The A70 Abduction: Garry Wood and Colin Wright

The A70, the Lanark Road, runs southwest out of Edinburgh past Harperrig Reservoir. On the evening of 17 August 1992, Garry Wood, 33, an ambulance technician from Edinburgh, was at the wheel. His passenger was Colin Wright, 25. They were taking a satellite TV system to a friend in Tarbrax, South Lanarkshire. Accounts of the time differ, from about 8 pm to shortly after 11:30 pm.

At a remote spot about five miles outside Edinburgh, something was waiting above the road. A black, two-tiered disc. Smooth and shiny, with no lights on its rounded underside. The report wording puts it at 30ft wide. It hovered motionless about 20 feet above the road surface.

Then it dropped a curtain of white light in front of the car, described in one account as a shimmering curtain some 22 feet wide. Another compares it to a detuned television set. As they drove beneath the object, the two men blacked out for what seemed like ten to 15 seconds. Their sight returned, and the object was gone.

One account puts it at 12:45 am. Somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours had vanished.

The men contacted the British UFO Research Association, then Strange Phenomena Investigations, founded by Malcolm Robinson. About six months later, Scottish hypnotherapist Helen Walters began regression sessions.

What emerged was an abduction. Garry recalled his seatbelt being unclipped and being carried on a floating stretcher. He lay on a table in a circular room, unable to sit up though he was not strapped down. A lens-like device twisted and turned above him as a long, thin, translucent arm came over his chest. Colin recalled walking up a strange ramp into a dazzling light, then being stripped and placed in a see-through container while a device with two glowing red lights moved up and down as if scanning.

Overseeing it all was a six-foot being, white-grey, with a large head, dark eyes, a long slender neck and four very long fingers. Smaller beings, about three feet tall, carried out the examinations. The word "Sanctuary" came to them telepathically, followed by "we are here already, and we are coming here!" Afterwards both men suffered exhaustion, insomnia, vivid dreams and severe headaches. Garry's MRI scan and spinal tap came back normal.

In 1996, four years after the event, a two-page report headed "Unexplained Aerial Sighting", based on Garry Wood's evidence, reached the Ministry of Defence UFO desk. It was released to The National Archives in July 2012, one of seven Scottish sightings in that batch. The papers, as reported, record a logged report with no stated conclusion. Garry later reportedly passed a lie detector test for a BBC programme, supervised by Budd Hopkins.

No independent witness saw the object. There are no photographs and no physical traces. Everything aboard the craft came from hypnotic regression, and critics note that hypnosis raises suggestibility and can produce detailed false memories. Supporters answer that the two men gave almost identical scenarios in separate sessions and have never changed their stories. Others point to a small man in a collar and tie, reportedly seen watching the procedures, as a sign of military involvement.

Malcolm Robinson's book, The A70 UFO Incident, promises unseen hypnosis transcripts. A film, A70, starring Billy Boyd, was announced in 2012, but there is no sign it was ever released.