By Norman Oliver

(This article originally appeared in the BUFORA Journal, Vol 9 No1, March 1980, p21-23.)

A rather misleading title, perhaps, since there was more than one incident and not all were at Harston! It began one morning last December whilst I was looking at a report form from investigator D Stonard of a 'two-coach train ' seen at night between Wells and Cromer in Norfolk, by PC Robert Warren in October 1966. The only snags were that there was no railway and no bridge existed where the train had crossed the road.

At this point my phone rang, and by an extraordinary coincidence, the first thing I was told about was a sighting of a two-coach train without railway or bridge! Other incidents were referred to as well, and since I was shortly to be in the general area - Harston, near Cambridge - it was agreed with NIC and RIC that I should chec the reports out.

Basically, these centred around an Inn, the Old English Gentleman, at Harston, a village on the A10 some 5 miles from Cambridge, and its landlord, Michael Bradford. In the course of enquiries a large number of reports came to light, but basically, there were the following four incidents:-

This took place on an overcast, windy night in December 1978. Mr Bradford had ' put the dog out' at 1.30 am and had noticed a ' star ' to the south: this grew brighter, moved to his left, hovered, then went down at 45' behind trees 2 to 3 miles away near the village of Newton. Witness took his car and drove in the direction of the 'star's' descent. Just before Newton was reached he observed an orange glow in a stubble field to his left, and, reversing the car, got out and went through a gap in the hedge. Some 150 yards distant across the field, were two pulsating orange lights: these were 25 to 30 feet apart and about6 feet above ground level, and as one grew brighter, the other dimmed and vice versa.

After a few moments, witness began to walk towards them, but had only gone one or two paces when a very bright white light, comparable in brightness to a 150w bulb, jumped almost from under his feet. Like a tennis ball in appearance, it reached a height of about6 feet, then zigzagged towards the orange lights, disappearing between them. It was followed over a period of several minutes by about 10 other white balls from various points in the field and surrounding hedges and trees, all performing similar manoeuvres and disappearing between the orange lights.

After a ' straggler ' appeared about 15 feet above the ground, witness drove would take it overhead. Initially it [There appears to be a missing line in the original at this point!]home and returned with his wife, Gwen. The orange lights now seemed' like the front of a mouth organ '-an orange round rim with downward divisions (no actual shape was discernible around the lights)-and were duller, no longer pulsating. One white ball then came from the top of a tree, disappearing as before. Wit-nesses then returned home, the lights still there, but revisited the field the next day to estimate distances, etc.

On 1 October 1979, Mr and Mrs Bradford were driving along the B1368 towards Barley, about 10 miles from Harston at about 8.15 pm. Shortly after crossing the Cambs/Herts border they stopped, and between I and 'mile ahead of them at about eye level (the road beyond them dipped), slightly to their right, they saw what appeared to be a two-coach train. This passed in front of them as though crossing abridge over the road and continued on in a west-east direction for a short while, finally being lost to view behind trees and an embankment, but-there was no railway and no bridge!

They heard no sound (Mr Bradford was outside the car, his wife inside). The 'train' moved at about 30 mph and had an estimated length of 100feet. ' Windows' were comparatively large, taking up most of the height of the side of the ' carriages ': these' windows ' were regularly spaced, but no definite outline of the ' train' could be made out. The object was in view for about a minute altogether, and three cars passed by the witnesses at speed during this time, but none stopped.

About half-a-dozen people outside the Old English Gentleman at app 8.15pm on 29 November 1979 ' observed a' steady shape ' an near on a course that was thought to be a plane, but as it flew over, it was completely silent and moving very slowly-possibly as little as 25-30 mph. The craft had ' a sort of boomerang shape'-no fuselage or tail. It was 'very low down' and had the bulk of a large plane. Steady green and red lights were near the wingtips as also was a very bright white light which did not, however, seem to emit a beam: these lights appeared to cover the complete 'depth' of the craft's leading edge. Duration of the sighting was 11 to 2 minutes, during which time the object moved from south to north. Other groups of people were watching lower down the road and the craft was also reported above Cambridge.

This took place roughly three quarters of an hour after the ' boomerang' object had been seen. A phone call was made to Mr Bradford by a Foxton resident (Foxton is about 4 miles away) to say another object was heading in their direction, so a number of people went to the rear of the Old English Gentleman to watch. As it came into view, it appeared like a 'railway carriage' or a ' double-decker bus,' with illuminated windows: these were oblong, narrower at the top than the bottom and had thin 'struts' between them. Witnesses also believed a further set of lights continued around underneath, but again the object was very low down and most witnesses had more or less a side view. An estimated 100 feet in length, this object, too, was noiseless. Also slow-moving, it had a very bright white light at the front and a white light a little higher, at the rear. The police were called but arrived too late to see anything.

With the kind co-operation of Paul Markillie, science correspondent of the Cambridge Independent, it was established that:

Cambridge police had reported no local flying over the area that night-there were no flights in or out of Marshall's Airport, Cambridge. Mildenhall USAF said that units from Lakenheath and Alconbury were on a night exercise and it was possible they could have been over the area between 6 pm to 9pm, but no lights other than navigation lights would have been used. The aircraft would have been flying low, but not so low as the objects reported: nor would they have been noiseless.

RAF Honington, Met Office said that it was a clear night. The evening had been one of considerable atmospheric interference due to temperature inversion and this had caused radio and TV interference. However, it was unlikely that this would account for any visual phenomenon.

Dr David Dewhirst of the Cambridge University Institute of Astronomy took the reports seriously, adding that astronomers were probably less likely to see things in the sky since they would be concentrating on particular distant objects.

Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory stated that so far as UFO reports are concerned, they pick up radio spectra from the outer fringes of the universe, and with a focus at this distance, they are unlikely ever to pickup anything of this nature.