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In the 1960s and early 1970s Warminster became the centre of a UFO flap. Interestingly, the Warminster phenomenon began not with unidentified objects but with unidentified sounds; which is, perhaps, why the phenomenon came to be labelled the 'Thing'.
The genesis of the Warminster UFO phenomenon is described in Arthur Shuttlewood's The Warminster Mystery. Shuttlewood was a journalist with the Warminster Journal, the local newspaper. It was through this position that Shuttlewood first came into contact with the phenomenon.
The date on which the Warminster phenomenon started is a moot point. Flying Saucer Review reported that, in November 1961, four witnesses near Warminster witnessed a UFO leaving a trail of sparks. Two of the events reported by Shuttlewood in The Warminster Mystery as occurring in 1965 are also reported by Shuttlewood, in the Warminster Journal in December 1965, as having occurred in 1963 and 1964.
The mythological history of the Warminster phenomenon, however, began early on Christmas morning, 1964. A number of witnesses were awoken by strange sounds, variously described as like twigs or leaves were being drawn across a roof, or a chimney being crashed to the ground, or like roof tiles being forcefully rattled around. The sounds were witnessed in one case by as many as thirty individuals. Perhaps the strangest was that witnessed at 6.12 that morning by Mrs Marjorie Bye, who was walking to the Holy Communion Service at Christ Church in Warminster. As she approached the church the air about her filled with strange sounds that she found disturbing, and made her feel weak and unable to move. These unidentified noises continued on an ad hoc basis until at least June 1966. Roughly nine cases are described in The Warminster Mystery in which the only unusual phenomena are noises. Over the course of time this "noise" phenomenon receded and the visual phenomenon took its place to become the most important element of the Warminster phenomenon; the Warminster Thing became a UFO.
In the 1960s and early 1970s Warminster became the centre of a UFO flap that, at the time, was unprecedented in the UK.
The Warminster phenomenon began not with unidentified objects but with unidentified sounds; which is, perhaps, why the phenomenon came to be labelled the 'Thing'.[10]
The genesis of the Warminster UFO phenomenon is described in Arthur Shuttlewood's The Warminster Mystery. Shuttlewood was a journalist with the Warminster Journal, the local newspaper. It was through this position that Shuttlewood first came into contact with the phenomenon.
The date on which the Warminster phenomenon started is a moot point. Flying Saucer Review reported that, in November 1961, four witnesses near Warminster witnessed a UFO leaving a trail of sparks.[11] Two of the events reported by Shuttlewood in The Warminster Mystery as occurring in 1965 are also reported by Shuttlewood, in the Warminster Journal in December 1965, as having occurred in 1963 and 1964