Broad Haven: the 1977 school UFO reports and the surviving drawings

A contemporary account appeared in the BUFORA Journal for May–June 1977. It summarised reports from up to fourteen pupils at Broad Haven County Primary School who described a silvery object on the ground near the school, with observations reported between about 1pm and 3.45pm.

Some described a cigar-shaped form partly hidden by bushes. Several also reported a figure nearby. Nine-year-old Jeremy Passmore’s account described a disc-like base, a dome and a light changing through yellow-orange and red, with a silver-green figure at a distance.

The editor presented this as a summary. The same issue’s drawing sheet identifies figures 1–4 as Broad Haven impressions, while other pictures concern different sightings; the captions should stay attached to their images. Read the contemporary report, printed pages 11–14.

The pupils’ pictures became the case’s most recognisable surviving material. David Clarke’s examination of the school record identifies a scrapbook containing drawings, notes and a contemporary diary account associated with head teacher Ralph Llewellyn.

Clarke reports that Llewellyn interviewed fifteen children separately on Monday, 7 February and examined their drawings and notes. That sequence places the exercise after the weekend, rather than instantly after the first sighting. His account also describes parents supporting the children and a visit to the police station after school on the Friday.

The difference between a reported count of fourteen and a school record of fifteen is preserved here rather than silently standardised. The drawings are evidence of what their makers represented and remembered. Their dates, accompanying writing and the conditions under which they were produced give them much more historical value than an isolated montage. Read Clarke’s account of the school archive.

David Davies was ten in 1977. Speaking to BBC Wales for the fortieth anniversary in 2017, he recalled hearing other pupils’ reports before deciding to look for himself after the bell. He described a silver, cigar-shaped object with a dome over its central section.

His own sighting, he said, lasted only a couple of seconds: the object appeared and went back behind a tree. He remembered awe and a wish to run away. The attention that followed made it difficult to settle down and think about what he had seen.

Davies also discussed the bullying he experienced afterwards and his continuing search for an explanation. Those recollections give the case a human dimension beyond the familiar newspaper photograph of children holding drawings. His short individual observation should remain attached to him, rather than being expanded to match longer durations reported by other pupils. Read the BBC’s anniversary interview and archive material.

Broad Haven became the most familiar name within a larger run of west Wales reports. In its coverage of the released files, BBC Wales described the so-called Dyfed Triangle as a group of reports across parts of Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion during the 1970s.

One strand concerned Rosa Granville at a hotel in Little Haven, where she reported a bright object and a silver figure. Nicholas Edwards, the local MP, pressed the Ministry of Defence for answers as reports accumulated.

These accounts connect geographically and through the public response, but the children did not witness Granville’s encounter and her account does not supply another observer at the school. Keeping the locations and witnesses separate allows the wider wave to be explored without making it into one enlarged event. Read BBC Wales’2012 account of the released papers.

Clarke’s 2024 review follows the correspondence behind the official response. On14 June 1977, James Peduzie of S4(Air), the MoD office dealing with UFO reports, asked the RAF’s Provost and Security Service to make a discreet enquiry into the Welsh events.

The request concerned local interest or alarm, any readily available explanation, and whether further specialist investigation was warranted. Clarke describes an explicit wish to avoid diverting the service from its normal work on low-flying complaints. He also reports that no final investigation report survives.

A later 1977 policy briefing referred to RAF Police thinking a practical joker might be involved. That is a dated assessment within the regional correspondence. It does not identify the precise object each pupil saw, and it should not turn every 1977 Welsh account into the same alleged prank. Read Clarke’s review and quotations from the official correspondence.

ITV’s archive coverage offers a different view of the wave’s influence. Its retrospective feature looks back to 1978, when the Gwesty Sir Benfro hotel near Milford Haven offered a UFO-themed holiday package. Visitors came to an area already attracting attention as the Welsh Triangle.

The item captures how quickly reported experiences became part of tourism and local identity. It belongs to the aftermath of the sightings: the existence of a themed hotel break is a documented cultural response, with its own participants and commercial setting.

It also helps separate different sorts of later material. An original witness report, an interview revisiting it and a tourism promotion may all use the same UFO language while telling different parts of the story. The 1978 footage provides a period glimpse of how the coast’s reputation was being presented to visitors. See ITV’s archive feature on UFO holidays.

The 2018 Astonishing Legends episode devoted to David Davies offers a longer interview route into the case. The programme page identifies him as its eyewitness guest and reproduces his response that no proposed explanation had matched what he remembered seeing.

It also links his 1977 drawing and earlier anniversary coverage. Those accompanying references make it possible to move between a later conversation and the material associated with the school story.

For readers arriving through a recent documentary, this is a useful next stop: a participant can describe the effect of an experience over time, while the earlier drawing and journal retain their original place in the chronology. The recording is hosted by its publisher; UKPX links to it rather than uploading a copy. Find the Davies interview and its reference links.

Broad Haven sits on the Pembrokeshire coast, with the village, beach, fields and wooded ground close together. The National Park’s published short-walk leaflet maps a route combining the coast, fields and a wooded valley. It offers useful landscape context, without claiming to retrace a pupil’s exact line of sight.

The UKPX pin marks Broad Haven village. It deliberately does not turn the school grounds or a field into a public visitor attraction, and the modern coastal lead photograph is labelled as a location view.

For official paperwork, the National Archives’ UFO research guide explains the collections of sighting reports, correspondence and policy records. Start with the named documents and dates in the linked sources; regional file material, school records and investigator publications may preserve different parts of the history. National Park landscape leaflet · National Archives research guide.