AUTHOR Q & A : Alan Godfrey
Author of Who Or What Were They? talks to Jenny Randles about his new book
Q: Jenny Randles What made you decide to write this book, Alan?
A: Alan Godfrey
For many years I have kept quiet about things that happened to me during the time when I was in the police force
and after the strange events that unfolded around me. I made a record of them in note form as I always wanted
to tell the truth one day when free to do so. A year or two ago I was taken ill and was worried that this might
never happen. I wanted to be sure that my Grandkids could read what took place so that they could understand
how and why I did what I did. This book tells it like it was - everything that occurred but which someone did not
want you to read. Now you can.
Q: Jenny Randles The first part of the book describes your life as a small town police officer in the 70s and 80s.
What was that like?
A: Alan Godfrey
It was a different world from the force today. In the book I take you through the process of how I became a
copper and the highs and lows that I experienced during that time. There were some tragic stories and some -
shall we say - scrapes along the way. Plus lots of the little tales of everyday life that you get to see when on the
beat. You will probably be crying on one page at the heartbreak and chuckling away on the next to the characters
and situations that I faced. During those days I experienced all the emotions possible in human life and also
began to see the dark hints of shadow forces that were lurking in the background desperate to keep certain
things hidden.
Q: Jenny Randles We then read about the most baffling case in your police career - the death of coal miner
Zigmund Adamski. Why do you think some people were so determined not to let you talk
about that?
Q: Alan Godfrey
This was possibly the biggest mystery death that happened in West Yorkshire during my years in the force. The
coroner himself said it was the most puzzling of his career. Yet it is probably not well known to many people as
someone decided that it was best kept quiet. How did a man who went for a short walk to the corner shop vanish
and turn up dead on top of a coal heap five days later in a town where he had no connections – and with a never
explained burn like wound on his head? I was one of the two officers first on scene and determined to try to get
answers for his tragic wheelchair bound widow. But every twist and turn those dark forces were there again trying
to keep me quiet and limit what the coroner’s inquest got to see. There are so many mysteries about this case
that some have even suggested very strange explanations for it. I would not go that far but in death this man
certainly looked scared. My book gives you the full facts on this unsolved case so you can judge them and make
up your own mind. And then ask why much has still never been revealed.
Q: Jenny Randles Just weeks later and not far away you were in your patrol car when you nearly ran straight
into a UFO hovering above the road ahead. Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire.
Were you scared?
A: Alan Godfrey
Well, yes, wouldn’t you be? It was 5.10 in the morning and I was on my own and this big revolving thing was right
in front of me so close that I could have thrown a brick at it and I am sure it would have gone clang. When you see
something like that out of nowhere and you feel strange sensations and hear messages coming into your head
then you know this is not just a routine police patrol. I was out there looking for some cows that had been
plaguing a local housing estate in the night. Then this happened. Worse still there was a big flash of light and
suddenly that object had gone and I was further down the road with no idea how I got there and half an hour had
just disappeared. And that was only the start of the story. It got much weirder after that when images of strange
beings and medical experiments and much more started to reappear. What happened and why on that night I do
not know but I wanted you to hear the full story for the first time in case you can tell me. This book has new facts
and evidence and further witnesses that add to the mystery. Oh, and the bloody cows turned up in the park
across a river behind locked gates right next to where I saw all this.
Q: Jenny Randles Do you believe any of the sceptics who say they can explain what you saw as something
ordinary?
A: Alan Godfrey
I do not know what happened to me and I have never pretended that I do. I know what I saw, though. And that
was none of the things that some people have tried to say that it was - such as a bus or a vision of a futuristic
prototype house that was made locally. Neither of them can fly. This thing did! At the end of the book, Jenny, you
describe all the investigation work that your UFO research team from Manchester made. You did not just believe
it was a spaceship and leave it at that. You looked for answers. You covered all the possibilities and put all the
facts on what you found in here for readers to judge for themselves. If it was that easy to explain I would not have
had my career in the police cut short or still be here years later talking about it. In your conclusions at the end
you call this ‘the greatest riddle of the 21st century’. And after 37 years digging into it I think you might be right .
Q: Jenny Randles The last part of the book will be shocking to many readers unaware of your story. We
discover the double meaning behind your title - Who or What Were They? Not just who was
behind whatever it was that you saw from your patrol car, but the origin of those covert
forces that went to extraordinary lengths to try to intimidate and silence you. Not so much
Men in Black - more Men in Grey Suits.
A: Alan Godfrey
I read back the account of what happened and it still shocks me that - just because of what I saw or might have
encountered - someone was determined to stop at nothing to undermine my efforts to tell the truth. It turned
into a nightmare and cost me dear but speaking out about it now is the right thing to do. So for the first time I can
publish all the details of those underhand tactics and how these people were apparently willing to stop at
nothing. Why would they go to such extremes just over the possibility of someone seeing a UFO and perhaps its
occupants? What was so disturbing about the events that I experienced? It poses dark questions about who knows
what and why about these matters that they wield such power over ordinary people’s lives. At least the readers of
my book can finally hear my side of the story and perhaps conclude who or what they were?
Alan, thank you very much.