by Clive Harold
Billy reached out in the darkness and took her hands. She glanced sideways at him and smiled gently, then looked over her shoulder at the group of children behind them.
'Watch,' she whispered to them, returning her gaze to the light again. No sooner had she spoken, than the giant globe started to move, gently, swaying first to one side, then to the other, like a luminous pendulum, radiating its orange glow in a perfect arc on the muddy ground beneath their feet.
Billy glanced again at Pauline, her face bathed in the soft orange luminosity of the globe, and saw that she was smiling. She sensed his look, but without returning it, whispered: 'Keep looking, love. It's going... He looked back up at the glowing object. For a moment, it stopped still in the sky and then, with frightening suddenness, streaked off, up and away from them, diminishing in size as it went, until it was barely as big as a distant planet.
He felt Pauline's grip tighten on his hand and, turning to her, noticed her eyes were glistening with tears. Gently he led her back up the drive towards the house, the children following silently behind them. When they got indoors, the family sat in silence for a few minutes around the kitchen table, absorbing what they had just seen.
Billy spoke first. 'It's over, isn't it?' He turned to Pauline. She nodded. 'You knew it, all along. But how?'
She told them about everything that had happened to her the previous night.
'A dream?' asked Billy. Pauline said nothing, just smiled to herself and sipped her tea
- but as she did so, nobody could fail to notice the puncturelike blemish on her forearm.
THE END
EPILOGUE
This story - this true story - is now completed. The uninvited have left the Coombs family as dramatically and unexpectedly as they first arrived, but the mystery they brought with them remains. Only one thing seems certain - they were there.
But, having shared the Coombs' experiences, you must judge that fact for yourself. I have related the story as accurately as was possible, spending weeks with the family, during which time each of them painstakingly relived their own experiences over and over again into a tape recorder. Their stories never varied. They all swear to the truth of what they have said, and have even offered to take lie detector tests to prove the validity of their experiences.
Conclusions are therefore easy to reach. The choice is simple. Either their story is a carefully concocted web of lies, or it is a vividly accurate, carefully reconstructed account of probably the most significant close encounters on record. There can be no half-measures.
I have absolutely no doubt which is the case. In the beginning, I was sceptical, and approached the family with a mind more closed than open. The experiences the family claimed to have had seemed to belong firmly within the realms of science fiction and that suited me admirably at the time, for I had been commissioned by a magazine simply to write a suitably dramatic
True-Life UFO Story to coincide with the opening in Britain of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It didn't matter whether the story was true or not, as long as it was topical and a 'good read'.
At the outset, I had little doubt which it was likely to be. I am now sure I was wrong. The reasons are many and various. The Coombs family seem to me to be some of the most honest and down-to-earth people I have ever met in my life. They knew nothing of UFO phenomena when I first met them same for the phenomena that they had experienced first-hand - and they had previously never believed in such things, nor had any interest in the subject (as I write this, not one member of the family has ever seen either Star Wars or Close Encounters 0f The Third Kind!) It originally took all my powers of persuasion to get them to tell their story at all, and they persistently refused all offers of payment to do so - as they do to this day - for fear of damaging their credibility. It was only a combination of their fear of the phenomena they were encountering; their anger at the lack of assistance they were getting in their plight; and their genuine concern that such things should be brought to the attention of the public that eventually convinced happened. They are, seekers cashing in on a craze, nor misguided individuals labouring under some mammoth misconception - they are, instead, a very nice, ordinary, honest farming family telling their story in as simple and straightforward a way as they know how. It was the recognition of that fact that gave birth to this book.
But what a difficult birth! In the beginning - as more and more details came to light - I found myself thinking time and time again that it was just all too far-fetched and fanciful to possibly be true.
therefore, them to allow me to recount what
neither 'UFO-buffs', nor sensationThe more I got into the mystery, the more I began to find my scepticism diminishing, until any other explanation, other than the most incredible, seemed unsatisfactory, no matter how much logic told me otherwise.
Hadn't neighbours and the local police testified to the terrified state the family had been found in, when the spaceman had appeared at the window? Hadn't there been inexplicable scorch marks and radiation traces around the window? And scorched and flattened grass - again with radiation traces where one of the UFOs had apparently landed? And the inexplicable draining of power from the electricity meters? The facts began to pile up, each seemingly more amazing than the one before, and none of the happenings could be explained in any rational way, neither could they have been devised or stage-managed to perpetuate a hoax. The only interpretation that made any sense was in the context of extra-terrestrial visitationg. The Coombs had originally been frightened to tell anyone of their experiences for fear of being ridiculed, and I began to feel the same way until, in the course of my background research into the subject of UFOlogy, I began to realise that neither I nor the Coombs were alone in our beliefs. I knew that the credibility of the phenomena had grown in recent years because of the vast numbers of reports that had been filed world-wide, but I had no idea of the volume of hardnosed scientific opinion that now supports UFOlogy.
It rapidly became clear that there was no reason on earth why The Uninvited shouldn't be true. In fact, it was far more likely to be true than untrue. Cynics on the subject of UFOs and extraterrestrial activity on Earth - cynics like I used to be - generally share the same characteristic: complete ignorance of the subject they are so quick to dismiss.
It is hardly surprising. Ignorance as far as the public is concerned is bliss as far as the authorities are concerned. What our minds don't know, our hearts apparently won't grieve over. On the subject of UFOs, the rule of thumb was - and often still is-to debunk the phenomena by going to any lengths to explain them away, or simply by ridiculing them. There is an anecdote that typifies officialdom's line on the subject. During an extensive 'UFO flap' over Southern England reports of UFO sightings were flooding in from all over the place.
Merlyn Rees, who was then the Minister of Defence, stood up in Parliament and made the following, fantastic statement: .... the source' of a few of these lights has still not been identified but I can, however, say that none of them was an alien object.. It was no wonder I took the Coombs less than seriously when I first met them and that - as a member of the press - they were so reticent to tell me their story. I had been conditioned to disbelieve them, and they had been conditioned to even disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes.
Now I share the family's anxiety that their story be told and be believed. I am as determined as they are that neither the authorities nor the media will, on this occasion, brush the phenomena aside, or explain them away. It is too important a subject to treat in such a way.
The authorities have already tried to gloss over, brush aside and generally suppress the telling of their story by their negative and evasive treatment of the people involved.
Consider the facts. Faced with an embarrassing number of reports of inexplicable UFO sightings in South West Wales in May, 1977, a Ministry of Defence spokesman admitted to a British national newspaper: 'We have had reports of sightings of unexplained objects in the West Wales area and the people who have rep
orted these sightings are not nutcases, they are genuinely sincere people, genuinely concerned. We investigate every report on this assumption and we do not discount the possibility of intelligent life in outer space...
This might seem to be good news for the people - including the Coombs who were being so frightened by the phenomena at that time. So, doubtless, did the words of FlightLieutenant Gowan, the community relations officer at the Royal Air Force's Brawdy Air Base near Broad Haven, who also seemed to give total credence to the phenomena when he admitted: 'There have been a flood of these reports and the ground sightings of UFOs do not, in time or place, fit in with our operations. We also accept the possibility of life in outer space and none of our radar units can explain these sightings...'
But there was no thorough, proper investigation into what was going on, to reassure the people involved that their interests and their safety were being taken care of. There were investigations - and there probably still are - but they were all conducted furtively and evidence of them covered up. Immediately after Pauline Coombs watched a UFO apparently crash into the cliffs near Ripperstone Farm, the area was cordoned off and Army personnel and Naval frogmen started examining the site, refusing to tell
Billy Coombs - whose land they were on - what they were looking for. A little later, both Pauline and Billy Coombs were observed at their window by the silver-suited alien figure, and their neighbour across the bay watched a spacecraft and two similar alien figures near her home. In both cases there were scorch marks and radiation traces remaining after the sightings. The Coombses' neighbour wrote to their Member of Parliament for help, for reassurance that their safety was not in jeopardy. The' MP wrote to James Welibeloved, the UnderSecretary of State for Defence at the Ministry of Defence, asking what was being done. One would expect the UnderSecretary's F4 Department at the Ministry to have received not only dozens of newspaper records of UFO and alien sightings in the area, but also the report filed by an officer from the Brawdy RAF Base who interviewed the Coombses' neighbour at length about her sighting, and asked her to keep their conversation secret. But the Under-Secretary replied to the MP telling him that the Ministry of Defence could 'offer no further information on the subject' and that -most incredible of all 'we have no record of any other unusual activity in the area'.
No record of what the Army and Navy discovered after their examination of the cliffs near Broad Haven? No record of the numerous newspaper reports of eyewitness accounts of UFOs and aliens near Army and Navy installations in the area? No record of the extensive interview conducted between an RAF official and Pauline and Billy Coombs' neighbour? What happened to all these records?
It was initially this mysteriously secretive attitude of the authorities that made me wonder if there was, in fact, more to the Coombs' story than actually met the eye, and the same attitude eventually compelled the family to tell me the whole story. They felt, at the time that nobody else would listen to them and were desperate to somehow bring the subject to the attention of the authorities for fear of what would happen next.
The phenomena they experienced may now have ceased, but that is not to say they might not happen again, either to them, or to some other family.
Their fears are well-founded, not only because of their own personal experiences, but also because of what is happening elsewhere - and the body of scientific opinion that now supports their fears.
Elsewhere in the world, sightings of UFOs are being reported to various agencies at the rate of one hundred a day, every day of the year. Over 2,000 reports of UFO landings (featuring inexplicable scorch marks and/or radiation traces) have been made world-wide, in the past thirty years. In 1973, seventy well-documented accounts of 'close encounters of the third kind' - alien contact -were made. Last year, in Britain alone, more than 600 UFO sightings were recorded - double the number of the previous year. The authorities’ world-wide have done their best to explain away as many of these sightings and contacts as possible. But many responsible, level-headed members of the public - including politicians, scientists and armed forces personnel - are reporting too many clear, closelyobserved sightings of inexplicable things, for sustained coverups to now be either possible or unbelievable.
From 1949 to 1969 the US Air Force conducted what they called Project Blue Book, ostensibly to investigate UFO phenomena but actually to publicly debunk them but actually to publicly debunk them page Condon Report, published in 1969, came to the conclusion that no further consideration should be given to the subject of UFOs, as two-thirds of all the sightings they had investigated had proved to be either natural phenomena or hoaxes.
Nobody could believe the decision to stop the investigation least of all Dr Allen Hynek, the eminent American astronomer who had led the investigation for twenty years, who decided to branch out on his own and devote the rest of his life to examining the phenomena. His verification of the fact that Project Blue Book was just one enormous 'cover-up' is now a matter of record - as is the fact that Project Blue Book was never, in fact, closed down; it just went underground. The authorities thought they would be able to explain away all the UFO reports that came their way. When they realised they couldn't, they deemed the subject to be too hot for the public to handle and decided to continue the rest of their research in secret. What is known as the 54/12 Group within the Central Intelligence Agency - has thus been secretly monitoring all American UFO reports for the past ten years. But now pressure of public and scientific opinion has grown so strong that President Carter - who has himself seen a UFO has authorised the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (which landed man on the Moon and has robot spacecraft probing the solar system) to spend £10 million over the next seven years on 'A. Search For Extra Terrestrial Intelligence'. He has also - even more significantly - instructed the 54/12 Group to release 900 secret files on UFOs for publication. These developments, together with other research, may at last lead to proof of what many of the world's scientists already suspect: that there are extra-terrestrial intelligence observing civilisation on Earth. A British national survey recently showed that, in the past, nine out of every ten people who had had a UFO experience had failed to report the experience for fear of ridicule. It remains to be seen whether American attitudes will spur British authorities to treat the subject more seriously and encourage people to report everything they experience. It is the Coombs family's hope that their published recollections may spur others to come forward with their UFO experiences and so force the authorities into a thorough investigation. American opinion polls showed that 51% of all Americans believed in UFOs in 1973, and that 11% had seen them. In 1978, 81% believed in them and 15% claimed to have seen them. The phenomena are increasing and so should investigation into them.
As Dr Philip Morrison of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (who is co-ordinating President Carter's Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life) explains: 'We don't have to assume there are other planets like our Earth in our galaxy because mathematically there must be...'
Are they trying to make contact - the sort of contact that the Coombs family have experienced? The Ministry of Defence may seemingly dismiss their experiences, the media and cynics may sneer, but a large body of scientific opinion will be treating the story of The Uninvited with the serious consideration it deserves.
As Britain's Dr Paul Davies - a theoretical physicist at King's College, London - points out: 'What most people who dismiss UFOs as a load of rubbish just don't realise, is how convincing the evidence is in some cases. If you have 500 cases, all describing the same UFO activity that can't be explained, then you probably do have something new to our science....'
As Professor Wickramasinge, the Head of Astronomy at Cardiff University puts it: 'I would have thought that there have been enough UFO sightings in the last year or so in Wales for there to be an excellent case for a thorough investigation. The Ministry of Defence would have to be involved, because there should also be astronomers, meteorologists and geologists called in...'
But it doesn't seem to matter how dramatic or potentially significant the Coombs experiences were – the MoD just aren't interested, or aren't prepared to show their interest. When members of the armed forces have UFO experiences, they are sworn to secrecy, and little action is ever taken. In May of 1977, thirteen RAF personnel in Broad Haven made a clear daylight sighting of a UFO flying over their Air Base. Checks showed that it was neither an aircraft not a satellite, but no action was taken.
But Squadron-Leader Tim Webb - who oversees the advanced instruction of fighter pilots at the Brawdy Air Base - believed his son's story that he and most of his school had seen a UFO in a field near their school. 'I've yet to see a UFO,' said the Squadron-Leader, 'but I think there has to be something supernatural or paranormal going on here...
Blind faith, or common sense? The latter, surely. When dozens of people of all types repeatedly describe seeing the same UFO phenomena, often in groups, and in daylight at close quarters - and the same scorched-earth and radiation trace evidence is left behind to be examined the conclusion is inevitable, however unlikely it may at first appear.
It's a conclusion that is based firmly on science fact, not on science fiction.
Even by conservative estimates, there are one thousand million planets that are capable of supporting life. Considering what such a comparatively infant species, on such a young planet as Earth, has managed' to do in just twenty-five years of space travel, is it any wonder that so many scientists view the likelihood of extra-terrestrial visits to Earth by other civilisations as being not so much likely, as downright inevitable?
Would a visit to Ripperstone Farm be so extraordinary, housing as it does a family of seven of varying ages and stages of development, and affording the perfect opportunity to study not only the human species, but animals as well, in total privacy due to the isolated setting? Better still, nearby there are a number of Army,
