It’s 5.30 pm on 24th April 1965, Ernest Arthur Bryant, a fifty-one-year-old gardener, ex-commando, husband and father, is heading out for his familiar evening stroll. He says goodbye to his wife and three children, closes the cottage door, and walks out along the Devonshire country lanes. On a rough track, high above his village, Arthur finally reaches Scorriton Down on the wild and lonely fringes of Dartmoor.
He turns to look back towards the village, when ‘a large saucer-like object suddenly appeared from thin air’ over a nearby field. Arthur is mesmerised as three figures appear from the craft and beckon Arthur towards them.
Did Arthur really have an otherworldly encounter?
Is there a more down-to-earth explanation?
Could it be a hoax?
Or was something more sinister at play?
I explored the encounter, as detailed in the book ‘The Scoriton Mystery’, on a walk around the village of Scorriton, with my guest Simon Tucker, a local writer who is fascinated by UFOs and has some knowledge about the case. I have also discussed the case briefly in my book The Heart of Pixieland: West-Country Faeries & Their Haunts Volume I - in relation to the cross-overs between faerie and UFO phenomena.
The 1967 book ‘The Scoriton Mystery, Did Adamski Return?’ by Eileen Buckle, recounts Ernest Arthur Byant’s close encounter on 24th April 1965 with a UFO and its occupants. Arthur, as he preferred to be called, claimed that a saucer-like craft appeared and hovered above a field one evening whilst he was out walking.
The visitors, who claimed to be from Venus, remained aboard the craft and relayed messages to Mr Bryant. One of the beings was humanoid in appearance and said his name was Yamski. Could this be George Adamski, famous UFO contactee, reincarnated in a younger body? He had died the day before, 23rd April. Eileen Buckle thought that the name ‘Yamski’ was very similar to ‘Adamski’ and perhaps Arthur had misheard the name (due to the being’s accent) or misremembered the name.
Arthur was baffled by the names and information given to him at the time of his encounter and claimed he had no previous knowledge of Adamski. Before leaving, the visitors promised Arthur that they would return in one month, and that he should look for the blue light on the horizon.
According to Arthur, he was visited again on 7th June 1965. He was in his cottage that evening when he heard a loud humming noise outside. Arthur went out of his cottage to see a blue light in the sky. He followed the direction of travel and saw the object descend a few fields away. The next day, Arthur investigated the field where he had estimated the blue light to have come down.
He found metal parts and a glass vial with silver sand in one end and the message ‘Adelphos Adelpho’ written on paper in Greek; this translates as ‘Brother to brother’. The finds were investigated and photographed by various people, but most were not returned to Arthur or mysteriously disappeared.
Eileen and her co-investigator from BUFORA, Norman Oliver, interviewed Mr Bryant more than once, and he always recounted the same story.
The book goes on to recount messages received by Eileen and Norman, supposedly from ‘the space people’, possibly a dis-informaton exercise which was purposefully scattered into the case, so that it disintegrates into a ‘wild goose chase’.
Were secret forces trying to throw Eileen and Norman off the scent? It’s probable that the secret services and the Ministry of Defence would want this case to go away, especially during the ‘Cold War’ era.
Arthur passed away around the time of the book’s release. There is some speculation about his death (check out Nick Redfern’s website) and whether he died as a result of radiation / microwaves from his encounter or whether he was silenced because of what he had experienced.
I contacted BUFORA, but they did not want to comment on the case or the whereabouts of Norman Oliver’s original case notes.
A Bizarre Follow-Up to the Scoriton Mystery
Oliver’s 45 page book is a pale shadow of his former colleague, Eileen Buckle’s meticulous research in her book The Scoriton Mystery, and an obvious cover-up / dis-information exercise. Read Norman Oliver’s follow-up book.
Eileen mysteriously vanished from the UFO arena and the public eye. She wrote a couple of books on bird watching and a book for girls (which I owned in the 1980s). There is some speculation that she was pressured to do so and to play down her work on the case. Someone did not want this case to continue to excite the public imagination.
Did Arthur really experience something otherworldly, or is there an earthly explanation? Simon and I wander and discuss the case.
Scorriton is a small village on the southern edges of Dartmoor. After our wander, we had coffee at the Tradesman’s Arms, Arthur Bryant’s local pub. They used to have a beer tap adorned with a flying saucer, however, this no longer exists. The villagers are reportedly keen to play the whole incident down.
The UFO Flap
Starting in 1947 with the Roswell incident, through the 1950s and 1960s, leading up to the moon landings in 1969, there was an increase in UFO sightings reported by credible witnesses. The ‘UFO Flap’ was the term coined to describe the high proportion of sightings in this era. Were the visitors concerned about in our increasing explorations into space and our intentions?
Some 1960s UFO Sightings in the UK
There were many UFO sightings in 1965 in the Warminster area.
There were 362 UFO sightings in 1967. On 28th April 1967 for an hour around noon, above Brixham, a dome-shaped object was spotted by the HM Coastguard.
The Dartmoor Flying Cross
Retired policemen, Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott, stuck to the story of their UFO sighting from October 1967. The two policemen had chased a UFO across the northern fringes of Dartmoor whilst on patrol that evening.
Clifford said, “It wasn’t a star. It was bright - it was white…and it wasn’t anything that I have seen before or since”
In a BBC news interview, they said that they had never been given any explanation for what they saw. Instead, they were advised to play it down by Ministry of Defence.
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Episode resources:
The Scoriton Mystery, Did George Adamski Return? – Eileen Buckle 1967
The Warminster Mystery by Arthur Shuttlewood
This is a very good podcast episode about the Scoriton Mystery by Saucer Life:
Nick Redfern has written several articles about the Scoriton Mystery on his excellent blog Mysterious Universe (paid subscription to access articles):
Eric Biddle’s report on the case in the Bufora Journal Vol 3 Number 7 Summer 1972
Norman Oliver’s opinions on the case in the Bufora Journal issues 11 & 12
Norman Oliver’s follow-up book Sequel to Scoriton
Journals are from the Archives of the Unexplained
Info about George Adamski from the Adamski Foundation
COSMIC DISCLOSURE S05E08 - FROM VENUS TO ANTARCTICA - Experiencer Corey Goode speaks to David Wilcock about his flight to Venus.
Open your mind on the UFO topic – watch The Cosmic Hoax by Dr Steven Greer -
BUFORA – British UFO Research Association
MUFON – Mutual UFO Network
Rendlesham Forest UFO:
Encounter in Rendlesham Forest – Nick Pope and Jim Penniston
Explore Scorriton for yourself!
This lovely walk takes you through the landscape surrounding Scorriton, including the down where Arthur had his UFO experience:
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All content copyright Claire Casely 2026