JENNY RANDLES
BLOG
The Alan Godfrey blog will continue below as and when Alan has
something to add to it.
Meantime I will be adding my own thoughts on the UFO subject on a
hopefully more regular basis.
29 January 2019
Happy new year to all readers of Northern UFO News. Sorry for the two month delay
between issues but there has been a lot going on - Christmas and also
Twitter storms in which I have been supporting fellow writer Graham Linehan -
creator of funny sitcoms such as Father Ted and The IT Crowd.
He has been appallingly abused for supporting women's rights and I had good
reasons to back him up as I did.
UFOs can be a crazy madhouse but not as bizarre as some of the stuff that goes on
within social media. However, sometimes you just have to speak up for what you
believe in and that is what I had to do here.
Nonetheless this experience of being hated by what at times seemed like one half of
the virtual universe is in of itself something of a catharsis. Once you emerge from
out of the other side.
Not sure how anybody can stay there indefinitely. So I needed a break and getting
back to the latest mammoth Northern UFO News (being number 200) was a relief
and - despite the subject matter - a touch of normality.
Given the things I have found myself talking about from long, long ago on Twitter
in these past months I do wonder why I have never written a book about them.
I was asked 30 years ago but in the end did not do so as I had family to consider
and then, unlike now, nobody cared.
I did many TV and radio shows with people who knew about my medical history but
it was not something people asked about then. I came close once when I did The
Other Side of Midnight with Tony Wilson, who I had known for years since MUFORA
met regularly in the Granada Studios offices in the 1970s and 80s. I gave him the OK
but he chose not to raise it on air.
I have been asked to do media interviews recently on this but have not accepted.
Because it would be entirely different now. And seriously as I hope I try to write
about subjects such as UFOs there is no way that would be how it would play out
today. It would be used to belittle both things.
Twice in the past (over 30 years ago initially) tabloids wrote stories about me behind
my back or talking to me. A UFO person I have never identified sold them the story
and caused problems for young children in my brother's family. One used the rather
ridiculous headline 'I had U FOoled'.
So that is not something I wish to repeat as it would not help either completely
unrelated subject and I care a great deal about how both of them are viewed by the
public.
I have been doing plenty of talking on Twitter and I am okay with that as I control
the words and do not have to see a newspaper or TV show present them around
their own agenda.
As for a book on the matter - never say never - but it is not a priority as I am not
going to 'cash in' on the current hysteria. There are more important nuanced debates
to have than that.
So the book I am well into the midst of writing - another big reason for the gap
between issues 199 and 200 - is, you will hopefully be pleased to hear, not about
that and about UFOs.
Write about what you know, they say. Which could be true of either of these
things but after the last few months of Twitter battering I know which one I
am happier with for now.
And at least as a result NUN 201 might not take another 2 months. I hope!
5 November 2018
Now that the conference is over - until next year where plans are already
underway for another exciting get together on the Fylde - my own thoughts
are turning back to writing.
I have been working on a number of ideas for a new book but after a great
deal of thought have settled on what I really want to do. And - I must admit -
after one or two false starts and chapters written that might in future be
revisited for another project.
It really should not have been that difficult to figure out what to write really. It is
something I have not written about (which narrows it down given the 50 books I
have written between 1979 and 2004). But something that I really want to write
about and try to untangle.
Most of my books are written selfishly - in the sense that I write on a topic in
order to try to fathom out what is going on or better understand a phenomenon
that has been puzzling me.
The scope will be epic but the answers I hope will be tangible. And now that I
have started to write it I have become increasingly excited doing the research
and coming up with the best way to explain my thinking.
With my plan being not to go the past route of professional publishers but to
release this - as cheaply as I can for all of you on Amazon as both an e book and
a real tangible book in the old fashioned way - we are hopefully not talking
a long time before this appears. Not the lengthy publisher lead times.
Hopefully it will not be long into 2019 and as soon as I have some real news I will
let you know in this blog.
I am hoping once I get back in the groove it might prove to be the first of a
new run of what must have seemed never ending Jenny Randles publications.
Be warned - that production line might soon be back in business.
25 September 2018
Sad news that Alan Godfrey has had to pull out of the St Anne's conference on
6 October due to ill health. I wish him a speedy recovery.
For a time I thought I might go the same way, having had a severe kidney
infection over the past month. But happily I have come through that and
am now much looking forward to my day by the sea.
Though still a little intimidated by the prospect since it is so long since I
have done any kind of talk. They say it is like riding a bike, but knowing
my luck I would fall off that too if I tried these days!
Still it can only be an improvement from a talk I gave in Vienna 25 years ago
which was to say the least eventful. In the dark right at the start I walked
towards the screen to point out something on one of the photos I was
showing.
And promptly disappeared into a black hole, falling several feet to the
ground below the podium!
I got up and carried on with adrenalin pumping and just rather sore and
somehow finished the talk. The organisers, which included Eric von Daniken,
brought an ambulance and I fought off being taken to an Austrian
hospital.
Not a clue how I flew home after that couple of days but it turned out I had
broken bones in my fingers.....and I still get the occasional twinge to remind
me all those years later.
The best part was TV cameras were rolling but so far I have had no royalty
checks from the equivalent version of 'You've been Framed'.
So fingers crossed (ouch!) things go better this time round.
I gather that instead of Alan on the bill there will be a UFO witness who has
actually been on another planet - well, kind of. He is also an actor and
appeared in a famous episode of Star Trek in which Wesley Crusher got
sentenced to death for stepping on the grass of an alien world which had
a rather odd sense of Justice.
Happily he lived long and prospered. And at least after my accident I can
do the Vulcan salute with my fingers better than I ever could!
30 August 2018
As I write this I am planning my trip to St Annes for the October conference
but I am less than sure how I am going to get there.
It should be simple by train but this is Northern Rail, who have managed to mess up
just about everything imaginable this Summer.
They even closed one line entirely (to the Lake district)
and had to let a private company that normally runs steam excursions operate
it with old British Rail diesels. And they ran them on time!
Quite what will be happening come October remains to be seen. I may even
have to walk!
But amazingly, they do seem to have a new secret weapon. A UFO! Yes, the
Northern Rail tracks appear to have one of these on hire. At 11 pm on 27
August 2018 a purple pink oval mass was seen above the rail tracks by quite a
few witnesses in and around Tameside.
Social media was full of witness stories and several photographs emerged of the
strange 'cloud' over the tracks.
The truth came out soon after when the rail companies revealed that their long
behind schedule 'upgrade' of the tracks - one of several reasons for the never
ending problems on the railways of the north - was occurring late that night to
take advantage of the bank holiday weekend closure of tracks.
It was a railtrack works train that was upgrading the railway towards the Fylde
Coast and using a laser guided system that beams into the sky and bounces off
low clouds creating the sightings of the UFO.
I am suspecting that I might have a better chance of getting to St Annes if they
put this laser guided train on the service that Saturday.
29 July 2018
Well I finally got to work on my paper to present at the LAPIS conference in
October. It will be my first since that November 1983 one in Douglas and Ramsey
on the Isle of Man.
I do hope the weather on the Fylde coast will be better than it was then. It
bucketed down all three days I was on this beautiful isle that I first
visited for a family wedding and fell in love with instantly. Though my
brother Malcolm was less happy as he fell off a cliff and survived by a
fortuitous outstretched hand. We went back there in 2008, taking Mum
happily. There is a huge tourist centre there. Though no plaque saying this
is where Malcolm Randles almost fell off a cliff. Odd that.
My talk in St Annes will be called Time Storms, Near Death Falls and Lying Saucers
and will tie together the things that I have concluded about the nature of the
UFO mystery in the past decade. And how seemingly disparate paranormal
phenomena might slot together.
There will be some tales from celebrities in the mix too.
Now it is back to work on my new book, which I hope to have ready by early new
year. Possibly before. More on a future blog when I am nearer to completion. But
it is a new way of telling the story that I hope will make sense.
The St Anne's event is on Saturday/Sunday 6/7 October 2018. At the YMCA (bet you
are all singing it now!) St Albans Rd, St Annes FY 8 1XD.
This is just south of Blackpool. My talk is mid day ish Saturday.
Other speakers include Alan Godfrey, Ann Winsper with the 'Rise and fall of
ghostbusting' (which will be on ghost hunting and the psychology of the EVP
experience), Juliette Gregson (on local paranormal events), Scottish researcher
Peter McCue who will discuss his research in Fake News, misreporting the
paranormal, Rob Whitehead on some of the more bizarre alien encounters -
wonderfully called called 'Aliens stole my Christmas Tree' and Richard Freeman
with 'The Nameless Dread' - about the fear of monsters around the world.
Tickets are £25 per day or £45 for the weekend via
www.lapisparanormal.com/conference-tickets
or cheque payable LAPIS at 1 Elm Avenue Poulton-le-Fylde FY6 7SP
more information via [email protected]
16 June 2018
The July issue of Fortean Times hit my letter box today and contains the promised
article by Dr David Clarke looking into the Condign Report.
It reveals many new twists and discoveries that David has uncovered.
The article is well worth your time finding and reading. It has some extraordinary
revelations, including the amusing reason the top secret UFO science analysis
was called the 'Condign Report'. That word has a petulant meaning that tells
you all you need to know about why the MoD hated UFO data.
We also learn of the way the two words UFO and UAP were part of a war between
the UFO desk at the MoD and the defence intelligence agency. And that books by
Paul Devereux and myself were sources over this.
It is remarkable to think that as UFO researchers in the UK moved from UFO to
UAP because of scientific objectivity the MoD were not doing so in stubborn
opposition to the intelligence agencies!
The article has more extraordinary stories. The issuing of a D Notice on a UFO case
and why. The association of UFOs with the Official Secrets Act. How the MoD used
the Official Secrets Act to stop key people talking on UFOs, including to David
Clarke, who had spent a decade helping the files reach the public.
Also as late as 1997 a DI scientist was referring to 'extra-terrestrial objects'
(referred to as ETOs) as a possible cause - though admitting the likelihood was
small and no hard evidence had been gathered.
Views of another scientist are also discussed at length. He wrote Condign.
In there he assesses the Rendlesham Forest case (what we can see
of this unredacted) which might be relevant.
David reveals some data about the author who did have a UFO sighting
himself when in the RAF. Though his name is known it is not made public here.
So in a sense the battle that ensued between the MoD and the Defence
Intelligence agency DI 55 and that roared for years around the Condign report
and up to the 2009 decision to end MoD interest in UFOs is seen in a new context
It is clear that the author of the Condign report did not think the UAP he saw
whilst flying with the RAF or that was behind later sightings was alien in origin.
He favoured an atmospheric plasma - hence his reference to UFO writers who have
adopted this theory themselves.
However, David Clarke thinks nobody at the MoD bought his idea and they basically
used him to end their UFO interest. The Condign author was almost a patsy,
indeed he retired soon after the 2000 report was ended and has not talked to
anyone on the matter since and ignored David's requests to him.
There is one other big thing discussed in the article. The Defence Intelligence
Agency files. Those up to 1982 have disappeared despite several searches. This
has unfortunate consequences.
They just happen to miss the release of two rather key cases because of that - both
the Alan Godfrey 1980 encounter and the Rendlesham Forest episode 4 weeks
later should have DI files as they were involved in both.
Some material on Rendlesham from other sources - including some copied DI
letters - has been released, but not the DI files themselves which are AWOL.
In fact there is no case file on Alan Godfrey's case anywhere at all in the MoD data
that has been able to have been released. Everything on it has disappeared!
I find it a little interesting that both these cases involve what could be UAP. So
might very well have had some attention from the DI and Condign data. And, yes,
the Condign background has been 'destroyed' it seems, too.
Read this important article in Fortean Times Issue 368 - which mistakenly has July
2017 on the cover instead of 2018!!!
Price £4.50. Available from major stores such as WH Smith.
Or on subscription at £48 for 12 issues (Europe £58, World £68, US $89.99)
From: Dennis Publishing 31-32 Alfred Place London WC1E 7DP
15 May 2018
The past month is one where I am supposed to have been writing a new
book. Only trouble is - distractions. The bane of any author.
Life gets in the way, and I have had a few extra curricular activities that
involved a letter to a naional newspaper about something unconnected
with UFOs but that has almost kicked off into World War Three. Still I went
with my conscience and do not regret it.
Aside from that when I say writing a book, I really mean a few. I have a
number of ongoing projects in hand and have not quite decided which of
these dabbles back into the world of writing I will lock myself down and
finish first.
That takes focus and in the unusually warm sunny days of late that can
get a little fuzzy. Summer and the UK are too fleeting acquaintances
after all.
Do I go with something bold and different? Do I return to writing about
UFOs AGAIN! Do I finish that novel I have toyed with forever? Should I
get on with the two projects I was half way through writing when Who or
What were they? needed finishing? They are very different from each other
and I have done a lot of research for both.
Then something else came up that has a built in timescale attached and
needs to be out by year's end.....sort of.
So no shortage of ideas. Just a shortage of action as to which to take to
fruition first.
Decisions, decisions. Never my strong point. But I will have to take one soon
and will let you know when I do!!!
12 April 2018
I am currently trying to build myself up towards my first lecture in many moons.
It is a rather daunting prospect.
Once upon a time I did these often every year and have given talks in some very
strange places.
In a casino on the Australian Gold Coast where the Commonwealth
Games are ongoing. At Wembley (not the stadium!). On the stage of a West End
Theatre (well I had to get one over my brother as he played the Cavern Club in
Liverpool in the 60s and his group are named on a plaque.
And the planetarium at Jodrell Bank raising money for charity.
Even once at an RAF base where people flew in fighter jets to be there rather than the
number 9 bus!
What I loved was doing free talks at libraries and school projects as I trained as a
school teacher but was scuppered in my ambitions by my very odd life
getting in the way.
I did do a 'virtual' talk to the 50th anniversary BUFORA conference in London six years
ago. But that was less than successful via the vagaries of Skype - not at all an ideal
medium to try to talk to a roomful of people from another country (Wales!)
So the last real lectures I did were at bookshops in Ramsey and Douglas on my most
favourite of places - the Isle of Man - on an absolutely awful weekend in November
2003 when it poured down non stop. I was promoting the last book that I wrote
Supernatural Isle of Man which had just been released.
My mum had had a major stroke a few weeks earlier and was not yet home but I was
committed to doing this work and so they became my last public ventures for the
next 15 years.
That book is still out (it was recently repackaged as a colourful tourist edition to sell
to visitors to this wonderful magical island). I have visited here many times since
first going there to a family wedding when I was about 7.
Now, though, I have agreed to do a real talk at an actual conference - in St Annes on
the Fylde Coast near Blackpool in October 2018. Though I nearly chickened out.
As yet I have no idea what I am actually going to talk about. At this rate I might not
make my mind up until I get on the train to go (only joking!)
Not quite sure if I am excited or terrified but I will let you know when I get a little
closer to the date.
By when I might actually have decided what to say.
8 March 2018
I wish I did not have to start my blog on a very sad note.
But today came the news of the death of Peter Rogerson at the all too
young age of 67.
Many of you may not have heard his name. But he was known to all
readers of the long standing magazine - MAGONIA - which was named
after the Jacques Vallee book Passport to Magonia and was a pioneer in
British Ufology by exploring the psycho-social side of the UFO mystery.
From the 70s until just a decade ago this small subscription magazine
looked at the bits of the subject that are from inner space, rather than
outer space. These are more important than you might imagine.
MAGONIA ran under the stewardship of John Rimmer
and Peter had a major influence on it with some of the most erudite
writings on the subject that you will find. He told it like he saw it and
took no prisoners. His book reviews were incisive!
I say that knowing he often laid into what I wrote but I also know that
- looking back - he was quite often not very far from the truth either.
He saw things long before I saw them myself.
It is always hard to lose someone of stature in the field, and especially
so young as Peter was. But the good news is that a legacy remains of
so many years of expert analysis.
Happily those of you not acquainted can familiarise yourself with some of
his work as MAGONIA have a good web site that has archived some of the
best articles to appear over the years in its pages to partly make up
for the disappearance of the journal itself a few years ago.
When you have a few minutes check it out at:
http://magoniamagazine.blogspot.co.uk/
ALAN GODFREY'S BLOG
EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES
ABOUT FEATURED BOOKS
AND AUTHORS
This page will feature:-
BLOG BY ALAN GODFREY TAKING YOU
THROUGH PUBLICATION AND BEYOND
Alan Godfrey on Monday 23 October 2017. The new print run of Who or What Were They? has just been
delivered and here he is signing and posting off copies ordered from e bay books. Lots of them as you see.
So for those waiting - your copy is on its way!
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Some shots from the signing sessions held by Alan Godfrey at the Golden Lion in
Todmorden.
Here is Alan with some of the many happy purchasers of Who or What Were
They? on the sell out launch weekend of 14/15 October 2017. See Alan's blog
post below for a report.
ALAN GODFREY 18 October 2017
It is good to report that the book is selling really well. Thank you so much to all
who turned up at the launch event at the Golden Lion last Saturday and Sunday.
It was so nice to see you all there.
Indeed it was great to be able to catch up with old friends who have stood by
me over the years and to meet many new ones and hear some of your own
stories. Together we can hopefully change how people think about the
credibility of those who tell what we saw 'out there'.
So do not be afraid to tell the truth.
The first print run completely sold out by the end of the book signing
sessions and I have a large list of orders on the e bay site waiting to post out
when my new order arrives back from the printers. They are getting these to me
as fast as possible so hopefully you should all start receiving your copies in a
week or so.
Thank you for your patience as I had no idea so many would be interested.
I have been really touched by the response from many of those who say they
have read the book from cover to cover and some even told me they could not
put it down and had to read right through to the end.
Also thank you to everybody who tells me that you are recommending it to
friends. WOW. That is such a compliment.
Oh, and I really do want to thank Jenny Randles for the brilliant job she did
helping me to get this book into such a readable form. It was a new experience
for both of us to create a book from start to finish. Jenny was used to writing a
book and then promoting it once released but letting her publisher handle the
hard part in the middle. It was quite an experience learning how to and
then watching it evolve over the past few months as we figured out how to do
the creative bit.
Which also was in large part thanks to my grandson Jack Cougill and his
marvellous cover art that really catches the eye. He worked hard to get this
right and has a great future ahead of him. I am so proud.
I also want to say thank you to those people who told their stories in my book.
Mike Sacks and Bobby Coates for example. They deserve a round of applause for
being brave and speaking out.
I even signed a couple of copies of 'The Pennine UFO Mystery' - the book Jenny
and I worked on together about the broader Pennine sightings way back in 1983.
So not all copies of that 34 year old book have disappeared - rare as I know it is
'out there'.
Though as you will read in my new book our writing of that book was not
without 'interference' from others!
I am really looking forward to more public appearances in the future, such as
the two conferences I will be talking at next Summer.
More details on those events coming soon.
Regards Alan
ALAN GODFREY 29 September 2017
Well not long to go before my book signing on the 14th/15th October in
Todmorden.
I am getting a bit nervous now as I have never written a book before - never
mind done anything like a signing. This has put a little more pressure on me,
but that is all good. Interest is high so I have ordered an extra 50 copies of the
book which means I now have 200 in print.
There has been an over whelming response from people around the country
who are coming from far and wide to the bookstore. I think I will end up with
hand cramp before the week-end is over.
It will be nice to meet all these people and expect there will be more events to
come.
I am expecting the books to arrive around the 5th,6th October from the printers
and then I will have a week to prepare. So no pressure!
I have also been invited to speak at both the UFO Truth Magazine Conference
next September in Yorkshire and also the Outer Limits Magazine conference in
Hull the same month. More details on both these events in here as soon as they
are available.
Could be a very busy year ahead. More soon.
Regards Alan