by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
In 1969, Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallée was published. Its central thesis is that there may be a link between folklore, particularly stories of the Fae folk, and UFO lore. In the Vol. 25, No. 6, issue (page 25 of the pdf) of Flying Saucer Review, there is an article by Eileen Morris headlined “The Winged Beings of Bluestone Walk” covering a case that certainly seems to support Vallée’s ideas.
According to Morris, a “necessarily brief” version of the story told by Jean Hingley first appeared in the January 12, 1979, edition of The Dudley Herald. She says she met Hingley and her husband “a number of times” both at their residence and at her own, and describes them as “honest, hard-working people.” She took notes and used them to type up Hingley’s version of events and then had Hingley read it. Hingley was “satisfied that it is accurate.”
According to the account written as if Hingley was telling it in the first person, she lived “in a small council house in Bluestone Walk, Rowley Regis, near Birmingham,” with her husband, Cyril, and their Alsatian, Hobo. On January 4, 1979, it was a cold, dark morning, and there was snow on the ground as she saw her husband off to his job at a cement works (she worked at a company that made soundproofing for cars). She was at the back door of the house that opened out to the road, and as her husband drove off, she noticed a light from the area of the garden.
Thinking her husband had left the light on in the car port on the other side of the garden, she walked over to it with the dog to check and saw that the light was off. She turned to go back to the house and saw an orange light over the garden that turned white and lit up the whole area. She went into the house through the back door and there “was a sound like Zee… zee… zee…” as three “beings” floated through the door and went past her.
The creatures were between 3 and 4 feet tall, glowed brilliantly, “had wonderful wings,” and were about a foot above the floor. Hingley was terrified and grabbed onto the steel sink in the kitchen. She was “frozen” with her mouth wide open and unable to speak.
The dog went over to his water bowl “swaying from side to side.” His hair was sticking out “like a hedgehog’s,” and he seemed as if he was drugged. He then lay down on the floor, “stiff, with his eyes open.”
“After a while,” the fear seemed to go away, and Hingley felt as if she was lifted up. She felt like a different person as if she was “in Heaven,” and seemed to float into the “lounge.” She was warm, even though the doors were wide open.
She was blinded by a bright light and covered her eyes. It seemed to her that the creatures were reading her mind: “It was like a light or an X-ray penetrating my mind.” She could hear their artificial Christmas tree shaking.
She took her hand from her eyes and could see the creatures shaking the tree. The light surrounding them was dimmer as if they had turned it down. They were “slim ‘men,’” and were wearing “silvery-green tunics and silver waistcoats with silver buttons or press studs.” They had pointed hands and feet covered with the same silvery green and wore pointed caps, also of that color, “with something like a lamp on top.” Covering their heads were transparent helmets. Their faces were waxy, white, and corpse-like, and they had “black diamond” eyes and thin mouths.
Their wings were large and oval-shaped, glowed with “rainbow colours,” and were covered with dots Hingley describes as being like “‘Braille’ dots.”
The creatures floated around and touched everything in the lounge. Hingley was finally able to speak and said “Three of you and one of me. What are you going to do? What do you want with me?”
The creatures all touched the buttons on their chests and their voices then seemed to come from there. They all spoke together and said, “We shall not harm you,” and when Hingley asked where they came from, they said, “We come from the sky.”
The creatures shook the tree again, and “the little fairy fell from the top.” Hingley wanted to pick it up but wasn’t able to move. She explained about the tree, Christmas, and Jesus, and the creatures said they knew who Jesus was.
Hingley saw the creatures looking at the Honour list in the Sunday paper on the table. She explained that the people listed had been made lords, and the creatures replied, “There is only one Lord.” Hingley then told them she was just a working woman and suggested that they should go see the Queen or a “real lady.” They said, “You are a lady.”
The creatures then sat on the couch and “bounced like children,” causing Hingley to say in a sharp tone, “Be careful of the furniture.” They “put the light up,” and she became concerned that they had the power to hurt her, and she felt she should be friendly. She said “I can’t call you ‘creature,’ so I shall call you ‘gentlemen.’” She started to say, “Nice to see you! Nice.” They replied saying, “Nice.”
The creatures floated around the room with their wings fluttering “gently” and made no sound. They went through a door and “folded their wings behind their backs like pleated fans,” went upstairs, and then came back. They picked up some tapes, looked at cigarette packs, whiskey, and sherry on the sideboard, and Hingley asked, “Do you want a drink?” They replied, saying “Water,” three times.
Hingley went and filled four glasses so she could drink with them and show that the water wasn’t poison. When she brought the glasses in on a tray, it felt as though the tray was “magnetized towards them.” They took the glasses, seemed about to lift their helmets, and then “put the ‘power light’ on,” so she wasn’t able to see them drink. When they put the glasses back, they were empty.
A long discussion then followed in which the creatures told Hingley they’d been to Australia and New Zealand to talk to people there, and no one seemed to be interested. Hingley asked if she should “tell people on Earth about it,” and they said, “Yes.” They told Hingley that everyone goes to heaven, and “It’s a man’s world,” and Hingley said she hadn’t been to chapel “for a year or two.” They said there was “no need to worship in synagogues,” and Hingley tells the reader that she didn’t know the word for the Jewish place of worship until her husband told her.
Hingley then offered the creatures some mince pies, and they “each lifted a mince pie from the plate as though their hands were magnetic.” Hingley saw they were looking at the cigarettes again, and she decided to demonstrate how people smoke them. When she lit one with a match, the creatures leapt back as if they were scared and then floated out the door. Hingley put out the cigarette and ran after them asking them to come back.
Outside, she saw them, still holding the mince pies, get into an orange cigar-shaped craft that was 8-10 feet long and about 4 feet high. It seemed to be covered with shiny plastic, had port holes, “a scorpion tail” on the back, and a “kind of wheel” on top. Once inside the ship, they flashed the lights twice and took off heading towards Oldbury.
In the aftermath, Hingley found that the tapes the creatures had touched were ruined by distortion. She was left with sore eyes for a week and had to wear dark glasses. She felt ill and had to take a leave from work.
As strange as this story is, Morris assures the reader that Hingley told it to people from the following organizations who went to her house: The Oldbury Police, the West Bromwich Police, and the UFO Studies Investigation Services. The case is mentioned in Northern UFO News No. 57 (page 4 of the pdf), and the reader is told that the case is being investigated by UFOSIS and UFORA under the supervision of Mark Pritchard and Martin Keatman and that “landing marks in the snow were seen and photographed.”