Last year a giant poplar tree was felled from the playground at Broad Haven Primary School and a local artist was asked to carve some images into its remaining trunk. The school children were asked what images they felt would be appropriate for their school.
“When the answers started coming back, the artist began to feel slightly confused because the vast majority of children requested a UFO,” smiles headmaster Gareth Lewis.
“And naturally the artist couldn’t understand why.”
But the people of Pembrokeshire will know only too well that the children’s suggestion stemmed from the incredible UFO sighting witnessed by 15 pupils as they stood in the playground on February 4, 1977. Their experience prompted no fewer than 450 additional UFO sightings in the close proximity of Broad Haven, with the result that the area quickly became known as the Broad Haven Triangle.
The story made news headlines all over the world and attracted visits from some of the media’s most prominent tv presenters of the day, including Vincent Kane and John Craven. Forty-six years on, the media interest remains as strong as ever.
BBC3 are currently working on an investigative programme about the Broad Haven sighting entitled ‘Paranormal’ which is expected to be broadcast next year while last Saturday the school's current years 4, 5 and 6 were invited to a ‘red carpet premier’ in the village hall where they watched a new four-part series Netflix series entitled ‘Encounters’.
“I don’t think we’ll ever know why the sighting back in 1977 continues to attract so much attention worldwide, but from an educational angle, it’s a major event in the history of Broad Haven and its surrounding area so we’re piecing this into the National Curriculum and using it in various subjects such as mathematics, science, literacy and art,” continued headmaster Gareth Lewis.
This includes developing the children's interview techniques following recent visits to the school by tv, radio and newspaper journalists.
“Some of the children have had to imagine what witnessing the UFO might have felt like for the children back in 1977, and then others have had to interview them about what they saw, just like the journalists,” continued Mr Lewis.
“We’ve also had numerous debates about whether those children in 1977 really did see an actual UFO, whether they saw something totally different or whether they just invented the whole story.
"And the results have been interesting. None of our pupils thought the children made it up, but there was a fairly even split between those who thought it was a UFO and those who thought it was something else."
The headmaster of the school at the time of the sighting - Mr Ralph Llewhellin – agreed with the current consensus, after writing in his school journal that he was of the firm opinion that the children had indeed witnessed something that couldn’t be explained.
“We get three or four phone calls every year from people all over the world, including UFO organisations, who want to come and film the area," added Mr Lewis.
"We’ll never know what happened on February 4, 1977, but the story remains just as important for our children today as it did then. It’s an integral part of Broad Haven’s history and our pupils are entitled to learn as much about it as they can.”
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