What do you think?
Rate this book
The Uninvited
The Uninvited is the true story of an ordinary family living in South Wales who found themselves entangled in a series of unearthly encounters in 1977. At first the manifestations were minor. UFOs were sighted in the area, huge burnt patches were found in the fields, television sets and cars blew all of their wiring… but before long the Coombs family was visited by weird lights, huge white figures and a glowing disembodied hand.
Their lives were disrupted and they were terrified by something unidentifiable and unimaginable.
They were a focus for The Uninvited.
Their lives were disrupted and they were terrified by something unidentifiable and unimaginable.
They were a focus for The Uninvited.
173 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 1, 1979
7 people are currently reading
297 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 13, 2012
OOOOH! Spooky! I was terrified when I read this book.
Scary. We are not alone...
Scary. We are not alone...
October 21, 2021
When people worldwide think of British UFO cases, they might think of the crop circles in Wiltshire. They might also think of the Rendlesham Forest incident, where a UFO landed on a joint RAF/USAF airbase at the height of the Cold War, resulting in the famous newspaper headline "UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK - AND THAT'S OFFICIAL". If they are well read in UFO lore, they might even have heard of the Warminster Thing case which attracted hordes of George Adamski-esque hippie contactees to rural Wiltshire in the mid/late 1960's. 10 years later than Warminster, Wales went through a massive wave of often very strange cases which remain comparably obscure. The one well known case from the Welsh UFO flap of the mid/late 70's is the Berwyn Mountain case, probably on account of being one of the few with a clear mundane explanation.
"The Uninvited" by Clive Harold follows one of the weirdest and most disturbing of the Welsh UFO cases - that of the Coombs family's many strange experiences in 1977. The Coombs family did not just witness several UFO landings near their farm. They also experienced interruptions and malfunctions striking the electric appliances in their home, stalking by very tall men wearing silver spacesuits and sickly looking Men In Black whose physiognomy matched that of no ethnicity on the planet as well as repeated incidents where the livestock on their farm disappeared from their stables only to return on the nearby farmer's field. All that despite the Coombs having locked the stables and the padlocks still being intact when they checked afterwards. The aforementioned MIBs were also described as driving a futuristic silver car whose bodywork did not resemble any production car that had existed at the time. All of this is decidedly uncanny, and Harold writes the story like a captivating and disturbing horror novel with no clear answers that happens in real life.
However, there are some things about this book that look suspicious the more you think about them. There are no primary sources listed, no photographs or even maps of the farm where everything took place. I cannot tell for sure how much of it happened exactly as the author describes and how much might be embellishment to tell a cracking good yarn. Reading "the Uninvited", I got flashbacks to Charles Berlitz' books about the Roswell UFO Crash and the Bermuda Triangle which came across as convincing until I learned about Berlitz' omission of key information that make mundane explanations more appealing, if not downright misrepresentations of the facts of the cases at hand. I wonder whether the account of the Coombs family's UFO contact tribulations given in "The Uninvited" is a similar story, with Clive Harold functioning as an across-the-pond Charles Berlitz here?
After having seen the documentary film "Mirage Men" and read the book by Mark Pilkington that inspired it, both of which revolve around the revelation that the USAF cultivated much of the American UFO mythology to distract from its own secret test flights, I suspect the Royal Air Force and the MI5 might have been engaging in something similar here. Imagine the RAF testing prototype VTOL aircraft that locals mistook for flying saucers, equipped with ahead-of-their-time electronic jamming equipment designed for disrupting communication systems. The RAF could also have unusually tall personnel dress up in spacesuits and stalk the family, and done others up to look sickly while modifying a car to look like something from the future in order to give the "MIB" a convincingly unearthly transportation method. There are no hard evidence yet for this theory, but I can't help but ask "cui bono?". After all, Harold describes the Royal Air Force at first claiming to the Coombses that they were investigating the incidents as well but then turn around and deny they could do anything about it. If Harold didn't make turn of events up, this suggests the RAF knew more than they let on. I would not be surprised if a "Mirage Men" style game of smoke-and-mirrors was at play here as well.
"The Uninvited" by Clive Harold follows one of the weirdest and most disturbing of the Welsh UFO cases - that of the Coombs family's many strange experiences in 1977. The Coombs family did not just witness several UFO landings near their farm. They also experienced interruptions and malfunctions striking the electric appliances in their home, stalking by very tall men wearing silver spacesuits and sickly looking Men In Black whose physiognomy matched that of no ethnicity on the planet as well as repeated incidents where the livestock on their farm disappeared from their stables only to return on the nearby farmer's field. All that despite the Coombs having locked the stables and the padlocks still being intact when they checked afterwards. The aforementioned MIBs were also described as driving a futuristic silver car whose bodywork did not resemble any production car that had existed at the time. All of this is decidedly uncanny, and Harold writes the story like a captivating and disturbing horror novel with no clear answers that happens in real life.
However, there are some things about this book that look suspicious the more you think about them. There are no primary sources listed, no photographs or even maps of the farm where everything took place. I cannot tell for sure how much of it happened exactly as the author describes and how much might be embellishment to tell a cracking good yarn. Reading "the Uninvited", I got flashbacks to Charles Berlitz' books about the Roswell UFO Crash and the Bermuda Triangle which came across as convincing until I learned about Berlitz' omission of key information that make mundane explanations more appealing, if not downright misrepresentations of the facts of the cases at hand. I wonder whether the account of the Coombs family's UFO contact tribulations given in "The Uninvited" is a similar story, with Clive Harold functioning as an across-the-pond Charles Berlitz here?
After having seen the documentary film "Mirage Men" and read the book by Mark Pilkington that inspired it, both of which revolve around the revelation that the USAF cultivated much of the American UFO mythology to distract from its own secret test flights, I suspect the Royal Air Force and the MI5 might have been engaging in something similar here. Imagine the RAF testing prototype VTOL aircraft that locals mistook for flying saucers, equipped with ahead-of-their-time electronic jamming equipment designed for disrupting communication systems. The RAF could also have unusually tall personnel dress up in spacesuits and stalk the family, and done others up to look sickly while modifying a car to look like something from the future in order to give the "MIB" a convincingly unearthly transportation method. There are no hard evidence yet for this theory, but I can't help but ask "cui bono?". After all, Harold describes the Royal Air Force at first claiming to the Coombses that they were investigating the incidents as well but then turn around and deny they could do anything about it. If Harold didn't make turn of events up, this suggests the RAF knew more than they let on. I would not be surprised if a "Mirage Men" style game of smoke-and-mirrors was at play here as well.
October 6, 2011
I´ve read this book several times throughout the years and I think it´s such a scary book.
I´m from Sweden, and many years ago my father had a job that meant he was spending a lot of time in UK, and he and I spent two of his vacations in, and around London.
One one trip we met with one of his colleagues in UK, Helen, and my father later told me that she had her family in the area where The Uninvited took place.
And my father bought this book after he met with Helens family...
(allright, my dad and Helen were lovers for a while!! :D)
My father told me some of the things that he was told by Helens family, but I don´t remember them, but this book...It´s impossible to forget the true story that Clive Harold tells in this book.
Although I´ve read this book several times I know I will read it again.
And again.
I´m from Sweden, and many years ago my father had a job that meant he was spending a lot of time in UK, and he and I spent two of his vacations in, and around London.
One one trip we met with one of his colleagues in UK, Helen, and my father later told me that she had her family in the area where The Uninvited took place.
And my father bought this book after he met with Helens family...
(allright, my dad and Helen were lovers for a while!! :D)
My father told me some of the things that he was told by Helens family, but I don´t remember them, but this book...It´s impossible to forget the true story that Clive Harold tells in this book.
Although I´ve read this book several times I know I will read it again.
And again.
February 3, 2015
I've read this book many times in my life and every time I thoroughly enjoy it. I hate that this book is not known by many people but at the same time I feel that it may not be appreciated.
The Uninvited tells the story of the Coombs family and the unexplainable events that occur on their farm in the 1970's. From blown up television sets to vanishing cows nobody can explain the goings on.
This book almost reads like an essay but we are also shown Pauline's thoughts throughout the book. There are beautiful descriptions with a twist of eeriness that makes you understand the Coombs to a very good level.
This book was introduced to me by a family member as she knew the author and we also live a few miles away from where this true story took place.
Love it!
The Uninvited tells the story of the Coombs family and the unexplainable events that occur on their farm in the 1970's. From blown up television sets to vanishing cows nobody can explain the goings on.
This book almost reads like an essay but we are also shown Pauline's thoughts throughout the book. There are beautiful descriptions with a twist of eeriness that makes you understand the Coombs to a very good level.
This book was introduced to me by a family member as she knew the author and we also live a few miles away from where this true story took place.
Love it!
February 23, 2014
I read this book as a teenager shortly after it was first published in the late 1970s. It was fascinating re-visiting the book more than 30 years later. An excellent, quick and intriguing read. Looking forward to visiting the area this supposedly true story was set - Three Stacks, as it is an awe-inspiring location, both in beauty and now in history.
February 24, 2020
Horror, sci-fi, whatever you want to call it, but the main point to know about The Uninvited is that it's all supposedly true. In the 1970s, Broadhaven in Wales became a place for several UFO sightings. In addition to schoolchildren seeing an alien dressed in a silver suit, the Coombs family encountered several unexplained phenomena (teleporting cows, constantly breaking cars and televisions, strange lights etc.). Well, unexplained until years after the publication of The Uninvited several people came forward and claimed some of it was just a hoax. You don't say?
This is one of those cases (rare ones, thankfully) where I was blinded by all the good reviews and the deceptively interesting blurb. What made me even have a strong gut feeling about this is baffling, because UFOs aren't really my thing. I may have a mild interest for the 1940s UFO incident, but that's mainly because I love history, strange things, and I want to visit Roswell sometime (you know, all the fun alien lamp posts and signs etc.). Even in The X-Files, almost all my favorite episodes are monster-of-the-week.
Harold is a completely adequate writer and the book as a whole isn't bad per se, but it's very dull. The sightings follow one after another. There's no real story in this monotony, because we just follow the family and their daily lives with some extra-terrestrials in the mix. Usually my gut feeling is right, but I should probably re-calibrate it when buying vintage horror paperbacks.
This is one of those cases (rare ones, thankfully) where I was blinded by all the good reviews and the deceptively interesting blurb. What made me even have a strong gut feeling about this is baffling, because UFOs aren't really my thing. I may have a mild interest for the 1940s UFO incident, but that's mainly because I love history, strange things, and I want to visit Roswell sometime (you know, all the fun alien lamp posts and signs etc.). Even in The X-Files, almost all my favorite episodes are monster-of-the-week.
Harold is a completely adequate writer and the book as a whole isn't bad per se, but it's very dull. The sightings follow one after another. There's no real story in this monotony, because we just follow the family and their daily lives with some extra-terrestrials in the mix. Usually my gut feeling is right, but I should probably re-calibrate it when buying vintage horror paperbacks.
August 6, 2019
The Uninvited is based on interviews with the Coombs family of western Wales, who were caught up in what has become known as the 1977 Welsh Triangle UFO Flap. Hundreds of UFO sightings were reported that year in Wales, but the Coombs' dairy farm was particularly affected, with family members seeing multiple large lights in the nighttime sky, and encountering large glowing figures described as "spacemen" in silver suits and helmets. They reported other unexplained phenomena, such as cows mysteriously vanishing and reappearing at other locations.
Author Clive Harold prefaces the book with a statement of his own skepticism, and in fact, years after this book was published, hoaxers came forward and confessed to being behind some of the "alien" sightings. And yet, the Coombs seem to genuinely have experienced...something. Even allowing for the author's inclination to compose the story for maximum dramatic effect, I still wonder what was going on at that farm. Like so many of these sorts of stories, I doubt there can ever be a complete explanation, but it's interesting to read and speculate about.
Author Clive Harold prefaces the book with a statement of his own skepticism, and in fact, years after this book was published, hoaxers came forward and confessed to being behind some of the "alien" sightings. And yet, the Coombs seem to genuinely have experienced...something. Even allowing for the author's inclination to compose the story for maximum dramatic effect, I still wonder what was going on at that farm. Like so many of these sorts of stories, I doubt there can ever be a complete explanation, but it's interesting to read and speculate about.
August 24, 2023
An oddly dull tale, told mostly via passive flashbacks, phone-call conversations and vague reminiscences between poorly sketched characters. There are very few chills to be had here, despite the book's promise of a 'terrifying' true story. The most the alien visitors do is...inconvenience the local farmers by moving around some cows. They're finally revealed to have been benevolent all along, and the characters needn't have spent the whole book being mildly worried about them.
It's nice to have a story set in the depths of the Welsh countryside rather than Randomsville America and it definitely put me in the mood to re-boot Destroy All Humans! But the real horror here is what happened to author Clive Harrold. After achieving success with this novel he never wrote another; although there are two sequels to The Uninvited, they're written by someone else. He resurfaced on TV in early 90's having fallen on hard-times, becoming homeless and selling the Big Issue for a living. For a bizarre puff-piece, the BBC had him 'reconnect' with former class-mate Prince Charles, with whom he was apparently chummy as a nipper because they both had big ears. Now that's truly diabolical...
It's nice to have a story set in the depths of the Welsh countryside rather than Randomsville America and it definitely put me in the mood to re-boot Destroy All Humans! But the real horror here is what happened to author Clive Harrold. After achieving success with this novel he never wrote another; although there are two sequels to The Uninvited, they're written by someone else. He resurfaced on TV in early 90's having fallen on hard-times, becoming homeless and selling the Big Issue for a living. For a bizarre puff-piece, the BBC had him 'reconnect' with former class-mate Prince Charles, with whom he was apparently chummy as a nipper because they both had big ears. Now that's truly diabolical...
November 11, 2018
A scary, fascinating book, that often rings true emotionally. Even knowing that the silver men were probably pranksters doesn't take away from some of the weirdness. The inclusion of so much seemingly paranormal activity adds to the overall authenticity for me. I do wonder whether the classifying it as UFO activity came more from the silver men prankster events, and the rest then becomes much closer to strange lights and spooky goings on. However thats complicated by the seemingly authentic sighting by a number of children at the local school which I don't think has ever been debunked convincingly. Great book, if you liked Communion or similar accounts of close encounters.
December 6, 2024
1.5 stars rounded down.
I wouldn't say this is poorly written as much as it is strangely written. Apparently Harold was a journalist fixing up a "true" account based on a series of interviews into something like a sci-fi/horror novel. Unfortunately it ends up reading like neither. It's too journalistic to be engaging fiction and too fictionalized to be a gripping piece of reporting. Plus, from a fiction standpoint, save for a few engaging scenes, there is far too much telling and not nearly enough showing. The only reason I kept trudging through was the strange intensity of the reported phenomena. I wish this book was better and I wish I could recommend it. Sadly, I cannot.
NOTE: I came to this book in a backwards way. Being a fan of horror author Shaun Hutson, I found he had written two spiritual sequels to this story under a pseudonym. Before diving into those, I wanted to find out what this first one was all about. Well, now that I've done that, it's time to move on...
I wouldn't say this is poorly written as much as it is strangely written. Apparently Harold was a journalist fixing up a "true" account based on a series of interviews into something like a sci-fi/horror novel. Unfortunately it ends up reading like neither. It's too journalistic to be engaging fiction and too fictionalized to be a gripping piece of reporting. Plus, from a fiction standpoint, save for a few engaging scenes, there is far too much telling and not nearly enough showing. The only reason I kept trudging through was the strange intensity of the reported phenomena. I wish this book was better and I wish I could recommend it. Sadly, I cannot.
NOTE: I came to this book in a backwards way. Being a fan of horror author Shaun Hutson, I found he had written two spiritual sequels to this story under a pseudonym. Before diving into those, I wanted to find out what this first one was all about. Well, now that I've done that, it's time to move on...
March 1, 2019
Took me forever to get through. Found it very dull.
October 1, 2019
Although dated, I found this book more unnerving than I thought I would.
January 29, 2020
Bravo, electronic magnificent
February 14, 2023
An easy read, finished it quickly as it was short. Story a bit dull in places.
April 27, 2023
In rural Wales in the 1970s, a whole area was harassed by UFOs, men in black, poltergeists, 10 foot tall humanoids in silver spacesuits and abduction. The book focuses on one family that seemed to bear the brunt of the encounters. The sense of fear and helplessness came through very clear. They would be harassed while in their own home and their cattle would be teleported or disappear at random. The mother eventually was abducted where her fear seems to suddenly, and suspiciously, be transformed into compassion and friendliness. And then it just stopped. There is no explanation given but the account is very detailed.
January 14, 2024
Totally gripped by this story! True events of 1977 in West Wales.
One on my book bucket list & luckily found a cheap copy.
One on my book bucket list & luckily found a cheap copy.
November 11, 2011
It has been many years since I read this book but it is one of those books you never forget. I was a teenager when I read it- my Mum lent me the book as she knew that I was interested in UFOs- but banned me from reading it in my bed at night! Probably just as well as it did raise the hairs on my neck several times. It is about a family in Wales who over the period of a year see UFOs and have several alien encounters. I remember being unable to put the book down and there was something about the book which rang true.
January 10, 2010
I read this book when I was in my mid-teens and at the time thought it was brilliant - one of the best books I ever read! Also the scariest book I ever read! I have just re-discovered it on Amazon Marketplace and ordered it - I'm hoping it will be just as good second time around!
May 10, 2025
Whether you believe in the story's validity or not, this is a truly interesting and well-written tale that kept me glued to the pages. If these were truly alien encounters, those aliens have a damn good sense of suspense and plot creation.
July 17, 2015
I read this when I was a teenager and am very surprised at how many great reviews it got,
Well Deserved,
Well Deserved,
April 16, 2017
Recommend this book to everyone! It's so interesting and I've loved hearing the story's in person.. Pauline Coombs in this book is my boyfriends nan. They are a very close family and it is definitely true!! Totally amazing. I will be passing it on to our children.
April 24, 2017
An incredible story.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews