The discovery Watkins made was one so apparently simple that at first it seems laughable. It as just that, when plotted on a map, prehistoric sites form into alignments, which Watkins called "leys". He found to his surprise that these leys existed everywhere in Britain, even using the very rigorous rule of not allowing any alignment with less than five prehistoric points exactly on it. They will travel for miles, sometimes from coast to coast, cutting through ancient monuments or sites in every area they pass through. Also they will form radiating patterns, sometimes as many as ten leys meeting at ono point (which is called a "ley centre"). The temples of Stonehenge and Avebury both have ten leys passing through them, and Arbor Low, a stone circle in Derbyshire, is reputed to have fifty.

Watkins wrote several books on his discovery, the most famous being The Old Straight Track, in which he describes his findings in great detail. (OST was published by Methuen in 1925, now unfortunately out of print). Much of the information for this chapter has been gathered from this book.

Of all the prehistoric sites remaining today, mounds are the most frequent. On Ordnance Survey maps they appear as star- like objects, usually with the word tumulus in archaic print. Watkins mentions several in his book, though they are not so numerous that their alignment could be due to chance (in his area at least). Silbury Hill, near the Avebury stone circle, is the largest of these mounds in Europe; however, before the discovery of leys no-one knew why it was built, for no human remains have ever been found inside it.

Prehistoric camps are rather curious phenomena as far as leys are concerned for, while the lines will often treat them as normal points and travel through the centre of them (especially if there is a central mound), it is usually noted that the edges of the earth walls will have leys skirting them, especially if straight. Watkins gave several diagrams in his book illustrating this.

It is very often found that pieces of straight track or road will align on leys, though Watkins stipulates that these may not be taken as ley points. However, for the most part our modern tracks and roads tend to digress from the straight path, but the curious fact is that a ley will often pass through a cross-roads even though the present roads leading to it do not follow any ley. For this reason cross-roads are taken as points, and are very often centres.

Clumps of trees, usually on a small hill, are also good ley points, whether on natural hills (as Mark Beech, Kent) or artificial mounds (such as Turret Tump, Herefordshire). The trees are probably the descendants of a prehistoric clump, and often are found to be surrounded by a ring of thorny bushes, which prevent it from spreading. Clumps, however, usually need fieldwork to be discovered, as they are not usually marked on Ordnance Survey maps.

Another type of point rarely marked on O.S. maps is the mark stone. This can be quite small, but is often of prehistoric origin. A good example is the Imp Stone at Suchester, Hampshire - there is a diagram in Watkins' book showing a ley running from the stone to the Roman city of Calleva Atrebatum.

A whole chapter of OST is devoted to what Watkins called "initial points"; natural hills which are sighted on a ley. Often these have an extra building or mound above the actual hill, or a clump or beacon on them. For this reason the Ordnance Survey triangulation points are useful; they are obviously not prehistoric, but they are always built on the highest land possible, and very often are positioned at initial points on leys.

Churches, however ancient, may not seem at first sight to be acceptable as ley points, for none of the present buildings could be of prehistoric origin. However, there is considerable evidence that they were often built on the sites of prehistoric temples or similar structures. Watkins mentions a letter sent from Pope Gregory to Abbot Mellitus in A.D.601, saying that pagan temples should be converted into churches. However, it must first be ascertained that the church is ancient.

Castles were also built on more ancient sites in many cases. Windsor Castle has an ancient mound, and Bramber Castle, Sussex, of which little of the stone walling is left, still retains its prehistoric mound intact. There is a ley running from Bramber Church, through the mound of Bramber Castle to Chanctonbury Ring, which can clearly be seen from the mound.

Certain place-names are very important in ley-hunting, for they often indicate a icy. The most frequent are Cole (as in Cole's Tump and Coldharbour), Dod (as in Doddinghurst and Dodd's Farm), Black (as in Blackley and Blackmore Wood), and Ley or Lye (as in Cross Leys, Lyewood Common, Ley Rock or Ley Hill). This last is more significant as a prefix or standing alone than as a last syllable of a place name. "Cross" often denotes a centre, and also noted quite often on leys are the words "mark" and "tye".

The reason Watkins gives for the "black", "cole" and "dod" place-names occurring so often was that these were the names the "ley-men", the primitive surveyors who built or aligned the leys, using sighting staffs to align the positions to build mounds or place mark stones. But could these primitive people have built such exactly straight lines over undulating countryside? Even modern surveyors would have difficulty in doing this without the aid of maps, and I certainly cannot imagine a primitive hunter making an alignment that stretches from one coast of our island to the other, as many leys do. Even the slightest discrepancy in his sighting would make the plotting of leys impossible.

And yet the leys, which are obviously artificial, do most certainly exist; they can be found, in great numbers on any Ordnance Survey map you care to buy. Also they are not chance alignments. A ley-hunter friend of mine was once told by a sceptic that they were obviously chance alignment, the prehistoric points were so thick on the ground. In answer my friend told him to try aligning pubs (which are certainly as numerous as churches) and he was unable to do so.

Perhaps a clue to the mystery lies in a single paragraph in The Old Straight Track. On pages 63-64, in the "Mark Trees" chapter, Watkins tells of a clump of trees in Surrey. Timber merchants had for some time been trying to get the trees for their wood supply, but the Government would not allow them to be felled because the clump was "on the line of flight for aeroplanes to France and was used as a sighting mark". Since Watkins wrote his book it has been found that many sites are much more easily visible from the air than they are from the ground - examples are Stonehenge, Avebury and Uffington White Horse. What can this mean?

Orthoteny
Ever since 1947, the flying saucer has been a thorn in the side of the orthodox scientist, but until 1954 he had a good reason for not taking any interest in the phenomenon. The reason was, of course, that the sightings were not repeatable. A person would see one, perhaps only for a few seconds, maybe a little longer; but always the apparition would have vanished before any scientific investigation could be made.

To be accepted by science as a fact any phenomenon must necessarily be repeatable or show some kind of pattern, and until 1954 the erratic UFO5 did not fulfil any of these requirements. The only thing that could possibly be done was to take the reports of witnesses and note them down; but even this was not truly scientific, for testimony is really the field of the lawyer and not the scientist.

But, despite what he may tell you to the contrary, thc scientist has not got this excuse now. On September 17th, 1954, it vanished for ever with the discovery of the first "orthoteny".

Orthotenies are alignments, or, more strictly speaking, great circle courses, plotted by taking UFO sightings (usually during a "flap", the term used for a concentration of sightings) that occur within any particular day. They were first discovered by Aime Michel (a French scientist) during the great French flap of 1954, which, lasting just a month (from September 17 to October 17), was one of the greatest in modern history and forms the basis for Michel's book Flying Saucers and the Straight-Line Mvstery.

This book is really a monumental work of documented evidcnce, and in it Michel tells of how he first discovered orthoteny after his friend the poet Jean Cocteau had told him to see whether the objects moved along certain lines or traced out patterns. He tried this out with sightings on September 17th at the beginning of the flap, and found his first orthoteny, stretching from Cenon through Clermont-Ferrand and Chaudolas to terminate at Rome.

At Rome a cigar-shaped object was seen which appeared to emit a trail and headed away in the direction of France. The Clermont-Ferrand sighting was of a "pink cloud", which through a small telescope appeared to be an object with a luminous trail. The odd thing about this was that it disappeared abruptly. There was only a brief report of the Chaudolas sighting in a French national newspaper, and no information is available on it.

The most sensational of these four sightings was the one at Cenon. A M. David was cycling along the road near the town when he suddenly felt a prickling and itching all ever his body and found that he was paralysed and unable to move. He saw ahead of him some strange machine resting on the road, in front of which moved a dark silhouette which seemed to be a small manlike creature. Eventually this being went back into his craft, which then swiftly took off, emitting a greenish glow, and when it had gone M. David found that he could move again. This sighting is typical of many in Hichel's book and also of quite a number seen later.

The next notable orthoteny was the one which later researchers have termed BAVIC, and which connects sightings seen on September 24th at Bayonne, Lencouacq, Tulle, Ussel, Gelles and Vichy. This has been one of the most interesting of Michel's alignments, for on continuing it as a "global orthoteny" round the world it has been found that all later flaps have occurred on or near it.

Two years after he had discovered BAVIC, Michel received information of a sighting which happened in Portugal on the same date - September 24th. It also aligns with the orthoteny.

The next discovery to be made was that two orthotenies plotted from sightings on September 27th converged at a common sighting point. This was at Rixheim, where a "great cloud cigar", accompanied by smaller UFOs, was seen. This pbenomenon was often noted at the crossing-points of the lines.

On October 2nd the first orthotenic centre was discovered - and it was a big one. For no less than nine alignments plotted from sightings on that day converged on the small French town of Poncey-sur-l'Ignon, where the cloud cigar was seen again. This was not the only day on which alignments converged on Poncey, however; two of the orthotenies of October 4th also met there. It is interesting to note that a crater was found there which was very similar to the one which was to appear many years later in a field in Wiltshire, which also falls on an alignment. However, in the Poncey case the object was actually seen to take off from the field, unlike the British crater which was not discovered until some time after it was made.

As the flap progressed many other orthotenies were found, and they began to show startling symmetry. There were many examples of parallel alignments, right angles and angles of thirty degrees, as well as numerous centres. It was as if the mysterious UFO pilots were making a detailed and systematic survey of France.

In France on October 12th an interesting sighting was made at the junction of two orthotenies. It was of a round object moving westwards, which suddenly descended with a jerky movement, then proceeded south-west. The intriguing thing is that it would seem that the UFO was at first moving along one orthoteny, then when it changed direction it was moving along the other. Michel surmises in his book that this is evidence for the theory that orthotenic patterns are geographical in their nature. This could be the key to the whole mystery, as I hope to illustrate later in this book.

The longest of Michel's orthotenies, and also the only one to extend as far as England, was discovered from the sightings of October 15th. This great line, seven hundred miles long, extends from Po di Gnocca, Italy, through France to Southend. As this is the line which connects Aime Michel's discoveries with my own, I will describe the sightings in detail.

The first sighting was at Calais at 3.40 a.m; the object was seen by a baker. It was like a yellow luminous mushroom and was seen to land on the railway track not far away. (Why the UFO5 should wish to land on railway lines I have no idea, but they seem to have done it often during the 1954 flap).

The next sighting was in the afternoon at Po di Gnocca, near Rovigo in Italy. A circular object was seen to land without a sound after travelling along quite slowly. After sitting there for a few minutes, the mysterious visitor then shot straight up into the sky, and where it had been there was one of the now familiar "suction craters" as were found at Poncey and later at Charlton.

After nightfall a workman at Aire-sur-la Lys saw a luminous disc tkat landed in a field and began to emit beams of light. These were so bright that they were seen for several miles around (similar to some of the sightings on the Birmingham- Stratford orthoteny described in Chapter Five).

A little later, between the villages of Niffer and Kembs, two motorists saw an object approaching which glowed with an orange light. It came down with a falling-leaf motion, the colour changed to white, and then it sped off north-westwards.

The Southend sighting, reported by a girl there, was one of an object which apparently landed in a park in the town that night.

Po di Gnocca, the spot between Niffer and Kembs, Aire-sur- la-Lys, Calais and Southend all fall on one great circle line, which, like the BAVIC orthoteny, has in recent years been extended round the globe. It is in fact at right angles to BAVIC.

Two days later, on October 17th, the flap petered out, and so ended one of the greatest concentrations in UFO history, which yielded what must be the most important discovery yet made about the saucers. At last there is conclusive evidence thtthe UFOs are real, and that they are intelligently controlled craft. But why do they trace out these lines?

Jimmy Goddard, 1966

Home Page - The Great Isosceles Triangle
Page 2 - A Basis for Leys and Orthotenies in Britain
Page 4 - Some Interesting Discoveries

Links
Flying Saucers, Landscape Energies and Lost Technology - The Tony Wedd Site
The Real Stonehenge and Avebury
The Truth about the Ley System
Fringe Archaeology