1978: Huge Gold Cigar With Lights And Windows Seen Over Farnborough,
Hants
It was about 7.40pm on the evening of the 5th of April 1978, when the brown ball hurtled downwards towards the post. Andy jumped to head it into the net and score another goal. As his eyes looked upwards to judge the speed of the ball, he was distracted by a gild cigar shaped object positioned over the playing field. The game was taking place at the Moor Road football field on the Hawley Estate at Farnborough, Hants but it was destined never to finish.
The boys all stopped in their tracks, and looked upwards at the hovering huge cigar.
Jason, Andy's friend, cried out, ''look at that'', he was startled and frightened, the object was low down and very close. It must have been watching the boys and seemed to note their reaction, for it started to move sideways and then, red, green and blue lights began to flash along it's side.
Mark was near by, he was just about to jump across a ditch near the football field when he saw the object.
He described it as a ''big gold cigar'' and it made a humming noise as it moved.
By now all of the youngsters were watching the craft as it hovered over them.
They could distinguish two windows on the side of the ''cigar'' and they immediately thought of a ''spaceship''.
None of them had seen anything like it before, and living in the Farnborough Airfield area, they were quite used to seeing planes of all sorts. Some of them were now beginning to shake with fright, then suddenly the craft accelerated away ''quite fast''. The boys ran for home scared out of their wits.
The time was now about ten to eight and Andrew's mother was sitting at home with some friends watching the T.V. show ''Coronation Street'. Maureen Slater, gave no thought to her son Andrew playing football down the road, after all, he spent many hours down at the playing field and never came to any harm.
The sound of the television was interrupted by screams from outside and then Andrew burst into the house. His face was bright red and his eyes seemed to be coming out of his head, two other friends ran in with him, they where all shaking and obviously very frightened.
Mrs Slater wondered what on earth had happened to the boys, what had they experienced to make them tremble and appear so frightened? Gradually the boys calmed down a little and were able to blurt out their story. A ''spaceship'' had comedown and hovered over them down at the football ground, it had coloured lights and windows.
Maureen and her friends listened and after some discussion, decided
to ring the R.A.E., they might know if there were any strange aircraft
flying about.
The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough were and were told of the boy's experience over the telephone, but they where unable to confirm that any such strange craft was flying around in their air space and Mrs Slater was advised to ring West Drayton, ( the main air craft traffic control centre for the area) and then to telephone the Farnborough Police Station. West Drayton were not able to help the Slater family with any explanation of the frightening event and in turn, Mrs Slater rang the local police.
That turned out to be quite a different experience. The police had no doubt that it was just one gigantic ''leg - pull'' and she was advised to take the boys home and ''give them a good talking to''; so much for the interest shown by the authorities in the possibility that an alien craft had been seen at low altitude in the area of the R.A.E.
There was only one thing wrong with the boy's ''leg - pull' theory', the mysterious aerial object appeared yet again, later that evening at about 8.45pm; this was spotted by one of the boys in the vicinity of the Slater household.
This time the craft was higher in the sky, the whole family and friends ran outside the house and looked up at the strange craft.
Maureen Slater now had the opportunity to see what had scared the youngsters, ''we saw it up in the sky; it was spinning round and around with flashing lights'', she said.
''The lights were coloured, red, green and blue; ''it looked oblong and round up in the sky, there were whitish sparks shooting out from it''.
At this stage, the craft was still fairly low down, Mrs Slater compared the height by judging it against the football field floodlights. ''it was about three times the height of the lights'' she commented: ''I wasn't frightened by it but I was worried at the thought of where it had come from and what it was about.'' ''I was scared that the Russians might have sent it.''
"I've been to the Air Show at Farnborough a few times, but I've never seen anything like this before.''
It was shortly after 9pm that the mysterious craft flew away South East and out of sight.
Courtesy of SIGAP:
Cross reference: This 1978 description is similar to that of a craft witnessed over Farnborough two decades earlier! Click here for full report and witness art from 1958.
