This article first appeared in the Fortean Times (issue 144, February 2024). It covers the stranger side of things at RAF Alconbury and the Megatron restaurant.

On the evening of 26th March 1990, a strange visitor arrived in rural Cambridgeshire. The police control centre at Hinchingbrooke received multiple phone calls to report a flying saucer just outside the village of Alconbury. When officers arrived at the scene, they found exactly that: a huge spaceship sitting on the edge of the A604 and lighting up the sky.¹

What had confused so many passing motorists was in fact the opening event for a new restaurant. This was the Megatron, a vision of the future that was not destined to last. This unique landmark would stand for just 18 years before being bulldozed to the ground – but it packed a lot into its short life, including some brushes with the peculiar.

BLUNDELL’S BRAINCHILD

The Megatron was a perfect recreation of classic 1950s flying saucer. Like Doctor Who’s TARDIS, the building created the illusion of being larger inside than out. As customers entered they would see flashing lights and lasers. Staff were dressed as aliens and robots. Diners could buy Special Star Fries, Chicken Nuclear Nuggets, Space Suit Spuds, and Orange Jupiter Juice. In a pioneering innovation for its time, orders were taken via touchscreens on a central console, a feature that McDonald’s would adopt 25 years later. There was nothing else like it, before or since.

The Megatron was the brainchild of local businessman Danny Blundell, father of Formula 1 driver Mark Blundell. Danny was an ambitious man, going from humble beginnings to owning a string of businesses. According to Mark, “My dad’s mother died when he was little, and when he left school at 13 he couldn’t read or write. My mum taught him all that later. His disadvantages drove him on to be the man he was. He started as a panel beater and sprayer, but really he was a wheeler-dealer, always working, always dealing.”²

For Danny, the Megatron would be his crowning achievement, the first restaurant of what he hoped would become a chain. He consulted architects and special effects artists, visited Elstree Studios to see the sets of Star Wars and Aliens, and planned to have working robots and holograms at the entrance to welcome guests.

The rural location seems an unusual choice until you consider the American airmen then stationed at RAF Alconbury. The Megatron was built right at the entrance to the base, and the sci-fi theme and diner-style food were aimed squarely at the Americans. Visitors even had the choice of paying in dollars or pounds.

HAUNTED HUNTINGDONSHIRE

The small former county of Huntingdonshire, later absorbed into Cambridgeshire, has more than its fair share of uncanny stories. This is at least partly due to its position at the crossroads of central England. The Megatron itself was situated on Ermine Street, the Roman road leading from London to Lincoln and York. The Great North Road, and later the A1, would also pass through the area. Many local ghost stories refer to incidents on these roads.

At Nun’s Bridge, Hinchingbrooke, the ghost of a nun is said to step in front of passing cars, causing them to swerve and crash. There is also a story of three ghostly crashed cars that silently burn at night, and of figures in military uniforms from various time periods. The airbase has too many ghost stories to list here, including poltergeists and disembodied children’s voices.³

Matcham’s Bridge, just south of Alconbury, took its name from an infamous murder that took place there in the 18th century. Gervase Matcham robbed and killed a young drummer boy and went on the run for several years, spending time in the Army and the Navy. One night, during a thunderstorm on Salisbury Plain, he encountered the ghost of the drummer boy and was forced to confess. He was tried and executed at Huntingdon, and was gibbeted at the scene of the crime.⁴

“The ragged corpse swung in its cage for many years. One freezing night, a group of lads drinking at the Brampton Hut dared another boy to offer Matchem [sic] some hot broth to keep out the cold. The boy accepted the wager and, climbing a ladder, put the broth to the corpse’s lips. As he did so, another youth, hidden nearby, sepulchrally whispered ‘Cool it, cool it’. So great was the shock that the horrified boy fell off the ladder, and was said to have been an idiot ever after.”⁵

Some of the country’s most infamous witch trials also took place in the area. Just a few miles from Alconbury is the village of Warboys, where Alice Samuel and her family were accused of witchcraft in the late 16th century. They were tried at nearby Huntingdon, which just a few decades later would also host Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General. Hopkins is thought to have been responsible for the deaths of over 100 innocent people in his travels around East Anglia (see FT198:30- 36, 367:32-39).

Incidentally, the Megatron would later be dubbed “the witch’s tit” by locals, due to its appearance.

MILITARY MONSTERS

From 1937, large swathes of farmland around the villages of Alconbury, Great Stukeley and Little Stukeley were requisitioned to create an airfield for the RAF. From 1942, it was used by the USAAF for bombing runs into Europe, beginning a relationship that would continue for many decades. The heavily populated base came to have a major effect on the local community, boasting many amenities the area otherwise lacked.

In the 1970s, several American airmen reported seeing a werewolf-like creature inside the perimeter of the base. The Hard Stand Monster, or Beast of Alconbury, was witnessed in what is now the Monks Wood nature reserve and on at least one occasion was fired upon.⁶

One of the most dramatic stories about the creature describes a crewman dying of fright, trapped in his plane’s cockpit overnight, with claw marks later found on the canopy. No contemporary records of this story exist, and it resembles similar tales the airmen might have heard while serving in West Germany (see “The Morbach Monster”, FT329:30-36), so its authenticity is doubtful.

One account describes two sergeants on night patrol: “As they approached the tower, they came face-to-face with a hairy figure. The dogs stopped in their tracks, absolutely terrified, frantically trying to get away… The truck arrived just in time to see the creature, whatever it was, climbing over the security fence, where it was last seen entering North Woods.”⁷

One man, known only as Wes, said, “I encountered a werewolf (for want of a better term) in England in 1970. I was 20 years old when I was stationed at RAF Alconbury. I was in a secure weapons storage area when I encountered it. It seemed shocked and surprised to have been caught off guard and I froze in total fright. I was armed with a .38 and never once considered using it. There was no aggression on its part.

“I could not comprehend what I was seeing. It is not human. It has a flat snout and large eyes. Its height is approximately 5ft [1.5m] and weight approximately 200lb [90kg]. It is very muscular and thin. It wore no clothing and was only moderately hairy. It ran away on its hind legs and scurried over a chain link fence and ran deep into the dense wooded area adjacent to the base.

“I was extremely frightened, but the fear developed into a total commitment to trying to contact it again. I was obsessed with it. I was able to see it again a few weeks later at a distance in the wooded area. I watched it for about 30 seconds slowly moving through the woods.”⁸

Nick Redfern and Linda Godfrey have gone so far as to suggest a definite connection between werewolves and military installations, based on numerous other examples. ⁹Others have drawn links between the Hard Stand Monster and the Hell-Hounds of Peterborough, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or East Anglia’s Black Shuck (FT17:12-13, 195:30-35, 251:22-23, 412:58-59, 429:66-68).

Huntingdonshire did not escape the Satanic panic of the 1980s and early 1990s (FT348:48-53, 349:46-50). Evangelical group the Reachout Trust claimed that occult activities had increased locally by 50% between 1980 and 1990, Huntingdon being particularly affected. One of their concerns was the influence of the burgeoning home video market. In 1990, the group’s area director, Tony Sarjant, said: “We are finding that children as young as eight are meddling in the occult. And those in rural areas soon become bored and so turn to videos. But even more disturbing is the evidence we have found in at least one local playground of children playing levitation, where they use their mind power to lift someone off the ground.”

According to several people who went to school in the area, this was nothing more than the ‘levitation game’ (also called ‘Light as a feather, stiff as a board’), in which a group of eight or so children would lift another off the ground, their combined strength making the person feel as light as a feather. The county council carried out its own investigation of ritual activity in 1989 and found little cause for concern.¹⁰

UFOS OVER ALCONBURY

RAF Alconbury continued to be important throughout the Cold War and Operation Desert Storm. It was home to a nuclear bunker nicknamed ‘the Magic Mountain’, tours of which are now available to visitors. In its day, this bunker acted as a communications hub for TR-1 reconnaissance aircraft (better known as the U-2 spyplane).

The presence of nuclear weapons at Alconbury has been suggested as a possible explanation for numerous UFO sightings near the base, although military aircraft – secret or otherwise – must be possible culprits. As early as 1950, ufologist Donald Keyhoe suggested that UFOs were drawn to Earth due to the development of the atomic bomb.¹¹ Many contactees have relayed messages about the need for nuclear disarmament and world peace before humanity can be accepted by the extraterrestrial community.

Peterborough resident Paul Satchell reported seeing a triangular UFO moving in the direction of RAF Alconbury. On a clear, dark evening in the late 1980s, he was walking with a friend in Peterborough. They looked up when they saw lights in the sky. At first, they thought it was a helicopter, but it made no noise.

Mr Satchell described the craft as a black triangle with white lights at each corner and a pulsing red light in the centre. He judged it to be a few hundred feet above the houses, moving slowly southwards. It seemed to emit no sound of its own, but there was a strange, electrical hum in the air. The object then moved rapidly towards the east and disappeared, the whole incident lasting less than a minute. He suggested that it might have been an experimental stealth aircraft.

Adam King related an even closer encounter to me. In the spring of 1994, he and his girlfriend were in the village of Glatton when they saw five or six red orbs in the sky. They hovered momentarily in front of the car. Two of the orbs then sped towards each other and flew off in different directions. There followed a complex display from the objects, which seemingly put on a show for the couple. They then appeared to land behind some trees about 50m (164ft) away, at which point Adam became scared and drove off. Five minutes later, he returned to the same spot to find the objects gone.

At some point, the couple noticed that they were missing time, 50 minutes passing in what felt like a few minutes. King later underwent hypnotic regression and recalled going aboard a craft where he saw Greys¹². He declined to go into more detail about this part of the experience.

‘FLYING SAUCERS’

One of the most unexpected stories about the Megatron was related to me by local man Terry Pinner, who came forward out of the blue and told of an exorcism aboard the spaceship in the early 1990s.

At that time, staff had started to refuse to work evenings. They said that knocking sounds came from the walls, objects moved by themselves, and cups and saucers flew through the air – flying saucers on a flying saucer! Megatron’s owner Danny Blundell was sceptical at first, but one night, when he had stayed late to catch up on some paperwork, he heard footsteps following him.

Terry Pinner was familiar with local history. He had grown up in the area, his father’s farmland becoming part of the new airfield in the 1930s. He recalled that the Megatron site lay on what used to be a road leading to a temporary mortuary at RAF Alconbury, an idea that seems to be confirmed by old maps.

In 1943, a tragic accident took place when the 95th Bomb Group were loading bombs onto a B-17 Flying Fortress. One of the bombs detonated, killing 19 men and injuring a further 21. Mr Pinner suspected that the poltergeist activity in the diner was the result of restless spirits whose last journey had been along this road. He offered to connect Danny Blundell to someone who could free these lost souls.

I had little hope of finding those involved in the exorcism (more properly called a blessing, as it involved a place rather than a person). Since 1975, every Anglican diocese has had ‘spiritual deliverance teams’ trained in both mental health and religious ritual, but their actions are usually kept strictly confidential, even the identities of the practitioners being difficult to ascertain. The same applies to the Roman Catholic Church.

I contacted churches of every denomination, as well as Francis Young, historian and folklorist at Cambridge University, and Darren Mann, who runs the online Paranormal Database.¹³ Despite their help, the trail seemed to run cold. That was until Kim Robinson, president of Huntingdon Spiritualist Church, came forward to say that they were the ones involved with the ‘exorcism’.

A medium from the Church said that the Megatron had an “unsettling atmosphere”. She believed that several “ley lines” converged on the site, echoing the convergence of roads in the vicinity. The medium also said that she encountered the spirit of a man whose clothes were two centuries out of date. He told her to “go away quickly, as it’s not a good place to be.” According to Mr Pinner, the phenomena ceased immediately after the Spiritualists visited the premises.

Incidentally, Rob Clapperton, who performed as a robot at the Megatron in the early 1990s, went on to become a paranormal investigator and psychic medium himself. I had the pleasure of accompanying him on a ghost hunt and listening to his recordings of Electronic Voice Phenomena. Rob still performs as a robot at events around the country and makes all his own costumes. We have raised the idea of going back to the Megatron site to investigate.

DECLINE AND FALL

The Megatron was not to last as an independent business. Large overheads and dwindling sales led to its closure in 1992, after just two years of operation. In 1993, it reopened as a McDonald’s, with most of its unique features stripped out. It closed for the last time in 2000 and lay derelict for several years. In 2008, attempts to have the building listed seem to have led to it being hastily bulldozed instead, a blatant act of cultural vandalism. The site now hosts a self-storage business, the foundations of the Megatron still visible under the shipping containers.

As for RAF Alconbury, it was slowly wound down from the mid-1990s and was sold to developers in 2009. It is now home to the Alconbury Weald housing development and New Shire Hall, the new headquarters for Cambridgeshire County Council. More interestingly for us, the former airfield is also home to the East Anglian Astrophysical Research Organisation (EAARO), which monitors meteor activity in our atmosphere and plans to build the UK’s first permanent SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) facility.¹⁴

After the demise of the Megatron, Danny Blundell continued to work on various business ventures, leading to an amusing run-in with the BBC. In 2001, Manhattan Corporation, a company Danny ran alongside Sandra Merrington, released a van-cum-motorhome that had been specially adapted to create a more spacious interior. Of course, they called this vehicle the ‘Manhattan TARDIS’. The following year, the BBC attempted to block their trademark application.

In their defence, Manhattan Corporation argued that they were in a different line of business to the BBC. They also argued that they had come to their acronym by a completely different route, TARDIS standing for ‘Touring And Recreational Driving In Safety’. This cheeky tactic worked in Manhattan’s favour and they were able to continue using the name.¹⁵ Only a small number of the vans were actually produced, so snap one up while you can!

A VERY BRITISH FUTURE

So, why did so many strange events seem to happen in and around Alconbury? Can it really be put down to a convergence of supposed ley lines? I suspect that one factor is its position in the centre of the country, with many travellers passing through on their way to other destinations. The two most likely places to witness ghosts and other entities are in bed and on long car journeys. These are times when one is likely to experience hypnogogic hallucinations, dream imagery combining with reality in the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep (hypnopompia is the state one goes through when waking up).

England is proud of its rich folklore traditions. We have long recorded and preserved strange tales. The wealth of stories in Huntingdonshire could reflect the fact that it lay at the crossroads of a long-lived, densely populated country that has an active interest in such things. I would love to hear from anyone with an alternative hypothesis.

One question remains: Why is a novelty restaurant from the 1990s of such interest now? The Megatron sparks intense nostalgia, including the second-hand nostalgia of the younger generation. Greg Roberts’ 1993 video of the venue evokes a world that only exists on VHS, right down to the timecode in the corner.¹⁶ The Megatron is a place that, aside from the odd photographic artefact, exists solely in the realm of memory and wistful longing; the Portuguese concept of saudade, and the German sehnsucht, are relevant here – longings for the past, the future and the ideal.

There’s also a tinge of the uncanny. The nostalgia, kitsch, and liminality of the Megatron suggest philosopher Jacques Derrida’s concept of ‘hauntology’, later re-interpreted by Mark Fisher in a series of essays collected in the book Ghosts of My Life.¹⁷ Hauntology refers to a range of concepts regarding the futures we were once promised and by which we are now haunted. Applied to art and media, it is an æsthetic of mourning, of voices coming to us from beyond the grave in the form of sample culture, pastiche, and retrofuturism.

The Megatron also reflects the time and place of its birth. It represents a Very British Future, one that combined Space Age optimism with the mundane realities of British life and glimpses of contemporary pop culture – one man remembers stopping off for breakfast in the early 1990s, still tripping from the previous night’s rave. Ultimately, everyday people are at the heart of the Megatron story.

Sadly, Danny Blundell passed away a few years ago, but a documentary film is now in production that will tell the whole story of the Megatron and of Danny himself. The Man Who Built a Flying Saucer will include interviews with many of the people who worked there and knew Danny personally. The filmmakers have also gathered a wealth of exclusive material, including several amateur videos shot inside the spaceship. Search for ‘Megatron Memories’ on Facebook or Twitter to learn more.

1. ‘Locals put police on alert for green men’, Cambridge Daily News, 27th March 1990, p. 3; ‘Space cafe!’, Hunts Herald & Post, 29th March 1990, p. 1 ↩︎
2. Simon Taylor, ‘Lunch with… Mark Blundell’, MotorSport, April 2012, p. 85-92, https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-2012/85/lunch-with/ ↩︎
3. See Mark George Egerton, The Haunted History of Huntingdonshire (2017, 3P Publishing); Damien O’Dell, Paranormal Cambridgeshire (2011, Amberley Publishing) ↩︎
4. Richard Harris Barham, The Ingoldsby Legends or Mirths and Marvels (1889), p. 346-350; Charles G. Harper, The Great North Road: London to York (2nd ed., 1922), p. 120 ↩︎
5. Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain (1973, Reader’s Digest Association), p. 258 ↩︎
6. John Knifton, ‘A Werewolf in Cambridgeshire. Run away!!’, 1st July 2015, https://johnknifton.com/2015/07/01/a-werewolf-in-cambridgeshire-run-away/ ↩︎
7. Deborah Hatswell, ‘The Hard Stand Monster or the Standing Wolf at RAF Alconbury’, Being Believed Research & Investigations, 31st March 2022, https://debhatswell.wordpress.com/2022/03/31/the-hard-stand-monster-or-the-standing-wolf-at-raf-alconbury/ ↩︎
8. Nick Redfern, ‘Do Werewolves Roam The Woods Of England?’, There’s Something in the Woods, 17th May 2007, http://monsterusa.blogspot.com/2007/05/do-werewolves-roam-woods-of-england.html ↩︎
9. Nick Redfern, ‘Wolfmen and Warfare’, Mysterious Universe, 7th February 2013, https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2013/02/wolfmen-and-warfare/ ↩︎
10. ‘Sharp rise in occult and rituals’, Hunts Herald & Post, 6th September 1990, p. 1 ↩︎
11. Donald E. Keyhoe, The Flying Saucers Are Real (1950, Fawcett Publications) ↩︎
12. Aside from this sentence, the article is presented exactly as it appeared in the Fortean Times. Where Adam King was described as encountering ‘the usual Greys,’ I felt this inadvertently created a dismissive tone, so I have changed it. ↩︎
13. Francis Young, ‘Contract signed: A History of Anglican Exorcism’, 23rd October 2017, https://drfrancisyoung.com/2017/10/23/contract-signed-a-history-of-anglican-exorcism/; https://paranormaldatabase.com/ ↩︎
14. David Clarke, ‘Is there anyone working out there?’, Dr David Clarke Folklore and Journalism blog, 14th January 2021, https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2021/01/14/is-there-anyone-working-out-there/ ↩︎
15. ‘Manhattan Corporation v. British Broadcasting Corporation’ (2003) Trade Mark Opposition Decision 0/011/03′, https://www.ipo.gov.uk/t-challenge-decision-results/o01103.pdf ↩︎
16. Greg Roberts, ‘Flying Saucer McDonalds at Alconbury on the old A604 near Huntingdon. 1993’, https://youtu.be/MOPQPE-K3jw ↩︎
17. Jacques Derrida, Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International (1994, Routledge); Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (2014, Zero Books) ↩︎