Robert Taylor, Dechmont Law
A Scottish forester said spiked spheres from a hovering 'dome' grabbed him before he passed out; police recorded it as an assault.
1979 CE · 55.90, -3.50 · status: unexplained
The account
On 9 November 1979 Bob Taylor came home muddy, with torn trousers and grazes, after walking his dog on Dechmont Law near Livingston. Police found ladder-shaped marks and holes at the site. It is often called the only UFO sighting to be the subject of a criminal investigation.
The sceptical view
Physician Patricia Hannaford suggested an isolated attack of temporal lobe epilepsy with hallucinations, a view shared by The Skeptic's Steve Donnelly; sceptic Steuart Campbell linked the ground marks to nearby water-authority work.
The researched reading
A sincere witness, prompt police work and marks on the ground. A medical event such as a seizure explains the experience best, but the physical details keep a real share open.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 40% | His collapse, smell, headache, thirst and later symptoms fit a temporal-lobe seizure or migraine with visual aura, which can produce structured visions and unconsciousness in someone with no previous history. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 22% | Police treated it as an assault, his trousers were torn and the marks were measured soon after, which is unusual for a one-witness case. |
| Something known, misidentified | 10% | Steuart Campbell proposed that Taylor saw a mirage of Venus, which may have triggered what followed. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 10% | A ball-lightning-type event or strong electromagnetic stimulus could produce a vision and collapse; research suggests some ball-lightning reports are such induced hallucinations. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 10% | Taylor was a respected forester with no motive, but the ground marks were never shown to be unusual rather than from forestry machinery. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 4% | No weather event fits a hovering dome in the morning woods. |
| Secret human technology | 2% | Nothing points to secret technology. |
| Undetermined | 2% | The share a generic explanation had beyond what has been shown for this case: it fits many cases like this one, but has not been demonstrated for this one. |
Official position: Lothian and Borders Police investigated as an assault and found no culprit; the case remains officially unexplained.