January 23 marks the 40th anniversary of the crash of an unidentified flying object in the Berwyn Mountains in North Wales. At least that's what many locals say. This story is considered "British Roswell" and has not yet received a rational explanation. Let's remember what happened in 1974 in the Berwyn Mountains …
Residents of the villages of Llandderfell and Llandrillo were just sitting in front of their televisions in the evening, when the earth shook and a deafening explosion was heard, which was later assigned 3.5 on the Richter scale. People ran out into the street, fearing another shock, and saw a flash of light on the side of the mountain.
A local hospital nurse thought that a plane had crashed into the mountain and hurried to the scene in her car. However, instead of burning debris, she saw pulsing red and orange lights on the slope. Soon this territory was cordoned off by the police, rescuers pulled up, however, according to official data, they did not find anything. This led eyewitnesses to think that information about the event was quickly hidden from the public. Of course, no one had time to take a photo of a UFO. For 4 decades this topic has been discussed at various levels.
Several documentaries were shot, books and articles were written. Researchers claim that a UFO crashed in the Berwyn Mountains, moreover, there are witnesses of how soldiers carried away some corpses from the slope. Skeptics are sure that a small earthquake happened that night with an epicenter in Lake Bala. It coincided with a meteor shower, and poachers with lanterns who hunted in the forest created the light spots on the mountainside.
For 40 years, a lot of new information surfaced, from which the story became even more mysterious. In 2008, The Daily Post published official documents testifying that the police in the city of Gwynedd on January 23, 1974 were literally bombarded with calls and visits by eyewitnesses of a strange incident, and many of them were sure that they had seen a UFO. The events of that night appeared in a completely new light. In total, the police received 999 calls from UFO eyewitnesses, many of which were given in the article in the form of transcripts.
“I saw a bright red light, like fire in dying coals. A clear big circle. Like a big fire. Above it I could see lights on the right side, and several more white spots of light were moving down the slope. The color of the lights turned yellowish-white for a while, and then returned to red again,”says one of the witnesses.
“There was a strong explosion nearby, and now a fire is burning on the mountain. I see fire from my window,”adds another. The rest of the evidence is no less unusual, including the police telex talks:
"22:00 1974-23-01. I see bright green lights, an object with a tail pointing west. He fell near Bangor. At about 10 pm I saw a round luminous object in the sky at an altitude of about 460 meters. The object exploded and the debris fell to the ground. They may have sunk into the sea between Rhill and Liverpool."
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In 2010, a key witness in the case, retired nurse Pat Evans, confidently said in an interview that she saw something strange on the mountainside. “It could not get there in any other way, except through the air, therefore, it was some kind of UFO. I mean the object that flew in and landed,”says Evans, a resident of Llandderfell. “We saw a pulsing fireball on the mountain. Lights were scattered around him. I’m very sorry that we didn’t stay on the street and didn’t see what would happen next - he would disappear from there or simply fly away. We saw no one on the road, although the reports said that we were dispersed by the police and the military. It's not true, they weren't
I live right at the foot of the mountain. When we heard a powerful crash, we thought that the plane had crashed. I worked as a nurse, and my daughters were serving in the emergency room at St. John's Hospital, so we decided to go to help the victims."
Mrs Evans added that the object glowed orange, red and yellow and resembled the shape of the moon. There were no windows or doors in it. “I have never seen anything like it - neither before nor after. I have no idea what it was,”she says.
Ufologist Russ Kellett found a strange molten piece of metal on the side of a mountain.
According to the documents of the Marine and Coast Guard, a military operation, codenamed "Photo Flash", was scheduled for this evening. About 10 military aircraft took part in it. A series of very bright flares were visible over all of North Wales and Liverpool Bay - up to 80 during the entire operation. Coast Guard officers were alerted to these exercises by a special secret message. No pvc boat patrolling the coast of Wales was supposed to take photos and videos of UFOs and other objects during the "Flash". There is no further information about this operation, and no one knows if it is related to the incident in the Berwyn Mountains. There is a version that "photo flashes" were carried out in order to hone methods of illuminating the ground from the air.
What happened in the Berwyn Mountains? It's still a mystery. Ufologist Russ Kellett hopes to find the answer. “I have been studying this case for many years, and I am sure that more than one UFO has flown there,” the researcher says. "This is indicated by all the evidence we have found in recent years."
Eduard Alyuev