(Ref: The Berwyn Mountain UFO Crash - A British Roswell?)
(Note: Mr. Roberts' text appears in italic font)
'But the phantom helicopter story is a red-herring. Although a number of people had described the phenomenon as a 'helicopter', a motif quickly seized upon by the media, most witnesses were in fact describing an unknown light of many shapes and colours. The 'phantom helicopter' was more Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon than Unidentified Flying Object - a big difference. Some genuine helicopters were proved to be responsible for some sightings, but the rest remained unexplained. Additionally, the phenomena was not seen in the Bala area and there is no real connection between the 'phantom helicopters' and the Berwyn Incident other than the circumstantial link made by Nick Redfern. During my research into the Berwyn Incident I discussed this in some depth with Nick Redfern and he still stands by his published link between the 'phantom helicopter' and the Berwyn Incident. But in correspondence he qualified his belief with 'All I was really trying to do was get people thinking about what might have taken place - nothing more.'
I find myself having to agree with Andy Roberts here. It is puzzling why Mr. Redfern brings up the subject of 'phantom helicopters' in relation to the Berwyn as there have never been any claims to such by anyone locally involved directly or indirectly commentating on the Berwyn UFO event. Nick Redfern undermines his own stance by seemingly offering nothing more than an opinion.
What is peculiar about this apparently updated paragraph is Mr. Roberts appears to undermine his own version of events by identifying Cader Berwyn as the mountain where the UFO crashed (or landed). Here the correct location is used despite the fact that, throughout, the author has persisted in linking the object to land above Llandrillo which is directly below Cader Bronwen. Jenny Randles' Moel Ty Uchaf stone circle is above Llandrillo and below the Cader Bronwen summit as is the land worked by the lads out lamping and later searched by Police, RAF search and rescue personnel and later again, some scientists.
'One farmer described what he saw in these terms:
'I saw this object coming along the mountain, about the size of a bus really, white in the middle, it came across the mountain and dipped. I thought it was going to crash.'
The above image is from '‘The Welsh Roswell’ - the Berwyn mountain UFO crash'- Eyes On Cinema Youtube channel.(see video below)
(Note: After Hugh Edwards describes what he saw, the animation inserted by the production company strongly suggests some sort of bolide. But Mr. Edwards' description did not sound too similar to a bolide. - ed.)
'A dramatic description which certainly sounds like a many UFO accounts. But there is a rational explanation for Farmer Williams' sighting and all the other aerial phenomena seen that evening. Records kept by the Astronomy Department at Leicester University, among other places, show that a number of outstanding bolide meteors were seen that night. These coincided with the approximate times given by witnesses in north Wales. The first was at 7.25pm, followed by another at 8.15pm. The third, at 8.30pm, co-incided with the centrepiece of the evening's events. And yet another, the most dramatic of all, was seen at 9.55pm. Bolide meteors are considerable brighter and longer lived than ordinary 'shooting stars'. They can appear to be very low, depending on the position of the witness, and often trail 'sparks' of blue and green across the sky. Bolide meteors are responsible for many misperceptions of UFOs and even fool the emergency services who are often called out to 'plane crashes only to discover the witnesses had seen a bright bolide meteor.'
There is little doubt the unidentified farmer used such a description of what he saw, but as worded by the author, the whole is erroneous. 'Farmer Williams' is very misleading considering a goodly chunk of the Llandrillo/Llandderfel farming community has this surname. The farm concerned and the position of the farmer at a particular time must be published in order to offer up more of a certainty what he was looking at was indeed a bolide meteor. By suggesting the unidentified 'Farmer Williams' mistook a meteor for something perhaps more exotic, it divorces him from the reality that not too far away in mileage terms was something very different to a falling lump of hot rock which lasted considerably longer than a bolide meteor.
By identifying said farmer and assuming his position and the direction of the meteor as it fell, a simple process of elimination would determine if it was likely he observed a bolide meteor or not. Just because there was a bolide meteor display that night, while useful to debunkers, proves nothing. It might be a rational explanation but a very unproven one. That said, I'm unaware of any emergency service call out to a plane crash mistaken for a bolide meteor, anywhere! Like the 1972 plane crash on the Berwyn Range Mr. Roberts invented just to further try and justify undermining local witness testimony, no details have been provided which proves the claim.
The mysterious 'Farmer Williams' describes his encounter. That is interesting simply because it was cloudy that night with a bit of breeze and drizzle. Shooting stars would be invisible. Large space debris burning up in the atmosphere like a meteorite behind cloud allows the observer to see something of an extended burn-up usually glowing bright green. I think if 'Farmer Williams' had seen a burning bit of space rock he'd be able to describe it.
'At exactly 8.38pm the Bala area was rocked by a huge explosion, closely followed by a deep rumbling. One witness recalled it as being 'like a lorry running into a house'. Crockery rattled, furniture moved and walls rippled slightly. Some people were certain it was a plane crash on the mountains. Other, older residents of the area, recalled earth tremors of the past and assumed it was the latest in a series of such disturbances which have taken place along the geological rift know as the Bala Fault.
This is the primary incident which has subsequently caused many UFO investigators, and the readers of their books and articles, to suggest and believe that a UFO crashed. In effect they are saying that the noise heard and impact felt was the UFO impacting on Cader Berwyn. The crashed UFO story however only came out years after the event. At the time confusion reigned as to what had caused the impact.
Because of reports of lights in the sky that evening, it was initially thought that a meteorite had impacted on the Berwyns. Many people across North Wales claimed to have seen a light in the sky 'trailing sparks'. But this was seen at 8.30pm, eight minutes before the explosion, and witness descriptions indicate that it was yet another bright fireball meteor. Nonetheless in the minds of many it has become conflated with the 'explosion' to create evidence of a crash.'
Again, the author identifies Cader Berwyn as the location of the UFO/Object. In this second paragraph, the first sentence is nothing but a smear and when the story came out, is of no consequence. It is already established that the kids in local schools and especially Ysgol y Berwyn, as it was then in Bala, where Mrs. Evans' daughters were pupils, joked about little green men and space ships, linking the object witnessed with the explosion sound once the idea of a crashed plane above Llandrillo subsided.
'The explosion was heard only in the Bala area but the tremor was felt as far away as Liverpool. By 2pm on the 24th January seismologists had determined the explosion and tremor were caused by an earthquake of 4-5 on the Richter scale. It's epicentre was the Bala area at a depth of eight kilometres. To cause a reading of that magnitude, a solid object - meteorite or UFO - would have weighed several hundred tons and left a massive crater. Therefore, unless a UFO had crashed at the exact moment of an earth tremor, it can be safely assumed that the explosion and rumblings were the result of a purely natural process.'
The explosion was not heard in the Bala area only. Llandrillo is 8 road miles from Bala and residents of Cynwyd (10 miles) and Corwen (12 miles) heard the explosion. It must be kept in mind that Mrs. Evans as Andy Roberts himself mentions, believed a plane had crashed somewhere in the Berwyn range of mountains. Her village, Llandderfel, is three miles from Llandrillo and five from Bala. As the explosion was linked initially to a suspected plane crash just a half mile above Llandrillo, to claim the noise was a Bala-centric episode is disingenuous even if the seismic event was perfectly natural.
'Following the explosion Llandrillo district nurse Pat Evans ran out into the village street. She saw no lights but the explosion and the accounts of other villagers convinced her that something had crashed on the mountains. It took her a while to get through to the police as the 'phone lines were jammed with 999 calls, but eventually she spoke to Colwyn Bay police HQ. They suggested it could have been a 'plane crash so she bundled her two young daughters into the car and set off up the mountain, intending to offer help until the emergency services arrived.'
It did indeed take her a while to get through to Gwynedd Constabulary headquarters in Colwyn Bay. She was not Llandrillo district nurse! Another error! She resided in Llandderfel.
It is at this point the story really starts to unwind. Mrs. Evans, once through to the Police, explained who she was and offered her services as a trained nurse. After all, it was a suspected plane crash and she got through at about 9.30pm, some 50 minutes after the earth tremor. By then, the Police were on the land above Llandrillo looking for a crashed plane at that location - a major incident. What follows is the results of that re-investigation.
In A Covert Agenda, Nick Redfern suggested that the numerous 'phantom helicopters', seen in the months leading up to the Berwyn Incident, were flown by military UFO crash retrieval teams.
Redfern also claimed they had received advance knowledge of a UFO landing and were on permanent standby, suggesting that 'Perhaps the idea of a joint CIA-Ministry of Defence project designed to respond on a quick reaction basis to UFO incidents should be considered...'. log had been opened some 30 minutes earlier and a RAF search and rescue team summoned, yet there was no attempt, despite accepting Mrs. Evans' offer of help, to direct her to the location at Llandrillo which had become the focal point at that time. She was effectively abandoned and she used her own initiative to access the highest point on the B4391 Bala to Llangynog road to see what she could see, as a large part of the range could be viewed from that position.
Had the police been more honest and less concerned with keeping public interaction at Llandrillo to a minimum and told Mrs. Evans where to attend, she would never have observed the Object on Cader Berwyn and this whole saga would be unknown. For those who might believe there has been a cover up, the irony is, the Police at least exposed the Object themselves by misinforming Mrs. Evans.
'As Mrs Evans reached the point where the B4391 mountain road levels out she was puzzled by what appeared to be a large illuminated ball of light on the hillside. Unable to identify it was she drove on for a few minutes before returning to the same spot. The light was still there so she parked and observed it for a while. A light drizzle was falling but the night was otherwise clear and Mrs Evans was able to describe the ball as 'large', and forming a 'perfect circle'. But it didn't appear to be three dimensional. In an interview she recalled, 'There were no flames shooting or anything like that. It was very uniform, round in shape...it was a flat round...'. As she watched in puzzlement the light changed colour several times from red to yellow to white. Smaller lights, 'fairy lights' in Mrs Evans' words, could be seen nearby. It was too far away to reach on foot and so she returned home to bed.'
'In an interview' as worded is ambiguous. Readers should appreciate that Mr. Roberts has compiled this version of events, which he fantastically promotes as the real story of what happened, from various sources, and readers should be wary of inference that the author has conducted any particular interview.
'Many ufologists who have written about the Berwyn Incident have claimed that Mrs Evans was turned back from the mountain by soldiers and police. This is untrue and arose from a misunderstanding when she was first interviewed by ufologists. Pat Evans is furious that she has been misrepresented in this way and stated unequivocally to me in 1998 that she saw 'not a living soul' on the mountain that night. More importantly a letter from her exists, pre-dating any interview, noting that she saw no-one. This fact is significant because the misreporting of Mrs Evans' experience has lent credence to claims that a crash retrieval team was on the mountain shortly after the explosion.'
The idea that Mrs. Evans was turned back by soldiers and/or Police seemed to come about following a release of information apparently given to Margaret Fry in a face-to-face interview with Pat Evans in the mid-90s. It is curious that Mr. Roberts hasn't named Mrs. Fry here rather than just state 'ufologists.' After all, it wouldn't be libellous if it was true!
Margaret Fry, in the aforementioned interview, accompanied by two others who witnessed what was said, claimed that Mrs. Evans - on her return journey seemingly circa 10.15pm - met with a military vehicle heading along the B4391 towards her position where she had watched the Object. According to what Mrs. Fry noted, Pat Evans mentioned this and showed her et al a note of the encounter. Mrs. Fry later publicised this which apparently upset Mrs. Evans and they subsequently fell out. This was seized upon by other Ufology enthusiasts and expanded upon to the point where the Police were also there, while soldiers intimidated Mrs. Evans with guns and forcibly ejected them from the road/mountain/area. All the while her ball of light evolved into something as large as the Albert Hall, depending on which bit of cock-and-bull one chooses to believe.
In fact, the encounter was apparently civil. a few words exchanged and each vehicle went on its way. Mrs. Evans and daughters went home and that was that.
Although not a greatly reliable witness, a close relative of the Evans family - whilst in a semi-drunken state at a bbq I attended - had no problem telling me that Pat Evans did change her story about meeting a military vehicle as she headed back to Llandderfel. This itself was interesting as her and Mrs. Fry fell out over this, then later Pat Evans (rightly or wrongly) stands accused of changing her story, yet Andy Roberts is on record as claiming Pat Evans showed him (or produced to someone else?) a note that she hadn't seen anyone that night. Not a soul.
Why would someone record something which never happened?
'Nonetheless what the nurse saw on the slopes of Cader Berwyn was still crucial to any explanation of the case and I wanted further evidence untainted by time or ufologists. For that evidence I turned to records kept by the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh. The BGS records, untouched for twenty four years, revealed that within days of the explosion a team of investigators had been sent to the Bala area. This, incidentally, is almost certainly the source of rumours of 'officials' who came to the area, stayed in local hotels and questioned villagers closely about the event. That is exactly what the BGS field team did. A total of six interviewers came to the area and conducted door to door enquiries about the event. This is the procedure by which the BGS investigates earth tremors and earth quakes. These interviewers worked to a set questionnaire which asked questions such as 'Were you at all alarmed or frightened?', and 'Did you hear any creaking noises?'. These and similar questions must have seemed quite odd to the locals especially when asked by a team of outsiders who just arrived from nowhere. Over two hundred witnesses were interviewed. Nurse Pat Evans was one of them.'
The very records here described being held untouched by the British Geological Survey (BGS) were requested by myself. it took me two years to get just some of the information. I was particularly troubled by a man called Dr. Roger Musson who refuted in writing the very existence of the records quoted by Andy Roberts, despite me identifying him and the records in the FOI request I made.
I only ended up getting what I asked for in part after I had to file an official complaint for obstruction. I then received some documentation, maps etc., which had clearly been tampered with, however I only at that point discovered that Dr. Musson overseeing the BGS records was, in fact, a personal friend of Andy Roberts and a fellow Fortean. What Andy Roberts appeared to have done was make claims which could be undermined and relied on enquirers not getting that information in the first place, if they even bothered. Exploitation of apathy is a powerful weapon.
It was actually a four man team who attended the post-tremor area according to the information the BGS begrudgingly supplied. They resided in the Plas Coch hotel in Bala during their stay. Mr. Roberts seems to have inflated this to six just to give the impression the locals were seeing more than they actually did.
This same tactic arose when he shamelessly exploited the military plane crash in the Berwyns on the 12th of February 1982, fatally killing the pilot. He overstated a military presence guarding the crash site and cordon, then claimed the locals mixed up that military presence with their claims of a military presence at the UFO site eight years earlier.
It was a basic plane, so primitive it didn't even have a black box flight recorder but that didn't stop Mr. Roberts claiming the enhanced personnel presence was because the aircraft was carrying top secret hardware. He seems to have invented this because the vehicle was part of a Harrier Conversion Unit, a grandiose title.
Mr. Roberts also fabricated a fictitious 1972 plane crash somewhere on the Berwyns and has simply ignored requests to provide details of this fiction.
'The BGS field notes were enlightening. Most ufologists have always assumed that Pat Evans must have been on the mountain almost immediately after the explosion. They use this assumption to argue that the lights she saw surrounding the anomalous red lights she saw must have been from a pre-alerted crash retrieval team as no-one else could have got on the mountain so quickly after the 'crash'.'
I don't know a single Ufologist whoever stated verbally, or in writing, that Mrs. Evans was on 'the mountain' immediately after the explosion. I know Mr. Roberts likes to portray UFO enthusiasts and researchers as not very bright (a narcissistic trait). It was blatantly obvious she was not, nor was she ever on a mountain anywhere.
'But the BGS records from her 1974 interview are very specific about time and say she, 'left house during 'Till Death'....'. I took 'Till Death' to be a reference to the popular TV sit-com 'Til Death Us Do Part and checked the TV schedules. Sure enough, 'Til Death Us Do Part had started at 9.30pm that night. 'Til Death.... was the only post-8.30pm sit-com that evening. Knowing that the Evans' left the house after 9.30pm means she would have observed the anomalous light sometime after 9.40pm, an hour later than previously thought. That hour's difference is crucial.'
I've never quite understood this!
I enquired of the BBC which confirmed the TV schedule that night and indeed 'Til Death Us Do Part was on from 9.30pm. Mrs. Evans herself didn't set off from home until about 21.40, arriving just before 10pm at her observation point on the B4391. She departed just about 22.10 having spent a total of some ten minutes looking at the light on the mountainside.
She most clearly did see the anomalous light after 9.40pm as I note above. Why it should be crucial, I'm unsure. Previously, Mr. Roberts has claimed what she saw was, in fact, the hunters/poachers/lampers - call them what you will - camping out and her light was an illuminated tent. That later evolved into the fairy lights being Police torches and once he even stated the Police spoke to the lads involved, which wasn't true.
It is also a fact that the hunters were on the fields above Llandrillo and it was their light which helped formulate the belief of a plane crash above the village. Mr. Roberts always knew this and knew their lamp had expired by 9pm. I was told the lads involved were returning to their car when they saw the Police looking at it. That would have been circa 21.20 when the commandeered vehicle from Huw Lloyd's farm found its way blocked by the hunter's vehicle. As soon as the vehicle had been moved away, the Lloyd vehicle proceeded up to the open hill. The lads jumped into their motor and cleared off. They did not interact with the Police on the night.
Of course that didn't stop Mr. Roberts' false claims or the fact he moved the hunter activity several miles to the neighbouring mountain just to try and debunk what the Evans' were looking at from the B4391.
'Meanwhile, 14 year old farmer's son Huw Thomas was also watching TV that night. At about 9.20pm he answered the door to find several policemen in the farm yard. They wanted to commandeer the farm Landrover, saying a 'plane had crashed up on the mountain. Thomas' parents were out so, with his neighbour Enoch driving, they set off up a track leading to the mountain, other police following in a car. As they neared the mountain-gate they had to waste valuable time moving a car which blocked the road. Huw Thomas recognised the car as belonging to local poachers. Once through the mountain gate several policemen spread out on foot with torches, whilst the Landrover and police car drove slowly up the track.'
This paragraph (above) is completely wrong.
Andy Roberts now calls him Huw Thomas!!! It is Huw Lloyd!
The above image is from 'Ancient Aliens UFO Crash site in Wales' - History Youtube channel.
Huw Lloyd describes his "experience" on the night of 23rd January 1974 starting at:
The neighbour Enoch (Davies) would visit and sort of baby-sit as the Lloyd family had a TV which he did not. The lane past the Lloyd farm, Garthiaen, is an extension of Berwyn Street down in the village. At a property called Blaen y Dre Uchaf the road ends and becomes a steep dirt track, suitable only for off-road vehicles. Enoch Davies drove the vehicle on the road as far as the dirt track as it was a public road. Once at Blaen y Dre Uchaf it ceases to be a public highway and Huw Lloyd took over the driving.
It was at Blaen y Dre Uchaf they found their way obstructed by the hunter's vehicle. The mountain gate is at the top of the dirt track, not the bottom. Today, there's a small pull-off to park a vehicle sensibly. Above that, it is off-road vehicles only. Again the author fails to mention the 'mountain' is in fact Cader Bronwen and, by not stating this, gives the impression they might have been somewhere near the Object, which they weren't, by several miles.
The claim several policemen spread out on foot is wholly incorrect.
In my first recorded interview with Huw Lloyd about the time of the 2008 Firefly Productions' Britain's Closest Encounters farce, he states to me that no one conducted a torch-light search. In fact, he said it was too cold for the Police officers! The author created this scenario and, by not identifying their location, suggests the fairy lights seen by Mrs. Evans were Police torches.
The next flaw in his account is the claim the Lloyd Land Rover went up the track followed by a Police car. This is claimed despite the dirt track being undriveable to ordinary vehicles - this evidenced by the fact the Police had to commandeer the Lloyd Land Rover. A Police car did seemingly go as far as Blaen y Dre Uchaf and parked where the hunter's vehicle had been, but when they arrived, the Lloyd vehicle plus its compliment of officers was just coming off the mountain. Words were exchanged there was nothing to see. And that was that until next day which itself was curious. Only one vehicle searched the land above Llandrillo. Of course, if that was inflated with another vehicle and in turn doubling the number of police officers, that would fit nicely with trying to pass off the plethora of fairy lights as observed by the Evans' over four miles away.
It seems to me Mr. Roberts was desperate to portray those lights approaching the Object as Police torches to cancel out any claim of them belonging to a covert military unit.
The Police and RAF search team on the 24th Jan' '74 was called off mid-afternoon. The assumption was by 9pm the previous evening a plane had crashed because of the combination of an explosion sound accompanying the earth tremor rumblings and the hunter's lamp beam moving about. Despite that, by 9am the following morning, on the 24th, twelve hours had passed. By that time, any military or civilian plane would have been reported missing. Nothing had, yet despite that, a search continued for about another 5 hours. All eyes were on Cader Bronwen slopes above Llandrillo and not four plus miles away near the B4391 on the mid slopes of Cader Berwyn.
'The time it took Huw Thomas to speak to the police, load the landrover, drive up to the mountain and move a car from the road would place the police search team on the lower slopes of Cader Berwyn at about 9.40pm.
The BGS also interviewed one of the poachers whose car Huw Thomas had moved. This interview confirmed their time and position and states that the poachers 'carried on work for 45 minutes (after the explosion) and were almost back at the car when met party (police etc) coming up.'
Huw Thomas, now a farmer in his own right, confirmed this meeting in a 1998 interview.
That the search party comprising of police and farmers met the poachers as they went up the mountain is further backed up by other BGS materials. Besides interviews the BGS records also contained an Ordnance Survey map on which important witness locations and sightings of lights were plotted. This map was a revelation. It showed the anomalous light seen by the nurse, the location of the poachers and the police search party to be all in the same small area of hillside. And as already noted the times given to the BGS by all three parties place them there at the same time.'
This conclusion is about as nauseously corrupt as one can imagine.
Six times at least, he mis-names Huw Lloyd as Thomas. Strange indeed for a man who has boasted often the importance of detail. Of course Mr. Roberts' true colours emerge now in the first sentence. He brazenly states the Police in Huw Lloyd's Land Rover are placed on the lower slopes of Cader Berwyn' at about 9.40pm. It seems there is no low level to which he won't stoop to portray events as being on Cader Berwyn in order to debunk Mrs. Evans and daughters.
At no time whatsoever did any Police, or indeed Huw Lloyd, access Cader Berwyn. The Object was on the slopes of Cader Berwyn mountain. All the searches took place on Cader Bronwen, directly above Llandrillo. Mr. Roberts has gone out of his way to move Llandrillo-based events several miles to near the B4391 beneath Cader Berwyn mountain to denigrate the testimony of Pat Evans.
There is in existence (I have a copy) an A5-sized page from a BGS notebook owned by one of the investigative team which shows the poachers, Police, light and Mrs. Evans' position. The lot is squeezed into that small page and that has been exploited to suggest everything and everyone was literally on top of each other.
That simply isn't true. Mrs. Evans was some four miles from the hunters. That is an irrefutable fact. She was parked on the B4391, yet somehow Andy Roberts claims they were all close together in the same small area of mountain. It doesn't get any more twisted than that.
This is, on my part, just a basic overview of the article. If I was to point out the totality of mistakes, ambiguity, misinformation, disinformation and even outright lies, this response from myself would be several times larger.
This Roberts tome is located on Joe McGonagle's forum. The whole article has been copied just in case it is ever deleted. I joined the aforementioned internet forum in my earliest days of interest in this subject, UfologyInUK. I discovered very quickly that some claims made by Mr. Roberts just could not be true. This puzzled me as he frequently boasted his prowess in accuracy and attention to detail, yet I was faced with a string of incorrect claims. Several times I posted that I'd be happy to accompany Andy Roberts onto the Berwyns so I could show, in the field, how many of his claims just couldn't be. His favourite tactic when confronted with such requests was to go silent. Pretend he never read the question. That's a lot easier than saying No and qualifying it.
My requests still stand!