The article below was published in the daily newspaper La Liberté de l'Est, Epinal, France, on July 25, 1963.
London. -- A flying saucer, probably from the region of Uranus, in difficulties following the unexpected discharge of its solar batteries, recently landed in a barley field near a military area in Charlton in Wiltshire, then took off to space again. This is at least the opinion of Dr. Robert Randall, an Australian professor of astrophysics... author of science fiction novels, consulted on the origin of the mysterious craters in the barley field. According to Dr. Randall, the difference in depth of these craters can be explained by the fact that the flying saucer - a large machine of some 150 meters, weighing 600 tons and mounted by a crew of 60 men - had landed in three jumps, digging the soil more and more each time, burning and flattening the stems of barley in the clockwise direction.
However, at the headquarters of the South Military District, it was noted that the experts reviewing the funnels are by no means convinced by the theory of Australian professor.
Notes: Dr. Randal was actually a medical doctor ("physician"), not an astrophysicist. He had taken care to correct this journalistic mistake with the first newspaper that talked about this.
"Skeptic" Patrick Moore had said that the three holes had "probably" been caused by a meteorite, and the matter was buried. But Dr. F. G. F. Claringbull, of the Department of Mineralogy of the British Museum, then established that the holes were not caused by a meteorite.
There was no UFO sighting linked with certainty to these holes - which in no way resembled "crop circles"; but a "strange noise" was reported by a witness, and another reported a "glow" in the sky. One of the two farmers who found the "craters" wondered if the holes were related to the loss of 40 of his sheep. People had told a newspaper that a similar "craters" occurrence had already happened 50 years ago.
There were actually two "craters", 150 to 200 meters apart, similar, 2 feet deep and 30 to 40 meters wide, irregular, with several gullies of several hundred meters arriving at them, similar to many other gullies in the area.
Several UFO researchers have investigated this and found no explanation but noted the probable lack of connection with the UFO question. The Southern Command of the British Army finally concluded they had no explanation either but that to solve such mysteries is not their responsibility.
