MY EARLY YEARS!

I was born in September 1965 and raised in a little village called 'Ferrybridge', just two miles from the historic town of Pontefract in West Yorkshire. I am the forth in line of a family of five - two girls and three boys. My Great Grandfather Richard Jones was born in Caddoxton, Wales, but moved to Rotherham, Yorkshire to work in the coal industry. His title was 'wagon builder', helping to construct the rail wagons that transported the coal from the mines. My Grandfather Edward moved from Rotherham to Ferrybridge, where he met and married a Romani lady named Aida Ann Sinfield. Together they had twelve children of which my father Albert Snowden was born. My father was a handsome man with tanned features inherited from his mother, a trait which I myself now share. My mother Violet was fair skinned with black hair and very beautiful! Because we lived near a Power Station that was in the process of being built, my father used to take on lodgers involved with it's construction. One of these lodgers termed my mother as an Irish girl - due to her beautiful black hair. My Grandfather on my mother' side was Bertrum Miller, an handsome man, who was to lose his arm during the First world war. He and his family moved to Yorkshire from the South of England, where he eventually met and married my Grandmother Violet Fairbairn.

Ferrybridge in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a postal town on the Great North Road, which stretched from London to Glasgow, and has a result played host to travellers traversing the long road from the South and North in their horse drawn coaches. On one sad occasion in 1781, a man travelling in a post chaise stayed overnight at one of the many Public Houses, and on leaving to resume his journey, had left his purse on a table in one of the rooms. A young man named Gervasse Thomas was sent to find the traveller and return his purse. Has the young man approached the chaise, he shouted out, "Stop, your purse your purse!" The gentleman on the chaise assumed that the young man was an highwayman looking to rob him. As a result, the gentleman pulled out a pistol and shot dead the young man. Of being later informed of his dreadful mistake, the traveller provided handsomely for the grieving family.

Like nearly all places in Great Britain, Ferrybridge is rich in history. In one of it's fields it contains what has now become termed as the 'Ferrybridge Henge'! Standing stones in a circular configuration similar to that of Stone Henge and of the many others dotted within the British Isles. Ferrybridge then, was a Centre for Druidic activity. Ironically, this ancient Ferrybridge Henge is located next to the second largest power station in Europe, which menacingly towers above Ferrybridge. Strangely enough, UFOs have been reported in the vicinity of the power station, but I find the presence of the stone Henge interesting when UFO's are reported close by. Either the Power Station attracts them, or it is actually the Henge that is influencing their visits. My elder brother Tony once spoke of playing near the local flower mill with our cousin, and of them both witnessing a flight of disc shaped UFOs travelling at great speed in a 'V' formation. My brother was sceptical about life after death, but was a firm believer concerning UFOs and extra-terrestrial beings from other planets. It was his sighting of the UFOs that instilled this belief in him. When I was under ten years old, I shared a double bed with my brother and as a result engaged in many topics of conversation. It was on one sad day that the family dog, 'Judy' was stricken with age, and had a large tumour on her side. She was struggling to walk and was in distress with pains. The local vet visited on request and administered the lethal drug to put her to sleep. I had been laying next to her, cuddling her and showering her with love! But, the experience of losing her was too much, and I burst out crying and was escorted away from the scene. I made my way upstairs with distress to my bedroom and looked out at the Veterinarian carrying Judy to his van rapped in a black body bag. My mother had followed me upstairs and was trying to console me. As he put Judy in the back of his van, I shouted out, "Bye Judy, bye Lass!" That night in bed, my brother Tony talked about life with me, he seemed however to be saying that we are all temporary in the world, with only one life and existence, and seemed to be trying to harden me to life as a result of this sombre philosophy. As he spoke these words, I knew them to be instinctively wrong - such was the feeling and atmosphere that surrounded me in my early childhood: I just 'knew' there was more than the earth existence, a feeling of being indestructible with no end to one's existence!

When I was ten years old, my father would lose his life! My father was a heavy drinker and smoker, and as a result died of a ruptured ulcer. We were together in the living-room at the time, due to us both being unwell. We both also had containers next to us due to our sickened state. He joked with me about this, but shortly afterwards he looked as if he was going to vomit, and as I watched with concern, he produced blood like running water from his mouth, at which site I turned and buried my head in my hands. As the ambulance waited outside, the ambulance men helped my Father to his feet and on leaving the room I heard one of the men say, "It will be alright Albert, soon have you to the Hospital!" My father never returned home!

Just four years on and our family was to suffer another great loss, Tony, who had witnessed the UFO's many years before, suddenly died of a brain Hemmerage. I had first heard the news of this sad event whilst I was baby-sitting for my elder sister Ann. I was to find out many years later, that his Hemmerage could have been the result of an accident he'd had whilst on his motor bike. He wasn't wearing his crash helmet at the time, and suffered a blow to his head. In the ensuing days and weeks, he would display heavy headaches, refusing to go to the doctors, opting in favour of simple pain relief tablets. I loved and admired my brother Tony very much!

After my Father died my elder brother Alan would take on a Fatherly figure to me and my younger sister, Kathleen. I was the usual kind of boy, I loved creating adventure and dreaming of being someone famous. I was very imaginative then, and I still am to this day. In my younger days I used my imagination for excitement, but as I approached adulthood, I began to use imagination as a tool for protection. I use imagination to shield me from the harshness of life. But I must stress that although I use fantasy for escapism, I can distinguish between reality and the dream world. So, when experiences began to manifest themselves in my awakened consciousness, I new that I was experiencing another reality and intelligence coming into my own and interacting with me for reasons then unknown.
 
It was one late night in March 1987, when I was resting on my bed listening to music on my headphones. My bedroom was small at the time, and were known as box-rooms. As the hours rolled by with the time reaching around 3am, I packed away the headphones and turned off the stereo system. What I should have done at this point is simply turn off the light and get back into bed (I always kept the curtains drawn, and still do to this day). However, on this particular occasion I got out of bed and opened the curtains wide whilst the bedroom light was still on. It was at that precise moment that I got the distinct impression I was being watched! Thinking this a neighbour across the street I smiled to myself. I then turned off the light and got into bed. As I lie there, I remembered looking around the room at the yellow glow being cast on the walls by the streetlight, which was situated just beyond the front garden. Also, I was confused as to why I had opened the curtains in the first place. I clearly wasn't looking forward to the morning light flooding into the bedroom. As this doubt about the opened curtains pervaded my thoughts, there was a sudden movement on the wall directly opposite me. As I continued to observe this movement, I realised it was the beginnings of a shadow! The shadow moved slowly and silently across the wall until it partially blocked out the light from the street lamp outside - leading me to the conclusion that something was moving between the street-light and my bedroom window. This being the case, would mean that the object would have to be moving through the garden itself.

The shadow was slowly moving from West to East, and I remember thinking "Oh, it's just mist moving over the lamp-head." There was doubt with this first thought however, and as a result I remember becoming nervous. After the shadow had completely passed - which perhaps took around a minute or so, I recalled hearing my mother leaving her bedroom to visit the bathroom. I also heard the faint engine noise of a car in the distance. These familiar sounds gave me the courage to investigate, and on opening the window I looked out - I saw nothing, except for that of a white car coming into the avenue.

Thinking back to the incident the next day, I remembered the two pieces of musical tracks that I had been listening to. I realised that I'd known the title of one of them, which was 'Nothing to fear'. The second track however, I had just discovered that night - the title of this second track to my surprise was 'Somebody up there likes you'.

I remember feeling somewhat nervous about retiring to bed after the previous night's encounter, but when I did, I went around 9.30pm - the goal being to get to sleep quickly, in order not to observe or experience anything out of the ordinary. But now in retrospect, I believe sub-consciously that I 'knew' something were to happen - and I believe it did.

Once in bed, and after what seemed hours, I eventually drifted into sleep. I next remember of being in the middle of a dream, and of something that I can only describe as an 'intrusion' or 'outside influence' begin to move in and out of the dream. It was then that I realised my attention on this intrusion had brought me out of the dream and into full consciousness. With my eyes still closed and seemingly content to be so. An energy of some sort began flowing externally passed the left side of my head. This I found interesting, due to my left ear being perforated - a condition I developed around the age of ten. I remember being fascinated at the time concerning these happenings, and of a strange calmness. As I questioned what was to happen next, I suddenly found myself enveloped in a red hazed atmosphere. I remember seeing something large and machine-like in the centre of this environment. I then awoke with buzzing all around me, and of which gradually faded. The eighties were to prove a strange decade for me. Later, I was to discover that the eighties was a strange decade for many others who have claimed similar experiences to that of my own.

As I reflected on the shadow incident of March 1987 and subsequent abduction, I suddenly realised that it had occurred before around 1984/5 - and this time I had a witness. On this particular day a friend called out of the blue, and we found ourselves talking into the early hours of the morning. He was sitting on the sofa, which was situated underneath the large living-room window - I was seated in a single chair against the wall opposite him. I thus had the left side of my face towards him, turning occasionally to face him when in conversation. Our topics under discussion however, had dried-up, and as a result, we lapsed into silence. Suddenly out of the blue he suggested that we meditate. This felt strange at the time, and almost sounded like somebody else's thoughts rather than his own. I closed my eyes and took-up a meditational posture. Assuming my friend was doing the same, I sat with my eyes closed and my mind blanked. Suddenly my eyes opened as if of their own accord. A shadow was now already visible on the wall next to me, and which continued to move across the wall in the same direction it was to take several years later. Again, there was only an eerie silence. When the shadow had completely disappeared from view, my friend suddenly announced "Did you see that?" I find it interesting that he never said anything whist the shadow was visible, it was as if we were both transfixed. My friend looked out of the window at my request, but reported nothing. I could see he was visibly upset by the incident. This is where this particular experience ends - but there are many more underlined factors to these and other experiences, which suggest a planning to the whole encounters.

Derek A. Jones.