Bonnybridge might not be as infamous as Area 51 or Roswell, but it's a UFO sighting hotspot with about 300 eerie encounters reported every year. Nestled in the heart of the so-called Falkirk Triangle, this Scottish village is buzzing with tales of alien abductions and mysterious cigar-shaped crafts zipping through the sky.
Dubbed the 'Roswell of Scotland' and likened to the Bermuda Triangle for its otherworldly vibes, Bonnybridge has become the centre of intense extra-terrestrial speculation, even drawing government eyes and desperate pleas to four Prime Ministers for answers. "I have been doing this job for 45 years. I honestly believe that somewhere in the skies of this planet we are dealing with non-human intelligence," claims UFO boffin Malcolm Robinson.
He reckons bigwigs like NASA, Uncle Sam's government, and the Pentagon are all on the case, probing these out-of-this-world sightings. A new docuseries airing on Blaze is diving deep into why the Falkirk Triangle, hovering over Falkirk, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, is such a hotbed for UFO shenanigans.
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One chilling episode from 1992 tells of pals Garry Wood and Colin Wright who believe they were nabbed by aliens in a spaceship as they drove to Tarbrax, South Lanarkshire, to drop off a satellite TV system. At around 10pm, they clocked a "black" object looming overhead – no lights, round at the bottom, split into three parts, and a whopping 30ft wide.
The pals were knocked out cold for what they think was 10-15 seconds, only to wake up with their motor facing the wrong way and an hour of their lives missing. Secret MoD "X-files" have a two-pager on the so-called "A70 incident" - lobbed over to the UFO desk in '96, a good four years after the spooky run-in, reports the Mirror.
The report, titled "Unexplained Aerial Sighting," is based on the yarn told by Mr Wood, who was a 33-year-old ambulance worker from Edinburgh at the time. Malcolm Robinson chimes in: "Days after the encounter, both blokes noticed scars on their bodies that weren't there before. Their missuses and workmates wouldn't buy their story."
After hitting the books on paranormal stuff at the local library, they stumbled upon Malcolm, who reckoned hypnosis might shed some light.
Chatting in '96, Garry recalled: "I saw three creatures coming towards my car. I felt intense pain, like an electric shock. Then I was in some room. I saw these things like wee men moving about, doing something to me. I could only see up. Then this 6ft creature approached."
"It was white-grey in colour with a large head and dark eyes with a long, slender neck, very slim shoulders and waist. There were either ribs or folds of skin on its body. The arms were like ours, but there were four very long fingers."
The MoD's UFO Unit was swamped with reports of mysterious sightings in the Falkirk Triangle during the 1990s, sparking public uproar. Huge crowds packed out venues, with both UFO spotters and locals demanding explanations.
Local councillor Billy Buchanan and UFO enthusiast Malcolm Robinson were relentless, knocking on Downing Street's door four times to plead with PMs John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Rishi Sunak for an official probe, but their efforts were fruitless. "We are demanding that the British government open up an inquiry into UFO sightings in Scotland," insists Malcolm.
"We are happy to turn over our files and photographs. But I doubt anything will happen, they are too stuck in their ways."
"They say that as these objects do not pose any threat to the security of the UK, the British Government will not open up any enquiries."
In a chilling encounter from 1979, WWII hero Bob Taylor, who played a part in liberating Bergen Belsen, ventured into Dechmont Law woods on the lookout for stray livestock. What he found instead was a 'flying dome', a large sphere hovering just above the ground, dark and metallic with a sandpaper-like texture and small propellers around its edge.
From this ominous object, smaller spheres dropped and rolled towards him, dragging him towards the craft in a terrifying ordeal.
Bob Taylor's chilling encounter left him with nothing but a hazy memory of an odd burning odour and a whooshing sound before he tumbled into darkness. When he regained consciousness, the poor man couldn't drive, so he hobbled all the way to his house in Livingston, falling apart as he recounted the harrowing tale to his wife, describing how he'd been beaten up by an unseen assailant.
His trousers were in shreds and he looked an absolute state. Police at the scene even found bizarre imprints on the turf.
They concluded that Bob had copped a savage beating from someone - or something. Ending up filing it as an assault by an unknown attacker, the bobbies put the file on hold, waiting for more clues to come to light.
Others reckoned possibly lightning had struck him, or maybe a fit had seized him.
Despite being painted as a stand-up bloke and a solid citizen throughout the investigations, Bob stuck to his guns about what he'd gone through until he bit the dust in 2007. Local history buff Tony McMahon, who's been digging deep into these spooky goings-on, can't help but muse over why eyewitnesses would set themselves up for ridicule unless they truly believed they'd had a brush with extra-terrestrials.
"Those involved were seen as reputable figures, not as flakes," he muses. "These were completely normal people who had this absolutely bizarre experience."
He's hooked by the thought that such events keep popping up in the same spot.
"I think the fact that it has recurred in that area is fascinating."
Commenting on the Falkirk Triangle incidents, McMahon stresses: "In the case of the Falkirk Triangle we are dealing with people who are seen as pillars of the community and what happened to them was quite traumatic."
He can't see any gain in lying about such matters. "You can't see an upside to making it up."
In his eyes, there’s no question - these folks were dead certain they encountered what they reported.
The Falkirk Triangle is rumoured to be the UK's UFO central, with whispers claiming it's a hotspot because the veil between worlds is thinner there than anywhere else in Blighty, making it a prime spot for interdimensional slip-ups. Some even reckon there's an alien motorway zooming through, turning it into a cosmic pitstop.
Archaeologist Natasha Billson isn't buying all the ET chatter but admits that many UFO sightings seem to pop up near historical hotspots. "When it comes to UFO sightings a lot of them are near to archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge," she points out.
"And the largest collection of stone circles in the British Isles are in Scotland."
Meanwhile, Tony McMahon has his own take, noting that the so-called Triangle is snuggled within 50 miles of two military air bases and a stone's throw from Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports. He muses: "There are two ways of looking at that. One is that what is happening on those military sites is misconstrued as UFO activity, everything from weather balloons to flares - even to cutting edge technology that the Government would rather you didn't know about. There is a perfectly good case to be made for that."
But he doesn't stop there, adding: "Equally, there is an argument that if we are being watched by aliens, by extra-terrestrials, there is every reason to suspect that they would take a particular interest in military installations."
"Some people say maybe they are taking an interest in military installations because they want to knock us out, invade, colonise us. But there is another argument put forward that they are taking an interest because they are protecting us from ourselves.
"There's even an argument that alien technology has been shared with us, but the aliens won't share any more, because we keep misusing it against each other. Somebody wrote that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki the aliens decided that was more than enough.
"Days after the incident, both men found scars on their bodies that weren't there before. Their wives refused to believe them, their colleagues at work refused to believe them."
Top strangest sightings
Malcolm Robinson is founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations Scotland - the country's oldest UFO society which turns 45 this month.
Here are his top five Falkirk sightings:
1) Dechmont Woods sighting
Bob Taylor's 1979 close encounter is the only case in the UK involving a full blown police investigation and forensic examination. 2.
2) The A70 alien abductions
Friends Garry Wood and Colin Wright, were travelling from Edinburgh to Tarbrax in 1992 when they were stopped by a black object hovering above them in the sky and allegedly abducted by aliens.
3) The Bonnybridge UFO sightings
Ufologists claim Bonnybridge is the world's number one UFO location, with an average of around 300 sightings a year.
4) The Calvine Incident
Back on the 4 August 1990, around 9pm, Scotland was treated to an extra-terrestrial spectacle as a diamond-shaped object, estimated to be a whopping 100 feet wide, hovered for a solid 10 minutes before zipping skywards near Calvine, Perth and Kinross. Dubbed the Calvine UFO, this mysterious visitor caused quite the global buzz after one snap of it went viral a staggering 30 years later.
5) The Sloggett family
And who could forget the Sloggett family's close encounter?
While trekking towards Bonnybridge on a clear March evening in 1992, they reported seeing a circle of light landing in a field and were soon confronted by a football-sized blue light hovering above the road. Isabella Sloggett later recounted: "My daughter Carole and I saw a UFO land right in front of us. A door opened and there was a howl-like sound. I screamed and ran off terrified."
