Livingston, 1979: Robert Taylor’s Dechmont Woods encounter, the ground marks and the trousers

On 9 November 1979 Taylor was working for Livingston Development Corporation and visiting the Dechmont woodland with his red setter. In the council’s later account, he rounded a corner into a clearing and saw a large metallic object.

He described a rounded or domed form, roughly twenty feet across in that account. Two smaller spheres were said to move towards him, catch his legs and pull him towards the larger object. He recalled an acrid smell and then a gap in his awareness.

The council’s interpretation panel says he awoke with the clearing empty and the objects gone. It presents his estimated lost interval as about twenty minutes. This is a reconstruction of Taylor’s reported experience, not a separately timed observation of the object’s departure.

The scene is unusual among well-known British UFO cases because the account concerns close physical contact on a working morning, rather than a distant light seen briefly from a road.

Taylor’s difficulty returning from the woods became part of the story almost immediately. The published accounts describe weakness, a struggle to use his vehicle and a return home on foot. His wife Mary encountered him in a dishevelled state and sought help.

Later histories connect the damaged trousers and marks on his body with the decision to involve police. These were ordinary concerns about something that had happened to a person, before any official conclusion about the nature of the reported object.

Descriptions of the main object vary in later summaries, including different dimensions and wording about its surface. It is better to retain the broad reported shape and identify the source of a particular measurement than to build a single precise engineering drawing from all versions.

The emotional centre of the narrative is the same across the principal retellings: Taylor said he had undergone a frightening encounter and returned with physical traces that people around him wanted explained.

Accounts of the investigation describe elongated ground impressions and a series of smaller holes in the clearing. The council’s panel refers to two ladder-like marks and around forty small holes.

These observations are often presented together with the trousers, but they are different objects of enquiry. A mark in soil records a change in the ground; a tear in fabric records stress or contact. Connecting either to a particular machine requires another step.

Investigator Malcolm Robinson’s assessment, reproduced in Patrick Gross’s source collection, describes robust serge material and tears consistent with considerable upward force. Robinson treated the clothing as supporting Taylor’s story while acknowledging that it was not conclusive on its own.

The collection also reproduces comments attributed to forensic scientist Lester Knibb about mechanical damage. These should be read as assessments of how cloth could tear, not a laboratory identification of an extraterrestrial material or device.

A 2019 BBC Scotland report returned to the investigation and interviewed retired Detective Constable Wark. He recalled interviewing Taylor several times and said the account did not change. The report also quoted the contemporary assessment that something substantial appeared to have left marks in the clearing.

Wark distinguished his belief that Taylor honestly described an experience from his own reluctance to identify an alien spacecraft without seeing one. That is a useful human detail, rather than a simple official endorsement or dismissal.

The BBC report described the trousers being examined for the manner of their damage and recorded them as being in Robinson’s possession at that later date. It did not report a modern DNA identification of an unknown attacker.

The difference between the 1979 investigation and a 2019 interview should stay visible. Retired officers can supply valuable recollections, while the original documents retain their own dates and wording.

West Lothian’s public archive catalogue lists a file titled UFO Sighting by Bob Taylor of LDC in Dechmont Law Wood November 1979, reference LDC/CD/1/3/2/60, with dates 1979–1991.

Its description is unusually helpful about what the file contains: press cuttings about the incident and later estates-department press releases concerning a plaque placed in 1991. It explicitly says the file does not contain the Development Corporation’s internal investigation material.

That boundary is worth knowing before using the archive. A catalogue heading that sounds like an investigation file may actually describe publicity and commemoration. Citing the reference as if it contained every police or forensic report would give readers the wrong impression.

The open catalogue is nevertheless a strong route for further historical work. It locates contemporary reception and the later decision to mark the site, connecting the immediate story with the public landscape it became.

The council describes Dechmont Law as a recreation area on Livingston’s northern fringe, south of the M8. It includes grassland, woodland and paths, with a prominent hill rising to 217 metres.

The hill is a volcanic plug and an established landscape viewpoint. Its real topography helps explain why a modern photograph of the summit looks different from the wooded clearing described in Taylor’s account.

The council provides a UFO information sheet and trail map. These allow visitors to follow the local commemoration without treating an approximate pin as an exact instruction to leave the paths.

Some routes to the summit are steep and unsurfaced, while other paths are broader. Check the council’s current access information rather than using a historical case description as a route guide.

The UKPX pin marks the Dechmont Law landscape. It connects the encounter with Livingston while leaving the exact clearing to the council’s waymarking and site interpretation.

Taylor continued to be associated with the account until his death in 2007, and the encounter has remained part of Livingston’s local history. Its distinctive material is the combination of a close encounter narrative, an ordinary police response, ground traces, clothing and later commemoration.

It differs from Calvine, where a photograph’s history is central, and West Freugh, where the surviving case depends mainly on technical reports.

Future expansion can usefully add identifiable original statements or securely documented examination records. Repeating increasingly precise dimensions from unattributed retellings would add length without improving the source trail.

The modern landscape image is included to show Dechmont Law itself. It does not depict the object, the original ground marks or the state of the clearing in November 1979.

9 November 1979 — Taylor reported the encounter during a woodland visit; police enquiries followed.

1979 — Press reports and investigation-related discussions circulated.

1991 — Estates-department material concerned placement of a commemorative plaque.

2007 — Taylor died.

2019 — BBC Scotland revisited the case with retired police and the surviving trousers.

Today — Council information and a waymarked trail connect the story with the woodland.

West Lothian Council: Dechmont Law UFO information — The council’s interpretation of Taylor’s account and the reported ground marks.

History Scotland: The Livingston UFO incident — Historical summary of the account and its immediate aftermath.

Patrick Gross: Dechmont Woods source collection — Includes attributed investigator and forensic comments; distinguish quoted participants from the compiler’s interpretation.

BBC Scotland, The UFO sighting investigated by the police (2019) — Retrospective reporting with police recollections and discussion of the trousers.

West Lothian archive catalogue LDC/CD/1/3/2/60 — Precisely identifies the press-cuttings and plaque-publicity file, and its limits.

West Lothian Council: Dechmont Law — Current landscape and access information, with council trail documents.

Ian Dodds, Dechmont Law (2024) — Licensed landscape image and broad reference coordinates.