re, England. And whatever it was, it was not – as the local press claimed – a "freak thunderbolt."
Whatever happened on the night of the 12th/13th October 1987, just south of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, remains a mystery
– but it was reported in the local press as being the result of a "freak thunderbolt."
On investigation, however, it soon became apparent that this incident had not been caused by a "freak thunderbolt," nor by
any other type of natural phenomenon. Indeed, many people reported seeing at least one UFO (some claimed three) while many
more in Mansfield were woken up at 1:30 a.m. by what they described as "the sound of an explosion." Somewhat ironically,
many of those still awake were watching an old war movie on TV, The Battle of Britain. Even more ironic is the fact that,
as the "explosion" resounded, the film had just reached the point where German bombers had started to unleash their payload
on a British aerodrome! Even so, not even the Luftwaffe could be blamed for this mystery.
According to personal reports, immediately prior to the explosion household lights came on all by themselves. Other lights
(which were already on) exploded, while TV aerials were split in two. As might be expected, insurance companies were inundated
with claims for video players and TVs damaged by the so-called "thunderbolt." In one street alone forty claims were made,
although I have since discovered that a number of these property damage claims, though investigated, were never met. The
reason given was that the government's official Meteorological Office at Bracknell in Berkshire, affirmed that there was "no
weather" that night – no cloud, no wind, no rain, no lightning. And no thunderbolts. Indeed, other witnesses told
me that they remember the night being still and cloudless, thus ruling out the possibility that the damage was caused by a
thunderbolt. This fact, it seems, was seized upon by the insurance companies as a convenient loophole – "UFO damage"
was of course not included in any of the policies, not even in the small print! Thus they refused to cough up.
As local insurance sales man Mike West, who dealt with many of the insurance claims, revealed: "it just doesn't make any sense.
Every claim that I've dealt with in the last twenty-six years has been logical and reasonable but this defies reason. It
(the object) zigzagged across the sky. I spoke to one old lady who was petrified. She saw it flying straight towards her
house. It looped and double-looped and was doing other manoeuvres in the sky. Another man saw it from a distance and described
the sky as "suddenly becoming bright red."
Mr West added that, prior to this incident, he had dealt with numerous insurance claims that had come about as a result of
damage caused by lightning and/or thunderbolts. He had never witnessed a case such as this one. On some streets, he said,
windows imploded and exploded in alternate houses, a fact seized upon by one local journalist at the time who wrote: "That
was some thunderbolt!"
Some thunderbolt indeed.
Mr West concluded: "It's as if the whole area was blanketed with electromagnetic radiation.”
To add to this, a local TV and video repair man (whom I will call Bob) told me that all of the sudden the "lights started
to dim and light bulbs fused and started to pop" in his house. The following day he was flooded with calls from people whose
video and TV equipment had been damaged by the "thunderbolt." When I spoke to Bob, a former military man, he certainly came
across as a down-to-earth, level-headed person – "I’m the type of person who needs to see and measure something
before I believe it," were his precise words. Bob told me that on the night in question, just minutes before the impact,
his front door bell started to ring all by itself. Immediately following this, he said, six light bulbs fused simultaneously
and the electrical trip-switch blew. Suspecting a poltergeist – or something of that nature – he began to wonder
what on earth would happen next.
"Suddenly I heard this incredible explosion," he said, still trying to come 