The Man of Many Colours
- Classification (Hynek): CE3.
- Witnesses: 'Fay' (7) & a male child of the same age.
- Time & Place: 4pm, May 15 1973; Sandown, Isle of Wight.
- Entity Type (Lawson): Human.
- Craft: Metallic hut.
- Summary: Two children meet a colourful entity on the Isle of Wight.
Siren Song
One May afternoon in 1973, a pair of 7-year-old children encountered a bizarre entity on the Isle of Wight that blatantly defied classification. Indeed, even the entity seemed unsure quite what to call itself.
The children were walking across golf links when they heard a sound like a wailing siren. They followed the direction of the sound and found a strange 7-ft-tall male figure standing under a footbridge in an adjacent meadow.
The figure dropped a book into the stream, fished it out again, then went "with a strange hopping motion" into a metallic windowless "hut".
The entity re-emerged from the hut clutching a black microphone. "Are you still there?" he boomed at the children. When they approached closer, he produced a colourful "notebook" and scrawled, "Hello and I am all colours, Sam."
An Odd sort of Ghost
The entity wore a green tunic with a red collar, white trousers and a yellow pointed hat. His hair was bright red, his eyes triangular, and his lips yellow. He had only three fingers on each hand and three toes on each bare foot.
Speaking without moving his lips, he asked the children to tell him about themselves. He claimed to have no name, and when asked if he was "really a man," answered, "No".
"Are you a ghost then?" the children asked.
"Well no - but I am in an odd sort of way," he replied.
"What are you then?" they demanded.
"You know," answered the entity vaguely.
Inside the Hut
The being invited the children into his hut, which he said he had "just made". It had two levels. The lower contained wooden furniture and an electric heater. The upper was smaller, with a bare metal floor. The walls were covered with a blue-green wallpaper decorated with a pattern of dials.
The entity claimed that he lived on wild berries and river water. Then he produced a berry, placed it in one of his ears, and made it magically re-appear out of one of his eyes.
The children talked with him for half an hour then ran home. They told their parents they had seen a ghost, and were so insistent that the adults decided to investigate further. They returned to the scene of the encounter only to find that the strange hut had vanished. A pair of workmen repairing a fence nearby had apparently seen neither hut nor entity.
Sources
Janet & Colin Bord: Modern Mysteries of Britain, pp202-203.
Albert Rosales' Humanoid Database (online).