The Todmorden UFO

In November 1980, Police Officer Alan Godfrey, is driving his car along a country road within the County of West Yorkshire in the north of England. Responding to a report of cows wandering loose from their paddock, Alan is reminded of the body he helped recover 5 months earlier, while driving near the same location known as Todmorden. Unexpectedly Alan is forced to stop the car. In front of him is a large diamond shaped object hovering above the road and spinning in a clockwise motion. Alan attempts to report what he is seeing but the Police radio has no signal. Then there’s an explosion of light that forces Alan to close his eyes. When he opens them, the object has gone.

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CREDITS:
https://www.abovethenormnews.com/2025/03/18/the-missing-minutes-police-officer-alan-godfreys-alien-abduction-on-burnley-road/
https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0gn7qyz
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0b8v0qv
https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/55258/1/yorkshire-town-unexplained-extraterrestrial-activity-ufo-todmorden-rik-moran
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-todmorden-ufo-mystery-a-close-encounter-in-west-yorkshire
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/i-abducted-aliens-yorkshire-probed-35072435
https://www.strangeoutdoors.com/uap/zigmund-adamski
https://www.tvi.show/close-encounters/the-1980-todmorden-incident
https://uppbeat.io/t/abstract-aprils/light-between-us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkNvIXvpcQo – Eyes On Cinema. Policeman Alan Godfrey on witnessing a diamond-shaped UFO and being abducted by aliens, 1980
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIDtBIibZA0 - The UFO Phenomenon. Interview with Alan Godfrey on his UFO Encounter Incident & other Eyewitnesses in 1980 FindingUFO.

* Although every effort is made to ensure that the episode is researched and accurate we cannot guarantee the complete contents is entirely factually correct *

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:10

In November 1980, police officer Alan Godfrey is driving his car along a country road within the county of West Yorkshire in the north of England. Responding to a report of cows wandering loose from their paddock, Alan is reminded of the body he helped recover just five months earlier. Unexpectedly, Alan is forced to stop the car. In front of him is a large diamond-shaped object hovering above the road and spinning in a clockwise motion. Alan attempts to report what he is seeing, but his police radio has no signal. And then an explosion of light forces Alan to close his eyes. When he reopens them, the object has gone. Welcome to Unexplained, brought to you by Enigma from the Pod. And this episode is the Todmaden UFO. With a long history of farming, it also became known for its warp in cotton production. However, in 1980, the town finds itself in economic decline, mainly due to the downscaling of industry following the end of World War II. Still very much admired for its Victorian era heritage, one active coal storage facility was still in operation, acting as a domestic distribution hub. About 40 kilometers east of Todmeten is the village of Tingley, home to Zygmunt Adamski, known as Ziggy, who was a 56-year-old miner. Born in Poland in 1923, he emigrated to England in 1945, aged 22. Six years later, he married Leo Cadilla, known as Lottie, and began working as a coal miner at the Lofthouse Collery in the West Yorkshire village of Tingley. Almost 20 years later, Lottie became unwell and she was confined to a wheelchair. Ziggy needed to spend more time with her, but his health too was suffering. He had decided to apply for early retirement, but this application was rejected before being overturned on a pill. It was also at this time Ziggy's goddaughter was getting married and family members were arriving from Poland, and Ziggy was becoming increasingly worried about the preparation needed for the ceremony. It was Friday, June 6, 1980, at around 3:30 p.m., Sigmund Adamski left his home address to walk to the local store to make purchases essential for the next day. On his way, he ran into an old neighbor. They spoke for some time and then he continued to the store. On arrival, he made the purchases he planned and left the store, but never returned home. Lottie became worried when Ziggy didn't return. It became dark, and she decided to notify the police. The search for Ziggy began that very evening. His wife's suspicion was that he had been kidnapped, and colleagues at the coal mine considered his disappearance to be a complete mystery. It was on the afternoon of June 11th, five days after his disappearance, that police officer Alan Godfrey, who worked in the town of Todmodon, received a call about a body that had been discovered at the coal yard. So he quickly left to attend the scene with his colleague Malcolm Hagley. The discovery of the body was reported to police by Trevor Parker, who was the co-owner of the coal distribution centre near the town of Timordan. The coal storage yard was located at the end of an isolated dirt track, accessible by car and difficult to reach on foot. He told the police officers that while loading a company truck for deliveries, he had located the body of a man on top of a 10-foot mound of coal at around 3.45 p.m. Malcolm Hagley and Alan Godfrey arrived at the crime scene about an hour after receiving the report, arriving before the ambulance that Trevor had requested when discovering the body. Despite the rain, the officers climbed the coal mound to examine the body. At this moment, they were unaware that it was the missing Sigmund Adamski. On top of the coal mound lay the body of a man wearing a suit but missing a shirt. On the back of his head, neck, and shoulders were mysterious burns. His trousers were open, and his shoes were fastened tightly. It was later confirmed that his watch, wallet, and wedding ring were all nowhere to be seen. Interestingly, the body in Cloven showed no sign of coal dust.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

I heard a message come over radio for him to attend the tomato railway station. Dead body wind is covered. So we both went open the car. At the bottom end was a coal car. And in the middle was a large pile of coal. And quite on top of that was a dead body. Right on the top. Remember it was right now. Malcolm went to it. And looked out of it. The first thing that dropped. Dead body. But the neck of the neck door to open. Which was the crop plate. Not good. And I was back door. That guy. Make no mistake. This guy didn't die here. There wasn't a marker call on him. It was completely wrong.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

After checking the recent missing persons reports, the policemen realized that the body was that of Zygmunt Adamsky, the missing man from the village of Tingley, who had vanished a week before. But it seemed strange that the hair on his body had also been cropped short in a roughly cut manner, and it was confirmed that Ziggy had left his home with longer hair, raising the question who had cut it, and how had he gotten to the Topmeden coal yard and been placed on top of a coal mound with no trace of coal dust on him. It was the coroner, James Turnbull, who was appointed to oversee the running of the inquest into the death of Zygmunt Adamski. He was baffled because it was established that although missing for five days, he only had one day of facial beer growth and a good amount of undigested food within his stomach. Turnbull summarized the question of where he was before he died and what led to his death just could not be answered. Turnbull also emphasised that forensic scientists could not identify a strange ointment that appeared to have been used on the burns around the back of his neck. Although checks failed to reveal any record of him being treated at any hospital in the five days before his absence, Turnbull therefore recorded an open verdict, ruling that Zygmunt Adamski had died of a heart attack. But this left many still unsure what could have caused heart failure and how he ended up on top of a coal pile in Todmudden far from his home address. Turnbull later stated that the case was the biggest mystery of his career. And we are left with the question: what happened to Zygmunt Adamsky? There was speculation that he was abducted and killed by the Soviet Union's KGB. This was a theory being used to explain many mysterious deaths during the Cold War years, and given some extra credibility as Adamsky still spoke with an Eastern European accent. But many came forward with their theories that aliens were responsible and that they experimented on his body before dumping him on top of the coal pile. This theory even gained more traction due to a later incident involving the policeman Alan Godfrey.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

We came up against a blank out every line of investigation. This is one of the most possible case that come up to five years.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

It was about 5 a.m. when local residents reported that a herd of cows were wandering loose, and Godfrey headed alone in his police car to investigate. Godfrey was travelling along Burnley Road, away from the town, passing the train station, which is located next to the coal yard where a Dampsky had been discovered. It was then that Godfrey stopped his car. Not because he had located the wandering cows, but because an object was in the road blocking his movement.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Well, during the early hours, the police station at Tonlin uh started getting several phone calls from residents of a local housing estate that there was a herd of cows wandering around. We went over there to investigate it, and we couldn't find these cows. So we just thought it was a hoax. And then with another phone call, but this time it came from an oldish lady. And she said they were in a garden and on the road, and there was a white flash and big dog. So at 5 a.m. in the morning, I left the police station to do my last roundup of my shift. As I'm approaching it, I realized what I was looking at wasn't anything I'd ever seen before. It was hovering about five feet off the ground because as I'm approaching it, I could see under it. It was uh diamond in shape. It was approximately 20 feet wide and approximately 14 feet high. So I got within about 20 yards, and there it was. Just hovering there. It's spinning, but slowly anti-clockwise. The leaves and the twigs were all squirming clockwise. No, it was a solid object apart from the black panelling or the black damp windows that went round the top of it. It was silent it didn't make a noise. I didn't feel any vibration in the car yet. These leaves were going clockwise round the object. Right weird.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

Godfrey immediately attempted to use both his personal and car radio, but neither were receiving any signal. Sat in the car, thinking about what he could do next. Godfrey took his pocket notebook and compiled a quick sketch of what he was looking at. Then, all of a sudden, there was a whooshing sound, and everything went bright, forcing him to close his eyes. What felt like a split second later, it had gone. Godfrey looked around and discovered that he was further up the road driving the police car. He looked in the mirror, but the object was now gone. On examining where the object had been, he saw debris on the road consisting of leaves and bits of tree branches, but the road surface was dry, where the rest of the road was wet. And there, in a nearby park, where a sports field was situated, were the wandering cattle. Godfrey returned to the station but couldn't account for about 25 minutes of missing time and found that his left boot had sustained a large split with no memory of how it occurred. For several months, Alan Godfrey was plagued by confusion caused by the event he had witnessed. It was a local solicitor named Harry Harris who arranged that Godfrey underwent hypnosis in the hope it would reveal suppressed memories. It was during hypnosis Godfrey recalled seeing small beings and a tall man with a beard on the craft.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Well, as I say, I've no conscious memory of what I said under hypnosis. The only thing I could I can go off is uh the hypnotic regressions were videotaped. Yeah. And uh I I think there was about three or four tapes done. Um, when I actually was allowed to see them at the end of the session, and it was quite frightening what you'd said under hypnosis. So what what tell me the other sort of story now, the one that they drew out under hypnosis? Well, under hypnosis, uh, when I see the craft itself, as I said before, I didn't get out of the car consciously. I find myself getting out of the car, and uh, for some reason, I've no idea why, uh, a strange, very powerful beam of light is shone towards me, which blinds me. I jump back in the car in panic, and then there is some sort of a blackout. Um after the blackout, I wake up in some sort of an examination room. I see. So uh this spaceship or whatever it is, uh, did you see that in your recollective? Yes, everything in on hypnotic regression, everything was accurate, right up to the bit the when I got out of the car, yes. Okay, well, describe this creature to me, this man. Well, it was a humanoid or of human appearance, he's about six feet high. But not quite a human being. Well, he had a human appearance. Uh he he had a beard and he he wore some sort of a skull cap, and he wore like a white gown. He was very pleasant in appearance. He wasn't at all frightening to look at. Okay, now you you got yourself into this room. What goes on there? Who else is there? There were uh I think I said there were eight uh small three-foot-time creatures that transpirated during the hypnotic regression uh as robots. Um Were you in a normal room or were you in a spaceship rather like uh Dr. Who's time capsule? Were you in something that's kind of bigger than his capsule? Uh you know, it doesn't look very big, does it? But inside, it yes, really, I would say it's very similar. And then they what? They tried to undress you, didn't they? One point she was a socks off. Why the Well, this is one of the funny things about it. When I got back to the station, I found that my left boot was split and I had a burmark on the instep of my left foot. And when the regression, they actually examined my left foot. Now that's remarkable to me.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

Some UFO researchers regard this event as the first recorded alien abduction in the United Kingdom, and this story soon made headlines around the world. It was soon after the media reported Godfrey's claim that he received a letter from Russia from a man called Professor Zakharov, who declared he was a UFO expert. Suspicious of the letter, it was passed to his supervisors, and there is no record or claim that a response was ever sent back to Zakharov. Godfrey was soon called in to his chief inspector's office. When he arrived, there was a man in plain clothes with a file on his knee. The man said he was from the ministry and warned Godfrey not to speak any further about the UFO incident. The man from the ministry requested him to swear the obligation on the Official Secrets Act. Godfrey was reluctant but eventually agreed due to doubts concerning how secure his employment may be.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

I said, I asked who he was. And he just said, All you need to know is I'm the man from the ministry. Whether it was Minister of Defense or I don't know, am I file, am I owners? But I took an instant dislike to him. I noticed the file he had on his knee was probably about a stick at your finger. A big bulky thing. He opened it to fast or my drawing. I was ordered on an official secret site not to disclose anything to the media, blah, blah, blah, blah, all those fancy words they use. About a dam scale or my own encounter.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

It was over the next few days that Godfrey cited the man on several occasions, reinforcing a belief that he was being followed. Eventually he had enough. He confronted the man from the ministry, asking him to be left alone. Whether in a polite or unpolite manner, we will never know. But Godfrey confirmed that the man was never seen again. Who this man was has never been confirmed. Some would argue he was from the Ministry of Defense. Others, a spy agent from MI5. But even maybe a member of the police force from Godfrey's own employer, forcing him to stay silent due to growing pressure from the public and media because of several recent unsolved murders. Godfrey refused to retract his UFO encounter, suffering bullying and harassment as a result. But it was when his family became subject to scrutiny he then resigned, exacerbating his own personal problems. Without financial support, he soon lost his home. His marriage broke down, and Godfrey resorted to alcohol for comfort.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

It wrecked me, completely changed me. I ended up drinking a bottle of whiskey every single day. It drove me nearly as an alcoholic. It drove me to despair. Marriage broke up. I ended up in a friend's attic bedroom. In the gutter. And I always remember that Christmas day. And no money. I couldn't even buy my kids' presents. Our uh our uh a chambles. I was an absolute shambles. I've often wondered what would have happened had I turned right up Fernalie Road that night. And I hadn't glanced up the main road, none of this would have happened. You wouldn't be talking to me now. I wouldn't have been in the newspapers, and I'd have probably done my full 30 in police. It just shows you, doesn't it? A split second of an incident can change your life forever.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

After resigning from the police force in 1984, Godfrey withdrew from public life, working a number of jobs in a civilian capacity, giving him time to focus on his family. But in 2010, he began making appearances at UFO conferences and local history events, where he became more at ease at giving interviews about his experience. In 2017, Godfrey published the book titled Who or What Were They? The book was an attempt at ensuring that his family and others would always know what had occurred in Godfrey's own words. However, the following year, Godfrey later commented to the Yorkshire Examiner newspaper that the story told under hypnosis was probably merely a dream, and claimed that he had never stated he was abducted by aliens. Since the Todmarton UFO event in 1980, there have been many who have claimed sightings of unexplained objects in the sky in and around the local hills of the town. It is often regarded as a UFO hotspot, but the residents remain close-knit and have never used the event for any gain, financial or otherwise. In 2008, two British UFO investigators looked at the case again in an attempt to link the death of Adamski to potential alien abduction. They discovered that at the time of his disappearance, he was in the midst of a feud with a family member, and that this disappearance may have been linked to the feud. However, Alan Godfrey maintains that there was never a reason to suspect any family members and still doesn't believe that Adabski was murdered. Between the years of 2008 and 2013, the United Kingdom National Archives released declassified Ministry of Defence UFO files in a series of public batches due to a transparency initiative following decades of public pressure. The Todmuden UFO case does not appear in any of these declassified files. And you have been listening to the Tobmiden UFO. As a startup podcast, your support is greatly appreciated. Please follow us on social media and leave us a review.