- The mystery surrounding an apparent sighting of a UFO
above a power station 25 years ago deepened further when an amateur radio
operator raised the possibility the 'light in the sky' actually landed
in a local farmer's field.
-
- Robert Bennett revealed how in January 1978 he sat for
five hours in his living room with three policemen, listening over the
wires as enthusiasts and police tracked the craft across St Helens.
-
- He claims that from conversations he heard between officers
in his Nutgrove home and those on the ground, the UFO actually landed on
a field in Rainhill.
-
- The 71-year-old came forward with his version of events
after former St Helens journalist, Ian Brandes, wrote in the Star of how
the mysterious sighting had recently been logged in a X-Files style police
database.
-
- Ian revealed how Detective Constable Gary Heseltine had
officially entered the sighting above Bold Power Station in the Police
Reporting UFO sightings logging system.
-
- Hovered
-
- The serving officer with the British Transport Police
in the South of England, who founded the unique log, says the St Helens
sighting is classed as a sighting of major "Defence Significance".
-
- DC Heseltine even says there is excellent circumstantial
evidence that the craft, said to have hovered over the power station before
shooting away at speed, was a genuine UFO.
-
- Now, 71-year-old Robert Bennett, a former maintenance
worker at the old Varley's Foundry on Atlas Street, Fingerpost, has come
forward to add his side of the story.
-
- Aged 46, back then, Mr Bennett says he was operating
his radio when he picked up a message from the president of the Liverpool
UFO society. The ET enthusiast asked Mr Bennett to phone the police and
explain the goings on.
-
- Mr Bennett, who was with wife Jean in his house, said:
"With a bit of scepticism I phoned the St Helens police and told them
I had just had a radio call about a UFO sighting. Everything went hush,
hush on the phone and then they said they were sending someone up straight
away.
-
- "Three officers, one who I think was high-ranking,
arrived at about 10.15pm and stayed until about 3am."
-
- During the small hours he was instructed to relay messages
to the radio amateurs chasing the craft, but also listened as police talked
via radio with officers also on the object's trail.
-
- He added: "From what I heard there were officers
in the car trying to follow it and I believe it did land in a field in
Rainhill and two police officers, a PC and a WPC were 20 yards away from
it when it started to take off."
-
- Mystery
-
- The incident is now chronicled as No.44 in the database,
that contains 84 official sightings of UFOs between 1950 and 2002.
-
- However, what did hover above the power station that
night still remains a mystery to the pensioner who says "he has no
idea what it might have been". He says, though, that after 20 years
he can finally tell the story that "died and heard nothing more of"
without fear of people thinking he is "ready for the nuthouse".
-
- http://www.thisischeshire.co.uk/cheshire/st_helens/news/ST_HELENS_NEWS3.
html
|
