Alien Assault In The UK? Why This UFO Sighting Was Investigated By Police 40 Years Ago

Sightings of UFOs have not exactly been rarities in the last several decades but one incident from the U.K. was unlike many others.

When Robert Taylor of Livingston reported his alleged encounter with a craft from another world in 1979, it became one of the few UFO cases to be investigated by the police.

In this case, authorities treated the rips on Taylor’s pants as physical evidence of a potential criminal assault. Taylor, a forestry worker who was 61 at the time, told investigators that he was checking on fences near Dechmont Woods at approximately 10:30 a.m. when he claimed to have encountered a dome-shaped craft in a clearing. He further claimed the objects covered in spikes came out of the craft and tried to grab him, making a smell like burning rubber.

Taylor regained consciousness sometime later and saw that the craft was gone, having left a strange pattern on the forest floor. After he arrived home in a rattled state, police were called and soon began to investigate a potential assault case.

Detective Constable Ian Wark, an investigator on the case, confirmed to the BBC that he found the strange pattern on the forest floor, compared them to the tracks often left by the treads of bulldozers. Wark was unable to match the tracks to anything at Taylor’s employer, the Livingston Development Corporation, and could not find similar marking anywhere nearby.

“These marks just arrived,” Wark said. “They did not come from anywhere or go anywhere. They just arrived as though a helicopter or something had landed from the sky.”

Police were ultimately unable to determine what had happened to Taylor. Forensic analysis at the time determined that the rips in his pants appeared to be caused by hook-like instruments pulling up. The pants are now owned by Malcolm Robinson, a Ufologist.

Taylor, who died in 2007, was considered to be an upstanding member of his community, regularly attending church and abstaining from alcohol. Those around him had no doubt that his belief in the event was sincere and over the years he never changed his story.