Warminster and "the Thing"
The account
An invisible presence, nicknamed "the Thing", made strange noises and lit up the sky over the small town.
What investigators found
There is no physical evidence; the reports were amplified by the press, and the books that made the case famous have disputed dates and details.
The story
On Christmas 1964, residents of Warminster, an English country town next to Army training grounds, began reporting strange noises coming from the sky. Reports of lights and objects followed over the next months. Journalist Arthur Shuttlewood gathered the accounts and handed a photo taken by a local man to the Daily Mirror, which made the phenomenon, nicknamed "the Thing", famous across the country. In 1966, the BBC made a documentary about the town.
Shuttlewood wrote several books and organized night skywatches. Researchers noted that his books were more sensational than the original news reports and found at least one sighting with the wrong date. For skeptics, Warminster shows how the press can feed a wave of sightings.