Case file · Close encounter
Cedric Allingham's 'Flying Saucer from Mars'
A 1954 book by 'Cedric Allingham' told of meeting a Martian pilot near Lossiemouth, Scotland, with photographs of the craft and of the visitor walking away.
1954 CE · 57.72, -3.29 · status: hoax
The account
The author never appeared in public except through a stand-in at one lecture. Researchers later traced the book to the astronomer Patrick Moore and a friend, who had written it as a prank on believers.
The sceptical view
Allingham was fictional; Moore never admitted it but the evidence, and the friend's account, point clearly to a hoax.