The Mysterious Tale of Sam the Sandown Clown

A man was strolling by himself along the damp beach at Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight on a March evening in 1972. He breathed in the clear, chilly evening air and relished the quiet and tranquility of low tide. Abruptly, a little, insignificant wave struck his ankle with a frigid splash of water. But the waves got bigger and more frequent until they reached his knees and scared him. He became aware that the behavior of the tide was strange.

The man turned to sprint back to the beach, but he soon discovered that he was wading in ever deeper water. He swam toward a nearby formation of boulders that was normally above the water. He had to fight his way to the rocks, where he was able to climb and find safety above the breaking waves. He took a deep breath and peered out over the murky waters, attempting to make sense of the abrupt surge.

Then he heard it: a low, droning noise that sounded from the sea, akin to a siren operating slowly. He was shocked to see two yellow lights that looked like a sea creature's eyes appear beneath the surface. They glowed for a few minutes and then vanished into thin air. The man was shaken but yet managed to get back in his car and drive home as the lights and the tide disappeared.

This strange experience was not isolated. For the past couple of years, he had been seeing unusual lights that seemed to follow him, but he hesitated to tell anyone for fear of sounding crazy. It was only when his daughter had a similar experience a year later that he revealed his story.

Today I decided to share this peculiar story—one that’s both chilling and baffling: the tale of Sam the Sandown Clown.

Seven-year-old Fay was playing by a lake in Sandown, Isle of Wight, on a sunny May afternoon in 1973. While playing hide-and-seek with a small kid, she heard an odd noise that sounded like a siren. Inquisitive, they pursued the sound across a golf course and into marshy areas close to Sandown Airport. Then all of a sudden there was no more sound, and they saw a hand with only three fingers, gloved in blue, holding onto a wooden footbridge.

From under the bridge came a tall, odd man who staggered and dropped a book into the water. The guy approached a metallic hut without windows uncomfortably and vanished inside. Curious but unnerved, the kids trailed after him. Then the figure was back, holding something black that looked like a microphone, and the extremely loud siren noise started up again.

"Hello, are you still there?" the individual asked through the device as it came to an end. The children approached him after hearing his strangely clear voice that calmed them down despite the distance. The figure was reported as being almost seven feet tall, neckless, and dressed in a green tunic, white pants, and a yellow pointed hat. His visage included red hair, yellow lips that remained still, a brown square nose, and triangular eyes. He wore bare white feet and blue gloves with three fingers.

The apparition identified himself as "Sam," and because his spoken words were strange and garbled, he penned a note for the kids to read. Sam explained to the kids that he wasn't a ghost or a man, but rather something they already understood. He said he was afraid of others because he thought they would harm him. Fay thought him kind despite his scary appearance, and he invited the kids to his hut.

They slithered through a flap and entered a two-story room inside. The lower level included wooden furniture, a tiny electric heater, and wallpaper in shades of blue and green. By inserting the berries inside his ear and causing them to reappear in his eye, Sam exhibited an unusual method of consuming berries.

The kids hurried back to the golf course, feeling abruptly afraid once more after chatting with Sam for almost thirty minutes. Two men laughed as they informed them what had transpired. Three weeks later, Fay and the boy made the decision to keep Sam a secret from everyone else.

When Fay's father saw that she appeared disturbed on June 2, 1973, he eventually persuaded her to tell him about the incident. At first he was contemptuous, but the persistent, in-depth account she gave made him worry. He asked the youngster to corroborate the account, and although he acknowledged the meeting, he was reluctant to discuss it.

According to accounts, Fay's father, Mr. Y, couldn't get rid of the sense that something wasn't quite right. He got in touch with a British UFO Research Association UFO investigator and produced a thorough report. His own unusual encounters led him to become interested in UFOs.

Mr. Y reported seeing a big, silent UFO with seven bright lights floating over fields close to the Brading town on October 20, 1970. With its lights visible in his rearview mirror, the craft followed him as he drove. Over the course of two years, this often occurred, leading up to the horrifying encounter at Compton Bay where he saw the yellow lights in the water.

Mr. Y believed there was a link between Fay's meeting with Sam and his own experiences. Fay may have been taken into a "alien reality," he surmised, adding that none of the two nearby workers appeared to be aware of Sam. He wanted someone to take a serious look at the story, but he kept it quiet out of fear of mockery.

One of the most bizarre UFO tales is still the Sandown Clown case. It features supernatural aspects as well as the odd actions of a character that resembles a cross between an alien, a clown, and a ghost. The way that Sam interacted with Fay and her companion, whether he was an alien, a supernatural being, or something else entirely, is still mysterious and perplexing.