Police officers who may have seen UFOs in the past have usually kept quiet for fear of ridicule. Some, however, have faithfully reported their sightings.

Paul Cotton reports.

Many officers have, at one time or another, witnessed startling lights or other unusual phenomena. It's hardly surprising since we're working at times when normal people aren't. Perhaps, because of fear of derision from colleagues, many sightings go unreported. Lately, with the interest in the extraterrestrial generated by the media - not to mention the TV series, The X-Files - we can report our observations without fear of ridicule. Unfortunately, that hasn't always been the case.

PC Alan Godfrey was in his patrol car in the early hours of November 28th, 1980, at Todmorden, Lancashire, when he saw what he thought was a UFO. He wasn't particularly scared, and took time to sketch it.

Having finished his sketch, he mysteriously found himself 100 yards further down the road. His boot was split, as if he had been dragged for some distance. Deeply disturbed by the experience, he was unsure of what to do until the night after, when he heard some colleagues talking about strange lights in the sky.

He discussed his experience with a colleague who was a member of a local UFO enthusiasts' society. At his suggestion, PC Godfrey underwent a session of regressive hypnosis. In a trance, he recounted being abducted by aliens, floated into a room and laid out on a table. A bearded man and another person named Yoseph examined him intimately.

In spite of the potential damage to his reputation, PC Godfrey stuck unerringly to his story and later even wrote a book about his experience. Nonetheless, it wasn't enough to stop West Yorkshire force questioning his sanity. This led PC Godfrey to allege that there was a conspiracy against him. He left the job.

Uncannily, PC Godfrey's story had much in common with two other cases.

Patrolman Albert Schirmer was coming to the end of a routine night shift at Ashland, Nebraska in early December 1967. On mobile patrol at the outskirts of town, he suddenly got an eerie feeling that something was amiss. He drove out of the town and then saw something which he first thought was a broken down truck caught in the light of his headlamps. But on closer examination, he was able to identify it as a flying saucer with flashing lights. As he approached, it took off into the sky and disappeared.

The following morning, he experienced a bad headache and a weird buzzing in his head. A red bruise over two inches long by half an inch wide had appeared running down the back of his neck. Under hypnosis, he told the full story.

Patrolman Schirmer saw entities approaching his car, which he described as between four-and-a-half to five feet tall, muscular but wiry, with pigeon chests and eyes like cats, but Oriental. They were dressed in one-piece overalls with no zips or seams and wore belts around their waists which contained weapons.

Frightened, the patrolman reached for his gun, but was prevented from drawing it when one of them paralysed him with a bright light fired through the windscreen. He was then told to get out of the car. As they took him up a ladder into a UFO made of magnesium, with red lighting, computers, and a few chairs, he heard one of the beings say they were on Earth to extract electricity from power lines. They also let on that they were engaged in a breeding analysis programme and had used humans in recent experiments.

The story was widely reported and defended by leading UFO experts, coming on a wave of a series of sightings. The experience also had an adverse effect on Schirmer's police career. He was so traumatised by what had happened that he was no longer able to concentrate on police work and resigned.

During October 1973, a wave of UFO sightings swept the US. Police were called to a large number, and when a report of flashing lights was received at Falkville, Alabama, none other than the police chief himself responded. The report said that the lights appeared to be landing somewhere near the town and Chief Jeff Greenhaw immediately sped to the scene.

He was just outside the town when his close encounter ocurred - six feet tall, dressed in a silver suit, it stood in the middle of the road. Chief Greenhaw got out of his car, then quickly got back in and switched on the blue lights. The creature then turned and ran off down the road, with the police chief giving chase. It was estimated to have reached speeds of 40mph or more, eventually outrunning the speeding patrol car.

An experienced high-ranking officer, Chief Greenhaw lost his car, his job and his wife, through what he believed to be a campaign against him.

Deputy Sheriff Dale Spaur was not abducted by aliens but he certainly had a terrifying experience. On a warm night on April 16th, 1966, he was on patrol with his colleague, Wilbur Neff, when a woman phoned their control room to tell them she had seen what she thought was a UFO flying over Summit County, Ohio. It was apparently the size of a house.

The two officers went to the informants address, and got out of their car. They were about to put the call down to sheer hokum when they saw the UFO rising above the trees and coming for them, with a very bright glow which illuminated the area all around them. They later described it's noise as 'a sound like an electrical transformer on overload'. The UFO hovered above them and they felt intense heat, though their clothes were not burned.

The officers managed to get back into their car and called control to say that not only had they found the object, but it was hovering above them. The controller advised them to shoot. They duly advised the controller this was no toy and no joke. They were advised to follow it, which was no easy task for the object was reaching speeds of over 100mph. They kept the commentary going and another officer, Wayne Huston, joined in the chase, untill the object shot straight up in the air and disappeared.

Deputy Sheriff Spaur went back to the police station where he filed his report in great detail. In spite of having several witnesses, the deputy was ridiculed, his home life was destroyed and his health inevitably suffered. As a result, he had to leave the police force.

More recently on September 12th, 1987, two police oficers were patrolling a section of the Stockbridge bypass road which was still under construction, less than 30 miles from where PC Godfrey had his experience. They had been making regular visits to the area after two security guards had reported a strange occurence. The guards had apparently seen a hooded figure standing on an inaccesible road and had directed their car's headlights on it. The figure vanished. The men then saw what they thought was a group of children dancing around an electricity pylon. The guards approached them and they too vanished, leaving no trace in the fresh mud. They reported the incident to Deepcar police.

On that same stretch of road four days later, the two police oficers both saw a shadow circling round an area below a bridge. Three times they trained their headlights on the shadow and each time it disappeared. Shortly after, both officers heard a loud bang on the back of their police car and they saw a man dressed in white with a V on his chest staring at them.

The report says the policemen then 'removed' themselves from the scene. Around the same time, other officers reported seeing mysterious lights moving round a hillside at Lodge Moor, above the Rivlin Valley. Happily, the two Deepcar officers are still believed to be serving.

As they say, the truth is out there - you just hope you're not the only witness.

Paul Cotton is a constable with the Avon and Somerset Constabulary.

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