A Trip to See Strange Lights in The Sky: A True Story

And most important of all are they visiting us? In the early 1970’s UFO groups were very much in vogue. Enthusiastic members would regularly write in about their latest sightings to various UFO magazines and newsletters. I was an avid reader and what excited me the most were the stories of abundant sightings at Warminster in the county of Wilshire in southern England. Living in Surrey at the time, the aliens were tantalisingly close. When my father suggested that we go and take a look it was like a dream had come true.

It was a Saturday afternoon in August, and a very excited 13 year-old boy, my father, my aunt and a sceptical uncle set out on our journey to meet the aliens. Mother didn’t come; the idea of strange objects in the sky and aliens spooked her but nonetheless she filled a hamper with sandwiches and Thermos flasks of tea and coffee.

Our journey took us west through Hampshire, past Stonehenge and across Salisbury Plain. When we arrived at the sleepy town of Warminster the golden August sun was already low in the sky. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky all day – the conditions were perfect.

The streets were eerily deserted. What if all the inhabitants had been abducted and we’d picked a really bad time to visit? Such were the crazy thoughts of a boy with an imagination egged on by TV science-fiction series like Star Trek?

Braving the alien onslaught was a craggy faced man with a walking stick. He saw my father and uncle peering at the AA roadmap trying to make sense of where to go next. Slowly he made his way over to us. With a smile he suggested we head for Cradle Hill which was a mile or so out of town.

The country road was just wide enough for one vehicle but we made steady progress up the hill. Eventually the road widened which was just as well as in front of us were a number of vehicles parked up. Luckily there was just space for us at the end. Who were all these people? Were they here for the same reason as us? It had never crossed my mind that others would be here and rather gingerly, fearing that we might be imposing on some country ritual, we got out of the car and made our way over to the field where most of crowd had gathered. Hedgerows and twisted wire fences divided the patchwork of green and brown fields. Isolated islands of Oaks dotted here and there, the remnants of an older forested landscape that once existed in these parts. On top of the hill was a particularly dense wooded area at the centre of which was an old barn stacked full of hay. Across the valley we could see another hill; later in the evening we learned that the local’s nick-named it Starr Hill (locally spelt with two R’s; however, ordnance survey maps show it as Middle Hill).