World UFO Day: Close encounters of the third kind in Powys

It’s certainly not the place you’d expect rampant extra terrestrial behaviour. And yet, as we recognise World UFO Day today (July 2), it also must be recognised that even though we live largely in peace and quiet in picturesque Powys…we also may not be alone.

Type your postcode into the UFO Stalker website and it will fetch for you a list of sightings and stories involving alleged alien activity. In Powys and the surrounding areas there is a list of 12 places that have been hotspots for hovercraft sightings or unexplained phenomena – dating back as far as 1975.

Simply put in your postcode and you can zoom in on a detailed map of Powys, with images of flying saucers depicting where sightings have been reported over the years.

Hover over the images and you are provided with the date of the sighting, the date it was reported, as well as the location. Click and you are provided with further information about the shape of said object or sighting and a detailed description of the encounter.

Without further ado, let’s call up Mulder and Scully and delve into the paranormal:

CASE 96629

Location: Newtown

Occurred: 9/5/98

Reported: 27/8/15 (17 years later)

Shape: Cigar

Detailed description: “Was on my way back from Bangor in north Wales. Approximately 30 miles from home I saw a UFO. At first I thought it was a helicopter; this was at 2.30am, it followed us then at a long straight piece of road about 15 miles from home it shot from the right to the left then ahead and hovered over the middle of the road. I don’t know what happened next, the next thing I remember is we were six miles from home and the UFO was ahead of us, it stayed with us all the way home and while looking at it through binoculars we noticed a jellyfish type entity floating up into the sky.”

CASE 96629

Location: Llandrindod Wells

Occurred: 30/6/75

Reported: 27/11/18 (43 years later)

Shape: Disc

Detailed description: “We were traveling from Presteigne on the road through Penybont common towards Llandrindod. The craft, shaped like one cereal dish on top of another, moved from behind a small mountain and hovered over the road we were traveling on. It was about 300 feet away and revolving with lighted windows, it was quite obvious that it was a UFO craft, we looked at it for about 15 seconds when the craft then shot back quickly from where it came. It was about 9pm, just going dusk. I have never been near the site since that day.”

CASE 69181

Location: Hay-on-Wye

Occurred: 6/8/15

Reported: 10/8/15

Shape: Star like

Detailed description: “My friend and myself were on holiday in Hay-on-Wye. We stood outside to have a smoke and looked up to the sky because it was so clear and lots of stars. We saw a plane go by then we noticed a light moving from our right. It was dim and we had to really look hard to follow it...then my friend said ‘look it's just stopped”. I said ‘no it hasn't look it's over to the left’, it was then we realised there was two of them.

“The one furthest left also stopped. The one on the left adjusted its path lower to be in line with the first one and they both just stopped there for a few minutes and I am certain beams were coming out of them both towards the other but no explosion or anything it was as if they were communicating with each other.

“We watched them for about four more minutes and then both lights shot off upwards at extreme speed and we couldn't see them anymore. We were convinced these were not planes or shooting stars because they manoeuvred in a way stars don't and were so high, too high to be planes. We are convinced that these were some sort of UFOs.

“I am 60-years-old and have had an interest in the subject since my teens but this is the first time I’ve seen anything like this.”

CASE 103316

Location: Presteigne

Occurred: 14/9/19

Reported: 14/9/19

Shape: Star like

Detailed description: “Saw a bright flashing star in the sky at 10.20pm which appeared to have a tail. My husband and I looked through two sets of binoculars and saw that it wasn't a star as it had colours flashing around it (red, white, blue and green). After keeping eye contact on it for approximately five minutes it started making shapes in the sky – I’ve never seen anything like it – it was like a magic wand in the sky, we saw large circles with tails, swiggly lines, sharp movements moving from left to right.

“I saw the shapes first and my husband said it was the movement of my binos, until he saw it and couldn't believe what he was seeing. It lasted for about 10 minutes then began to fade. When we thought it had gone, red and white dots appeared randomly to the right of where we originally saw it, blinking in various position in a vertical position.”

CASE 107150

Location: Presteigne

Occurred: 24/3/20

Reported: 25/3/20

Shape: Circle

Detailed description: “It was an orange light in the sky; too big for a star so I zoomed in and it would enlarge and go purple and sometimes go real dark and sometimes it was like it tried to zoom out of camera view and had been interfering on my videos.”

CASE 99864

Location: Near Llanwrtyd Wells (close to Llyn Brianne Reservoir)

Occurred: 18/4/19

Reported: 23/4/19

Shape: Star like

Detailed description: “I was standing on my friend’s front gate late at night and when I turned to my right side I saw a massive star like glow in the sky then I saw lights coming from the bright light and landing on the mountain side then taking off and returning to the bright light.

“There was four of them and I must have watched this for about half an hour then I returned home. The following day I told my friend and he said I must have dreamt it but I know what I saw and it was not normal.”

CASE 18602

Location: Brecon

Occurred: 12/8/09

Reported: 12/8/09

Shape: Sphere

Detailed description: “I went outside at about 10.38pm because apparently there were going to be shooting stars that night. After a minute or two I noticed a bright blue light above the opposite hill. I assumed it was a light in a house. After a while I realised it couldn’t be on the house, it was too high and it just didn’t look right. It started to move in a straight line in my direction and as it came closer I noticed two things: what I could see was a bright blue light, sphere-shaped. Also the noise this thing was emitting, it was like heavy machinery, a drill perhaps.

“This was all very strange so I ran inside to get a torch. I couldn't find one so I went back out, but by this time the UFO was almost gone. I could still see and hear it though. After about 15 seconds, it was gone. I was eager to find out what it could be, the glowing blue light and strange grinding sound had got me thinking this wasn’t any normal aircraft. When I went back inside I felt quite scared, I thought maybe an alien was coming to get me.”

CASE 86774

Location: Brecon

Occurred: 2/9/17

Reported: 19/9/17

Shape: Other

Detailed Description: “I was filming over a lake with my drone. When I played back the footage I noticed it. I did not know what the object was but I established it could not have been an insect or a bird. The object was bright white, no more than two feet I would say, looking at the closer footage. It looked elongated because of the speed which I was recording and the speed it was travelling at. It could be seen in the footage coming from over 100 feet away, it first appears at the top of the tree line moving towards the camera on the drone swooping down to about two metres.

“The object flew towards my drone from over 100ft away at incredible speed. I filmed at 30fps so it completed that distance in just over 0.5 seconds, faster than any known insect or bird. I did not see this object at the time as I was 300 meters away, it was the drone footage I saw when editing and I was somewhat shocked that I captured not just this one but a further four objects two of which left a trail. I have uploaded the footage to YouTube with various speeds to the footage for analysis. The object flew out of camera shot and lost sight of it on the recorded footage.”

This image was taken by a photographer in the Brecon Beacons in May 2013

CASE 53313

Location: Brecon Beacons

Occurred: 24/5/13

Reported: 8/1/14

Shape: Other

Detailed description: “The picture was taken halfway up a very steep climb at Storey Arms, Brecon Beacons. When I took the picture I did not see anything. The frame before and after have no markings, I have taken over 10,000 pictures with this camera and have had no similar markings.

“The day was very windy, visibility was good, a forest was 600 to 700 feet below and the area we were walking in is short rough scrub/grassland. The spots of white in the far hillside are sheep, this might give an idea of scale. I am familiar with the use of photoshop but nothing has been altered from the original image apart from contrast, saturation and crop to enable a large zoom image. The first two images have enhancement and the second two are the original image, I can supply the full size original file if requested.”

CASE 111312

Location: Penycae

Occurred: 29/8/20

Reported: 7/9/20

Shape: Other

Detailed description: “From the car park of the Penycae Inn I witnessed a string of lights all flashing independent of each other, there was only six to ten lights but they were very large. They must have been only a couple of hundred feet in the sky, way higher than the tree line.

“I must have stood there with my friend for five to ten minutes and it did not move. In the end we left and that was still in the same place. I was so busy trying to figure out what I was looking at I didn't even think of getting my phone out to film or take a photo.”

CASE 74738

Location: Llandovery

Occurred: 30/4/89

Reported: 24/2/16 (27 Years Later)

Shape: Star like

Detailed description: “Having competed on a night motorsport rally and retired, I stopped to watch the event. A small congregation were present waiting for fellow competitors. Unaware to me others were watching the same skyward event I was. Four star light objects, not twinkling, which suggests it was in our atmosphere, were in alignment where no stars would normally be located in the night sky.

“These remained motionless for what seemed ages. The rally cars had been expected but nothing came. I am not suggesting that time stood still but it was odd. All four lights were evenly spaced out in a line. The one to the far right started to move very slowly. Its path passed each of the other three lights in turn and settled a similar distance away from the original light on the left side. In turn, they all started to do the same, however, being joined by more lights. These lights moved faster and faster across each other until they suddenly all flew off in different directions at a speed no earth craft can achieve.

“Although witnessed by many, one lady was scared, locking herself in her car, no-one to my knowledge has ever spoken about this event since.”

CASE 84845

Location: Kington

Occurred: 5/7/17

Reported: 5/8/17

Shape: Square, rectangular

Detailed description: “I was walking to school and as I approached the entrance I noticed a white rectangular object with curved edges and blue/black stripes slowly hovering towards the north west. I noticed it out of the corner of my eye thinking it was a cloud, but it seemed too quick and smooth to be a cloud or aircraft. I was intrigued to see what it was but lost sight of it as trees were blocking the line of sight.”