I think I first visited Keighley by mistake. I don’t think I’ve been back since, unless you count me taking a round stroll across the hills and then back into the town in the morning to catch a bus link back to Huddersfield, where I live.

 It was Wednesday the 15^th of August 2007 AD/CE, a date which will now be registered in my memory forever.

 I’d taken a bus from The Leeds and Bradford Road, just uphill from Fallwood Marina, Leeds. I suppose I should have paid more attention to which bus I was getting onto, as I soon found myself arriving in what turned out to be Keighley. Although it seemed very familiar(!) I can’t remember ever having been there before, although I have heard of it often, mainly in connection with the BNP!

 Secretly, I saw UFOs that night. Although I’ve read a detailed book on the subject of UFOs in Britain (“Beyond Top Secret”), I wasn’t a UFO-spotter till then, but I will be from now!

 I believe last night I was visited by aliens in a field which I’d accessed by going right up the New Devonshire Road, through a mile or so of council estate until I was high above the town, and then taking a turning to the right to get into the open country.

 I saw a light moving round like someone was shining a torch about, but with motions that were jerky in a pattern that was too crazy for a human arm to make.

 My mind was addled by it, and I couldn’t be sure whether I only saw one light or several.

Even if it had been light coming from an automatic projector, no human could have been disturbed enough to program it so that the light(s) would move about in such a chaotic yet soothing manner.

The image of a laser-pen, and the mythical name of “will-o-the-wisp” flashed into my head.

 I tried to reason that it might really be fireflies, or vitreous floaters (which are the perfectly normal illusionary bubbles you may sometimes see in your field of vision, but something rang false about those theories.

“may be of embryonic origin or acquired due to degenerative changes of the vitreous humour or retina”

                                    ( Source: wikipedia )

 I think I decided to try and observe the phenomena, so I stood still, as you would if you wanted to watch a wild creature without startling it, but I came over all drowsy of a sudden.

 Before I knew it I had settled myself in the wet grass to fall asleep.

 The entire experience seemed to have lasted for around a minute.

 I woke around two hours later, feeling completely refreshed.

 Looking back, it seems strangely coincidental that only last week I installed the SETI screensaver on my computer.

 But even looking back, it doesn’t seem like just a dream.

OTHER LINKS:

Keighley Online Directory

wikipedia entry for Keighley

            wikipedia entry for Floaters

            wikipedia entry for UFOs

            The Aliens