UFO Crash & Debris? Cyprus 1973

What crashed in the Troodos Mountains in 1973?

In 2005, the editor (Gary Heseltine) of UFO monthly was contacted by a former Lance Corporal of the British Army. The man's name was Tom Clark and he had a fairly intriguing story to relate. He described that way back in '73 he and 6 fellow soldiers were woken in the night by a bright blue flash in the sky. Before they'd shaken the sleep from their heads they were mustered to go and collect debris from a crash site resulting from this 'blue flash.'

Lance Corporal Tom Clark
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We had all settled in for the night in location. Everyone mentioned how clear the night was and on the millions of stars and things that could be seen. Sentries were posted, and the rest of us hunkered down for whatever sleep we could get. We were all awoken at about 2am by a brilliant, but not dazzling bluish bright light. At first we all thought it must be a helicopter looking for us or something else. What happened next is hard to explain. There was no explosion but we were all hit by what I can only describe as a shock wave that knocked us all flat to the floor! The light just
disappeared or went out.

We all took up a defensive position, believing we were under attack, and I remember being very afraid. We all must have laid there for what seemed like hours, in total silence, waiting to see what was going to happen next, we could see nothing.

According to Clark, it was shortly after that helicopters arrived and men in black clothing began bringing some equipment and took all the larger pieces from the crash site aboard the helicopters. He and his small group were detailed to scour the area for smaller debris and to return it to the men from the helicopters. None were to be kept for fear of Court Marshall...but Clark kept two pieces...

We were then all interviewed separately. I was asked to describe exactly what I had seen and done and was warned again not to discuss with anyone the events that had occurred. After our individual interviews we were all gathered together and told that we were never to divulge anything we had seen or done that day because if we did as serving members of the armed forces we could be tried for treason and shot!

All six of us were then split into different troops and platoons. I never saw our Platoon Commander or the Sergeant again, they did not return to the UK with our unit. After a week or so all six of the remaining members of the patrol were posted far and wide. The unit was moved from Ripon to a brand new barracks in Catterick.

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The story hasn't been discussed on ATS before except for one very brief thread in 2005. I'm not adding much of a commentary as I'm curious what other members think and I prefer to let Clark's words speak for themselves. The debris looks familiar to me, but I can't immediately identify it. The story has a few mentions across the internet and other than a brief flurry of media interest...it sank. The article webpages are 404 or no longer in existence.

What did Gary Heseltine think of Clark's story?

"You have to appreciate for someone to come and contact a person like me they have to be quite serious and determined to discover more about their experience. Mr Clarke has kept records, photos and gave me a very clear precise account of what happened, I doubt very much this is a fantasy or made up," he told the Sunday Mail. "I have the artefacts Mr Clarke collected from the crash site and am now looking at having them examined by experts to determine what they are or where they are from. From everything that has been described I would have to label this a UFO event. Something obviously crashed and by the response of the military it was something highly secret," he added.

Ufologie***ALLEGED UFO CRASH IN CYPRUS IN 1973


The full issue of UFOMonthly 2005 is available to download...Did a UFO crash into the side of a mountain in Cyprus in 1973? A world exclusive report!

Gary Heseltine is a familiar figure to some ATSers and has a very credible name in the subject...he's currently running the PoliceUFOs Website. He also deserves full credit for this thread, I've just brought it to ATS for new discussion.

* What happened?

* What's that material?

* Who came to collect?

* What kind of 'soundless' explosion leaves debris?

* Is it 'nothing to see here, move along?'

Kandinsky -interesting thread matey and I've got a lot of respect for PRUFOS and the work of Gary Heseltine.
I don't know about this incident (where I suspect the wreckage was terrestrial) but it seems there's been quite a few strange UFO reports from the Troodos Mountains over the years - here's a report from two years earlier involving military witnesses and photographic evidence.

UFOs filmed in Cyprus by UK Royal Marines in 1971 - case missing from official MoD release


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There was about 20 of us at this place, looking at this light, when we suddenly realise that it isn’t a flare and you say ‘well, what else can it be.’ The more you looked and the more people spoke, you couldn’t relate it to something else you’d seen, it was difficult to pin a label on. This was a massive thing. It appeared to be about the size of a golf ball at arms length. That’s the angle we were looking at (pointing 45 degrees). You had no obvious sign of movement. The main mass of light was almost spherical but it was putting out so much radiance, it looked like nothing you’d ever seen before. All it was like, was a burning ball of light. The light was extremely bright and when I’m talking about extremely bright, I’ve never seen anything as bright in my life..

Everybody on the exercise, about 1400 men, saw the light. During this period the unit, you remember, is doing a night move. As I said we had radio sets and we could hear transmissions of other people taking about the light, and at one stage the following dialogue took place between a call sign which is a unit and a commanding officer, Sunray. There was a little bit of chat about the light then Sunray said, ‘It must be a flying saucer ha ha’. There were the words he used..

All the reports were handed in, photos and negatives and quite a lot got handed in. If you’ve got 1400 blokes in the field, you’re going to have a hundred of them with cameras, aren’t you? There was a large quantity of films handed in. I would say over a hundred rolls of film.

Weeks later it was confirmed that this was a UFO. You see what happened, the first morning when the colonel asked me to get the reports, he didn’t give me a full brief. I would be responsible for running the unit and he would normally be dead straight with me. Now for some reason he had a top level meeting with his company commanders and would have discussed it with them, but he didn’t tell me the full story...

link

And here's another account of multiple radar stations reporting an unknown object travelling at 12,000 mph and making right angle turns over the area in 1958:


The Cayton UFO Files.


Cheers.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

reply to post by Kandinsky

Good find, but it doesn't seem that anomalous to me. It was probably a military test aircraft, this guy really didn't see anything that was extraterrestrial in origin. His story raises a few questions as well, I think it is missing some details?

good story but the 3rd pic looks like carpet underlay

Well it would be good to get closure on what actually happened that day but personally the fact that it has been 5 years since the article and no news of the debris analysis result leads me to think there is nothing particularly unusual here.

This may be the reason this has not had more exposure then it seems to have done unless some new data surfaces it will languish in limbo.

Sorry I have just realised that is quite a negative response but I do wish you luck in turning up some new info on this though.