Full Report by Carolyn Buckley
On the night of Sunday 28th February / Monday 1st March 1999, strange lights were allegedly seen to land on waste ground at Dog Wood in Knutsford, Cheshire. Was this one of the biggest UFO landing cases of the century, an elaborate hoax by some sinister organisation or just a bizarre attempt to make some fast money? BUFOSC looks at the evidence.
Eric Morris, founder of the British UFO Studies Centre (BUFOSC), received a telephone call at 12.30pm on 1st March 1999 from Caroline Sutton, a clerical worker from Southport, claiming that she and her companion Graham Wenham, a driver from Northampton, had seen three or four mysterious lights the previous night over Dog Wood in Knutsford, Cheshire. She said that these anomalies were sighted from the window of room 204, at the Royal George Hotel in Knutsford town centre. Ms Sutton alleged that these lights had hovered above the trees, getting lower and slower, were bright and star-shaped, and landed on the ground. A local newspaper, the Knutsford Guardian, had taken photographs of Caroline and Graham at the "landing site", and they seemed elated by this. An article regarding this incident was to appear on 3rd April.
Eric became suspicious when Caroline mentioned that the sky was clear on the night in question, as he had borrowed a video camera to record aircraft from the nearby town of Northwich (to show their similarity to triangular UFOs) and did not have any luck due to there being thick, low-lying cloud. However, he arranged to meet the two "witnesses" that evening, along with Irene Dale and Sarah Cardwell of BUFOSC in the bar of the Royal George hotel. From there, they went over to Dog Wood, with torches. In the darkness, all that could be seen was flattened scrubland, along with broken stalks growing vertically from the ground. Due to rainy weather conditions and lack of visibility due to darkness, they agreed to meet there again the following day.
At 2.40pm on 2nd March, Eric, Graham, Caroline and Sarah met at Dog Wood. It was, indeed, true that there were flattened areas of undergrowth, but blackening of twigs, earlier attributed to combustion damage, turned out to be decayed due to natural decomposition. The ground was very wet and muddy, and discarded bottles at the site, both glass and plastic, showed no signs of damage. Sarah remembers Graham and Caroline talking to Eric about national daily newspapers, as if obtaining money for their story was important. They appeared to be unemotional about the whole incident.
At 9.20pm, Eric, while giving a BUFOSC lecture in Warrington, received a pager message that the lights over Knutsford had re-appeared. Irene and Sarah left the meeting, and headed off to the Moor, a public park adjacent to Dog Wood, to meet with Graham and Caroline. When they arrived, they were informed that the lights had gone. However, Irene and Sarah remarked that they later saw white lights overhead, moving quickly in a 'beam' formation. Other lights joined these, in a 'v' shape, and camera flashes seemed to bring these lights closer. Unfortunately, when Eric, Dave and BUFOSC members Barry and Diane turned up some time later, all that appeared to be visible was fast-moving cloud, along with stars.
On the 3rd March, Eric had borrowed a Geiger counter from a local college, but this turned out to be a model that needed a static power source, and was therefore of no use. Graham Wenham, in Eric's words, "appeared mortified". Dave Kelly of BUFOSC met Eric and Graham at Knutsford on this occasion. Graham was heard to mention writing a book and contacting the newspapers, and seemed to want to "force" a conclusion out of BUFOSC. Eric made the following remark: "I told him matter-of-factly that investigations were in the early stages, and that it would be a long time before any conclusions could be reached." Graham seemed to be disappointed, saying in front of several witnesses that Caroline had financial difficulties. He also mentioned (none of us at BUFOSC have any idea why he deemed this as relevant) he was in love with Caroline, but all she wanted was friendship. "All very soul-searching," Eric commented, "but not the sort of thing one would say to UFOlogists investigating a case!"
I first became involved in proceedings on Thursday 4th March. After arriving at the usual monthly BUFOSC members' meeting in Northwich, at Eric's address, I was given some background information concerning the Knutsford incident. Dave mentioned that he had visited Dog Wood earlier that day. He had seen Graham get out of the driver's side of a red Vauxhall Corsa (this is unusual, as his car is a white Ford Sierra, and Caroline's is a blue Ford Escort) and went to Dog Wood to smoking a cigarette. I was informed by Eric that Graham Wenham and Caroline Sutton would be attending to bring a written account of events. Their behaviour seemed strange when they arrived. It was evident to most of the people in the room that Graham was trying his hardest not to laugh - hardly typical of someone who claimed to have seen UFOs just days before. Caroline made some comment about wanting to squash the head of her boss under the heel of her boot - one can only wonder why - and gave a hand-written statement, along with two drawings, to Eric. She told me she wanted to keep these, but that we were welcome to make photocopies. Caroline looked strangely familiar to some of us, and Eric mentioned later that he thought he recognised Graham. Caroline went into the kitchen, allegedly looking for one of Eric's cats, and was shortly joined by Graham, who stood with her, out of sight behind a dividing wall, whispering about something, secretively, for several minutes before they both reappeared.
I had good eye contact with Graham throughout the evening. He seemed to me as if he was not telling the truth, and appeared confident in his manner, although both he and Ms Sutton seemed eager not to be there. Caroline's body language gave me the impression that, far from being disturbed by her experiences, she seemed bored. Pages of the statement were passed around the group, briefly glanced at by all of us, and discrepancies emerged immediately. Approximate times were mentioned far too often for my liking. If I had seen anomalous lights, I would be checking my watch a heck of a lot and making a note of the time things occurred. Maybe they didn't have watches - so I checked by asking if anybody had the right time. Sure enough, Caroline looked straight at her wrist thus informing me , by her actions, that in addition to the correct time she also had a perfectly functioning watch in her possession.
My suspicions were aroused further when I asked how large the lights at Dog Wood appeared to be. Graham did not answer at all, and Caroline seemed confused and unable to give an answer. I then went on to ask her if these objects were larger or smaller than a plane. She once again seemed confused and took a long time in answering. Finally, she indicated vague, indeterminable sizes with her hands, saying that from the hotel room she could not guess how large the objects were, but that they were bigger than a plane.
Graham then produced a number of hotel bills, showing them to Eric. The reason for this was unclear, but it was ascertained that he and Caroline had stayed at The Royal George for three nights (at a total cost of one hundred and twenty six pounds), and at another establishment for two nights. Eric was suspicious when he saw a telephone bill for around thirty five pounds for the Sunday night on which the incident was alleged to have taken place. It was claimed that both Ms Sutton and Mr Wenham had been telephoning family members on the night in question. By their dress, it did not look like either of them were the type of people to afford hotel and telephone bills in excess of one hundred and sixty pounds, plus however much was spent on the accommodation during the two nights they resided in another hotel. Caroline was dressed like a student, and Graham, although tidily dressed, wore old, scruffy shoes with frayed laces - perhaps he anticipated trudging around in mud at Dog Wood before he set off from Northampton. In addition, Graham had already mentioned that Caroline had financial problems, yet the hotel was booking was in her name. A lack of funds was also indicated by the fact that they shared a packet of ten cigarettes between them.
Eric took Caroline and Graham to his computer to see if anything had appeared on the Internet about sightings of lights over Cheshire, and after about ten minutes they made their excuses and left at about 9.45pm. BUFOSC members went through the statement provided by Caroline, and noticed more odd things, such as time factors not adding up, discrepancies with what had already been told to the Knutsford Guardian and Eric Morris and also language that seemed too elaborate to be factual (the account seemed more like a story than a statement). However, the most interesting piece of evidence so far against the Dog Wood incident being genuine was the fact that Caroline mentioned taking a torch from the hotel room when she and Graham went out to investigate on 28th February. A torch in a car is understandable. A torch in a hotel room is highly suspicious.
Dot Buckley of BUFOSC, Eric Morris and I decided to make the journey to Knutsford to have a look around, and see how much of Dog Wood could be seen from the town centre. We left at 10.40pm, arriving in Knutsford twenty minutes later. After parking the car, we made our way down Princess Street towards the rear of the Royal George hotel. Caroline's car went past us, and into the hotel car park. Where had she and Graham been? After all, they should have arrived back at around 10.05pm, taking into account the twenty minute car journey from Northwich. They were certainly not in Knutsford, as everywhere in the town centre is within five minutes' walking distance of any car parking space. It is possible that they may have called in somewhere for a meal or a drink, but otherwise their movements between 9.45pm and 11pm remain a mystery. We walked past the hotel car park entrance, and are confident that Graham saw us, although he did not acknowledge our presence. However, we had not gone to Knutsford to interview either of them, merely intending to check out the local geography for our own information, so we chose a side street to venture down, rather than cutting across the car park.
As we started to make our way down to the Moor in Knutsford (an area of ground between the Royal George hotel and Dog Wood) we realised that Graham and Caroline were leaning out of the window of Room 205, where they were now staying, at the Royal George hotel. They were both laughing loudly, a strange thing to do considering that they claimed earlier on in the evening to have broken down in tears the day before. There were amused shouts of "It's mad Eric. Eric, you're a loony, come up here!" At first we declined the invitation, but then ventured up to their room to see how clear the view of Dog Wood was from the window - after all, it was right next to room 204 where they had stayed on the Sunday night. On arrival at the room, Eric noticed that there was a "no smoking" sign on the door, as indeed there was (after investigation) on the door of room 204. This seemed strange, as the "witnesses" claimed to have been smoking cigars in there on 28th February. Dot knocked on the door of room 205, and nothing happened. She knocked again, louder and we were still not acknowledged. However, we all heard the sound of stifled giggling coming from within the room. By this time, we had made up our minds that this case was almost certainly a hoax.
We descended the stairs, and made our way outside, onto the Moor. At this point we thought that the view of Dog Wood from room 204 was obscured by a large tree, but investigation at a later date proved this to be incorrect. After walking around for a while, we noticed that the reflection of street lights was visible in a lake situated on the Moor. Perhaps this could account for a sighting of orange lights. Had Graham and Caroline not exhibited strange behaviour at the hotel just minutes before, maybe we would have considered this to be misinterpretation of an explainable light source. However, they seemed to be digging themselves deeper into a hole of self-made condemnation from which there was no escape.
On our return to Eric's house, a short time later, we decided to try running a few checks on Graham Wenham and Caroline Sutton. We telephoned each of their home numbers to be greeted with the following cryptic answering machine messages:
"Hi, this is Chas. I'm out for some jiggery-pokery with Miff, but I'll be back in my box later"
"This is Miff. State your business, and if you're lucky, I'll get back to you."
Eric had a message on his answering machine, from Graham, asking him to get in contact urgently. He did this, and asked Graham why access was denied to the hotel room. He replied that no knocking was heard (which would have been impossible because Dot knocked very loudly - Eric and I can corroborate this). Graham flatly denied the "Mad Eric" comment, although three of us heard clearly what was said. Eric told him that BUFOSC suspected them to be hoaxers, to which the reaction was a very calmly spoken "I can't believe you are saying that, why do you think that?" Caroline reacted in the same manner to our theory. Surely, if they were genuine witnesses to an unexplained phenomenon, they would have responded with anger or upset.
Dot and I left Eric's house, and on my return home, I decided to look for our "witnesses" on the Internet. Referring back to the high hotel bill and lack of funds mentioned earlier, was it possible that an organisation had funded their exploits? Certain things had come to light at this point. Tim Matthews of the Lancashire UFO Society (LUFOS), who is also the BUFOSC press officer, informed Eric that he had heard there was to be a deliberate hoax in England, instigated in the USA. Eric mentioned that CSICOP debunkers use the term "not in my box" when they are unavailable. Then there was the huge telephone bill. Had Graham Wenham and Caroline Sutton brought a laptop computer with them and been on the Net all night contacting some mysterious hoax sponsor?
The result of my search proved more than a little interesting. Of Graham Wenham there was no trace, but there was a Caroline Sutton connected with the Scientific Hoaxes page of [1] Science Power Online - a creation of the Chicago Academy of Sciences who are abbreviated as CHIAS in their website address. The Caroline Sutton mentioned is the author of the book [2] 'How did they do that', and co-author, with Kevin Markey, of [3] 'More how did they do that'. Interestingly, [4] CSICOP are also mentioned on the same Scientific Hoaxes page!
Eric contacted Gill Farrington of the Knutsford Guardian the next day, and spoke to her at length about our hoax theories. Also, Sarah found yet another Caroline Sutton on the Net on her [5] home page. This one turned out to be a sociology researcher from Sweden. Over the course of the weekend, Ms Sutton and Mr Wenham checked out of the Royal George hotel (with some discrepancy occurring over the payment of their breakfast bill) and returned from whence they came. Tim Matthews (also from Caroline's home town of Southport!) interviewed Ms Sutton, who still claimed that the "sighting" in Knutsford was genuine, and also informed him, for some reason, that her maiden name was Bradley.
BUFOSC came into the possession of a list of telephone calls made by Graham and Caroline from the Royal George hotel. It turned out that they had called several national newspapers (including the Sport, the Mirror and the Sun), indicating that they were trying to sell their story. They also called a Dublin number for 48 minutes. Interestingly, a woman called Caroline Bradley along with Seamus Bradley and Terence Carmichael won the Esat Telecom Young Scientist Competition with a project entitled "Crash, Bang, Wallop", the source of this information being [6] the Institute of Physics (Irish Branch) in Dublin. Most curious of all was a series of four calls made to a truck driver from Missouri called Mike Roth. BUFOSC have [7] proof that he is who he said when we telephoned him, and that he lives, literally, in the middle of nowhere. However, he claims never to have heard of our two "witnesses."
Just to be sure, more evidence was gathered by BUFOSC. Dog Wood and the surrounding areas were visited, photographs taken, positions of natural disturbances noted, and local people interviewed. Not one local resident had seen anything on the night in question. One woman commented that planes fly very low overhead, as Knutsford is under the flight path of Manchester airport, within the area where aircraft are starting to descend as they come in to land. Another resident remarked that she saw nothing, although she would have been looking outside on that night, as most local inhabitants do, due to the large number of aircraft that can be observed.
Perhaps, more importantly, a dog walker in the area told investigators that the disturbed vegetation indicated as a "landing site" by Caroline and Graham had been in its current state for months, having been flattened by high winds. This was corroborated by a local resident. "Burned" vegetation turned out to be a (coincidentally) circular patch of ferns which had died off naturally, as this species does in Winter. Broken branches, on closer inspection, had not been damaged recently, and were probably disrupted during the high winds mentioned earlier. Clusters of broken snail shells found can be attributed to the eating habits of thrushes whose trick is to find a stone and smash snails on it until the shells break. It is quite normal to find such a grouping of feeding debris.
Local people interviewed on the Moor gave a similar response to those interviewed in and around Dog Wood, including people who would have been heading home in the direction of the alleged "sighting area" on the night in question at the appropriate time. Nothing unusual was seen by anybody at all on the night of 28th February, and one man commented that Caroline Sutton looked familiar to the local area. Flashing yellow lights were seen by one witness, but these were at a different site, Tatton Park, a week after the Dog Wood incident. BUFOSC have contacted the administrative office at Tatton Park, and are awaiting a reply with regard to this other, probably genuine, sighting. Strangely, Neither BUFOSC nor the Knutsford Guardian have had any reports whatsoever (apart from the Wenham and Sutton incident) of lights over Knutsford on 28th February. In a genuine case, we would expect a deluge of sightings.
Graham and Caroline claim to have ventured out on the night of the supposed "UFO landing" to trace the location of the lights. I personally retraced the journey allegedly taken on the 28th February, and ended up at a location known as Broad Oak Farm in Mobberley. However, nothing on the other side of Dog Wood could be seen, as Witchcote Wood, Shawheath Plantation and the trees of Dog Wood itself obscure any view whatsoever of the flattened ground where the incident in question allegedly took place.
Perhaps the most damning evidence is the statement provided by Caroline Sutton. Times mentioned contradict each other, within the statement itself, with reference to [8] times given by Graham Wenham to the Knutsford Guardian and times provided by hotel staff about the "witnesses'" return to the Royal George. It is stated that the lights were seen "from what we saw anyway over the 7/8 hour period" (sic). When Eric asked Graham how he knew that the sighting lasted for this length of time, he could not answer the question. Previously, Eric was told by Caroline that the lights were seen from 10.30pm onwards, not 11.00pm as mentioned in the statement. The Knutsford Guardian were told [9] that the sighting lasted until 3.30am, yet Caroline's written account states that lights were still visible until at least 4.00am.
It is mentioned that both Graham and Caroline had "been out down the road in a pub" (sic) and, on going to their room, "opened a bottle of wine". The fact that they had both been drinking (and, as it later emerged, had been doing so in the hotel bar between visiting a local hostelry and starting to drink wine in room 204) instantly reduces the credibility of their claims. It is also claimed by Graham Wenham that he is taking medication that, when mixed with alcohol, can cause visual disturbances, migrane-like symptoms and flashing light effects. After consuming alcohol, they then "got into Graham's car" and drove off!
The statement goes on to reveal that nine objects were seen to land at Dog Wood. However, counting these one by one in the statement indicates that ten objects were seen. Also, two drawings provided by Caroline and Graham show differing numbers and positions of lights. Eric was originally told that there were three or four lights, and [10] the original report in the Knutsford Guardian only mentions two. These drawings show lights in front of the trees (not "in amongst the trees" as Caroline says in her statement) and above the ground, not on it as indicated by the comment that these objects "touched down". In addition, it seems rather odd that nothing landed when our two "witnesses" were not watching the sky.
Caroline mentions later that "Graham got into bed, still keeping his eyes on the sky", yet in the same paragraph says that they "sat at the window with the duvet wrapped round us, freezing to death". Why, when they could see lights from the bed (which was verified after a visit by BUFOSC to room 204) were they sat at an open window in winter? Considering the time of year, it does not seem unusual that "It had began to rain" (sic), but this contradicts earlier comments to Eric Morris that the sky was definitely clear on that night, and that "we could see all the lights very clearly". Finally, what was seen by Irene and Sarah on the Tuesday night was hardly mentioned at all, with the only reference being "we also witnessed lights in the sky that were much more higher up on Tuesday 2nd march 1999, at approx 8-10 p.m." (sic). Why did Caroline not go into greater depth about this in her statement? After all, she had forty eight hours to write about this in more detail, but its importance seems to have been entirely dismissed. Also, if the first sighting of these lights was at 8.00pm, why was Eric Morris not contacted until 9.20pm?
After Caroline and Graham left Knutsford, several strange things started to happen. Tim Matthews was contacted by Caroline, who told him that she had moved to Southport with her parents when she got married in 1997, and that her maiden name was Bradley. She also stated that she was from Northampton. This did not seem relevant, so why was it even mentioned? A man telephoned Tim, firstly claiming to be a work colleague of his, then saying he was Ms Sutton's father. He stated that Caroline had never been married, and that Graham Wenham is her fiancé, also a seemingly irrelevant comment considering that Graham had earlier claimed that they were "just friends". Somebody was being economical with the truth, so Tim did some digging around for information. It turned out that [11] Caroline had been living in Southport since at least 1994 (proving her comments wrong about moving two years ago), and was married some time between April 1997 and March 1998. Her maiden name was indeed Bradley, thus disproving claims made by the man claiming to be her "father". Assorted people, claiming to know either Caroline or her family, also contacted Tim with UFO sightings at various times and locations in the North of England, and a woman claiming to be Caroline's "long lost sister" from Preston contacted the Knutsford Guardian about obtaining a copy of the articles they had printed.
By 10th March, the date of the second article in the Knutsford Guardian, our two "witnesses" had both vanished. Both Caroline and Graham had changed their telephone numbers. Caroline's house appeared to be deserted, with the curtains drawn, nobody answering the door and a stack of mail (mainly bills - perhaps this further indicates a financial motive for a hoax) stuffed into the letterbox. Graham's alleged employer in Northampton claimed never to have heard of him, and Caroline's employer stated that she was "ill", and if she wasn't genuinely sick, she would be looking for another job.
On 11th March, Eric received Graham Wenham's response to [12] a second Knutsford Guardian article which stated that BUFOSC thought the whole thing was a hoax. The following statement is quoted verbatim from a message left on Eric's answering machine (and if you are reading this, Graham, we have copies of the tape to prove it).
"Eric, me old mukker, it's your friends from Chicago. How ya doin' me old son? Erm, listen, I've got a copy of today's newspaper and, erm, we're gonna sue you for libel. So there you go me old son and happy UFO hunting! I hope you disappear up yer own F***** arse you"
Needless to say, the Knutsford Guardian printed nothing libellous whatsoever.
A recent interview with hotel employees revealed that Graham and Caroline had conferred with David of [13] the Knutsford website, asking him about the possibility of a payment for their story. One member of staff at the Royal George gave BUFOSC an interesting quote, which seems to be echoed all the way through this most intriguing case:
"ALL THEY WANTED WAS MONEY"
The last piece in this obscure jigsaw fitted into place on Sunday 4th April when Eric and I visited Knutsford to take another look at Broad Oak Farm to confirm that the flattened ground at Dog Wood could not be seen from there. We took the opportunity to make the trip there, noticing that the weather conditions were the same as on 28th February. Due to the low lying cloud, aircraft were landing from the Stockport side of nearby Manchester Airport. Lights were seen in the sky, starting off as a white pinprick of light, changing into an orange glow, then an orange star shape, descending slowly behind the trees, in the opposite direction of Knutsford. These were not UFOs, but planes. They did not land at Dog Wood.
Links
The Knutsford Incident Home Page
Amazing Coincidences
Time Discrepancies
Witness Statement
UFO Lands In Cheshire - UFO Roundup Vol 4 No 10
Sightings - Hoax Bufosc Foils Cheshire UK 'UFO Landing' Fraud
References
Email: cosmiccarrie@hotmail.com
