Todmorden UFO mystery: Britain’s spookiest town

When you think of UFOs, alien enthusiasts and cosmic paranoia, you might think of rural America, where at any one time, there is always a pair of binoculars fixed on the shimmering night sky. Though, what about here in the UK? While the British can often be too rational to consider the existence of flying saucers and gloopy alien beings, some stories are so convincing that they’re too difficult to ignore. 

This is most certainly the case for the Todmorden UFO mystery, one of the most infamous supposed sightings of alien activity in the UK, occurring way back on June 9th, 1980, in the humble town around 20 miles north of Manchester. Whilst the sighting itself occurred on the 9th, the start of our story takes us back a few days prior when the 56-year-old coal miner Zigmund Adamski left his home in Tingley, West Yorkshire. 

Adamski never returned, however, and three days later, his body was found on top of a large pile of coal in Todmorden, miles away from his home. Local policeman Alan Godfrey was one of the first witnesses on the scene and described his shocking account to presenter Danny Robins on the paranormal BBC podcast, Uncanny. 

Retired at the time of recording, Godfrey described seeing the body for the very first time, telling the podcast, “I’ve seen quite a few dead bodies, there was something about his eyes that just sent a shiver down your back, have you ever heard the saying ‘he was frightened to death’ that was the look on his face”. Once he’d gotten over his shocking appearance, Godfrey began to note several strange clues, including an open wound on the nape of the neck with a “yellowy-green substance smeared across it”. 

Also included in his immediate findings was the theory that the victim had been “dressed after death,” with many of his clothes being buttoned back on wrong. In addition, Godfrey believed that the man did not die in this location but was instead moved there. 

The autopsy of the death read ‘heart attack’, but the evidence said otherwise, and the true mystery of the disappearance was never solved. But this is not where the story ends. 

Five months after discovering the body, Alan Godfrey once again found himself at the centre of another paranormal mystery. Called out at five in the morning after several reports of cows wandering onto local residents’ property, the police officer’s mission was stopped short by the sighting of a UFO hovering five feet above the ground, “diamond in shape…approximately 20 feet wide and approximately 14 feet high…spinning slowly anti-clockwise”. 

Shocked, Godfrey took to the police radio to call in the flabbergasting sight but could not get a signal, so he instead chose to sketch the object for future reference. As he did so, he described everything going “bright white,” before he blacked out and woke up in his police car a little further down the road. Though he tried to keep the case within the police, it almost inevitably made its way around the local papers and into publications across the country, sparking interest from countless UFO-spotting communities who began putting the strange sighting together with the death of Zigmund Adamski.

Bizarrely, one of the many individuals who reached out to Godfrey was from the Russian KGB, who requested that the officer write back to them regarding the incident with any relevant details. Taking them up on the request, Godfrey worked with the local police force to discuss the matter, though no direct action was taken to resolve the issue, and the officer was advised to keep quiet on the subject. 

Despite the British Ministry of Defense having recently released files regarding multiple UFO sightings, Godfrey’s case still remains unsolved and undiscussed by the government department. With such convincing evidence, the case of the Todmorden UFO may not just be the eeriest sighting of alien activity in the UK, but it may just be one of the most authentic cases of all time. 

Click below to listen to the whole case of the Todmorden UFO, including the accounts of several other eyewitnesses.