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Autumn 1932, Rahoy, Argyle, U-K., John MacDougall:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

British "skeptical" ufologist Peter Rogerson listed in his INTCAT catalogue sometime between the 1970's and the 2010's that in Autumn 1932, at night, in Rahoy, Morven, Aryle, Scotland, "John MacDougall saw a strange light at low level. Suspecting a light held by an intruder he followed and almost reached it, but as he did so, it disappeared."

He indicated the source as "MacGregor 1955 p215".

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. pr1:] PETER ROGERSON:

Points to consider:

The source given in [pr1] is a ghost book, by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor (1899–1970), a Scottish writer, poet and photographer known for a large number of travel books and books on Scottish folklore, such as "The Ghost Book", first published in London in 1955, in which this story appeared.

Peter Rogerson [pr1] is a British ufologist who started his "INTCAT" CE3 catalogue in the 1970's - reworked in the 2010's. He thought that all CE3 reports were either hoaxes or misinterpretations, thought that they were a modern folklore, and started to introduce in his catalogue numerous tales that had to do with the folklore, such as this ghost story.

In a somehow "double-standard" manner, Peter Rogerson also charges that ufologists wrongly include such stories in their catalogue to claim they are ancient encounters with aliens.

The case value in INCAT is close to null: there is no entity, not even a ghost. Just a light, and the suspicion by the witness that maybe it was held by an intruder. This looks of course as if it could be totally invented, or a very low strangeness misinterpretation, or really some intruder holding a light.

The case by [pr1] here is only 1 line. Second hand sources are sometimes shoddy, incomplete or even inaccurate - whether from "believers" or "skeptics". So I suspected it may be more details in the original source, alas it is a rare book that I do not own yet. However, I found two small extracts that says:

Thus the [pr1] source may really be incomplete:

1. It may have occurred in "January 1933" instead of "1932" The extracts I have suggest 2 sightings, maybe even 3, with a first one dated January 1933.
2. There were not 1 alleged witness but, very clearly, 2: Evelyn Newton and John MacDougall.
3. The reporting witness seems to be Evelyn Newton, and maybe she reported directedly to the author, MacGregor.
4. The original reports looks much more detailed that the [pr1] version. For example, time, distance, witness quotes.

Of course I looked for other sources, with dates 1932 and 1933, and found none in my ufology library and documents, none on UFO websites, none in ghost stories from books or from the Internet.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Missing information.

Sources references:

* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.

• [mg1] ? "The Ghost Book: Strange Hauntings in Britain", book by Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, Robert Hale publishers, U-K., pages 214, 216, 1955.
• [pr1] * "INTCAT - International Catalogue of close encounters and entity reports", compiled by Peter Rogerson, U-K., not dated, circa 1971-1972, updates 2005-2018, available at http://intcat.blogspot.com/2012/08/intcat-1930-1939.html

Document history:

Authoring

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This page was last updated on August 21, 2018.