Something Nasty in the Woods

The Thing in the Clearing

One autumn morning in 1979, a Scottish forestry worker mistook the planet Venus for a 20-ft-wide UFO and the planet Mercury for a pair of spherical robots. That, at least, was the theory proposed by sceptic Steuart Campbell to explain one of Britain's best-known UFO encounters. The witness himself remained adamant that he had seen "the real thing - a vehicle from outer space".

On the morning of November 9, 1979, 61-yr-old Robert Taylor drove out to forest land near Livingston, Lothian, to inspect a plantation of young trees. He left his truck parked at the foot of a hill and proceeded on foot, accompanied by his dog, Lara.

Rounding a bend in the path, Taylor was confronted by an unearthly sight. A bizarre Saturn-shaped object was silently hovering a few feet above the ground in a clearing.

The object was 20 feet wide and coloured a dull metallic grey. It was ringed by a row of dark portholes set above a prominent central rim. Parts of the object were fading in and out of view, as though it was trying to camouflage itself. Then two spiked spheres dropped from beneath it and bounced across the clearing towards the forester.

Sphere Terror

The 3-ft-wide spheres were the same colour and texture as the large object. Taylor later compared them to WW2 sea mines. They attached themselves to his trousers and began to drag him towards the UFO. He noticed an acrid burning smell accompanied by a loud hissing sound. Then he passed out.

He regained consciousness 20 minutes later to find himself alone in the clearing. His dog, Lara, was barking frantically. Feeling dizzy and nauseous, Taylor crawled back to his truck. He tried to radio for help but found himself unable to speak. He was so disorientated that he drove straight into a ditch and had to stagger home on foot.

The Aftermath

Taylor was examined by a doctor soon afterwards. His only injuries were a graze on his left leg and another under his chin. Once he had recovered his composure, he returned to the scene of the incident accompanied by his boss. The men discovered some peculiar parallel tracks in the clearing together with a multitude of small holes.

The local police investigated the site and sent Taylor's torn trousers for forensic analysis. The lab report cautiously conceded that "the damage could have been caused in the way the witness says". The police refused to draw any official conclusion, other than saying that Taylor had "genuinely reported what he believed he had seen".

Explanations

Taylor's own interpretation of events was that he had seen an extraterrestrial spacecraft and a pair of robots that attempted to abduct him. (He even began carrying a camera around with him in case he encountered them again.)

However, there was a puzzling lack of corroborating evidence for his story. Any object descending into the forest should have been clearly visible from the nearby M8 motorway, but no other witnesses ever came forward.

Ufologist Steuart Campbell discovered that both Venus and Mercury would have been visible low on the horizon that morning. He suggested that Taylor had suffered a hallucinatory epileptic fit triggered by an astronomical mirage. However, the witness had no history of epilepsy and was in good general health at the time.

Taylor himself rejected Campbell's theory outright. "I can assure you that Venus had nothing to do with it," he declared firmly. "I know what I saw and it looked like a spaceship - a huge flying dome!"

Sources

Lynn Picknett: Mammoth Book of UFOs, pp127-128.
John Spencer: UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, pp111-112.
Alan Baker: Encyclopedia of Alien Encounters, pp163-164.
Fortean Times: issue 223.