Speaker 1: The following episode contains disturbing scenes of war. Parental discretion
Speaker 1: is advised. It is late one January night in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight on the outskirts of the village of Mitchett
Speaker 1: in the south of England. Two fifteen year old boys
Speaker 1: Ron Hills and Ian Hoole are running home through the cold,
Speaker 1: windy darkness when Ron senses something moving through the clouds
Speaker 1: above them. Turning a corner at the sound of a
Speaker 1: low hum, he stops and looks up to see a large,
Speaker 1: oblong shape cruising through the sky, lighting up the clouds
Speaker 1: that it goes, with two white beams of light at
Speaker 1: the front and two red lights that pulsed on and
Speaker 1: off underneath. Ian, catching up to Ron moments later, stops
Speaker 1: suddenly by his side and looks up in awe as
Speaker 1: the shape continues on overhead toward a small farm holding
Speaker 1: to their left, illuminating the top of a nearby forest
Speaker 1: as it passed. Then a strange feeling came over Ian,
Speaker 1: as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
Speaker 1: Ron felt it too. The boys looked to each other
Speaker 1: and without saying a word, shot off again towards home,
Speaker 1: keeping one eye on the strange object as they went.
Speaker 1: It's gone, said Ron, stopping for a moment to catch
Speaker 1: his breath. No it hasn't, look said Ian, pointing to
Speaker 1: a light in the distance, just visible between two houses.
Speaker 1: Then they heard that ominous hum again, getting louder and louder.
Speaker 1: The thing was coming back toward them. Hurry, shouted Ian,
Speaker 1: as they shot off once more toward Ian's home on
Speaker 1: the Limward Drive estate. Turning into the road, they realized
Speaker 1: with horror that the thing was now right above them,
Speaker 1: glowing with a misty orange light, as if it were
Speaker 1: beginning to heat up. Ian screamed for his mother as
Speaker 1: the boys sprinted toward the front door. When she opened
Speaker 1: it moments later, she found them shaking and white and
Speaker 1: looking fearfully to the sky. It was chasing us, said Ian,
Speaker 1: close to tears. What was she asked with some alarm,
Speaker 1: But when they turned to find it, the thing had gone.
Speaker 1: You're listening to, unexplained, and I'm Richard McClean smith. It
Speaker 1: was a year later when the Fisher family were driving
Speaker 1: home to the village of Blackwood in the south of Scotland.
Speaker 1: A light drizzle had begun to fall, pattering against the
Speaker 1: windscreen like gentle attic as John kept the wheel steady.
Speaker 1: In the back, kids Roger and Audrey valiantly fought off
Speaker 1: sleep while John's wife dozed in the passenger seat. John
Speaker 1: looked up for a moment at the few stars he
Speaker 1: could see blinking through the gaps in the cloud, then
Speaker 1: turned his attention back to the road as they continued
Speaker 1: on toward Livingstone, a town eight miles west of Edinburgh.
Speaker 1: It had just gone eleven pm when Roger pointed out
Speaker 1: something peculiar in the distance, moving through the sky. Roger's
Speaker 1: mother roused from sleep. Yes, what is that? She said.
Speaker 1: John looked about, trying to see it too, but it
Speaker 1: was just out of his view. What is it? He said.
Speaker 1: It was hard to make out what it was exactly,
Speaker 1: only that it appeared to be hovering about one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty feet off the ground, with an intense white
Speaker 1: beam of lightoting out the front of it and four
Speaker 1: red lights surrounding it. John looked about again, then finally
Speaker 1: caught the faint sight of something far off to the left.
Speaker 1: It's just the light from a crane, he said. But
Speaker 1: it's moving, said Audrey. The Fishers continued to watch it
Speaker 1: as it appeared to hover for a moment in the
Speaker 1: sky before disappearing completely from view. Ten months later, on
Speaker 1: November ninth, nineteen seventy nine, sixty one year old Robert
Speaker 1: Taylor woke early in the morning and slipped quietly out
Speaker 1: of bed, being careful not to wake his wife Mary.
Speaker 1: The couple lived on Brumino Drive in Deans, on the
Speaker 1: northern outskirts of Livingstone, barely a kilometer from where the
Speaker 1: Fishers had been passing when they saw that peculiar object
Speaker 1: in the sky back in January. Wiping the sleep from
Speaker 1: his eyes, Bob slipped on his overalls and headed out
Speaker 1: into the crisp dawn air, then hopped into his pickup
Speaker 1: truck and drove off to work. Robert or Bob Taylor
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen eighteen close to pit Lockery in
Speaker 1: the Highlands of Scotland, the third youngest of fourteen children.
Speaker 1: Having been infused with the love of the great outdoors
Speaker 1: from an early age, he would often neglect to complete
Speaker 1: the four mile walk to school, preferring instead to spend
Speaker 1: the day ambling through local woods along the Sparkling River Tunnel.
Speaker 1: At the outbreak of the Second World War, at the
Speaker 1: age of twenty one, he joined the Armored Fife and
Speaker 1: fourth Yeomanry Division as a tank driver. It was a
Speaker 1: job he described as being little different to driving a
Speaker 1: big lorry, as long as you remembered to keep your head.
Speaker 1: Five years later, on June eleventh, at the age of
Speaker 1: twenty six, Bob and his tank crew arrived in Normandy
Speaker 1: as part of the eleventh Armored Division. Over the next
Speaker 1: ten months, the division pushed further into France and then
Speaker 1: up through Belgium and the Netherlands as they fought back
Speaker 1: the German armed forces, eventually making it as far as
Speaker 1: Leebeck in the north of Germany in March nineteen forty five.
Speaker 1: A few months previously, as the German Army continued to
Speaker 1: be driven back from every direction, Heinrich Himmler, who was
Speaker 1: in charge of running the German government's program of extermination
Speaker 1: and concentration camps, made a characteristically brutal decision, in part
Speaker 1: due to his fear that his prisoners would fall into
Speaker 1: the hands of the opposing forces, but also in an
Speaker 1: attempt to hide what had been happening in his camps.
Speaker 1: He ordered many of the outlying camps to be evacuated.
Speaker 1: As a result, tens of thousands of prisoners were led
Speaker 1: out on forced marches to internal camps, often walking for
Speaker 1: miles in harsh freezing conditions, with many dying en route.
Speaker 1: Bergen Belsen concentration camp in the north of Germany had
Speaker 1: been built to house a few thousand inmates at most.
Speaker 1: By the end of March nineteen forty five, this number
Speaker 1: had swelled to sixty thousand as more and more prisoners
Speaker 1: coming from as far away as Auschwitz, Neuen Gammer, and
Speaker 1: Dora Mittelbau were forced inside it. With the Third Reich
Speaker 1: on the brink of collapse, an agreement was made between
Speaker 1: Heinrich Himmler and the advancing British and Canadian forces that
Speaker 1: the German army would vacate bergen Belsen. On April fifteenth,
Speaker 1: Robert Taylor and what remained of the eleventh Armored Division
Speaker 1: arrived at the camp to liberate it. What they found
Speaker 1: there was as close to a vision of hell as
Speaker 1: you were ever likely to find on earth. Emaciated figures
Speaker 1: stared out of vacant eyes from behind the barbed wire
Speaker 1: fencing as the soldiers approached, some in striped pajama like clothing,
Speaker 1: others in nothing but rags and bare feet. The stench
Speaker 1: of excrement was heavy in the air. Inside thousands of corpses,
Speaker 1: little more than skin stretched across bone in various states
Speaker 1: of decay littered the ground. Many had been stripped of
Speaker 1: their clothes and thrown on top of each other in
Speaker 1: piles as much as five or six high. Some had
Speaker 1: turned green. As described at the time by the BBC's
Speaker 1: Richard Dimbleby, who accompanied the soldiers into the camp, among
Speaker 1: the living and the dead, you could not see which
Speaker 1: was which. Living lay with their heads against the corpses,
Speaker 1: and around them moved the awful, ghostly procession of emaciated,
Speaker 1: aimless people with nothing to do and with no hope
Speaker 1: of life, unable to move out of your way, unable
Speaker 1: to look at the terrible sights around them. Inside the
Speaker 1: various huts that lined the camp where the tangled remains
Speaker 1: of numerous others who died from starvation, lying in puddles
Speaker 1: of urine and feces. Some of the bodies had been cannibalized,
Speaker 1: their flesh removed and internal organs knived out. Many women
Speaker 1: had given birth in the camp, two with sometimes as
Speaker 1: many as seven babies being born. A day, a woman
Speaker 1: screamed out to a passing soldier to find milk for
Speaker 1: her newborn. As he drew near, she handed him something
Speaker 1: bundled up in a filthy blanket, then and away in
Speaker 1: a flood of tears. The soldier opened the blanket to
Speaker 1: find the baby, long since dead inside it. It was
Speaker 1: estimated that there were as many as thirteen thousand dead
Speaker 1: among the sixty thousand living prisoners. Many more thousands would
Speaker 1: die in the following weeks from typhus, dysentery, and tuberculosis
Speaker 1: that was rife throughout the camp. It was an experience,
Speaker 1: like most people who were really there, that Robert Taylor
Speaker 1: seldom talked about, but one that had acquainted him all
Speaker 1: too closely with some of the coldest realities of the
Speaker 1: material world. After the war, Taylor found a job working
Speaker 1: the roads for Perth City Council before eventually relocating to Livingstone,
Speaker 1: where in nineteen seventy nine he was working as a
Speaker 1: foreman forester for the Livingstone Development Corporation. By all accounts,
Speaker 1: he wasn't a man prone to exaggeration, and he cared
Speaker 1: little for much beyond his family and his work, save
Speaker 1: for the odd pint of beer and a cigarette. Certainly,
Speaker 1: encounters of the strange were the furthest thing from his
Speaker 1: mind when he set off for work that chilly November day,
Speaker 1: but soon it would be all people would want to
Speaker 1: talk about. That morning, Taylor headed first to the Forestry
Speaker 1: Commission's depot at Rosebank Nursery to pick up a crew
Speaker 1: to complete a quick job in nearby Belle's Quarry. But
Speaker 1: about the same time, local resident Graham Kennedy was heading
Speaker 1: to work along the A eighty nine, just past the
Speaker 1: village of Deckmont, about a mile north of Bob Taylor's
Speaker 1: home in Deans, when he saw a bright orange colored
Speaker 1: object moving quickly toward him in the sky. Kennedy swerved
Speaker 1: car to get out the way, nearly colliding with another
Speaker 1: vehicle in the process. Moments later, only a few hundred
Speaker 1: meters away, nurse Anne McGregor, who worked at the nearby
Speaker 1: Banguwa Hospital, was just stepping off the bus when she
Speaker 1: heard a hissing sound coming from somewhere to the south.
Speaker 1: Looking up, she saw a bright yellow light that appeared
Speaker 1: to be descending into the Decmant Woods, a small area
Speaker 1: of woodland covering Deckmant Law, a low lying hill that
Speaker 1: rose up between Deckmont Village and Dean's. About two hours later,
Speaker 1: Bob returned home for breakfast after a quick stop off,
Speaker 1: who said by to Mary once more, then whistled for
Speaker 1: their red Irish setter Lara to accompany him out to
Speaker 1: the truck. The pair of them jumped in and drove
Speaker 1: back out to work, heading for the decmant Woods. Most
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Speaker 1: That's O n molecule dot com. A few years previously,
Speaker 1: Bob had been called out to decmant Law to help
Speaker 1: search for a young girl who'd gone missing. The night
Speaker 1: had been especially wet and cold, making it all the
Speaker 1: more vital that they found her as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: After hours of searching through the bitter weather, the girl
Speaker 1: was eventually found under a tree, strangely warm and dry,
Speaker 1: having claimed to have followed a sheep into the forest
Speaker 1: before getting lost. As it happened that morning, Taylor, who
Speaker 1: was responsible for the general management of the forest, was
Speaker 1: also on the lookout for some sheep that had apparently
Speaker 1: strayed into the area. Bob parked his truck at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the hill, then continued on foot with Laura,
Speaker 1: bouncing happily beside him. Up above a pale sun shone
Speaker 1: in the sky, as a few broken clouds began to gather.
Speaker 1: As they headed on up the hill, Bob reveled in
Speaker 1: the relative silence, with little to be heard save for
Speaker 1: the gentle crackle of frost breaking under foot and the
Speaker 1: rustling of the pines. As they neared the edge of
Speaker 1: the woods. Slipping through the tree line, Laura bounded on
Speaker 1: ahead as Bob kept an eye out for any sign
Speaker 1: of the sheep. He'd walked about half a mile when
Speaker 1: he heard Laura barking frantically. Catching sight of her up ahead,
Speaker 1: Bob jogged after her down the slope toward a break
Speaker 1: in the trees. As Laura ran on ahead, he followed
Speaker 1: her into the clearing. Bob's wife, Mary, was busy doing
Speaker 1: the washing up when she looked out at the kitchen
Speaker 1: window to see a pale and exhausted looking Bob staggering
Speaker 1: toward the house. His face and clothes were caked with mud,
Speaker 1: and his trousers badly ripped. Mary ran to the door
Speaker 1: and wrenched it open. What's happened? Did you have an accident?
Speaker 1: She asked in shock. I've been attacked, replied Bob stumbling
Speaker 1: into the kitchen by who said Mary following close behind.
Speaker 1: Bob staggered to the sink, ran some water into a
Speaker 1: glass and gulped it down, and took a moment to
Speaker 1: gather his thoughts by a spaceship, he said, I'm sure
Speaker 1: what to say. Mary told her husband to sit down,
Speaker 1: then went upstairs to run him a bath. Having been
Speaker 1: summoned by Mary, Robert's boss, Malcolm Drummond, arrived at the
Speaker 1: house a few minutes later to find Bob still in
Speaker 1: the bath in a deeply disorientated state. Concerned by his
Speaker 1: nonsensical story about a spaceship attacking him in the forest,
Speaker 1: Drummond suggested they called their doctor immediately, thinking he might
Speaker 1: be suffering from some kind of head injury. By the
Speaker 1: time doctor Adams arrived fifteen minutes later, Bob was out
Speaker 1: of the bath and settled on the sofa. After having
Speaker 1: his blood pressure checked and nothing obvious found to be
Speaker 1: wrong with him, Bob gave them his version of events,
Speaker 1: as Taylor went on to explain, after stepping into the clearing,
Speaker 1: he was startled to find a large dome shaped object
Speaker 1: about thirty feet high sitting in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: Around the object was a ring that he described as
Speaker 1: being like the flange of a pipe that had small
Speaker 1: propeller like things sticking up from it. The object appeared
Speaker 1: to have no seams or joins on its surface, which
Speaker 1: was comprised of a rough gray colored material, with several
Speaker 1: dark spaces above the ring that he took to be
Speaker 1: windows that were all completely blacked out. As he continued
Speaker 1: to stare at it in disbelief, it seemed almost to
Speaker 1: disappear right in front of him, becoming translucent, so much
Speaker 1: so that at one point it was as though he
Speaker 1: could see right through it to the trees beyond. The
Speaker 1: next thing he remembered, Laura began barking furiously as two
Speaker 1: metal spheres with spikes sticking out of them dropped out
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the object and headed straight toward him.
Speaker 1: Before he could even move, they'd rolled up his leg
Speaker 1: and attached themselves to him. All of a sudden, he
Speaker 1: felt them pulling him down to the ground when he
Speaker 1: was overcome by a hideous, noxious smell, the coret at
Speaker 1: the back of his throat, and then everything went black.
Speaker 1: He came round twenty minutes later to find the object
Speaker 1: and Lara had gone. Finding his legs too numb to
Speaker 1: move and feeling deeply nauseous, he eventually succeeded in crawling
Speaker 1: back to the truck. He tried to use the radio,
Speaker 1: but his throat was too dry to speak. In a panic,
Speaker 1: he threw the car into gear and slammed on the
Speaker 1: accelerator pedal, only to drive straight into a ditch with
Speaker 1: nothing left for it. He got back out and stumbled home.
Speaker 1: Drummond and doctor Adams looked to each other in confusion
Speaker 1: as Bob's story came to an end. Adams gave Bob
Speaker 1: another look over and found two red marks like burns
Speaker 1: on his thighs, where he claimed the strange objects had
Speaker 1: attached themselves to him. There was also a graze under
Speaker 1: his chin, which Adams assumed was where he'd fallen onto
Speaker 1: the ground. Suspecting he may have had a heart attack
Speaker 1: or an epileptic fit, Adams suggested he go right away
Speaker 1: to hospital to get a proper examination. A short time later,
Speaker 1: Drummond and Adams headed out to the woods, where they
Speaker 1: found Bob's truck stuck in a ditch with the engine
Speaker 1: still running. Just like he'd explained, an unharmed Lara was
Speaker 1: also there, thankfully waiting by it. The pair then headed
Speaker 1: out to inspect the clearing where the incident was alleged
Speaker 1: to have occurred, but found nothing untoward Down at the hospital.
Speaker 1: After waiting two hours to be seen, Bob grew bored
Speaker 1: and headed back home, where Drummond was waiting for him.
Speaker 1: After telling Bob that he and doctor Adams had failed
Speaker 1: to find anything strange, Taylor demanded they head back there
Speaker 1: immediately so he could see for himself. With the pair
Speaker 1: back up at the clearing, Bob called Drummond over to
Speaker 1: look at something he'd found on the ground, A clear
Speaker 1: pair of markings like caterpillar tracks, about ten feet long
Speaker 1: and seven feet apart, and dotted all around them were
Speaker 1: about forty holes in the ground, exposing fresh earth, almost
Speaker 1: as though something spiky had been rolling about in the mud.
Speaker 1: Drummond looked on in complete bewilderment, though they didn't look
Speaker 1: too dissimilar to the markings of some kind of heavy
Speaker 1: forest machinery. They began and ended inside the clearing, with
Speaker 1: Mary concerned that Bob had been attacked by someone. She
Speaker 1: suggested he called the police to begin a formal investigation.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, d I McDonald, along with six colleagues from
Speaker 1: the local constabulary, visited the scene and took photos of
Speaker 1: the peculiar markie. As they inspected the long grass, they
Speaker 1: also found two lines of impressions in the space where
Speaker 1: Bob claimed to have been dragged across the ground. The
Speaker 1: following Thursday, Bob's clothes were given to forensic experts in
Speaker 1: Edinburgh for further examination. Both Bob's work trousers and the
Speaker 1: long John's he wore underneath them had been ripped on
Speaker 1: both sides, exactly mirroring the marks on Bob's legs. The
Speaker 1: forensic scientists concluded that the rips had been caused by
Speaker 1: something pulling upwards with considerable force. The next day, as
Speaker 1: word of the strange encounter began to spread, two UFO
Speaker 1: enthusiasts from the British UFO Research Association came up to
Speaker 1: visit the site after running a guideer counter across the clearing. However,
Speaker 1: they found no evidence of radiation or any other anomalous readings.
Speaker 1: Over time, Bob would get picked up by numerous papers,
Speaker 1: and though he was happy to pose for a few photographs,
Speaker 1: he was not the type to revel in his sudden
Speaker 1: moment of fame. The event remains the only apparent UFO
Speaker 1: incident in Britain to be officially investigated by the police.
Speaker 1: Though Robert Taylor was called on many times to recount
Speaker 1: his peculiar tale, he never once deviated from the original
Speaker 1: narrative and remained convinced by it right up until his
Speaker 1: death in two thousand and seven. In the months following
Speaker 1: his account, more apparent UFO sightings were unearthed that were
Speaker 1: also said to have occurred in the same area around
Speaker 1: the same time as the Taylor incident. One event from
Speaker 1: the night before, involving the sighting by school children of
Speaker 1: a strange object descending into the forest at Deer Hill,
Speaker 1: just across the main road from where Taylor claimed he
Speaker 1: was attacked, was also reported to the police, and there
Speaker 1: was one final coda unearthed a few years later, according
Speaker 1: to Malcolm Robinson, who wrote about it in his book
Speaker 1: The Decmant Woods UFOE Incident. A week or so after
Speaker 1: the incident, a ufologist named Alan Price was at a
Speaker 1: social event when a man approached him, having heard about
Speaker 1: his interest in U foes. The man was said to
Speaker 1: have been a former police officer who had also heard
Speaker 1: about Robert Taylor's strange encounter. It was all the more peculiar,
Speaker 1: he said, since only a few days before it, a
Speaker 1: former colleague had told him about another strange encounter that
Speaker 1: also apparently occurred near the Decamant Woods. Just like Bob's story,
Speaker 1: this too had begun with a dog being walked by
Speaker 1: a young boy shooting off after an object was seen
Speaker 1: descending into the nearby countryside. The boy had then seen
Speaker 1: the object shoot off into the air, leaving no sign
Speaker 1: of the dog behind. The following morning, after the incident
Speaker 1: was reported to the police, an officer conducting a search
Speaker 1: of the area in question stumbled upon something buried in
Speaker 1: the long grass. It was the ripped off hind leg
Speaker 1: of a dog. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like
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Speaker 1: All donations, no matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: Unexplained the book and audiobook featuring ten stories that have
Speaker 1: never before been covered on the show. Is now available
Speaker 1: to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
Speaker 1: and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including
Speaker 1: the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
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