Case file · Close encounter
Angus Brooks, Moigns Down
A retired airline administrator sheltering from a gale on the Dorset coast watched a translucent craft with movable 'girders' hover for over twenty minutes.
1967 CE · 50.64, -2.33 · status: account
The account
On 26 October 1967 Angus Brooks saw a 25 ft disc with fuselage-like arms that rearranged into a cross and spun, before the craft left to the north-east.
The sceptical view
The account rests on one witness.
The researched reading
A careful lone witness and an official optical explanation he disputed. A visual artefact is the leading answer, but the account is detailed enough to leave doubt.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 40% | The MoD team interviewed him and proposed a vitreous floater in an eye that had had a corneal graft, perhaps elaborated during a doze in the gale; Brooks rejected this, but floaters can appear as structured shapes. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 22% | A detailed, 22-minute observation by a sober former airline administrator, of an object holding still in a Force 8 wind, is hard to explain conventionally. |
| Something known, misidentified | 16% | The MoD also suggested a vapour trail; an aircraft or balloon seen against cloud could explain part of it. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 8% | Brooks sought no gain and stood by his account; invention is unlikely but cannot be excluded for a single witness. |
| Secret human technology | 6% | Nearby military establishments (Winfrith, Portland) were suggested, but nothing hovers in a gale. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 4% | Cloud forms in high wind can look structured but do not hold still. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 4% | No known phenomenon matches a structured, translucent craft. |
Official position: The Ministry of Defence concluded he probably saw a vitreous floater in his eye, possibly combined with a vapour trail and a dream-like state.