WEBVTT - S05 Episode 10: In the Shadow of the Mountain (RERUN) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Hello, This is Richard mclin smith here. Unexplained. Season seven 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.960 has now finished, but we'll be back on Friday, September 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:12.080 sixth to begin season eight. In the meantime, I'm replaying 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.960 some of my favorite episodes from the archives. I'm currently 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.479 working on an adaptation of Unexplained for TV as a 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.080 standalone drama in its own right. The idea is to 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.680 create a story and a world all of its own, 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.400 while also drawing on many of the incredible stories that 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.840 have featured in the show. However, if I was going 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.000 to take one story and adapt it for TV, I 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.640 always felt there was something quietly compelling about the following 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:44.159 episode that was perfect for television. The other world of 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.879 Welsh mythology, known as an Oven, is said to be 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:52.880 populated with a vast array of creatures, including fairies and serpents. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.320 It is also said that there is one place, more 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.600 than any other where the bridge between our world and 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:05.319 there is at its thinnest. That place is the Berwin Mountains. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.800 This is Unexplained, Season five, episode ten, in the Shadow 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:26.640 of the Mountain. The Berwin Mountains have always been a 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:31.800 liminal place, a place caught between worlds where prehistoric humans 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.920 once roamed and bizarre tales of high strangeness are woven 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:40.160 into the land. Caught between the Welsh wilds of Snowdonia 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.840 to the west and the border lands of Wales and 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:45.600 England to the east. It is a place where myth 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:50.560 and magic simmer beneath the surface, where fact and fiction blur, 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:56.360 hinting at something more. All cultures talk of other worlds, 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.360 places beyond the one we know, and Welsh mythology is 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:05.480 no different. Often, such places like Kerr, the Sumerian land 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.440 of the Dead, or Hades of Greek mythology, are distinctly 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.360 separate from the realm of the living. These were depictions 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.320 of the afterlife, lands that only the dead could truly inhabit. 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.120 The other world of Welsh mythology, or ar Noon, as 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.480 it is known, is something quite different, not so much 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:31.400 another plain, but another dimension, coexisting with ours and populated 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:36.720 with other living creatures existing in their own right. Ar Noon, 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.240 also called anothern thought to derive from the Welsh word 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.000 meaning deep in English, features prominently in the four branches 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.000 of the Mabinogi, a collection of stories in prose dating 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.480 back to the eleventh century, considered to be the earliest 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.320 of its kind in British literature. In the First Branch, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.360 ar Noon is depicted as a paradisical land, ruled over 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.760 by a king named our Own, and located somewhere in 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.840 the Kingdom of DevD, a former region of what is 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:13.960 now southwest Wales. In the ancient poem prethee Anoven the 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:18.399 Spoils of anothern thought to have originated sometime around nine 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.320 hundred see an early iteration of the mythical legend, King 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.880 Arthur travels across the sea to this mysterious place. There 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.400 during his quest in search of a magical cauldron, we 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.320 learn that Arnoun is also home to a race of fairyfolk, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.280 and in the Welsh epic Cadgothi, in which the magician 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.840 Gwydion does battle with King Arone of Arnoun, the citizens 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.600 of the mystical land are depicted as something altogether different. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.520 They were wide moored beasts bearing a hundred heads and 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:58.080 black groined toads bearing a hundred claws, or in other cases, mottled, 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.040 ridged serpents with a hun hundred souls trapped inside the 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:06.800 folds of their skin. Are Noon is variously depicted as 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.640 being located on an island or somewhere deep in the earth, 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.720 with a small number of gateways to this other world 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.039 said to be scattered across the four corners of the land. 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.599 Over time, however, it became increasingly associated with the North 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:28.480 of Wales. Writing in Wales and Arthurian Legend, Roger Loomis declares, 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.960 in Arthur's time and before that, the people of South 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.920 Wales regarded North Wales as pre eminently the land of 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:40.520 the fairy. In the popular imagination, that distant country was 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:45.080 the abode of giants, monsters, magicians, and all the creatures 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:49.280 of enchantment. Out of it came the fairies on their 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.960 visits to the sunny lands of the South. And curiously, 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.880 there is one place more than any other where, it 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.320 is said, the bridge between our world and theirs. At 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:06.600 its thinnest. That place is the Berwin Mountains. You're listening 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:18.920 to unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. In the evening 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:22.520 of May tenth, nineteen seventy three, a young couple were 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.600 sitting in a car in Pike Hill, near Oldham, in 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.240 the northwest of England, when a strange craft came into 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:33.839 view in the sky. The couple described it as being 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:38.119 like a helicopter, complete with an exaggerated dome shaped top 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:42.039 and beams of red, green and white light shooting out 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.800 from underneath it. They watched it hover for a moment 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.760 over the hill before it rotated slowly, shot up to 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:54.440 one hundred or so feet and then disappeared. Around fifty 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.799 similar sightings were seen over the next few months across 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:02.080 central and northwest England. They were always the same, a 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.320 helicopter seen moving slowly but with purpose, as if it 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:11.560 was looking for something. With no official record of anything 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.679 flying in the areas at the time, local police forces 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.320 speculated that the mysterious craft was likely part of a 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:23.680 criminal enterprise running iliced errands from London. Others suggested the 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:28.599 helicopters were in fact delivering undercover CIA operatives drafted in 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.800 by the UK government to try and destabilize the British 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.960 trade union movement. It had been a fraught few years 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.239 as the government battled with rising inflation and a global 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.560 oil crisis, in turn bringing them into conflict with the 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.680 National Union of Miners overstagnating wages in the coal industry. 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.480 After a series of strikes and stalemates, with coal power 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.479 accounting for roughly two thirds of the country's electricity. The 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.839 government made the drastic decision to impose a three day week, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.400 restrictly the use of electricity to only three consecutive days 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.919 of the working week. It was for many an unsettling 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:12.720 and unusual time that seemed to manifest even more unusual events. 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:18.520 On January fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, police forces throughout Central 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.239 and North England were put on alert for a rogue 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.680 helicopter seen moving about in the area. Three days later, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.640 police received a report from an anonymous caller of a 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.120 single bright light seen moving over the moors to the 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:38.800 south of the peak district, but nothing is found. Perhaps 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.320 it is only in hindsight that we might determine these 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.520 sightings to have any significance, when in fact such fleeting 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.920 accounts were little more than over active imaginations tapping into 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:54.240 the nation's troubled psyche at a time of such unsettling uncertainty. 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.200 But soon upon the slopes of the Berwin Mountain's highest peak, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.880 something substantial would take place, a strange and mysterious event 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:16.800 that remains to this day unexplained. In the evening of Wednesday, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.920 January twenty third, nineteen seventy four, Anne Williams was settling 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.920 down to watch TV when she spotted something in the 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:30.840 darkness outside her front room window. Williams lived in brough Dinham, 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.160 situated at the northern edge of the Berwin Mountains, where 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.160 its rolling foothills could easily be seen from out the 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.400 back of the house. It was a reasonably clear sky 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.120 that night, a wash with stars, but only the slightest 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.800 hint of the new moon visible. But what Anne had 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.240 seen was a bright light high up above the hills 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.640 that was steadily dropping down from out of the sky, 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:00.920 a lengthy golden tail shooting out from behind it. She watched, 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.800 stunned for what seemed like minutes as it fell closer 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.319 and closer toward the ground, pulsing as it went, until 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:14.240 finally it disappeared behind the hills. It was followed by 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.800 what sounded like an explosion, and then the ground began 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:24.480 to shake. Police Sergeant Gwynn Williams was at home a 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.120 few miles to the north in the town of Corwen 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:32.000 when he heard the explosion. Too. Moments later, he felt 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.360 the floor shift underneath him and watched with alarm as 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.760 the walls began to shake. Rattling a large mirror that 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:43.439 was threatening to jump off its chain. Seconds later, Williams 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:45.720 was out of the house and running into the street, 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.840 convinced that a lorry must have crashed near by. Outside, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.760 Williams looked in vain for any sign of an accident, 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.840 but saw only the deathly quiet of the street, then 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.200 the sound of another front door opening, and then another, 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.560 as more and more neighbors appeared in their doorways with 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.280 a mixture of fear and confusion in their faces as 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.200 they looked out towards the mountains behind him. Following their gaze, 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:18.320 Sergeant Williams turned to see a soft yellowish glow cresting 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.079 a distant peak. It hung there for a moment before 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:27.160 it faded away and the night returned down. At the 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.280 Gwynedd Police station in Colwyn Bay, six officers and three 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.760 support staff frantically worked the phones as more and more 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:40.360 calls came in. One officer on duty calling avant Landithlo 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:44.079 also reported hearing the huge explosion and that lights were 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.839 flashing on the slopes of Cader Bronwyn, another of the 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:53.160 Berwin's peaks. It was his belief that something had just 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:59.000 crashed onto the mountain with police opening a major incident lock. 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.080 A flurry of calls went out to nearby Raf Valley 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:08.160 Airfield and air traffic control towers, while local ambulance services 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:19.920 were put on high alert. In Flanderfel village. Just prior 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.200 to the explosion, Pat Evans was sat in her living 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.880 room with her daughters Diane and Tina, enjoying the latest 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.600 episode of alf Garnet sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:34.760 It was just after eight thirty pm when she got 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:36.720 up to make a cup of tea in the kitchen 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:41.040 and was also startled by the huge bang, with the 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:45.280 ground shaking beneath her. A distressed Diane and Tina shouted 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.120 through from the living room what the hell was that? 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.240 They asked. Running outside, the three of them looked out 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.480 across the hills but found only the usual still night air. 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.920 But as numerous neighbors began appearing in the street, each 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.880 sharing their own account of the bizarre event, it was 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.760 clear to Pat, an experienced nurse, that some kind of 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:13.600 aircraft had just crashed. Realizing how long it would take 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.040 for any help to arrive, Pat jumped onto the phone 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.640 and spent the next hour trying to get through to 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.960 the police to offer any help she could. In the meantime, 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.559 the sightings coming in to Gwyned Police station were beginning 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.320 to get a little more unusual. One witness described seeing 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.520 a bright red light like coal fire emanating from the object, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.000 as well as lights above and to the right, but 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.920 also a light moving to the bottom of it that 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:48.160 changed from white to yellow and back again, while another 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.840 clain to have seen what looked like a large fire 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:56.280 burning on the mountainside. Finally, at roughly nine point thirty pm, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.760 Pat was eventually patched through to Colwyn Bay Police station, 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.600 where she was thanked for her offer of help and 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.680 invited to drive up to the potential crash site to 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:10.040 see what she could do. Pat replaced the receiver and 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.960 looked across to Diane and Tina, both of whom were 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.680 also trained in first aid. Right she said, let's get 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:27.559 in the car. As Pat and her daughters made their 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.720 way up through the narrow, winding country lanes, as the 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.600 darkling Berwin Mountains loomed up above them to the east, 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.520 Diane and Tina were suddenly gripped with fear at what 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.839 they were about to find. A light rain had begun 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.680 to fall as Pat did her best to reassure them, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.520 keeping one eye on the pitch black lane as she 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.600 feverishly scanned the horizon for any sign of the downed plane. 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.679 It was approaching ten PM when the car reared up 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.360 into the top of the hills and the road began 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.719 to level out all about them. What in daylight had 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.760 been a vibrant, snow topped moorland seemed now like a 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:13.600 vast ocean of black underneath the star filled sky. There, 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.240 said one of her daughters, suddenly pointing out the windscreen 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:22.080 toward a strange, diffuse light in the distance. It seemed 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.200 to be emanating from the slopes of Cadder Berwin, the 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.760 mountain's highest peak, like a giant, hazy ball that was 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:34.720 glowing and pulsating. As Pat recalled later, there were no 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.640 flame shooting or anything like that. It was very uniform, 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:43.560 round in shape, and there were other smaller lights dotted 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:48.760 around it too. Pat continued on for a few hundred yards, 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.960 but was unable to get any closer, and it was 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.960 much too far away to attempt and approach on foot 0:14:55.160 --> 0:15:00.640 across the treacherous moorland. Unable to go any further, Pat 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.920 parked up the car and together. The three of them 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.680 sat and watched in amusement as the light continued to pulse, 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.760 then changed color from white to red, to yellow and 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.280 back again, knowing only that whatever it was they were 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:21.880 looking at, it was no crashed aeroplane. After watching for 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.720 fifteen minutes, with nothing else to be done, Pat spun 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:36.680 the car around and returned home. Earlier that night, four 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.280 miles away, on the other side of the peculiar light 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.080 witnessed by Pat and her daughters, fourteen year old Hugh 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.480 Lloyd was at home on his parents farm, relaxing in 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.800 front of the TV with his sisters and neighbor Enoch Davies. 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.440 Hugh's parents were out for the evening, having heard the 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.240 explosive noise and felt the earth shaking. Like many others 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.760 in the vicinity that night, Hugh's first instinct was to 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.840 run outside and check on the animals. Relieved to find 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:11.360 them surprisingly calm under the circumstances, Hugh stood ponderously for 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.120 a moment in the cold air, scanning the surrounding hills, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:20.480 before making his way back inside. Thirty minutes later, there 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.920 was a knock at the door, and anxious Hugh opened 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.760 it to find what he assumed was a police officer 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.800 standing ominously silhouetted in the doorway, while another officer sat 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.520 in a park police car behind him. The man introduced 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.000 himself as a police inspector, explaining that he'd driven up 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.640 from Barmouth to investigate a possible air crash and was 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.480 looking for a guide and a farm vehicle to help 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.840 get him close to the site of impact. With a 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.560 mix of trepidation and excitement, Hugh was more than happy 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.360 to offer up his parents' landrover. However, since he was 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.320 too young to drive, neighbor Enoch volunteered to tell them 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.880 up to the farm road. It was only later that 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.399 Hugh and Enoch realized how strange it was that the 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.320 officer had arrived only thirty minutes after the explosion, having 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.760 said he'd come up from Barmouth, a town almost two 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:20.399 hours drive away. A short time later, Hugh, Enoch and 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.600 the officers were making their way further up the mountain 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.879 through the pitch black, straining for any glimpse of something unusual, 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:33.199 toward a destination that none were entirely sure of. It 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.320 was about twenty past nine when, just as they were 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.960 approaching the end of the public road, Enoch spotted a 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.359 car up ahead, locking the gateway to the farm track beyond. 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.800 After briefly inspecting the vehicle, with no one around to 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.920 claim it, the group swiftly pushed it to the side 0:17:50.960 --> 0:18:00.920 of the road and continued on their way, with Hugh 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.840 taking over driving duties. The land drover continued up the track, 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.200 its bright beams flashing across tufts of snow and heather 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.480 as they bobbled over the rough to rain toward the 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.960 slopes of Caderbronwyn. Despite claiming to be unfamiliar with the area, 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.479 the inspector pointed suddenly to a spot up ahead and 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.440 told Hugh to pull over. It was just approaching ten 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.160 p m when the four of them stepped out into 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.159 the freezing air on the lookout for any sign of 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.160 the apparent crash sight, and that's when they saw it, 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.280 a strong white light down on the edge of the 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.520 valley below, glowing like a halo above a small patch 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.520 of woodland. The group watched it for a good fifteen 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.960 seconds before the inspector ordered them back into the car 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.440 and ordered Hugh to try and get them closer. They'd 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.399 barely made a few hundred yards, however, when a sharp 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.399 hiss came through the inspector radio, followed by a voice 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:06.320 instructing him to leave the mountain and return first thing 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:10.679 in the morning. It was odd, thought Hugh that they 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.800 would decide to turn back then, having got so close 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.720 to what they'd been looking for, but with no desire 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.040 to argue, he turned the land, drove around and headed 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.600 back to the farm, passing a police car on the way. 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.960 Hugh pulled up and the officers talked for a moment 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.479 before that car also turned and followed them back to 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.960 the farm. With Hugh and Enoch returning home, the police 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:40.320 headed off back down the mountain. That night. A three 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.120 man crew was also dispatched from the Arif Valley Mountain 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:49.600 Rescue Team, arriving in Flandithlo just after midnight. However, after 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.520 speaking to local police, the team were asked to stand 0:19:52.560 --> 0:20:02.960 down until the following morning. Back at precisely eight thirty 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:07.280 eight p m. Just over three hundred miles away in Edinburgh, Scotland, 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.840 the Global Seismology Unit of the Institute of Geological Sciences 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:16.439 picked up an unusual reading a tremour emanating from the 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.280 region of the Berwin Mountains, registering between three to four 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.480 on the Richter scale. The following morning, as news of 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.600 the strange event began to circulate, a journalist contacted the 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:33.520 institute's senior scientific officer, Doctor Roy lilwall asking for his 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.800 thoughts whether it was a meteor that had crashed into 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:41.320 the mountain. Doctor Lilwaugh was taken back in surprise at 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.920 the suggestion, since any meteor causing that larger tremour would 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.720 have had to have been several tons in mass, and 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.120 as such would have left little doubt that it was responsible. 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.760 The Raf Valley Rescue team set out at first light 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.879 the following morning and were joined by a small group 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.760 of local police officers. With a fresh dusting of snow, 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.120 the search party made their way toward the spot where 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.000 Hugh and the inspector had been searching the night before. 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.000 Despite the assistance of two aircraft carrying out a photographic 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.439 survey of the area from above, they find nothing to 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.320 account for the mysterious events of the night before, and 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.400 shortly before two point fifteen pm the search was called off. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.520 By this point it had also been determined that no 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.720 aircraft was spotted on radar descending into the region, and 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:41.480 none officially at least had been declared missing elsewhere on 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:45.680 the mountain. That morning, doctor Ron Madison and Deniron Evans, 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.720 scientists from nearby Keele University, encouraged by reports of a 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.840 possible impact of a celestial object, stumbled across the moor 0:21:55.000 --> 0:22:00.399 in search of meteor fragments. However, despite uncovering signs recent 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.560 disturbance on the surface of the soil, with the snow 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:09.280 continuing to fall, their efforts also came to nothing. Later 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:13.040 that night, in the village of Gebowen, located just to 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.320 the east of the Berwin Mountains across the border in England, 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.200 resident David Upton had just stepped out his back door 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.440 when he noticed an unusually bright object in the sky. 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.960 After grabbing some binoculars from inside and yelling for his 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.600 sister and mother to join him, the three of them 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:33.120 took it in turns to keep tabs on the object. 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.560 It was only when they raised the binoculars to their 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.119 eyes that they were able to make out the shape 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.479 of it, like a disk that appeared to be split 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:49.320 into four distinct colors, red, green, yellow, and purple. After 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:53.959 ten minutes spent observing it, the object eventually disappeared behind 0:22:53.960 --> 0:23:04.040 a cloud. Over the next few days, as confusion reigned 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.679 amongst local residents as to just what exactly had taken place, 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:11.600 six strangers slowly began making their way through the many 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.800 local villages, keen to get first hand eyewitness accounts of 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:20.760 the event. Traveling door to door, the individuals introduced themselves 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:24.359 as part of a British geological survey team and spoke 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:28.120 to over two hundred locals, asking what exactly they'd seen 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.480 or heard, and whether they'd been alarmed or frightened by 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:36.359 the experience. Taking together the size of the seismic activity, 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:40.040 the sightings of a burning object seen falling from the sky, 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.399 and the lack of aircraft debris, scientists eventually came to 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:48.240 the conclusion that the explosion and resulting tremor had been 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:51.119 the result of an earthquake, which, in a feat of 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:55.520 extraordinary coincidence, just so happened to occur at precisely the 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.760 same time that a meteor had fallen from the sky. 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:03.800 Many sightings of peculiar light seen on the mountains that 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:07.960 night were later passed off as witnesses confusing the lamps 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.920 of a group of poachers whose abandoned car had been 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:17.439 found by police with something more otherworldly. Before long, however, 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:22.159 British eufologists were beginning to question the likelihood of those explanations, 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:27.600 and more strange stories were beginning to crop up. Reports 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.760 of soldiers entering a local farm yard surely after the 0:24:30.800 --> 0:24:34.520 explosion was heard requesting to use the phone because their 0:24:34.640 --> 0:24:38.400 radio receiver had broken, despite the fact that no military 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:41.080 personnel was said to have been involved in the search 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:46.119 that night, and one man, Ken Houghton of better Surcoid 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.680 in North Wales, claimed to have watched what he described 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:53.920 as a luminous sphere roughly five hundred feet across, traveling 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:58.000 at speed at around fifteen hundred feet, dropped straight down 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:08.480 into the sea. It was some months later when prominent 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.600 UFO researcher Jenny Randalls, who would later become director of 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:17.879 the British UFO Research Association or BOUFORA, received a peculiar 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:21.800 package in the post, consisting of a typed letter and 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:24.320 a cassette tape. It had been sent to her by 0:25:24.320 --> 0:25:29.720 a mysterious organization calling itself the Aerial Phenomena Inquiry Network 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:34.720 or ARPEN for short. The letter outlined the alarming suggestion 0:25:34.960 --> 0:25:37.679 that what had crashed in the mountains that night was 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:41.359 actually a flying saucer, and both it and its crew, 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:45.159 described as tall humanoid aliens, had been extracted from the 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:48.439 area by a specialist ARP and team who arrived at 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:52.280 the scene soon after. After loading the tape into her 0:25:52.280 --> 0:25:56.399 cassette player, Randalls sat and listened to the bizarre contents, 0:25:57.040 --> 0:25:59.800 beginning with an introduction from a man with an American 0:25:59.840 --> 0:26:05.119 accent calling himself J. T. Anderson, Supreme Commander of Arpen. 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:08.639 It was followed by a series of TV and radio 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:14.240 broadcasts about UFOs, spliced in with terrified voices warning about 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:19.480 the dangers of UFOs and their hostile nature. Over the 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:24.240 next few years, as the UFO idea gained traction, Randall's 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:27.520 interest also grew, so much so that she even moved 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:30.360 to the area in the nineteen seventies to find out 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:35.680 more for herself. There she encountered locals who claimed, despite 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:39.199 written evidence to the contrary, that there actually had been 0:26:39.240 --> 0:26:43.919 a military presence on the mountain that night. In the 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:49.000 early nineteen nineties, Margaret Frye, working for the bufora magazine, 0:26:49.480 --> 0:26:53.639 interviewed nurse Pat Evans about that most peculiar of knights, 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:58.120 But this time there was a new detail in her story. 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:01.960 Shortly after seeing the strange light at the top of 0:27:02.000 --> 0:27:05.760 the mountain, Pat allegedly now claimed that she and her 0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:10.040 daughters were confronted by soldiers. Having told her that the 0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:13.520 road was closed, Pat was ordered to turn round and 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:19.000 leave the area immediately. Shortly after the article was published, 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:23.200 a panicking Pat called Margaret, demanding to know why she'd 0:27:23.240 --> 0:27:27.200 added this extra detail to her story, because she hadn't 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:32.320 said anything of the sort to her. Confused, Margaret consulted 0:27:32.320 --> 0:27:35.399 her notes from the interview and was surprised to find 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:41.439 clearly written there Pat's recollection of the soldiers. Worried that 0:27:41.520 --> 0:27:44.359 she might have got something wrong, she then spoke to 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:48.440 another researcher who'd accompanied her to the interview. She was 0:27:48.480 --> 0:27:52.480 also convinced that Pat had indeed included this in her story. 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:57.359 Could they both have imagined it somehow, some kind of 0:27:57.440 --> 0:28:02.200 wish fulfillment, perhaps, while, as some have suggested, had Pat 0:28:02.200 --> 0:28:07.320 felt suddenly compelled and perhaps persuaded to retract this detail. 0:28:08.800 --> 0:28:12.720 To this day, Pat maintains that it was never part 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:21.919 of her story. Unexplained as an AV Club Productions podcast 0:28:22.400 --> 0:28:26.560 created by Richard McLain Smith, all other elements of The podcast, 0:28:26.680 --> 0:28:32.520 including the music, are also produced by me Richard mclin smith. Unexplained. 0:28:32.560 --> 0:28:35.919