The year 1977 is a landmark date for many people who believe in life on other planets as it is the year that witnesses say aliens came to west Wales multiple times.
What happened on February 4, 1977, and in the weeks and months following is arguably one of the most remarkable periods in Pembrokeshire's recent history.
A series of key incidents during that year led to the area being given the name The Broad Haven Triangle – a term that has remained even decades on from the reported extra-terrestrial experiences.
READ MORE: The 'UFO crash landing' in remote hills that's been called the 'Welsh Roswell'
Multiple witnesses including farmers and schoolchildren witnessed either a landed craft, an unexplained object in the sky, or 7ft-tall beings in silver suits roaming the Welsh countryside.
It has resulted in the year being known as a significant date in the diary for the local people involved in the sightings as well as within the global UFO community.
Emlyn Williams from Swansea UFO Network, which he runs with colleagues Mike Maunder and Steve Drewson, said: "Yes, 1977 was a bit of a 'flap' in UFO terms. This is where you get a geographical area where a lot of sightings take place over a short period and 1977 was the Welsh flap really – for Pembrokeshire in particular.
"If you just take each reported incident on its own merit it's pretty amazing but when you then look at the timings and the area where a lot of people were seeing a lot of things then you come to the conclusion that something definitely extraordinary was happening that year."
Most books and articles document that the first major incident of that year occurred on February 4 when 14 pupils from Broad Haven Primary claimed to have seen a UFO landing in the area.
The children were immediately separated and asked to produce drawings of what they saw and many people were, and still are, struck by the similarity of the craft that the children claim to have seen.
Since then pupil David Davies, who was 10 at the time, has described his brief encounter. Speaking to BBC Cymru Wales in 2017 he recalls seeing a silver cigar-shaped craft with a dome covering the middle third.
Although his sighting only lasted a couple of seconds, as the craft elevated above the trees and then went back down, he was transfixed in "awe and wonderment" that fought against his desire to run away.
However, on exactly the same day and so not influenced by media reports of the incident in Broad Haven, multiple school children in Hubberston near Milford Haven saw a craft hovering in the sky above the school.
Emlyn said: "Research by Peter Paget for his book The Welsh Triangle revealed that a group of 20 children at the school sighted a cigar shape hovering overhead during their lunch break [which was] also seen by an adult in the playground."
There are a number of locations within the so-called Welsh Triangle that are key to 1977 turning out to be a bumper year of unidentified sightings and encounters.
One of them was the sighting at the Grade II listed former Haven Fort Hotel located on the headland between Broad Haven and Little Haven.
At that time the hotel and home was owned and run by Rosa Granville and in 2016 her daughter Francine recalled what her mother had seen in 1977.
Francine said: "My mum Rosa was a no-nonsense sort of woman – this was very much out of character. She was not the type of person who would believe in aliens.
"It was early morning and mum was woken by a buzzing noise and she thought she'd left the gas boiler on. Once downstairs she realised the noise was from outside.
"She looked out and saw about 100ft away an oval object she could only describe as a 'spacecraft' with lights slowly land and two figures emerge in silver suits.
"She was terrified because the figures, although reminiscent of men, had exceptionally long arms and legs. Their heads were covered by helmets. She called them creatures."
Francine said where the unexplained craft landed it left a small crater in the ground which had a ridge around the outside that she says was still there decades on although now hidden beneath undergrowth.
Rosa said in a subsequent letter she wrote to her MP Nicholas Edwards that the incident left her feeling "agitated and disturbed and not the least bit desirous of another encounter".
One sighting of the silver figures might be intriguing but Emlyn said a lot of these tall silver-suited humanoids were seen at the time.
The hotel is just one location that figures during this mysterious period in Pembrokeshire's history.
Another central location is Ripperston farm, owned by Billy and Pauline Coombes, who over the years experienced a number of mysterious incidents.
Emlyn said: "The couple were watching the TV at about 10pm and suddenly they were terrified by the aspect of a 7ft-tall silver-suited being with a black face standing at the window looking in. The top of its head was above the height of the top of the window.
"They phoned the police. They came and they found there was a rose bush in the garden and it was scorched – a heat source had been there."
Other incidents the Coombes family claim to have endured was Pauline, her mum, and the children being chased by an orb of light while in the car travelling home that resulted in the car completely cutting out.
Another sighting of a silver humanoid, again in 1977, was in Milford Haven and this one reportedly hovered in the air for 25 minutes.
Emlyn said: "It was a guy called Cyril John, a local councillor, and he was getting up early to get the train to London and he noticed a light shining into his bedroom window.
"When he looked out he saw a grey egg-shaped object with a bright orange red light on the top of it about 60m away from him.
"The other object he saw was a seven or 8ft humanoid-type figure who was floating in the air like a parachutist about 30ft away and wore a silver grey boiler suit and it was motionless before both just slowly drifted away.
"Surely that would be a bit hard to hoax. And it adds credence to the other sightings of these tall humanoids, including Rosa Granville seeing many of them in her field."
Of course with every story comes scepticism, multiple explanations, and theories.
Sceptics at the time of the Broad Haven incident say the children saw a sewage lorry or farm machinery but Emlyn claims there's no way a lorry would have driven into that boggy area without getting stuck and that many of the children were from farming backgrounds and so were used to seeing plant machinery.
He says: "This guy Glyn told the Western Mail that it was him at the farm in a silver suit. Who in their right mind would put on a silver fire retardant suit and walk in the dead of night into a farmyard when he'd know farmers have got guns?"
Network colleague Mike Maunder said that 1977 was probably the most active UFO year in documented times in south Wales with a spike in February in particular with 21 reports of mainly a cigar-shaped object hovering in the sky from Bridgend to Blackwood and Penarth to Pembroke.
There have been numerous explanations put forward to discredit the multiple sightings across west Wales at that time including Ministry of Defence (MoD) activity.
Rosa's letter to her local MP prompted a call for an MoD investigation which is documented as being carried out by Flight Lieutenant Cowan, an officer from the local RAF Brawdy site.
Cowan's subsequent report mentions the possibility of a local prankster and explains away other sightings with military aircraft and farm machinery.
But while researching the Broad Haven triangle for his book The Watcher author Neil Spring uncovered documentation that includes a letter from the head of the MoD's S4 wing to the Provost Security Service, the RAF's internal police force.
The S4 chief wrote in the letter: "I have not even told the minister I am consulting you" and called for a "discreet enquiry" after expressing bewilderment at the number of apparently "level-headed" witnesses to the strange activity. Find out more about that here.
But why is 1977 such an active year and why the focus on west Wales? That's almost as much of a mystery as the UFOs and silver beings.
Mike said: "If they are aliens one theory put out there is that they were carrying out a survey of the area because of all the military activity going on in the area and that's what was interesting them."
Emlyn added: "People were saying that what people were seeing was military activity but why just in 1977?
"The people in the area were very used to seeing RAF and American planes flying over at low altitude but a lot of what was seen was low-altitude craft hovering – and why so much in that year?
"If it was the military causing it why not so much a long time before it and a long time after 1977?"
The year of 1977 might have been a vintage 12 months for the unexplained but according to the group the activity was Wales-wide and is occurring every year to this day.
They say, on average, they now get around 50 people a year contacting them about unexplained sightings across Wales.
Mike has been putting all reported sightings the group knows about on a map as well as looking at the locations of gravitational anomalies as an explanation for the activity.
The map has revealed hotspots of activity across Wales including Denbighshire, Anglesey, the South Wales Valleys, Pembrokeshire, and the Swansea Bay area including Gower peninsula.
Swansea UFO Network was set up in 2015 and organises events such as sky-watching as well as meeting monthly in the city with a guest speaker at each event. The group also investigates sightings and documents the activity from the past and present.
Emlyn said: "It's a way for people to get together – we look at the subject fairly and impartially for people to share their experiences.
"We're not trying to force the subject on people – we just get the evidence together and present it for people to make their own mind up. We're not profit-making – our monthly meetings are free to attend."
The group say they are a point of contact for witnesses who they listen to without prejudice and who can remain completely anonymous if requested.
Mike said they will always look for an earthly explanation for sightings, photos, and videos, such as lens flares, meteors, planets, or satellites.
He says: "You get to see a lot of photos and videos and you look at them and there are so many things you can explain, just like photos with lens flare. A lot of the time there are explanations – you can whittle it down to what it could be."
Mike says the group have documented more than 1,100 Welsh cases and added: "We can't say anything is extra-terrestrial – we just don't know. We document them as unexplained. But what we know about is the tip of the iceberg – most sightings go unreported. There's a lot more out there."
Emlyn estimates that between 10 and 20% of reported cases are unexplained and warrant investigating further.
With so many sightings worldwide now investigated in TV documentaries, and videos and photos being shared widely via social media, the number of people who have experienced an unexplained encounter and are coming forward is growing.
But coupled with countries such as the USA releasing footage of their Navy fighter jets recording videos of high-speed unidentified flying craft is there a growing fear of the unknown too?
Emlyn doesn't think there is a need to panic. He said: "They don't pose a threat. These things have been around well before we were, I think – well, some of them at least.
"There's a researcher called Timothy Good, he's a veteran UFO researcher, who says that the Earth is, and has been, visited by about 45 species, all with maybe different agendas.
"They're not all working together – in fact there's evidence that some of them are in conflict with each other. It does smack of science fiction when you say it but maybe they are already amongst us?
"There's stuff being seen still to this day that defies logic, defies physics, and defies any knowledge.
"The evidence is there – you just have to look for it."
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