This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 4, Issue 4, from 1990.
Perhaps, after all, the most mysterious thing about the Scarborough Saucer Crash, is the fact that after thirty three years no one has come forward to claim responsibility for staging the ‘hoax ‘ that this event allegedly was. As far as the write r can ascertain, after such a length of time, the whole matter seems to have been settled by sundry ‘experts’ solely on the basis of what they were prepared to believe about ufological possibilities. Evidence, what there was of it, was indeterminate, and even with the ‘crashed saucer’ to work with no one seemed able to make an informed impartial judgment in the matter. As is all too frequent in ufology the investigation was apparently approached as an exercise in belief system thinking. And who is there, even these days, who can say that they would have fared any better given the kind of information available at the time.
One of the main protagonists is known to the author, and this source still insists that the actual artifact, the anomalous aeroform, that fell from on high into a field in Scarborough, a seaside resort on the East Coast of Yorkshire, is out there somewhere. Probably in the possession of the widow of the last known holder of the ‘saucer’. Her present whereabouts are unknown, but it is likely that she does not even know she has it, as it could be among her late husband’s effects, gathering dust in garage or attic. An ignominious end for a Saucer from the Stars, wouldn’t you say?
Perhaps, even at the outset, the scenario was such that even if the story were true it stood very little chance of being accepted as such. So, what really happened?
The story goes that on the evening of 21 November, 1957, a trio, composed of Mr D and two companions, were travelling in Mr D ‘s car on Silpho Moor. Now even in those far gone, and unswinging times, Silpho Moor had a certain reputation, and one is left to wonder what these three were doing there in the first place. According to my informant they were, at that time, well known local ‘tycoons’, whose reputations might have suffered a severe setback had their presence on the Moor been discovered. A writer, rejoicing in the pseudonym of Anthony Avendel (who, it is rumoured, was eventually ‘bought off’ and went on to found his own publishing company, still extant, on the proceeds) gave the three gentlemen’s names as Frank Hutton, Charles Thomas and Fred Taylor. But my informant, Mr P. Long bottom (also an alias) intimated, without categorically stating such, that these names were as suspect as his own in the context of the story of Silpho Moor. All very confusing I’m sure. But that’s ufology, and things only got worse from there on in.
As the three witnesses were driving along minding their own businesses, whatever that might have been, they espied, in the evening sky, a ‘glowing object’ which fell to the ground very near to where they were. It is noted in the Flying Saucer Review account that immediately prior to them seeing the object the car had stalled. However as it is also mentioned that they were at the time going up a steep gradient it is not really necessary to invoke ‘electromagnetic effects’ for the car ‘s sudden seizure. Cars in those days would, and often did, seize up and stall, for the most mundane of reasons. Especially when struggling up a steep gradient with a full load. The car having stopped, Mr Hutton got out and, taking a torch with him, went to find the object they had seen fall from the sky, He found that the object had fallen only a matter of forty yards or so from where the car had ground to a halt. Having located the object he hurriedly returned to the car to fetch his two companions to see what he had found. In doing so he either left a young couple, who had also been on the Moor, standing over the object; or, he passed them making their way towards it as he was returning on the trot to the car. Whatever, when he and his two friends returned to the scene of the sky crash both couple and saucer were allegedly gone. I’ll bet Mr Hutton and Co. said ‘dash it all’, or words to that effect.
Although the saucer was later recovered for the princely sum of £10 (don’t laugh – you could nigh on retire on that amount in those days), the couple who allegedly performed the saucer snatch were never named. In fact they are quite mysterious, in that they turned up out of nowhere to perform their dastardly deed on the Moor, then returned to oblivion. It is not certain that they were the ones from whom the saucer was eventually reclaimed as whoever returned the saucer did not volunteer the object, but responded to an advert for such an object that was placed by the main protagonists in the local press. So said my informant, and he should know, as it was to him Mr D brought their find for the ‘message’ it allegedly contained to be deciphered. But really, given the loss of the original, there is no real guarantee that the one returned was the one which fell upon the Moor.
All the extant accounts, and my informant, agree that the saucer which was the subject of the following investigation was shaped something like a child’s spinning top. It was 18 inches in diameter, measured nine inches through the centre, weighed 35 lbs, and was composed of the most mundane materials. It was seemingly made to such specifications as could have been duplicated, or bettered, by Terran manufacturing processes. In other words, it looked a bit ‘home made’, in more ways than one.
According to Mr Longbottom, whom I interviewed in late ’89, even in the early stages of the investigation there were ‘rumours’ of ‘D’ notices being served on the local press to stop reportage of the incident; individuals akin to the Men In Black showed up for a brief spell, and ‘poltergeist’ effects were experienced in the witnesses’ homes. Everything out of The Good Ufologists Guide to Alien Behaviour, it might seem.
As the investigation proceeded, and the saucer was broken open, there was found inside, not advanced alien automation, but a coiled copper spring or ‘tube’ into which had been stuffed a ‘copper scroll’ upon the pages of which (17 of them in all) were incised words of cosmic wisdom. Instructions as to the disposal of the scrolls were ‘ scratched’, in similar characters, on the outside of the saucer, and looked as shown here.
[PICTURE SENT SEPARATELY OF TEXT]
Well, I agree, they only look like chicken tracks really, but the ones on the ‘copper scrolls’ were eventually ‘deciphered’ by my informant after some 100 hours of work.
This ‘message’ is the most interesting part of the whole Silpho Moor affair. It purports to be from an extra-terrestrial called Ulo. What he, she, or it, had to say might have been news in those days, but from subsequent ‘alien messages’ it can now be seen that it was the same mixture as before. Avendel, whoever he was, was seemingly the most sensible of those who came in contact with the saucer, as he seemed to accept the message as ‘genuine’, but in terms of an earthbound initiative to make certain facts known. He told the press: ‘I accept this as a message, but I don’t accept that it has come from another planet. I think it was devised as a method of presenting certain ideas to the public – either by way of propaganda or advice.’
So what was it that ‘Ulo’ had to say for himself? As usual the message revolved around mankind’s unenviable ability to turn planet Earth into a Cosmic charnel house. He stated the obvious by pointing out that we are a ‘fierce’ species, a condition he blamed on our lack of a common language. He insinuated that we would not get far in space because of sudden changes in speeds and direction and other reasons, and warned us to change our ways – or else. This strange message, which contained nothing that we did not already know, and some things which our science was on the verge of disproving, should, according to those ‘hieroglyphics’ on the outside of the saucer, be only handed to a ‘philosopher’. Perhaps it lost something in the translation and what Ulo had really meant was ‘Skolar’.
Despite the expanding ludicrousness of the affair, those bone fide UFO groups which undertook investigations did so in all seriousness. Samples were sent for analysis. Statements were taken. Diagrams were made. One group even went so far as to have the damned thing ‘psychometrised’ and by this means discovered that the object was dropped from a Mercurian Scout Ship, which, having thus delivered this momentous message, went on to Yeovil. (Perhaps, after all, there is something about Yeovil that I have been missing all these years.) It was further determined that the object was driven by ‘electromagnetic propulsion’, and that it was deliberately ‘guided’ towards that particular car by a second object of much larger size (the Mercurial Scout Ship), and that it was ‘exploded’ to fall at a predetermined distance from the car. After all that it’s a wonder it got down in one piece.
My own informant, some 32 years later, was still inclined to the opinion that the object might not have been of terrestrial manufacture even though it was made of the same materials, and apparently according to the same principles of manufacture, as domestic hot water tanks. At the time the mystery eventuated it ended very much ‘you pays your money and you makes your choice’ with one of the investigating groups, with at least one member claiming alien contact, deciding to accepting the saucer as a genuine piece of extra-terrestrial hardware. While the other group, who perhaps did not benefit from Alien Advice, decided that it was a ‘hoax by person or persons unknown’. Everybody, it would seem, missed the point completely. The point is that this sort of thing is pointless. Even if the saucer and the ‘message’ had actually come from Mercury it could have been confidently ignored, and left to rust on Silpho Moor. The ‘message’ relayed nothing we did not already know, and the saucer apparently could have been cobbled together by a half-way competent plumber. If this is an example of the best that a superior alien culture can attain then they are probably best ignored, as they have nothing to offer except a kind of unconstructive puerile paranoia, and manufacturing techniques that would clearly benefit from subcontracting to Taiwan. Therefore if, in the face of all that interplanetary ineptitude, the Silpho Moor Saucer turns out to be a message from ET, then before we can all faint from the cosmological charitableness of it all perhaps we should ask ourselves ‘what’s in it for them?’, and so possibly avoid being taken for an interplanetary ride-metaphorically speaking.
In the end it is hardly likely that the Silpho Moor affair was anything but what it appears to be. Some kind of well meaning hoax by persons or persons unknown, who allowed their Atomic Anxieties to get the better of them and tried, in their own way, to do something about it, little realising that the Human Race is the way it is because that is the way it wants to be. If we really were as socially sane as all these unnaturally altruistic aliens seem to assume, we would never have started playing with Atomic Matches in a Global Gunpowder Factory in the first place. So hoax or genuine ‘Ulo’s’ Message from Mercury (and those which have followed, and are following, and will continue to follow its example) has as much chance of persuading the Human Race to eschew its present sociologically suicidal strategies, as I would have trying to persuade a lion to become a vegetarian. For better or worse we are what we are – The Ape Who Would Be God – and it is time we matured and accepted our destiny. To be Human is enough. Anything else would be too Alien.
