Challenger and the Hob Image
On 28 January 1986 the space shuttle Challenger was launched. There is a similarity between the image of the exploding Challenger and the image of the vaporised spaceship in the sky in Quatermass and the Pit. TIME magazine's coverage of the event described the image of Challenger as a "giant monster in the sky" (TIME, 10 February 1986 ).
The Challenger image is, quite literally, a vaporised spaceship in the sky.
Jenny Randles is a well known author of books about the paranormal, including Strange But True, Beyond Explanation, UFO Study, Alien Contact, and many others. She has also appeared on several TV programs about unusual phenomena.
Her book Beyond Explanation includes details of some situations where scenes in films have prefigured real events (though none as dramatic as the images above). Because of her interest in coincidences involving films, in December 1985 we had written to her about a coincidence involving the film Quatermass and the Pit and Hob Lane.
The subsequent correspondence with Jennny Randles included some observations about the space shuttle Columbia, which had had a record sequence of launch postponements and in-flight problems [16 Dec 1985 - Jan 1986]...
Jenny Randles had a particular interest in Columbia because she had visted the Kennedy Space Centre and had met one of the Columbia's crew.
In the last week of December 1985, 4 weeks prior to the Challenger accident, we happened to send her a picture of the Hob image in the sky from Quatermass.
In a letter written just after the Challenger accident Jenny Randles wrote:
"Have you noticed the incredible similarity between the front cover of The Times and the Quatermass film... The picture of the explosion is the horned demon that forms in the sky at the end of the movie. As near as damn it. ... What on earth is going on? Coincidence is no explanation. Just a kop out..."
