UFO investigators uncover ‘truth’ about close encounter in a field at Budleigh Salterton

The mysterious case of a reported encounter with a UFO in a field near Budleigh Salterton, which turned out not to be what it seemed, has shed light on the twilight world of the dedicated band of UFO investigators. The long-forgotten story of the sighting, and a series of strange happenings that followed, was retold on Devon Live in the summer, more than 40 years after the reported events near the Devon coast in the spring of 1981. Now more details have come to light with the discovery of an account of the case in a UFO investigation magazine published two years later.

The article appears in the October 1983 edition of Probe Report, the Journal of UFO Investigation, which is marked as the final issue due to the closure of the organisation. The 22-page magazine contains a series of features, including an exhaustive study of crop circles, and an account of a ‘UFO car chase’ through the Wiltshire countryside.

And under the label ‘Case Closed’, it gives a detailed account of the Budleigh Salterton incident and what happened afterwards. The central figure in the case, given the name Terry to protect his identity, produced a 4,500 word account of his experience. He sent it to a series of UFO study groups, and it was eventually picked up to be investigated by the Plymouth UFO Investigation Centre which handled cases in Devon and Cornwall.

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The magazine article explains that Terry was on a five-day solo camping holiday in Devon in the spring of 1981 when his apparent close encounter happened. He tells how on April 17, which was Good Friday, he arrived in a field near the sea at Budleigh Salterton, and set up camp near an old hut where he made a fire.

At 10pm, he reports hearing a loud ‘bang’ and rushes out of the tent, then sees what he describes as a white light moving slowly across the fields and sea. At that point his account hints at previous UFO sightings, as he says he thought what he saw might be “one of the objects I had previously seen at Warminster”.

The next days pass without incident, but early in the morning of the 20th, at around 5.30am when he is making a cup of tea, Terry reports seeing three lights on or near the ground in the field in front of him. He climbs a mound to get a better view and walks towards them, noticing one of the lights getting brighter “as if it had seen him”. He recalls no sound or movement, and cannot remember what happened to them, although he says he did not report them and carried on with his holiday.

The next day, he looks out of his tent at around 4.30am and sees the lights are back, but further away this time over a nearby farm. As he walks towards them, he sees a flashing light around 20ft away, so he stops. Then he notices an “oval shaped object” revolving on the ground surrounded by flashing lights and with a kind of ‘porthole’.

Terry says the craft moved away and he fell to the ground ‘paralysed’, hurting his back and feeling ‘strangely cold’. One of the two lights comes closer, hovering low and swinging from side to side, and he is drawn to walk towards it against his will. One appears to grow in size, and he remembers walking away, now realising it is 6.15am, suggesting a time lapse that is unaccounted for. Half an hour later he has packed up his tent and left, but says he can still see one of the lights hovering over the farm.

He starts seeing ‘double’, but carries on walking along the coast, and by the time he arrives at Axmouth at around 4.30pm one of his ankles is swollen. He hears voice when there is no one around, and ends up in Lyme Regis, where he collapses at around midnight.

A medic at the local hospital checks him over but can find nothing wrong. But the next morning he reports two red marks on his face, and returns to the hospital. When he gets there he sees what he describes as odd-shaped “entities”, one with a domed head, through the windows, so decides not to go in.

After hearing about the case, the Plymouth team decided to investigate, and invited Terry back to Devon, where he carried out a reconstruction of the incident. He brought photographs which he said showed aliens, but the investigator reported only seeing patches of light through trees and shading in the grass. Back at the hospital, the investigator suggested that laboratory equipment visible through windows could be mistaken for the reported strange creatures.

Arrangements were then made for Terry to undergo hypnotherapy regression, but the investigators discovered he had gone against their advice to contact a well-known UFO author about the sighting, and started asking about arrangements for publicity. He declined to be examined by a doctor. Then, as far as the investigators are concerned, the story started to unravel when they found out details about his background that cast doubt on the whole story.

He was said to be drinking heavily and taking aspirin “with alarming frequency”. The investigators discovered he was a jobless ‘loner’, obsessed with UFOs. The report says he started to contradict his original account, and the investigators then decided to abandon the inquiry. At that point, it is reported he “mumbled something about the whole thing being a hoax and then left”.

The team then found out that just before his Devon holiday, Terry had visited Warminster, in Wiltshire, and had tried to get a job there, motivated by a desire to live in an area known as a hotspot for UFO activity. He maintained his photographs of the Devon scene showed images of aliens, but the report concludes that the whole case was a ‘clever hoax’. The author of the magazine article makes no apology for detailing the events in the closed case as an important example of how investigators can be led astray, and how their work in pursuit of the truth can lead to hoaxes being exposed.

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