was a definite whistling sound while we were there, but this seemed not to make any impact on her, so presumably the local starlings or other hedgerow birds were not responsible! 

We estimated with the use of a tape measure, that the object, which she described as like a ‘fat Winston Churchill cigar ’ would have been about 12 feet long and perhaps about 5 feet high. Since it was dark at the time of the incident, she was not sure if she had seen the full extent of the object, particularly as towards the right hand end of it was what she described as three brightly lit bow-shaped windows. 

During the interview a certain amount of play was made on the windows, and Mrs Bowles emphasised that they were neither oval nor bubble-shaped. She told us that Mr Pratt said he had only seen one window, and this is a point of significant difference in their accounts. Behind the window (or windows), they saw three figures, sitting as though they were sitting in a bus, in that they were one behind the other with only head and shoulders visible. The object was just above the ground with vapour underneath it. Mrs Bowles neatly described the source as being like an inverted gas stove jet. 

Mr Pratt told Dr Doel that the object was 18″ above the ground and supported by four jets blowing out gases. He also said the cigar was glowing with a diffused orange-red light. It is possible that a few seconds elapsed before they saw a figure emerge from the darkness between the cigar’s right hand side and their car, although no opening was seen in the object. 

If the light from the window(s) had been very bright, the two witnesses could have missed seeing a figure coming out of the end or perhaps from around the other side. The figure, whom I will call the MAN, took about 4 or 5 steps towards the car walking in a normal manner. As the MAN, described by Mr Pratt on BBC’s Nationwide TV programme as being about 6 foot to 6 foot 5″ in height, reached the driver’s door, HE must have turned slightly to face towards the dashboard. HE then bent down to look in through the, driver’s window, and the witnesses thought HE probably had his left hand on the roof of the car. This might be significant in view of what followed. 

The MAN glanced along the dashboard and the engine suddenly sprang to life. At the same time the headlights, which were on full beam, shone so brightly that they expected them to burn out. Mrs Bowles said she had been extremely frightened even before the MAN appeared and had buried her head in Mr Pratt’s shoulder, besides wrapping her legs around his on his side of the car. On the other hand, according to her, the event gave Mr Pratt the power to be very calm, despite the fact that he suffered from angina. What apparently struck Mrs Bowles about the MAN were his piercing pink eyes, which apparently had no discernible pupils or irises. 

She was convinced that it had left some kind of  effect on her eyes, like one might expect from looking at the sun. Apart from that HE looked very much like an ordinary man, having short hair at the front, which came down to the shoulders at the back and turned up slightly. HE had sideboards which met in a roughly pointed beard, but no moustache. His paleish face, illuminated apparently by a combination of moonlight and reflected headlights, had a fairly pointed nose, normal mouth, and apart from the eyes, otherwise appeared normal.

On the Nationwide programme, Mr Pratt described the MAN as wearing what resembled a boiler suit, with his hair brushed backwards over his head, reaching down to his shoulders. Mrs Bowles mentioned at one point that he had silvery specks in his hair. 

“ His clothing shimmered as if being shaken by a wind.” 

When HE bent down to look into the car window his ‘ overall ’ ballooned out like a cyclist’s cape. His outfit did not appear to have buttons, but there was a seam running vertically down the left side on his chest (ie: his right side). She described the colour of the outfit as being that of ‘ Bacofoil’, a sort of dull silver colour. 

As the engine was revving, she probably had her eyes closed, and eventually said “ Look out Ted, HE is going round your side! ” However, Mr Pratt could see no sign of the being behind the car, and by the time they looked back the cigar and its occupants had completely disappeared. Mr Pratt offered to drive the car for the rest of the way, but Mrs Bowles said she was too frightened for either of them to get out. When she started the car herself and engaged first gear, “ It was like hitting a barrier.” The car would not move. But at the second attempt the car started without any trouble, and she was able to drive off the grass. So she drove on to Chilcomb, a further half mile down the lane, to collect her son Stephen. What surprised us somewhat, was the fact that she chose to drive back along the same lane leading out of Chilcomb when there is a perfectly good alternative lane which would not have lengthened the journey. 

The encounter happened between 8.55 and 9.00 p.m., and they were back home in Winchester by about 9.25 p.m., so there is no reason to suspect a time delay factor. Mrs Bowles told us, “ Mr Pratt phoned the BBC on our arrival home, mainly to find out if anyone else phoned in.” The outcome of this was that they appeared together on BBC Southern Television the next day, and it was also mentioned on the radio in London.

 On Wednesday, three days later, they appeared together on national television at peak viewing time, on BBC’s Nationwide programme. Before viewers saw them Mrs Bates, an attractive long-haired lady, told of how she had seen a man in a silvery suit bounding along the side of the A46 Bath Road the previous day. Subsequent information, however, suggests that this was a hoax perpetrated by students at Bristol University. Mrs Bowles agreed that the figure she had seen was similar and did not appear to be particularly nervous about appearing on television. 

Mr Pratt said he had been startled by what he saw. After they had given a few details of the encounter, a Dr Davis was introduced and asked for his opinion. Unlike some BBC ‘ instant ’ experts on UFOs, he seemed to have some knowledge on the subject. He said that although the two could have had a genuine experience, it was unlikely to have been supernatural, further stating that there had been hundreds of similar reports including the malfunction of cars from all around the world. 

People responded to a deep-rooted mythology, and while there was a genuine stimulus, the causes were natural. The witnesses in the regional studio were not impressed, and apparently would have spoken up if they had realised that their line was open. Edgar Hatvany, Shirley Bradshaw and I visited the lane leading to Chilcomb, where the alleged encounter took place, on the following Sunday morning.

 Our thanks go to Frank Wood for his verbal directions. 

After visiting Chilcomb itself, to check on the horses, which are apparently locked up at night, I examined the grass verge carefully. The map reference is E-W 506, N-S 290 (OS sheet SU52). The verge is on the same level as the road and there is no kerb. At the edge of the grass is scrub and trees growing on the 4 to 8 foot embankment, which drops sharply down to a ploughed field. In places the scrub encroaches onto the grass and is clearly a popular place for dumping rubbish and unwanted domestic appliances. 

The field showed no unusual marks although it would have been ploughed prior to the sighting. While there, we met two young men with their cars parked on the grass. One said that he had seen a UFO in the sky over Winchester earlier in the year, but had forgotten the date. There were no obvious ground marks apart from car tyres at various places. Nor was there any damage to the scrub that we could see, and on the other side of the lane there was a lot of old man’s beard, a white fluffy growth, which could have been expected to show up burn marks or scorch marks. 

So far as I am concerned there was no physical evidence whatsoever at the site— not even the narrow tyre marks of a Mini skidding off the road! Other investigators apparently went to the other lane leading to Chilcomb, because Mrs Bowles’ description of the local roads (and she agreed) was misleading. Therefore reports of unusual findings on the lane near the MOD rifle range leading off the A33 should perhaps be discounted. 

However, there was physical evidence of a circumstantial and subjective nature, which is difficult to evaluate. When we interviewed Mrs Bowles at her home, she told us that the right side of her face had become blotchy the following Monday or Tuesday. This was confirmed by a neighbour who was present, and separately by Frank Wood. The rash had cleared by the time we arrived some seven days later, but she said that her neck and right shoulder had burned for nearly a week. 

I have already mentioned that she thought her eyes had been affected in some way. She had been feeling slightly sick the whole week, and felt unable to eat proper meals. In passing she emphasised that she was not pregnant! She agreed that the symptoms might have been due to the excitement of the event and appearing on television, not to mention various reporters and UFO investigators who had beaten a trail to her door before us! She also said that she felt as if she wanted to sleep for a week. 

A further point came to light when Frank Wood asked if she had been wearing any metal. Astonished, Mrs Bowles said that she had taken her eternity ring off (worn next to her wedding ring) shortly after the event, but had not associated it with the UFO. The skin of her finger under the ring had become red and sore, so she put Savlon cream on to soothe the pain. 

As a throwaway line, when we were on the point of departure, she said she had noticed that a watch that had been with her had gone haywire, and was no longer of any use for time-keeping. 

So far as I know, Mr Pratt has not complained of any adverse physical effects, but, if anything, felt mildly exhilarated.

 The next piece of information will probably cause at least a few readers to draw emotive conclusions. I learnt early on in my investigation, from a Winchester reporter, that Mrs Bowles had come into the public eye in recent years as a result of poltergeist activity in her house. At least one of her sons would have been of a coincidental age. Exorcism had been performed by a local rector. She is also known locally as a ‘ psychic healer ’ and ‘ natural medium.’ 

When I heard this I hesitated before investigating further, but realised that impartial investigation normally precedes value judgements. Changing to the locality for a moment, it is worth remarking that Winchester has numerous local myths and legends. Frank Wood discovered that the encounter site lay on a significant ley line with 7 or 8 good markers. The South of England is littered with tumuli, long barrows, ancient settlements and earthworks, so it is possible to construct a grid of ley lines thereabouts, although I cannot say that they would all have as many markers! 

Without stretching the imagination too far, there are several aspects of the story which could be explained in mundane terms. It should be noted too that there are minor variations in the details given by the two witnesses. 

The Leyland Mini has been checked over for possible aberrations, but we were informed by Mrs Bowles that it performed as well, if not better, after the incident than before. Frank Wood expressed the opinion that the steering lock was faulty, but although I and Arnold West looked at it personally, we could find nothing obviously wrong. 

Taking the case overall, and accepting the honesty of the witnesses, one is led to the opinion that they had a genuine and alarming experience. Mrs Bowles even volunteered to swear on the Bible that what she said was true. Both witnesses are apparently convinced they saw something from outer space. Mr Pratt thought the cigar-shaped object was on a special mission, and thinking back to wartime submarines, speculated that it would have needed support from a ‘ mothership ’. 

So I will conclude by saying that the probability of a UFO encounter remains open. Copyright Lionel Beer January 1977. 

Lionel Beer, present chairman of BUFORA’s Executive Council, has been very closely associated with Bufora since he graduated in 1964 from the former London Society Luforo, which he helped to found, and in the numerous positions he has held, has done much to protect and promote Bufora’s public image as a scientifically oriented research body. 

Encounter Two 

On the evening of Thursday, 30 December at about 6.30 p.m., Mrs Bowles decided she would fill up the petrol tank of her Mini in preparation for an early start for work the next morning and Mr Pratt—who, with his wife, is a very close friend of the Bowles family —accompanied her. They took the same B3404 eastwards, but about one mile from Quarry Road, just short of the roundabout previously referred to, there is a petrol station on the right. Here they filled the tank and turned back homewards along the way they had come. This is a straight unlit part of the road which passes close to and above the site of their previous encounter down in the valley on their left. 

After only a few yards, Mr Pratt said, “ Oh look, there’s that big glow in the sky again.’” Mrs B couldn’t see it, but a few yards further on she spotted a light going in and out of the clouds. She then had to cope with a car passing from ahead with headlights full on, but a little further on she could see the object again, and was now aware of a high-pitched whistling sound. 

The car started to rock backwards, forwards and sideways and her mind became blank. She then became aware of the fact that they were no longer in the car, but were standing by the car in a room which she took to be in a ‘ space-craft.’ 

Three men were standing regarding them, and one of these stepped towards them, standing close beside Mrs B. There was another one with a beard and she is certain that he was the same individual who had approached their Mini at the first encounter. 

Another ‘ spaceman ’ had a belt with a large scintillating jewel in the front which he kept rubbing. He looked across at one of the others and said what sounded like ‘ Millager ’ or ‘ Milleeger ’, and they were talking in a foreign language. 

They talked to them in broken English, but seemed well educated and said that they were friendly and intended no harm. One of the spacemen asked Mr Pratt to take seven steps up to the ‘ room ’, which he did. 

He was then asked, “ What do you feel ? ” Mr P replied to the effect that it was cooler up one end than the other—Mrs B cannot remember which end was supposed to be cooler and which warmer and says there is much she is hazy about now and cannot remember all the conversation.

The man beside Mrs B pointed over to the wall where there were several diagrams on transparent material—different patterns, lines and triangles (which made no sense to her). “ These are our fields,” he said. “ Fields ? ” queried Mr Pratt, evidently thinking of our green fields. “ No, no,” came the reply, “ OUR fields,” (in broken English). 

The same man, (who was looking Mrs B ‘ up and down ’), said to her, “ We are not coming to invade you … ”, and Mrs B replied—rather boldly—“ That’s what Hitler said,” and then feared she had gone too far, as he seemed angry and replied, “ You have a very strong tongue,” which made her feel very nervous. 

On being asked about their clothing, she said it was really the same as on the first occasion they had seen a ‘ space visitor ’ . . . . silver boiler suits, but fitting up to polo collar at the neck, one of them with the belt already mentioned, silver boots, and on the wall tucked into a loop were a pair of silver gauntlets. The material again reminded her of Bacofoil with the shiny side out. “ They were ‘ nice looking people said Mrs B, “ zoith long sandy hair which seemed rather coarse in texture than our own.” 

Their eyes appeared fairly normal but glittered remarkably: their hands seemed normal with four fingers and a thumb on each hand. 

Mr P asked, “ Why pick Joyce ? Is it anything to do with the car?” They couldn’t understand the replies, but gathered it was something to do with putting a hand on the car. The hand of their original Chilcomb visitor had been placed on the top of their car, but no mark or physical alteration or radiation had been found thereon. 

They also stated that they would be back but did not say when. A lot of signs were made to the two witnesses and the ‘ spacemen ’ talked a good deal in a foreign tongue, but the meaning of this escaped Mrs B and Mr P. “ 

There was,” said Mrs B, “ in the 16 middle of the room or spacecraft or whatever it was, a large bottle-like structure rising up from the floor, wide at the bottom and tapering upwards.” This had bands around it, red, black and yellow in rings and emblems which reminded her of horoscope symbols. Mrs B was rather vague as to the size of the room, but if Mr P took seven paces, it must have been at least 20 feet long—and the Mini was easily accommodated: it was as wide as her sitting-room, which was 12 feet. 

Mr Pratt was then held in conversation, the details of which Mrs B cannot remember and does not think that he can either. 

Everything went hazy, and they found themselves seated in the Mini with headlights on by a river near a road, neither of them being able to recognise where they were. After driving around for half an hour or so, they arrived at Chilworth about ten miles away to the south of Winchester. Now they knew where they were and went home to Quarry Road, arriving back at 8.15 p.m. 

They still don’t know where it was that they regained their senses. Neither of our witnesses have had any physical effects since this encounter …. so far. Immediately after the incident, Mrs Bowles felt very calm, but Mr Pratt did seem rather upset and hazy about what had happened. We have not been able to interview Mr Pratt yet, but in view of the need to include an account of this second encounter at the earliest opportunity I have put this together from Mrs Bowles’ relation of the occurrence.

One further incident worth mentioning is that one evening—I understand prior to the first encounter in November— Mrs B saw, in the half-light on the landing at the top of her stairs, a shadowy figure which she now thinks was like one of the ‘ spacemen.’ This figure was pointing out through the landing window—in a direction she has verified as being towards Chilcomb. 

Also one morning she was startled by a rapping on her bedroom window and could see a silver gauntlet tapping on the glass but no one attached to it… . this glove apparently being of the same pattern as the gauntlets she saw in the ‘ spacecraft.’ 

G G Doel 25 January 1977. Dr ^ Geoff’ Doel, MRCS, LRCP, DMRE, has also been prominent in Luforo and Bufora affairs since 1959, having successively been Bufora Vice- Chairman, Chairman, Vice-President and President. As a colleague he is extremely easy to get on with, never sparing himself in his efforts to forward Bufora’s aims. Aside from the above- mentioned offices he has acted in a remarkable number of official capacities. Indeed, perhaps only Lionel Beer and myself could lay claim to as great an all¬ round knowledge and experience of Bufora’s activities and progress since the Association’s inauguration in 1964 — Ed. 

Traces Report 

Steve Gamble, Bufora’s new Traces Co-ordinator submits the following report: No traces of a landing were found at the site described by Mrs Bowles. Early reports that a significant amount of radioactivity had been found in the area were tracked down as being due to an instrument malfunction. 

Despite there being no evidence of landing traces, a mobile geological survey unit was sent to confirm that these early reports were incorrect. An extensive survey was made of the verge on either side of the road and turn off from the by-pass. 

The search was carried out using two highly sensitive radiation survey metres. No significant amount of radiation was detected. In addition, pH {the amount of acidity) measurements were made at several points. The soil was found to be slightly more acidic than normal. This was due to acid released from decaying leaves and is a natural phenomenon. Several other tests were carried out but did not indicate anything out of the ordinary.  

File number defe-24-2032-1-1 in the UK’s National Archives mentions enquiries about these incidents but states that there are no records of it.

According to the British Ministry of Defence in response to the request for information from a Dr David Clarke:

“File AIR 2/18977 identified. Recalled from the PRO (public record office). It contained 11 UFO reports made to the MOD between 5th and 30th November 1976.”

“There were no reports for the 14th November and none from Mrs Bowles or Mr Pratt.”

Links

Flying Saucer Review: http://www.ignaciodarnaude.com/ufologia/FSR%201976%20V%2022%20N%205.pdf

BUFORA Journal:
http://bufora.org.uk/documents/BUFORAJournalVolume5No.6MarchApril1977.pdf

BBC Documentary ‘Out of this World’, Tuesday 10th May 1977