It’s a rainy, gloomy Monday afternoon and I’m on my way to the location of a famous alien incident. I am, in fact, not somewhere mysterious and exotic, like Area 51 or that village in Brazil where the aliens allegedly came for a visit, I’m only less than an hour away from home. I’m traveling to the West Lothian town of Livingston in Scotland, a place that’s best known for its top-tier outlet shopping centre and to a lesser extent, a close encounter where local police investigated aliens as possible perpetrators of common assault.

In my first investigation, I’ll be writing background information of what happened during the Dechmont Woods Incident, I’ll then share my report of visiting the area for a bit of field research. Will I solve the mystery of what happened? No, probably not, unless I actually see the aliens there myself. But at the very least I get to test my in-person investigation chops, which I suspect may be sadly lacking. I’ll end with engaging in a little bit of wild speculation about the incident that captured imagination of UFO enthusiasts worldwide, so that you can decide for yourself what you think happened in the woods that day.

Background

The incident in question happened more than 45 years ago to a local man called Robert Taylor, a forestry worker from West Lothian, who was conducting routine woodland inspection in the Dechmont woods on November 9^th, 1979. It was a completely normal day at work for him, checking fences and gates in the woodland near his home, when he came across what looked like a spaceship in a clearing:

[I]t was a huge thing with a big round dome, a very dark grey colour and had a big flange going all the way around. I could see arms sticking out of this flange, with what I took to be blades on the top. As I stood here, two balls came out, I think they’d be about three feet in diameter, with about six spikes. And they were rolling on these spikes, they came right up beside me. I remember feeling a tug at that time and a very powerful smell, a choking sort of smell, and… that was it.

He says the objects were pulling him towards the spaceship, and that’s the last thing he remembers from before falling unconscious. He woke up about 20 minutes later, unable to talk and with a deep pain in his legs. He crawled to his truck and tried to radio for help, but he wasn’t able to. He tried to drive, but he ended up backing his truck into a ditch. He then cut through a field to walk home and came in, dishevelled, bruised and battered, telling his wife that he’d been attacked by a spaceship.

Unsurprisingly, his wife thought that he may have hit head or had been in an accident, so she phoned a doctor. The doctor came over and medically examined Robert Taylor. He had no medical history that would explain his experience, and he was in good standing with the community: he was a WWII veteran and a highly respected man who wasn’t the type to make up stories. The doctor treated his scrapes and told him to go to a nearby hospital.

Due to the state he was in, the police decided to open an investigation into the case, as they suspected that he’d been the victim of an assault. They investigated the area where the incident had occurred, and they found marks all over the ground where Robert Taylor said it had happened. They cross referenced the marks to all equipment that would have been used in the area by Taylor’s employer, the Livingston Development Corporation, but nothing matched the ladder-shaped marks and 32 deep holes that they found on the scene.

The police report said that the marks indicated that an “object of several tons had stood there but there was nothing to show that it had been driven or towed away”. Detective Constable Ian Wark, the crime scene investigator who was working on the case, said that “They [the marks] did not come from anywhere or go anywhere. They just arrived as though a helicopter or something had landed from the sky.”

Field Report:

Let me just preface this by saying that I’m sure there’s people who walk around Dechmont Law every single day and think that there’s nothing to it, it’s absolutely fine, it’s just a woodland behind a school. They probably go there to walk their dog or stretch their legs after work, maybe the local young team gather there in the evenings to smoke a bit of the devil’s lettuce. I suspect it’s a perfectly fine place to visit, unless you’re someone like me.

For my Dechmont Law visit, I had roped in my investigative partner, a life-long sceptic and a scientist, and we found ourselves in Livingston on a particularly sullen-looking day. It had been raining for a good while, so when we finally drove over, it was close to getting darker and the weather was still suitably dull and grey for a late afternoon UFO expedition. However, this is Scotland in March – if I’d only go out on bright, sunny days, I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

We pulled up to the parking lot behind Dechmont Woods, and I found myself fearing that I’ve put my long-suffering partner at risk. There is a chance that we, too, would have a close encounter, and I doubt there’s much that the extraterrestrials would like to pick my brain on. I turn to my more intelligent counterpart and share my disclaimer,  “I just want you to know that you might get abducted by aliens. If they grab one of us, it’s definitely you, and I don’t want to put you out there without you knowing the risks.” Somehow, he remained unfazed.

Our first stop was the sign that’s close to the car park that tells you where the UFO trail is. You can see that the UFO history of this place isn’t anything they wanted to keep under wraps, there’s a UFO trail, there’s signs, it was even the site of the first ever plaque to commemorate a UFO incident in the UK. I applaud Livingston’s ability to make the most out of its strange history and I dare suspect the potential of UFO enthusiast visitor money may have something to do with it.

At this stage, everything was still mellow, there was even a few people around. Before getting into the actual woods, the open part of the walk is discernibly normal, even enjoyable. But once we were actually in the wooded area, I have to admit I was creeped out. There was an almost otherworldly feel to it. Some of the tree trunks were bright-green and covered with moss that made them look more unusual and there were a few spectacular-looking but spooky trees in the area. I walked past one and it creaked, which scared me so much that I inadvertently yelped “OKAY!”

The clearing itself looked unassuming, but the vibes were a little bit better than they were on the walk there. Maybe it was having a bit more open space around you. But that’s not to say I felt entirely relaxed, because I didn’t – I quickly took some photos and then told my companion that we should get a move on, it’s getting dark. Then came the journey to the car, which felt a bit unsettling.

I always avoid looking deep into a forest when I’m out for a walk because whatever happens there is none of my business, but I avoided it even harder here. Whenever I glanced sideways, I always thought I saw a shadow, so it was eyes strictly on the trail while I half-run and try to casually discuss lasagne. The thinking there was that if I don’t see the aliens and am only a normal lady who is most definitely not aware of any alien activity in the area and is only concerned with lasagne, they’ll have no reason whatsoever to abduct me – it makes perfect sense to me, but I’m not sure if it would convince an alien.

Throughout our whole expedition in Dechmont Woods, my investigative partner was, of course, cool as a cucumber, if not bordering on giddy. I was fighting my impulses to high tail it every single second, all the while he was making fun of me for only being able to give one-word answers. At one stage, I hissed stop laughing at me at him. He didn’t stop, he laughed at that, too. But he did admit in the car that it was a spooky little woodland.

It’s hard to know why there’s something so creepy about it. It’s not exactly remote – it’s nestled between a golf course and a motorway, and Livingstone isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere either. It’s situated between Glasgow and Edinburgh and it wasn’t my first time there because of the aforementioned outlet shopping centre in the area, which is great – if you come for the aliens, you should definitely stay for the discounts. But something felt uneasy about Dechmont Woods. I think the spookiness of that place is ever-present, the eeriness of it just seeped from the atmosphere.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The reason why the Dechmont Law Incident is so fascinating is because it has something that many UFO cases lack: physical evidence. There were injuries corroborated by witnesses and doctors, there were marks in the ground that were investigated by police, there was tears on his clothing that investigators found had occurred from being pulled upwards, and there was proper investigation into what had happened.

And then there’s Robert Taylor himself: a teetotaller, a war veteran, a man who was respected in his community. He had no history of physical or mental illness and he was sober and clear-headed when the incident occurred. He had no reason to lie, and even the police believed something happened to him. I don’t think even the staunchest critics claim that it was a hoax. He wasn’t someone who wanted to be thrust into the limelight, although he did do a few interviews about it. I’m sure he could have done many more if he’d wanted to.

So then, what was it? There have been myriad theories on what exactly might have happened to Robert Taylor on that fateful day in the woods, with some of them being credible, sound reasoning, while others sound even more unbelievable than an alien visitation.

The first theories are the obvious ones, suggesting that Robert Taylor had some sort of a medical incident that caused him to hallucinate a flying saucer and pass out. One doctor said that he had a one-time temporal lobe epileptic incident that was caused by him having meningitis some years before, while others said it could have been a mini-stroke. But those theories don’t explain everything: Det Con Wark said he could otherwise go along with the theory that Robert Taylor had had an epileptic fit that made him hallucinate, “But what about the marks on the ground?” 

Some have explained them with pipes being stored in the area, or with agricultural machinery being used there, but that seems like a police investigation could have found that out. Someone would know that items or machinery were stored in the area, or that there was equipment being used there. I guess that still leaves space for there being some sort of an illicit operation, but that doesn’t explain how there was nothing leading up to the marks.

And then there’s the oddball stuff, like one UFO debunker suggesting that Robert Taylor saw a nearby water tower and started hallucinating from the chemicals that were emitted from it. Another suggests that he saw an astronomical mirage of the planet Venus. A few have also suggested that he was poisoned by plants in the area and hallucinated as a result of ingesting something, either orally or through his skin. But none of the theories have been able to explain everything that happened.

So that leaves us with a final question: was there some sort of a military facility nearby? Of course there was, there always is – it’s a mighty coincidence that strange flying object sightings always happen near places where there’s military presence, who are arguably the most likely culprit to be testing any sort of secret flying machines. Perhaps something went wrong and Robert Taylor stumbled upon something he shouldn’t have seen.

Realistically, though, we have no way of saying for certain what happened to Robert Taylor. The physical evidence indicates that something was in those woods and something made contact with him, but what that is, we don’t know. I would imagine that it was terrifying. As much as I’ve been keeping this light-hearted, I do feel for the man who was just trying to do his job, but who ended up witnessing something that no one can explain.

Conclusion

Crazily enough, I did not manage to find anything to provide an answer to the mystery that has plagued my fellow UFO nutters for almost 50 years. However, there’s a few things I can say for certain:

1. Those woods are creepy as hell and I wouldn’t like to be there in the dark. I barely liked to be there when it wasn’t dark.
2. I don’t believe Robert Taylor was running some sort of a lifelong UFO hoax. I think he genuinely believed what he was saying. I can’t say I believe 100% that it was aliens, but I also can’t disprove it.
3. If I’m going to be doing any more field visits, I’m going to have to try to become much less of a wimp.

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Here ends my first investigation for the Woo-woo Website, with the slightly underwhelming conclusion of not having any idea what actually happened in Dechmont Law. Did I have fun? Absolutely, but I didn’t get any answers. However, I’m setting myself up for failure if I think I’ll somehow manage to crack a case just by visiting the site and reading about it. I guess that’s the point of mysteries – if they were easily solvable, they wouldn’t be mysterious.

We don’t know what happened to Robert Taylor, but he stuck to his story to his dying day. Whatever it was, it was real to him, and there was a thorough investigation by the police that didn’t uncover a hoax. I don’t believe it was Venus or a water tower, I might be convinced by the medical incident, had there not been the marks on him and on the ground. It could be to do with the military. And as far as the aliens go… yeah, maybe? I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t. It is one of the most convincing stories of an extraterrestrial encounter and it was right at my doorstep, let’s hope I find many more like it.

Until next time, stay spooky!