Nelson area, Lancashire, England
Incident period: 9 March 1977; interviews and follow-up through May 1977
Brian Grimshaw and a workmate were returning to their night shift when a light appeared over the Lancashire hills. They said it approached until a much larger shape could be seen, while their Viva’s headlights dimmed and its engine stopped. The early investigation recorded an unusually detailed account of the object, the car and the witnesses’ reactions, without turning every later symptom into an established effect.
A short trip back to the factory
At about 03:10–03:15 on 9 March 1977, textile worker Brian Grimshaw was driving a 1968 Vauxhall Viva back towards a Nelson menswear factory. He had just taken a canteen assistant home. His workmate Jeff was with him.
The contemporary report gives Grimshaw’s age as thirty-eight. Jeff’s surname was withheld because he did not want further discussion or publicity. The principal investigator, Tony Grimshaw, was not related to the driver—a distinction explicitly supplied by the magazine’s editor.
Jeff first pointed out a glow in low cloud over the direction of Pendle Hill. The object appeared to descend and hover before moving towards them. Grimshaw compared its initial approach with the speed of a slowly moving car, rather than claiming to have timed a distant aircraft.
Watching from in front of the car
They stopped, applied the handbrake and got out, leaving the engine running. What had initially looked like a round light acquired a more definite outline as it approached. They described a shiny black, pointed-ended form against the darker sky.
Its apparent size impressed them. An estimate of ninety to a hundred feet appears in the report, but the investigators questioned the reliability of such impressions during a frightening encounter. No independent distance measurement fixed its actual dimensions.
The account describes oval, illuminated window-like features on one side, complicated coloured lights beneath, and projections compared with oil drums at the ends. Those comparisons were the witnesses’ way of describing unfamiliar details, not identifications of actual industrial equipment attached to a vehicle.
Light, mist and sound
Red and orange were particularly prominent among the reported colours. The lights seemed to move in different directions without a simple regular flashing pattern. Grimshaw struggled to describe the effect, comparing part of it with the appearance of hot metal around an exhaust.
A grey mist seemed to surround the object without covering its outline. The sound was first described as humming, then compared with the tide moving in and out. Both are attempts to convey an unusual sensory impression; neither supplies a recorded frequency or an engine identification.
After an apparent hover, the object moved away in the direction of Manchester. The men returned to work around 03:20. The investigators noted that this made a total duration of roughly five to ten minutes more consistent with the sequence than the witnesses’ own fifteen-minute estimate.
What happened to the Viva
As the object came close, the dipped headlights dimmed to a glow without going completely out. The engine then stopped abruptly. Grimshaw said it did not splutter like an engine running out of petrol.
He got back inside and tried to restart, partly because Jeff was frightened and wanted to leave. The starter did not turn and even the ignition warning light failed to illuminate. According to the account, this persisted while the object remained near them.
When it had moved farther away, the lights returned and the car restarted. That is the reported association between the encounter and the failure. There was no instrument recording of an external electrical influence, so the proposed mechanism remained a question for the investigation.
The vehicle checks and the radio
The investigators described a 1200cc petrol engine, a battery in good condition and recent ignition maintenance. No continuing general fault was apparent after the encounter. The car was later sold, but that sale had already been arranged before the sighting.
A radio fault emerged as a possible additional effect. It would not light up, and replacement fuses did not restore it. However, the radio had not been used for perhaps two weeks before the incident. Its failure therefore could not securely be dated to the night of the encounter.
That qualification is part of the original report. A modern summary which lists a radio destroyed by a UFO loses the uncertainty the investigators themselves recorded. The surviving account contains no independent repair diagnosis proving what caused the fault.
The witnesses afterwards
Both men were reportedly shaken when they reached the factory. They described headaches, and Grimshaw developed a watering right eye. At first he thought he had caught an ordinary illness rather than connecting every symptom with what they had watched.
When Jenny Randles spoke with him again on 4 May, she asked about a pressure-like sensation described during the event. Grimshaw compared it with something bearing down on his head and shoulders, and said his hair seemed to stand on end. Randles considered an electrostatic interpretation.
That was an investigator’s hypothesis. The report does not contain field measurements or a medical finding demonstrating such a cause. It also records that the eye problem had not prompted a visit to a doctor. The history can preserve the sensations without presenting a later interpretation as a diagnosis.
Following the reports
The story appeared in the Burnley Evening Star on 11 March. A Manchester businessman was said to have reported something similar while driving over the moors, but his name was not retained and attempts to trace him failed. He consequently remained a lead, not a completed independent interview.
Mrs Hilda Rogals of a Rossendale investigation group was the first investigator involved. Tony Grimshaw then followed the case for UFO Investigators Network. Randles prepared the published narrative using the witness statements and transcripts of the taped interviews.
The enquiries included weather information and checks with Manchester Airport. The airport supplied no known aircraft which matched the close observation; a DC-9 had passed east of the area earlier. The source does not turn that negative check into a radar track of the reported object.
A Lancashire account with useful qualifications
By May, Grimshaw reported no further comparable experiences and no Ministry of Defence interview. The investigators compared the case with other vehicle-stop reports, including Winchester, while preserving the driver’s statement that he had not known the detailed drawings of that encounter.
The Nelson file is particularly useful because its uncertainties appear alongside its dramatic elements: the duration estimate, the untraced additional witness and the radio fault which could not be dated. These are parts of the investigation rather than reasons to omit the encounter’s vivid detail.
The map uses Nelson as a broad locality. The source does not establish a precise modern stopping point, and the marker is not the factory or either man’s home. It places the account within the Lancashire landscape while leaving the original route’s unresolved detail visible.
Timeline
9 March 1977, about 03:10–03:15: Grimshaw and Jeff report the encounter.
Around 03:20: they return to their factory night shift.
11 March: local newspaper coverage appears.
March 1977: investigators record interviews and pursue vehicle and aviation checks.
4 May: Randles conducts a further conversation; FSR later publishes the account.
Sources & further reading
Tony Grimshaw and Jenny Randles, Frightening Car-stop Near Nelson, FSR 23/2, printed pages 3–5 and 12 — Early investigation based on witness accounts and interview transcripts, including the timing and radio-fault qualifications.
Related case files
Winchester, 1976: Joyce Bowles, Ted Pratt and the stranger beside the Mini
Hook, 1967: the stalled Transit, the dark object and the engineer’s roadside checks
Location note: Broad Nelson locality. The exact road stop is not established by the sources used here; the marker does not identify a factory or private home.
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026. Explore the UK case map · Links & Sources.