A spate of mysterious UFO and alien sightings which gripped a Welsh community 30 years ago may have finally been explained. A former US Navy sailor claims the furore gripping the Broad Haven area of Pembrokeshire in the late 1970s was caused by an officer in a special fireproof uniform, and new RAF jets.The sailor, who served in the area shortly after most of the sightings, says a fellow officer admitted he had been responsible.The clamour around the possibility of little green men visiting Pembrokeshire in the late 1970s led to numerous tabloid reports, including one of an entire class of schoolchildren claiming to have seen a UFO landing.Many others reported being petrified by a strange silver alien.It all happened in what became known as the Broad Haven Triangle, and canny tourist operators even started running UFO sighting weekends. However behind the hype, Government officials took some of the tales seriously, and it was revealed last year by UFO expert Dr David Clarke that a secret MoD investigation had been carried out.

Now, following publicity about the investigation, James Carlson from Albuquerque, New Mexico, has written to the Fortean Times - a magazine about the supernatural - with what he believes are answers to West Wales' paranormal riddle.He was stationed at the US Naval Facility in Brawdy in the 1980s.In his letter Carlson tells how one of his supervisors, who is identified only by the name Steve, saw him reading a book about paranormal incidents around Brawdy, which was also an RAF base.The book quotes an RAF officer, who states the descriptions of "alien" suits were in no way similar to military uniforms at the time.However Carlson was told by Steve that the description was identical to firefighting gear used by American personnel.He said, "Steve told me that while serving on the fire team of his division, he would often don the asbestos suit and oxygen breathing apparatus provided.

View: Full Article | Source: icWales

Here we go again... Yet another person popping up to claim that they were the all singing all dancing *alien*. I suppose their fire engine looked like a UFO as well and use to fly.

Im sure in the case of most of the sightings of *occupants* this guy and his suit were the actualy source but this wasn't really about seeing occupants it was about multiple people witnessing what seemed to be nuts and bolts craft.

Well, I do find it hard to believe that people are misidentifying Harrier jets, that had been around for years before the sightings started. Even if it was a new type of jet, you should be able to tell it's a jet of some sort. They aren't some kind of radical design that no one would recognize.

Harriers had been around for donkeys years by the late 70s.. They were featured on endless tv progs as an example of *good ole british engineering at its best* there were countless models of them available. The idea that people were mis-identifying them in the late 70s is frankly ludicrous...

That's what I'm saying. Which you of course just saw. So why am I repeating that point? I have no idea.

Look, when the debunking of a sighting is more ludicrous than the actual sighting, then something is wrong somewhere.

Thats a queer UFO if ive ever sceen one.

I think it's a little unfair for members of this forum to criticize my comments without actually reading the letter I wrote to Fortean Times. You're making judgments based on statements that are completely out of context. Please note the following:

1. I never claimed to be the all singing all dancing *alien*. My supervisor in 1986-87 told me that he had been the cause of two (and only two) of the numerous sightings reported.

2. I never said witnesses were misidentifying Harrier jets. In my letter, I wrote "In addition, "The Uninvited", by Clive Harold, describes one of the crafts, and states that it couldn't be man-made, because it often would hover, the only movement being a gentle swaying motion, characteristics that could never be applied to an aircraft piloted by humans. This is an incorrect assumption. The Harrier VTOL jet has been used in Great Britain since 1969, and the description given is far too close to that of a Harrier to simply dismiss it and call it a UFO from out of this world." My intention was to point out that Harold's conclusion was based on a false assumption because there are crafts that are man-made and in use for many years that exactly fit the description he gives in the book. I deeply resent it when witnesses to or examiners of any paranormal phenomenon use disinformation to try and gain support for their theories. There was a news article published not too long ago that commented on statements made by a Republican Congressman that the death rate of civilians in Iraq due to violence was lower than that in many nations and much lower than in many cities in the U.S, including Washington, DC, Baltimore and Atlanta, implying thereby that many American cities are more dangerous, and that the press was was reporting only negative topics, and little or none of the improvements that have been made. What he didn't mention were the fallacies inherent in the statistics he used. The international comparisons he made were from rates taken 1998-2000, so they weren't even relevant to the discussion. As for the U.S. cities all of them had population between 4 and 500,000, while the Iraq death rate he used was based on a population for the entire country, not Baghdad. He used a population of over 26,000,000. He didn't count any Iraqi deaths that were associated to the war, or of the Iraqi police forces, so his number of total deaths was just over 7,000 instead of the 12,000 plus that he should have used. He neglected to mention that the civilian death rate for this year is higher than those of the past three. What he's doing is spreading disinformation in order to affect public opinion, to persuade civilians of our country that things aren't really as bad in Iraq as the press reports. Things are bad in Iraq, and they're getting worse. This kind of misleading tactic is disgusting and people should know the truth, not the warped spouting of crap that may sound good, but is still a lie. This is the same thing Harold did in his book. I never told anybody that I suspected the UFO sightings were actually of Harriers. I never saw the UFOs, so I can't speak on that; nonetheless, folks should be aware that some of the statements Harold made in his book were incomplete and wrong, and therefore qualify as disinformation. I worked in naval intelligence for 3 years, and this tactic is often used in foreign nations to affect the opinions of their population; disinformation is a war strategy, and when it's directed to Americans or to the British public, the public should be told. Harold said the UFO couldn't be man-made because it had qualities that no man-made craft could have. Well, he's wrong, and I pointed that out.

3. As far as the multiple witnesses that couldn't possibly misidentify a Harrier, we should remember that they were children 9-11 years old -- not the best witnesses in the world. In addition,there have been studies made that concluded witnesses under high levels of stress misidentify all of ther time. This is why victims of rape or witnesses to murder are often wrong, misidentifying their attackers, and sending innocent people to jail. The Supreme Court has even weighed in on the subject, listing qualifying statements setting standards to determne whether an eye-witness description is accurate or not -- unfortunately, there are still far too many misidentifications in this nation. Eye-witnesses simply don't deserve the infallibility juries normally take for granted. And the statements of multiple witnesses aged 9-11 and probably under some stress shouldn't be accepted as gospel.

Please take these points into account before concluding that my statements are ludicrous. After all, the author of the "Fortean Times" story I referred to has come out to say that my letter "adds to certain testimonies and makes sense. A few people have already admitted a hoax, and one has even said he had to jump into a hedge when a lady aimed a gun at him in his suit."

Thanks for your time.

Regards,
James Carlson
Albuquerque, NM