Sam the Sandown Clown
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Strangers,
We’ve covered clowns once or twice on the One Strange Thing podcast; it’s fair to say that we’re not fans. Now, we’re not here to cast aspersions on the noble profession of professional jester of fool: please know that. But the version of clown that ends up on our radar is. . . not that.
Such was the case back in 1978, when The BUFORA Journal reported on the bizarre experiences of a man who wanted to be known only as Mr. Y. We stop now and explain that this is no run-of-the-mill small-town newspaper; it’s the British equivalent of MUFON, or the Mutual UFO Network. The reporting there is going to be alien-centric, right? Right. With that said, we need to tell you Mr. Y’s story. The sources are scarce on this one, so take with all the grains of salt.
He came to The BUFORA Journal with a story of his two-year experience--really, his family’s two-experience--between 1970-1972, on the Isle of Wight. According to Mr. Y, they were being harassed by alien spacecraft. And a clown. Probably an alien clown. We’ll explain that as. . . best we can.
For about two years, Mr. Y had seen alien spacecraft in the sky. He claimed to have encountered these ships on multiple occasions, and was frightened by their flashing lights and the fact that they seemed to be following him. But apparently, he didn’t tell his family about the experience. So when his daughter came home in the spring of 1973--about a year after Mr. Y last alleged to have seen an alien craft--and said she’d had an odd experience, we have to assume he braced himself to hear about a UFO.
But his seven-year-old, who the journal dubbed “Fay” for the purposes of their telling, offered up a very different sort of story. Still, Mr. Y thought was connected to his own experiences.
Fay and a friend were playing outside when they heard a strange, “siren-like noise.” Per the History Disclosure Blog, they were near “Lake Common, Sandown” -- thus, we must assume, the name. They followed the sound. It wasn’t long until they encountered a figure scrambling in and out of what looked like a “metallic hut.”
According to BUFORA, the children described the figure as something between a robot and a clown, and one who was carrying a microphone. As History Disclosure explains, it might have been the source of the siren noise they’d heard as they’d approached the silver hut. When it called out, they decided to come closer.
According to BUFORA, they said the figure was at least “seven feet tall,” “neckless,” wore a yellow hat and green shirt, and that its “face had triangular markings for eyes, a brown square of a nose and motionless yellow lips. Other round markings were on his paper-white cheeks and a fringe of red hair fell onto his forehead.”
And, yes, it looked something like a clown.
Once they approached the creature, it didn’t continue speaking. Instead, it wrote them a note on some paper it happened to be carrying. Why? Don’t ask us; we’re just here to relate the story.
As History Disclosure tells it, the creature wrote ““Hello and I am all colours, Sam.” Then, the microphone came back into play: BUFORA reported that they asked the creature a series of questions, starting with whether it was human:
The answer was a chuckled 'No. They also asked if he was a ghost. The vague reply was' ...Well, not really, but I am in an odd sort of way?
"What are you then? ' they continued, but only obtained the answer
"You Know' with no further explanation.
Now, if you’re wondering why they didn’t leave right then, we can’t tell you. But what we can say is that this “Sam” invited them into its hut to check out the crib. And, of course, they went, because kids, right? BUFORA’s explanation makes it seem like they may have been in a sort of spaceship: they children described “two stories” and a wall “covered in a pattern of dials.”
When Fay told her father, Mr. Y, this story, his reaction is not what ours would have been. Perhaps it’s because he believed he’d been chased by UFOs for a couple of years, but he immediately connected her experience to his own.
He told BUFORA, “ I get the impression Fay was somehow taken into a bubble of alien reality created by this strange personage.... he told them he had just made the hut. Also, Fay told me that while they were talking to this "ghost,” two workmen nearby were repairing a post. They paid no attention to the weird charade, as though they could not see it."
The fact that the workmen did not see anything might have been a sign to many parents they their child had not had an interaction with a ghost-alien-robot-clown, but Mr. Y had his own, repeated brushes with the supernatural, so he was more willing to believe than most.
And then? No more reporting, no more follow-up. Just this bizarre story that ties together two unbelievable experiences: a father, chased by spacecrafts, and a daughter who claimed to have climbed into the hut of a friendly, microphone-wielding creature and returned home unharmed.
It’s not a story we can tie up neatly for you . . . because some things are too weird, even for us.
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Works Cited
Norman Oliver, “Ghost or Spaceman ’73?” The BUFORA Journal, February 1978.
N/A, History Disclosure, “Two Children Have a Close Encounter With a Strange Humanoid.” 2018.