Today in UFO History

August 17, 1992 - The A70, South West of Edinburgh, Scotland:

The A70 Encounter

The A70 Encounter is one of Scotland’s best-known alleged UFO abduction cases. In August 1992, friends Garry Wood and Colin Wright were driving along the A70 southwest of Edinburgh toward Tarbrax when they encountered something extraordinary near Harperrig Reservoir.

Rounding a bend, the men reportedly saw a large, silent black disc-shaped object hovering roughly 20 feet above the road. About 30 feet wide, it appeared smooth and shiny, with no visible wings, windows or conventional aircraft lights.

Instead of stopping, Wood accelerated toward it. As their car approached, a strange shimmering curtain of light appeared around them, resembling television interference. Their next conscious memory was suddenly finding themselves farther along the road, with the car drifting onto the wrong side.

When they reached their destination, they discovered that approximately 90 minutes to two hours were unaccounted for.

Scottish UFO investigator Malcolm Robinson later investigated the case, and the men underwent hypnotic regression. During these sessions, they described encounters with small humanoid beings and memories of being taken aboard an unfamiliar craft and examined. Wood recalled numerous entities and unusual communications, including repeated references to the word “sanctuary.”

These alleged abduction memories remain highly controversial because hypnotic regression is not considered a reliable method of recovering accurate memories and can unintentionally produce false or reconstructed recollections.

No physical evidence has established that an extraterrestrial abduction occurred. Nevertheless, the witnesses’ original account—a large structured object hovering extremely low over a rural road, a strange light effect, a blackout and unexplained missing time—has made the A70 Encounter one of the most enduring UFO mysteries in Scottish history.