DECHMONT LAW

Opening

At about 10 a.m. on 9 November 1979, Robert "Bob" Taylor, a 60-year-old forester with the Livingston Development Corporation, parked his truck near Dechmont Law, a hill outside Livingston in West Lothian, and walked his red setter, Lara, up a path into a newly planted clearing. He said a dark dome about 20 feet across was hovering there.

Two smaller spheres, spiked like sea mines, rolled toward him, caught his trousers and pulled him toward it. There was a choking smell like burning brakes, and he blacked out. When he came round the dome was gone. He couldn't start his truck, so he walked home, torn and muddy, and his wife called a doctor and the police. The police recorded it as an assault.

Timeline

9 November 1979, about 10 a.mTaylor enters the clearing and sees the dome: dark, with a rough texture like sandpaper and a rim with what looked like small propellers.

Minutes laterThe two spiked spheres grab his clothes. The smell, then unconsciousness. He wakes on the ground.

Late morningHe walks home to Broomyknowe Drive. Mary Taylor sees his torn clothes and grazes on his chin and thighs, and calls the doctor and the police.

The same dayPolice visit the clearing with him. They find two ladder-shaped tracks where he placed the dome, and about forty small holes around them where he said the spheres had been. Officers photograph the marks. His torn trousers are sent for forensic examination.

January 1992A commemorative plaque is put up near the site.

2007Taylor dies. He had told the same story for 28 years.

Key figures

Bob Taylor was a forestry worker with years of experience in those woods and no interest in publicity.

Mary Taylor was the first to see him afterwards and the one who called the police.

Detective Constable Ian Wark of Lothian and Borders Police led the investigation.

Steuart Campbell, a Scottish sceptic, proposed the leading natural explanation.

Physical and documentary trail

The trail: the police assault file, photographs of the ground marks, the forensic report on the trousers, and Taylor's statements. That makes it the only UFO case in Britain investigated as a crime.

Still missing: any trace of the dome itself, any other witness, and anything in the forensic work that tied the tears to a particular object.

Things you might not know

• It was logged as common assault. As far as anyone knows, it is the only UFO sighting that became a criminal investigation.
• The truck wouldn't start. Taylor said he tried to drive home, failed, and walked instead.
• There's a UFO trail. The site now has a monument and a UFO trail through Deans.
• The holes matched his story. The forty shallow holes surrounded the tracks where he said the spiked spheres had bounced and rolled.
• Venus is a suspect. Steuart Campbell argued Taylor saw a mirage of Venus and suffered a seizure.

Competing explanations

A real encounter. A sober, ordinary man, torn clothing, grazes and marks in the ground that police took seriously enough to treat as a crime scene.

A medical event. Researchers have suggested temporal lobe epilepsy, a mini-stroke, or exposure to chemicals, any of which could cause a vivid hallucination, a strange smell and a collapse. None of them explains the marks on its own.

A misidentified ordinary object. Campbell's Venus mirage, or a nearby water tower seen in odd light, combined with a fall.

Later life of the case

Dechmont Law is Scotland's best-known UFO case and still draws visitors to the trail.

Finding

A respected forester came home hurt, the police found marks where he said the objects had been, and they treated it as an assault. A medical episode explains the blackout and the smell, but not neatly the marks or the torn trousers. The account can't be tested beyond what police recorded that day.

What still will not resolve: what made the ladder tracks and the forty holes in that clearing.