THE LUFOINREGISTER

Published by The Leicestershire UFO Research Society (Est. 1971)

Edited by Graham Hall & Jeff Lord

Report Review

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Expanded Sighting Report Data - Selected Cases

-1971-

CASE /COMPUTER REF: 51-71-21.

THE BELCHARS BAR CAR STOP

Geo. C1. Tuesday, May 25^th., 1971 . Belchars Bar, Leicestershire.

22;45. Hours
SK408 080.
Close Encounter of the First Kind with Auto stop and

Associated effects.

The witness involved in the Belchars Bar incident was Mrs. Eunice Rose of Hinckley. Aged 36 at the time, she is a housewife who has three children of her own, and who is also a foster mother. She stated that she has read no books or magazines about UFOs and has no knowledge of other incidents similar to her own. During an interview at her home on Sunday, May 30^th., 1971, she was found to be puzzled, but eager to learn the true nature of the things she had experienced.

The incident

On the evening of May 25^th., 1971, Mrs. Rose had been visiting friends at the village of Odstone, near Ibstock, and at 10.45 p.m. she drove away from their house in her 1956 Austin A30 car to return to Hinckley. The weather was not good, and she recalled that at the time it had just stopped raining.

She was travelling along the country road between Odstone and the Junction with the A447 at Belchar’s Bar when, about half a mile from the junction , she saw, through the windscreen, a large glowing light directly ahead of her, but still some distance away. At first she thought it was the headlights of a lorry coming towards her, but no vehicle passed, and she wondered if there was a car in a ditch with its lights shining upwards. However, she came across nothing like that, and thought no more about it. It was after she had turned right towards Hinckley at the Belchar’s Bar Junction that she realised something strange was happening.

Mrs. Rose had driven only about 100 yards in the new direction when her transistor radio, which had been operating independently of the car, began to fade. She turned up the volume, but this had no effect, and the sound died away completely.

She then noticed that the car’s headlights, which were switched to full beam, had dimmed considerably and that the vehicle, which should still have been accelerating away from the Belchar’s Bar junction, was gradually losing power. At the same time she became aware of the close proximity of a large light to her left out of her passenger window. Although at this time she was depressing the accelerator pedal, the engine would not respond normally, but continually “coughed” and “spluttered” until the car came to a stop just past the junction with the road to Nailstone Grange.

The engine did not cut out completely. “It was running very slowly and unevenly”, said Mrs. Rose,“and when I pressed the accelerator pedal, the engine just coughed and sputtered again. I was confused. I could see this light to my left out of the front passenger window and my first reaction was to reach for my cigarettes-lying on the front passenger seat. It was then that I noticed that the whole interior of the car was gradually becoming lit up”.

She said that the light was extremely close, about 30 yards away, and was moving quite slowly towards her. As the light moved closer to her the interior of the car became increasingly brighter; the light then moved directly above her car. At that point she maintains that she could clearly see her cigarette packet, and on glancing about her Mrs. Rose saw that the area around the car was very strongly bathed in what she likened to moonlight but much brighter. The time by then was estimated by Mrs. Rose to be approximately 10.50 p.m.

At no time during the incident did the witness notice any change of temperature in the car, nor did she smell any unusual odour.

As the light moved over her and away to her right, she noticed how the interior of the car, and other features such as the hedge at the side of the road, were gradually lost again to the darkness, but she could not see any beam of light extending down from the light, nor did it appear to cast any glow onto the countryside as it moved away. “It just emitted a light which seemed which seemed to light up me and the immediate surrounding area as it went over me, but it didn’t appear to light up everything else as it went over everything else. Whether this was just the fact that I was beneath it . . .?”

Mrs. Rose described the light , (as she persistently termed it!), as being like a flat circular disc and of moonlight colour over all. Describing it further, she said it was “saucer-shaped” and like a “huge plate shape”. It was of solid appearance and had a well defined shape, but there were no markings or any noticeable projections. On drawing it she could only sketch the shape.

At first she had difficulty in assessing its size and compared it to a huge Moon. However, when comparing its height above the ground to something a little higher than that of a nearby tree, (approx. 36 feet), she conceded that the disc, from that height, would have covered the entire width of the road from hedgerow to hedgerow. (approx. 15 yards).

The “disc” moved slowly and smoothly, and at no time was any sound audible above that of the car’s engine which was continually running. It was estimated to have moved 100 yards away over a field to Mrs. Rose’s right before the headlights and the transistor radio began to pick up again. When she again depressed the accelerator pedal, the engine coughed and sputtered few times, then responded normally. “Time seemed to stand still” said Mrs. R, “but I recall that when the radio started to fade, a record on the ‘Night Ride’ program was just beginning. When the radio came back on, the same record was just finishing. When the light moved away to my right I lit a cigarette, of which I had smoked about half by the time the radio, headlights, and the performance of the engine, returned to normal”.

Once the car was operating again she resumed her driving, and although a little nervous she had no difficulty in operating the vehicle. As she drove away she occasionally glanced over her shoulder as the light which was soon lost to sight moving towards the southwest. She agreed that she was a little frightened, and at the point when the light moved directly above her car, she did experience the chilling sensation of the hair on the back of her neck bristling up, but said she was by no means terrified.

All that Mrs. Rose wanted then was to get home as quickly as possible, to have an explanation for what she saw, or to hear from anyone who might have witnessed anything similar that night. There were no other vehicles on the road at the time, in fact she could not recall seeing another vehicle along the same route until she arrived at Hinckley. “ I think the first vehicle I saw was when I got to Lathams Garage in Hinckley, when I had to stop at a junction to let a lorry go by. I was in a hurry but I wouldn’t risk nipping in front of him”.

ABOVE LEFT: BELCHARS BAR JUNCTION - Mrs. R’s 1956 Austin A30 car, at the point where it came to a halt in the road. - RIGHT: Investigator G. Coxon’s own map of sighting area showing path taken by witness with ‘C’ showing the point at which witness’s car came to a stop and the path taken by the object.

From Mrs. Rose’s description of its flight path, the light should have moved close to , and almost parallel to a row of houses at Belchar’s Bar which were aligned along the road to Nailstone Grange. Checks at these and other houses established that at the time of the incident, the occupants were either at work, watching T.V., or had retired to bed. None of them however had seen anything unusual, or noticed any flickering or dimming of the house lights, nor had they noticed interference with the T.V.

Again, from the description of the flight path, the light, if it had kept to the same course, should also have passed over the neighbouring villages of Odstone, Congerstone, and Twycross. After a restless night, Mrs. Rose next day telephoned Mr. and Mrs. George E of Odstone, the friends whom she had visited that night, to find out whether they had seen anything unusual. She learned that a few minutes after she had left, Terry E, their 10-year old son, had seen a light through his bedroom window which he assumed to be a car approaching up the drive. He told his mother, but no car arrived.

CASE/COMPUTER REF: 51/71/21 - Associated Media Item:

May 25^th., 1971 - Mystery Object seen - The Leicester Mercury.

A mysterious light in the sky near Ibstock terrified a young Hinckley housewife as she drove alone in a car along the main Ashby to Hinckley Road. Now, Mrs. Eunice Rose, of Hinckley, wonders if anyone else saw a mystery object in the sky. 1t was, she said, about the size of a Double Decker bus and passed above her car moving in the direction of Oddstone and lighting up the countryside. The frightening feature of the incident for Mrs. Rose was that as the object went over the engine of her car began to fade out. All the car lights including the headlamps were dimmed and a transistor radio that was playing in the car at the time faded out completely for a few minutes. "'I was so frightened that I could feel the hair on the back of my neck bristling up," Mrs. Rose said. " I am not the sort of person who believes in unidentified flying objects. There must be an explanation for what happened and I should like to know what it is and also if anyone else saw this incident.” Mrs. Rose had been visiting friends at Oddstone and left to drive back to Hinckley at 10.50 p.m. As she went along the country road from Oddstone to join the main road at Belchar's Bar, she saw a glow in the sky in the direction of Ibstock and at first thought it could be the headlights of a ditched car shining up into the sky. The glow persisted, and it was after she had turned right on the main road and was driving towards Hinckley that the bright object crossed the road approximately above her car. (51/71/21). (7).