Lucy Beaumont's Close Encounters

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Suffs!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home!

Winner, best score!

We demand to be seen!

Winner, best book!

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It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

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BBC sounds music radio podcasts hello and welcome to the infinite monkey cage extra bonus special UFO extra special I don't know what is it it's basically the offcuts what do you mean the off cuts well it's the bits that they the powers that be thought were too close to the truth because it proves that there is a nexus of alien activity in the very heart of our civilization.

Where's that again, Lucy?

Hull.

Why in Hull?

Why not?

Very good, very good point.

That's not an argument.

That is where everything derives from Hull.

Anyway, historically and metaphorically.

Anyway, Lucy went to Hull, and here is the report.

They didn't want you to write this trivel.

They do.

Hello, my name is Lucy Beaumont, and I am a writer and comedian.

But today, I am very serious about something.

I am very serious about aliens and UFO activity.

In 1913, in this area where we stood, bright lights were seen in the sky.

They were like white and red, and crowds gathered.

There were policemen there and residents, and it was there for nearly an hour.

We have come to Hull to investigate UFOs and to prove that aliens do exist.

Not proving to me, I know they exist.

We're proving to you and to Brian Cox.

I have seen things happen.

Things have fallen from the sky next to me.

My mum has

definitely been tampered with.

She's had things fall out of her ear by alien chips.

People have been abducted that we know.

Everyone always says the same thing.

When anyone ever goes public about it, someone knocks on the door in a suit and says, Be quiet.

I'm here today to to talk to Mark Covell, who is a historian, a UFO expert.

Hello, Mike.

Hello.

Mark spent his life researching the unknown and the unexplained.

So, Mike, we're here in your study.

I can see

a lot of research archives here.

And living in Hull, there must be so many unexplained stories, do you think?

Oh, yeah, there is, yeah.

I mean, I started researching UFOs and found all sorts, and a lot of it had not been published before, it had never appeared in print.

And there was a lot of people that had seen stuff and wouldn't come forward because they were afraid of what people might think of them.

And I was able to go to the archives and show them that other people had reported it

and they wasn't alone in there in what they'd seen.

What I do is not just the newspaper archives, but I go through sort of the national archives as well.

So I've also got with me documents from the government and stuff that show that these sightings over Hull were happening and being reported by quite stand-up,

you know, well-respected observers.

So can you give us a brief history then of

UFO

activity in the Hull and East Yorkshire area, Mike?

Yeah, certainly.

I mean one of the earliest reports came in 1801 that said this strange

orb had come towards the town, it had flown over the Humber.

It was blue in colour but once it was hovering over the Humber, it split off into four pieces.

The residents in the town witnessed this.

They then saw it come back together and form one piece before it flew off.

Now, something like that's not

like a celestial object or anything like that.

No, because they won't have watched ET then, well, they are X-Files that have had none of that.

So, in 1909, there was a number of scare ship sightings.

In 1913, that really peaked when the entire country was worried about these things.

But in Hull, there was a lot of sightings.

Right through the 1940s, there was a number of sightings, and from sort of 1947, it really picked up.

1967 was a big year with a lot of sightings in that year in Hull.

This was a sighting that took place in a place called Longhill at a park, and a number of schoolchildren had seen this one.

And so, this was reported in the newspapers.

And what you've got there are the contemporary press reports that were published at the time.

And on the flip side, you've got the modern reports that ask out for people because obviously people want eyewitnesses to come forward and speak about what they'd seen in the skies over Hull.

Wow, because I knew about this because my mum told me, because my mum was, she was brought up on Long Hill Estate.

I, in my head, believe that, and that's when the aliens came down and sort of intermingled with people on the estate and have affected my mum in that way.

Believing that mum has some sort of alien creativity to her.

Well,

we are now on the trail basically, and we're going back to where my mum is from, where the cigar-shaped aircraft landed.

Who knows?

We might actually

see some.

We are at the Long Hill Estate in East Hull, and we're on the parklands.

This is my mother.

Hello, I am your mum, yes.

My real mum, aren't you?

I am.

And my mum was brought up here on the Long Hill Estate.

And you frequented this park, didn't you?

I played here, if that's what you mean, yeah.

Yeah, and so we are here because in the 60s,

a cigar-shaped object

was seen by children playing in this very spot, hovered and it hovered, and apparently it came down and went back up again and then down again and then flew off just here.

And the thing is, scorch marks were seen on the hill where it happened.

And you saw those scorch marks, didn't you, Mum?

Well, we climbed on there to get a better look of

the scorch marks, and from up there you could actually see the shape of a we called them flying saucers but you've got to remember in the sixties there was space travel and as kids we we couldn't

you know they weren't going they weren't flying to the moon like just to see the moon they were going to look for Martians

so you know we were a little bit obsessed I know this sounds weird but vans did arrive, men in black did arrive and apparently they had suits on as well.

All the kids then were on care for you, you weren't allowed out.

This is true.

Um,

and we were allowed back in the park for a long time.

Now, me and our Ricky, my brother, we came, we did because we lived over there.

You see, over there, that you see that white house there, that the we can see the end of it, right?

There's a bright light shining, which actually Lucy, that's a bit weird.

There's a really bright light.

Look there, what is that?

Look at that green light.

What's that green light there?

there?

Straight ahead.

Oh, my god, that looks like eyes.

Anyway, so you see the you see the blue house where obviously it ain't council-owned now because she won't be able to paint and blue.

But that's that's our house.

So when the locked park, we didn't have to come through the gate.

We ran across the fields and we sneaked in.

Now I laid like a starfish on top of their mills, begging for that when they tampered with you.

I laid like a starfish on their mills,

begging them, beam me up, beam me up.

And I can remember flying out the window for a few nights after that.

I don't know, I never told you that, did I?

It's weird what you remember when

you take them back, yeah.

Yeah, and the window was like it just disappeared.

I ain't kidding you.

I ain't kidding you.

You ask our Ricky, we did it, it happened a few times.

So when the locked park

here

and the banned all the kids from coming back,

no, I've spoken to someone, they said, Oh, it's because everyone was scaremongering, they're all scaremongering, and all the kids were scared.

That's why they locked park.

It isn't, it's because the men in black had arrived.

When you say men in black, I don't want people to like think like Will Smith.

What do you mean when you say men in black?

Do you mean

MI5?

No, MI5 is a motorway.

So, what was strange is

now it's what forensic people wear, you know, like the boiler suits with the hoods.

Well, in them days, of course, we didn't know, we didn't know what what, you know, they looked like, so that was strange because they had the hoods up and everything, the gloves, the masks, the lot.

Why?

They were doing tests, weren't they?

Then we were doing tests.

Well, there hadn't been a murder, you know, so there was no reason.

So we are at the top of the hill now, and we've climbed up it.

How do you feel?

Well, I feel like I want to lay down because what I did as a kid, I laid, I laid down on the floor like a starfish.

And I think our Ricky went and collected coloured glass.

I don't know where he got it from, and he put it all around me.

Feels weird being here.

I can't quite explain it.

Why have you got to fake?

You know, I had earache for absolutely years, didn't I?

Years.

And I sneezed and this chip fell out my ear.

Now, Steve said at first it's a bit of cartilage, but

it wasn't.

It looked like a chip, you know, not, you know, a computer chip.

So, anyway, it was identical to the ones that they were saying were alien chips.

So, I wrapped it in a bit of

tissue paper and

I was going to send it off to a laboratory or something in Leeds because I had a contact there at the university.

And the cat at it.

Oh, you know this story.

Don't laugh, don't, because then he disappeared.

He disappeared.

Yes, the cat did disappear.

I don't want to alarm you, but there is a car with black tale windows just right off top of there.

What do you think to that then, Brian?

Well, thank you, Lucy, for that incisive journalism.

Okay, I just wondered, like, now that we've convinced you, will you have to sort of go back and sort of restudy or something?

Would you even have to go back, like, right back to A-level and stuff like that and rethink everything?

Do something practical rather than physics.

Not entirely convinced.

Why?

Anyway, thanks again, Lucy.

And you can also listen to our...

Are you an alien?

You can also listen to our panel's response to that report in our full Radio 4 UFO show on BBC Sounds.

As you've heard already, it's pretty conclusive, eh?

Thank you to Lucy Beaumont, Mike Covell, and Lucy's mum, Jill Adams, for taking us on that.

Can they see your feet?

Is levitating?

Adventure.

Any final words?

Nanu, nanu.

Thank you.

Monkey cage.

In the infinite monkey cage.

Jill, now nice again.

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Sups!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We We demand to be hunted.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs.

Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.