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25th December 1978 - Brentwood, Essex - Top Hat UFO Sighting, Missing Time

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Originally forwarded by Richard Hall

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Date: 20/04/2011

Last Updated: 12/11/2024

 

Note: For reasons of anonymity pseudonyms have been used


"Kieran" has had numerous UFO sightings throughout his life. Some of these have been very impressive and clearly of highly unusual objects. This report covers the first of two of his sightings which he has decided to share with me via Richard Hall’s website. Following on from the sighting he realised that he appeared to have lost some time.

 

Incident Details

 

In 1978 Kieran used to work as a chef for the NHS. It was early on the morning of Christmas day and he had to travel in to work in Brentwood, Essex. He was round his girlfriend’s house on Uplands Road with his van. He had to be in to work for 6am to cook breakfast for the patients. The journey would take about an hour from his location so he decided to set off around 5am. It was a cold and frosty, but clear morning. When he tried starting his van he found it wouldn’t start. So he quickly arranged to borrow his girlfriend’s dad’s car and set off on his way.

 

Between 15-30 minutes into his journey he was on Spital Lane near the Brentwood Bypass. He was driving carefully as the roads were icy. Looking towards the direction of Romford to his left he noticed a strange glowing orange object in the dark sky. It was about 300 yards from his position.


Aerial map of Spital Lane

The object appeared to be the shape of a top hat. The main body looked cylindrical. At the base was a rim which stuck out about 3-4 feet. The whole object seemed to be glowing. There were other round lights visible around the rim at the base of the object. These alternated between ones which remained a continuous bright white, and ones which pulsed between white and orange-white. The UFO looked quite small in size, perhaps 4-5 feet in diameter. It was at quite low altitude, about 40-45 feet in height, a short distance above the nearby housing. The object was completely stationary in the air.

 

There was nobody else on the road at the time due to the time of morning. Kieran slowed the car right down to a crawl and wound down the passenger side window to get a better look at the object. He watched it for a short while as he slowly drove past it. Suddenly the object appeared to move and went out of sight.

 

Kieran drove under a foot bridge and then managed to catch sight of the UFO again. It was now at a different position but once again completely still. It had moved away from the housing and was now hovering above the verge, closer than it had been before, about 70 yards away from him.

 

He had now been watching the object for up to 10 minutes. He knew that he had to continue on his way to work so did not stop the car. Upon resuming his journey Kieran remembers asking himself why it was now light in the sky. He had no clock in the car so had no idea what time it was.

 

When he arrived at work and used his card to check in, he found out the time was now 7.15am. He was an hour and 15 minutes later than he expected to be. Due to the earlier issue with his van, he was certain that he had set off from home at 5am. There was no traffic on the road, and despite the fact he had been driving slowly and observed the UFO for about 10 minutes, there was nothing which could account for this amount of time. He thought this was very strange and wondered if it had anything to do with the object he had seen. He was also annoyed at being late for work.

 

Later he told his girlfriend about the incident but she just ignored it.

 

Incident Analysis


This is a very interesting incident. The object that Kieran saw sounds very unusual indeed. Quite often orange glowing objects seen in the sky these days turn out to be nothing more than lanterns. However this incident took place back in 1978, a long time before lanterns were in widespread use.


Also the shape was incorrect for a lantern, it was constantly bright rather than flickering, and it had additional white lights on it. That said it does seem quite small in size and considering the fact it was Christmas morning it is not possible to rule out the possibility it was some kind of inflatable Christmas decoration which had drifted up into the air. But if it was this, it managed to hover completely still for the period of time that Kieran watched it for.

 

And what to make of the missing time? Kieran is adamant that he had set off around 5am, but the journey took significantly longer than he was expecting it to. This suggests that the object may have been a genuine ET craft of some kind, and that he was abducted from his vehicle for a period of time against his knowledge. Kieran has no recollection of the object approaching his car or interacting with him in any way, but this is certainly a possibility worth considering.


As mentioned at the start of the report, Kieran also had a sighting of a triangular UFO in July 2010 while working in Spain. Click here to go to the report on this sighting.


Copyright Dave Hodrien 2024

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