Looking back: What stopped those cars on Eggardon Hill?

The date was September, 13 1968, and what followed was an age old debate in the Bridport News: What stopped our car, was it the Romans, ghosts or was it extra terrestrials?

What started this strange story was an incident including three motorists and their passengers.

The motorists and their passengers were travelling along the old Roman Road near Eggardon, their cars, a Rover 2000, a day-old Singer and a Vauxhall Victor, were travelling in convoy at 30 miles per hour at around 9pm on a Sunday evening.

As a thunder storm raged over head, the car engines were said to have 'died' and the lights went out.

One of the drivers, Mr Paul Redshaw (age 21) of Buckland Ripers, noticed that the thermometer on his Vauxhall registered complete zero.

The compass on the Rover spun wildly, all the car clocks had stopped, and so had the watches of the drivers.

A window on the Singer could not be lowered and the boot lid of the Vauxhall became jammed.

After half an hour had passed, the car lights came on again simultaneously, and all the drivers quickly set off when it was possible to restart the engines, not waiting to bid each other a farewell.

When Mr Redshaw arrived home, he found his was watch going again, but running 30 minutes slow.

What followed was weeks of speculation, with the event mentioned in the editions of September 20, October 4, October 11 and October 18.

The edition on September, 20 1968 ran with the headline, 'Those stopped cars: Roman 'ghosts' at Eggardon?', where a Mr Leonard Studley recalled how Major B.K. Ronald of Slape Manor used to tell a story (of the days when he was master of Cattistock Hounds).

Major Ronald had a mare, which would go anywhere and do anything, but refused to go beyond a certain point on Eggardon Hill, causing Major Ronald to have to turn back when he reached the spot.

Major Ronald was quoted as saying: "It was though she saw something of which she was afraid", and he wondered whether it was a vision of a ghostly army of Romans.

In the October, 4 edition of the paper, readers were treated to an exclusive from a west Dorset farmer, Mr Dudley Tolley of Stoke Knapp Farm, Stoke Abbott.

Mr Tolley told the reporter of an 'energy line' which was being beamed on him by another intelligence, and of how he had spoken to people from out of space.

Mr Tolley was quoted as said: "I have had contact with people from outer space but I have not met them face to face.

"People who say that Mars and Jupiter and other planets in our solar systems have life on them are talking piffle.

"The temperature and general conditions are wrong."

In the following edition (October, 11) an actual explanation for the occurrence was suggested by T.A. Williamson, Department of Earth Sciences at The University of Leeds.

Mr Williamson suggested that the weather itself could have been the cause of the problem, not ghosts or aliens, with ball-lightening looking to be the culprit.

In a letter to the paper, Mr Williamson said: "This long neglected, little understood, and much misrepresented phenomenon appears to consist of a highly charged, low temperature, self-luminous ball of ionised gas, associated with an intense magnetic field. "The important feature of this form of lightning is that, unlike an ordinary lightning discharge, it, and its associated magnetic field, may persist for a lengthy period of time, after which it may either drift away or explode."

He noted how the magnetic field could have affected motor ignition systems and headlamps in the manner described, as well as the spinning compass needle on the Rover.

Despite this explanation from Mr Williamson, a mysterious incident was still reported to the Bridport News, again regarding strange goings on with a vehicle.

Mr A Minchinton, of The Pebbles in West Bexington, got in touch, and said: "I had taken my grandson (aged five) to visit Portland Lighthouse and was returning in my car to Weymouth and was just about to drive off the causeway at about 20 miles per hour when I noticed the car wireless aerial slowly bending backwards."

Mr Minchinton noted that the telescopic part of the aerial was ripped out and lost.

He had since sold his car with the wireless to the local garage.

Although nothing was officially published about what caused the original incident, it certainly caused quite a stir for those involved.