It is one of the world’s most prolific UFO hotspots with around 300 annual sightings.
But it’s not Area 51 or Roswell. This is Bonnybridge, a picturesque Scottish village at the apex of an area dubbed the Falkirk Triangle, where extraterrestrial encounters ranging from alien abductions to cigar-shaped spaceship sightings, are almost commonplace.
Known as the ‘Roswell of Scotland’ and compared to the Bermuda Triangle, because of speculation that it’s a window to another dimension, intense UFO activity has sparked government investigation and pleas for help to four Prime Ministers.
“I have been doing this job for 45 years. I honestly believe that somewhere in the skies of this planet we are dealing with non-human intelligence,” says UFO expert Malcolm Robinson, who says NASA, the American government and the Pentagon have all investigated extraterrestrial sightings.
As part of a new documentary series showing on Blaze, experts from around the world have tried to uncover why UFO activity in the Falkirk Triangle – located above the cities of Falkirk, Glasgow and Edinburgh – is so intense.
A terrifying encounter in 1992 saw friends Garry Wood and Colin Wright claim they were taken prisoner by extraterrestrials in a flying saucer, as they drove towards Tarbrax, a south Lanarkshire village, to deliver a satellite TV system to a pal.
It was about 10pm when they spotted a “black” object in the sky above them. It had no lights, was round at the bottom, had three parts and was 30ft wide.
The friends blacked out for they believe 10-15 seconds, coming to with their car facing in the opposite direction. Checking the time, they had lost an hour.
Secret government “X-files” contain a two-page report on what became known as the “A70 incident” – sent to the Ministry of Defence’s UFO desk in 1996, four years after the encounter.
Headlined “Unexplained Aerial Sighting,” it is based on evidence provided by Mr Wood, then a 33-year-old ambulance technician from Edinburgh.
Malcolm Robinson says: “Days after the incident, both men found scars on their bodies that weren’t there before. Their wives refused to believe them, their colleagues at work refused to believe them.”
After looking up paranormal experiences in the local library, they found Malcolm, who suggested they had hypnosis – with astonishing results.
Speaking in 1996, Garry said: “I saw three creatures coming towards my car. I felt intense pain, like an electric shock. Then I was in some room. I saw these things like wee men moving about, doing something to me. I could only see up. Then this 6ft creature approached.
“It was white-grey in colour with a large head and dark eyes with a long, slender neck, very slim shoulders and waist. There were either ribs or folds of skin on its body. The arms were like ours, but there were four very long fingers.”
By the 1990s, the MoD’s UFO Unit was being inundated with reports of Falkirk Triangle sightings and public outcry intensified. Massive gatherings were held with UFO witnesses and concerned locals filling entire auditoriums, desperate for answers.
Local councillor Billy Buchanan and Malcolm Robinson lobbied parliament for an investigation, visiting Downing Street four times to meet with John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Rishi Sunak – but to no avail.
“We are demanding that the British government open up an inquiry into UFO sightings in Scotland,” says Malcolm. “We are happy to turn over our files and photographs. But I doubt anything will happen, they are too stuck in their ways.
“They say that as these objects do not pose any threat to the security of the UK, the British Government will not open up any enquiries.”
An earlier UFO sighting in 1979 saw forestry worker Bob Taylor, a WWII veteran who helped liberate Bergen Belsen, heading into woods at Dechmont Law to check for stray sheep and cattle.
Stepping into the clearing, Bob was confronted by a large circular sphere, which he later described as a ‘flying dome’ hovering above the forest floor.
Dark and metallic with a rough texture like sandpaper, it had small propellers on its outer rim. Smaller spheres resembling sea mines dropped down from beneath the hovering object, hit the ground and started rolling towards him, then dragging him towards the hovering craft.
Bob’s last recalled a strange burning smell and a swishing sound before everything went black.
Unable to drive when he came to, he walked back to his home in Livingston, breaking down and telling his wife he had been attacked.
Bob’s pants were completely torn and he looked bedraggled and beaten. Authorities at the scene documented indentations on the ground.
The investigation concluded that Bob had experienced a particularly vicious attack – but by what?
The police eventually classed it as an assault by a person or persons unknown, shelving the report pending further evidence.
Other experts wondered if Bob had been struck by lightning or suffered a seizure.
Described throughout investigations as an honest, reliable man of good character, Bob remained faithful to his account until his death in 2007.
Historian Tony McMahon, who has been investigating the sightings, asks why eye-witnesses would leave themselves open to mockery, unless they truly believed they’d had an alien encounter.
“Those involved were seen as reputable figures, not as flakes,” he says. “These were completely normal people who had this absolutely bizarre experience.
“I think the fact that it has recurred in that area is fascinating.
“In the case of the Falkirk Triangle we are dealing with people who are seen as pillars of the community and what happened to them was quite traumatic.
“You can’t see an upside to making it up.
“I think these people genuinely believed that they saw what they reported.”
Some suggest the Falkirk Triangle is a UFO hotspot, as the thinning between worlds there is more fragile there than anywhere else in the UK, making it an ideal slipping point between dimensional realms.
Others believe that an intergalactic stream or highway runs through the area, making it an ideal celestial stopping point.
Archaeologist Natasha Billson is quite sceptical, but notes that many UFO sightings are near places of archaeological importance.
“When it comes to UFO sightings a lot of them are near to archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge,” she says. “And the largest collection of stone circles in the British Isles are in Scotland.”
But Tony McMahon says, like many other global UFO hotspots, the Triangle is within 50 miles of two military air bases and close to both Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports.
He explains: “There are two ways of looking at that. One is that what is happening on those military sites is misconstrued as UFO activity, everything from weather balloons to flares – even to cutting edge technology that the Government would rather you didn’t know about. There is a perfectly good case to be made for that.
“Equally, there is an argument that if we are being watched by aliens, by extraterrestrials, there is every reason to suspect that they would take a particular interest in military installations.
“Some people say maybe they are taking an interest in military installations because they want to knock us out, invade, colonise us. But there is another argument put forward that they are taking an interest because they are protecting us from ourselves.
“There’s even an argument that alien technology has been shared with us, but the aliens won’t share any more, because we keep misusing it against each other. “Somebody wrote that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the aliens decided that was more than enough.”
Top strangest sightings
Malcolm Robinson is founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations Scotland – the country’s oldest UFO society which turns 45 this month. Here are his top five Falkirk sightings.
1. Dechmont Woods sighting
Bob Taylor’s 1979 close encounter is the only case in the UK involving a full blown police investigation and forensic examination.
2. The A70 alien abductions
Friends Garry Wood and Colin Wright, were travelling from Edinburgh to Tarbrax in 1992 when they were stopped by a black object hovering above them in the sky and allegedly abducted by aliens.
3. The Bonnybridge UFO sightings
Ufologists claim Bonnybridge is the world’s number one UFO location, with an average of around 300 sightings a year.
4. The Calvine Incident
On the 4 August 1990 at around 9pm, a diamond object estimated to be 100 feet wide and hovering for 10 minutes, before rising rapidly into the sky, was photographer near Calvine, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Known as the Calvine UFO, it attracted world-wide attention when one of the photos was published 30 years later.
5. The Sloggett family
The Sloggett family were walking towards Bonnybridge at around 7pm on a clear March evening in 1992 when they say they saw a circle of light land in a nearby field. They were later stopped by a football-sized blue light hovering above the road. Later, Isabella Sloggett said: “My daughter Carole and I saw a UFO land right in front of us. A door opened and there was a howl-like sound. I screamed and ran off terrified.”
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The Falkirk Triangle features as part of an exclusive 8-part documentary series, Alien Corridors, Thursday nights at 9pm on BLAZE, premiering on 14 November
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