6. The “Byland Abbey Sighting”
Let us take as an example one particular “UFO case history” given credence and awesome attention in books by Vallee, Green, Trench, Desmond and Adamski, Jessup, and Thomas.
The report is an alleged “observation made in 1290 at Byland Abbey, Yorkshire, of a large silvery disk flying slowly, a classical one and [one that] can be found in a number of books” (Vallee, 1965).
Each of these authors quotes it from one of his colleagues but none has taken the precaution of checking on the “manuscript scroll that was discovered several years ago (1953) in Ampleforth Abbey in England.
After deciding to check on the “Byland Abbey sighting on 1290,” I backtracked through the various books and read the complete transcript of the “Ampleforth Abbey UFO sighting of 1290” as it is given in Desmond and Adamski’s Plying Saucers Have Landed (1953):
oves a Wilfred suseptos die Festo sanctissorum Simon is atque Judae asseverunt. Cum autum Henricus abbas gratias redditurus erat, frater guidam Joannes referebat. Tum vero omnes eccuccurerunt et ecce res grandis, circumcircularis argentea disco quodom haud dissimils, lente e super eos volans atque maciman terrorem exitans. Quo tempore Henricus abbas adultavisse (qua) de causa impius de…
“Mr. A. X. Chumley,” who supplied the information, gives the following translation:
…took the sheep from Wilfred and roast them in the feast of SS. Simon and Jude. But when Henry the Abbott was about to say grace, John, one of the brethren, came in and said there was a great portent outside. Then they all went out and LO! a large round silver thing like a disk flew slowly over them, and excited the greatest terror. Whereat Henry the Abbott immediately cried that Wilfred was an adulterer wherefore it was impious to…
Authors Desmond and Adamski comment: “What probably happened is that a flying saucer did, in fact, pass over Byland Abbey at the close of the thirteenth century and that the astute Abbott Henry seized the opportunity to admonish Wilfred for his carryings-on, and the community for their lack of piety.”
Then, in Paul Thomas’s Flying Saucers through the ages (1965), we read the following: “…in Yorkshire, a flat shining disk flew over the monastery of Byland. (Translator’s note: There are grave doubts on the genuineness of this. Two Oxford undergraduates admitted to me in 1956 that they forged this document for a joke — but there is nothing to prove that they really did so!) (emphasis–SR).
After wondering why the translator did not, in the nine years between 1956 and 1965, seek to verify the ancient manuscript by means of a visit, letter or phone call to “Ampleforth Abbey“, I began my own investigation. The British Information Service in New York verified the existence of Ampleforth Abbey, now a Benedictine College, in York, England. Then, I cabled a friend, Mr. John Haggarty, in London, and asked him to verify the existence and contents of the “Byland Abbey manuscript.” Haggarty cabled promptly:
HAVE CHECKED WITH COLLEGE STOP AMPLEFORTH DOCUMENT A HOAX PERPETRATED BY TWO SIXTH FORM BOYS IN LETTER TO TIMES (LONDON) REGARDS
Such a fabricated “UFO report” has been used for the greater glory of the new mythology in Let’s Face the Facts About Flying Saucers, (Green, 1967).
The authors have offered their own enlarged and embellished version of the “Byland Abbey sighting,” complete with some nifty, monk-type dialogue (not in the original fabrication); and some ‘inner thoughts‘ of the monks — also absent from the ‘original.’ They have even pinned the heinous crime of “sheephiding” on “Wilfred, the adulterer“:
Brother John’s Medieval Saucer
It was an early afternoon in October, A. D. 1250 (Jacques Vallee writes that it occurred in 1290), and the monks at Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, England prepared to celebrate the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude. Henry the Abbott had previously discovered that Brother Wilfred had hidden two fat sheep on the Abbey grounds. The abbot confiscated the sheep from Wilfred and their succulent carcasses were roasting over a roaring fire in the dining hall.
The brothers were in a jovial mood. “I wish thee would till the fields as willingly as thee would watch the mutton,” one said to an eager friend.
“Black bread and cheese do not compare with mutton,” answered his companion.
As the brothers assembled for their evening meal, they heard a noise in the doorway Brother John stood in the doorway with a terror-stricken look on his face.
“What happened, Brother John?” inquired the abbot.
“I was walking towards the abbey from the fields and thinking about the roast mutton dinner. A strange noise overhead scared me. I looked up in the sky. A large silver plate is up there in the sky.”
The monks forgot their dinners and dashed into the yard.
“There it is,” shouted Peter.
“Mother of God!” said a brother.
Henry the Abbott and Brother John stepped from the dining room. A giant flying disk hovered in the sky and drifted slowly in the clouds. The monks were panic-stricken. They fell to their knees with shouts of “Judgment Day“, and ” ‘tis the end of the world” punctuating their frantic prayers.
The shaken monks turned to Henry the Abbott for clarification. “What does the appearance of this mean?” they inquired.
“Wilfred is an adulterer and must be punished,” snapped the abbot.