In November of 1979 Robert Taylor, A forester from West Lothian, Scotland, was on a routine inspection of some trees growing deep inside the dense Dechmont Forest. Taylor, a sixteen year tenure at Livingston Development Corporation, had been doing inspections in that area before and as far as he was concerned, it was to be a standard drive-up, inspect, and leave type of job on the morning of November 9th.

Taylor parked the Forestry Department’s van on a bend in some backwoods road. He grabbed his tools and together with his dog, hiked into the remote site for inspection. It was around 10:15 in the morning. Not long into their hike they came across a strange sight. Hidden behind the trees was a large rounded object, 20 feet in diameter, hovering menacingly in the air. The object was a dark metallic orb unlike anything Taylor had seen in his life.

That’s when they grabbed him.

A strange sight

The mysterious orb hovered in complete silence. The only thing Taylor heard was the dead calmness of the  forest that surrounded him and his dog. He described the object as having a sand-paper like texture and a “Rim-like appendage” around it.

He then said that without warning, two smaller orbs came out from under the large one. They were similar in color and texture however they had poles attached to them much like magnetic sea mines which they used to roll with.

They rolled on a horizontal axis and made a “plopping” noise as the “legs” made contact with the ground.  Upon reaching him, these objects each attached itself to one (each) of his trouser legs, just below the pockets on the sides. Taylor felt them tug him toward the large object and at the same time, he said, he was nearly suffocated by a strong acrid smell which he compared with that of burning automobile brake linings and which he felt came from the “things”.  –Source: UFOEvidence

The objects “grabbed” Taylor and dragged him towards the larger one. With his heels scraping the ground, Taylor was no match in strength and they eventually overpowered him before he had lost consciousness.

When he came to a few moments later he was with his dog, alone in the forest. No signs of the terrorizing orbs anywhere. He  lost his voice and was having difficulty standing, much less, walking. His legs were almost completely immobilized.  In a haze of lingering terror, Taylor crawled away from the spot where the things were. Eventually he  regained functionality of his legs and ran back to the safety of his van.

He tried using his two-way radio to report the incident to headquarters but was still unable to speak. This threw him into a sheer panic that caused him to reverse back into a patch of soft soil. Stuck, Taylor ran as fast as he could all the way back to his wife at home.

From abduction to Criminal investigation

Taylor arrived home to his wife in complete disarray. His trousers were torn and muddy and his eyes frantic. Suspecting some sort of accident she asked what happened? Taylor immediately told her that he was attacked by a ‘spaceship’. His wife picked up the phone and called the police.

She quickly phoned the doctor, the Police, and Malcolm Drummond, Bob Taylor’s boss, who arrived at the house to hear his story, even though the man was dazed, had a headache and kept saying that he had been “gassed.”

The doctor sent Bob Taylor to hospital, but he checked himself out later without having been examined. He suffered a headache for hours and a raging thirst which lasted for two days but recovered with no further sequels.

The Police officers treated the matter seriously. Rather than scoffing, they treating the matter as a physical assault by person or persons unknown.

They went at the clearing with Malcom Drummond. Here they found Taylor’s pick up truck and also ladder-shaped marks, of which Drummond noted, “marks on the ground which seemed to indicate that something had come vertically down and made impressions in the turf.” They first wondered about the resemblance to bulldozer or heavy machinery marks, but surrounding them were forty shallow holes that matched the witness’s story about the bouncing spiky balls. These marks followed the path of the mine like objects.

The police fenced off the area. Photographs of the tracks were taken. They were totally baffled because the tracks were only in one grassy area. The ground in the place of incident was soft but no signs of the tracks having come from somewhere or having gone anywhere could be discovered. There was no indication of how any vehicle that caused the tracks could have arrived in the clearing without leaving the same tracks on its entering path.

They looked for local manufacturer of any object who could have been flown there. Results of this investigation were again negative.

They noted that any object in the clearing could not have been seen by other witnesses from the nearby highway because of the trees.

Malcolm Drummond noted:

“There is no doubt in my mind that these marks were made by a perfectly solid, heavier-than-air object. They had been made by some machine which had come vertically downward… I don’t believe in anything from outer space. The only conclusion that I can come to is that it must have been a man-made object… some sort of secret machine belonging to one of the government departments.”Detective Sergeant Tan Wark, a member of the police team assigned to the case, admitted that he was highly skeptical when first sent to the scene, but on examining the forty holes and the weird caterpillar tracks he was puzzled. He checked all the forestry equipment used in the area; none of it had tracks that matched.

No evidence was found of any helicopter traffic in the region that particular day, or even the day before. A search of the area around the clearing was made in order to see if there were signs of any mobile crane that might have been used to lower something into the ground, but nothing was found.

The police reports stated:

“The marks indicated an object of several tons had stood there but no information has been gained to explain them.”After the investigation Wark was in no doubt. He said:

“In my opinion, Mr Taylor genuinely reported what he saw, or believed that he had seen.”He confirmed again later:

“We are still baffled… the case is still open.”The police sent Bob Taylor’s trousers to Edinburgh for forensic analysis. Lester Knibb, a forensic scientist in the police’s laboratory, found clear tear marks on either side, consistent with the witness’s story about being grabbed at waist height by the two spiky sea mines.

Of course the police lab could not say that this should prove anything, but Knibb said:

“The damage could have been caused in the way the witness says. But it would require something mechanical. It was not something caused by an electric shock or bolt of lightning.”To this day the police case still remains open, local authorities marked the site with a plaque, which has since been stolen, and the torn trousers are now in the BUFORA archives. –Source: PatrickGross.org

Robert Taylor died in 2007 defending his story and believing that what happened to him that morning in 1979 in the Dechmont Woods was an attack from creatures not from this world.