SUBJECT: ENCOUNTER IN ENGLAND FILE: UFO1266 NEWS CLIPPING SERVICE DATE OF ARTICLE: February 10, 1989 SOURCE OF ARTICLE: News & Advertiser LOCATION: Todmorden, England BYLINE: Pat Swift ======================================================== (C) Copyright 1989 ParaNet Information Service All Rights Reserved. THIS FILE WAS PROVIDED BY THE UFO NEWSCLIPPING SERVICE AND PREPARED BY PARANET ALPHA -- PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE BBS PARANET ALPHA DENVER, COLORADO NOTE: THESE FILES ARE NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE OF THE PARANET INFORMATION SERVICE NETWORK ======================================================== THE NIGHT THAT CHANGED HIS LIFE By Pat Swift Former policeman Alan Godfrey has never consciously claimed to have met creatures from outer space. But whatever happened to him in the "missing minutes" in the cold early hours of a November morning over eight years ago has irrevocably changed his life forever. Alan hit the national headlines over a year after first putting in an official report that he had seen a UFO hovering above Burnley Road near Mons Jill. At first there was local interest and a lot of speculation about the sighting, particularly as five other officers in Calderdale and Greater Manchester had reported seeing a similar object low in the skies on the same morning. But Alan was not the first police officer in Todmorden to put in an official report of a UFO sighting. It was only when a senior police officer persuaded him to reveal details of tapes taken while he underwent regression hypnosis that he really created a stir on the front pages of nearly every national newspaper. For under hypnosis, under stringent conditions and observed by police officers, Alan told how he had been taken aboard the spaceship and had been examined by creatures from outer space. "To this day, I don't know what happened to me that morning," says Alan. "I can clearly remember seeing this object revolving and hovering above the road as I drove up towards Lydgate in the police car. I stopped the car, made notes and did a sketch and then got out of the car and started walking towards it. "The next thing I can remember is being further up Burnley Road beyond the point where I had seen the craft, but it was no longer there." Consciously he has no recollection of what happened in between, but there are physical clues which appear to back up his story told under hypnosis. On those tapes he tells how he was laid on a table and examined with some kind of electrical probe fixed to the insole of his foot. At the time of the incident he found his heavy leather police boot had been ripped and he had a small burn mark on his insole. "It would be a lot easier for me to believe that I made it all up under hypnosis...that it was something my imagination dreamed up. "But the truth is I don't know what happened, and probably never will." When the details of the tapes were released to the press they linked it to speculation about a case on which Alan had worked five months before his UFO sighting--the mysterious death of Polish born Leeds miner Zygmunt Adamski. Mr. Adamski had disappeared from near his home on the outskirts of Leeds. He had set out to visit a nearby shop to buy some potatoes as his family had visitors in preparation for the following day when he was due to give away his God daughter at her wedding. He never returned--but five days later his body was discovered in the coal yard near Todmorden station. Some of his clothing was missing; he had mysterious burn marks on the back of his head which had been treated with an ointment which scientists could not identify as anything known on earth--and he had died of a heart attack brought on by fear or shock. There had been many reports of UFO sightings in West Yorkshire around the time and Coroner Mr. James Turnbull in recording an open verdict, said he could not rule out speculation about creatures from space. Alan was one of the local officers working on the case and was surprised that no major investigation was launched. But although he was discharged from West Yorkshire Police on medical grounds due to an injury he had received before all these strange events, Alan is still bound by the Official Secrets Act. "Because of this I am not allowed to talk about the case," he says. After he became a major news story, Alan felt that he was being subjected to harassment in the force. "Life was being made difficult for me," he said. "I was no longer 'one of the lads' and superiors sent me for medical examinations in efforts to show I was having hallucinations, but the doctors all gave me a clean bill of health mentally." Eventually Alan and the police parted company when an old injury incurred during a struggle while on duty was the official reason for his medical discharge. "I felt I could have continued in the force, even if only at a desk job," he says. But losing his job also cost him his home as he could no longer afford to meet the mortgage payments, and he had to turn his hands to other trades. "It put a strain on everything and life has been difficult," he recalls. "The police even raided my leaving party to check for after hours drinkers." Alan is regularly sought by TV and radio chat show hosts and the Press. "Whenever there is another major sighting, I start getting calls for interviews again." But don't the fees from these TV and radio interviews help compensate for the difficulties he faced on first leaving the force? Alan smiles wrily. "There's a sliding scale for interview fees, and I'm definitely on the bottom rung of the ladder!" His financial fortunes cold change if one of the Hollywood film giants decides to take up an option on using the transcripts of the hypnosis sessions as the basis for a future film. But in the meantime, Alan is settling into his new life, although he still misses police work. And has he seen any further strange objects in the skies? "I don't look," he says emphatically. "If one landed right in front of me, I'd turn around and run. I wouldn't want to get involved." ================================================================= 5/89 ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * ****************************************************************************************************************