A Bizarre Alien Encounter and UFO Abduction on the A70 Road of Scotland

On the evening of August 27, 1992, two men by the names of Garry Wood and Colin Wright set out from the south of Edinburgh, Scotland on the A70 road towards the village of Tarbrax in East Lothian. It was just a short drive through the quiet, rural countryside, and since the night was warm and clear it was a rather pleasant trip at first. As the two talked and drove on through quaint hills and fields towards their destination their conversation was interrupted by a rather strange sight ahead. There, hovering over the road ahead was a two-tiered disc-shaped object, about 30 feet in diameter, which seemed to be made of some smooth and shiny black material like obsidian. There were no doors, windows or portals visible on it, and there were no lights, just that silent completely black disc inscrutably hanging in the air above. The frightened men sped out of there as fast as they could, and as they passed directly under the mysterious object there was a flickering, shimmering curtain of light that fell down around them and they lost consciousness. And so would begin one of the weirdest alien abduction cases Scotland, and indeed the world, has ever seen.

When they next came to their senses, they were startled to find themselves still in the car as it veered out of control off of the side of the road to come to a stop. The two men sat there for a moment trying to figure out just what had just happened and trying to pull themselves together, before continuing on their way in a perplexed state. When they reached their destination they were in for another shock when they looked at the time and saw that a full 2 hours had passed, which was impossible because it was typically only a 15 to 30-minute drive. They could not figure out where the missing time had gone no matter how hard they tried, and they both agreed that the only thing they could remember was that strange black disk and its glimmering wall of light. They tried to just rationalize it as tiredness and put it out of their minds, but things were about to get very weird, indeed.

The following day, Garry woke to find himself completely fatigued, with barely even the energy to get out of bed. His entire body felt heavy, and this continued on for the next few days, along with nightly nightmares that he could not remember upon waking. Additionally, he began getting strong migraine headaches, and thinking there was something seriously wrong with him he went to a doctor, but they could find nothing physically wrong with him. He then began to suspect that his physical condition was somehow related to the strange experience he and Colin had had out on that lonely stretch of road. He thought that maybe there was something hidden in those two hours of missing time, and decided to undergo hypnotic regression in order to try to dredge up any lost memories and things would get stranger still.

After convincing Colin to go with him, the two went in and after a few sessions in which they mostly just panicked and were overcome by random images their story became clearer. They claimed that after being hit with the curtain of light their car had died on the spot, after which they had been approached by small humanoid creatures, three to each side, which opened the doors of the vehicle and put them onto two stretcher-like objects that hovered over the ground. As this was happening the witnesses had been paralyzed, their bodies racked with pain and convulsing as if they were receiving an electric shock. Garry would say of this:

I saw three creatures coming towards my car. I felt intense pain, like an electric shock. Then I was in some room. I saw these things like wee men moving about, doing something to me. I could only see up. Then this 6ft creature approached. It was white-grey in colour with a large head and dark eyes with a long, slender neck, very slim shoulders and waist. There were either ribs or folds of skin on its body. The arms were like ours, but there were four very long fingers. The little ones were about 3ft tall and seemed to do all the work while the big ones did the communication.

After this Garry’s memories remained murky at first, but Collin was able to remember being led into a circular corridor filled with a dazzling bright light, which was sterile and featureless save for a strange curved chair described as being “almost organic in shape.” He was led to the chair by one of the entities, stripped naked, and then made to sit, after which he underwent some sort of medical procedure. Ufologist Brian Allan, who was one of the first to investigate the case, says of this procedure:

He was stripped naked and placed unresisting in the chair and subjected to some form of non-intrusive physical examination. He also remembers lying back in the chair looking at the ceiling, it was corrugated, translucent, there was soft, diffused lighting filtering through. This memory segued seamlessly into being naked in a transparent container made from material rather like glass or Perspex; straps at the feet and ankles secured him. Outside the container, he could clearly see other men and women, all naked and all in transparent containers like his. Blowing around outside the container was a mist rather like the ‘fog’ created by dry ice for stage and film visual effects. He also saw a number of tall, humanoid creatures, one was standing framed in a doorway opposite him, and another three were approaching the container in which he was imprisoned. Abruptly the transparent material of his container began to frost up, he became alarmed and began to weep, no sooner had he done this than the frosting began to retreat, almost like film sequence running in reverse, until the material was once again perfectly clear. Colin nervously watched as an angular device rose from the floor. It was long and thin, like a rod with a small triangular head; two glowing red lights were set into one of the sides. There was a peculiar appendage about halfway along the length of the device and the base was jointed at the floor. The entire machine moved up and down continuously and the appendage swung from left to right; although there was no pain, Colin thought it might be scanning him.

The examination seemed to be mostly harmless and noninvasive at first, but this would change when another device approached his eye and began some sort of frightening procedure, all as strange and sinister entities lurked about. Colin would say under hypnosis of his surreal experience at the time:

Something’s in my right eye. I don’t know, it’s uncomfortable, like a red hot poker in the center of my eye, it’s really sore. I can’t see anything with that eye. I’m trying to get a good look at the thing, the thing that’s doing this to me to me. Just took it out of my eye, my right eye’s really burning, my eye’s really watering, it’s gushing. It felt like there was something clamped on it, that there was something going into my eye. Something’s looking at me back in the corridor, it’s…it was…ahhh…it’s ugly. It’s ugly and it’s lurking in that corridor, it comes and goes, it seems ancient to me. Ugly…it’s really badly deformed, I’m not scared of it anymore. It seems that this thing has been in a fight and it’s the loser. I think it’s trying to manipulate me. I don’t know, I think I’m pissing it off because I’m not scared anymore. I’m laughing at it, it’s weird it’s away. I can hear a noise behind me, I can’t think of a word to describe it. I’m staring at a wee one. A wee creature, it’s not very happy with me, I don’t think I was supposed to look behind my chair for some reason. It’s looking at me with those black eyes but I’ll not give in. It’s trying to outstare me. It’s away; I don’t think it was very pleased with me. It just doesn’t want me to see what is behind me for some reason. If I try to do anything they’ll come round the corner and stop me. I keep wanting to get out of the chair but I bet it will be a big mistake.

As Garry’s own hypnosis sessions continued, his memory gradually became sharper, and he largely described the same sort of experience. In his case he remembered waking up a flat table, with some sort of “black, lens-shaped device” that was twisting and turning in the center of the room making a whooshing noise. As he looked around the otherwise featureless room, a long, thin translucent arm then extended over his chest towards his head, after which it suddenly dropped onto his chest. While this was going on there was a strange buzzing noise pervading his skull and he felt that he was being watched and studied by an object on the wall. After this, things would take a deep turn into the bizarre. He would explain of what happened in an interview with Allan:

It’s hard to…it’s…something took up the full width of my ear, it was buzzing, like interference, it was the full width of my mind and it was buzzing. There was this thing on the other side like a flap and there were two eyes on it. In this place, there was like an object up on the wall and it was watching me and it was something horrible, I didn’t know what it was. Aye, yes, the black lens thing, about seven feet wide and it was the shape of a black eye and there were four packs, one there and there. They were like, you know how you get a box of chocolates and some have lines on then the packs, they were like that? They were making this object fold in on itself like a black liquid and it would start spinning around and making a perfect ‘whooshing noise’. I’m used to listening to engines running and this was a perfect noise, a perfect like whooshing noise. It was like it was all off balance then spot on like it was running perfect. They turned me around again and there was like a circular hole in the floor and there was a gel-like substance like wallpaper paste, a clear gel and I saw something moving in it and one of these creatures climbed out of the gel. At this point I jumped out of the hypnosis. Now, some of these creatures looked like…they were bruised and had to be in this gel stuff, you know if you’re in the water, it’s a good shock absorber say you were in a liquid it was in a vacuum. In a liquid you could move in dimensional arcs without being splattered, you know? I think this gel stuff was something to do with that.

I was taken to this place and I saw these things. I saw these things like they were really, really thin and they had a funny shaped head and there were lots of them and they kept coming towards me, bending on themselves and going away. Now, this place I was in, it was like a red mist and these things were swimming in the red mist and all these things kept coming, big ones and wee ones and they were all looking at me and then they were like, you know, an eel would do and they were all coming up looking. They would fold back on themselves and head away. I think these things; you know how you get tadpoles and frogs? Well. I think these things were these bigger things, the tall things.

Allan would add some more details to the situation, saying:

In all, Wood remembers there being around 20 or 30 creatures present, the majority tall, pallid grey color, and frail-looking. One notable variation from this was a smaller, rather bizarre looking being with an odd heart-shaped face. On its face were some strangely familiar markings, these comprised colored facial stripes, three, diagonally on each cheek. These were reminiscent of the tribal markings normally associated with members of the Native American tribes. He looked at the creatures and mentally ‘asked’, “Why are you doing this”. The answer that appeared in his mind was surprising and not a little disturbing, one word: “Sanctuary”.

While he was in telepathic communication with the creature he was able to ‘see’ fragments of its existence as if the process was a two-way street, the creature found this amusing but could not prevent it. In a further mental communication the being ‘said,’ “In many ways you are more advanced than us but you have been ‘capped’. Our existence is much like your own, we also have concerns and needs”. Just what ‘capped’ means is open to question, but it is quite given what had already been communicated that the inference was, our development either psychological, physical, or both, has been deliberately slowed down. Were we likely to present a threat to someone or were we perhaps too immature to deal with the responsibility that our development would bring? Rather like handing a child a loaded gun…perhaps.

Very bizarre, indeed. Garry would also remember other bits and pieces from his ordeal, although he wasn’t sure of the exact order of events. On one occasion he would claim that he had been in some immense stone chamber with tunnels leading off into the gloom, as well as a crying, panicked and disheveled human woman sitting on the floor sobbing as one of the entities stood next to her. The next thing he remembers is being dragged back to their car and blacking out, after which he woke to find Colin in the car with him. However, they were still not alone, and the aliens did not seem to be quite done with them. Colin would say under hypnosis:

There is a big alien in front of me doing something, my head is pounding. I don’t know if it’s giving me something or taking something out of my head. My mind goes black, then lighter, my head feels numb, it feels massive, it feels as if I’ve got a big forehead. Shooting pain, I don’t know what they have done but it’s weird, my brain feels like it’s swollen and pushing my head out like it’s going to burst. I can’t handle this, it’s stopped, it’s weird. BIg bang and a thud, then I’m back on the road. Gary’s looking at me, he’s bewildered, Garry’s asking me, did you see what I saw?”

As soon as they gathered their wits about them they took a look at the car and the area around it and found things from the vehicle strewn about. They would also notice a strange white material all over the car that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Garry would say of all of this:

After what happened, Colin and I went back looking in the area and found stuff that had been in the car, dusters, rags and bits and pieces, as if someone had been raking around in the car. After this, my car started growing a white ‘foost’, [a vernacular expression for fungus or dust] all over it. (The car was an almost new Vauxhall Astra). You know the kind of thing that develops on battery terminals, like crystallization, but all over the car. I was always at the car removing this growth, rubbing down the paintwork and repainting it. I couldn’t understand it. I know cars, it’s my job, I’m an ambulance mechanic. I thought maybe it’s bad earth, so I changed the earths but it made no difference. I tried everything but it made no difference, inside the boot, it was everywhere this white crystallization.

When the story got out it was quickly all over headlines across the globe, making it one of the most famous and bizarre cases of alien abduction Scotland had ever seen, and it has gone on to become one of the stranger alien abduction accounts there is. What was going on here? What did these entities want and was any of it ever even real at all? The two witnesses have long adamantly stood by their story, so we are left to wonder, and it is all rather a very mysterious case, indeed.