When people think of the Netherlands, they might likely conjure up images of rides along the canals, tulips fields and windmills, or even the coffee houses that can be found in most towns and cities throughout the country. The fact is, though, the Netherlands can boast of some of the most thought-provoking and intriguing UFO and alien encounters on record, ranging from encounters with strange, humanoid figures, to sightings over air bases, and bizarre close encounters that span decades and involve some kind of strange secret security services. Moreover, these incidents continue to be reported today.
While we will explore several encounters from this side of the start of the Modern UFO Era, UFO sightings and encounters with strange humanoid entities in the Netherlands stretch back decades, at the very least.
Perhaps one of the earliest comes from the research files of Albert Rosales, and occurred in Heiden at around 10 pm on July 2nd, 1905, when a man named Soufian woke in the middle of the night to find he was looking down on himself lying in bed. As if that wasn’t strange enough, next to him was the female humanoid figure, who wore long robes and had pale grey skin. Then, the figure somehow moved directly over the top of him and was reaching towards his chest. The next thing he knew, he could feel an intense pain in his chest, almost as if this strange figure was parting his ribcage. Even though he was viewing this from above, when he tried to move he was unable to do so, suspecting he was somehow paralyzed.
Then, within a second, the figure had disappeared and the pain was no longer there. He was now lying in his bed. Bizarrely, rather than leap out of bed to wake anyone he could to tell them what had happened, he simply calmly went back to sleep. When he awoke the next day, however, the intense ache from his torso told him that what he had experienced during the night was not a dream. Despite the intense pain, though, there was no bruising or marks anywhere on his body, and after several days the pain eased and eventually subsided.
Just what this humanoid figure was is unclear. Some researchers, particularly when the grey skin is taken into account, insist that this must be an early interaction with a grey-type alien. Others suggest the entity was something more akin to an angel. It is equally mysterious what the figure was doing. Was this some kind of attack that failed? Or was this some kind of “intervention”, perhaps fixing an illness the witness was not even aware they had? We might even consider, if the humanoid was extraterrestrial, if they were implanting some kind of tracking device? Of course, this is all speculation, but interesting speculation nonetheless.
Arguably one of the strangest encounters involving potentially alien entities in the Netherlands occurred in the winter of 1973, and while it is little-known outside of the country, it received significant media attention from the Dutch press at the time.
According to the account, at around 2:15 am on November 10th, 1973, 55-year-old Ann Dolphjin was making her way to her bathroom at the front of her house in Uden. Still a little sleepy, as she entered the bathroom, she noticed “something white” through the window in her peripheral vision, and, as such, she quickly put it out of her mind. When she walked back from the bathroom to her bedroom, however, she stopped at the window, this time looking outside with more focus and intent. Much to her shock, a short distance from her property stood three strange human-shaped figures, each wearing some kind of white hooded robe that stretched all the way down to their feet, with a belt around their waists, each containing several strange instruments or devices. Of much more concern, though, these figures were seemingly heading towards her house.
She continued to watch, noting that the figures were approximately three feet in height. They also walked in a strict formation, with two side-by-side at the front, and one behind them, each shuffling along the ground as opposed to taking steps as a person would. In fact, the more she watched, the more Ann was certain that their feet didn’t leave the ground at all. She continued to watch the bizarre scene unfold in front of her, noticing that one of the figures had a device it was sweeping from side to side that appeared very much like a vacuum cleaner.
By now, Ann’s curiosity had turned to apprehension, and she contemplated waking her husband. However, as he suffered from a heart condition, she thought the surreal nature of the events might cause him to have a heart attack, and so she remained at the window watching the scene outside. Then, one of the figures turned toward the window and appeared to be looking straight at Ann, making it clear that they had seen her. This figure then turned back to the other two, and seemed to be communicating with them. A moment after that, the three figures turned around and “shuffled” away from the property, disappearing behind a nearby building a short distance away. Now, certain the three figures had gone, Ann turned and began towards her bedroom, intent on waking her husband and telling him what she had just seen. However, as she walked into the bedroom, she happened to look out of the bedroom window. There, just over 100 feet away from the house, was a glowing, red sphere-like object hovering several feet above the pavement.
By this point, Ann’s husband was also awake, and asked Ann what the time was. She turned to him, answering that it was almost 3 am. When she turned back to the window, the glowing object was gone. She immediately blurted out to her husband what she had witnessed, her husband not once doubting what she told him. Although they did their best to return to sleep, they mainly tossed and turned for the rest of the night. The following day, Ann set out to the police station to report the previous evening’s events. She hoped that the police would investigate the incident, as well as look to speak to other people who might witnessed the bizarre events. However, neither happened; Ann heard nothing from the police and no further witnesses came forward. It wasn’t, however, the end of the story.
One evening the following year, Ann happened to speak to her friend, Bob Muyen, of the encounter. Bob’s son, Edmund, had an interest in UFOs, and after Bob told him of the encounter, Edmund passed the details of the incident to the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) where it eventually found its way to Dutch UFO researcher, Douwe Bosga. Upon his return to the Netherlands from the United States in February 1978, Bosga contacted Ann and began an investigation into the sighting.
Bosga met Ann on several separate occasions, ultimately finding her to be a credible and reliable witness. Moreover, Ann had sought no publicity following the encounter, which further distanced her from the notion that she had concocted the story for fame or financial gain. Ultimately, Ann Dolpjin was a very serious-minded individual with no time for hoaxes or practical jokes. Although she hadn’t sought publicity herself, following Bosga’s reporting of his investigation, many other researchers and journalists wished to speak with Ann, and she found herself the focus of scrutiny all of a sudden. All of those who did speak with her shared Bosga’s conclusions that she was a very credible witness. As we might imagine, with this increased interest, several suggestions were put forward to explain the bizarre events that freezing November night in 1973.
One such explanation was put forward in the 1980 book Spooklicht by Hans van Kampen. He suggested that what Ann had seen in the early hours of that November morning was nothing more than three people who were returning home from a local carnival. He highlighted that the incident happened at the start of Carnival season in the Netherlands, with one carnival in particular, the local Prince Carnival, featuring white hats that point down to each side in a point, which was almost identical to the ”hoods” Ann said she saw the figures wearing. Moreover, some of these carnival-goers also carry a stick as part of their costume, which, van Kampen argued, Ann could have mistaken for the vacuum cleaner-like device. As we might imagine, many people dismissed the explanation as unlikely, not least as it didn’t account for the fact that the figures Ann witnessed were only three feet tall, or the glowing, red spherical UFO she witnessed moments later.
Several years later, in a 1984 letter to the Study Group for Strange Air Phenomena magazine, Mr. Maas put forward another explanation. In it, he detailed how several years earlier, he had lived on a new estate very similar to the one where Ann was living at the time, one where the streets had not yet been paved. He recalled that late one evening, a De Gasunie van had arrived on the street and several engineers, each wearing all white uniforms had gotten out and began working. Moreover, each of these engineers had a belt around their waist with tools and devices hanging from it (almost identical to the belt Ann described the figures wearing). Stranger still, Maas recalled that one of the group had an instrument that they swept along the ground, very similar to a vacuum cleaner.
Maas continued that he was so intrigued by what the men were doing that he ventured outside to speak with them. They told him they were checking for any signs of gas leaks, something that was much easier at night due to increased pressure in the gas pipes. Could this have been what Ann had seen that November night in 1973? Were the hoods she saw the figures wearing actually nothing more than hats or indeed hoods to protect from the cold? Of course, that still wouldn’t explain the fact that Ann said the figures she witnessed were only three feet tall, other than that she might have simply been mistaken on this detail. While this explanation sounded very plausible, perhaps even likely, it soon came to light that the vacuum cleaner-like instrument used by the gas companies did not exist in 1973, and, as such, pretty much ruled out the explanation. And, of course, even if the three figures had been working for the gas company, why did they run away upon noticing Ann watching them? Ultimately, the incident remains a complete mystery.
Around 18 months earlier, at around 4:30 am in the early hours of March 25th, 1972, in Soesterberg, a “strong buzzing sound” dragged John Bruinier from sleep at his home. Thinking he had left his stereo system on, John began towards it. However, he could immediately see the unit was switched off, and so dismissed this was the source of the noise. He looked around the ground floor bedroom in an attempt to locate what was making the buzzing noise when he noticed a bright light seeping into the room from outside. He made his way to the window and looked out. He later stated that he could see a “bright, blinding white light” that appeared like “some had lit a Bengal fire in front of his house!” Moreover, he could see a bizarre, thick fog wrapped around the light which also stretched a considerable distance along the pavement. It was at this point when he noticed his car was directly behind this light, making him think that his vehicle could be ablaze.
He immediately reached for his jacket, dragged on his slippers and rushed outside the house, grabbing his car keys as he went. To his relief, the vehicle was not on fire. It was, though, “soaking wet”, unlike the “other cars nearby” that “were covered in a layer of ice due to the night frost”. He decided to get inside the car, and after inserting the key, he started the engine. Then, things turned even stranger.
As soon as the engine came to life, the strange fog headed towards his vehicle, surrounding it within seconds. Stranger still, as this was happening, John recalled feeling the car “bounce, as if some was jumping on the back of it”. When he turned to look in the rearview mirror, he could see “light dancing in front of the rear window”. Once more, thinking the car was on fire, he put it motion, thinking the wind from the motion would extinguish the flames. He quickly turned down a quiet forest path through a “dry ditch in between two trees”. At this point, he pressed down on the car horn to wake other people on the estate and alert them to his plight. However, to his shock, no matter how many times he did so, the horn remained silent.
As he continued down the road he suddenly noticed a chain across the road preventing access. Having little time to react, he feared he would crash into this chain. However, at the last moment, he saw the chain tighten and then break, as of something had snapped it in two. A moment later, the bright glowing light behind the vehicle was gone, and he brought the car to a stop. He took several deep breaths and looked out of the window, just in time to see a “human-like figure” run past the car before it disappeared into thin air a short distance in front of him.
He remained where he was for several moments. Then, he stepped outside of the car and walked several feet in front of it. Before he could make out anything else, his attention was captivated by a “huge object surrounded by a greenish fluorescent glow” that was approximately 50 feet ahead of him. To his left, he could a “bright light floating over a row of trees” that seemed to be heading in his direction, almost identical to the light that had followed his vehicle. The object itself was oval-shaped and the green light seemed to come out of several windows along its side. The exterior of the object appeared to be made from one piece of material and had a definite “metallic sheen” to it. Above the object were “three diffuse green beams of light” that “shone straight up”, almost as if acting as a guide for the white light, that was continuing its approach. Then, John noticed a “human figure” looking out of one of the windows, seemingly in the direction of the approaching light. The white light eventually reached the craft and seemed to some fuse with the green glow.
At this point, John very much believed he was witnessing some kind of military experiment with advanced technology, and so continued to approach the scene, eager to see what happened next, and the closer he got, the more details he noticed. He could estimate, for example, that the craft was around 100 feet across and appeared to “float above the ground like a hovercraft”. When he got closer still, though, the figure at the window had clearly noticed his presence. Moreover, the figure – which was dressed in “dull metallic” overalls that looked like “paper foil” and was around five height tall with “large, almond-shaped eyes” – was gesturing to him. It only took a moment for John to realize this figure was counting down.
John could see a strange “panel” behind the figure that was “divided into sections with all kinds of colors” flashing on it. The figure turned to this panel, as if inspecting all was well. Then, a moment later, with the countdown now at one, the object “jumped off the ground” and rose into the air. It headed calmly towards the trees nearby. However, as soon as it reached them, it “suddenly accelerated”, disappearing within a second. John later recalled that in the moment it disappeared, he could hear “a sound reminiscent of a roof tile sliding off a roof” and also seeing “two exhaust streaks with a light green discoloration in between”.
He remained where he was for several moments, noticing how the air now appeared much colder. He then got back inside his car and set off for home. When he arrived back at a little after 4 am, he discovered his wife was awake and waiting for him, along with their children. He immediately told them of the bizarre events he just witnessed. The following day, John’s children ventured to the spot where their father had the bizarre encounter. Not only did they find the chain snapped in two, but discovered an area of flattened grass and vegetation where they presumed the object had hovered.
Several weeks later, the Dutch Ufological Center (NUSC) learned of the encounter, and their chairman, Jan Veenstra, and vice chairman, Hans van Kampen, arrived at the location to examine the area and speak with John Bruinier (van Kampen would detail the account in his 1973 book Flying Saucers: Delusion or Science?). They learned some interesting details, perhaps not least that the land the incident took place was a training ground where paratroopers used to land. Moreover, the object, it appeared, would have been right on the edge of the landing circle. Also of interest, this land was fully accessible to the public, except when exercises involved live ammunition, when a large chain was placed over the access the road, the same chain that John claimed he saw break in two in front of his eyes. Even stranger, where the chain was, the investigators discovered several metal shavings that appeared to be several weeks old.
Ultimately, although they were impressed with John Bruinier as a credible witness, they had several doubts about his claim, not least that he simply might have recalled the events incorrectly. They also suggested the possibility that Bruinier might have indeed had a bizarre experience out on the forest path, but then, after telling his family of the affair, felt a need to enhance the account in light of their questions, something which many paranormal investigators highlight as happening more than we might think. Whatever the truth of the matter, they were unable to explain the sighting, or fully debunk it. Incidentally, several years later, in 1976, John Bruinier claimed he had “made the whole thing up” amid growing recognition in the country as “the man who saw little green men”. Following this apparent admission, attention on him ceased, and the case was almost forgotten about overnight. His family, however, and those close to him, insisted for years after that his admission had been to stop the attention, and that privately, he insisted that what he had said had happened, had indeed happened.
Whatever the truth of the matter, several years later, Soesterberg would find itself at the center of not one but two UFO encounters. At around 5:45 am on February 3rd, 1979, three strange lights appeared over Soesterberg Air Force Base. These strange lights were immediately noticed by on-duty security guards, who wasted little time in radioing for all available personnel to make their way outside. Moments later, 12 military personnel were outside the base looking on in shock at this bizarre aerial anomaly.
It was quickly established that the lights were positioned on the underside of a large triangular-shaped craft, with a single red light in the middle of them, which witnesses later described as being “beam-like” in nature. Even more amazing, the object was only 500 to 600 feet above the ground, so low, in fact, that the lights lit up the ground below as it passed. Despite this proximity, the object moved in complete silence. In total, the mysterious aerial vehicle remained in sight for around five minutes before it had disappeared into the distance. As soon as it was out of sight, all of the radios and communications devices – which had also ceased operating for the duration of the sighting – burst back to life.
In the days and weeks that followed, talk of the incident swept through the base, and despite the best efforts of the military to keep such talk inside the base, accounts soon leaked out to the wider public, and by April 1979, several UFO investigators had took an interest in the case, eventually approaching the military for more information. As they researched and investigated further, they made some intriguing revelations, not least that there had been two sets of lights witnessed over the base that morning from five different locations.
The first sighting came from the west part of the base (Post A) when the guards there first noticed the lights moving overhead. These lights were approaching the men’s location with the lights shining down towards the ground as it did so, even “trapping” the men in the beam at one point. As this was happening, at the northeast part of the base (Post B), another witness saw the same object, also reporting seeing the beams of light stretching down to the ground, which from his angle, appeared to be in a diagonal direction. From the information given by these first witnesses, including the amount of time the object was visible for, investigators were able to determine that the object was around 600 feet above the ground, and was likely moving anywhere from 30 to 60 miles per hour.
According to investigators’ assertions, a short time after this initial sighting, a second object appeared over the base (which could have been the same object from the first sighting). This was witnessed from the other side of the base (Post C), although this witness only saw the object for several seconds before it disappeared out of sight. In fact, in part because he only caught a brief glimpse of the object, at the time, he didn’t realize the significance of it and so didn’t report it. Several moments later, though, personnel in a fourth location (Post D), who were watching overhead after being alerted to the bizarre aerial presence by personnel at Post A, witnessed the three lights of the object approaching them from the direction of Post C. Witnesses at Post D, who all got a prolonged look at the object, later stated that the lights were strange in that you could stare directly into them without being affected by the glare, as you might be if you stared into a car headlight, for example.
At this point, the object was barely 150 feet above them, and they were around 300 feet from the approaching craft. As it passed directly overhead, they all noticed the red light in the middle of the three white lights, as well as the beam that reached downwards from it. The group watched as the object headed towards the nearby woods, the beam of light stretching down towards the trees below. Then, a bright flash of light came from the object as it sped off into the distance with great speed. Yet another witness, this one at Post E, was watching the lights move away from Post D when the bright flash of light temporarily lit up the entire area.
Investigators also discovered that another incident occurred around a month later, on March 2nd, this time over Camp New Amsterdam, the part of the base occupied by the United States military. Like the previous sighting, this incident was witnessed by multiple personnel and even prompted the Dutch government to ask questions of the military regarding the potentially strange goings-on over their airspace. Perhaps bizarrely, the military responded by stating that both sightings were simply due to “mirages” over the base, elaborating that a car’s headlights had likely reflected against a “reflective layer of air” which then gave the impression of lights overhead. As we might imagine, both the witnesses and the investigators struggled to accept this explanation, not least as it didn’t take into account the closeness of the object, the red beam of light, and the sudden bright flash before it sped away.
Another, lesser-known or discussed detail of the sighting is that, at least according to some witnesses, the red beam of light appeared to shine down towards a particular bunker on the base – one that was said to contain United States’ nuclear weapons. Of course, there are many accounts on record of UFOs having an interest in nuclear facilities, including military facilities that have been rumored to house nuclear weapons. These suspicions were seemingly confirmed in January 2021, when the Dutch publication Volkskrant ran an article stating that the United States military did indeed store nuclear weapons at the Soesterberg base at the time in question. UFO investigators wasted little time in jumping on this revelation and examined the base in more detail. They highlighted that there were 15 “igloo bunkers”, buildings that are generally used to store high-danger materials such as explosives and ammunition. One of these buildings, however, is slightly separated from the rest and appears to be made of much sturdier material. Such structures, again, generally speaking, were most often used to store nuclear weapons.
Ultimately, the Soesterberg UFO sightings remain unexplained, although they are still of interest to researchers and investigators today, with many more details coming to the surface over the years. While the shape of the craft was reported as being triangular at the time, for example, certain details have been highlighted and further witness statements have been taken. One witness stated that they recalled seeing “connecting structures” in between the lights, while another stated the red light was much further back than the white lights. All in all, it would appear that the shape of the craft could have been more like a kite, or perhaps even rectangular. The lights themselves were huge, at least tens of feet across, with the red light only pointing straight down as opposed to diagonally like the white lights, which might suggest that the white lights were some kind of searchlights while the red light, or beam, was much more active or operational. Moreover, due to the number and overall credibility of the witnesses, it was highly unlikely that the sighting was some kind of hoax.
Undoubtedly, one of the most fascinating and unsettling UFO encounters to come out of the Netherlands is that of Josie Zwinenberg, not least as it seemingly spanned several decades and traveled with her to another country. Of further interest, the incident unfolded in the same (approximate) time window as the Soesterberg incident we have just explored, and whose locations are separated by only two miles.
According to the account, at around 4 pm one afternoon in the summer of 1979, 21-year-old Josie Zwinenberg was riding her horse through the forest in Driebergen close to the Leusderheide military training ground when her day took a sudden and drastic turn. She later recalled that she was approaching a “right-angle bend where you enter a bridal path” that ran alongside the military facility. When she made her way around the bend, however, she was confronted with a mind-bending sight. Right in front of her was a disc-shaped object, hovering a short distance above the ground in complete silence.
As soon as she saw the bizarre scene, she brought her horse to a stop and quite literally rubbed her eyes to check she wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there. Upon opening them again, she confirmed to herself that she wasn’t hallucinating. At this point, realizing she was seeing something totally out of the ordinary, she checked around her to see if there was anyone else on the path. There wasn’t, and she realized she was on her own. It was as she was looking around that she noticed how the “air was dead and silent”.
When she turned her attention back to the object, she noticed how it was so still that it appeared to be “fixed, like a statue”. She also noticed that there appeared to be lights around the edge of the strange craft, “as if rows of gigantic spotlights had been mounted on it”. She estimated that there were, quite literally, hundreds of these lights, and they were “shining in all directions in all colors”, as well as being “very sharp beams of light (that) shone and sparkled” similar to “sharp LED lighting”. In fact, she stated years later, that it was the lights that suggested to her more than anything else that what she was witnessing was not of this world, as “we didn’t have those kinds of beams of lights at that time”. She elaborated that this was “a tangible object” and was “definitely not something paranormal (but) really something technological”.
For the next 15 minutes, Josie remained still and silent, simply watching the object. Then, she dared to move a little closer – and the closer she got, the more details that began to stand out to her. She recalled that the object was “like a large dish” and was “big and round”. Moreover, she could now see that there was some kind of “dome over it”. She stopped once more, a very short distance from the otherworldly vehicle, stating that she was “waiting for it to fly away” and that she “wanted to see that”. It remained, however, “constantly motionless”.
Josie further recalled how calm her horse was, despite the surreal nature of the events unfolding in front of them. After several more moments, she gently urged them forward a little further. Eventually, when she was only several feet away, she was able to see the “enormous curve of the dome”, which she recalled looked as though it was some kind of dull metal and was approximately 100 feet across. Moreover, at the base of the domed section, were several “giant light boxes” that glowed a bright orange, so bright, in fact, that she couldn’t make out any details immediately around these light boxes.
At this point, Josie brought the horse to a complete stop and dismounted. A moment later, though, despite having remained calm throughout the encounter, the animal suddenly became spooked by “something moving next to me on the right”. Josie also noticed the movement and immediately turned in its direction. Given that her horse was more than familiar with deer, rabbits, and foxes – none of which spooked him – she suddenly began to contemplate just what was moving in the trees and bushes. She kept her focus in the direction she had sensed the movement, but could not make out what could have been the source of the sound. Then, close by, she heard the sound of a branch snap, as if something had trodden on it. Suddenly, Josie felt a feeling of “pure fear” run through her, which “came on all at once”, an intensity of fear that she had not felt previously, or ever before in her life.
She detailed how she was “more than familiar” with the forest; how it felt, what animals she might encounter there, and the general feeling of the woodland. This time, however, there was a sudden “strange, uncanny atmosphere”, and she couldn’t shake the impression that she wasn’t alone. By this point, Josie had quietly gotten back on her horse, and after taking one last look at her surroundings, she suddenly issued the command for her horse to “get out of here”. He did so, and they “took off like a rocket” away from whatever was seemingly watching them from the trees.
Although it would be almost 40 years before she spoke fully and publicly about the incident, she claimed that the incident was like a “photographic image on my retina” and that she had not witnessed anything like it before or after. Moreover, she was certain that she had not imagined the affair, but had legitimately witnessed a “tangible object in this physical world” that was “not just lights but a very large structure. In fact, she likened the object to the spacecraft at the end of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ultimately, she estimated that the entire episode, from first spotting the strange object to them galloping away from the scene, lasted no longer than 20 minutes.
She arrived back at the riding school several minutes later, and after dismounting her horse and taking him to his stable, she got on her bicycle and rode home. Upon arriving, she told her mother of the bizarre encounter, who, much to Josie’s surprise, encouraged her daughter to “call the police right away!” Josie did as her mother suggested and placed a phone call to the nearest police station in Zeist. However, as soon as the conversation began, Josie felt suspicious of the person at the other end of the line. After telling the operator that she had “seen a UFO in the forest” near the Leusderheide military facility, she was told bluntly that that was “impossible” as they “didn’t see anything on radar”. Josie responded that “the police don’t have radar”, to which the operator stated that “if something had happened, they would have called the base…and since they didn’t call, there’s nothing that can be done”. They then ended the call.
To say Josie was perplexed by the rather heated and defensive conversation would be an understatement. It was only in the days that followed as she replayed that and the strange events that led to it back in her mind that she realized the switchboard operator had not taken any of her details, such as her address, contact number, or even her name. This, she realized, meant that not only would there be no follow-up call from the police, but there wouldn’t even be a record of her report. With these events in mind, Josie simply moved on with her life, never speaking of the encounter, and, essentially, forgetting about that strange day in the woods. However, just short of four decades later, the encounter would surface out of the blue and take Josie down an equally intriguing and disturbing path.
She was sitting in the coffee shop section of an Albert Heijn supermarket in 2007 when she spotted a copy of De Telegraaf newspaper and began flicking through it. By chance, she stumbled onto an article about some of the most interesting UFO sightings in Dutch history, one of which, incidentally, was the Soesterberg UFO encounter. In fact, as she read the article, she suddenly thought about her own encounter in the woods that afternoon in 1979. She then contemplated if the object that had been witnessed in Soesterberg – which was, remember, only two miles away – was somehow connected to the object she witnessed in the woods.
By the time she had the Internet connected to her house in 2010, she had a renewed interest in trying to discover what she had witnessed on the bridal path almost half a century earlier. She began researching the subject, and eventually found a website that contained the details of UFO researcher and investigator, Robert Salas, who, the site stated, had a specific interest in UFO sightings or encounters that have taken place close to military bases and facilities. Encouraged, she sent an email to the address given. Almost immediately, she received a reply from Salas. He was full of questions, wanting to know, for example, where exactly the base was in relation to the object and location of her sightings, as well as whether the bases housed nuclear weapons, and even if there was any United States soldiers stationed at the base. Josie gathered as much detailed information as he could and sent it to Salas. He would eventually detail the account and his communications with Josie in his book Unidentified: The UFO Phenomenon, which brought the encounter into the public arena. This was, though, far from the end.
The following year, in the summer of 2011, Josie was on a vacation in Blarney in Ireland, a location she was familiar with and visited often. On this particular trip, after visiting a large public house, she decided to ask if they had a room for the night, which they did. She checked in, and then, after freshening up, she made her way downstairs for dinner. Then, however, things took a rather strange turn.
As apologetic as he was, the manager approached Josie and told her there had been a mistake with her room; it was already booked for another guest. He continued that there were, in fact, no rooms available at the pub. In light of this, the manager continued, he had arranged alternative accommodation for her at a Bed and Breakfast just outside of Blarney. As perplexed as she was, she thanked the manager for doing so, packed her things, and drove to her alternative accommodation, which was, when she eventually found it, “in the middle of nowhere”. She parked her rented car in the car park of the isolated building, next to a silver Jaguar. She got out of the car and began to collect her belongings when a man approached her, seemingly out of nowhere. He spoke to her, telling her he had “been waiting a long time” for her to arrive. He would, he stated, help check her into the Bed and Breakfast, and introduced himself as Tom.
She followed him into the building, and he began to take her details. As he checked her in, he made small talk with her. However, Josie recalled his choice of subjects to be bizarre, to say the least. Instead of commenting on the weather or how his trip from the Netherlands had been, for example, he spoke instead about the end of the world and the alleged prophecies in the Mayan calendar. As strange as she found it, she put the thought out of her mind as Tom showed her to her room. He then asked her if she would like to join him for a drink after she had settled in. She thanks him, but declined, offering that she was planning on returning to Blarney to do some sightseeing for the evening. He then said, again quite bizarrely, that he would instead take his Jaguar to Kinsale (around 25 miles away) to have some work carried out on it.
Josie did indeed head back to Blarney and spent much of the night walking around the picturesque streets. It was, however, when she was sitting on a bench drinking a coffee that she noticed a large, black SUV moving past her, the black tinted windows capturing her attention. When she looked into the open side window, however, she was shocked to see the driver was none other than Tom, the man who had checked her into the Bed and Breakfast earlier. She quickly asked herself why he was in Blarney when he specifically claimed he was heading to Kinsale, and why he was driving such a heavy-duty vehicle instead of the sparkling Jaguar that had been parked in the car park of the Bed and Breakfast. Despite her confusion and concern, she waved at him from the bench, certainly in enough of an animated way as to get his attention. However, instead of waving back or smiling, he simply looked at her “with a steely face” and then carried on straight past her.
She finished her coffee and walked along several more streets before deciding to head back to the Bed and Breakfast on the outskirts of town. Almost as soon as she had walked through the door of the building, she was greeted by Tom. Without prompting, he offered that he had changed his mind about taking the Jaguar to Kinsale, opting to “stay home” instead. He then once more asked Josie if she would like to join him for a drink. This time, out of curiosity and in an attempt to find out a little more about this oddly behaving man, she agreed.
The evening began pleasantly enough as the two of them spoke naturally about themselves. Then, however, Tom suddenly stated to Josie, “It’s not a coincidence that you are here, is it?” Josie, a little shocked, asked what he meant. Rather cryptically, he stated, “Surely, you have a story to tell!” Josie had a sudden feeling that, due to the “extraordinary things in his stories”, she believed he was attempting to “provoke” her into telling him of her UFO sightings almost 40 years earlier. She reasoned quickly in her mind that he could have read about the incident in the book Salas published. Whatever the truth, the next thing she realized, she responded, “You’re right. I’ve seen a UFO near an Air Force base!”
Then, breaking the mood somewhat, the sound of the doorbell announced itself. Tom got up, stating this was likely a friend whom he was expecting, adding that he, too, “would probably also be interested” in hearing her UFO story. He returned to the room moments later, his friend with him, and after quick introductions, Josie told her story. They both listened before firing question after question at her. Josie noticed, however, that they both discreetly returned to the same type of question: whether she had suffered any sort of loss of memory connected to the encounter. Then, Tom said something that changed the whole mood of the evening. He told Josie that she wasn’t alone during the incident.
To begin with, Josie felt a little stunned, but she quickly responded that she was certain there was only herself and her horse on the bridal path when she witnessed the otherworldly vehicle. Tom dismissed her and stated once more that “you weren’t alone. They say you”. Now, beginning to feel less certain, Josie asked who “they” were. Tom replied that “Special Forces were there”. As if to prove his information was accurate, Tom then elaborated that Josie had “been on the heather”, adding that there was a “red and white gate and you weren’t supposed to go over there”. This information Josie confirmed as being true, and was a detail she had not told anyone, even Robert Salas. She began to suspect that Tom knew much more about her and her encounter than he was saying. She asked him how he knew about the gate. Instead of answering her, however, he simply asked her again if she had suffered any loss of memory, and, although now less sure than before, she stated that she didn’t believe so.
The trio began speaking about other things but it wasn’t long before the conversation took another bizarre turn. Seemingly out of nowhere, Tom’s friend asked Josie if the large, black SUV in the car park of the Bed and Breakfast was hers. She knew which vehicle he was referring to, although she didn’t recall seeing it when she arrived back at the establishment earlier that evening. She stated that it wasn’t hers, and kept to herself that she had seen Tom driving it earlier that evening, even when Tom’s friend asked Tom if the vehicle in question belonged to him, something Tom denied, saying that he “didn’t have a clue” who the vehicle belonged to.
Whether it was because of Tom’s apparent falsehood or not, it was at this point that Josie suddenly began to feel decidedly “surprised and scared”. As the three of them ventured outside to inspect the mystery vehicle, Josie suddenly asked them bluntly who they were and if she was safe, to which Tom’s friend replied cryptically that she was “with the safest men in Ireland”. Not entirely convinced, Josie offered that she was suddenly tired and was going up to her room. The next morning she checked out early and left the establishment immediately.
Josie didn’t see either of the two men again, but the meeting with them left a lasting impression on her. Just who were they and why were they so interested in a sighting of a strange object she had seen almost 40 years ago? Moreover, why were they seemingly obsessed with whether she had endured an episode of missing time or not? Were these men from the secret security unit they spoke of? And perhaps of most concern, was she “directed” to the Bed and Breakfast by the men, or by people they worked for, by somehow coercing the owner of the public house she had originally booked into informing her of the “mistake” in giving her a room? If there was any accuracy in this last consideration, of course, then that would suggest that what she had witnessed was of far greater importance than she had previously thought?
As usual, the accounts we have examined here are but a few of the many encounters that have unfolded in or over the Netherlands, and these encounters continue to be reported today. Indeed, much like elsewhere in the world, not only do strange objects and strange experiences continue to be reported from the Netherlands, but general awareness of such matters is perhaps higher than it has ever been. If our delve into some of the most mind-bending UFO and alien encounters from the Dutch UFO files has told us anything, it is that whatever is behind the UFO and alien mysteries, it is a truly global phenomenon.
