After the UFO incident in Rendlesham Forest, Ilkley Moore became the most famous alien site in the UK. A retired British police officer named Philip Spencer never imagined that one fine morning he would run into an alien creature and capture it on his camera.
The incident took place on December 1, 1987. Early in the morning, Spencer left his home in Ilkley, saying goodbye to his wife and children to meet his father-in-law, who lived on the other side of the Moor.
Ilkley Moore is an elevated marshland and conservation area in Yorkshire, England with a remarkable bird population, hiking trails and tranquil views. There are carved boulders dating back to the Bronze Age. In addition, he is known for legends of strange creatures roaming in the dark and strange lights seen through the fog. The site is located just 21 miles from the RAF Menwith Hill military base, where UFO sightings have been repeated.
It was dark when Spencer began his journey. He had a compass to navigate through the dense fog, and a camera, hoping to capture the beautiful places of the Moor along the way. As he passed through the area called the White Wells, the ruins of an 18th century city, he was distracted by something unusual. He saw a small creature with long arms.
Surprisingly, the creature made a strange movement with its right hand, as if it was waving to Spencer, and it was this moment that he captured on his camera, before the creature disappeared behind the slopes.
Spencer said that he immediately followed the creature, but, unfortunately, lost it, but managed to see the domed spaceship, which rose from the swamp and disappeared into the sky.
Spencer was confused because everything that happened did not fit together for him. He arrived at his father-in-law’s village and was shocked to see the time on the church clock. It was already 10 o’clock in the morning, and he could not understand where he had missed two hours. He thought he was dreaming everything. But his doubts were dispelled after he processed the photographs he had taken. He was convinced of this when he saw the creature in the photograph. It was blurry, but it still existed.
The negative was later examined by various experts, and they did not find any signs of a fake. This means that Spencer took a real shot of the alien creature.
Warfadale expert Nigel Mortimer re-examined Spencer’s photograph in 1998. He said:
“I have tried to do this analysis for years. We are also trying to get other people to look into the evidence properly. It’s not just this photo – there have been reports of other phenomena in the area for years. I talked to the Americans and they told me that they consider the Ilkley incident to be the second after the Roswell incident in the US as proof of the existence of extraterrestrials.”
The oddities did not end there. After the incident, Spencer began to have strange dreams in which he saw the starry sky and strange constellations. Then he wondered what could have happened to him during the loss. UFO investigators advised him to undergo a hypnosis session. He remembered that the creature approached him before he took the photo. He said (under hypnosis):
“I’m walking in a swamp. Oh! It’s pretty windy. Lots of clouds. When I walk up to the trees, I see this little thing, I can see it, but it’s green. It’s moving towards me. Oh! I can’t move, I’m stuck! It’s still moving towards me. And I still can’t move … I’m stuck, and everything around me became unclear. I … I’m floating through the air … I want to go down! And these green things are going in front of me, and this is not Like.
I still can’t move. I go around the corner and this green thing is in front of me. Oh God, I want to duck. There … there is a big silver saucer with a door in it, and I don’t want to go in there! Everything went black … “
He recalled that creatures inside the ship had been examining him, and they had shown him a film about the catastrophe that would happen if people did not stop population growth and environmental pollution. After that, he returned to the swamp, remembering nothing about his abduction.
Philip Spencer has not earned fame or money from his story, and he is one of the few kidnapped people who has produced evidence of his meeting.
