Because of the issues surrounding the occurrence, the Ilkley Moor alien case is one of the most contentious examples of alien abduction ever reported in the United Kingdom.
The widespread lack of confidence in extraterrestrial abductions and two damning facts proving it are at odds: the Ilkley Moor abductee was a police officer, supposed to be an experienced eyewitness, and the image of the thing he claims he encountered.
On the morning of December 1st, 1987, police officer Alan Godfrey stumbled upon the entity while crossing the Moor in the county of Yorkshire. The creature was little, humanoid, and green, according to him.
He appeared to have startled the monster, as it took off running before coming to a halt at a safe distance and maybe signaling him by bending and lifting its right arm. Godfrey had a camera with him and took a shot of the thing, which led it to flee once more, this time behind a massive rock formation.
Godfrey pursued, and as he around the rock formation, he came to a halt, speechless at what he saw. A gigantic gleaming silver domed metallic disc-shaped spaceship stood in the clearing in front of him, then it rocketed off into the sky at great speed.
If the narrative wasn’t weird enough already, it was about to get much stranger. Godfrey was unable to account for two hours following the meeting, which is a common symptom of missing time.
Second, the alien’s photo was poorly blurred, which is a common method used by hoaxers when presenting their proof. Nonetheless, Kodak Film reviewed both the photo (shown right) and the negatives, concluding that the photos had not been tampered with. The officer also noted that his compass had changed polarity, now pointing south rather than north.
The Institute of Science and Technology at the University of Manchester researched the compass. Their conclusion was that there were only two possible outcomes. Either the compass was within an extremely powerful magnetic field created by a magnet, or it was exposed to a quickly applied magnetic field or “pulsed” magnetic field created by massive quantities of energy.
I can’t locate any information on what or where that sort of environment would occur, but I’m guessing the University believed it was a remote possibility. The sort of magnet that may generate that effect was initially established, but the only models were built in Japan and were not commercially accessible at the time of the meeting.
Alan was having his own problems; he was concerned about the two hours he had lost and was having dreams that seemed to be linked to his bizarre meeting.
Godfrey decided to try hypnotic regression to fill in the gaps in his memory. At this point, I’d want to point out that, for a variety of reasons, skeptics frequently utilize this sort of testimony to disprove an abduction story.
However, the same sort of testimony has been used as proof and has resulted in people being sentenced to prison. He was able to recall now, under hypnosis, that when he came upon the silver ship in the clearing, it had levitated him up inside of it.
“With gigantic pointed ears and large black eyes….with three massive fingers, like sausages,” he described his captors as being roughly four feet tall. Godfrey was given horrifying sights of the earth’s environmental degradation after reportedly being probed by some form of “illuminating gadget.”
He was also given a set of photos that he flatly refused to talk about, claiming that he’d been sworn to silence.
