1983: The Alfred Burtoo Encounter

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THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTING REPORT

Date: August 12, 1983

Sighting Time: 0115A

Day/Night:

Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, United Kingdom

Urban or Rural: Urban

Entity Type: Humanoid

Entity Description: They were about four foot high, dressed in pale green coveralls from head to foot,” Burtoo told reporters. “And they had helmets of the same colour with a visor that was blacked out.”

Hynek Classification: CE-III (Close Encounter III) Close observation with animate beings associated with the object.

Duration:

No. of Object(s):  1 Disc Shaped UFO and 2 Humanoid Beings

Size of Object(s):

Distance to Object(s):

Shape of Object(s): Disc

Color of Object(s):

Number of Witnesses: Single

Source: CJ website Original Source Thomas E Bullard UFO Abductions The Measure of The Mystery

Summary/Description: Alfred Burtoo was fishing along an isolated canal when a disc-shaped UFO landed nearby. The beings were humanoid, 4’6″ tall, dressed in green overalls and wore helmets with visors. The beings gestured at the witness to follow them and he went up a stairway into the craft. He was made to stand under an amber light. The beings spoke to him in broken English telling him that he was too old and infirm for their purposes, he was then let go. 

Alfred Burtoo’s sketch of the craft.

Alfred Burtoo. (source: Timothy Good)

Night Fishing

As 77-year-old Alfred Burtoo was fishing the Basingstoke Canal in the peaceful early hours of the morning of August 12, 1983, he saw a brilliant light descend from the sky and settle on the nearby towpath. Thinking it must be a helicopter from the nearby MOD base, he took no notice, and poured himself a cup of tea from his Thermos flask. Then his dog, Tiny, began whining furiously and two figures emerged from the darkness.

“They were about four foot high, dressed in pale green coveralls from head to foot,” Burtoo told reporters. “And they had helmets of the same colour with a visor that was blacked out.”

The strangers gestured to Burtoo to accompany them. Calmly setting down his cup of tea, the intrepid pensioner follow them along the towpath towards a saucer-shaped craft. “I was 77 and didn’t have much to lose,” he later explained.

Inside the Saucer

Climbing up a set of steps into the saucer, Burtoo discovered that the ceiling was so low he had to stoop. He found himself inside a black, metallic octagonal chamber, which smelt slightly of decaying meat.

“I did not see any signs of nuts or bolts, nor did I see any seams where the object had been put together,” he recalled. “What did interest me most of all was a shaft that rose up from the floor to the ceiling. The shaft was about four feet in circumference, and on the right-hand side stood two forms similar to those that walked along the towpath with me.”

One of the beings told the old man to stand beneath an orange light, which appeared to scan him for a few minutes. “What is your age?” asked the entity, in a “sing-song” voice which sounded like “a mixture of Chinese and Russian”. When he replied that he was 78, it declared: “You can go. You are too old and infirm for our purposes.” Bemused, Burtoo climbed down from the saucer and returned to his fishing spot.

“The first thing I did…was to pick up my cold cup of tea and drink it,” he recalled. “And then I heard this whining noise, just as if an electric generator was starting up, and this thing lifted up then took off at a very high speed.”

Apparently unfazed by his bizarre encounter, Burtoo resumed the task at hand. “I got into what I had come out for – the fishing!” Despite his rather curt reception, he later declared his nocturnal adventure to have been “the greatest experience of my life”.

References
Jenny Randles: Alien Contact: The First 50 Years, p102.
Timothy Good: Beyond Top Secret, pp 87-93.