BERWYN

1. Public Record

23 January 1974, evening. Berwyn range above Llandrillo. A bang. A light. People on the slopes think something has come down on Cadair Berwyn or Cadair Bronwen. Police look. RAF Valley sends a search team from Anglesey. No wreckage. Tabloids later try "Roswelsh" and smile at their own line.

British Geological Survey logs a magnitude 3.5 event at 20:38, felt as far as Formby. Independently, a fireball is widely seen that night, Somerset to Edinburgh, descending from about 120 km to about 35 km and breaking up over the Manchester line. Five other UK light reports around 22:00 sit in the later Ministry file. Junior RAF minister Brynmor John writes to Dafydd Elis-Thomas in May: a meteor burning and breaking before the ground. Declassified paper repeats earthquake plus meteor. Ufologists keep a crash-and-retrieval story the search team did not bring home.

A mountain, a tremor, a fireball, an empty slope.

2. Date of Incident

23 January 1974, 20:38 tremor and the same night's fireball. Minister's letter May 1974. Files opened later.

3. Location

Berwyn Mountains, Llandrillo, Wales. Approximate 52°55 N 003°27 W.

4. Official Narrative

MoD and BGS: earthquake and meteor. Official narrative is no craft and no crater. Search from Valley found nothing to lift.

5. Witness Layer

Llandrillo residents. Valley crew. BGS. The fireball observers across the country. Elis-Thomas. Brynmor John. Later retrieval writers.

A fireball was visible over most of the UK that night.

It seems the phenomena could well have been caused by a meteor descending through the atmosphere burning up and finally disintegrating before it reached the ground.

6. Recovery Logistics

A mountain search. No crate. No crater the size a 3.5 impact would have left.

7. Assessment

A bang-and-light file. Keep 20:38 and the fireball as two timed facts, not as one craft. Keep Valley's empty search. Roswelsh is a headline and should stay a headline. Do not write a retrieval because lights were seen on a slope. Do not write the tremor as a cover story when the seismograph already had a number.

8. Materials & Remains

BGS record. MoD file. Minister's letter. Empty mountain.

9. Key Personnel

Llandrillo witnesses : The bang.

RAF Valley crew : The search.

Brynmor John : The May letter.

Dafydd Elis-Thomas : The MP who asked.

10. Aftermath

The nickname outlives the crater that was not there. The range is still a range. The file is one of the few Welsh nights the Ministry had to answer on paper.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: 23 Jan 1974. Magnitude 3.5. Fireball same night. Valley found nothing.

Confidence: High that a tremor and a widely seen fireball occurred that evening and that a search found no wreckage. Low that a craft came down on Cadair Berwyn. Low that later retrieval stories have a Ministry crate behind them.

Filing note

A village under a dark ridge, a bang at twenty thirty-eight, a light people wanted to be a landing, a helicopter from Anglesey, a seismograph that already had a number, a fireball other counties had already seen, a letter in May that chose the meteor.

The crater would have been large enough to be easily visible. The slope did not offer one. That is the quietest line in the Welsh file.