Crash and Abduction? The Penrose Encounter England, 1954

Crash and abduction? The Penrose “encounter” England, 1954

Location. Between Derby & Burton, Derbyshire England
Date: May 13 1954 Time: 2230
On May 12 1954 at approximately 2000 Chief Petty Officer H. R. Penrose visited a public house in Derbyshire where he met a man with whom he got into conversation about his motorcar, a black Vauxhall Wyvern saloon which was about a year old. The man said he would like to buy it and made a very reasonable offer. Cdr. Penrose was undecided, however, and said he would think the thing over before meeting him in the same public house the following evening.
Meeting as arranged the next evening, he told his acquaintance that he was still undecided, whereupon he was invited to the man’s house for tea. When they got there they found a sit-down meal prepared for them by the man’s wife. Cdr. Penrose remembers thinking they were an ordinary English couple, although a little smaller than average. After chatting awhile he told his hosts that he had decided against selling the car, and he then took his leave at about 2230.
His journey home took him along the main Derby-Burton Road, in the direction of Birmingham. Suddenly, he said, a bright light appeared, heading towards him. He describes what followed:
“As it reached my position I experienced what seemed to be a crash and I was thrown forward against the windscreen. Then the car seemed to be lifted from the ground and I was moving through the air with a bright light above me. The next thing I remember was when I recovered consciousness in the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary where I had had stitches in a cut in my forehead.”
The commander went on: “I remembered a strange occurrence which must have taken place immediately after my crash. At that moment the car was perched on some iron railings, and I recollect being lifted from it by a man in a one-piece suit. He seemed to lift me effortlessly into an entrance on the underside of a large round vehicle which was hovering above us and giving out a bright light.”
Cdr. Penrose says he was taken into a room which had controls in it and other, similarly dressed “men” were operating these. These were male and female beings—distinguishable by their shapes—who had similar short hair styles, and whose facial expressions “did not appear unusual.” The witness says he was asked questions about his naval experiences and his work with radar, while he countered with questions about their vehicle and its associated engineering. He also suggests that the method of communication between them was of a “telepathic nature,” and adds that when he attempted some hypnotic regression, to which they seemed to ‘become very confused’ a woman injected some green fluid into his arm after which he remembered no more. When questioned by police officers after the accident Cdr. Penrose says he was aware that a passing RAC driver had found him concussed, sitting in the driving seat of his car, perched on railings by the entrance of the Hilton Gravel Works. After his discharge from the hospital, and puzzled by the event, he returned to the scene of the accident hoping to trace witnesses. His only success in this respect was to find a railway signalman who said he’d seen the car, with an extremely bright light above it, go past his signal box, and at about the same level.
It was also learned that he was kept in hospital for “some months” following the incident, his injuries being cuts on the top of his head and about the face. He also suffered some loss of memory. After leaving the hospital he took one of the nurses out socially as a gesture of thanks for looking after him. He discovered from her that a senior police officer had attempted to interview him while he was in hospital, but was refused permission to do so by the doctors. He learned too that the police interest arose from the abnormally large amount of blood in the vehicle. This, it seems, was far more than could have been expected from the type of injuries sustained by Commander Penrose, and it was thought that another person may have been in the car. However Penrose was adamant that he was alone in the car.

Humcat 1954-11
Source: Margaret & Geoffrey Westwood, FSR Vol. 23 # 4