Encounter record / 1967
January 1967. Just after lunch on Studham Common, in the Chiltern Hills. A single flash of lightning. Then a group of schoolboys heading back to afternoon class. In a scrubby hollow called the Dell, Alex Butler saw a small figure standing perfectly still. About 3 ft tall. A tall, brimless hat. A forked beard. A dim greyish-blue glow. The boys ran at it. It vanished in a puff of smoke. Then it came back, three more times. From the bushes came a foreign-sounding babble of voices. Their teacher had each boy write his own account, and Flying Saucer Review sent investigators. Their report closed with a single line: "this is no ordinary fairy tale."
Studham Common lies in the Chiltern Hills of Bedfordshire, near Whipsnade Park Zoo. At its heart is a shallow valley called the Dell, thick with hawthorn, gorse and bracken. Passages wind through the scrub to a hidden clearing. The school stood about 200 yards away.