The Welsh Triangle, 1977: a school, a farm and a man in a silver suit
In February 1977 a class of Pembrokeshire schoolchildren reported a silver craft behind their school. It became the most reported British flap of the decade. Part of it later acquired a confession.
Photo by Ollie Craig on Pexels
In February 1977, children at Broad Haven Primary School in Pembrokeshire reported seeing a silver, cigar-or-saucer-shaped object in the field behind the school. The headmaster, sensibly, separated them and asked each to draw what they had seen. The drawings broadly agreed.
What followed was the most sustained British UFO flap of the 1970s, running for months across south-west Wales and drawing national press.
What is documented
The school incident happened and the drawings exist. Over the following months numerous reports came from the surrounding area, including from the Ripperston Farm household, where a mother reported repeated sightings and figures in silver suits near the property.
The MoD received reports from the area and they form part of the file at The National Archives.
What was claimed
A sustained presence of craft and occupants in a small rural area over several months — landings, figures, and effects on electrical equipment and livestock.
What was added later — and what was subtracted
Years afterwards, a local man came forward to say that he had walked around the area in a silver fire-protection suit as a prank. That claim is well known and is frequently used to write the whole flap off.
It should not be. The confession, if accurate, addresses the reports of silver-suited figures around the farms. It does not address the school sighting of an object in a field, and the chronology has been disputed. A hoax that explains one strand of a case is not a hoax that explains the case.
What remains unexplained
The original school sighting. A class of children, separated and asked to draw independently, produced broadly consistent accounts of an object in a field. Nothing in the hoax material touches it.
The honest verdict is that the Welsh Triangle was a genuine local flap of uncertain cause, substantially embellished by hoaxing and press attention, with a first incident that has never been explained.
Join the discussion
Still open on this one:
- 01
Do the original 1977 drawings survive?
They are the primary evidence in the case. Their whereabouts and condition would be worth establishing while it is still possible.
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See also
Everything this piece touches
Sources
Open them and check for yourself. Where a record is public, it is linked.
The National Archives
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