One of British ufology’s most perplexing cases occurred on a lonely dark road at around 9pm on 14 November 1976.
Forty-six-year-old Joyce Bowles was driving to collect her son. With her was a family friend, Edwin “Ted” Pratt. On a country lane near Chilcomb, the pair were nearing the isolated house that was their destination when they noticed unusual orange-red lights in the sky.
Their Mini Clubman began shaking and both considered that the vehicle might be losing contact with the road before they found themselves on the grass verge. The trip off the road had become inevitable after Joyce felt the steering lock to the point that she could no longer control the vehicle.
A hovering craft beside the road
They were shaken but unhurt. Any worries about getting the car back onto the road came second to the immediate problem. The pair were staring at a sizeable UFO hovering close to the ground, later estimating that it was only around 18 inches above it.
Both spotted three humanoid figures lined up in the windows, looking rather like unconcerned passengers on a bus.
One of the trio slowly left the craft and wandered over to the Mini. He came close, taking his time and allowing Joyce and Ted to register long blond hair, silver clothing, a notably pointed beard and very odd eyes.
They might have considered they were looking at an albino man, given the pink colour of his eyes, but the lack of pupils or irises suggested something altogether stranger.
The man, as both witnesses described him, placed his hand on the car and took a good look inside before departing.
Why the Chilcomb case stood out
In the aftermath, several strange elements of the case became the focus of discussion in the UFO community. The stopping of the car engine corresponded with a feature of cases that had been reported in previous years but was already becoming less common by 1976.
Another element landing the story firmly in the realms of high strangeness was Ted Pratt’s health. Despite having a heart condition, he experienced no ill effects from a sequence of events that was clearly terrifying. On some of the circumstantial evidence, his health might even have benefited.
Despite having some decidedly old-school elements, the story also sits on the borderline between earlier UFO reports and the alien encounter and abduction claims that became much more common in the following years.
It soon gained national notoriety because the pair were featured the following day on the local BBC South Today programme, meaning they came to the attention of the producers of a national documentary, Out of This World, eventually screened on ITV in May 1977.
BUFORA, then a large and highly active UFO research group, produced an investigation report. In the aftermath, Joyce’s life continued to feature a range of paranormal incidents, including subsequent UFO sightings and poltergeist phenomena, some of which were also witnessed by neighbours and members of her family.
