ALIENS

SHIELDS CLOSEST ENCOUNTER

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As requested, readers of this site have contributed stories featuring supernatural phenomena. Researcher & Historian, and regular contributor to the site Dan Green, got in touch to pass on an interesting story he came across.

Report in The Shields Gazette 2013.

A visit to South Shields by three unexplained lights in the sky in October 1967 seemed to be very convincing as it was witnessed and recorded by policemen. But what occurred the previous year might be an even better UFO episode.

It began when a Shields resident agreed to tell her story to local newspaper The Shields Gazette in 2013 on the proviso that her identity was kept anonymous.

It was a cold night in late autumn, a black starless sky between 10-10.30pm when she and half a dozen of her girlfriends, all teens, were walking home from Harton village past Harton cemetery when they noticed a huge circular ‘flying saucer’ hovering approximately 20’ above the ground, coloured lights pulsated underneath with a humming noise.

It suddenly shot up into the air to a height of about 60-70’ staying stationary for a while then swooping down over the cemetery. Three times it repeated this climbing and ascending motion until it finally shot up into the sky disappearing in an instant.

The shaken girls stood there motionless and speechless and never said a word as they continued home. Little did they know that it appears that on the same night the unidentified aerial phenomena was also seen and witnessed by a Mr Alton, then aged 20, and his wife.

The object was first spotted as they were walking to their home near the old Westoe Colliery. It wandered slowly around the sky towards Tyne Dock where the following year the three lights above the flats were witnessed.

Disappearing from their view it was next seen 10 minutes later suddenly flying almost directly over Mr Alton. They could hear a soft humming sound as the black circular shaped craft blocked out the stars. A circular white light was centrally located on the underbelly of the craft, around the circumference was an aurora of soft, colourful light. It then flew off towards South Shields Town Hall nearby.

Mr Alton estimated it to be travelling at about 15mph and was at least 40’ diameter. They watched for about two minutes as it skimmed above the Westoe Road rooftops.

I recently contacted Mr Alton now 79 and living in Whitburn, to see if he was still clear with his story and indeed he is – there is no doubt in my mind that he is telling the absolute truth and in accurate detail.

Was this the same UFO witnessed on the same night as seen by the girls in Harton? Two remarkable close encounters begging the question, why was South Shields being visited by UFO’s during 1966 and 1967?

More revelations of supernatural phenomena will feature on this site. If you want to share your experience don’t hesitate to get in touch.

October 2025

RUSSIA’S ROSWELL – The Alien Mystery of Kapustin Yar

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Through lockdown I caught up with films on the ‘must watch’ list, one of those was Alien Autopsy, a British film released in 2006 starring Geordie duo Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. Alien Autopsy is a story of an alien recovered from a crash at Roswell, New Mexico where the autopsy was filmed.

The original footage was reported to be supplied by a US military cameraman to UK record and film producer Ray Santilli, and his business partner Gary Shoefield. Originally Santilli was in America buying Elvis memorabilia but was also offered the autopsy footage.

The original 17 minute black and white footage was released by Santilli in 1995 causing a sensation among millions of American TV viewers.

The background is that on 8 July 1947 a crash was reported in Roswell, New Mexico. A press release stated that ‘a flying disc’ had been recovered. The army retracted the statement saying it was just a weather balloon.

Thirty year later in an interview with a UFO researcher, a retired lieutenant colonel said the weather balloon was a cover story. More first hand witnesses came forward stating that extraterrestrial occupants of the craft were recovered by the military, and a cover up was put in place. Conspiracy theorists went into overdrive.

Kapustin Yar, reverse-engineering plan.

Today, noted for its highly sensitive and classified operations, Groom Lake is a secret airbase in New Mexico, USA. The facility known as Area 51 has strong connections to alien and UFO research.

If you ever find yourself in Russia and travel 600 mile south of Moscow you come to Kapustin Yar, an official rocket launch and development site, also believed to have strong UFO connections.

One year after the incident in Roswell, MIG fighter jets flying over Kapustin Yar, detected a cigar shaped object on their radar and caused it to crash.

Three bodies were found in the wreckage, two were already dead, the Soviet pilots made attempts to keep the third alive, but it passed away. The occupants were reported to be around 4 feet tall, had bluish green reptile skin, with long fingers, dark eyes and large bald heads.

Alien body in 1948 at Kapustin Yar.

Their craft is believed to have been taken inside the Kapustin Yar underground military facility where scientists undertook meticulous experiments of how the craft and its systems worked. The Russian space program, Sputnik, benefitted from the results of the tests and in 1957 launched the first satellite from Earth.

Kapustin Yar and the surrounding area has been reported to experience UFO sightings in more than any part of Russia. A second crash was reported in 1961, in the area it is reported that the human pulse rate is affected and animals won’t go near.

The KGB hold a tight grip on files featuring UFO experiences recorded by Russian military. One file has seven witnesses who observed UFO activity on 28 July 1989 over the base of Kapustin Yar. They reported that between 10.12pm and 11.55pm three flying disc shaped objects, about 5 metres in diameter with semi-circular spheres on top, hovered quietly about 200 feet above the base.

It’s been over 70 years since Roswell, in that time a whole industry has grown around the UFO incident and Area 51, that same industry might have competition from Kapustin Yar – Ant and Dec might make a film there.

Alikivi  July 2021

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS ON TYNESIDE Dan Green investigates Mysterious Tyneside

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‘There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds’.

Sang Bowie in ’72. Over the years there’s been many songs written about UFO’s and aliens. Back in the ‘50s Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman wrote The Flying Saucer which landed at no.3 in the American charts.

In the ‘60s The Byrds sung of a Mr Spaceman and in the ‘80s the Ramones ripped through Zero Zero UFO about aliens visiting earth.

Some Native American tribes believe they have gained knowledge through extra-terrestrial contact with their star ancestors. But when you find a mystery closer to home, it can add more interest.

This was the case for former South Shields resident Dan Green. Dan is a British author, broadcaster and researcher, he recently got in touch and told me some interesting stories that he researched when living in the town. One of them reminded me of an experience I had back in Summer 2013.

I was walking on South Shields beach around 6pm, above was bright blue sky with a few clouds.  I was enjoying the sun and listening to the gentle waves – my mind was just wandering.

Out of the corner of my eye and way up high, I saw a small silver disc moving slowly. I thought it might have been a plane because there is a flight path nearby. I watched the disc move slowly for a minute or two, looking around for maybe a reflection off something else in the sky.

It was silent and moving very slowly then suddenly it shot off very fast and didn’t leave a trail. What was it?

In 1988 author Dan Green wrote an article for The Shields Gazette chronicling close encounters in the town including incidents now referred to as ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’. He found that in 1967 the UK was besieged with a flurry of strange lights appearing in the skies.

The newspaper reported ‘A bus driver said he saw a cigar shaped object surrounded by a bright green glow over the coast near Brighton. Sparks were coming from its tail and for a short time it travelled parallel with the bus’.

Not to be outdone was our own South Shields, with the Gazette reporting some boys claimed to have seen a bullet shaped object hovering over Horsley Hill electricity sub-station.

One boy glanced up and saw the glowing green outline of an 8ft long cigar shaped object hovering 100 yards away – ‘It must have spotted us, cos it just shot back up into the sky’.

Below is part of Dan’s article in The Shields Gazette from 1988.

‘I was an impressionable 10 year old when the Shields Gazette popped through my letterbox with a page reading ‘UFO over Tyne Dock’.

‘On the night of October 21st 1967 residents living near the river had been invited to the spectacle of three dazzling white triangular lights stationary in the sky. They had been hanging for a full half hour before vanishing’.

‘People craned necks out of their windows to witness it, and one in particular had called the police. This enterprising fellow, later nicknamed Ronnie Rocket – took his enquiry as far as the Ministry of Defence who eventually sent him a reply that ‘Everybody had seen a weather balloon that had blown over from Liverpool!’ 

‘That October week saw more puzzling sights in the skies of Shields, as early morning workers catching the ferry viewed a host of fiery ‘Flying crosses’, and a sighting of a cigar shaped object was reported by a couple walking their dog in the Bents Park during the day’.

‘Residents in Whiteleas saw an object streaking across the sky ‘like a bullet’. The 1967 UFO flap was never given any plausible explanation, but I’m sure as hell it wasn’t a scousers balloon’.

For further information about the work of Dan Green contact –  www.dangreencodex.co.uk/

Gary Alikivi October 2019.