No project on UFO practice in Scotland could overlook Dechmont Woods, near Livingston, location of the famed close encounter experienced by forester Bob Taylor in 1979.
I took a trip there to see the UFO trail created by West Lothian Council in 2018 to mark the incident. The site and its memorialisation have quite a complicated history, some of which is indicated in this Daily Record story. I wasn’t hunting aliens, of course, though there were plenty of quadrupedal non-human intelligences taking their primates for a walk.
Although the location of the encounter may look eery and remote in photos, it’s a short walk from the outskirts of Livingston, and very close to the M8. The soundscape was one of traffic noise mingled with the occasional aeroplane heading to or from nearby Edinburgh airport — not to mention walkers, cyclists, dog walkers, and even a horse-drawn carriage. This is urban and semi-urban, industrialised Lowland Scotland. I’ve shown some of the wider infrastructure around the setting in these pics below, such as the nearby covered reservoir and, more distantly, the various Forth crossings.
In future posts, I’ll certainly address some of the other well-known narratives of UFO doings in Scotland, but I’ll also be looking to get beyond familiar reference points in this intriguing cultural history.
