IncidentThe Broad Haven / Dyfed Incident (February 1977, Wales)

aka The Broad Haven / Dyfed Incident (February 1977, Wales)

In February 1977 a group of pupils at Broad Haven Primary School in Pembrokeshire reported a landed silver UFO and a silver-suited figure - the opening episode of the 'Dyfed Enigma' / 'Welsh Triangle' wave of 1977 - now best read as a genuine but mundane mass sighting amplified by contagion, with contested hoax, sewage-tanker, and military explanations and a quietly serious MoD/RAF Police inquiry revealed in later-released files.

under-corroborated A genuine schoolchildren's mass sighting embedded in a regional 1977 wave; consistency among the child witnesses is real but can arise from a shared mundane stimulus plus rapid contagion. Most likely a misidentified reflective vehicle/equipment and/or military activity, plus hoax elements (a silver-suited prankster) and a promoter's amplification, with a documented covert official inquiry but no verified physical evidence. Held under-corroborated.

status history (1)

2026-06-14 · new → under-corroborated — seeded 2026-06-14 — corpus-growth pass (canonical cases the record lacked)

▸ Deep dive — full timeline, named personnel, sensors, theory-by-theory analysis, and the conventional explanations weighed against the open questions →

On 4 February 1977, about fourteen pupils (aged ~9-11) at Broad Haven Primary School reported a silver, cigar/elliptical object in a field behind the school, with several describing a silver-suited humanoid; the headmaster had them draw it separately and the drawings broadly matched. It opened a regional 1977 wave (the ‘Dyfed Enigma’) including the Coombs family at Ripperston Farm, hotelier Rosa Granville’s boiler-suited figures, and parallel school sightings. Later-released MoD files (2006) show the ministry ran a confidential RAF Police inquiry in June 1977 while telling Parliament the matter had ‘no defence significance’ - and that the RAF Police leaned toward a practical joker. Competing explanations include a silver-suited prankster (Glyn Edwards claimed it in 1996, but for the humanoid sightings, not the children’s craft), a sewage tanker, dense local military activity (RAF Brawdy, Aberporth), and social contagion amplified by promoter Randall Jones Pugh. No child witness has recanted in 40+ years, and no verified physical evidence of craft exists.

Notable & intriguing

The headmaster had the ~14 child witnesses draw the object separately and the drawings broadly matched; no child witness has recanted in over 40 years.

David Clarke; BBC Wales; UFO Insight
MoD files released in 2006 show a confidential RAF Police inquiry was run in June 1977 (‘I have not even told the Minister I am consulting you’) while the public line was ‘no defence significance,’ with the RAF Police leaning toward a practical joker.

David Clarke (The UFO Files); UK National Archives (2006)

Public-record items already documented about this subject. Folklore is labelled. Sources cited where the specificity warrants it.

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