On January 28th, 1967, seven boys, aged ten and eleven, who were playing on Studham Common at lunchtime, on their way back to school had – or said they had — a curious experience.
Following a flash of lighting and a thunderclap, one of them, Alex Butler, suddenly saw what he later described as ‘a little blue man with a tall hat and a beard’. This little man was about 3 feet tall and his hat (or possibly, helmet) was like a bowler with no brim. He wore a wide black belt, to which was attached a black box. He was surrounded by a greyish-blue glow, and his legs and feet were not clearly visible.
Alex called the other boys and they ran towards the little man , who disappeared in ‘a puff of smoke’. They thought this puff of smoke, which they described as a yellowish-blue mist, was aimed at them and perhaps came from the black box. They saw the little man again, and once more as they drew near he vanished. The third time they saw him, they were careful not to approach, and this time they could hear strange and babbling voices. At this point they heard their teachers’ whistle recalling them to school; they went back and told what they had seen.
Their teacher made them write down what they had seen, individually, so there could be no collusion. The boys appeared to be truthful, and even if this was their fantasy – an excuse for being late at school – from a folklore perspective it is every bit as interesting as modern adult accounts of Black Dogs and motorway ghosts. In both cases, an odd experience is being framed by people in terms of what they know. Though the black box, glow and puff of mist in the boys’ story might derive from reports of encounters with UFOs, in other respects their tale is couched in traditional terms applied to the fairies.