Even in our time, many eyewitnesses of unusual events and phenomena hesitate to share their experiences with friends and relatives, let alone with the press.
The fear of being labeled by society as a drunk, drug addict or even mentally ill is very real. Decades ago, when only a few researchers dared to talk about UFOs, witnessing something strange in the sky and talking about it almost guaranteed years of ridicule.
That was the case for 67-year-old Gordon Mackerracher from Edinburgh, who remained silent for half a century about his encounter with a large UFO. Only recently did he decide to talk to journalists about what he saw.
According to Gordon, he was 17 years old at the time and walking along a road in the countryside of West Lothian, Scotland, when he noticed a strange flying object in the sky.
The object, the size of a van, looked metallic and had the shape of a cone. After watching him drive away slowly, Gordon immediately ran to the nearest phone booth. He was certain that what he had seen was neither a plane nor a helicopter.
“I used to walk from the cottage at Ormiston Farm around 9.30/10pm and it used to be a straight road to East Calder,” he says. said. “I don’t know why, but I looked to my left and in the sky above me was this brown cone-shaped vehicle traveling in total silence,” Gordon recalled.
‘I saw the moonlight shining on it. It was funny because I don’t remember being scared when I watched it, although it’s possible I was at the time.
He then decided to contact Edinburgh Airport to report the mysterious flying object.
However, the air traffic controller informed him that no aircraft had entered the surrounding airspace in the past hour, leaving Gordon completely baffled.
“They went away to check and when the man came back he told me nothing had taken off or arrived in Edinburgh in the last hour. He said their radar also didn’t capture anything during that time.
“At first I thought it might be a loop to land at Edinburgh airport, but clearly that wasn’t the case. I just told the controller it didn’t matter and went home.”
After much thought, Gordon decided not to tell anyone else about his experience. He feared being labeled an “idiot” and forever known as “the one who saw spacemen.”
“I never told anyone. I was too afraid to be thought of as a fool, so I kept quiet when I got home. I never doubted what I saw. At the time I wasn’t interested in UFOs or anything like that,” he explained.
Many years after the incident, while watching the television series ‘The Mysterious World’, Gordon saw a story about a UFO, including a drawing made by an eyewitness. To his surprise, the drawing depicted the exact same object he had seen on that country road when he was 17.
“There must be something out there. To think that space is this phenomenon, and it goes on indefinitely for billions of years, and to think that you could go through that and never encounter another living organism is hard to imagine.
“They could be more developed than us. What I saw was silent and as far as I’m concerned they have technology that we don’t have.
“I don’t think about it. It has become an interest, but I just continue with my life.”
