ALIENS & UFOs in North Yorkshire – Are they out there?

Ben Walgate, 35, from Malton, has taken it upon himself to document potential encounters with the unknown and show that there may be more to this world than we know. 

His day job is a wedding photographer, and when he’s not working he can be found at well-known supernatural hot spots, including the North Yorkshire Moors, building up a data base of possible encounters with UFOs, bigfoot, aliens and the paranormal for his YouTube channel, 401 files - which boasts over 11,000 subscribers. 

Ben’s interest in thought-provoking topics started at a young age in his childhood home on Chapelfields estate in York.

“I was raised in a house that was full of poltergeist activity,” he said.

Ben was five years old when he had his first encounter with the unknown through his TV.

After pressing the power button, he said: “I waited for the static to fizzle out, but there was something still in the TV that was shimmering.”

“(This) would have been behind me over by the living room door.”

Ben turned the TV on and off repeatedly to see if it would go away.

“This thing was still stood there, vertically upright”, he said.

“It had a ‘cookie cutter’ shape of a human with the head and the shoulders, but I couldn’t see no feet.”

Ben panicked, backed away from the television and avoided looking at the door.

“I noticed it starting to get bigger in the reflection. I looked and this thing glided across the floor right into my face, and I’ve never been so scared in all my life,” he said.

Ben ruled out suggestions that this could have been headlights off a passing car, stating that the incident took place in the morning, in day light - so this wouldn’t have been seen.

He wasn’t the only one to experience paranormal activity in the house.

Ben said his dad, Gary, had numerous encounters with a spirit depicting an old woman that walked through the walls of the house, and even whsipered his name.

The encounters didn’t stop there.  

“I’m fascinated and I’m absolutely hooked,” said Ben. Picture: 401 files

When he was eight, Ben was travelling back to York from a Cub Scout’s trip at Snowball Plantation, Stockton on the Forest, when he encountered an unexplainable ‘green man.’

The bus pulled over for a toilet stop, and Ben went over an embankment away from the others.

Looking out into the distance he said: “I saw this being, this creature.

“It was walking on two legs through the woods. It was olive green head to toe, and it had a very small head, with very long arms in proportion to its body.”

Ben thought he was being pranked by the other scouts, so didn’t bring it up.

But no one ever mentioned it.

This encounter came back to him around twenty years later, while at work.

“I saw it replay in front of my eyes for the first time,” said Ben.

After this memory he started looking into these unexplainable encounters online.

“I found there’s been a lot of people who have seen this thing,” he said.

“That’s when I decided I would start the 401 files and start talking to these people to get an idea of what’s going on.”

Now, Ben has taken it upon himself to trail hotspots and document potential supernatural encounters.

At one hotspot, the North Yorkshire Moors, Ben said “people describe a ‘wild man’ – a prehistoric man living in the woods.”

Ben hasn’t seen anything at the North Yorkshire Moors but has heard some strange sounds.

An example is a loud scream while in a remote part of the woods, which made him think of the wild man.

When on a trip to another hot spot in Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, Ben and a few others saw red lights, depicting eyes.

He said the eyes apperared to be on something over waist height and looked right at them.

“I’m still not sure what it was,” he said.

A potential alien encounter by Ben while at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. Picture: 401 files

Despite being experienced outdoors due to his background in the British Army as an infantry solider, he said: “It’s terrifying. Whether you believe it or not when you’re in the woods at 3am on your own it’s definitely unnerving.”

When asked what he’d do if he came face to face with an alien, Ben said: “I’d like to think that I’d sit it out, be scientific in my approach and film as much as I can and eliminate all other possibilities.

“But who knows, maybe I’ll run out screaming with my hands in the air.”

Despite his best efforts, Ben is still yet to come face to face with a supernatural, but he’s not giving up yet.

“I’m fascinated and I’m absolutely hooked,” he said.

“I know what I saw (as a child). That keeps me searching.”

Now, Ben is working on a documentary about supernatural sightings around the east coast of Yorkshire.

He said: “(I want to) highlight and bring attention to the east coast and the phenomenon that happens here in the UK.”

Have you had a supernatural encounter that you can’t explain?

Get in contact with Ben on Facebook or on: 401files@gmail.com