When Colin Saunders and his family were driving home to Hinckley, Leicestershire, on the evening of 31 March 1999, they saw a triangular UFO flying very low overhead. They were able to stop to get a better view of it for a few moments until it went from view.
Using his experience and knowledge as a draughtsman and graphic designer Colin was quickly inspired to build a 3D model of what he saw. His first attempt was stolen, along with a cassette player, from his car. He was told it looked like a professional job, with the unstated implication that the authorities or the MIB were on to him. Fortunately, he was able to build a better and more accurate model to use in lectures about his experience.
As someone with a knowledge of aviation technology he knew the craft he saw was too incredible to be anything known to human technology. As he puts it: ‘No nuts and bolts, rivets, or welding seams visible. There were no apertures, no antennas, or protrusions of any kind. It was immediately obvious to me this was not an earthly object.’
After a short autobiography and an account of the sighting, the bulk of the book is filled with more than 100 witness statements of their own triangular UFO sightings. As might be expected they range in quality and detail. The general gist is that many of these craft carry lights, are gigantic in size (larger than a football pitch), they are silent and fly slowly at a low altitude. If it was a secret stealth aircraft of any type why would it carry lights and fly so low over highly populated areas of the UK? It would certainly not be the best way to test such a craft.
Ruling out the testing of something like the TR-3B aircraft, Colin discovered there is a paranormal aspect to these sightings and some feature sightings of entities and even abductions.
A week after the sighting Colin’s household appliances suffered several electrical problems and he agreed with someone’s comment that perhaps ‘they’ followed him home and scanned it to study their reaction. Colin agreed with this and also with Budd Hopkins’ opinion that perhaps aliens had placed images in his mind. As well as further UFO sightings Colin has heard phantom footsteps when out fishing and on two occasions has felt phantom ‘bird poo’ land on his head. He even found a small scar on his body and an unusual object in his poo. He admits there might be explanations for the latter two instances, but he is convinced that the aliens use science that we do not understand.
What I do not understand is that Colin, who has a strong technical background, does not provide any context or analysis of the U.K. triangular sightings. The famous Belgian UFO wave of triangular UFOs seen between 1989 and 1990, for example, featured several examples of hoaxes and misidentifications, but instead of looking at that aspect of the reports Colin prefers to lump them together as a form of the ‘all these people cannot be mistaken’ argument. Could it be that images of triangular craft, like the Imperial Star Destroyer in the Star Wars films, or in The X-files have an influence? Or could images of secret Stealth craft often shown in the popular press, or the increasing use of drones be important factors? Such things are not considered - its aliens of course and their magical science.
Colin, like many others, was drawn into the paranormal world of aliens, aided and abetted by the likes of Budd Hopkins and believers who uncritically love tales of UFO encounters. As such this book serves as an example of how a brief UFO sighting (whether an ET ship or something much more mundane) completely changed a person’s life and world view.
- Nigel Watson
