THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — the Findon Chronicles are created by Valerie Martin and contain great stories from her home village of FINDON, West Sussex, U.K.    Everyday tales about real people...... in fact, a potted history of the village.   The topics today, are history tomorrow.

Out of This World with Barry Flahey.

Copyright Valerie Martin 2011

Published in Sussex Local in October 2011

In August 2011 I received an email from Barry Flahey in Ontario.    He said that in July 1954 he was in our area when a UFO passed over the Findon downland.    Both he and his parents witnessed it and it was most definitely a "flying saucer" and he wondered if I would be interested in hearing about it.

A little later in the month, Barry was true to his word and forward his reminiscences and here they are.....

"Hello Valerie....UFOs...The following is an accurate account of the events that happened on July 4th, 1954, It has been indelible on my mind since then, and I count myself extremely fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time.

My parents were taking me in their car to spot aeroplanes at RAF Tangmere.  At about 1 pm, we were stopped on the A283 about three miles north of Findon, almost in Washington, West Sussex, with the South Downs on our left.  It was an otherwise clear, perfect summer sky with some wispy cirrus at very high altitude over towards Brighton.

Approaching from the west, I saw a saucer shaped object moving directly West to East , sun reflecting dully from what appeared to be a metal like surface.  Once almost overhead, around the 12 o’clock position, it was clearly circular.

It was moving quite slowly at what I estimated to be around 2000-3000 plus feet above the Downs, and left a very faint V shape of vapour, or perhaps a vortex, at the rear (not a vapour trail) .  No noise was discernable.  Obviously quite large, it passed along the Downs almost above Findon.  It was in view for about 20-30 seconds.   When it reached approximately the 10 o’clock position it abruptly vanished.   I was conscious of vertical movement. Or maybe that was my imagination, however, it was gone in an instant.  To this day I don’t really know what it was. But I do know what it wasn’t.  It was most certainly not an aircraft, or a lenticular cloud. nor was it marsh gas or ball lightning. Neither was it a barrage balloon or a weather balloon.

An entry in my aircraft spotters log noted this sighting and the date, along with several aircraft we saw that afternoon i.e. DC-3, Sea Fury (likely from RNAS Ford) Miles Messenger, and a Vampire.   Both my parents saw it, after I drew their attention to it.  We looked at it through my dads binoculars while it was in view.  My dad was very excited, though my mum I think said, as Hyacinth Bucket would have: "That’s nice, dear".

Could it be that someone else from the Findon area saw this large object?  Perhaps Valerie, with your resources, you can find someone like myself who saw this object and can corroborate my experience.  Perhaps like me, has preferred not to mention it for fear of ridicule. 

It may be worthy of mention, that I was quite adept at aircraft recognition at that time and have always been extremely interested in all things aviation.  I was a member of the Knoll School ATC Squadron in Hove, where aircraft recognition was high on the agenda.  Also, my aunt lived in Amesbury, virtually in the back garden of the highly secret A&AEE Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.  I spent all my summer holidays there as a teenager, mostly sitting on the end of the runway outside the security fence.  Never once did I see an aircraft with a remotely saucer shape.  Ten years later I was stationed at Boscombe Down while in the RAF, and fortunately was able to watch fairly close up the TSR 2 during its initial flight trials.

There was absolutely nothing circular, or similar in shape, noiseless and with similar performance flying in the early 50's .  At least not man made.  In fact, as far as I know there still isn’t.  Attached is a rough sketch of what I saw that day, though perhaps the vapour might not have been quite so prominent.  It would be most interesting to know what may have caused that disturbance at the rear, some type of propulsion, or just the passage at that unusual shape moving through the air. 

In my ignorance, I wrote to Phillip Klass, of the well known Aviation Week publication in the US.   He was the avionics editor at that time.  He kindly wrote back to me saying that what I’d seen was most likely marsh gas.  Little did I know that I had written to one of the most serious UFO debunkers of all time - a view that he steadfastly maintained until his death in 2006.

I had reported my sighting to MOD too, but in their case I received no acknowledgement.  Recently I heard on the news that due to storage issues they had disposed of thousands of records of sightings up to 1965, and the remaining records are now stored in the records office at Kew which anyone can access for a fee.   Perhaps someone can correct me on this, as I would be interested to know if my sighting was recorded.

I hope that this is of interest Valerie, and thanks again for such a fascinating site, with all those tales and memories of one of the most beautiful parts of England.  Barry".

I thanked Barry for his memories and the magnificent sketch of the day.   No one had ever executed a drawing for me of their UFO.... so Barry goes down in Findon history as the first.

The definition of a UFO is a mysterious object seen in the sky for which, it is claimed, no orthodox scientific explanation can be found..... and I will leave it at that.

Continue if you would like to read about strange tale ...... Out of This World with Doug Attrell

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THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon and nearby..... and sometimes beyond.