NICK REDFERN: The “Welsh Roswell” at 40

January 23, 2014 will mark the 40th anniversary of a curious event that occurred in North Wales and which – for some, at least – has become known as the “Welsh Roswell.” To be sure, it’s a very strange story, one filled with all manner of threads and themes, some of a very down to earth nature, and others that would have had Fox Mulder absolutely foaming at the mouth. It goes like this:

On the night of January 23, 1974, numerous people in and around the North Wales village of Llandrillo reported seeing strange lights in the sky. The lights were accompanied by additional reports that suggested something had slammed violently into the huge Berwyn Mountains range that dominates the area. The police responded, but reportedly found nothing. Even the Royal Air Force got involved in the search for…well, who knows what? They too came up blank.


North Wales

Despite the fact that the event in question had the locals in a state of concern and even panic (in part, due to the fear that an aircraft had come down on the mountains), the matter was soon forgotten, chiefly because no evidence was found – in the form of debris or an impact site – to suggest anything unusual had occurred.

The down to earth theory for what happened was strengthened when two things were revealed: (a) meteors had been seen in the skies over North Wales on that very night; and (b) the Institute of Geological Sciences recorded a 3.5 magnitude earthquake in the area, and at roughly the same time the lights in the sky were seen above. Quite a coincidence, to say the least – but coincidences do happen. Maybe.

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