The Disappearing UFOs of Beattock.

Sometime in the mid-1980s I had been watching a programme about UFOs. I asked my mother if she had ever seen one. ‘No,’ she said. There was a momentary pause and then she added; ‘But your Dad has.’

Now, more surprising to me than the fact that someone I knew had seen a UFO was the added fact that it was my father. He was, and is, the most pragmatic person I have ever known, not given to fancy or speculation. In fact, if I’d had to guess his opinion concerning UFOs I would have immediately said he’d be a sceptic. For some reason, I forgot all about this revelation until three years ago (2017) when I suddenly remembered it and decided to ask him about it.

The trouble is, my father is not the most talkative or revealing of men. He would make a perfect spy and drive his captors insane as they tried to get the most trivial uncompromising information from him. He would also be perfect under questions by a lawyer if you wanted someone to reveal nothing incriminating as he never volunteers information. I’ll give you a sample of how it went.

Me: ‘You saw a UFO once?’

Him: ‘Hm.’

Me: ‘Well, did you?’

Him: ‘Aye.’

Me: ‘When was that?’

Him: ‘Don’t remember…’

Me: ‘Was it in the 70s?’

Him: ‘Around then… late 70s… or early 80s…’

Me: ‘Where were you?’

Him: ‘In the car.’

Me: ‘No… I mean, where did you see it?’

Him: ‘In the sky…’

Me: ‘No… I mean, what part of the country where you in?’

Him: ‘The Borders.’

Me: ‘Where at the Borders?’

Him: ‘Just outside Beattock.’

Me: ‘Did anybody else see it.’

Him: ‘Aye.’

The celebrated Moffat Toffee

Well, that’s enough of that. You get the picture. After some more questioning I managed to piece the information together. He and a workmate where travelling north, back to Glasgow, through Dumfries and Galloway when they saw something in the sky just outside of Beattock. Beattock is a village just south of Moffat which is famous as the home of the celebrated Moffat Toffee. Beattock Summit is the highest point on the M74. He recalls that it was dark in the early evening so he must have seen the object sometime in the late Autumn, through Winter, to early Spring. It was, he said, shaped like a VW Beetle seen from the side and glowed a white orange. It hovered for a while, zig-zagged, then disappeared. Not only did my father and his work mate see it, but so did everyone in the cars before and after them, including a police car, and they all slowed to look at it. Due to the height and distance of the object it was impossible, he said, to estimate its size. I asked him if he mentioned the sighting to anyone. ‘Your mother,’ was all he said. Had his workmate told anyone? ‘Just some of the lads at work.’ And what had they said. ‘They laughed.’

A VW Beetle seen from the side

After speaking to my father, I looked up ‘UFO Beattock’ on the internet. Within the top three listings was a report about a spate of UFO activity around Beattock in the late 1970s. There was a copy of a newspaper clipping noting the sighting. A few days ago, I was reminded of the incident again and I decided to read some more on it. I again typed ‘UFO Beattock’ into the search engine. Nothing came up. I tried every variation I could thing of, using words like Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Borders, Flying Saucers, etc. Still nothing. The item had gone the way of the UFO and disappeared into another dimension. I contacted two of the main UFO information/report sites, UFOINFO and BUFORA and asked them if they had any information. UFOINFO never got back to me and the other said:

‘I am sorry, but we would not be able to help you without a specific date and year, particularly as this could be nearly forty years ago. It also would depend on whether your father reported this to our organisation.

To convince myself I wasn’t imagining the whole episode, I asked my father about it again last night. ‘UFO…’ he said, and scratched his head looking uncertain and thoughtful. Just as I was about to suspect the Men in Black had erased his memory, that the Ultraterrestrials were out to get me, he said. ‘Hm… near Beattock.’

If anyone has any more information about UFOs over Beattock, please get in touch.