The Windwhistle Hill UFO Incident – The Unsettling Encounter Of Kate Walker

Perhaps what makes the thought-provoking and chilling encounter of Kate Walker and her family in the autumn of 1977 is that it is just one of several almost identical encounters to have taken place on the lonely country roads of the United Kingdom during the late 1970s, forcing us to ask the question, rather than these being seemingly random encounters and a case of a person, or persons, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that they are a part of some kind of coordinated effort of an unknown intelligence to target, on most occasions, entire families while in transit in their respective vehicles.

Indeed, we might ask, just what was going on in the United Kingdom during this time, and what, if anything, did the authorities know about these harrowing encounters? The fact is, during this time in the United Kingdom, there was a surge of sightings of UFO and alien encounters throughout the United Kingdom, many of which resulted in claims of alien abduction. Just why was there such a concentration in this particular location during this time?

Just what took place that evening in 1977 is not fully known, but that something truly strange took place is almost certain.

A Glowing “Totally Static” Object By The Roadside!

According to the account, as detailed by Gloria Heather Dixon of the British UFO Research Association, a little after 9:30 pm one evening in September 1977, Kate Walker, along with her husband and their two young sons, were driving along the A30 on their way from Yeovil to Chard after visiting relatives. ^[1] They were still several miles from home as they approached Windwhistle Hill, a particularly isolated area.

It was as they were coming to the top of the hill when all of the Walker family suddenly noticed a “huge orange light diffused by cloud” ahead of them and to their left. As there was a power station as well as pylons in the same area where this apparent low-flying object was, the family initially thought what they were seeing had to be connected to them somehow. However, the closer they got to the glowing anomaly, the more apparent it became that they were looking at something completely out of the ordinary. According to Kate’s recollections, the object was around 200 to 300 feet in length and was cigar-shaped. She described it as “totally static” and approximately 1000 feet above the ground.

It was at this point that Kate noticed a public house on the other side of the road (The Windwhistle Inn). Instead of its windows all being ablaze with light from the inside – which they should have been – the building was in complete darkness, except for an upstairs window, where a faint glow was visible. Kate immediately glanced at her watch, more than shocked to see it was 10:10 pm, even though it should only have been a little after 9:30 pm. She turned her attention back to the glowing object, which by now was almost directly overhead.

Kate, beginning to feel panicked by the strange events unfolding around her, urged her husband to “put his foot down!” He did, and they sped away from the hill and the mysterious craft. The next thing Kate can remember is seeing a headlight from a cyclist approaching their car on the other side of the road as they approached their home. Things, though, were about to get a lot stranger.

Figures That Were “Abnormally Tall With Legs That Were Horrendously Long And Thin!”

As soon as they arrived home, Kate went inside and checked the clock. Once more, she was shocked and a little perplexed to see it was 10:50 pm. Once more, it appeared they had lost a significant amount of time – almost 30 minutes, given that the distance from Windwhistle Hill should have only taken them around 15 minutes to cover. She contemplated mentioning this to her husband, but as he seemed unconcerned, she simply put it out of her mind. Several days later, though, Kate and her family made the same return journey – a journey that would once again be strange in the extreme.

As they were coming up to the same hill, in approximately the same location as they had seen the glowing object hovering near the roadside to their left several nights earlier, they could see a person lying down while another person stood over them.

The couple’s first thought was that someone had been injured and that they required assistance, and as such, Kate’s husband began to slow their speed. However, no sooner had he done so when the standing figure – from where he was at the roadside – place on of his legs into the middle of the road. Kate later recalled that this figure was “abnormally tall with legs that were horrendously long and thin!”

Reacting to the strange figure’s sudden movements, Kate’s husband negotiated around the large leg, increasing their speed and then heading off into the distance. By the time they arrived home, Kate and her husband, as well as their two children, agreed that they had seen something remarkably strange, not least as a person – a human being – could simply not have such long and out of proportion legs. Despite the strangeness of the whole affair, however, the family didn’t see anything in the local paper or hear anything on the local news. The incident remained forgotten until the mid-1990s.

Sudden Revelations Almost Twenty Years Later!

By this time, almost two decades later, Kate had remarried, and her two sons were now in their mid-20s. One evening, when all three of them were together, they began discussing that strange evening in September 1977.  When they began speaking, it was clear that the two young men recalled more than had previously been thought.

Kate’s eldest son, Jeff, for example, recalled his mother telling his father to “put his foot down”, but says that rather than simply speeding off, when he did so, “the engine died and the headlights went out!” He then continued that he could recall his father repeatedly attempting to get the engine to turn over, but it refused to do so, leading to his father beginning to panic somewhat. Even stranger, he recalled that at this point, everything appeared as though it was happening in slow motion, while he could also sense a “very deep, humming vibration” that was “slow and rhythmic!”

Even stranger, he recalled his father suddenly “lunging” across the side of the car to the passenger door. However, although he didn’t understand why, he claimed that he had “no recollection of his mother being in the passenger seat” and that “all memory of her had gone!” He could see his father bringing his fist down on the dashboard, although he couldn’t hear any sound.

Jeff could then recall turning to check that his younger brother, Tony, was OK. However, rather than looking scared, he was looking out of the side window of the car, seemingly excited by what was taking place, something that Jeff couldn’t understand. As his attention turned back to his father, Jeff could see that he was pointing in his direction. It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t pointing at him, but at something he could see out of the back window. Moreover, he could see that the look on his father’s face was one of sheer terror.

Taken One-By-One

Suddenly, Jeff heard his brother telling him to “look” out of the window to which he was now pointing, again, his actions and voice looking and sounding as they had been dramatically slowed. Jeff turned his attention to the direction his brother and father were pointing. He could see something behind something behind the car, something so terrible that he was almost “paralyzed by terror!” In fact, he was so terrified that he put his head down against the back seat. Then, an already bizarre encounter turned even stranger.

Once more, although he didn’t understand why or how, in the same way he couldn’t remember his mother being in the passenger seat, he suddenly had no memory of Tony being beside him. At this stage, he recalled that his perception at the time of the incident was that it was only he and his father in the car.

Even though he had his hands over his face, he suddenly could see an intense white light through his fingers. Instinctively, he removed his hands from his eyes, immediately noticing that there was light both inside and outside the car, almost as if he was “inside” the light. The next thing he knew – his last memory of the encounter – he could see a “dark shape” standing outside the car, close to the passenger window. Although he couldn’t see it clearly, he recalled that this figure was “very tall and bending toward the window, looking in!” He further recalled that the figure looked human, but that he knew that it wasn’t. Then his memory seemingly zipped forward.

It’s Your “Turn To Go!”

The next Jeff realized, the car was moving and he could see the headlight of the cyclist heading towards them. In fact, he recalled he said, to no one in particular from the back seat of the car, “Where’s he come from?” By the time they had arrived home, all he could recall was seeing the strange orange glow, the cigar shape of the object, and a strange humming sound. Everything else returned to him in fragments as the years went by.

He further recalled that in the days following the incident, several of his school friends were eagerly talking about the strange UFO sightings at Windwhistle Hill that had seemingly created a buzz around town. He also stated to his mother that he recalled there was a total of five figures outside their stricken vehicle, and that it was his feeling that “all four of us were taken and that when (the figure) looked in at him through his window, it was his turn to go!”

It was shortly after these remarkable recollections that Kate made the decision to report the encounter to UFO investigators. According to her report, she stated that she found it “incredible thinking about it now, all these years later, that we could have dismissed it so casually at the time. We just never discussed it, and life went on as usual!” Indeed, it would certainly appear that way. However, the details of the encounter are not only similar to the incidents at the time, but the slow-burn recollection and the dismissing of such bizarre events are details that also surface in many other similar cases.

Evidence Of Other Witnesses

Gloria Heather Dixon noted that around the same time as Kate made her report, an article on the sighting appeared in the Yeovil Weekly News newspaper, which resulted in several members of the public reporting their own strange encounters.

In 1991, for example, a person known only as “Witness A”, along with her husband and grandson, witnessed a “tall, strange figure” staring in at them through their farmhouse window. Even stranger, several days later, they witnessed a “saucer-shaped object” hovering nearby. Another local resident (“Witness B”) reported an almost identical encounter to Kate that happened to her mother and father in 1975, while “Witness C”, a lorry driver, claimed to also have had a bizarre encounter at Windwhistle Hill one evening in 1976 or 1977. He claimed that as he approached the hill, his lorry suddenly appeared as though someone – or something – else was controlling it. This continued for a distance of around 100 yards before whatever bizarre force had seized his vehicle relinquished its hold on it.

Yet another encounter unfolded in November 1959 when “Witness D” recalled how she and her husband witnessed a large anomalous aerial object that was “shaped like a humming top” close to Windwhistle Hill one evening. She further stated that they watched it from around 11 pm until 9 am the following morning, elaborating that they had almost been “hypnotized” by its presence. Stranger still, despite the strangeness of the incident and their certainty of what they had seen, they felt “unable” to speak of the events.

The Abduction Of The Day Family

The fact is, there were several very similar cases to that of Kate Walker that took place in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s.

Perhaps the most well-known is the Day family abduction case that unfolded a little over a year later in December 1978. On the evening in question, John Day, his wife, Susan, and their three children were driving home to Essex following an evening spent at Susan’s parents’ home in Harold Hill. It was a journey they had made often, and it always took around 30 minutes. On this particular night, they had set off at 9:20 pm, and it was, they thought, an uneventful journey. However, after arriving home, as they were preparing the children for bed, they realized it was 45 minutes after midnight. Their journey home, it appeared, had lasted over three hours, and moreover, they suddenly realized that they had no memory whatsoever of the drive home.

Despite the bizarre nature of the evening, John and Susan did their best to put the events out of their minds. However, over the coming days, they and their three children began to have strange, intense nightmares of strange creatures with huge, black eyes. In fact, the nightmares were so surreal and unsettling that the family began to feel “scared to go to sleep!” John Day began to suspect that something truly out of the ordinary had taken place, and eventually contacted a local UFO organization, which then passed his case to a hypnotist, Leonard Wilder. While Hohn was eager to undergo hypnotic regression in order to “recall the last three hours” of that evening, his wife refused, as she did for their three children. John, though, would reveal a remarkable, if disturbing encounter.

He claimed that shortly after they set off from Susan’s parents’ home, a strange mist had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. The next thing he could recall was a bright white light behind their vehicle that appeared to be following them before it descended and came to a stop in a nearby field. Then, a “beam of light” shot out from the object and hit their car, lifting it from the road, and dragging it through the air towards what “looked like a spaceship!” Things then seemed to fast-forward, and he found himself suddenly standing inside a “giant room” (this is another interesting detail that surfaces in many other cases, with the abductee recalling approaching the craft, but never physically entering it).

He claimed that there were several tall figures in the room with him, each wearing some kind of “tight silver-grey one-piece” suit with a “balaclava-type helmet that covered the bottom of their faces”. He could, however, see their eyes, which he recalled were “bright pink and had no eyelids!” He further claimed that these figures carried out certain procedures on him (although he was unable to recall exactly what these procedures were), and that they communicated with him telepathically.

Incidentally, although she didn’t wish to undergo hypnotic regression, she had experienced pieces of recall of the night in question, and spoke to the News of the World newspaper of these partial memories. She stated that she could recall being covered in a strange, mauve liquid, after which, several strange creatures prodded her with pen-like devices. She then said, and something that corroborated John’s recollections, that a “tall being with a balaclava-type hat on” placed his hand on her forehead, after which, she blacked out.

The Almost Identical Mann Family Encounter

Around six months earlier, a remarkably similar case unfolded during a journey between Berkshire and Gloucestershire on the evening of June 19^th, 1978. The Mann family – John, his wife, Gloria, their two children, and John’s sister, Frances, had set off from Brockworth at a little after 9:30 pm and expected to be home around 11 pm. At around 10 pm, after having just passed Stanford-in-the-Vale in Oxfordshire, with the children now asleep in the back of the vehicle, the three adults suddenly noticed a strange, white light ahead of them. They followed the light for a short distance before John decided to pull the vehicle to the side of the road in order to get a better look.

As soon as he stepped from the car, a red light appeared close to the glowing white light. A moment later, the light began to grow in size as it began to move in his direction. As it did so, John could hear a “mixture of a swishing sound and the scoring noise of a train’s wheels against the track!” At this point, Gloria was screaming at John to get back in the car. A moment later, John came to his senses and jumped back behind the wheel and drove off as fast as he could.

The next thing he knew, they were no longer on the A-road, but on a winding, quiet country road that had tall hedges on either side. Even stranger was John’s recollection that he “had this strange feeling that if I had taken my hands off the wheel, the car would have driven itself!” His next clear memory was of suddenly approaching their hometown, and the glowing object was behind them in the distance. By the time they arrived at their home, they were more than shocked to find it was just after midnight – over an hour later than it should have been.

The following day, John drove back the way they had come in an attempt to locate the winding road, a road, incidentally, that they could not ever recall having driven on before, despite making the journey on multiple occasions. After driving around for several hours, he was unable to locate it and began to consider if they had experienced some kind of bizarre group hallucination. However, when the three adults concerned discovered strange bruising on the back of their right knees, as well as equally strange rash-like markings on their arms and chest, they realized that something inexplicable had taken place. When their daughter, Natasha, began having nightmares of “lots of strange people with funny eyes staring at her”, as well as of “someone taking Mummy and Daddy into another room” and leaving her with these strange creatures, the Mann family began to seek assistance from a hypnotherapist, Geoffrey McCartney.

John recalled that after bringing the car to a stop, a “strange mist” had suddenly surrounded him before several tall figures wearing metallic-type suits and some kind of helmet that covered their faces appeared and made their way to the car. Once there, they removed the two women and the children from the car and guided them towards a “column of light” which carried upwards. The next thing John recalled was of being inside a large room where he was sitting in some kind of “dentist’s chair”. These strange figures were performing some kind of examination of him. After several moments, he blacked out.

Something Strange Taking Place In The UK

As well as these apparent abductions that occurred on the lonely roads of the UK, there were many other sightings and close encounters during this time. Indeed, there was a mini-wave of sightings across the United Kingdom, perhaps particularly so in England, many of which hinted heavily, at the very least, of alien abduction. Just one of these occurred several months after Kate Walker’s encounter, in February 1978 in Plymouth, Devon, when a lady referred to only as Mrs. G was pegging out her washing in her backyard.

She claimed that as she was doing so, a “blue-white light” appeared overhead and began moving in her direction. It came to a stop directly overhead, approximately 100 feet above the ground. Then, she was “enveloped and (was) rising in a column of light” Even stranger, and mirroring the accounts of the Day and Mann family, the next thing she realized she was surrounded by several tall figures that were “dressed in a tight shiny metallic-looking suit and had on what looked like a balaclava!” These figures spoke to her telepathically, although she couldn’t recall what they said. The next thing she realized, she was standing in her backyard. Now, however, it was almost dark, and the washing remained in the washing basket by her feet.

Ultimately, we could explore many, many other cases, and while it would certainly be valid to do so (if only to show the number of very similar incidents taking place at this time) we simply do not have the space to do so here. That something out of the ordinary was taking place in the United Kingdom during this time is surely not in doubt. Just how these events might fit into the bigger UFO and alien picture, and indeed the wider world of the paranormal, is yet to be determined.

The short video below explores some of the best UFO encounters from the United Kingdom.

Expert Opinion

In the late 1970s, a series of baffling UFO reports unsettled drivers across rural Britain, and the Windwhistle Hill event involving Kate Walker’s family stands as a prime example. They recounted an enormous luminous object, unexplained time gaps, and eerily tall entities, all echoing the broader wave of alleged abductions in the region. With multiple similar accounts arising around that era, curiosity about a bigger coordinated phenomenon remains compelling.

Skeptics question whether these cases stem from mundane misinterpretations or collective hallucinations, pointing out the limited physical evidence and gaps in official documentation. Nonetheless, supporters note parallels among separate witnesses, odd electronic failures, and persistent missing-time scenarios. While such testimony keeps the possibility of extraordinary encounters alive, the lack of definitive proof makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about these mysterious roadside experiences.

Verdict: Inconclusive
Credible eyewitnesses and recurring themes lend weight to the claims, but key physical data remains elusive.

Marcus Lowth is an expert on this topic and has over 20 years experience studying and reporting in these fields. Marcus has written several books and appeared on TV shows as an expert investigator discussing these topics.