Beyond the Veil Magazine

The Berwyn Mountain Incident

Issue #33: September 1981

On the night of January 23, 1974, residents of the Berwyn Mountains in northeast Wales experienced something extraordinary. A massive explosion shook the ground. Strange lights appeared on the mountainside. Witnesses saw what they believed to be a crashed aircraft glowing on the slopes.

Within hours, military vehicles appeared. The area was cordoned off. And then, silence.

Seven years later, the Berwyn Mountain incident remains one of Britain’s most controversial UFO cases.

The Night

At 8:38 PM, an explosion rocked the villages surrounding the Berwyn range. Windows rattled. Animals panicked. Many believed an aircraft had crashed.

Witnesses reported a brilliant light on the mountainside, glowing white and orange. Some described it as pulsating. Others saw smaller lights moving around it.

Pat Evans, a district nurse living in Llandrillo, drove toward the mountain to offer assistance to any injured survivors. She found nothing but darkness and an intense feeling of unease. The light she had seen from a distance had vanished by the time she arrived.

Other witnesses saw military vehicles converging on the area. Helicopters flew overhead. Yet the next morning, authorities announced that nothing had been found.

Official Explanations

The government offered a prosaic explanation: an earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale had occurred at the same time as a meteor shower. The combination of shaking ground and bright meteors had created the illusion of a crash.

This explanation satisfied few. The earthquake was real and documented. But earthquakes do not glow. And while a meteor shower was occurring, individual meteors do not hover on mountainsides for extended periods.

Furthermore, witnesses were insistent that they had seen a single, stationary light, not the brief streak of a falling meteor.

The Cover-Up Theory

Those who believe something extraordinary crashed in the Berwyn Mountains point to several anomalies:

Military Response: Why did military vehicles arrive so quickly if nothing had happened? Witnesses reported convoys on roads leading to the mountain within hours of the event.

Witness Intimidation: Several witnesses claimed they were visited by officials who warned them not to speak about what they had seen. Similar reports have accompanied other alleged UFO incidents.

Restricted Access: Parts of the mountain were reportedly cordoned off for days after the incident. If nothing had happened, why the restrictions?

Silence: Unlike most emergency responses, there was no public inquiry, no search and rescue operation, no explanation for the rapid military mobilization.

The Poacher’s Account

One account, difficult to verify, comes from a man who claimed to be poaching on the mountain that night. He reported seeing military personnel loading large crates onto vehicles. The crates were unusual in shape and heavily guarded.

He fled before being discovered but later told friends he believed the military had recovered something extraordinary. His account cannot be confirmed, but it matches other fragments of testimony.

Alternative Explanations

Sceptics propose several alternatives to the UFO theory:

Bolide Meteor: A large meteor exploding in the atmosphere could produce both the light and the sound. The glow witnesses saw might have been persistent luminescence in the atmosphere.

Military Exercise: Secret military operations sometimes produce unusual phenomena. The rapid response might indicate a planned exercise gone wrong rather than an extraterrestrial visitation.

Misidentification: Under stress, human perception is unreliable. The earthquake, the meteor shower, and the darkness might have combined to create false impressions.

None of these explanations fully accounts for all witness testimony.

The Investigation

Several witnesses who were present that night have shared their accounts publicly. Their testimonies are consistent in key details: a loud explosion, a bright light on the mountain, and a rapid military response.

Geological records confirm the earthquake and astronomical records confirm the meteor shower. Both events occurred, but neither fully explains what witnesses reported.

The truth of the Berwyn Mountain incident remains elusive. Something happened on that January night. Whether it was a natural phenomenon misinterpreted, a military incident concealed, or something genuinely extraordinary, we cannot say with certainty.

But the witnesses know what they saw. And seven years later, they have not changed their stories.

Readers with information about the Berwyn Mountain incident are urgently invited to contact our research department. All correspondence will be handled confidentially.