A Life of Ley Hunting

1961

The Ley Revival

In July, 1961, I noticed a book entitled "Flying Saucers Have Landed" in my school library - it intrigued me and I borrowed it. Reading it caused interest to turn into enthusiasm as I read the accounts of encounters with strange craft through the ages in the first part of the book (by Desmond Leslie) and then the sensational claim of George Adamski, who claimed he had met a man from Venus on the California desert in 1952. As it would be with the reawakening of interest in the ley alignments for the general public, my awakening came through the subject of flying saucers.

A STAR Rally

Shortly afterwards I realised there was another enthusiast in the school, Philip Heselton, and he told me of someone in Kent, Tony Wedd, who had founded the organisation called the STAR Fellowship, interested in claims of contact with extraterrestrials. He had attended the first annual Rally of the organisation in June at Tony's home in Chiddingstone, and he told me of the wide-ranging discussion involving not only flying saucers, but alignments of ancient sites and tracks and "magnetic currents" flowing along them, and the possibility of using this "free energy"; also reincarnation and the bringing through of forgotten knowledge from previous lives, and telepathic communication with space people. All these things were not thought of as separate, but as part of one gestalt philosophy which was powerfully compelling.

I visited Tony several times during the rest of the year and in 1962, sometimes with Philip, meeting the blind musician Philip Rodgers who claimed to have received extraterrestrial messages via a tape recorder, going on several trips in the area, viewing clumps of trees on the alignments, the mysterious cruciform temple cave in the hillside, and the striking outcrop of Chiddingstone Hoath, where a flying saucer was seen.

Later in the year Tony gave a talk to the London UFO Research Organisation (LUFORO) (which was later to become BUFORA); I attended this with my father and Philip Heselton. Tony put forward again his theory that the leys and the UFO alignments or "orthotenies" of Aime Michel were in fact the same system, and showed the slides he had taken of the clumps and other sites in the Chiddingstone area, with sites of UFO sightings. He showed in section how a particular ley touched the high points in the area, and spoke of free energy and magnetic currents, and pointed out that contactee Buck Nelson had been told of these, that they were named and numbered, and where they crossed was comparable to a cross-roads sign. The last word was significant to Tony as it seemed to indicate that the currents were connected with the ley system - a "sign" must be a sign on the earth and Alfred Watkins' mark points seemed to fit the bill. This set me off on my lifelong journey along the Old Straight Track, which is still continuing.

This is the booklet that first set my feet on the Track...

Skyways and Landmarks, by Tony Wedd, 1961
Suppose Major Gagarin or Commander Shepard had returned from Space with unmistakeable evidence of other people's activity there, would we have altered our lives? Stopped making atom bombs or killing people on the roads or producing horrid advertising or contriving an inflation squeeze? Of course not.

If we had wanted to change, we would have listened to information already given us. Only if the Space People tried to force themselves on us would we begin to take heed of them : for instance by doubling our production of atom bombs, financed by a further dose of inflation, while missile lorries hurtle murderously along country roads in Army Exercises, and radio broadcasters explain how we must be prepared to race "enormous changes".

A Golden Age of Peace and Justice cannot be thrust upon us. So the Space People prefer to make contact with isolated individuals, here and there, and give them a picture of how things might be ... if we were willing.

If the voyage described by Buck Nelson to Mars, the Moon and Venus was a real experience, some of our pioneer astronauts are going to have to climb down a bit. But even if it were not, such a person would doubtless provide a means of relaying the sort or information the Space People are trying to get over to us; we might miss some useful information in rejecting the entire story. For instance he explains that the space ships travel along magnetic currents, and that each of these is named and numbered. He also says "The Space People tell me that the places where magnetic currents cross is comparable to a crossroads sign".

Now an analysis of flying saucer sightings in France during a particular "flap" in 1954 shows that the space ships do appear to travel along certain well-defined lanes ; and that they pause at one of these "crossroads" and execute a "falling leaf" manoeuvre before setting course along another lane. One could argue that the lanes are the paths to and from a mother ship or carrier craft, and Aime Michel shows that this was in fact so on many occasions. But to follow a straight line, and then turn off at a sharp angle and follow another one doesn't make sense unless what Buck Nelson says is true.

Now notice the word "sign" since the sentence would be complete without it. Places must mean places qn the Earth; if we can locate them, we may be able to observe these "signs" for ourselves, some objects in the landscape or among the hedgerows that we have hitherto overlooked.

Since flying saucers have been visiting the Earth throughout recorded history, such crossroads signs would have to be pre-historic. With the publication in 1925 of Watkins' book on "The Old Straight Tradk" people have in fact become aware that there are landmarks across the country, lying along quite straight alignments, and a society now exists to plot them. And indeed the types of marks dealt with are in fact the prehistoric ones. So far, however, there has been no suggestion that these marks are the crossroads signs mentioned by Buck Nelson. But three sightings investigated in Kent in August 1960 strongly point to this conclusion - the clue was provided by existing place-names.

The sighting of a UFO at Keston on 16th August was reported to Gavin Gibbons, author of books on Space Ships, and thence to the Kent Area Investigator of the International UFO Observer Corps. Another at Mark Beech, by Mrs. Everest, reached the same investigator via the London UFO Research Organisation. This was a pulsating white light, moving silently in a Northerly direction. It returned to Keston on 26th, where it was seen at 0045 hrs by Mrs. Clark and her mother, travelling roughly East to West. And this was close to a district called Keston Mark. The two marks align on Beacon Hill, Crowborough, which may be of some significance, though only the Mark Beech sighting suggests that the UFO was following this alignment.

Mark Beech is a striking hilltop halfway between the line or the Sevenoaks range and that of Ashdown Forest. The Ordnance Survey has set up a Triangulation Station there, and this location is the site of a clump of mixed trees, including Scots Pine. It is not a significant beech clump, such as some of those on the South Downs the pines seem to be more important.

On another feature, some four miles roughly to the South, stands a striking clump of Scots Pines on Lyewood Common. This is repeated in a hilltop clump six miles in the other direction, close to Kent Hatch, on the edge of Crockham Hill Common. There is an exact alignment between the three points. A less perfect clump, again mixed, but with several pines included, can be seen at Chippens Farm, Fever, some mile and a half on the northerly side. Thus it can be seen that Mark Beech hilltop clump lies on a line of four definite marks the line rises to Gillridge Farm at the Ashdown Forest end, but may well continue considerably further than local investigations have so far extended.

Another striking mark is that at Gill's Lap on Ashdown Forest, and if this lies on the line through Westminster Abbey (located where there was formerly a thorn clump - so the old legend tells us) and the tumulus on Hampstead Heath, which has both pines and thorns, we get an alignment roughly parallel with the one already described. Another parallel would link the pines on Limpsfield Common with those at Chandler's Farm near Holtye. Number three would be the Mark Beech line already given. Number four would align Keston Mark with a scots pine clump above Burrswood, Oroombridge, via Scots Pine clumps at Valence and Outridge Farm, near Westerham. Number five would run from Hanging Bank on the Se venoaks range through Ford Place near Penshurst, which has a prominent pine. Number six could be located, perhaps, by a clump close to Rusthall Common, and number seven by the town centres, say, of Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells.

Now if these are the lines of "magnetic currents" which Buck Nelson refers to, we can see the point of their being "named and numbered". The name would indicate the general direction, which in this case is the azimuth angle 21 degrees W.

Line number four passes through Chiddingstone, and was one of six alignments mentioned in a communication received from a friend who has contact with the Space People. They told her, she said, that there was a magnetic centre at Chiddingstone, and that twelve others could be located by plotting these six alignments, starting with that which lies 6 degrees N of NE. It is possible that one of these is located at Burrswood, which is already established as a notable centre of healing. No progress has been made with the others; but one remarkable fact has emerged: all recently reported UFO sightings lie on one or other of these lines; not only the three already mentioned, but one at Little Hawkwell in 1959, and one at Shoreham in 1961.

If Mark Beech hill top does in fact act as a "crossroads sign", it is possible that one of the routes crossing the one on the 21 degrees W alignment, is the 6 degrees N of NE alignment which the Space People referred to. In fact the marks along this line had been observed before the communication about it came along. Standing at Chested, a mile away, one can see that the Castle at Chiddingstone aligns on Mark Beech, and there is a good clump of pines above Wilderness Farm between the two. Looking in the other direction one would have observed Chested aligning on One Tree Hill, except that the entire hilltop is now timbered over. The name is, however, a sure indication that it may once have served as a mark. So on this alignment also, Mark Beech hill top aligns with three other marks.

The clump on Crockham Hill Common and the clump near Westerham seem to echo this alignment. So does a line through the Chippens Farm, Hever, clump, and a scatter of pine trees near Bough Beech, which reaches the Sevenoaks range at Bayleys Hill. Working from Gill's Lap in the same direction, the line strikes the fourth lane at Stone Cross, which also sounds significant.

A map of the parallel arrangement of marks shows the system illustrated in Map 1. Two of these lines, of course, are part of the radial system referred to by the Space People. In Map 2 these directions are shown, with the points at which UFOs were sighted in 1959-61.

It is believed that the Mark Beech - 0ne Tree Hill alignment coincides with an old track, and plans are in hand to excavate part of this and determine at what date it may have been made.

To conclude - there is a possibility that the UFOs use certain landmarks to navigate by, and that certain alignments of these marks would follow from the theory propounded by Aime Michel that UFOs travel along straight lines, even when they make a change in direction. If we take a hint from Buck Nelson's story, we may find not only the "star" systems referred to by Aime Michel, but parallel systems also.

For further speculation, we have a pattern here of "magnetic currents". Is it possible that they will lead us to locate the "magnetic centres" referred to by Dino Kraspedon in "My Contact with Flying Saucers"?

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