Strange Places: Reality Tilt at Hockliffe

by Gloria Heather Dixon

The following case study was investigated in October 1992 by Judy Jaafar and the late
Ken Phillips and is a very significant study in relation to claims of alien abduction,
odd mists and missing time experiences. What follows is based on Judy Jaafar’s
transcript and comments about the investigation.
The Bellamy (pseudonym) family were travelling by car from Dunstable to Milton
Keynes on Saturday 8th August 1992 at 10.30am. The weather was dull, cloudy and
humid, but not raining. The family were in a good mood and the children were
singing Beatles’ songs in the back. Mr. Bellamy remarked that his daughter was
“murdering” the song. Just prior to this, Mr. B. had swerved to avoid a car driving
straight towards him on the wrong side of the road at the Hockliffe junction. Both
parents mentioned this more than once,

as if it were important. Perhaps there is an
underlying significance.

They continued on up the hill after Hockliffe, and found themselves in a sudden
torrential downpour, which they both felt was in some way unusual. At this point a
bank of mist or fog suddenly appeared in front of the car (Mrs. B did not see this) and
the husband had no option but to drive straight into it. On being asked by me whether
he had seen the mist from some distance, Mr. B. said no, and that it had just suddenly
appeared and that it extended all around them. Everything was quiet at this point and
there was no other traffic around (unusual for this road on a Saturday morning – Oz
factor). They have no memory of driving through the fog, or of coming out of it.
Their next memory is of driving through woods on the outskirts of Woburn Sands.
They both recollected that at this point Mr. B. had turned to his wife and remarked
that they were in “Aslan Country”. Perhaps this was a conscious expression of an
unconscious feeling on Mr. B’s part that somehow reality had shifted, as happened to
the children in harnia. (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis).
Mr. And Mrs. B. remember nothing after this until they drove into Woburn Sands
itself, about one mile further on. They both then remarked on seeing a road worker in
bright yellow doing something at a manhole cover, and then seeing two white cars
with bright headlights pointed at them, manoeuvring. Ken asked them if they felt
there was anything unusual about this, but both said no. However, this particular
small “normal” incident was discussed at least four times during the interview and I
felt at the time that Mr. B. particularly was puzzled by it. Could it be a “covermemory”
and that in fact the witnesses did not return to reality briefly in Woburn
Sands?

By this time almost eight miles of their journey had been lost (fifteen minutes
approximately). They had missed Woburn , the railway crossing at Woburn Sands
and a very busy garden-centre, all familiar landmarks to them.
After their brief memory of Woburn Sands, there was a further blank period which
lasted until they reached the Fishermead roundabout outside Milton Keynes, where
they stopped to fill up with petrol. Mr. B. remarked that when she “came-to”, her
husband seemed to be driving very fast toward the roundabout but at the same time
didn’t seem to be actually driving the car. He also maintains that he felt like he was
on autopilot, but that his awareness was elsewhere. He remarked at this point that
they hadn’t gone over the “bumps”, humps in the road, which the children liked to go
over quickly to give them a funny feeling in their stomachs.
They pulled into the petrol-station at 10.50am., twenty minutes after the start of their
journey, which is the normal time it would have taken. Both adults at this point
experienced icy-cold tingling in their heads, necks and shoulders, which was
decidedly unpleasant and uncomfortable. When Mr. B. got out of the car, he found
his co-ordination was awry, and had great difficulty in unscrewing his petrol cap and
inserting the pump nozzle. Mrs. B. couldn’t find the door handle to get out of the car.
Both adults were feeling peculiar, and “knew” that something strange had happened to
them. They realised that they had missed major features on the familiar journey.
They drove on into Milton Keynes, wondering why they had come there. The people
around them look “funny”. Mr. B. in the transcript says that her husband remarked
that all he could see were faces coming towards them. During the interview in a part
which was not transcribed, Mr. B. said that the people looked funny because he could
see no faces, and it appeared that everyone was walking away from him with their
backs towards them . Does this discrepancy have any significance? Mrs. B. at this
point speculated that they had been taken away on a flying saucer. All the family
seemed to be behaving slightly out of character, especially the youngest daughter who
was unusually quiet (5 years).
They decided to cut short their outing and come home, because they were feeling
disturbed. The feeling of unreality persisted on the return journey, and Mrs. B.
actually wondered if they had all died and were ghosts. She half-expected to find
their car in a ditch on the way back.

The children haven’t played much part in the story so far, but on the way back the
mother decided to question them. On asking them what Mummy and Daddy had been
doing all through the journey, the children replied that their parents had been totally
silent, something very unusual – except for a remark about “Aslan” and about “a man
in the road”. This silence had lasted for eight miles (15-20 minutes). The parents also
noticed that the children were unusually quiet, no bickering or squabbling and one of
them complained of a headache. The children maintained that they remembered the
whole journey, including the “bumps”, but when I specifically asked about this, Mrs.
B. stated that she didn’t believe them! Unfortunately we had no chance to speak to
the children.

There was another sudden rain shower at exactly the same spot on the way back.
On returning home, they immediately went to Mrs. B’s mother to relate their
experience and to confirm that they were ‘real’.
That night there was a terrific electrical storm. Continuous lightning went on all night
with little thunder and no rain.

The family retraced their journey the next day (Sunday) in an effort to make sense of
it, and in fact have done so several times. Also on Sunday, Mrs. B. noticed a red mark
like a burn on the back of her neck. It was diamond shaped and about one inch
square. It was painless. It was seen by her mother and a friend, and remained visible
for about one week. Also around this time, Mr. B. noticed a fairly large squareshaped
red area on his abdomen. It was an outline rather than a solid patch like his
wife’s. The mark was still visible, but faded, at the time of the interview.

Interestingly, at no point during this whole experience did the witnesses feel any fear,
only puzzlement and disorientation.
Mrs. B. was completely pre-occupied by the experience for several days, to the extent
where she felt she was neglecting her household duties. She also suffered from sleeponset
insomnia. Mr. B. recovered from the experience more rapidly, but was
sufficiently affected at the time that he (not Mrs. B.) tried to report it that same
evening.
Witness Profile collated by Judy Jaafar
I have very briefly summarised Judy’s written investigation and notes on the
background profile to this case and this follows below…
Mr. B. had never had any other strange experiences, but was obviously considerably
affected by this one and was instrumental in obtaining phone numbers to report this
incident. Both parties had the “peculiar” feeling once in a while that they shouldn’t
be telling anybody about this and that they should drop the whole thing. Judy felt this
could be significant for various reasons, which are referred to later on. Mr. B. had
little or no interest in UFOs or the paranormal and did not read any literature, but
admits to gaining some knowledge of the subject through listening to his wife’s views
on the subject.
Mrs B. presented a very different profile and Judy believes that the whole experience
is centred around her. She had also had a number of strange psychic experiences
throughout her life. She freely admitted that she is interested in UFOs and has many
books on the subject. In her report Judy wonders whether the interest is a result of her
experiences or could the UFO encounters be a result of her interest? Mrs. B. was
particularly fascinated by the ‘Janos People’ and showed the book to Judy and Ken,
therefore Judy asks whether it was a just a coincidence that she had visited the site of
this case only one week before the Hockliffe experience and whether this could have
triggered something in her mind?
Although it appeared that Mrs. B. was looking for an explanation for her experience,
Judy strongly felt that she believed she had been abducted and was hoping for them to
suggest using regression hypnosis.
Judy also comments that Mr. B. was frank and open about the experience, genuinely
puzzled but ready to laugh. In addition to this he was very open to finding a nonexotic
explanation for his experience and asked if there were other people in the same
situation. He was interested in Judy’s comments that atmospheric conditions on that
day could be an important factor and that most of what they experienced could have
been the result of their being exposed to an ionised electromagnetic field and that the
bank of mist and the phenomenal electrical discharges of that evening could well be
important, although this would not explain the marks on their bodies.
In her profile, Judy has examined the psychological aspects of this case and whilst she
accepts that all the evidence suggest that this experience was very real particularly
regarding the physical traces on their bodies and the intrinsic strangeness of the case,
she also explores the possibility that Mrs.B was actually instrumental in creating this
experience in that she was hoping for something to happen and it did happen – to her
husband as well.

Footnote:
An interesting addendum to this case study is that Judy Jaafar met up with Mr. & Mrs
Bellamy again during the time she facilitated the Witness Support Group (WSG)
together with Ken Phillips in 1993. On the first occasion in March 1993 Mrs. B.
reported having nightmares and “funny feelings” in addition to what she perceived as
an unusual observation on the same road. She also remarked that their youngest
daughter had recently been seeing shadows in her bedroom and on the stairs at night.
Judy remarks that it would be difficult to judge how much of this is ‘real’ and how
much it maybe the product of the imagination of a sensitive child, who has possibly
overheard snippets of discussion from her parents.
In September of 1993 Judy had the opportunity to meeting up with the Bellamys once
again at the WSG and Mrs. B. discussed some further strange occurrences that had
been happening to her. Once again these included strange and disturbing dreams,
some of them prophetic and some of them with a UFO/spaceship theme. Her
daughter had been sick for some time in February and had eventually been sent home
from school. Her teachers were rather concerned about the pictures she had been
drawing of funny people with pointed ears. Judy points out that this may not be
significant as imaginative eight-year-olds draw funny pictures. Mrs. B. also discussed
an old photograph with a strange face on it. This was taken in 1983 outside a holiday
home, where she experienced some very frightening events. She mentioned that there
were new faces appearing on a ten year old photographic print. This has not been
verified, although Judy and Ken did see the photograph at the time of their initial
investigation and could discern a peculiar feline face in the foliage of a tree.
However, this could most certainly be a trick of the light and shade and just an optical
illusion effect.
Conclusions
Obviously this case cannot be definitively evaluated and this experience was a
subjective one for both Mr and Mrs Bellamy perceived in their own way, but certainly
something occurred that they could not understand or explain and so moved them to
contact BUFORA in the hope of trying to identify what happened to them on the road
that day. This experience turned their lives upside-down particularly for Mrs. B who
has searched for an answer to this experience for many years. Jenny Randles has
documented this case in her excellent book Time Storms (page 73), which examines
the nature of time and space, collating some of the strangest cases from around the
world. She shows remarkable parallels where witnesses report encounters with
mysterious mists, which produce a sequence of missing time, physical and
physiological effects. These mists appear to interrupt the witness’ perception of the
flow of time producing an effect of ‘timelessness’ where all familiar sounds cease and
an unnatural stillness prevails. As a witness told me in 1995 it was like ‘one step
below silence’.