You will never have heard of the hamlet of St Francis. That is because, since 1984, it hasn’t existed. No map or GPS system, no online mapping system, not even official government maps since 1984, have shown St Francis. This is because in 1984 something unnatural – or at least, not natural to this planet – found its way there. This is the story of my time in St Francis.
In 1984 I was in the SAS, serving as a Captain. I led a troop of 16 soldiers, the cream of the crop. I had been in the army since 1975 and had been in the SAS since 1980. I had been in every possible climate and seen things no man should. But nothing comes close to the incident at St Francis.
It was early June when I was called into the OC’s office. My troop was to be deployed to a small hamlet in Cornwall. I was given few details. We were there to protect the scientists (what from was never explained), as well as making sure no one came in or out of the settlement. The very fact alone that we were being deployed was a big enough sign that something was very wrong, and that they wanted to keep it on the lowdown. Our cover story was that we were ordinary military policeman. This was a fairly shit cover story – why would that trouble the villagers any less? But you didn’t question orders. So, on 10th June, we packed up our stuff, and set out on the long drive from Hereford to St Francis.
St Francis is, to put it bluntly, in the ass end of nowhere. There were no direct roads to it. The only way there was on twisting backroads, that went nowhere except the hamlet. With a population of just 42, the government couldn’t have asked for a better place for the sort of incident to occur. The place only consisted of one road, leading to a farm, and just 14 houses, a surprisingly large convenience store and a church built in the 1960s. The church was our base of operations, and was where we slept, along with the 8 strong team of scientists. These guys were secretive as hell. I never learnt any of their names, and they bossed us around, leading to a strong feeling of resentment amongst my men. I was never actually able to find out what they were doing, and all the actual research was seemingly done away from the hamlet, in farm fields to the south.
The day-to-day routine was simple. We’d go on guard rotations for 6 hours. There would be four of us, covering the only road. The hours were long, but there was only 16 of us, and the attitude of the whole place was definitely make do and mend. We never had any real trouble with the locals. We rarely saw them, and they never complained about our presence to us, but you could tell they were understandable pissed about being kept in the tiny settlement.
The strange events started on the third night. At about three in the morning, I was woken by one of the sentries. He made me come out into the cold night. The whole sky to the south of the village was bright, like Hundreds of flood lights had been switched on. I ran back inside to the scientists and woke the one I had deemed to be the leader. I showed him the sky and to this day, have never seen a man turn as white as he did. He ran back inside and for the rest of the night he sat up with a couple of the other scientists. The next morning, another troop of 16 SAS turned up. He never told me what the lights were.
For the next few nights things progressed as normal. The lights would come and go, and I watched them flick on a couple of times. The additional 16 troops made it a bit easier and more relaxed for my guys. The only weird thing was that the villagers began to get sick. They’d start acting funny, kind of like they were gripped by some sort of psychosis. We had to help carry a really bad patient out of the house. He must have been at least 70, but he was kicking and screaming, and it took 5 odd guys to carry him out. This happened to a few of the villagers, and they were placed in white vans and driven off. We were never told where they were taken. It was on the sixth night things went really funny.
That night, I was up, talking. I had just come off duty, and wasn’t feeling particularly sleepy, so I was talking to the other SAS officer at the site. That was when we heard the gunshots, followed by the sharp burst of screaming on the radio. We stood up but couldn’t see anything from the direction of the gunfire. I sent the other officer back in to wake the troops and began to run in the direction the noise was coming from. It was coming from the south.
As I got closer the gunfire ceased. I fought my way through brambles and thorns into a large field. There, I found a young trooper, curled up into a ball, silently sobbing. He couldn’t have been older than 25. I knelt next to him on the dew-soaked grass and try to get any sense out of him. He just began mumbling, incoherently. I stood up, and pulled my torch out, clicking it on. That’s when I saw the bodies. There were three of them. Two of them seemed to be crushed into a fallen tree. The other was almost embedded into the grass. Whatever had done this had done it by brute force – and was incredibly and unnaturally powerful. I turned around and threw up on the grass.
It took all morning to remove the three bodies from the tree. It is work I’ll never forget, not as long as I am alive. An army helicopter showed up, and the bodies were taken back to Hereford. The scientists were clearly worried and spent the rest of the day pacing. I went to bed that night worried and uneasy about the others on guard duty. My worries were unfounded – that night there were no incidents, and I took over guard duty in the small hours of the morning.
It was about 30 minutes after I went on duty that I first noticed the deep, guttural moaning emanating from the south of the hamlet. It was horribly unnerving, and I could understand how that trooper had felt. We stood by the road, watching southwards. That’s when we first saw them. They were huge – at least 20 foot high. Their bodies were small, with a human sized torso, that was shrivelled, showing the ribcage clearly. The head was near skeletal, but the eyes, in the dark of the night, seemingly bulged out of the sockets. The legs were huge. At least 30 foot long, with knees like a spider – but there were just four of them. It moved almost delicately, like a trotting horse, stepping neatly over the hedges, towering over the houses. That’s when I fired the first shot.
We withdrew over the road, firing as we went. We saw bullets slamming into this thing, as it seemed to emanate this greyish – yellow glow. It recoiled ever so slightly each time, but we were seemingly just tickling it. I radioed the other units, whom I knew had the 84mm Gustav weapons that might be able to actually bring this thing down. But for the moment we were on our own. It began to move through the houses, smashing them down, as a child does with a Jenga tower. It was incredible how wiry they were, but also having the power to smash down houses. I watched as people fled out of their houses – only to be struck down by the thing. I realised how it felt to be an ant, tiny and helpless – and afraid.
I don’t think I will ever feel the same relief I felt when I watched the first reinforcements arrive. I watched as the first Gustav was fired. It slammed into the creature – and blew it into smithereens. It let out a deafeningly loud squeal, before collapsing into a house, just 10 or so feet away. We all let out a cheer – before seeing another two stride out of the gloom of the night, and start picking their way through the houses, with astonishing speed. I withdrew and watched the Gustav armed soldier get another round off. It took out the creature furthest away, but just as that one fell, the first came forward, and slammed down a great fist. Its hands were like claws, and they bundled up into tiny, compact and dense shapes. The soldier had no chance. The creature strode forward swiping away another two soldiers, before an incredibly brave trooper ran, and fired a Gustav straight into the middle of the creature’s torso.
The rest of the night passed in a blur. Two choppers came along, and bombed whatever location the creatures came from. We helped pick up the pieces of bodies, civilian and military. It was gruelling work. The sun came up, shining a new light on the devastation. 7 of the 14 houses had been destroyed. 21 of the 42 strong population had been killed. The survivors were moved out of the village – where to I do not know. 6 soldiers had been killed. These were truly brave men – whose names are tragically lost to history.
The OC of our SAS squadron came down to inspect the site. I spoke with him briefly about what had happened. It was clear he had no idea what he was sending us into. After all the residents were moved out, the scientists ordered us to burn the village down. It took the rest of the day to complete this. The bricks were carted off and sent to various sites across the Southwest. I later learnt the road to the village would be raised. The site is now fenced off. We left that night, all of us changed men. To this day I do not what those creatures were in St Francis – but I do not doubt they were not of this planet.
So why I am telling this story now, nearly 40 years on? Because yesterday I received a text message from a high-ranking MOD civil servant who was serving under me at the time. The message simply said “Lights in the sky in a highland village. Village sealed off. It is happening again.” They are coming for us. And this time, they are prepared.