The Body in the Coal Yard: A Haunting Mystery

[00:00:01] On the afternoon of June 6th, 1980, Sigmund Adamski left his home in Tingley, a quiet town in West Yorkshire, England. It was around 3.30pm. According to his wife, Lottie, he said that he was going to go out and pick up a few potatoes from the local shop. It was just a short walk, maybe 10 minutes at most. He didn't take his wallet, only a small amount of money in his pocket. It was kind of cloudy outside, but dry.

[00:00:28] He expected to be back quickly. Sigmund Adamski was 56 years old, a former coal miner, recently retired, and by all accounts, a steady, reliable man. He and Lottie had been married for decades, and they lived a modest life. He was well-liked, polite, he kept mostly to himself. His health was generally good, mentally sharp, no signs of depression or confusion. His goddaughter's wedding was scheduled for Saturday, and he had been looking forward to his wedding.

[00:00:59] He was due to read a passage during the ceremony. He was due to read a passage during the ceremony. The suit he planned to wear had been laid out the night before. But Adamski never made it to the shop. Somewhere between his doorstep and the short walk into town, he disappeared.

[00:01:14] What happened to Sigmund is perhaps one of the strangest mysteries I've found online. How does a person simply vanish? But that would only be the beginning. The investigations that followed would get even weirder. And it seemed to point at the impossible. My name is Edwin, and here's a horror story.

[00:01:39] By the time evening arrived and he still hadn't come home, Lottie grew anxious. She made a few phone calls to friends and neighbors. No one had seen him. There had been no phone call, no message, no trace of where he might have gone. That night, she contacted the police. A missing persons report was filed.

[00:02:04] Officers began a search of the immediate area. They checked local hospitals, nearby pubs, guest houses. They contacted friends and family across the region. And the days passed without progress. There were no sightings. No clues. Sigmund had seemingly vanished into thin air, in broad daylight, with no reason and no warning. It didn't make any sense. He had no history of wandering off. He didn't even drive.

[00:02:33] There were no signs of a struggle, no evidence of robbery or accident. The case puzzled authorities. But without leads, it quietly stalled. Before you knew it, five days had gone by. In the small market town of Totmorden, located about 20 miles from his home in Tingley, more specifically at a coal yard, an active industrial site adjacent to the town's railway station,

[00:03:01] at around 3.45 p.m., one of the workers, Trevor Parker, arrived to load up his father's lorry. And what he saw stopped him cold. There, lying on top of a 10-foot-high pile of coal, was a man's body. It was positioned in an almost peaceful way, on his back, with arms at his sides. From a distance, it didn't immediately look like a crime scene.

[00:03:29] It looked more like someone resting or perhaps placed there, deliberately. Trevor immediately called the police. The first officer to arrive at the scene was Police Constable Alan Godfrey, who would later become a controversial figure for other reasons. But at this point, he was simply responding to an unexplained death. The coal heap was untouched, as if no one had climbed it.

[00:03:54] There were no signs of dragging, no footprints in the surrounding coal dust, no disturbance in the pile itself. And yet, there was Sigmund Adamski, lying on top, in a place it would have been difficult to reach unnoticed or unassisted. His body was partially dressed. He was wearing a suit, but his shirt was missing. His pants were fastened properly, and his shoes were on the correct feet, so nothing looked like it was just a mess.

[00:04:24] But the clothing was odd for other reasons. You see, the suit looked almost too clean for where it had been found. I mean, he was on a pile of coal, and his clothes were showing little sign of coal dust or debris. In fact, the only part of him that appeared dirty was the back of his neck. And stranger still were the injuries. Sigmund had several burns on the back of his neck and shoulders.

[00:04:50] These were not extensive, but they were precise, described later by medical examiners as circular burn marks. They appeared to have been treated with some kind of ointment or gel, a substance that pathologists could not identify. The burns were not consistent with common industrial accidents, nor with the exposure to the elements. They were clean, localized, and recent.

[00:05:16] His hair had also been recently cut, pretty badly, as if done quickly with clippers or shears. There was also one day's worth of beard growth, suggesting that he had been alive, somewhere, for most of the time that he had been missing. His face was perhaps the most disturbing detail. Witnesses noticed that his eyes were open, and his expression was described as frozen in terror.

[00:05:43] That, combined with no obvious violence or trauma, it gave the scene an unsettling quality. It didn't look like a typical death. It looked staged. The body was removed and sent for post-mortem examination, and the results added clarity in some areas, but it got worse in others. Sigmund Adamski had died of a heart attack, and there was no sign of foul play.

[00:06:08] Without indication that he had been restrained or attacked, it was just the burns, the gel, in a body that had apparently been placed, neatly and deliberately, on top of a coal pile in an open public yard. It sounds strange when it's said that way, right? The time of death was placed at around 11 a.m. that same day, June 11th, just a few hours before he was discovered.

[00:06:33] If that estimate was correct, then Adamski had been alive and unaccounted for nearly five full days after leaving his home. But where he had been during that time, and with whom, remains a mystery. There was no CCTV in the area. No witness reported seeing anyone placed a body. No vehicle was heard or seen arriving at the yard that morning.

[00:07:02] There were no missing time reports or complaints from workers. Nothing to suggest that someone had snuck in and climbed the coal pile to leave a body without detection. The investigating coroner, James Turnbull, was candid in his conclusions. He stated publicly that the case was one of the most puzzling he had ever dealt with. There were no drugs in Adamski's system. No alcohol. No underlying condition that would explain sudden death. Turnbull later said,

[00:07:30] The question of where he was before he died and what led to his death just could not be answered. The official cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest. The case was closed, medically speaking. The friends and family of Sigmund were not satisfied. I mean, that was going to be it? The end of the investigation? Thankfully, one of those unsatisfied with everything was the man who first arrived at the scene.

[00:07:57] Alan Godfrey, whose life would soon take a strange and controversial turn of its own. In the days following the discovery of Sigmund Adamski's body, the investigation moved slowly. More from confusion than lack of effort. Police were working with a puzzle that had too many missing pieces. On paper, the case should have been straightforward. A man goes missing. He's found deceased five days later.

[00:08:25] The cause of death is heart failure. But still, none of it felt right. The location alone was hard to explain. The coal yard in Tudmorden was an active site, bordered by a rail line and surrounded by low walls and fencing. It wasn't the kind of place someone can simply wander into, much less climb a 10-foot coal pile without being seen. There's only one known access point for vehicles, and the yard wasn't considered isolated. It was a busy part of town.

[00:08:56] Investigators interviewed local workers, passerbys, nearby businesses. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. There were no reports of a man matching Sigmund's description in Tudmorden or anywhere else during the five days he had been missing. At the same time, forensic evidence was sparse. The coal pile offered no clues. It was as though Sigmund's body had been placed there without touching the ground.

[00:09:22] And perhaps most curious of all, the wounds had been treated with anointment. Green, gel-like substance. One that pathologists could not identify. Tests were run. Samples analyzed. The compound didn't match anything readily available in the UK's medical or industrial supplies.

[00:09:44] The burns were estimated to be two days old, inflicted sometime around June 9th, three days after Adamski had gone missing. That timeline suggested that he had been alive for at least that long. Someone, somewhere, had treated him. But who? There were no ransom notes. Nothing to suggest kidnapping. And yet Sigmund had been missing for five full days. He had clearly been moved.

[00:10:14] He was found 20 miles from home. In a location with no obvious connection to his life. When police searched his home in Tingley, they found nothing out of place. There was no indication he had packed or planned to go anywhere. He had no known enemies. He had not been involved in any legal disputes or debt. There was no financial incentive. No clear motive for foul play.

[00:10:42] Investigators considered the possibility that he had suffered a medical episode. He had wandered off and died. That theory didn't survive basic scrutiny. How would he have survived five days without assistance, only to end up on top of a coal pile with mysterious burns and an unidentified gel applied to his skin? Another theory was that he had been abducted, possibly held captive, and then dumped. But again, there were no signs of restraint.

[00:11:12] No bruising. No trace evidence to suggest transport or struggle. As the weeks passed, the case grew colder. Sigmund Adamski was buried and the official conclusion remained unchanged. Death by heart failure. The questions surrounding the circumstances of that death were left open. Coroner James Turnbull described the case as baffling

[00:11:39] and stated plainly that it was one of the most perplexing he had ever encountered. He admitted that certain details, particularly the burns and the ointment, simply could not be explained. Privately, some officers voiced their unease. There were too many inconsistencies. And then there was a question of what wasn't found. Where had Adamski's shirt gone? And why were only some items missing while others remained?

[00:12:08] And if someone had taken care to treat his wounds, why leave him in a public yard, exposed in daylight? At some point, the investigation reached its limit. Without witnesses, forensic evidence, or new leads, there was little left for the authorities to pursue. Officially, the file remained open, but inactive. Unofficially, though, the mystery deepened.

[00:12:36] And then, several months later, the case took an unexpected turn. One that shifted public attention from unsolved death to something altogether just plain strange. Because the officer who first responded to Adamski's body, Alan Godfrey, would soon make a claim that pulled the story out of the realm of earthly logic and into something way more controversial.

[00:13:08] The death of Sigmund Adamski invited questions that no official report could seem to satisfy. And as weeks turned into months, the mystery became perfect for theories. Some grounded in possibility, and others, not so much. The most basic theory was the simplest. That he may have wandered far from home, survived for several days, and then collapsed somewhere near the coal yard. But it was unlikely for him to walk over 20 miles undetected. And still, it didn't explain the burns,

[00:13:37] the gel, or how his body had ended up neatly placed on top of a coal pile without any physical disturbance to the surrounding area. Another suggestion was that Sigmund had been abducted, either by someone he knew or by a stranger. This idea raised obvious questions. Who would take him? And why? And why treat his burns with care only to abandon him in such a public place? He wasn't wealthy, influential, or connected to anything that would make him a target.

[00:14:06] And if it was a kidnapping, it wouldn't follow the usual script. There were no signs of restraint on his body, no ligature marks, no bruises, no scratches. He hadn't been bound or beaten. There were no drugs or sedatives in his system, and whoever had taken him, if someone had, seemed to have fed him. groomed him, even treated his injuries. Then, just as inexplicably, they had let him die, or allowed him to die,

[00:14:36] and placed him where he would certainly be found. Some speculated that his death might have involved some form of unofficial or underground medical treatment. A few rumors circulated that he had perhaps gotten to see a healer or an unlicensed practitioner for a private condition. Maybe something he didn't want to tell his wife or doctor. Now, this might explain the gel, the treatment of the burns, the missing time, but again, there was no evidence for it.

[00:15:04] And even if that had happened, it didn't explain how he ended up 20 miles away from home, dead, in an industrial site. Burns themselves were a persistent mystery. They didn't match any typical household injury, nor were they consistent with known chemicals used in mining or farming or transport, sectors familiar to his life. Among the more unusual theories, some began to consider

[00:15:33] the possibility of experimentation. In the context of Cold War Britain, there were the occasional whispers about secretive government programs, chemical testing, or psychological experiments. But these theories were mostly speculative and lacked any hard evidence. But the usual nature of Sigmund's injuries and the total lack of witnesses or surveillance gave them a kind of validation. And that's usually where our minds go in these cases.

[00:16:04] But then, there were the theories that reached even further toward the paranormal. Notably, some connected Sigmund's death to unidentified flying objects, some that were seen flying around the region over the previous months. West Yorkshire, especially the town of Todd Morden, had become something of a hotspot for UFO reports in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Now, these were largely dismissed by officials, but they found traction in the public imagination.

[00:16:35] The idea of alien abduction was, understandably, not part of any police report. But in the court of public opinion, it was floated with surprising seriousness, largely because of how little else seemed to make any sense. None of these theories came with proof. Most were just dismissed outright by investigators. But still, privately, some of the officers involved would admit that this case didn't behave like a typical death.

[00:17:05] One detective reportedly described it as the weirdest case he had ever worked on, and another said it never sat right with him. As for Sigmund's family, they received no closure. Lottie never believed that her husband simply collapsed or wandered off. She maintained that something had happened to him, something no one had been able, or perhaps willing, to explain. In most unsolved cases, the working assumption is that there's

[00:17:34] a logical explanation just out of reach. An overlooked clue or a secret somewhere, may be a thing that the investigators mess with. The case may have stayed there, in a cloud of quiet speculation, if not for what happened next. Okay, so now we're in November 1980, and the official investigation into the death of Sigmund Adamski

[00:18:04] had stalled. With no new evidence, no suspects, and no forensic explanation for the peculiar circumstances, the case faded from public attention. But that changed, quietly, at first, on the night of November 28, when a police officer in the town of Totmorden reported something that would not only reignite interest in the Adamski case, but push it in an entirely different direction. The officer,

[00:18:34] Alan Godfrey, remember, this is the same man who had first responded to the discovery of Sigmund's body. He was still on active duty. He had a reputation as a reliable and level-headed officer, with no known interest in the paranormal or anything fringe. And that night, just before 5 a.m., Alan was on patrol in his police car, investigating reports of cattle being found loose on a local council estate. Driving along Burnley Road, stretch just outside

[00:19:04] of the center of Totmorden, he saw something in the road ahead of him. In later statements, Godfrey described the subject as a diamond-shaped craft hovering silently just above the surface of the road. It appeared to be rotating slowly and emitting a soft white light. He said it was about 20 feet wide and it seemed to be spinning on its vertical axis. He brought the patrol car to a stop

[00:19:33] about 20 yards away. He described attempting to radio his station, but the device failed. Then, in what he would later call a missing time experience, the next thing he recalled was driving further up the road with the object now gone and his police notebook lying on the passenger seat. In it, he found a rough sketch of the object, one he didn't remember drawing.

[00:20:03] Alan returned to the station and filed an official report and at the time he kept his description limited to what he had seen visually. It was only later, under hypnosis and in interviews, that he described what he believed had happened next. Under hypnotic regression, Alan recalled being taken aboard the craft and examined by humanoid figures, along with what he described as a tall man and some small, robotic-like entities.

[00:20:33] He also described bright lighting, medical examinations, feelings of paralysis. This story quickly reached the press and what made it notable wasn't just the content, strange as it was, but the source. This wasn't a member of the public making an anonymous claim. This was a serving police officer, well-respected, with no history of fabrication. The connection to the Sigmund Adamski case was immediate and,

[00:21:03] for many, compelling. Here was the same officer who had found Adamski's body under bizarre and unexplained circumstances. And now, just five months later, he was reporting an encounter that echoed many of the same unsettling themes. Missing time, physical examination, and a complete lack of logical explanation. So, of course, some began to wonder whether the two events

[00:21:32] were connected. Was it a coincidence that both incidents happened in Todmorden and both involved the same officer? Or was there a larger, more hidden pattern? Officially, West Yorkshire police did not link the two cases. Sigmund's death remained classified as death by natural causes. Allen's experience was treated as a separate incident. But privately, it clearly caused discomfort. Allen was subjected

[00:22:02] to internal review. His mental health was questioned. Colleagues distanced themselves. And within a year, he left the force. Now, in later interviews, Allen stood by his story. He maintained that he had experienced something real, something that didn't fit into the conventional categories. He never claimed to know exactly what had happened to him. He never said it was extraterrestrial, only that it was outside normal explanation.

[00:22:31] The media attention that followed was intense. Some treated Allen as a whistleblower. Others accused him of attention-seeking or fabrication. He appeared on television and he was interviewed in magazines and newspapers. And throughout the whole experience, he continued to express his belief that there were aspects of both his own experience and the Sigmund case that had not been properly investigated. The British Ministry of Defense reportedly looked into the sighting

[00:23:01] but concluded that the object posed no threat to national security. No formal investigation was opened. Now, what makes Allen's story particularly enduring is not just what he claimed, but how he claimed it. He never tried to profit from it or didn't try to spin it into a book or a career. He simply told what he remembered or believed he remembered and accepted the consequences. Now, for those who already viewed the Adamski case as suspicious,

[00:23:31] Godfrey's experience added weight to the idea that something larger, something unexplained was at play. For skeptics, it reinforced the need to question the reliability of memory, especially under hypnosis. But for many, the coincidences were something harder to dismiss. Two unexplained events, the same location, the same office, officer, had no satisfying answers.

[00:24:02] More than four decades have passed and there are still no definitive answers to the most basic questions. Where was Sigmund Adamski for those five missing days? How did he end up 20 miles from home on top of a coal pile with burns on his body and an unidentified gel applying to the wounds? Who treated him? And why was his expression, his face in death, described as one in fear?

[00:24:31] These questions weren't answered at the time. They aren't answered now. And perhaps more unsettling than the facts themselves is the silence that followed. There was no second investigation, no meaningful update, just time and the effects it usually has on the public memory. Now, if one accepts that Sigmund died of natural causes, the surrounding circumstances demand scrutiny because they're irregular. They're documented and yet they remain

[00:25:00] unaccounted for. And then there's a matter of Officer Alan Godfrey, a credible officer not known for embellishment who suffered professional and personal consequences just for sharing what he believed he had experienced. Now, whether one accepts his claims or not, they raise an uncomfortable point. How much of the truth is shaped by what we're willing to consider plausible? Why is the burden of proof on that side? To me, it feels like

[00:25:30] we have to go above and beyond even after we get photographs and recordings in order to prove things to others. Sometimes we're just explaining something that happened. Why are we then responsible for proving that something else exists? Cases like this one test the boundaries of our investigative systems. They expose what happens when evidence doesn't fit the framework. When a case challenges not just procedures but assumptions. The facts

[00:25:59] exist, but without a narrative to contain them, they just drift, suspended between documentation and disbelief. It's as though we would rather not have an explanation instead of accepting an unlikely one. Now eventually the unknown becomes uncomfortable. The story begins to warp, softened by rumor, stretched by dark theories, maybe quietly ignored. Memory fades, officials retire,

[00:26:28] and the case file becomes not a source of answers but a record of confusion. And this is the fragility of truth. Sigmund Adamski was not a man known to the public before his death. He wasn't famous or politically important. He wasn't involved in anything larger than his quiet life in Yorkshire. He was a husband, a former miner, a man preparing to attend a wedding. He left his house

[00:26:58] to buy potatoes. And somehow, he became the subject of one of Britain's most enduring, unexplained deaths. What happened to him may never be known. But it remains, stubbornly, and disturbingly, unsolved. Ms. Sigmund Adamski, rest in peace. This episode of Horror Story was written and produced by me,

[00:27:27] Edwin Covarrubias. What do you think happened to Sigmund? Was it a story of abduction? Maybe a very secretive government operation? Let me know. But if you can think of someone who might be into these kinds of stories, send them this episode. Every app has a share button somewhere, but I'll also have it on my website, HorrorStory.com. And if someone dragged you in here to listen, welcome, is what we do here. If you want to listen to even more stories, join the club.

[00:27:57] I'm over on Paranormal Club, a podcast where we get together to tell stories from the scary fam and eerie things I stumble upon. You can search for Paranormal Club on your app right now. If you're following the show, I will be back next week with another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.