Hello, it's Richard McClain Smith here. Season 7 of Unexplained will begin next week on Friday,

July 28th. Until then, there's time for one final favourite episode. This week we're heading

back to Broadhaven in Wales, the scene of a series of extraordinary events that occurred

over the course of a few bizarre months in 1977, and it all began in the playground of a local

primary school. This is Unexplained Season 3 Episode 6, Shores of the Unknown.

In February 1953, a letter was published in the National British newspaper

The Times, with an extraordinary revelation. The letter sent by an associate of Ampleforth

Abbey in North Yorkshire, England, gave details of an ancient manuscript that had recently been

discovered in the Abbey's archives. The text, dating to around 1290 CE, described the various

mundanities of the lives of the Benedictine monks who were thought to have lived there at the time.

All fairly predictable, save for one, startling detail. Whilst preparing food for a feast,

it was written that when Henry the abbot was about to say grace, John, one of the brethren,

rushed into the hall, claiming to have seen a great portent outside.

The monks stepped out together, where moments later they witnessed a large, round silver thing,

like a disc flying slowly above them. It is a story often repeated in the annals of uphology,

right up there with Ezekiel's biblical vision of glowing metal in the sky.

It was of course a hoax, fabricated by two schoolboys of Ampleforth College. As it transpired,

there had never been an Ampleforth Abbey as far back as the 13th century.

In later iterations, to accommodate this minor contrary detail, the story was changed,

swapping Ampleforth for the far more ancient and credible location of nearby Byland Abbey.

We might say that the mutation of such a story is evidence of its fictitious origins.

And yet, as a species of storytellers, we seem naturally predisposed to adapt our stories

...