The small mill town of Todmorden, nestled in the Pennine hills of West Yorkshire, has long been a focal point for unusual occurrences. But what happened in the early morning hours of November 28, 1980, stands out as one of the most significant UFO cases in British history.

Police Constable Alan Godfrey was nearing the end of his night shift. The streets were quiet, the town still asleep under the dark November sky. The clock was approaching 5:00 a.m., and PC Godfrey had spent part of his patrol searching for some reportedly missing cows – a mundane task that would soon be overshadowed by an extraordinary encounter.

Godfrey was an experienced officer with the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police. At 33 years old, he had earned a reputation as a reliable and level-headed policeman. He had served the Todmorden community for several years, becoming familiar with its streets, residents, and rhythms. Nothing in his training had prepared him for what he was about to experience on Burnley Road.

The night had been wet. Rain had fallen heavily earlier, leaving the roads slick and glistening under the street lights. Godfrey had given up his search for the missing cattle and was driving along Burnley Road, intending to return to the station to complete his shift. It was at this moment, on this otherwise ordinary stretch of road, that he noticed something unusual ahead.

At first, he assumed it was the early workers’ bus making its way into town. But as he drew closer, the true nature of what he was seeing became apparent. Hovering low over the road approximately 100 yards ahead was a rotating, diamond-shaped object. Godfrey would later describe it as an oval with a domed top, approximately 20 feet in diameter and 14 feet high. The craft rotated at such speed that it caused the bushes alongside the road to shake.

Godfrey stopped his police car and reached for a sketch pad kept in the vehicle for recording traffic accidents. With the practiced eye of a police officer accustomed to documenting evidence, he began to draw what he saw. The object appeared to have windows or ports around its middle section and seemed to be metallic in nature.

What happened next would change Alan Godfrey’s life forever. As he sat in his patrol car sketching the object, there was a sudden burst of intense light. The next thing Godfrey consciously remembered was finding himself driving further along Burnley Road, with no sign of the strange craft. The UFO had vanished.

Something about the situation felt wrong. Godfrey checked the time and realized there was a discrepancy – though not substantial, perhaps 15 minutes at most based on his later estimates. It was enough to leave him disoriented and confused.

Acting on police instinct, Godfrey turned his vehicle around and returned to the spot where he had seen the object hovering. What he found was peculiar: despite the wet conditions of the road, there was a circular patch approximately 30 feet in diameter where the surface was completely dry. More strange still, the dry area displayed a swirled pattern, as if something had applied heat in a rotating motion.

The missing cows that Godfrey had been searching for were discovered after sunrise in a field. Oddly, despite the muddy conditions, there were no hoof marks to indicate how the animals had arrived there.