What happened
At lunchtime on a wet Friday, a group of boys playing football at Broad Haven Primary School spotted something in the fields behind the playground: a long, shiny silver craft half hidden by trees and bushes. Some described a dome with a flashing light; six said a tall figure in a silvery suit stood beside it. Teachers waved them off, so the children marched to the village police station with a petition. On the Monday, head teacher Ralph Llewellyn separated the fifteen witnesses and had each draw what they had seen. The pictures were strikingly alike, and the originals were later sent to the Ministry of Defence. Within days the children were on national television, and the press christened the area the 'Welsh Triangle' or 'Dyfed Triangle' as further reports followed, including a hotelier's landing claim in April and a farm family's encounters at Ripperston. One of the boys, David Davies, has kept to his account into adulthood.
The official explanation
The MoD told the local MP it had no record of unusual activity, and an RAF Police enquiry, ordered discreetly in June 1977, reportedly concluded a practical joker might lie behind some reports. Researcher Hilary Evans reported in 1982, and Milford Haven Round Table member Glyn Edwards later confessed to the Western Mail, that two men in silver-lined asbestos suits staged the 'spaceman' at the Haven Fort Hotel and Ripperston Farm. Skeptics also note the children had a weekend to talk before drawing, and that RAF Brawdy's jets operated nearby.
The anomalous case
The confession covers the adult 'spaceman' episodes, not the schoolchildren. Nobody has ever admitted staging the craft in the field behind the school, and the boys never recanted. Llewellyn, who interviewed each child separately and sought a natural explanation, concluded they were not capable of a sustained, sophisticated deception, according to his school diary as quoted by historian David Clarke. Teachers and other adults reported seeing the same kind of object at the school on 17 February. When the hotelier Rosa Granville reported her landing, a squadron leader from RAF Brawdy reportedly told the owners nothing at the base could explain it and asked them to keep quiet. The MoD's internal handling was unusually guarded: the head of S4 (Air) asked RAF Police for a discreet enquiry and told them not to inform the Minister, and no final report has surfaced. Brawdy, the Aberporth rocket range and a U.S. Navy facility all lay within twenty miles.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Sources
- Close Encounters of the Playground Kind Dr David Clarke
- Did the village see aliens? Dr David Clarke (Substack)
- Broad Haven: Welsh Triangle-Broad Haven-Dyfed Triangle Wikipedia
Witness reports elsewhere
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