Preamble: On November 28, 1980 in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, UK, Police officer Alan Godfrey was on routine patrol when he encountered a metallic disc with a dome and a row of windows. Suddenly, there was a burst of light, and he found himself 100 yards farther down the road, and the UFO was gone. Under regression hypnosis, Godfrey recalled being struck by a beam of light which floated him into the craft, and meeting a human-like being named 'Josef', whose clothing was very 'Biblical' in nature. Aboard the craft, he was physically examined and asked questions.
Type of Case/Report: Standard Case
Hynek Classification: CE4
Shape of Object(s): Disc
Special Features/Characteristics: Abduction, Missing Time, Police, E-M Effects, Portholes/Windows, Witness Sketch, Witness Photo
Investigator's Report: In November and December 1980, the eastern side of Britain was experiencing a major UFO sighting wave. There were chases of UFOs by police cars near the coast, a UFO that overflew an oil rig in the North Sea, and the wave culminated in the famous events on the East Anglian coast at Rendlesham Forest. Just a month before these landings beside those NATO air bases, one of the most impressive alien abduction cases took place in the small Penninemill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, right in the center of Britain's most active window area known locally as "UFO Alley".
Police Constable Alan Godfrey was on patrol on the night of 28 November 1980. Just before dawn he drove along Burnley Road on the edge of Todmorden searching for some cattle that had been reported missing. The livestock would ultimately be found later that morning, displaced to a field soaked by rain, without a hint of how they got there.
Giving up his nocturnal hunt, Godfrey was about to go back to base to sign off duty when he saw a large mass a few hundred yards ahead. At first, he thought it was a bus coming towards him that took workers to their jobs in town and that he knew passed about 5:00 a.m. But as he approached, he realized that it was something very strange. It was a fuzzy oval that rotated at such speed and hovered so low over the otherwise deserted highway that it was causing the bushes by the side to shake. The police officer stopped, propped onto his windscreen a pad that was in the patrol car to make sketches of any road accidents, and drew the UFO. Then there was a burst of light, and the next thing he knew he was driving his car again, further along Burnley Road, with no sign of the UFO.
Godfrey turned around and examined the spot where the UFO had hovered. The road was very wet as it had rained heavily earlier in the night. But just at this one location was a circular patch where the roadway had been dried in a swirled pattern. Only when back at the police station did he realize that it was a little later than he had expected - although any missing time was probably no greater than 15 minutes from estimates later taken on site.
Concerned as to possible ridicule, Godfrey at first chose not to make an official report, but changed his mind later that day when he discovered he was not alone. After breakfast that morning, a driver who had been on Burnley Road three miles further out at Cliviger reported seeing a brilliant white object and contacted Todmorden police. The time matched that of Alan Godfrey's. Furthermore, a police patrol from an adjacent force (Halifax) had been engaged in a stakeout for stolen motorcycles on the moors of the Calder Valley and had witnessed a brilliant blue-white glow descending into the valley towards Todmorden shortly before Godfrey experienced his close encounter. Their story, when it reached Todmorden police station, formed a second match.
Encouraged by this news Godfrey filed an official report, but was surprised when police chose to release the story to the local newspaper the following week. From here, Ufologists discovered the case and a lengthy investigation was mounted by a Manchester-based UFO group.
Although Alan Godfrey had no further conscious recall of the missing time, he did have increasingly confused memory of the sequence of events surrounding the sighting (with an unexplained image of seeing himself outside the car during the sighting). There was also puzzling physical evidence. His police-issue boots were split on the sole, as if he had been dragged along the floor and they had caught on something. He also reported a previous history of seeing other strange things and having experienced at least one earlier time lapse as a youth—factors that Ufologists have come to recognize as common with abduction cases.
When sure that all conscious testimony had been recorded, Godfrey agreed to be hypnotically regressed by a Manchester psychiatrist eight months after the incident. He eventually had several other sessions with different therapists, and his recall in later sessions was video-taped. The doctor refused permission to the UFO group for the first session to be recorded.
The hypnotic testimony is very odd, and Godfrey was never to be sure what really happened. Under regression he told of the bright light stopping the car engine, causing his radio and police handset both to be filled with static and then to be swamped by blinding light as he lost consciousness. His next recall was of being inside a strange room, more like a house than a spaceship, complete with a most unexpected large black dog. He was studied by a heavily bearded man who telepathically conveyed that his name was "Yosef" and whose clothing was very Biblical in nature. Assisting Yosef were several small robot-like creatures "the size of a five-year-old lad" and with "a head shaped like a lamp". They are reminiscent of the "Grays" of UFO lore; although with major differences.
Godfrey was supposedly asked questions, told that he "knew" Josef, and was promised a later encounter. But apparently he was not subjected to the more familiar indignities of abduction stories (especially from the US), such as bodily fluid samples and rectal probes. Although there were periods of missing memory, the hypnotic recall that did emerge was a curious hybrid of mythic images, UFO case elements and dream like sequences.
When asked his opinion as to the reality status of this hypnotic testimony, Alan Godfrey was refreshingly honest. He told me he was certain that the UFO encounter was real, but he could not determine whether the story offered by hypnosis was a dream, a fantasy, reality, or a mixture of all three.
Unhappily, Alan Godfrey suffered terribly after this encounter. When I first wrote up the investigation (just before the regression hypnosis began) for Flying Saucer Review magazine in 1981, I deliberately changed his identity to help protect him; although this was probably futile because the story had already been featured in the local press under Godfrey's real name.
However, despite my refusal to assist them, a tabloid reporter traced the witness and devoted a front-page banner headline article to the story — read by millions over the Sunday lunch—which led to the officer being called to explain himself before his superiors. He was forced to undergo medical investigation to determine his "status", but was pronounced psychologically fit and healthy. Yet after some years feeling that he would never be allowed to forget his sighting, he took advice to honorably resign over an unrelated physical injury incurred during an incident in which he bravely intervened to avert a crime.
Todmorden, both before 1980 and in the years since, has been a hotbed of alien contact activity with several other major encounters having been investigated, including another abduction of a truck driver from Burnley Road only a little further out of Todmorden and on the same highway. - account by Jenny Randles
Click for video - Part 1
Click for video - Part 2
Click for video - Part 3
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ALIEN ABDUCTION CLAIMS IN YORKSHIRE
A mysterious disappearance, a body with strange burns and an inexplicable substance that baffled scientists.
Inside Out investigates the presence of paranormal activity in the death of a Yorkshire miner.
Zigmund Adamski, a 56 year old miner, went missing from his home in Tingley, near Wakefield in June 1980. He had gone out to do some shopping.
To Zigmund’s colleagues at Lofthouse Colliery, it was a complete mystery.
Five days after he disappeared, Zigmund’s body was discovered 20 miles from his home at a coal yard in Todmorden.
Zigmund’s body was lying on top of a pile of coal. He was wearing a suit but his shirt, watch and wallet were missing.
On the back of his head, neck and shoulders were mysterious burns which attracted lots of attention.
Baffled
James Turnbull, the coroner who dealt with Zigmund’s death, says it’s the biggest mystery of his career.
The coroner was baffled because although Zigmund had been missing for five days, he only had one day’s growth of beard.
He says, "The question of where he was before he died and what led to his death just could not be answered."
James also said a strange ointment that appeared to have been used on Zigmund’s burns could not be identified by forensic scientists.
Exhaustive checks failed to reveal any record of Zigmund having been treated at any hospital during his missing five days.
It was at this point that questions began occurring, regarding the origin of this inexplicable ointment and who applied it to Zigmund.
Alien abduction
It was not just the usual investigators, the police and coroners, who were attracted to this case.
One of the most famous UFOlogists of all time, also called Adamski offered his own amazing theories on the tragedy.
He believed aliens from outer space abducted the Yorkshire miner by mistake.
The speculation of an extraterrestrial encounter was fuelled by the policeman who originally found Zigmund’s body, Alan Godfrey.
Six months after finding Zigmund’s body, Alan was again on duty in Todmorden at 5 am.
He claims he also encounter a UFO, which made headlines all over the world.
Alan says, "I wish I'd never seen the UFO, particularly because of the effects on my children."
"It's not easy having a policeman as a father but when he's a policeman who saw a UFO its even worse."
This was a huge turning point in Alan Godfrey’s life. He left the police force and has a new role as a speaker at charity fundraising events.
Verdict
In the past 20 years there has been many claimed sightings in the Pennine hills around Todmorden.
It’s regarded as the Britain’s UFO hotspot. But serious UFO watchers dismiss most of these Pennine sighting as just lights in the sky.
The corner is equally unconvinced about the presence of paranormal activity.
Although he still has a raft of unanswered questions regarding Zigmund’s death, James is opting for an earthly rather than alien explanation at present.
But he does say, "In fifty years time, if we discover aliens have been visiting us and we didn't know about it, then that might give an answer."
But after all these years, Alan Godfrey still has no doubts, leaving thoughts of the extra terrestrial in the minds of all those involved. - BBC
Richard D. Hall’s series continues with a discussion on the alien abduction phenomenon. Gary Heseltine describes the Alan Godfrey abduction of 1980, and Tim Good explains what he believes is the purpose of aliens abducting humans from Earth
Click for video
Sources:
www.ufoevidence.org
www.ufocasebook.com
ufos.about.com
www.bbc.co.uk
www.space-2001.netwww.subversiveelement.com
www.abovetopsecret.com
www.iwasabducted.com
