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JANUARY ISSUE
NOW OUT
SEE BELOW
Issues 187 to 199
archived afterwards



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ISSUE 200                       NORTHERN UFO NEWS

EDITOR: Jenny Randles

10 Marton Green Stockport Cheshire SK3 8LT

nufonnews@gmail.com




THE  COVER ABOVE IS  ONE OF MY FAVOURITES FROM THE 200 EDITIONS OF NORTHERN UFO NEWS

IT WAS CREATED IN OCTOBER 1981 BY ONE OF OUR REGULAR ILLUSTRATORS IN EARLY YEARS

JOHN WATSON WORKED WITH THE NORTH EAST GROUP CHRYSIS AND THIS BRILLIANT IDEA WILL NEED SOME EXPLAINING 38 YEARS LATER

IT IS BASED ON A THEN POPULAR TV SERIES CALLED WORZEL GUMMIDGE PLAYED BY EX DOCTOR WHO JON PERTWEE AS A SCARECROW WHO COULD WEAR DIFFERENT HEADS

THE HEADS HERE  WAITING TO BE SELECTED REPRESENT THE VARIOUS TYPES OF UFO RESEARCHER  FROM SOCIOLOGIST TO CYNIC AND THE SANE BALANCED UFOLOGIST HEAD....WHICH HERE IS AN EMPTY SPACE WITH DESIGN PENDING!

JOHN WATSON ALWAYS USED TO PLACE A TINY LITTLE ALIEN SOMEWHERE IN HIS COVERS. SEE IF YOU CAN FIND THIS ONE FROM ISSUE 89.

ANOTHER OF JOHN'S COVERS WILL APPEAR LATER IN THE ISSUE AND YOU CAN PLAY AGAIN









JR Comments….
 
APOLOGIES FOR THE DELAY IN PUBLISHING THIS SPECIAL EDITION - BEING NUMBER 200 I WANTED IT TO BE A BIT OF A CELEBRATION AND RETROSPECTIVE OF NEARLY HALF A CENTURY.

HOPEFULLY FROM ISSUE 201 WE WILL BE BACK TO A MORE REGULAR SCHEDULE, THOUGH POSSIBLY Bi-MONTHLY FOR A WHILE AS I AM INVOLVED IN SOME BOOK PROJECTS AND FOR NOW THAT HAS PRIORITY. I WILL SAY MORE HERE SOON. 

I DO INTEND TO FEATURE RETROSPECTIVE LOOKS AT OUR HISTORY IN COMING ISSUES ALONGSIDE MORE UP TO DATE NEWS. SO JUST STAY TUNED.
 
 
NEWS: PROJECT BLUE BOOK THE TV SERIES

The history channel in the USA launched on 8 January 2019 a new drama series - Project Blue Book. This venture plans to tell the true story of the US Air Force UFO investigation programme from the 1940s/50s/60s
 
From celebrated movie producer Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) it stars Irish Actor Aiden Gillen (Peaky Blinders, Game of Thrones) as real life UFO researcher and supporter of this magazine - Professor J Allen Hynek.

His wife Mimi is played by Canadian actress Laura Merrell, who has starred in Haven and The Man in the High Castle.

Each episode in the initial 10 part run tells the story around one major real life case from the early years of Blue Book, such as the Flatwoods Monster. But with an underlying drama as the clash between military and science develops and UFO evidence mounts.

As yet no UK air date is known but it seems very likely it will appear on History here too. And it is getting about 2 million viewers which is very good for a cable channel so odds of a second series look good.

Having been privileged to know Allen and Mimi and go on a road trip across America with them and house sit their home in Evanston, Illinois for a time in 1983, I am looking forward to seeing how this tells  that couple’s extraordinary but true story.

From the trailer on You Tube it looks really intriguing. And it is fascinating to note that Aiden, who plays the professor, got his big break in the city of Manchester - where this magazine and your editor started investigating UFOs too - as he was appearing in the Canal Street Manchester set TV series Queer as Folk, from Russell T Davies - the man who later brought back Doctor Who to international success.

Will post any news of UK air dates soon.
 

NORTHERN UFO NEWS:  The Story
 
Why was a magazine called Northern UFO News ever created? Well for a start this was not the original name. When it first appeared in 1974 it was curiously called UNO News.

UNO stood for the Union of Northern Observers. This was the original title given to an initiative set up by a couple of local UFO groups in North West England 46 years ago, who in 1973 decided to work together in an informal liaison.

This idea for cooperation was ground breaking at the time and very unusual in an era when all over the world major towns and cities had their own UFO investigation teams each researching cases with their own agenda and often competing for members and resources.
This alliance was an attempt to break that pattern.

As some of those involved in the short lived West Pennine Research Group were rather active in the labour rights field the idea of a Union seems to have taken root.  

At that stage I was not involved in the organisation having my hands full with other things in life at just 21 and going through middle school teacher training, where I was specialising in Geology.
 
But I do recall a few months later when I had got involved in the plans and we decided to reconsider the name that I suggested using a shout line that used the title and said: “U NO  - it makes sense”.

But that was a tad too daft for the rather austere 1970s! So instead a competition was held and that led to a vote on a whole new identity.

Sale based UFO researcher, David Rees, ran a small group - MAPIT - Manchester Aerial Phenomena Investigation Team - which was the other founder of UNO who came alongside the West Pennine Research Group.  

MAPIT still exists but has been a very different group for the past 30 years when it was taken over by Stephen Mera, whose presence on line as an active researcher has been well known for some years. It expanded into a Paranormal Research Team and the name changed to take this into account whilst cleverly retaining the MAPIT initials.
 
When, MAPIT moved on from UNO soon after the UNO name was dropped and the geographical spread was broadened, MUFORA, the Manchester UFO Research Association, of which I was then a member, being run by Peter Warrington, became a founder of the newly restructured ‘union’.

The early newsletters of UNO starting in May 1974 were just duplicated pieces of paper covering admin matters not UFOs as such. They were not really the magazine that followed, but took the first half dozen slots in the number sequence.

By Summer 1974 UNO had expanded to include the Wirral UFO Society - WUFOS - lasting several years - and the Scunthorpe UFO Research Society, that involved a then young researcher still around today - Nigel Watson. 

Nigel has gone on to write several important UFO books. This includes the 2013 UFO entry in the Haynes manual series - something that decades earlier when UNO was newly formed would have been very improbable for that car technology mechanics specialist to even contemplate.

Nigel actually wrote the first ever article to appear in this magazine (still then called UNO News). It appeared in June 1974 - titled ‘The Dogma of UFOlogy’. He refers to a definition by Peter Rogerson of MAGONIA, who sadly died just last year, describing three types of UFOlogist. A theme continued by the cover I selected to use for this 200th special.
 
The three types that Nigel discussed were UFO researchers, UFO buffs and Cultists. Nigel noted that the ETH (extra-terrestrial hypothesis) for origin of the UFO mystery was the most supported by the latter two groups, but changes were occurring via then popular American writer John Keel (on whose work and books the 2002 movie ‘The Mothman Prophecies’ starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney is based - with Gere playing a fictionalised version of Keel himself). 

Keel’s views were having increasing influence and led to the popularity of the concept of an ‘ultraterrestrial’ (not ET) origin of the phenomenon. 

Nigel also pointed out that nearly all of British UFO research at that point was entirely amateur in nature and our lack of scientific focus or participants was part of the reason why we had dogma rather than research. Though Peter Warrington, at MUFORA soon brought in some of that as he was a keen astronomer approaching interest in the subject objectively from that perspective.

Over in the USA several professional scientists such as astronomer Dr J Allen Hynek and computer specialist Dr Jacques Vallee were already prominent.  MUFORA would soon invite Hynek over for a dinner party and discussions on how to make British research more scientific too and he was a good ally to the alliance up to his death in 1986.

That first article by Nigel was significant in that it helped guide the future of the group and the magazine to try to become more of a chronicle of rather more objective documentation rather than the then common writing style (Nigel cited specifically Gordon Creighton of Flying Saucer Review magazine). That style mixed fact with often extreme speculation about myths regarding ethereal magical djinn (spirit beings from which the pantomime/fairy tale ‘genie’ is derived).

There was a £1 membership fee (or 75 p per member if you wanted to join individually not as just a group). This basically covered the duplicated newsletter - which was by now set up as a way to also cover reports on the cases investigated by the involved independent local groups.

The first ever case published (in issue 2) was dated 2 July 1973 at 8.45 pm on that Summer evening at Lostock Gralam in Cheshire.

It was a bright fluorescent light seen by David Rees’s own mother from a car parked in a lay by and fascinating in that it included what was still a decade away from being recognized and named as ‘the Oz Factor’. After which, of course, this site is also named.

The witness described how - whilst the UFO was visible ‘all sound around her seemed to be blotted out’. She also found herself unable to call for help during the estimated 5 minutes whilst this ‘long jewel’ shaped object hovered there. Others in the family were away from the car and on return had seen nothing. They examined the fields but nothing untoward was discovered.

By Issue 5 the magazine was now in a form of two or three tone colour and spirit duplicator printed which allowed simple drawings but was still very basic. I recall using that messy ink machine - purchased cheaply from the hellishly hot Red Bank Manchester iron foundry - Henry Wallwork -  where my dad was the bookkeeper and I had my first paid holiday job in secretarial work making up wages.
 
Back then cheap commercial printing was not possible on a tiny budget and computers were still the size of rooms costing six figure sums and the internet still an idea in science fiction novels.  Indeed my second working job (thanks to my science A Levels) was a year before college transferring hundreds of thousands of file records of car registration numbers onto a then massive million pound computer that was less powerful than most mobile phones are these days and yet several thousand times larger.

That issue - number 5 of UNO News - did include the first analysis of 82 cases that had by then been reported from the now five groups - a Cheshire based team called NAPRA having been added. 

Nothing dramatic was noted from those first analyses other than sightings in daylight hours were massively outnumbered by those at night - which peaked around 22.00 hrs but with a more surprising secondary peak around 2/3 am.

By the end of 1974 and issue 8 UNO News was finally becoming more like an actual magazine now people were paying to receive it across half a dozen independent groups run as a kind of federation, which had to some extent been modelled on the idea of this from the then relatively recent (and ongoing) TV series Star Trek!
 
Issues now usually had multiple case reports, news and articles. But there here had been big changes in recent weeks. The West Pennine group had disappeared along with MAPIT- meaning both original founders had gone within the first year - although an echo of their influence from the WPRG union ethos would resurface mysteriously not long afterwards.

This was found in the socialist political aspirations of a mystery UFO wrecking crew called APEN - Aerial Phenomena Enquiry Network - that sent mischievous missives to the UNO groups in Scunthorpe, Manchester and the Wirral between late 1974 and 1977.

They later even got involved in the Rendlesham Forest case. Many of the 1975 issues of the magazine gave updates on their latest bizarre activities which at times were very strange but suspiciously hoax like.

Anyone curious can read my discussion of their links with us in The Strange Affair of APEN an article I wrote for Magonia in 1976 and which is archived on line by them: 

magonia.haaan.com/2009/apen/


This Magonia archive is freely available on line and has many articles from over 30 years of this marvellous publication that thrived on critical British UFO thinking. Many NUFON contributors published in there if wanting to writer longer pieces that NUN was never designed to be able to include.

Magonia also featured some cases - another NUFON incident I wrote up in there and I recall fondly from the 1970s being ‘A Vendetta With Venus’ that was one of the most telling early IFO cases I managed to get involved with and which even made Granada TV.

If you have never checked Magonia’s archives out on line it is well worthy of your time. Indeed John Rimmer, who has been involved as long as I have in this field, over on Merseyside, recently invited me to be a book reviewer for the on line version of Magonia. So you will find some new writings there as well.
 
Even today the origin and motives of APEN have never been revealed but their use of Nazi like command structures was both puzzling and rather comical.
 
Given that it is 45 years old and produced on that old and crude printing concept, Issue 8, the first I was involved with helping to produce, has survived readably intact.

The groups in the alliance now numbered 8 and by the end of 1975 had reached 24 as the idea of a cooperating federation of local teams really took hold. They went as far north as Rossendale (and ultimately north east England with Chrysis and Scotland) and as far south as Kettering. It had also added the first link with national group BUFORA (which I had been a member of since 1968).

I was invited to join its council as Northern Coordinator in late 1975 - building on the links with this growing local group alliance. Membership of the council of the main national UFO group with about 1000 members was an association I retained for the next 20 years, leaving over a dispute about BUFORAs handling of the infamous ‘alien autopsy’ footage.

This bizarre case was later made into a comedy movie starring Ant and Dec (again something nobody in their right mind could have foreseen to be possible way back in 1974).
 
Despite quitting any official role with BUFORA from 1994 I continued to operate the ‘UFO Call’ phone line information service which I set up and ran for them across hundreds of weekly updated messages until it ended around the turn of the Millennium.  I also remain a life member and the only lecture I gave on the UFO subject between 2003 and 2018 was by video link from North Wales in 2012 as part of the 50th anniversary BUFORA conference in London - where I could not literally go whilst being a full time carer - but was delighted to participate in via the then high tech of Skype.

I talked at that conference about some of the key cases that were investigated during my time as Director of Investigations for BUFORA - between 1982 and 1994. During which the team created an investigator training course and a code of practice for the protection of witnesses, both things that I am pleased to note that Heather Dixon, who was one of our investigators from the north east team in those days, has taken on and developed after I left as she has expertly run the BUFORA investigation team into the present day.

Many of the NUFON groups were involved in the creation of both these ground breaking concepts alongside BUFORA and my partner, Paul, and I travelled far and wide on his Triumph Bonneville to local group meetings as far apart as Nottingham and Swindon planning the rules within the code to govern interaction with witnesses. Most local groups accepted these alongside BUFORA nationally.

This was the starting point for the world’s first ‘ban’ on the use of regression hypnosis in the investigation of close encounter cases owing to fears over how it compromised the data that emerged from that state and where protection of the well-being of the witness was put as paramount by the code of practice.

This is one of the things I am most proud about us seeing the need for and doing within this BUFORA/NUFON alliance.

BUFORA these days is mostly an online presence but it still investigates and is publishing all of its data on line, which I am delighted to see. As the first UFO group I ever joined 50 years ago whilst as school (eek!) my heart is still very much with them. So here's to the next half century.

Back in 1974 the BUFORA Yorkshire branch - then run by experienced UFO investigator Trevor Whittaker - became part of the UNO family late that year.

That final 1974 issue also cited the appearance of the first mystery letters from APEN about the little explored incident (by then thought to be resolved as a meteor sighting coincident with an earth tremor) that happened early in 1974 in the Berwyn Mountains of North Wales.

This case was something Andy Roberts, of the West Yorkshire group would much later write a book about.  Though Paul and I had some involvement, unexpectedly, in the late 70s/early 80s.

Paul’s family owned a caravan in the small village of Llandrillo below those mountains right in the middle of the activity on that winter’s night. We visited here often for weekends and summer stays and in local pubs met people who had witnessed the events and the search for evidence on the slopes that involved the military afterwards. They talked to us almost as ‘locals’ because of our semi residency unaware that we had any direct connection with UFOs as this was before I published my first book.
 
APENs secrecy over this ‘solved case’ in their eyes (they claimed) being an ‘alien contact’ led me to argue the whole APEN affair was probably an ‘elaborate hoax’ in that first issue. I have not changed my mind 44 years later.

I noted how the APEN letters and tapes were full of Nazi marches, references to supreme commanders and secret funds buying top range equipment and aliens handing out phone numbers to witnesses to call only APEN  - but they never gave any contact address for anyone to return communication.

From the start it looked like a bit of a silly game being played within and at the expense of the UFO community - notably the new federation - but quickly developed darker undertones as some groups in the Midlands ended up having unwelcome interactions with the police after APEN had acted very oddly around a local case.

Aside from my Magonia article cited above anyone interested in more detail will find a summary of the APEN story on pages 154 - 161 of my book ‘Investigating the truth behind the Men In Black’ (Piatkus 1997).

This book tells the story of some real British cases associated with this odd side to the UFO mystery and was released to coincide with the first of what became a franchise of ‘Men in Black’ movies starring Will Smith. I had been asked to help promote the film in British cinemas. So I wrote a serious book in return for aiding that fictional comic book franchise - which in turn was based on actual UFO lore dating back to the early 1950s.

The fourth movie in this rebooted series (Men in Black International) is, incidentally, set to appear on 14 June 2019.

With issue 9 in January 1975 UNO was finally renamed NUFON - Northern UFO Network - as the agreed choice of those who voted in the competition - and the magazine became Northern UFO News (NUN) instead of UNO News.

I also took over as full time editor and produced most of the issues (bar one in January 1977 when I was in hospital and Kate Preston edited that month in my stead).

Kate, too, from those pioneer days is still involved as a member of the LAPIS paranormal research group based on the Fylde coast. It was here in October 2018 I gave my first talk ‘live’ since 2003 (and quite possibly my last!)

NUN appeared right up until 2002 when its life as a printed magazine available on subscription ended after 27 years owing to my having to take time off from UFO research for family responsibilities.

Northern UFO News returned in 2017 as a regular free on line publication here continuing numerically where we had left off (hence now reaching number 200 after number 100 had appeared back in January 1983).
 
All of the past online issues from 2017 are archived on this site for free. And many of the earlier print editions up to number 186 have been scanned and saved by Robert Moore and  Isaac Koi for the wonderful on line pdf data base of UFO magazine history that has been stored online for free by the remarkably dedicated team in Sweden of the excellent research group AFU.
 
What that group are doing to preserve UFO history is incalculable.

See 
http://files.afu.se

Just search under United Kingdom in the index of downloaded magazines where most back issues of Northern UFO News up to the last print edition 17 years ago are available to read completely free by clicking on issue number and date of choice.

I have given them permission to add archived copies from here onto the data base so all can be accessible in one place - though the archive copies that you can read on here will also remain as long as there is space for me to do so.


This is a brief history of how this magazine came to be. It has remained much the same since my first issue 44 years ago but went through some changes in appearance and started coming out less frequently (bi-monthly, then 3 or 4 times per year) as commercial print costs rose so as to never have to charge a large annual subscription. Even in 2002 it was just £5 for a year.

Easy access remained the aim throughout - NUN has never been a money making operation and has never made any money! So making it free to access here is in the ultimate point on a path that began simply nearly half a century ago.

At the end of this special issue I will include some more of the cover designs and superb artwork voluntarily created for this magazine by a number of excellent artists - including Roy Sandbach, from MUFORA,  who trained with LS Lowry and Bill Callaghan. 

Another of John Watson's is there too - so you can play spot the alien!
 
Their covers were a delight to choose each issue and match with content as so many were willing to send them in on speculation that I built up a store to include as appropriate and I have used some of those still left in my store when the last print edition came out 17 years ago to continue that trend.

Northern UFO News really was a cooperative effort and built on the desire to show that we could always do things better if we work together.  That was the whole principle of what was really the only such network of local groups - fully independent but sharing resources - that was very much a product of its time when, of course, on line access to everything instantly was a distant fantasy and sharing like this was necessary.

There were central files - too - thousands of them. For many years they were stored in a building in Meadow Lane, Nottingham, owned by the city's research group when part of the network. On their departure MUFORA took them over and housed them for many years at the city university where anyone could access them on request for research.

Before the group network around the UK dissipated with the rise of the internet these were relocated to a building in the Manchester City Centre conveniently opposite the Central Library. 

The files, of course still exist but what to do with them now is a matter for discussion. Your ideas would be welcome.


 
THE CASE FILES BY DECADE:  1970s:
 
In this section of the review of our 200 issues I plan to highlight some of the cases that stand out from their appearance in the magazine decade by decade. I will continue this review over the next few issues of Northern UFO News to see if we can put the past in context with the present.
 
We might find that we can solve cases with modern knowledge that was not possible back then given our more limited technology or understanding. Or a case that looked insignificant decades ago has new meaning based on events that have occurred since and knowledge gained.

By all means please submit any thoughts you have to:


nufonews@gmail.com
 
MUFORA had started to organise annual conferences at UMIST (the University of Science and Technology between Oxford Road and Piccadilly station in Manchester City Centre). The summer 1974 event attracted 300 people and for 1975 Norman Oliver of BUFORA (who had investigated major cases in the 60s) appeared.

These were early ways we used to try to gather in local area sightings to be investigated by the associated groups because we quickly realised that the public rarely know who to call if they see ‘something strange in the neighbourhood’. There was no UFO busters then!

In the audience of that event was an interested participant who was then (and 44 years later still is) on TV - in the role of Ken Barlow in Coronation Street. Bill Roache, whose interest in the paranormal was not then well known in those pre mass publicity days, was present and that probably signalled that as a concept NUFON had arrived.

For that 1975 conference we created a special one off professional printed issue (the only one for some years) - Issue 15 - which sold at a cover price of 18 p. We got extra stock in because in October 1975 we had another major publicity opportunity to attract new cases.

We persuaded the BBC to allow us to write our own script and present a short documentary feature on UFOs for television.  This was my first writing venture (although Peter Warrington and I were in the early stages of planning UFOs: A British Viewpoint - that book was still 4 years away). And we had been doing semi regular programmes on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester soon after I started editing this magazine.  That station then being one of the first commercial radio networks in the newly liberated media environment allowed to challenge the BBC monopoly.
 
On the TV feature Peter Warrington and myself were joined by Mike Dean of the original UNO group from the Wirral, Trevor Whitaker of the BUFORA Yorkshire branch that opened up the cooperation between us and national group and Roger Stanway - Roger being a lawyer who was then BUFORA chairman and a hugely respected UFO investigator, but who sadly quit the field suddenly months after that TV appearance. He was missed.  

That TV appearance was the first time in the UK that UFOlogists had written and presented their own national television programme on the subject - sadly only a quarter of an hour as we had to share the slot with a campaign to liberate chickens! That campaign must have been successful as they roamed free around the London studio and half demolished the set.  

That early TV appearance was to bring in a large flood of cases and in the last months of 1975 the NUFON groups were chasing up about over 100 split geographically between them - with BUFORA taking on others from outside the north and midlands as the BBC 2 show was watched across the country and with the repeat seen by nearly a million viewers.

The special issue we had printed helped to showcase our work to newcomers. It featured a promising landing case investigated by NAPRA, one of the founder groups, on 18 May 1975 at Rainhill Merseyside - location of the famous railway trials in 1829 where Stephenson’s Rocket out performed other locomotives and became the class used on the Liverpool to Manchester railway route then being built and which would become the first inter-city passenger line in the world.

The witness to this 1975 sighting was looking south east at 10 pm across open fields from her window and called her husband and father to watch with her as three white balls in a triangle sat above it pulsating.

It then moved slowly over a barn and appeared to land behind a tree. Her husband bravely headed into the gloom in case it was a helicopter in trouble (though there was no noise). Beyond the trees he saw a throbbing white glow emerging from a hollow meaning that the cause was out of immediate view.

Convinced now some aircraft was in trouble he returned to the house and called the others to follow. But when they reached the field nothing was there. However, a faint humming noise was emerging from the hollow!

Waiting until her father returned to the house and brought a flashlight the three now edged together towards the hollow. Nothing was there.

NAPRA arrived in daylight and examined the area (a small pond was in the dell with a muddy bank not safe to descend in the dark). Here they found four strange pad or footprint marks in the mud. These were measured and filmed and were 13/14 inches by 6 inches and 45 inches apart. They were unusually square. Inset into one print was a stone that appeared to have been scuffed by metal.

No explanation was ever found for this case after looking for evidence of air traffic or weather phenomena. But the metal was tested and found to likely be aluminium that had been subject to heat.

That specially printed issue also carried my first article outside case reports on the theme of different kinds of humming sounds reported in UFO cases with a focus on a series of independent witnesses to an event on 24 November 1974 over Haslingden in Lancashire.

This incident presaged many similar events over the area in subsequent years that created the media story of a ‘Rossendale Anomaly’ (more about that is featured in The Pennine UFO Mystery - my 1983 book on this wave of events).    

One of the interesting cases that arrived from the Open Door TV appearance occurred in July 1973 and was in a field close to Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire.

The witness was just one of many people who stopped as several cars ahead had done beside a field and occupants were watching something in the field. This witness then did the same.

It was a warm, sunny, still day and over the field was a black fuzzy mass hovering several hundred feet in the air, sucking up from the ground a column of what seemed to be straw or loose hay from the field. This column was entering (or more likely creating) the dark mass floating above.

As the witness watched in amazement one man jumped over the hedge and entered the field and stood inside the rising column of hay staring up into the vortex as it swirled around him like some weird special effect. 

He later claimed to feel nothing unusual whilst stood there. The incident lasted 15 minutes and the object did not move during that time.

Meteorologists later suggested this was a whirlwind caused by rising hot air - a fair weather stationary whirlwind, in fact.

Only a few years later, when crop circles started to grab the attention of the public and UFO researchers from 1980 onward, did cases like this get noticed and assist those physicists, such as Dr Terence Meaden, of the tornado research group TORRO, who saw they might suggest how atmospheric phenomena might trigger UFO reports and leave behind some of the simpler patterns in fields.

But in 1975 that was yet to be realised. With BUFORAs Paul Fuller and via them I produced a book called Controversy of the Circles in 1986 (expanding on a smaller booklet we wrote in 1983). It was created in a similar format to this magazine by the same professional printer that by then we used as prices had fallen over the past decade. And our own regular cover artist, Roy Sandbach, drew the amusing cover. 

I have added that cover too at the end of this issue so you can see it. The book itself - along with all of BUFORAs publications  over the years (including UFO World - an annual global review I wrote that was similarly produced for three years in the 1980s) are on a very useful DVD that you can get from BUFORA on line. Well worthwhile. 
 
 
UFOLOGY THROUGH THE DECADES: 1970s
 
In this section I want to look at some of the ideas about UFO research and thinking across the five decades that Northern UFO News has been published. How have our ideas and theories altered about the subject as reflected in the magazine?

Again I will look at a decade a time in upcoming editions of Northern UFO News to leave some space for ongoing new cases and activity we may need to discuss in 2019 NUNs.     

In the 1970s Britain was starting to adopt the idea of ‘New UFOlogy’ championed by the aforementioned Magonia magazine and with the name derived from Jacques and Janine Vallee’s book - A Passport to Magonia - which looked at the possibility that modern UFO sightings are really just a space age continuation of events that have happened to certain human being throughout history.

In the past when society was scattered and living in isolated rural communities many people often had a much closer relationship with nature - something we celebrate centuries later in a number of our festivals built around the seasons.

Encounters with spirits and ethereal beings have been a part of cultures all over the world where the equivalent of fairies or elves or goblins are not just part of stories but manifest in slight variations in diverse societies - even remote islands.

Is this because they are actual denizens of another dimension? Or do they emerge from within the collective consciousness of humanity representing a common ideology that we just dress up slightly differently depending on local circumstances?

And are the small beings and the other menagerie of alien entities reported by someone today  in context of the UFO mystery just a space age take on the old farmer in the field far from home and long ago?

In issue 24 in May 1976 I wrote about a study of seasonal differences between cases based on the first 2 years of NUFON data that we were publishing separately as a catalogue in a special edition. We were starting to notice how well publicised UFO events in the press or on TV were ‘creating’ a flood of new and old cases as people used that publicity as a way to get the courage to speak out on things they might otherwise not.

Sometimes these triggers were major IFO events - such as the satellite burn ups that were starting to create a new wave of UFO events. During the 1960s the USA and USSR had put rockets and satellites into orbit and some of them were starting to decay in orbit and burn up spectacularly in the upper atmosphere. The resulting slow moving train of debris was an amazing lightshow and something totally new to someone in the right place at the right time then seeing one of these for the first time.
 
We were becoming aware that every few years new technology was creating the latest ‘strange thing’ in the sky that would trigger multiple reports but that would be unidentified to most witnesses then seeing it for the first time in their lives.  As a result this was reported widely by them as a UFO. With all of the ‘alien’ connotation that implied. Until, of course, it became common knowledge and misperceived less often.

As UFO investigators we had to figure out as we went along how to recognise these novel events until we could then spot them when the sightings came in. And before, after several years, witnesses would gradually get used to what they were.

So whilst satellite burn ups still cause misperceptions even in the 21st century as they are rare events most of us will never get to see, there is much more familiarity with them than in the 1970s when they first started happening.

Usually there would be multiple witnesses to such a space spectacular, spread over large areas, proving it was something in the upper atmosphere in order to be visible across a wide area. However, witnesses viewing these things unaware of their actual cause and often believing them to be UFOs would tend to ‘see’ features that were partly defined by their own inner interpretation based on what to them a UFO was - as in a strange craft.

So what in truth was just a disconnected trail of blazing debris burning up with friction was perceived as lights or windows on the side of a long object. The structure connecting them was implicit because we are used to seeing lights as part of something whole.

In this way we had to gradually unravel how to identify when satellite re-entries were being witnessed. This was given its most dramatic illustration on New Years Eve 1978 when hundreds of people across the UK witnessed the death throes of Cosmos 1068 - a Russian rocket. We were able to collate and document over 100 reports across the UK and I wrote up an analysis of the data that later would appear in my book UFO Reality in 1983. This helped us to learn a lot about witness perception that we could apply to future cases.

One of these sightings was by then new comedy double act, the Toughs, who went by the name of the Krankies (and still perform today). They witnessed the event from mid air aboard a light aircraft taking them from pantomime in Newcastle to do a live New Year's Eve TV show in their native Scotland.

Of course, every few years a new kind of novel IFO would again appear and go through the same process as these re-entries first did in the 70s. It is a never ending process and we constantly have to be on the alert for the latest one first spotted via satellite burn ups in those early days of NUFON over 40 years ago.

So in coming decades we would see the appearance of laser light displays in the 1980s bouncing off low cloud in moving dramas, military drones in the 1990s - real hgh tech - but of secret Earth origin not alien - and fire lanterns in the 2000s that were literal ‘fire in the sky’ but puzzling from a distance.

These were amongst other illustrations of the same pattern and once we had identified it with those 1970s satellite re-entries we were prepared to resolve UFO sightings more rapidly when new waves came along that were equally challenging.

We have already seen the first signs in recent NUN editions of the possible latest in this long line of IFOs with the prevalence of stunt aircraft being flown with pyrotechnics attached to their wings and obvious if you right underneath them but quite puzzling in the dark when these are flown if you happen to be too far away to hear or recognise the source. 

As a result by 1979 NUFON was quickly aware that 90 - 95% of all reported UFO sightings were really IFOs - identified - often recognisable by this pattern of reporting - and we could focus our attention more on the cases that offered hope of being really interesting.

In this way we were able to use the NUFON alliance and Northern UFO News to head towards the end of its first decade with new insights.

 




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These covers l to r show the artwork of three of our regular cover designers. On the left is John Watson (spot the alien) - Northern Ufology being the name we used every so often in the 1980s when we devoted the issue to articles on a set theme. Middle is the ubiquitous Roy Sandbach from 1996 and right is Bill Callaghan from 2001 who drew many later editions. Roy's  BUFORA crop circle cover is below left!  
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ISSISSUE 199                           NOVEMBER 2018

The Manta Ray Sightings

Editor: Jenny Randles
10 Marton Green  Stockport  Cheshire  SK3 8LT

nufonnews@gmail.com 



JR Comments….
 
I had a lovely time by the seaside in early October thanks to LAPIS - the Fylde group who organised the conference in St Anne’s on Sea, days before fracking started nearby resulting in several earthquakes - happily not caused by me falling off the stage again.
 
It was lovely catching up with people I had not seen since the 1990s when I lived in Fleetwood and I was lucky enough to be invited when the group first started to organise these events.


Sadly, Alan Godfrey was unable to present his talk. He had to go into hospital, though he is now on the road to recovery. Perhaps next year as I am sure the success of these events will continue.
 
What I enjoy about this kind of conference is the breadth of topics that are covered. It is not exclusively about UFOs but spans a range of paranormal investigations that reveal a great breadth of research that occurs in the UK.

Unfortunately, I was only able to be present for the talks before and after my own - as I had to depend on being driven there and back given that Northern Rail decided that this is now the age of the train (that never moves) and had their 999th strike of the Summer meaning it was that or walk the 50 miles.
 
However, what I did hear cheered me as there was excellent research into what we used to call ‘window areas’ - where strange phenomena concentrate - and I saw how apparitions are objectively investigated much like UFOs can be.
 
That there are overlaps between these things has long been evident to me. And this kind of get together helps us share with one another the ideas that we have and what we are doing and thinking.

Whilst I do not have any great aspirations to carry on giving talks into my dotage, which I suspect is long overdue, I might not find it too intimidating to attend them and feel happy that the future of research is in very good hands.
 
Not to mention that I managed to get through what must have been 90 minutes coping with new fangled technology such as computer controlled imagery without falling into the darkness as in Vienna.
 
So perhaps that dotage can go on hold a little bit longer.
 

NOTE:- The next Northern UFO News will be number 200. I Intend it to be a double issue covering Christmas/New Year in celebration and will take time to reflect back on how things have changed in UFO research over the years since I edited my first issue.

That was in the days when it was just begun as the local group newsletter in Manchester. It quickly morphed into this publication in December 1974 when I took over.

Issue 100 appeared 8 years later, but as a subscription magazine it then came out bi-monthly and there was a 15 year break between 2002 and 2017 caused by my becoming a full time carer, otherwise we would be well on our way to issue 300 by now!  
 
Meantime back to issue 199…..
 
LOST CASES
 
A series of cases were rediscovered from a batch of files that went missing during a house move. They have recently been retrieved. More of these will appear in future issues, but for now here we look at :-
 
The Manta Ray Sightings
 
In 1978 there was a spate of unusual reports - many in the north Midlands - of what was often described by witnesses as resembling a ‘manta ray’ in the sky. We never resolved the cause.

This one occurred on 28 November at 4 am.

 
The witness was a van driver on a delivery run from Birmingham to Warrington. His vehicle - WBY  984 S was a blue Ford Transit.  Approaching junction 18 near the village of Sproston Green in Cheshire he had a strange experience.
 
To his left (north-west) he saw a ‘shooting star’ move at speed and land in a field in open country north of the Sproston.
 
As he continued to look towards where it had vanished a large light rose upwards from this spot.  The glow was so bright and lens shaped that the driver called it ‘halogen’ like.

 

Aware this was something very odd, he slowed right down to observe it carefully - it now being the size of the full moon - something investigator Martin Keatman was able to check on his visit as he got the witness to view the real full moon that night.

 
Now at the motorway junction the witness decided to turn off and stop on the first point after the top of the slip road outside Sproston Green village.

Here he got out of his van and moved to the front to get a perfect view of the apparently stationary object above fields to the north-west.
 
At this stage a car came up off the slip road and in the dark the witness tried to flag it down, but it did not stop. Then he heard something strange. His two way radio being used to communicate with base started to crackle. It was turned right down in volume as he was out of contact area but the noise was very strange even at that level.
 
Looking back at the object he now felt a very strange tingly feeling as if sure it was aware of his presence and was now clearly moving towards him, stood alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere at 4 am. He deliberately stepped backwards to the van door ready to jump in if necessary.
 
The object was now heading right for him and he watched awestruck as it came low overhead with a large oval metallic body and two beams of light like torch beams emerging from the front - one directed upwards at 45 degrees and the other towards the ground. 
 
The witness was unable to explain as it moved in ‘slow motion’ above him why he was not illuminated by the beam below even though he said the ground around him had a shadow of the oval object.
 
Passing right over his head at low altitude took several seconds and allowed him to take in detail. The underside seemed ‘bevelled’ and as it moved away there was a small ‘fin’ on the rear but not like an aircraft tail fin.  In any case as it passed above there was only a faint whistling noise as if it were ‘gliding’ - no sound of an engine.  The car engine ran unaffected throughout the experience as he watched the object move away to the south east and disappear into the darkness.
 
The only physiological effect described by the witness was a fuzziness in his eyes looking up at the object on closest approach - which he blamed on the unusual lighting.

Total duration of the sighting was about 4 minutes.

 
The weather data that night shows that it was - 3 degrees C, clear sky and almost no wind.  Manchester Airport is north-east of this location but the path of this object is not a usual one in or out of the single runway then operating at the field.
 

The witness travelled the M 6 often at night given his job and had seen numerous aircraft before and was adamant this was nothing like one. What it is - though - is remarkably consistent with several other cases in a flap that occurred around that time, many described in very similar fashion by independent witnesses.

 
I personally investigated a case near the Carrington oil refinery involving a group of witnesses at a bus stop.

This happened on 14 November 1977 and shared many features of this case - including the two bright headlamps, the huge size (witnesses estimated it was half a mile long!), the very slow motion and total silence.  Given the rush hour time of this earlier sighting I was baffled as to why nobody else saw the remarkable thing reported. Half of the Manchester area ought to have done so.

We looked into the possibility of an airship gliding overhead and that remains a viable option in this case. They were relatively rare in the UK at that time but I actually saw one myself on the M 6 motorway heading south to London in May 1977. This was in daylight and easy to identify but odd because of its then unfamiliarity.


Seeing an airship at 4 am would be even more baffling in 1977/78 but would also be less likely to happen especially in the proximity of an airport.
 
The sighting in Cheshire a year after the one near the oil refinery was part of an extraordinary series of events that occurred in a 2/3 day window with again very consistent features.

These were spread across the whole of the UK, implying they were nothing to do with Manchester Airport. So if an airship was involved it was well travelled or more than one was involved.

26 November 1978  Encounter

The first sighting was on the south coast at Portslade near Brighton in Sussex and had remarkable similarity to the incident a year earlier near Manchester. It involved people beside a bus stop at a similar time of evening(5.20 pm) who saw a gigantic object coming from the hills heading out to sea southwards. It moved very slowly and made just a quiet humming noise and took a long time to pass.
 

There were two white searchlights at the front and two at the rear and small red lights studded all around the circular flat rim.
 
Thirty five minutes later - in Coventry - a couple independently (with no knowledge of the above sighting) saw an almost identical object - with the shape, white headlights, rim of red lights and faint rumbling moving very slowly north. If this was the same object seen on the south coast it had reversed course and moved 140 miles north in half an hour.
 
Five minutes later a very similar object was reported 10 miles north of the above witnesses at Nuneaton in Warwickshire.
 
Finally, half an hour later and 80 miles north a familiar sounding object was seen heading north by a couple on the hills at Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire. 

MUFORA investigated this final episode and all of the reports on that same evening across an hour of time were independently reported in separate locations to four different UFO groups.

The Derbyshire UFO came from the south and was described in very similar fashion and the word ‘manta ray’ describing its appearance was used as in some earlier reports that month.

Like the accounts of the other sightings it was said to be huge, moving exceptionally slowly, had red lights on its side with two huge headlights on the front. Although at this location no sound at all was noted.

As you will have noted the above sightings happened less than 36 hours before the M 6 incident at Sproston Green. They appear to involve the same object observed  by five sets of completely independent witnesses all unaware that anyone else had seen anything.

 
What was this object? We had checked into the possibility of bright stars and planets being misperceived by the witnesses as the first likely option but nothing was there at the time of any of these sightings that matched.

Other possibilities we considered were never established. An airship seems very unlikely given that it could not have travelled 200 miles in an hour, well beyond their normal speed 40 years ago.

 
We did speculate about a mid-air refuelling exercise in which tanker aircraft and fighters very high in the sky fly in formation.

These practice using a hose in mid-flight to refuel planes without the need to land. There were several such NATO exercises in the 1980s but they were usually described when seen from the ground as being a huge triangle formed as a result of the mind joining the dots of the individual jets moving in formation based on the false assumption they were all lights on one huge craft much lower down.  

 
The lack of noise and very slow speed is consistent as it occurs from the fact that the witnesses assume this is a relatively large and low object that should move faster and should be more noisy. On the other hand multiple aircraft several miles high would create an unusual muted sound.

This option remains a potential explanation for the Manta Ray sightings in November 1978. But whilst there were NATO exercises that year - the ones publicly reported were in September and December, not November.  So we were never able to prove this was the cause of these strange events.

The proximity to airports in all these cases (Gatwick is just north of Portslade,  Manchester in two of the other cases and Birmingham airport near the Coventry/Nuneaton reports) led to the theory that this might be another example of  gliding aircraft.

That extraordinary solution proved true for sightings in the middle of the night over the Pennines in 1978 - 1980 but were traced to a very specific once a week cargo flight where the crew throttled back the engines and only left the tail fin illumination lit so as to create a scary looking UFO when seen by witnesses in elevated rural terrain.

 
This does not fit the details of the reports in the manta ray cases. And the specific cargo operator involved in the gliding incident were reprimanded by the aviation authorities for a risky practice.

A CLOSE ENCOUNTER

 
One other interesting link with the 26/28 November 1978 ‘manta ray’ sightings was that 4 days before they happened -  and at a similar time - around 5.30 pm during rush hour as two of the 26 November sightings had been - one of the most significant close encounters in the UK took place.   

This was a case I was able to investigate after being contacted by the witnesses shortly afterwards. It was never explained.

 
Elsie Oakensen was head of the teachers resources centre in Daventry and experienced an odd feeling of a tightening sensation round her head during the afternoon of 22 November 1978. Like a severe migraine attack.
 
She left work at 5.15 pm for the six mile drive home through rush hour traffic to the village of Church Stowe, Northants.
 
Turning onto the A 5 at Weedon  she saw ‘two very bright headlights’ ahead just above the road.  She thought a very low flying aircraft or one about to crash was heading right towards her, but it seemed to be hovering above in the sky. Elsie pressed her face against the windscreen peering up to see it.
 
Her path took her directly underneath the object which was dumb-bell shaped with one light on each circular end.  It was very low yet silent. 

Despite Elsie reporting what she saw to the local paper no other witnesses on the heavily trafficked A5 came forward to say they saw what she did.

At this point she had to turn off the A 5 into her village. It was now about 5.30 pm.  As she headed on the side road into Church Stowe Elsie kept looking back and noticed the object still over the main road where she had just left.
 
She entered third gear to drive into the village when ‘the next thing I knew my foot was hard on the accelerator pedal’.  Her engine was silent and she had no power and the car was coasting to a halt - though her headlights were still on.
 
Elsie pressed hard on the accelerator and the car restarted. But moments later there was a jump in reality and she was stationary inside the car.
 
‘Everything was in absolute blackness. My engine had stopped. My lights were out. Suddenly piercing white circles of light about a yard in diameter came from nowhere, on/off, on/off starting at the left of my car, round in front of it, to the right, back again and the last one disappeared into the air.’
 
Then there was another jump in reality and she was driving normally - though she insisted to me ‘I did NOT switch on my ignition. I did NOT put my car into gear.’
 
She drove into her garage a few hundred yards ahead and nothing was now visible in the sky, the lights and car were working perfectly and never malfunctioned again.
 
On entering the house she was baffled to discover it was now about 15 minutes later than she expected. She drove the same route every day and this ‘missing time’ was very noticeable.

The parallels revealed here between this case and the experience of Alan Godfrey in his patrol car in Todmorden almost exactly 2 years later are obvious.

 
About 90 minutes later, at 7.10pm, Elsie described how the tightening band pain in her head returned briefly for one last time.
 
At almost exactly that point - as reported to a local UFO investigator - four young women driving in a car had another close encounter. They were driving to a meeting in Northampton from the village of Byfield and were travelling through Preston Capes at the time. This is just 4 miles south west of Church Stowe where Elseie Oakensen then was.
 
The four young women saw two beams of light emerge from a cloud and then a red and green light cross their path ahead on the road, at which point the car lost power and coasted to a halt. Very similar to what had occurred to Elsie 2 hours before.

As they drove south the lights paced them and the driver had to fight to retain forward motion by shifting through gears. They then coasted into the village as the lights merged into one big white light and vanished abruptly.

 
I later spoke to the driver of this vehicle (the other women were too scared to go public and she herself had tried hard to forget all about it and was not keen on making too much out of the matter or to connect it with Elsie’s story). I could sense there was a deeper level to what happened but sometimes witnesses just prefer to push it to the back of their mind and get on with life.

She did tell me of the car that it was nearly new and worked perfectly after that night and that: ‘I have no idea why it suddenly lost power when the lights appeared.’
 
Elsie Oakensen, meanwhile, like Alan Godfrey, was hypnotically regressed in August 1979 and described how the pressure in her head also occurred during the missing time and she ‘got hotter and hotter’  as she was struck full on by a beam of white light from above. 

This pulsated in circles radiating out - a more complete account of what she consciously recalled on the night.

 
Two grey shapes - ‘people’ she called them - approached out of the light and she recalled the belief that she was ‘selected, scanned, promised a return visit, but then ultimately rejected.’

I suggested to Elsie when we later met and did a TV show together that she take the same journey at night when she was ready and use that as a way to try to trigger further memories.

She bravely did this and told me that she felt that the head tightening was a ‘scan’ on her and that the first lights outside the village put her into ‘limbo’ and she was in that state taken to a nearby location beside a farm (which she dimly recalled consciously) and where the occupants were away at the time so it was deserted.

Here she was scanned more intensely and found ‘unsuitable’  for their needs (she felt her age - close to retirement age - was a factor here and that biology was a factor). 

Elsie did not suggest, but it certainly is interesting that, 90 minutes later the second experience occurred nearby involving four much younger women in their car, none of whom were keen to look too deeply into what happened. If indeed anything deeper happened to them.

If you think the links in all these cases are amazing enough there is one more coincidence that is even more fascinating.

 
In 1976 a young British science fiction writer whose imaginative and literary stories have tackled many extraordinary subjects decided that for his third novel he would write a book exploring the UFO mystery.

This was no junk novel from such a young writer. It was brilliantly creative and clearly had been inspired by the best of UFO research in both English and French in print at that time which he had read intently.

So this novel did not take a straight aliens have landed perspective. It looked much deeper and explored consciousness, how witnesses and their close encounter experience interact and even the nature of reality itself.

 
This book, set in  Yorkshire, is called Miracle Visitors and was hugely influential in my then nascent research as it gelled so well with where I saw the real evidence leading my thinking.

To this day I believe that Ian Watson's Miracle Visitors - fiction that it is - has to be one of the most significant UFO books by a British writer. Without my reading it I suspect that I would never have seen the nature of the 'Oz Factor' and so there would be no Oz Factor books!   

 
I had some correspondence with Ian at the time of these events and discovered that he wrote his book over a period when, as he told me, UFO reports seemed to home in on the locality where he lived as he was writing it. 

This was indeed a wave of quite intriguing close encounters akin to the Elsie Oakensen case.

 
Miracle Visitors was published in 1978 - just before the sightings reported in the article above.

When I corresponded with him he had recently moved and was now living in a village that was right next to the two villages in Northamptonshire involved in the 22 November 1978 encounter above. We are talking just 2 or 3 miles from BOTH encounters involving those 5 women. 

 
It was the point where I first took seriously the role that synchronicity has in the UFO phenomenon. It was a key for me to understand what the Oz Factor might really be all about.







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ISSUE 198           SEPTEMBER 2018

The Blue Bridge Mystery

Editor: Jenny Randles

10 Marton Green   Stockport  Cheshire  SK3 8LT
nufonnews@gmail.com






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My photo of the mystery plane outside my house in Abergele                                         The Blue Bridge, Rhyl
Click here to e

J.R. Comments
 
In the early 1960s we often took family holidays in North Wales, driving there in my father’s mini from Manchester.  This was a decade before air travel and cheap trips to Spain eroded this long traditional family vacation for many British people.
 
We stayed in a coastal caravan park called Golden Sands in Towyn right beside the busy railway line where a steady procession of steam express holiday trains brought new visitors to the coast. The park still exists and remains popular and looks much like my photos from over 50 years ago reveal that it was. But, of course, much else about the world has changed.
 
Golden Sands was just a 15 minute walk from the major seaside resort of Rhyl - reached across the landmark of the ‘Blue Bridge’ - a metal girder structure that carries the coast road over the harbour where the River Clwyd flows into the Irish Sea. It is today the county boundary between Denbighshire (where Rhyl sits) and Conwy - where the caravan park is located.
 
One of my most vivid memories from those holidays in the 60s dates from July 1962. I know the date because it is an historic one and happens to be when I first saw a UFO.
 
To be more precise it was a decidedly unidentified object to all of us who saw it - and it WAS flying - but it was not a UFO in the sense we think of that term.
 
The ‘apparition’ appeared as we crossed the Blue Bridge in our bright red mini with a scene that might have played out in one of the pop music laden swinging sixties musicals.
 
What we saw was a small oval object floating above the water and making some kind of noise like a hair drier. It was moving slowly seaward with the waters of the Clwyd being disturbed as it moved.
 
UFO it was so far as we were all concerned - but we soon learned the truth as to what it really was. This was a commercial hovercraft.
 
Whilst experiments had been carried out for decades this was in a commercial sense a then very recent British invention designed by Sir Christopher Cockerell. His SR N 1 - the first full scale test craft first ‘flew’ 35 months prior to us crossing the Blue Bridge that day.
 
Unbeknown to all four of us in the car that day Vickers had just introduced that week the World’s first hovercraft service using a large passenger carrying craft. It ran for just a few weeks at the height of Summer 1962 and operated six times a day each way on the 20 minute trip from Rhyl to Wallasey on the Wirral and back. By car the same trip would take over two hours so at £1 a journey it was attractive to families travelling from Merseyside to North Wales for the school holidays.
 
The service was fraught with problems and spent much of the Summer parked under the Blue Bridge between the actual successful flights. These were officially ‘flights’ and airlines operated them even though they never actually got more than a few inches over the sea on the cushion of air.
 
Whilst they never came to quite be the success they were predicted to be as a fast transatlantic vessel (the success of jet aircraft soon put paid to that) hovercraft do still operate today. In fact in 1983 I ‘flew’ in one myself across the Channel to get to Boulogne in France where I gave a lecture to a UFO conference. It was a much bigger vessel than the one I saw 21 years earlier under the bridge in Rhyl.
 
I recall that sighting of a genuinely new aerial craft well 56 years later as a reminder that sometimes UFOs can literally be real without being supernatural or extraterrestrial.
 
Also by chance this world’s first journey came to link two important places in my life. In 1983 when I flew on a hovercraft I was actually living in Wallasey, the small Wirral town where that service from Rhyl was headed. And 20 years later I had moved to Abergele - just a couple of miles beyond Golden Sands living on that very same coast road and crossing that bridge by bus every few days on my way into Rhyl.
 
Whilst there I was to discover that the Blue Bridge where I saw that ‘UFO’ in 1962 had a history of connections with strange flying craft.
 
As this issue of Northern UFO News will reveal.

 
 
THE BLUE BRIDGE ENCOUNTERS
 

1:   The Strange Plane

     
 
A couple of years after I moved to Abergele, in October 2005 , I was on the number 12 bus heading through Rhyl back home when I saw a strange plane once again.
 
This was an aircraft as I knew right away but it was peculiar and flying very low just beyond the promenade over the beach.
 
Indeed it was so close to the water that you could clearly see the cockpit of a large transport or cargo type aircraft -    rather old fashioned in appearance. It was certainly not a hovercraft, but behaving rather like one - or, I momentarily realised, was in big trouble.
 
Superficially it resembled a Hercules transporter and was of similar size. Yet there was no story on the news about this incident and I began to doubt my own eyes and wondered if I had ‘imagined’ what I knew I really had seen from the window of this passing bus.
 
Sadly the route taken by my bus had that day blocked my view after seconds. However, some months later I saw it again and this time had a much better view because the bus was crossing the Blue Bridge exactly where 44 years earlier I saw the hovercraft.
 
This time the large plane was heading away from me and so I saw less detail but could appreciate that it was smaller than I had thought on first appearance and not as large as a Hercules but bigger than a light aircraft or hang glider - some of which I saw over the beaches of North Wales quite often so could see this was different.
 
That was the last time I saw this plane for several years when on one last occasion I obtained the photo of what may/may not be the same aircraft shown on the cover. That was in 2013 – but a couple of other local people meanwhile reported seeing it to me over the North Wales coast between 2005 and 2009. They considered it strange too.
 
Nobody had considered it to literally be a UFO - it was to them, like me, just a plane in a very odd location and seemingly dangerously low and not of obvious origin.
 
From 2008 Rhyl started an annual summer air show over the beach and flights out to sea including the Red Arrow jets were common -  but I never saw any similar aircraft during these displays. 
 
I made enquiries  and - whilst I never actually tracked this craft to source - it seemed probable that the aircraft we all saw over those months was some sort of survey flight taking water quality readings and photographs of the ocean.
 
This was a period when major construction was taking place off shore between Abergele and Rhyl building the then largest wind farm in the UK - Gwynt y Mor (Wind from the Sea) - which commenced in 2003. From my bungalow on the sea front at Abergele I watched this vast site being constructed and the ships that created it as they went out to the site. Later they came onto the beach to lay the cables right outside my window.
 
But after that Blue Bridge sighting I only ever caught that one glimpse of what might be the ‘strange plane’. This was on 30 July 2013 - after construction work had ended -  but I snatched two or three seconds of video with my camera as it caught me unawares. It only really shows the dark mass heading out to sea from my position and reveals little as to its actual identity. But the still on the cover shows what I saw.
 
It was I remain sure just an ordinary aircraft of some sort - of that I have little real doubt even though I failed to trace its actual origin.
 
However, locally the legend of the ‘ghost plane’ lives on.
 

2: The Abergele Ghost Flight  
 
On conducting research into the origin of this strange plane I soon realised that this part of Wales had real form when it came to seeing unidentified aircraft.
 
In October 1986 I found sightings from both Rhyl and Prestatyn of a strange aircraft coming in from the coast low enough to reveal a row of illuminated windows running along its fuselage. The witnesses were sure that this was no ordinary plane because of both the silence of passage and proximity.
 
Local investigator Margaret Fry had also sent me a report back in 1987. She had discovered several people in the small market town of Abergele who had observed a ‘wartime transport’ aircraft passing overhead - dark in colour and not unlike a Hercules in outline. Enquiries by her with RAF Valley - the nearest air base on Anglesey 50 miles away - could not trace an identity for the plane. Although military flights along the coast are not that unusual.

This sounds just like what I had been observing two decades later.
 
By quite a coincidence since Margaret sent me those sightings both of us had moved to that same small market town - she over 300 miles from Kent and me 100 miles from Derbyshire.
 
But by the time Margaret moved to Abergele in the 1990s more sightings of the same type of aircraft had been reported by locals - including from villages such as Llangernyw, where mothers picking up children from school one day had witnessed a very similar aerial ‘apparition’ that was moving low over the hills and just pulled up at the last moment to avoid a crash into the steep valley.   
 
By the time I was living in Abergele the ghost plane had acquired a reputation and local media started asking for more witnesses to come forward via a BBC news blog.

However, instead of these cases now being described as unusual and out of place aircraft (like I personally observed) or being reported in the context of UFOs, as some of those earlier sightings had been, now these incidents were being sought as possible time slips or ghostly encounters with a real old time aircraft that had crashed locally long ago and whose apparition was being witnessed.

A theory I suspect to be no more likely than the others!
 
Meanwhile I found a witness called Andreas from the Wirral who had seen something like a ‘shiny black B 25 bomber’ from World War Two flying low and slow over the Dee Estuary between the Wirral and North Wales (the route taken by the hovercraft in 1962).  But this was one of the few instances where the idea of an actual time slip/ghost plane was intimated and might even have had a degree of credibility. The idea had never crossed my mind for a second with what I witnessed.
 
3: THE PHANTOM HERCULES
 
On 13 October 2009  - a sunny afternoon - another phantom plane was seem at Rossett near Wrexham, North Wales.
 
The plane first appeared over the village of Dodlestone just across the English border – which I quickly recognised as the location of a famous poltergeist/time slip case from the mid-1980s fully documented by Ken Webster in his 1989 book ‘The Vertical Plane’.
 
This certainly piqued my attention given the time slip stories about the north wales phantom planes.
 
The events in the Vertical Plane (ironic title given that this story and book was not in any way about aircraft) tell of a village cottage that was at the heart of a series of messages that were detected on a then early version of the home computer. They seemed to suggest communication coming from both the past and future (via a source signing itself as 2109 - assumed to be the future year of origin).  
 
Now, 100 years exactly before that future ‘date’, in 2009, a woman named Barbara driving from Dodleston to Rossett spotted a large transport aircraft that appeared out of nowhere and flew across her path ‘very low indeed’.
 
She heard no sound and likened what she saw to the by now familiar Hercules - which I had first thought was the object I saw over Rhyl. She came to that conclusion after checking out aircraft profiles on the net.
 
I first suspected that she might have mistaken the huge Beluga cargo plane used to fly giant Airbus wings in and out of the Broughton plant near Chester where these are manufactured.  I have several times watched these whale like planes pass overhead as they land at or climb away from Chester heading for Toulouse in France where the planes are put together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. A flight could easily pass low down near to Rossett.
 
However, I know that the Beluga is not what I saw over Rhyl and they have such a striking behemoth like design that mistaking them for a Hercules might be a stretch. The bulge on the front that gives them their name is very distinctive.
 
Moreover the Beluga only started operation in 1995 and so were not even airborne when some earlier ghost plane sightings occurred.
 
Another case that came to my attention was reported from a man in the West Midlands describing an event when on holiday as a child.
 
This was in August 1980 and he was then on the same beach at Rhyl over where my first sighting of the plane had been.
 
At the time he was hunting crabs with his sister on the sands when suddenly a huge aircraft approached from the Abergele direction so low that the pilot was visible from the beach.
 
The witness grabbed his young sister and threw themselves both into the sand as the aircraft passed over, climbed upwards and disappeared without sound.  They were convinced it was crashing into them.

From what had been to me a trivial sighting of an unidentified plane in and around the Blue Bridge at Rhyl I had been led along this maze of evidence in unexpected directions.
 
Were these all just misperceived aircraft or was something else going on? If so, then what?
 
Well, the Blue Bridge was about to reappear and this time the UFO connections were much deeper than the events above.
 
4: ABDUCTED?
 
A man called Steve, visiting North Wales from Hampshire, is origin of the strangest case yet tied into the Rhyl Blue Bridge.
 
It happened in the late 1980s when the first wave of mystery aircraft sightings was occurring on this stretch of coast. But he only reported it much later.
 
Steve had a temporary summer job in Rhyl when the influx of tourists means short term employment is in plentiful supply. Not living locally he stayed in a caravan at the rear of a pub – then known as the Ferry – located by the south western side of the Blue Bridge. This is just a few hundred yards along the same coastal road from where Golden Sands caravan park sits and where I had my bungalow between 2002 and 2014.
 
On this night after a long day working Steve spent the evening in Rhyl and, being newly married, phoned his wife from a call box to say goodnight before returning to his caravan.
 
However, the very next thing that he recalled was walking slowly towards the Blue Bridge from the direction of Towyn without memory of how he had got there.
 
Six hours had disappeared and Steve was on the other side of the river and over a mile from where he had ‘just’ in his memory called home to his wife.
 
My first thought - as I suspect might be yours - was that here was a young man who after a night out maybe got lost in a strange town and perhaps slept off drink and a long day.
 
But he is adamant this is not what happened and pointed out that he was wearing shoes that were too tight and gave him blisters if he had walked any distance whilst wearing them, but there were none on his feet that morning when he ‘came to’.
 
As such he argued that he cannot have walked from the Rhyl through Kinmel Bay - a couple of miles. Nor he insisted had he over indulged, was taking no medication and had never had similar blackouts before or since.
 
This anecdote is very like many alien contact cases in my files – an intriguing story with tenuous possible links to UFOs. But there are further interesting comments by Steve.
 
The witness reports that as he ‘came to’ his clothing was ‘undone’ – though showing no signs of having been slept in. He was also plagued by bad dreams in the aftermath of that night. In these he found himself inside the phone box calling home and exiting to find himself in a large grey and white room with a tall figure and two small beings wearing illuminated helmets.

Throughout he felt a desperate urge to escape.
 
We may never know if there is a more mundane explanation - possibly a repressed recall of assault - as he was not interested in digging deeper via methods such as regression hypnosis. And, of course, as no UFO was actually seen, it would be very presumptive to go that route anyhow.
 
Nonetheless, UFOs did rear their head in connection with the Blue Bridge soon after this case emerged. A witness from the Midlands asked US UFO group MUFON: ‘did anyone see the UFO in the area of the (Rhyl) Blue Bridge?’
 
The incident was described as a ‘huge object, glowing red, sparks coming off’.
 
This witness observed people by the bus stop directly outside the very inn featured in Steve’s story above - adding:  ‘(They) must have seen it’ because they were ‘pointing at it’.
 
This event happened on 3 March 2012 at 21.45 - which is very significant because on that night a huge fireball meteor crossed the British skies.
 
So on this occasion we can surely resolve this Blue Bridge sighting as an IFO.
 
But the location has certainly become a hot spot for all manner of aerial curiosities - even now reaching out across the Atlantic!
 

5: CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH THE MYSTERY PLANE
 
I have to thank researcher Peter McCue for pointing me toward another key report that might be connected.
 
This sighting was made by Colin Grethe - and is perhaps the most extraordinary of all of these Welsh mystery aircraft episodes.  It was a very close encounter indeed. Though to be fair some distance from the Blue Bridge on this occasion.
 
His clearly expressed account was written by him on his Eden web site  -
www.eden-two.com - an artfully designed project combining spiritualism, music and business advice into an eclectic mix.
 
After I tracked him down (he now lives outside Wales) Colin kindly offered further information about the events. It proves to be a fascinating case that ties together elements from all of these North Wales aircraft incidents.
 
Colin was driving along a dark country road near Cwm Llinau in northern mid Wales at around 21.20 on 27 April 2007. He was heading towards Machynlleth when he observed ‘a group of bright lights’ to the side and ahead over the highway.
 
He quickly appreciated that this collection of lights resembled the wingspan of an otherwise invisible aircraft.
 
Colin observed many details such as wing tip lights, small vertical constructions in front of each tip and a glowing white dome over the wings akin to a cockpit. He could even make out the top half of two ‘figures’ within that part of the craft it was so low and close.
 
The ‘aircraft’ appeared to be an old type and gently rising up and down as if it was just about to land. Needless to say this was a terrifying prospect given that the mystery object was very low down and Grethe was so close to its flight path. And there was no airport - just the road he was travelling on - suggesting he was closing in on the point of potential impact by the plane right on top of his car.
 
Events now entered slow motion (the classic psychological response to hyper stress that is common within the Oz Factor close encounter experience).
 
The witness looked in his rear view mirror desperate to find an escape route away from danger in the darkness. But the aircraft just flew right over the top of him in what felt like a very narrow squeak.
 
Yet all of the time there was no sound of a roaring engine and he saw no tail of the craft sweeping overhead.
 
Moreover, in the mirror as he now look back to see what had happened, expecting to observe a  fiery crash site, there was nothing there. The aircraft – estimated as 50 feet wide – had completely disappeared.
 
Colin stopped the car and looked around in the gloom thinking the plane must have ditched somewhere nearby. But there was only silence in the rural surrounds.
 
He returned to his vehicle, drove on a few hundred yards until finding a nearby village where he could contact the police and give them his exact position. His call was received by the police at 21.24.
 
After trying to recover his composure the local police told the shocked man that they would investigate but added that an RAF Hercules had reputedly been ‘in the area’ earlier that day. Seeming to imply this was the most likely solution.
 
However, subsequently the police called him back to say that their enquiries had established there was NO air traffic at the time and conditions were unsuitable for low flying as he had described so they were still looking into the matter. 
 
Grethe’s own enquiries with RAF Cosford - and other airfields around the region  - confirmed there was no  plane known to be in the area that night.
 
But on visiting the police station in Aberystwyth next day he was now told it must have been the Hercules and to just forget about the whole thing. 
 
Colin told me that he ‘remained convinced there were no aircraft in the area at the time’ and was ‘taken aback’ by the police response.
 
He was especially perturbed by how they had totally changed their line of argument overnight despite seeming to take his careful and objective report seriously.
 
He added to me: ‘I challenged (the officer) that if I had been reporting a murder would they take my description of the assailant and blow it out of similar proportion?’
 
I have looked but cannot trace any report on this incident filed with the MoD. The 2007 case files released do include some from the police to the Air Staff, but not this incident.
 
Grethe added perhaps sagely: ‘I appreciate that if they had some sort of secret flight then they wouldn’t tell me about it’.
 
Nonetheless he has many reasons to doubt this possibility – not least the total silence as the ‘plane’ passed directly over his head.
 
So we have a growing file of interlinked cases about some kind of mystery aircraft flying over North Wales and its identity remains unknown.
 
Indeed, one of the nurses who visited my mum daily in Abergele when we lived there listened as I told her about the above sighting in 2013.

She smiled at me and - whilst asking me not to go into detail in public -  then told me how she had been witness to a very similar local incident.
 
This occurred on a country road near Abergele also in 2007 (same year as Colin Grethe's sighting).  She spontaneously related how a large military cargo plane had appeared out of nowhere in the dark, flown low over her car in silence and had promptly vanished into thin air as she looked to see where it had  'landed'.
 
As a child in the 1950s in this part of North Wales the nurse told me with a matter of fact comment:-

‘I knew that these sort of things tend to happen round these parts as others told me about them.
 
But you just learn to accept it and move on.’

As such the mystery continues......



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ISSUE 197       AUGUST 2018

ISLE OF MAN SPECIAL

Editor:  Jenny Randles
Address: 10 Marton Green  Stockport  Cheshire SK3 8LT
E mail:- nufonnews@gmail.comcom





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J.R Comments
Conference Calls
 
In a few weeks I am giving my first public talk on the subject for 15 years. This will be at:-     Saturday 6th & Sunday 7th October 2018
 
YMCA, St Albans Rd, St Annes FY8 1XD

The details of the programme are below.

 
Saturday 6th October
 
10:00 to 10:15: Welcome and Introduction by Rob Whitehead
 
10:30 to 11:30 Juliette Gregson: “Weird Fylde”
 
Break
 
12:00 to 13:00 Peter McCue: “Fake News; Misreporting the Paranormal”
 
Lunch Break
 
14:00 to 15:30 Jenny Randles: “Time Storms, Near Death Falls and Lying Saucers”
 
Break
 
16:00 – 17:00 Ann Winsper: “The Rise and Fall of Ghosthunting”
 
 
 
17:00 to 17:15: Closing Comments from Rob Whitehead


Sunday 7th October 2018
 
10:00 to 10:15: Welcome and Introduction by Rob Whitehead
 
10:15 to 11:15 Richard Freeman:  “The Nameless Dread”
 
Break
 
11:45 to 13:15 Alan Godfrey: “Who or What Were They?”
 
Lunch Break
 
14:30 to 15:30 Rob Whitehead: “Aliens Stole My Christmas Tree”
 
Break
 
16:00 to 17:00 Nathan Jackson: “Green, Unpleasant Land: An Overview of British Cryptids”
 
17:00 to 17:15: Closing Comments from Rob Whitehead
 

*All of the above is subject to change
 
Tickets: 1 day £25, both days £45

For online tickets & further details visit
www.lapisparanormal.com

For tickets by post send a cheque to
 
1 Elm Avenue, Poulton-le-Fylde, FY6 7SP
Email:
lapisparanormal@gmail.com
Tel. 01253 890601


 
As you can see there is a packed 2 day program of lectures about the paranormal.

My hope is to set out where I see the UFO mystery stands after my long period of absence from the field. During this time I have had a few years to put my ideas in context with the wider horizons of paranormal experience. 

The presentation will look at the three different strands of separate but inter-related ‘types’ of encounter and how these connect via the Oz Factor. These are (as in the title) Time Storms, Near Death Falls and Lying Saucers.
  

I will also illustrate them with some accounts involving famous faces I have met along the way whose encounters fall into these categories.  

This is the first time I have done a talk since November 2003 when I appeared at two bookshops on the Isle of Man to discuss what would prove to be my last book for 15 years - Supernatural Isle of Man. Although I am presently writing a new book of which this talk will offer a taster. Hopefully that book will appear in early 2019.

My last
 book (still in print on a new photo rich ‘tourist’ edition) is about the folklore and strange phenomena linked to this magical island.

Located in the middle of the Irish Sea about 3 hours by boat from England or Ireland I have visited here often since when I first went there in the late 1950s (if you don’t count my mum doing so when pregnant with me a few years before!) That first visit I remember was for a wedding at Cregneash.

I probably would retire to the island, but for two things. I doubt I can afford it - as in to either live there or to retire!
 

The island is quite small and can be driven around easily in a day or walked around in a couple of days. It is world famous for the Summer TT motorcycle races - some of the most dangerous in the world and in the 1960s we visited often by boat from Liverpool or Fleetwood around that time when the island is packed so tight it feels like it might sink.  

Sadly these days the Fleetwood boat trains and ferries no longer run and flights in half an hour from most parts of the UK are more common. My first commercial flight ever was from Manchester to the IOM by Cambrian Airways Viscount in 1971.
 

The isle has horse drawn trams, steam trains and electric trams that climb Snaefell (Norse for snow mountain). On a clear day atop here is the only place where you are geographically placed close enough to witness five kingdoms from one spot - as in England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland - and Mann.

Mann derives from the Manx name Ellan Vannin and Manannan - the original ruler. Manannan is also the name of the huge Catamaran ferry that heads there from Liverpool these days. My most recent journey in 2008 revealed how these boats are quite a step up in luxury and speed from the old steam ones such as Mona’s Queen and Snaefell that I used to travel on in the 50s and 60s.

The island is self-governing and not part of the United Kingdom or the EU but aligns its laws annually to UK laws, uses British currency and the Queen is head of state known as the Lord of Mann. It has one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world set up by the Vikings 1000 years ago and still called Tynwald - its Viking name.

Norse lived here peacefully 1200 years ago and their presence remains everywhere.  Norway ran the island until the 13th century but it is quite English in feel today, with many of the 90,000 inhabitants commuting regularly to Liverpool to work or shop.


Famous locals include the Brothers Gibb - (as in B G - who formed the Bee Gees) They moved from here to Manchester as children and started playing music at a cinema close to where I used to live in Chorlton when I first started editing this magazine way back when.

Many movies have been filmed on the island making the most of its spectacular diverse scenery and ability to offer non UK tax breaks.
Cregneash - where I attended that wedding 60 years ago - still looks as it was in Victorian times and is used on film often for that reason. It also has a flying saucer landed on the hills above - though it is actually a modern shipping control station that just looks spookily like one. A photo on the cover illustrates this 'landing'!

Thomas and the Magic Railroad (as in the Thomas the Tank Engine!) starring Alec Baldwin was filmed on the island which basically IS the fictional isle of Sodor in the original stories (indeed Sodor is the real name of the bishopric of the island and as recently as the 1960s had little railways all over it as in the books - though only the main line still operates with over 100 year old steam engines). Again the cover photo shows a map at Douglas railway station of the island lines as they once were.

This seemingly odd travelogue does have a purpose (truly!) because this issue of Northern UFO News will feature some of the strange cases from this magical island that I picked up on my many visits. 

Another of these was featured in issue 189, involving a ship that had very strange things happen to it after encountering an object in Manx coastal waters in 1957.  But it is by no means the only incident worth recording. So a selection of others will follow.

So above I wanted to set the scene for those who have never encountered this magical place before.
 

Case 1:  THE THREE LEGS OF MAN

We know that the island has been inhabited for at least four or five thousand years.

But one of the most notable things about the Isle of Man is its folklore which is typified by the symbol for the island that appears everywhere - such as on its flag and stamps - the three legs of Man. 

You can see it on the cover adorning the Laxey water wheel - one of the oldest working examples in the world.


The legs are only shown from the thigh down and forming a circle that could be moving in any direction - that is by convention said to be clockwise.

They are the basis for a near millennium old motto of the island - ‘whichever way I am thrown I will stand’.

The origin of this goes back more than 2500 years and after the time of Manannan, who was said to have cast a magical mantle around the island to protect its inhabitants from easily being invaded. It is, of course, most likely the common sea mist that often shrouds this mid water island position - but still sometimes given the name by locals when it comes in quickly.

The story of the three legs involves a group of fishermen driven onto the island by a storm that left them wrecked, but safe, on shore. Praising their escape, they used a tinder box to try to light a fire when a fierce noise from the dark stormy skies emerged above.

Exiting from the dark cloud above them was an ‘object’ shaped like three spokes on a wheel. As they stared at the UFO like apparition the wheels began to rotate. They watched as this startling object moved along the beach and the sides of the steep cliffs and disappeared into the distance.

Over time it became associated with the good fortune of the shipwrecked crew and so began the long mythical affiliation of the three legs with the island.

Of course, assuming it has any basis in a real life incident as folklore often does, then it is not hard to interpret this in a modern context as a UFO sighting. If so it has been mythologized extensively over the
centuries, of course.


Regardless of what caused it - some kind of ball lighting or rare atmospheric electrical phenomenon in a UAP sense seems likely - it nonetheless is a flying object that is unidentified.

It has obvious similarity with many modern day fireball events that are typically related to a fierce storm, as here.

 
Case 2: THE WIND FROM NOWHERE

November 1898  Glion Dhrink
 

The witness to this sighting, a man from Lonan on the east coast, quaintly described the time of the incident as around ‘middlin dark’ in a vague way not uncommon in rural surrounds of a past age.

He was walking over 10 miles home across moors around Glion Dhrink area east of Peel going home on the far side of the island after work. Something common with rural labourers of the time.

To amuse himself on the several hours journey over hilly terrain he was singing to himself when bad weather descended as it can quickly on the island. So he took shelter from the steady drizzle knowing from experience it would soon pass.

However, the intensity increased so he started to seek out better shelter and entered what in the gloom he took to be a hedgerow, but once inside he became surrounded by a swirling mass and there was no obvious exit.

This man later described what happened next - ‘Something came over me….I had to put my hand up to keep my cap on for it would not stop on itself.’

He was next caught in an upward suction that was seeking to pull him into the sky towards the unseen dark object overhead that he could sense.  An effect not unlike that in the Alan Godfrey case over eight decades later.

As he phrased it ‘my legs and knees went all queer and the singing was knocked all out of me.’

His body was tingling and he could almost see but definitely sense that there was an intelligence around him watching and waiting. He naturally assumed these to be the fairy folk of whom there is a strong tradition on the island and hundreds of stories. They are still believed in by many locals and ‘Fairy Bridge’ is a place where even now locals tie notes to the trees by the stream asking ‘themselves’ - these diminutive ‘original’ inhabitants of the island - to grant them some favour based on events in their lives.

The man on the moors was now overcome by both an odd tingling and a sense of ‘tiredness’ that saw him lose consciousness.

He awoke in a totally disorientated state, collapsed on the ground, unsteady on his feet and taking several minutes to re-orientate his senses. When he did so he realized he had ‘moved’ a couple of miles and was now on Glen Mooar without any idea how he had made the journey.  

When he arrived home he realized that a couple of hours had disappeared whilst he was ‘out of it’.  


This is a classic case of ‘missing time’ that without any doubt today would be interpreted as a possible alien abduction. The witness would likely be hypnotized and coaxed to try to recall what happened whilst in the presence of the ‘aliens’.

Whilst extraordinary this is just one of several fascinating stories of what appear to be UAP or abduction like events long ago on the island.

There is even the story of the ‘Fenoderee’ - one of the fairy folk exiled to live amongst the locals who in the 1600’s, as close as we can estimate from the resulting folk tales, he plied his trade using ‘magic’ to plough fields in the Curraghs on the island.

The accounts of the way this was done clearly suggest it was laid down as swirled circles that we would recognize today as ‘crop circles’.


Indeed in the same area there have been modern reports of such circles which suggest that some ‘phenomenon’ - perhaps a meteorological one - has been operating here across the centuries.

And just like with the winds and lights today interpreted as aliens and UFOs but in the past put down to the fairy folk, then these circles would once have been ascribed to the ‘Fenoderee’ at work.

Interestingly he operated at night with the circles being just there in the morning. Exactly like today’s crop circles.


It would be truly fascinating to know how the man from Lonan would have related his adventure had hypnosis been an option in 1898. Would it have unraveled a ‘memory’ from that time and place where it is more likely this witness would believe he was ‘abducted’ by fairy folk not little green men?
 

Case 3  THE MAN WHO VANISHED 

Perwick Bay,  Autumn1978

 

Just outside of Cregneash and close to the modern day ‘flying saucer’ maritime communication station on the hill is Perwick Bay. Here something very curious occurred in 1978.

A man called Fred was collecting seaweed from the rocks in the bay when he saw an unusual figure stooped over an outcrop. Puzzled he went closer to investigate.

As he got nearer, without alerting the being to his presence, he could see that it was not human and was very small. No taller than about three and a half feet.

The figure had a tight fitting grey covering all over the body not unlike a diver’s wet suit. But this was not one of those. It did not reveal any flesh at all.


On the midriff was a belt that seemed to have some kind of box attached to it. The box had buttons and the being kept pressing these as Fred inched closer to him without drawing his attention.
 

Suddenly the figure seemed to become alerted to Fred’s nearby presence in the quiet location with just the sound of the waves for company. He stared at him seemingly in horror ‘as if he had never seen a human being before’ - was how the witness described it.

At this point he opened the box on his belt and took out a small piece of rock. Fred was now really close to him and the figure handed the rock over without saying a word. It had a greenish gold flecked surface.

Dumbfounded Fred took it without even thinking - upon which the entity then pressed another button on the belt and vanished into thin air!

Fred decided to give up his seaweed hunt and promptly disappeared off the beach as fast as possible and returned home to Port St Mary.

The rock on closer inspection did not seem anything strange at all.


Naturally I asked to see this geological specimen. Unfortunately, the witness told me he placed it on his mantelpiece and when he returned to take a closer look it had vanished as completely as did the figure on the rocks.


I have no idea how true this story is, of course. But it is different from any other I have heard.  

 

Case 4 :  THE FLIGHT OF THE FAIRIES

Fairy cottage, Laxey 29 May 1984

 
A much more traditional UFO event is next up - although its location is still at a place whose very name links to the magical beings and folklore of the island.

At about 11 pm that night an object was seen hovering above Laxey Bay and the police and coastguard were both alerted but neither had any helicopters in the location.

The married couple in the cottage were looking at insisted it was like two huge searchlights pointed onto the water. At first completely stationary but now moving slowly - which is why they assumed it was a helicopter looking for someone possibly lost in the water.


That explanation was soon rendered impossible even without the police and coastguard saying so, when the object headed inland and passed directly over the couple in front of their cottage. Despite the area being quiet there was no sound at all as the thing headed westwards inland. So it was no helicopter.

They could now see that the object had a flat base and a disk like structure above. There were other glowing lights apart from the two headlights and streams of what looked to be faint vapour emerging from the rear.

They watched as the object circled inland over Sneafell, the mountain inland just behind them, reached by electric tram climbing up from Laxey. 

The object then curved north and east again and back out over the Irish Sea.

No explanation was ever found.  And no other witnesses came forward. I checked for possible satellite re-entries or bright meteors. But none seemed to have occurred.  The only possible explanation I could think of was a military aircraft refueling exercise that use well-lit tanker aircraft very high in the sky linked to smaller planes that are ‘fuelled’ through a pipe in mid-flight.

But again no evidence could be found for such an event occurring that night.

 

Case 5:   UFO CRASH ON SNAEFELL

Snaefell Mountain 14 January 2001

 
To end with the most intriguing case of all, revealing that even in the 21st century strange things still occur on this island.

At about 4.30 pm on this Sunday afternoon three separate groups of people were on the wintry slopes of Snaefell - the 2037 ft high mountain that dominates the centre and north of the island.

They saw something near the telecommunication mast close to the Bungalow, a famous point on the round island TT motor cycle course. 


From Sulby a man described what looked like a ‘microlite’ flying very low near the mast. Meanwhile another man at Jurby reported what seemed to be ‘fire’ falling from the sky near the same place. He thought it might be a distress flare fired by someone on trouble up the mountain in the harsh conditions at this time of year.


Meanwhile two women were horse riding on the opposite, southern slopes of the mountain about three miles away. Their open perspective gave them the most clear view.


They described seeing a ‘small plane-like object’ moving very slowly towards what seemed a possible collision with the communication mast. In horror they watched it strike the mast and emit a shower of sparks and fire that fell towards the top of the mountain.

Convinced they had watched a passenger aircraft crash into the tower they quickly rode to the nearest farm and asked the owner to call the police. He also witnessed the smoke on the top of the mountain as it was still visible when they pointed it out to him.

The police did not take much persuading to investigate because shortly before the call they had had to switch to emergency back up when they lost power from the tower which was used to operate emergency services communications.

By now, being mid-winter, night was closing in and as rescue crews arrived on the desolate scene it was too dark to properly take in what they were seeing. There was evidence of some damage to the tower around them suggesting the collision was real and signs of burning on the ground below.

But crucially there was no obvious wreckage and certainly not any crashed aircraft on the mountain as far as they could tell in the now pitch dark.

There were also no reports of any aircraft in trouble, but the prospect of a light aircraft not under radar control that might have fallen beyond the mountain - possibly even into the sea off Jurby 5 miles west - meant they had to launch a search and rescue mission.

Civil defence, fire and police were all put on alert and an RAF helicopter scrambled from Valley in North Wales (the island’s defence being under control of the UK). But after six hours of searching and still with no reports of any missing aircraft the operation was called off without conclusion.

By Monday morning full power was returned as minimum repairs were needed and in daylight it was clear there was no wreckage anywhere around the apparent collision point but that something had forcefully struck the mast from above.

Interviews with the witnesses had revealed that a trail of smoke seemed to have been coming from the ‘UFO’ after it collided with the tower and so the search was resumed in daylight but called off after several more hours when the parties found no trace of what looked like parts of any kind of aircraft.
 

The police concluded that the incident had obviously happened but that whatever it was that collided with the mast was able to continue, seemingly to its destination, or gone down unseen over the Irish Sea later.

Though not why, if true, nobody was reported missing.


Once no evidence of a missing plane emerged all Monday Inspector Carolyn Kinrade in charge of the IOM police investigation reported they were considering the theory that a prank ‘balloon’ or a firework had been fired at the tower. She appealed for anyone to come forward and confess.


Nobody ever did, despite her efforts to put the minds at ease of any youngsters who might have done it by saying: ‘They are not in trouble. We just want to know what happened and make sure everyone is OK’.


One of the two women on horseback later told UFO investigator Chris Rolfe that the object they saw was definitely aircraft sized, not a firework, and that after it clearly hit the mast it trailed smoke from its rear in a spiral and that smoke clung to the mountain top for half an hour before the police arrived and she led them to the site. This testimony seems to eliminate the police theory of a firework.

Two days later, on the Tuesday, with the police now having called off the search, they arrived at the workplace of the two women and took them back up the mountain and obtained from them detailed measurements, angles and estimates of size of the UFO.

The police had contacted defence authorities about the RAF search and were told to call off their investigations, because no harm seemed to have occurred and they believed it was just someone flying a model aircraft that had gone out of control and struck the tower.


Some police officers seemed suspicious of this or that the women could have seen a model aircraft three miles away in the semi dark and this is why they took the measurements, which clearly implied something rather larger was involved. Indeed they hinted to the women they felt their account eliminated a model aircraft as they had been advised to close it as now being.

That is officially the story, but Chris Rolfe says he was tipped off by someone that the truth was that the Ministry of Defence did not exactly lie. It WAS in a sense a kind of model aircraft - but not a small toy - rather a very sophisticated RPV - remotely piloted vehicle - about the size of a light plane and used for battlefield observation.

These have no pilots but are computer controlled from hundreds of miles away and this one was on a test flight from Scotland, had lost contact and was recovered subsequently after crashing into the sea.

They clearly preferred not to discuss this secret technology even with the police and so told them the truth in a very roundabout way leading them to assume something different from what this UFO really was.

Military record, Jane’s Defence Weekly, confirmed that flights of these RPV were occurring from Western Scotland at the time. And we have one further big clue.

On 26 October 1996 something very similar happened near the Isle of Lewis, off the Scottish coast. Stornoway coastguard had received several calls of an aircraft like object that exploded in mid air and fell in a spiraling trail of smoke into the sea.


A similar search and rescue mission found no evidence of a missing aircraft and no meteors or satellite debris burning up in the atmosphere that might have caused this incident.


The search in Lewis was called off inconclusively just as five years later on the IOM. But, coincidentally, a NATO exercise involving ships began immediately that the civilian search had ended and observers reported seeing ships appearing to be searching the waters in the same area looking for something floating on the sea.  So it seems likely this was an RPV drone that had gone astray and they were attempting to recover.

Implying that something similar could have occurred on Snaefell in 2001.

 
The only thing I could find on the matter in the MoD file releases was this comment from the Air Staff office in June 2001 to an unknown person whose name was omitted by way of redaction:-
 
I can confirm that a Search and Rescue helicopter from RAF Valley received a call out at 13 :30 on 14 January to search for a crashed micro-light on the Isle of Man. A comprehensive search of the area was conducted, but nothing was found and the helicopter returned to RAF Valley.
 
As you can see the reference to the Valley helicopter being called out 3 hours before anyone saw or reported anything does not inspire confidence in the credibility of this MoD response.

The last MOD word on the Snaefell case came in October 2001 when Lord Hill-Norton, the ex Admiral of the Fleet and defence chief who was a UFO believer and took on the MoD over Rendlesham Forest, filed a request for a parliamentary answer on the Snaefell incident.

The MoD spokesperson, an under secretary, Lord Bach, replied to parliament as follows:-    

In the early hours of 14 January, and in daylight on 15 January 2001, a military search and rescue helicopter from RAF Valley conducted a comprehensive search of the area around Snaefell Mountain following a report of a suspected light aircraft crash. However, nothing was found as a result of the search.
 
Interestingly, on an Isle of Man discussion forum I found reference to an engineer who in 2007 reportedly found the remains of a starchaser rocket on the top of Sneafell.
 
These rockets up to 40 feet in height have been developed by a private company in North West England with many test launches over the Irish Sea. They are part of an attempt to develop an independent method of cheap space flights carrying lucrative cargo.

It is not suggested that one of these rockets caused the incident on Sneafell in 2001 but clearly they were capable of reaching there.
 
As you can see all of the MoD commentary on this affair is a masterpiece in saying nothing much.

Which in my experience usually implies they have things they do not want to say.







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    Contents:                                                           196
   The Heald Moor Landing 
    Editor: Jenny Randles                                                 JULY  2018 
   10 Marton Green   Stockport  Cheshire
    SK3 8LT
    New E mail address:                                            
   nufonnews@gmail.com


J.R Comments
 
First things first:- Please Note the change in E Mail address caused by BT deciding to increase the charge for this service by 500% in 3 years and 50% in a month.

They have now renamed themselves DT - as in Dick Turpin and I could not justify £7.50 pm for an inferior e mail product to the one I switched to for free.

So sorry for any inconvenience - but as the old address will cease on 1 August please use in future:


nufonnews@gmail.com
 
Secondly, you might be expecting this issue to be Part 2 of the UMMO/APEN story.

But that will not be the case. Owing to events beyond my control I have had to suspend any further writing on this topic.

Nothing sinister, I promise. No visits from MIB. It was a practical decision.


I may well return to the subject in a future edition if circumstances change. But to make clear as to what you are missing, here is the punchline.

Like UMMO, APEN was a hoax - though it had a British focus. It played games with UFO researchers, had political motivations, became quite messy and the police got involved.  

It is a story worth telling, but telling it is complicated and distracting right now - also probably not really worth the effort ufologically. And so for the moment at least I won’t and will stick with real UFO matters not silly games by activists - of which I have had enough on Twitter lately.

So….



CASE HISTORY:
THE HEALD MOOR LANDING

THE MAN WHO WATCHED ALAN GODFREY GET ABDUCTED
 
14 January 1980  06.15 GMT

A 646 Heald Moor, Nr Portsmouth, Lancashire

OS Ref: Map  SD  888270
                                                           
 
On 28 November 1980, as readers of Who or What Were They? know, West Yorkshire police officer Alan Godfrey had a close encounter whilst driving his patrol car on the A 646 Todmorden to Burnley Road. He was searching for some cows that were causing havoc on a wet night.

At just after 5 am he had driven towards a rotating oval mass above the highway that was disturbing the trees and causing debris to swirl about. He also experienced several remarkable after effects. These include a beam of light that blinded his eyes, vehicle interference and a period of missing time. Subsequent investigation found a swirled dry circle on the highway where the object had been.

There is much more to Alan Godfrey’s story as the book makes clear. Not least that there was another witness on Burnley Road that night - a bus driver who was at the same spot a few minutes earlier but did not see the object overhead or Alan Godfrey at the scene. However, they passed each other in Todmorden centre at one point as Alan had first told me in 1981 years before the driver came forward to describe what he witnessed.

That bus driver did see the swirling effects on the road and stopped on site - leaned out of the cab and felt the vortex from whatever was creating the strange physical phenomena (unseen from above) down on the road beneath.

He drove off to collect another driver from the small village of Portsmouth about two miles north west, then had to get his passenger to the depot as he was set to drive the first service bus of the day in order to leave on time. He was on route back when Alan saw him pass just after 5 am.

Portsmouth is on the edge of Heald Moor and sits at the border where West Yorkshire becomes Lancashire. From here the Burnley Road snakes through a narrow valley with hills on both sides and a railway line running alongside the road carrying passenger and freight trains and semi regular steam specials that allow passengers to enjoy the steep climbs over Pennine scenery.

The Lancashire mill town of Burnley is four miles north-west of here and mid-way to there from Heald Moor is the village of Cliviger. It was here that a witness reported to Todmorden police station on the morning following Alan Godfrey’s encounter that he had seen a UFO around the time of Alan’s sighting. A bluish glow over Burnley Road close by the location of the case you are about to read.

Unfortunately that Cliviger witness has never come forward or been traced.


To the south of Heald Moor sit the northern fringes of the Rossendale Valley with Weir and Sharneyford - small communities two miles away and both the scene of their own close encounters.

It is fair to say this concentrated Pennine region is one of the most UFO active in Britain and is why I wrote a book on some of the events within it - The Pennine UFO Mystery (Granada, 1983).

 
Pre Traumatic Stress:

This case, which dates from 10 months before Alan Godfrey’s experience occurred on the same highway and is a most fascinating episode. It was investigated by Peter Hough and myself in 1985 and well worth telling here in full detail, which I have not had the space to do before.

The relevance to the Alan Godfrey encounter will become obvious. However I will warn up front that my title is rather misleading - as whilst he did believe this when first reporting his encounter - the witness obviously did NOT see PC Godfrey actually being kidnapped from his patrol car.

The witness to this case was Bill who lived just outside Burnley and had an interesting history leading up to these events that is worth recording before discussing his close encounter. It could be relevant as Alan Godfrey had also suffered a trauma before his encounter and reported similar 'blackouts'.

Born in the 1920s Bill started work as a mechanic at a mill in Nelson, just before WW II and at 18 saw war service with the Royal Marines.

In December 1943 he was on a carrier taking landing craft in the icy waters north east of Britain around the time that the pivotal Battle of North Cape raged. This saw the German Battleship - the Scharnhorst - sunk with the loss of all but 36 of the near 2000 men onboard by the destroyer HMS Duke of York off the coast of Norway.

Bill’s landing craft carrier sank into the freezing seas too and, whilst he survived without major injury, the trauma was horrific. He watched many of his colleagues drown as they were sucked under the sinking ship.

Managing to rescue one drowning man, Bill was taken back to Aberdeen suffering from post- traumatic shock and was cared for in a psychiatric hospital but recovered enough to see thankfully less horrific service at sea until 1946.

Post war the now worldly wise young man used his training to progress at the mill and in 1949 was made a truck driver. He was still working in that same job 31 years later when the close encounter incident occurred - only five months before he was made redundant as unfortunately the mill closed.  Victim, like so much of the cotton industry in the area to cheap Asian imports after it had survived the long American Civil War with millworkers facing near starvation thanks to support of a naval blockade that stopped imports of cotton from the rebel southern states. This was something that Abraham Lincoln commended the area over afterwards and a statue of him sits proudly in Manchester to commemorate the way part of Britain 'fought' a small part in the civil war with the Northern States. 

Bill confirmed the trauma of the close encounter had revived memories of his post-traumatic stress disorder following the sinking 37 years earlier when the UK and US were once again fighting a common cause together 80 years after that civil war.

‘Things have gone a little wrong with my mind since the UFO’ he told us.

Though he still applied for - and got - another job as a driver for a company that made dairy machinery.


He cites an incident that happened during this period after his UFO event on Burnley Road.

Driving on the ‘Death Valley’ section of the M 62 transpennine motorway he ‘inexplicably blacked out’ and found that he had in the interim crashed into the rear of a car driven by a Polish priest.  Though nobody was hurt extensive damage to Bill’s vehicle resulted.

Alan Godfrey had reported similar non UFO related blackouts prior to his close encounter that are mentioned in  my book,The Pennine UFO Mystery, Granada, 1983. The relevance of this is open to debate but is something that has cropped up in other close encounters and led to speculation by some doctors that the experience involves a kind of triggered state not unlike migraine or epilepsy.

In Who or What were they? I also mention the potential connection with VVS - Vaso Vagal Syncope - where a sudden drop in blood pressure triggered by a shock can lead to a total systems shut down in susceptible people.



Paranormal Adventures:

 
Bill claimed not to have had any paranormal experiences himself prior to his close encounter in 1980 but did cite an incident from November 1938 when he was a teenager at school.

He was then staying with his parents in a rented house in Manningham Lane, Bradford, when his parents claimed to see a ghost in the middle of the night. It was the figure of a man, whose feet were missing, but upper body intact, descending the stairs.

The landlady told them that she knew the house was haunted and believed the spectre was a window cleaner who had fallen off his ladder when cleaning the building. He had broken his neck as he crashed onto the stone flags.

However, Bill did say that following his UFO sighting he had also had frequent recurring dreams in which he relived the episode over and over. He says that these added nothing new to the events but caused him to keep questioning what hidden memories might want to emerge.

Again Alan Godfrey had similar nocturnal traumas.


The Close Encounter:
 

We had difficulty verifying the date of his wartime ship sinking episode - claimed to be the 26 December 1943  - the actual day of the Battle of the North Cape. We found no records of landing craft carrier losses on that date but some data of these events is patchy.

Nonetheless Bill was sure of the date of his UFO encounter because it was the anniversary of his induction into the navy and he says that he had cross checked it against factory duty rosters confirming this.  Though by the time we interviewed him the factory had closed and no records were accessible to confirm.

But he was certain it was 14 January 1980 and as he was also convinced he saw Alan Godfrey being abducted that day would not change this date even when we could prove to him that Alan's encounter occurred the following November. So we are inclined to regard It is correct.

Three weeks earlier, immediately prior to Christmas 1979, he had driven the same route and passing the spot where later he had the close encounter Bill says he saw something odd.
It was about 09.00 and as he crossed the railway bridge taking the track under Burnley Road he saw a jeep on the long sloping embankment down toward the line on the far side of the track. Immediately after seeing this (it being on his left driving towards Todmorden) he reached the lay-by on the right which features in his subsequent UFO sighting.

Coming out of here was a police patrol car. Bill flashed his lights, but the officer ignored him. So he stopped, got out and flagged the driver over.

From where the police car was positioned the jeep was blocked from view by a rise of land. But the jeep’s path to get to where it was had become clear - it had come from a farmhouse on the far side of the tracks via two fields and smashing through a fence. Stopped right by the track - which Bill knew but the police could not yet see - meant that it was a clear risk to passing trains if fouling the line.

Satisfied that they would contact British Rail and warn drivers before the jeep got removed Bill drove off to make his delivery run.

The sketch Bill made of the location of his UFO event above on the cover of this month's issue shows the road layout which is relevant to the above incident too.
 

Whilst this is an interesting story in of itself being at almost the exact location of the subsequent UFO landing, there is no obvious direct link. And no real need to assume supernatural elements as the fields were muddy and rainfall common this high up in the hills and the jeep could just have slipped down the steep slope entirely by accident.

However, Peter and I wanted to record it because it illustrated how he was connecting little dots together to reinforce his persistent belief that police officer Alan Godfrey in his patrol car a couple of miles down the same road was somehow tied into what he later saw.  So again here the police featuring in the story took on possibly more significance to him than it merited.

On the morning of the close encounter 3 weeks after the above incident  Bill had a major job to do. He was set to drive his truck to the then Courtauld’s textile Mill near Hollingworth Lake. Here he would collect a load of yarn.

His normal route to that factory was on the road through Rossendale via Weir and Bacup and on to Rochdale, as it was more direct. But he had to take the road through Heald Moor because he also had to drop off a package in Todmorden on the way.

It was very cold and overcast and so pitch dark meaning he had to stay below 30 MPH on the moorland road especially with the risk of black ice.

We drove the same route with Bill to the spot where the encounter took place (in daylight and Spring) and that took 15 minutes. His estimate of 20/25 minutes in the dark seemed reasonable.

Bill left home at about 05.45 on 14 January 1980 so he would have passed this same spot where he had seen the jeep around 06.05/06.10.
 

THE OBJECT IN THE LAY-BY

 
Immediately after crossing the railway Bill approached the lay by from where he had seen the police patrol car emerge 3 weeks before. The road snakes around at this point and the lay-by is, in fact, the original course of the highway. The road had been straightened out to reduce the twists of this hilly route and the old bend of the course was left in place to form this useful refuge with sheer hillside on the far edge.

Given the lack of habitation until you enter the village of Portsmouth a few hundred yards on there was very little light at that point on a winter morning. So the first thing strange that Bill noticed was a sound.

He reproduced this for us as deep ‘hummmm’ noise and added that it had some similarity to an electric generator with the same note all the time. It was clearly loud as he was in a moving vehicle and the windows were down given the cold weather.

Seconds later Bill spotted an object IN the lay by he was approaching to the right. He described it as a dark shape like a ‘toast rack’.

His sketch of that is also on the cover of this issue.

It had a dark metallic appearance but three ‘red rays’ were emerging from the side nearest the road out of a ‘lip’ a few feet off the ground and with the glow illuminating the lay by surface.

He notes ‘My sketch is what I saw from fifty feet.  It is not to scale. I would say it was oblong, about 30 feet long, 20 feet high, the width I don’t know. The rays came from under a ‘canopy’. At the top of the rays were arcs.  There must be holes in the body above the arcs as the machine was silhouetted in its own light. There were no windows.’   

He also drew some kind of tube or pipe that was curved on the bell shaped rounded top of the object.

Bill added - ‘People were moving about in the rays….The rays were kind of red - I thought flames - Getting nearer I then thought it was refueling because of the pipe on top. But then the red changed to white and now there were people - two figures - silhouetted between the machine and me. One stood straight. The other with bent knees.’

He slowly edged close towards the layby slowing down as he did and then noticed some changes:

‘Getting parallel to the machine I was looking straight into the rays and turned to look back. One of the (two figures) was a policeman. The other was light gray in colour.’

At this point he said with a hint of terror: ‘I was looking straight ahead. I shouted - My lights are out!!! - I just saw black. I remember stopping. And starting. But the time in between. No!’
 

Missing Time:
 

We timed carefully the distance from first sight of the object to where he ‘stopped’ next to the lay-by. He says it took about 1 - 2 minutes but going as slowly as we could it only took about 30 seconds. It was just a hundred yards or so.

But Bill says that he could feel his truck lose power as he came alongside the humming object. Firstly the headlights went out and the road ahead was plunged into darkness as there was no other ambient light ahead, only the localized glow of the object to his right.

He does not recall the truck engine stopping and thinks he was just slowing it to a stop. But ‘I went black too’ he commented - so he lost consciousness at this point and can only say the headlights went off but not engine power at his last recall.

He added something Peter and I later found worrying. ‘I think the engine kept running because it was a diesel….I’ve heard about these things with diesel trucks. The engines stop because it gets the spark in the spark plug. That can’t happen with a diesel. It’s just common sense. THEY can’t stop a diesel.’

Whilst in a way all this IS just good sense, it is a slightly odd thing to work out and is a well-known part of UFO investigation lore. There have indeed been cases of diesel engines running on when petrol engines fail in the presence of a UFO.

So the question is, does he know this because he has read a lot about the subject in the 5 years between his sighting and us meeting him?

It appeared from our subsequent investigation that this was the case and - like with the police connections and the attempt to connect his case with Alan Godfrey and his initial belief before he knew the dates were wrong that he SAW Alan Godfrey being abducted - this comes over as Bill just trying to find supporting pointers to prove an alien origin within his story.

Note here too how his sketch of the site sees Bill label the object ‘space ship’ which seems telling. I do not recall a witness doing such a thing in their drawings in many other cases.

What is clear is that after these hints of an Oz Factor state of consciousness as the blackout came on and then memory loss took over - as again happened with Alan Godfrey’s case on the same road - it is hard to know if Bill really was unconscious or for how long. Or, indeed what triggered such unconsciousness - stress, VVS, some kind of PTD, or, of course, the UFO itself.
 

The very next recall after ‘blacking out’ is of his body ‘jumping’ as if ‘jolting’ on recovery from a deep sleep or a vivid dream. Again, in clear echoes of Alan Godfrey’s story, he was still in his cab and somewhere a little further down the road.

I personally experience VVS - happily only once every decade or so - but I have also experienced this 'jerk'. More interestingly I have heard it described by those who experience 'out of body' or 'near death' visions. They tend to interpret it rather literally - and I can see why from experiencing it.

It feels as if your 'spirit' is 'reentering' your body with a 'bump' but it is likely just the muscles reacting to a sudden return to consciousness and your struggling sense of reality trying to piece together what just happened.

Whatever caused this experience - on 'coming to' Bill was not very far away from the lay by as he had not yet entered the small cluster of houses that form the village of Portsmouth just half a mile beyond. The border from Lancashire, where the lay by is, to West Yorkshire, where Portsmouth is, sits in between.

At point of ‘coming to’ Bill says the truck engine was just idling. He was stationary and the headlights were now back on.

We asked his first thought and he said it was: ‘I’ve escaped!’  He put the truck into gear and drove off straight ahead towards Todmorden without looking back.

As deep as we probed about the blackout Bill just said: ‘I cannot recall anything about this time. I just do not know where I was or where I came to. At the time I did not even realise that I must have been ‘asleep’. I thought it was moments later and the thing was still there so I just wanted to escape’.

But it would seem that it was NOT just a few moments after arriving at the lay by.

Even as he drove the couple of miles into Todmorden past the very spot on Burnley Road where Alan Godfrey would later have his close encounter Bill still felt strange. The Oz Factor seems to have retained a grip on him.

The road and pavements were completely deserted. Not a thing was moving. He also felt a strange ‘light headedness’.

Only as he drove into Todmorden centre did the spell break and he saw a van and some people by the highway.

He also noticed something else a little odd as he entered town whilst trying to collect his senses in order to deliver the package. It was daylight.

It only vaguely registered then and he did not check the time on the Todmorden Fire Station
clock as he passed. Though he says it was never correct anyway in those days!


He also passed the police station but decided not to report what had happened (possibly even to Alan Godfrey had he chosen to have done so!) He merely wanted to get his job over and get home.

Bill dropped off the package in Todmorden and was again not thinking clearly because someone was present to collect it and he did not register that anomaly until later. They should not have been at work yet as it ought to have been still only about 06.30. But in reality it was clearly at least an hour later than that.

‘Who would believe me?’ He told Peter and I on not saying anything. ‘I escaped. That was enough for me. So I did not tell anyone. All I kept thinking was - let the policeman (who he thought he saw next to the UFO) tell his story. They WILL believe him.’

Bill added that he also did not feel well as he drove on from Todmorden towards the mill at Hollingworth.

He described it as feeling very odd:- ‘I was strange. My mind was all queer.’

His consciousness was still ‘vague’ and he was not tying together the clues - such as the fact it was now well into the day as traffic levels revealed - despite being aware that it should not be for another hour or more.

Even so as he drove those few miles he noticed that his left leg was now aching. He could not recall doing anything to it, and chose to drive on and get this day over with as fast as possible.

He reached Courtauld’s in full daylight and still unaware of the time (he had not been wearing a watch that day or this might not have come as a shock like it did). It was clear on arrival that they considered him to be very late and another truck that should have arrived long after him was already there and getting rather impatient.

This was when Bill asked someone what time it was and discovered to his amazement that it was 09.10 which would suggest that he had a period of about two hours unaccounted for since the incident on Heald Moor. 

On arrival home that afternoon he felt extraordinarily tired and went to bed very early and in getting undressed noticed that there was a strange mark behind his left knee. It was a star shaped blue bruise about the size of a 10 pence piece.

Within 24 hours the bruising and the extreme tiredness had disappeared. He does not think this injury could have happened when he stopped beside the object as he was crawling so slowly at that point an accident causing injury was unlikely.

All of the other anomalies made no sense either.  Such as how he could have stopped his truck on the highway for two hours without causing disruption. Even though traffic would be  very light between  06.00 and 08,00 there would be some passing by as it was a Monday and someone would have noticed if he was blocking this exposed highway.
 

What happened?      

 
So what happened that night to Bill?

Firstly consider what he did to try to report the matter.
 
Bill did not tell anyone about what happened to him - not even his wife - between January 1980 and December 1981. Then he read an article in the Sunday Mirror about Alan Godfrey’s encounter and came to presume he must have witnessed that incident. A not unreasonable conclusion without knowing the date of Alan’s encounter and given the close proximity of the two incidents. Plus Bill’s belief that he saw a policeman being 'subdued' by bending down within the 'ray' beside the 'landed spaceship' (mostly because of what seemed to be the silhouette of a helmet within the red glow and a hint of a uniform). He believed the PC was being subjugated by the mysterious grey figure in the lay by.

So Alan's story as told by the tabloid hype, seemed too close a match and became quickly conflated as Bill being an observer to the abduction. Which clearly he was not.


Bill now told his wife as she saw him writing to the tabloid about their story on Alan Godfrey’s case. ‘I was stopped by a UFO in the Todmorden valley’ was how he phrased the opening of his story. But curiously the Mirror never replied and did not forward the letter to Alan Godfrey, who had cooperated with the story they had done on him.

Bill had a small row with his wife because it later transpired she posted it to the paper’s London office and he had asked her specifically to contact their Manchester office as this was a ‘northern story’ and he wanted it investigated by ‘northern folk’.

TV comedy viewers might note from the above that the fictional village of Royston Vasey in 'The League of Gentlemen' - actually Hadfield - is not far away across the Pennine moors.

It was to be October 1984 before Bill took further action - this time writing to Granada TV in Manchester and the home of a consumer help programme called ‘This is your right’. They did reply but suggested he contact BUFORA - which had an address ‘down south’ so he again chose not to follow this up! Ironically, as it turned out, because I was BUFORAs ‘Director of Investigations’ in the 1980s and so the letter would have come straight to me from London. But Bill was not to know, of course.

Soon afterwards the local paper announced that Alan Godfrey, along with Harry Harris, was to give a talk in Burnley about his encounter. This was in November 1984 and Bill attended, determined to approach Alan directly having finally found some ‘northern people’ to whom he could tell his story.

On the day, though, he was rather perturbed by the videos of Alan’s hypnosis sessions and his wife made clear to Bill that she felt he should not ‘get involved’ with that ‘scary’ stuff and reluctantly persuaded him to leave without speaking to either man.

Afterwards, though, Bill went to the library, traced Harry Harris’s legal practice (he was a lawyer) and wrote to him. Mysteriously, Harry never replied - though it was most unlike him to miss a case of this nature at that time. As he was regularly organising regression experiments into cases of missing time.
 

I should add that Peter and I were shown photocopies of these letters which Bill kept as a record, so it seems they were actually sent as described.

This leaves a very frustrating tale of how hard it might be for witnesses of the more significant close encounter cases to figure out how and who to approach and to be able to relate a story that could be very important to follow up quickly.

In the end, as a last resort, Bill did write to BUFORA in February 1985, and I received the letter and immediately set up a visit for Peter Hough and myself to start a long overdue investigation into what we quickly saw was a fascinating case.

 
INVESTIGATION:

 
We let Bill tell his story and immediately noticed how he had read around the UFO subject in the past 5 years, which he freely admitted.

This is not unusual after a witness has a close encounter but does make it hard to judge how much impact that acquired information has on testimony.


Many words were used that unfamiliar witnesses who are interviewed soon after their sighting rarely choose - for instance, ‘spaceman’, ‘parent ship’, ‘decoy’ etc. He also kept asking how his story fitted in with Alan Godfrey’s and took some persuading that - other than location - there was no obvious direct connection at all.

We asked him if he reported the problem with the truck headlights to his mill on return next day - as in these going out during the sighting. He told us, no, because he was sure the UFO had done it and so it would now be fine.

We further quizzed on whether he had to refuel earlier than expected - as you might think would be the case if he had been idling his engine for two hours somewhere. He told us it normally did 16 miles to the gallon but nothing odd was noticed and admitted he had never even considered this point up to us asking about it.

He also had never tried to make capital out of his story and, to our knowledge, made no effort to sell it or talk publicly once he had got it off his chest with us. 

At no stage in the letters he sent to the media does he imply that he was ‘abducted’ and the only hint to a time lapse comes with him saying he was ‘frozen’ - which seems part of the Oz Factor experience he underwent that only emerged from further questioning and was not elaborated upon in his letters so would likely be interpreted differently.

Indeed you can imagine the Sunday Mirror would not have ignored his letter had they thought he might have been 'abducted'.


The truck was a Ford Custom 10 ton with an ‘S’ suffix registration dating from 1977. So 2 years old at time of incident. It was sold with the mill. It did not experience any major trouble before that date - though it was only a matter of months.

We further tried to see if it was possible that Bill had hit his head during the confrontation and so rendered himself unconscious to account for the missing period.  We found no reason to think this likely as he had no head injuries or bruises afterwards.

The time of sunrise that day in Todmorden was 08.19 and indicates the gap unaccounted for after 06.15 - his last memory - is probably at least 90 minutes given the dull overcast weather. And more likely to be nearer 120 minutes given the time he arrived at Hollingworth.


We ascertained that he was NOT wearing a seat belt, but travelling so slowly that it seems unlikely he knocked himself out when pulling up by the lay by. Other than the dizzy sick feeling that might support some trauma from a bump that is speculative only.

We concluded that it was more likely he had ‘episodes’ of blackout due to some reason - the one involving the M 62 car crash being another example.

I have written several columns in Fortean Times over the past decade about my own blackout experiences under VVS - Vaso vagal syncope - which is a sudden drop in blood pressure often caused in the small percentage of society who are susceptible by the presence of some kind of sudden shock or stress. It is basically an extreme faint. 

On one occasion it happened when I was asleep triggered by a scary dream. I felt a sense of dread then experienced a disconnect in time and space and 'came to' in another place - on the floor as it turned out. I crawled to the bathroom and was sick. Then passed out again.  


Perhaps there is a seed of an explanation why in some UFO close encounters ‘time lapses’ occur. We automatically think these are ‘induced’ by the UFO - perhaps aliens taking control.

But if the pattern of witnesses to such cases having previous mini episodes in non UFO context is true could it just be the reaction to the scary UFO encounter that triggers a latent predisposition to blackouts?

So the sighting happens, the time lapse happens, but they have two totally different cases and are linked only by assumption (and perhaps artificial means such as hypnotic regression) afterwards.

 

Local witnesses:
 

Only two houses are in the vicinity of the lay-by and Peter Hough and I visited both to talk to the occupants.

The farm across the railway line from where the jeep had ‘moved’ was one.  We were unable to speak to the owners, as they seemed reluctant to talk on the subject, but we did discover from other locals that the farmer had spoken of ‘seeing a UFO coming over the hills a few years ago’.  Which was the only information they were willing to share.

The other building is a farm cottage on the roadside just beyond the layby close to where Bill says his truck stopped. A small waterfall trickles down beside it.

We were invited in to chat to the family who live there. This was after we convinced them we were not from the spoof TV show ‘Game for a laugh’ which at first the young couple seemed sure we had to be.  Given our story that is hardly surprising but a first for one of my investigations!

Unfortunately, they had bought the cottage after Bill’s sighting and were then renovating the property.  They did admit that they experienced ‘considerable’ trouble with electric power with lights going on and off on several occasions with these disappearing and then returning to life on their own.  

They had been sufficiently concerned to get the power company out to investigate who said there must be a fault and replaced components - but the problem had recurred twice since it had been supposedly fixed.

These events were not tied in to severe weather during the winter but occurred at all time throughout the year even in fine conditions.
 

Explanations:
 

The working theory that Peter and I developed in the aftermath of this investigation was that Bill had chanced upon a council works machine in the lay by.  Perhaps involved in some overnight winter road gritting or even tar laying. The basic shape of the object and other factors and its stoppage in a lay by refuge all made sense.

We could find no evidence via the local council that this was happening but they did not keep such specific records that far back by the time we talked.

Old fashioned machinery did have a shape not unlike the tortoiseshell description and the downward pointing arc lights could be consistent with a need to illuminate the road surface they were working on. So we certainly felt this was a possible trigger, though Bill was not convinced by the theory.

Close questioning of Bill revealed that he could not actually say for sure that the man bending down (as if inspecting the floor possibly?) was a policeman. This conclusion was made from the fact he was wearing a cap and some type of uniform. As a council worker might also have done perhaps.

The other individual was said to be silver/grey enhancing the space man imagery but if hot materials were inside of the machinery then an asbestos like fire suit might even have been necessary.

Perhaps a reader of this magazine will have had direct experience of this kind of road work and might comment on the possible likelihood of such a theory.


I did talk to someone at Burnley council works to talk this over. They noted that they did sometimes work on highways overnight to avoid closures during the day but he had no recall of that here and given the darkness of the location he would have expected the presence of some other source of strong illumination to guard against accidents from passing traffic.

Though being in the lay by they might not have had need of this at that point.
 

So in the end we had to leave this as an unproven possibility to bear in mind. But one for which we only have a small expectation might be the solution.  
 
 
Other sightings:
 

There have been several other interesting UFO cases in close proximity to this spot on Heald Moor. This is an area I know well because my Rossendale ancestors lived in and around the small communities of Water and Weir, on the moors due south of Heald Moor for hundreds of years.  

As a child I often walked across those hills with my grandfather from Stacksteads telling me tales handed down through the generations before returning to civilization after a few miles descending into Waterfoot  where he  had grown up.

It helped develop interest in UFOs as on those hikes in the 50s and 60s he told me of the ‘things up in the sky’ that people ‘had long seen around these parts’. Sadly when up there with him I only ever got to see spectacular views of planets such as Venus in the cold, clear Pennine air.    


I myself saw a light over a small lake during a 1982 skywatch at Weir, but it was an optical illusion caused by a star’s light bent by the atmosphere.

Other events are much more interesting.

On 24 September 1982 a relative of mine at Stacksteads saw two white lights side by side seeming to move across one of the moorland tracks. He assumed these were a car headlamp and moved aside. But the lights then climbed in an arc UP into the sky and disappeared towards a dark mass only dimly visible in the sky overhead.

Another case came my way some time later after I had appeared on Woman’s Hour, the long running BBC radio magazine programme.

It came from a family who on 10 December 1982 were driving over the moorland road from Burnley to Bacup that Bill would have normally taken on the day of his encounter had he not needed to go via Todmorden that day.

They were in the vicinity of Weir village crossing Deerplay Moor passing the spot where I saw the star anomaly when a strange white glow appeared coming at them from the south.  It was so strange they stopped the car on the edge of the village and got out to watch as it approached.

The object moved extremely slowly and they did something interesting during the 8 minutes that it took to fly low over their heads in total silence heading north towards Heald Moor where Bill had his experience.

In fact the lay by where Bill saw the object is as the crow flies less than a mile north east from  where they were.

They placed a comb on the roof of the vehicle and used it to gauge the reality of what looked like a ‘wobbling’ motion of the UFO. The comb demonstrated via the object's movement through the individual teeth that it was indeed swinging from side to side in a kind of ‘falling leaf’ motion.

When directly overhead they estimated it was 500 feet above them and could be seen to have a rugby ball shape with red strip light glows at each end and two arcs of white material encasing the ball.

As it moved away from them in an interesting parallel to the report by my relative at Stacksteads (2 miles south west of Weir) two white lights appeared side by side from the south and climbed over their heads and swooped above and beyond the strange object as it headed north.

On 4 February 1988 a scientist who worked in a laboratory was driving on the Bacup to Todmorden road late at night at Sharneyford village - under two miles south east of Weir.

A strange object appeared hovering over the moors. It was oval and had swirling multicoloured patches of fiery liquid inside wriggling like worms. This is a common description of plasma energy which she herself recognised. In fact we speculated about its possible cause as the rare natural phenomenon - ball lightning.  

Again in February 1995 an egg shape was seen hovering over the wind farm at Coal Clough which is just behind the farm where the jeep slipped off towards the railway track in Bill’s encounter.

Today a spectacular art installation - the Singing Ringing Tree - sits on the moors south of Cliviger, close to the road towards Weir and with a UFO like appearance of assembled hollow metal tubes that eerily channel the wind in perfect harmony with the alien feel of events that have been reported locally.

Another sculpture, the halo, sits on the moors near Haslingden on the far side of the Rossendale Valley. At night in blue light it closely resembles a landed disk shaped UFO sitting on three legs.

These two artworks installed in the past decade or so will guarantee the UFO history of the region is not soon forgotten.







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                      195     
            
              JUNE 2018



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CONTENTS:   

HOAX - THE BIGGEST EXPERIMENT IN UFO HISTORY?  


What was behind the UMMO contacts?  



EDITOR: Jenny Randles   10 Marton Green      Stockport    Cheshire   SK3 8LT

E mail:    nufonnews @ gmail.com



#
THE SHADOWLANDS OF UFOLOGY


PART ONE: The greatest hoax of all time?

 
I first got interested in UFOs whilst at school in the 1960s.

It was the height of the space race and stories about strange sightings were in the press every day. Most of them I knew were nonsense.


I was taking science subjects to A Level and set on University, where I was accepted in 1970 to study astrophysics at Edinburgh. 

But life got in the way in bewildering fashion and I never fulfilled that dream of investigating the mysteries of space using the scientific method.

In those days my medical background did not involve going on Twitter and telling the world as today. It was about hospital investigation and life on hold until various specialists decided what to do.


However, I did take astronomy, physics and geology classes at college as this all progressed and I was led down ever stranger pathways.

So I was increasingly walking a tightrope between UFOs and destiny that pulled me in different directions.


Those early forays into UFOs came via joining the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and subscribing to FSR - Flying Saucer Review magazine - then edited by Charles Bowen and full of articles by scientists such as Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee and Claude Poher.  It was an unusual kind of UFO journal for that era.

It was exciting to see that UFO research could be done objectively - seeking answers, presuming nothing and just wanting to learn the truth.

But at the same time I was being guided  in ways that made it hard to have public association with anyone for whom being taken seriously was already fraught with difficulty.

Because, my life might become a story one day and might cause repercussions for the struggling credibility image of anyone taking ‘flying saucers’ seriously.


Happily BUFORA were forward thinking when told before asking me to become an officer.

By then I was taking all sorts of jobs just to pay my way, even briefly as a fingerprint detective in days when there were no computers and you had to use eyesight to compare hastily taken smudgy prints that might resolve a crime.


This was the same time period that 30 years later the hit BBC TV ‘historical’ drama - ‘Life on Mars’ -was set - based in the same Manchester police area where I worked. This was like a documentary when I saw that show! The sexist banter that dominated the TV drama was real. Hence my not lasting very long round there in 1972!

At 20 I became part of the local UFO scene, joining the Manchester UFO Research Association (MUFORA), a small team of invite only members run by amateur astronomer Peter Warrington. We met in the boardroom at Granada TV.


Both MUFORA and BUFORA accommodated my fast changing world in and out of hospital with remarkable ease for which I have always been grateful. Though there were exceptions who struggled with concepts then far ahead of time.

This rather ambling introduction might seem curious and irrelevant for the story I am about to tell over the next two issues, but just bear it in mind as hopefully you will come to see why it matters. 

In short I may have been ‘targeted’ because of this situation.


Even by the early 70s there had been some hints of games being played with UFO researchers in what seems like a gigantic and well-constructed hoax.

This first part of the story in Northern UFO News will lead next month into how and why anyone would want to ‘interfere’ with UFOlogy in the UK.

But this was by no means the first such strange hint of something odd in the background - because as far back as the 1950s there had been hoax saucer crashes like the one on Silpho Moor in Yorkshire (see NUN 192).

There, you will recall, considerable money was invested in creating a believable ‘crashed object’ and a message from its ‘alien’ occupants, complete with a language that was deciphered by linguists and a story of their home planet culture.


So it seems it has long been tempting for some people to use UFOs as a kind of role play fantasy game with obscure motivation.

The question we will have to consider over these next two issues is why would anyone do that?

Of course, there may be even more sinister motives sometimes afoot - and that is certainly where the story that follows seems to take us as it slowly unfolds.

In part one here I look at a curious prelude to the British drama that I will describe in the next issue. Thy might  seem quite different but as you will see the parallels are strong enough to ponder what they mean.
 

OUT OF URANUS…..

 
The UMMO affair is an extraordinary case.  It is little known in English speaking countries such as the US and the UK because most activity focused on Spain and France and so tended to be published in those two languages rather than English.

Though there was a third language involved too  - that of Wolf 424, the star 14 light years away from which the aliens allegedly arrived to take part in this bizarre interaction with UFO researchers.

The creation of an entire consistent language for the ‘alien’ observers went some way to persuade UFO researchers during the 1960s that the UMMO saga was for real. 

It was analyzed by linguistic experts and found to be a remarkable example of a language using only 18 symbols that created a coherent set of words that could be deciphered consistently without a dictionary.

This was a level up in sophistication from the Silpho Moor basic symbol code alien language.

Indeed 400 UMMO words, such as Oemmoyuagaa - for earth residents, Waam for cosmos and Woa for God  - were submitted to the University of Seville and they were unable to decide if they came from a real obscure language from somewhere on  Earth (or another planet!) or cleverly made up.

The UMMO aliens fitted the pattern of 1950s contactee stories, too - tall, blond human like and friendly whilst displaying spiritual interests.

They allegedly stayed on Earth for 30 years or so interacting without being noticed. This must have been an off time for the world’s defence agencies who are allegedly so good at locking up little green men.


There was a remarkable degree of attention to detail in this affair.

The story started in a suburb of Madrid, with a landing case and grew to embrace extensive physical evidence that even surpassed the detail of the Silpho Moor crash.

A man called Jose Jordan Pena claimed that on 6 February 1966 he saw a disk like UFO over a field that had a curious symbol underneath. Once described it was clear, in fact, that this was not unlike the astrological glyph for the planet Uranus.

Contact began with letters and photographs sent unsolicited to several people in Spain claiming to be from occupants of the craft seen. Some photographs showed the underside of the UFO with the huge symbol on there as reported above. 

(See the photo on the cover above).


Typescripts were eventually submitted that had been ‘dictated’ by the UMMO folk and sent to people telling all about how they discovered Earth.

Being a spiritual and very advanced race they chose not to interfere in life here but to observe what was ‘for them’ our diverse peoples and cultures. 


They had first landed in France in the 1950s and then Spain in 1966 and informed their confidants of a further landing due to occur on in Summer 1967 at San Jose de Valderas, another Madrid district.



UMMOING AND AAHING


One of those who got these messages soon contacted UFO author Antonio Ribera, from Barcelona, who went on to write in Spanish about the whole affair.

Ribera met the recipient of this UMMO material in a café and discovered that various messages in typescript and some phone calls had been made to this group of about 20 people, mostly in Madrid, but some located elsewhere in Spain, all somehow selected for contact by UMMO.

One of the recipients was an engineer who got offered technical plans. All the submitted typescripts had an identifying mark on the material that was the same Uranus symbol seen on the base of the UFOs over Madrid.

At that time (up to 1975) Spain was still a fascist dictatorship under Franco and the people getting the messages were liberal voices, such as a free thinking playwright and a woman who worked at the US embassy.

File this thought away as it might be rather important when we get deeper into this two part story.


Before long Ribera also started getting these unsolicited letters from the UMMO aliens as did his colleague Rafaeal Farriols. The two would later write, again in Spanish, the story in a book that translates into English as ‘The Perfect Case’.

One reason it might have looked like that unlikely description was how the gradually evolving episode led to several of the UMMO recipients proving to have had letters in advance of the 1967 ‘landing’ at San Jose de Valderas saying it was happening.

These letters gave the date and coordinates of where the UMMO craft was going to appear! 40 people later signed declarations that they were told this on the day before.

 

CONTACT WITH UMMO

 
A man named Enrique Villagrasa described in detail to the two researchers one of the conversations with one of the undercover aliens that lasted 2 hours from midnight on 28 November 1966.

The caller claimed to be living on Earth and spoke with a foreign accent (in Spanish) and answered many questions on history and science.


From the account of the mode of speech looking back from a more modern era the method of talking seems almost to have been like it might have come from a computer - then, of course, not in very  common usage and certainly not familiar to most people.  Indeed Ribera described it at the time as speaking like an ‘electronic brain’.

Another similar account came from a police officer who described his phone chat with a further ‘being’ from UMMO.

But this was always a one way street. There was no way to initiate contact with the UMMO people. They had to contact you. 

Next month, when we move onto the British equivalent of this bizarre affair you will see clear parallels with a lot of what was involved with UMMO. 

As time went by (into the early 1970s) many calls and documents were received by the small group of chosen communicants.  This added up to a vast array of information about the culture of the planet around star Wolf 424.

Some things were bizarre science - such as a thesis on how mutation of life forms occur around the universe on scales so vast that human minds cannot properly understand the principles. 

There was also mystical stuff about a chain of atoms in one part of the brain that is the basis of the ‘soul’ but is beyond our science to comprehend.

Also a discussion of what they called Ibozoo Uu which is basically supposed to be the astrophysics of the future (or the current level of UMMO inhabitants in that perspective). This makes our present concept of space/time seem simplistic in the way quantum physics might baffle the thinking of someone from Earth 3000 years ago where atomic theory was at best a radical hypothesis.

In essence this UMMO science is an as yet undetected sub atomic particle at the heart of all things which orientates in different dimensional axes to create all kinds of radiation, energy and matter. It is the root of their magical technology.

There was much of this kind of chatter - which must either be future knowledge or utter made up gibberish depending on your tolerance and always lightly explained because it was regarded as ‘beyond our ken’. Conveniently as you might think.

Nonetheless the UMMO people claimed that their technology is based on manipulating the Ibozoo Uu and as a result ‘switching dimensions’ and travelling in what sounds like Star Trek style. It takes them 8 months by this method of ‘folding space’ to travel the 14 light years to Earth.

More and more bizarre stories followed, such as a university medical professor who claimed he was called up by an UMMO doctor. The alien declined his invite to come over for tea! However, he did ‘lend’ the doctor a small black box which had smooth sides which he was able to keep for a day.

He claims that when speaking in the vowel dominated word language of UMMO in a sequence as instructed the box became transparent and revealed an enlarged screen showing a ‘living’ image of a neuron (brain cell) in action. 

Allegedly he took photos but I have not been able
to find them anywhere curiously.

The UMMO people also offered a lot of information about their philosophy and science over the years that was along similar lines. How much you regard this as carefully constructed gobbledegook is another matter.
 
 
LIFE ON UMMO

 
Here is a sample:

"For us, who view the warp and woof of the Cosmos as a harmonious 'whole' which cannot be split up into disciplines or science without gravely distorting the truth, this separation into such compartments as Cosmo-philosophical, Religious-Moral, and Physical is of course artificial and wrong. The links between the various different aspects of the Universe are so intimate that the mental projection of them into separate watertight compartments easily alienate the student.
 
Profound or profoundly daft - you be judge!
  
Here is how another UMMO message describes the first contact with humanity as a kind of audio transcript.
 
"I am DEI 98, son of DEI 97. I shall explain how our world of UMMO came into contact with a sister world called by its inhabitants Earth - a planet which we call Oyagaa.….. our technicians recorded a message from cosmic space which was not natural. We know it was not a part of the natural noise of the Galaxy. We received it in a frequency you call the 21 cm band, that of natural hydrogen. It was a radio-electric message in code and its origin was undoubtedly intelligent.


"Our technicians went to work and soon located the source of the emissions. It was your planet, Earth, 'a cold star of this quadrant for reasons which we will not now explain.
 
With emotion we understood this to be a message of great importance. It was intelligent; a succession of dots and dashes that, as we later came to understand, corresponded to the emissions in your hertzian waves that in Earth-year 1938 was launched into space (from Norway, JR) …..
 
A train of waves penetrated the ether of space and was lost. Fourteen years later arrived at UMMO and was recorded….

'We then decided to organize our first inayaisuu (expedition) to the mysterious planet…
 
Nine months after departing UMMO was produced the Oawooleaida, (or materialization) instantaneously of our ship in a pre-selected place above your Earth.

Again this comes across as pop science fiction more than real science fact from another solar system and alarm bells should have started ringing for those involved by this point.

However, when you are in the grip of a cosmic saga like this and living as part of it then it is deceptively difficult to see sense from nonsense.

There is a little voice in the back of your head telling you that this just could be the greatest event in human history and you are now a part of it.

That is far more satisfying to any person than thinking that they are being taken for a ride.

This is a perennial problem of UFO research. The stranger a case, the more the saga expands, the less likely those of us ensnared directly within it are to stop and think rationally and say…..hang on a minute!
 

 
LANDING FROM PLANET UMMO


 
Of course, the temptation is to want to hear more. So this is the account from Antony Ribera of (supposedly) that ‘first contact’ as told from the alien perspective.
 
….the ship from UMMO materializes in a ball of yellow-orange light with traces of a greenish luminous corona, and remains suspended a few meters above the ground as a tripod landing gear is extended for landing and it slowly settles onto the surface.
 
In a few seconds, as the luminosity fades, a door opens in the side and the first Ummites jump to the ground dressed in dark formfitting suits. They are tall and light....Altogether there are two women and six men in this landing party. They begin to inspect their surroundings. They are at the foot of the Cheval Blanc peak (in the French Alps).
 
The leader of the mission is OEOE 95, son of OEOE 91.  
 
A telepathic dialogue then takes place:
 
Woman - Our leader OEOE 95 has something to say.

Oeoe 95 - Our telemetric apparatus is not mistaken. This planet could be a twin of UMMO, similar mass, similar diameter, composition, though the biological explosion here seems more important…..

He advances several paces and examines in turn and recognizes the features of some plants.



OEOE 95 - Bring the atomic disintegrators from the ship and we will excavate a provisional shelter.
 
 
 
They come across some cows in a meadow. OEOE 95 and his companions contemplate the ruminants, animals completely unknown to them. Soon from beyond a rock comes an Earth boy about 11 years old, the shepherd who has been tending the herd of cows. Surprised, he looks at the strange Ummites, making a visor with his hands to see better in the bright sunlight…..They think this is an Earth greeting.
 
You surely get the drift by now. Only if you are ensnared within the grip of this ongoing drama as it unfolds around you over a period of years are you likely to emerge from the above (and it really goes on and on….) thinking you have just read a first-hand account of the biggest event in the history of mankind and not the rejected script from an episode of ‘Lost in Space’.

But the fascination with wanting to unravel a mystery such as this will always win out. It is the nature of being a curious UFO investigator, or, indeed a human being.
 
 

EVIDENCE OF UMMO
 

However, then comes another twist, which peppered the decades of investigation of the UMMO affair. 

The UMMO landing expedition in France in 1950 had allegedly taken some items from a building nearby during that mission, including soap and domestic items like lightbulbs - the soap supposedly being mistaken for Earth food.

24 years after ‘the landing’ French UFO researcher Claude Poher contacted the local Gendarmes in the small Alpen area and found that there had been an unsolved robbery at the building in question at that time and the items listed were as allegedly taken for analysis according to the UMMO folk by then in Spain.

These objects were amongst the odd assortment of things that UMMO said they had procured all those years before and that were really missing from that theft.


This makes you almost wonder if this intricate connection is proof of the reality of UMMO.

Or perhaps just the ingenuity of a hoaxer linking the subsequently invented story of a ‘landing’ to a minor crime they fished out of archives lost to history.

And then you discover that the owners of the missing items in the 1970s when the police were contacted had ‘moved on’ from this poor part of southern France and were all living in luxury near the posh resort of Cannes - which UMMO explained was because they had ‘made up’ for the losses incurred on those humans in that first contact mission by helping them become ‘upwardly mobile’!

This reminds me of the Rendlesham Forest case where we spent some time seeking a farmer who we had been told had his cattle disturbed during the USAF encounter with UFOs in December 1980. 

He had reported they had fled into the road scared by the ‘thing’ in the sky and got injured by a passing vehicle - so blamed the matter on the air force. He basically told them it was either an alien craft, which they were there to protect us from, or one of their secret planes that did the scaring.

Either way he wanted compensation for the harm done!


It was quite an effort to trace the man and when we did, he, too, was relocated some distance away in more pleasant surroundings. He claimed he had received ‘compensation’ and ‘retired’ as a result, but would not tell us how much money the USAF paid - only  - ‘whatever it was it was not enough!’

The San Jose de Valderas landing in 1967 later took this question of ‘evidence’ to a whole new level. 

An event really ‘happened’ - in the sense that several witnesses on the picnic ground that Summer day claimed to watch the object land in a field.  It left indent marks, they said, and some strange plastic like tubes were found nearby of unidentified origin.

The day afterwards one of the witnesses sent a photo taken of the UFO to the media showing the object before it landed, revealing the familiar Uranus symbol underneath. Later a second photo came to light.

These events preceded the arrival of the people claiming to be contacted by UMMO who said they were forewarned of this landing.

The material found at the landing site on analysis also proved to be an advanced and then rare type of plastic - polyvinyl fluoride - that was unusual but not from a star many light years away.  

It was made on Earth, as far as could be told, but easily mistaken for something out of this world to the uninitiated.

 

UMMO AND OUT
 

So what actually happened in this UMMO affair? 

There are people who still think it might have been a real alien contact with Earth. 

Others note the range of witnesses contacted at a time when liberal movements in Spain were fighting back to end political oppression.

Was it a bizarre publicity stunt to aid this return to democracy perhaps?

Next month the political implications will resurface when we shift focus to events in the UK.

However, almost thirty years after the UMMO affair became a legend in European UFO research one of the first people involved in the case -  psychiatrist Jose Jordan Pena - claimed in a skeptics journal (La Alternativa Racional) - that he had created the entire saga as a work of fiction.

It was a sort of ‘living experiment’.

His goal was to prove that paranoia was widespread in modern Spanish society and anything could be accepted if it was believed by enough people and would spread by contagion.

There were clues in the ‘messages’ given and sent to the chosen liberal elite that he targeted - such as the UMMO people telling of struggles against a tyrant called NA 456 who exploited her people by putting scientific progress over individual lives.

She died in mystery circumstances to be replaced by the megalomaniac young daughter WIE 1 (ironically in English this child tyrant reads as wee one making it even more ironic!) This new leader went on to assassinate four million UMMO citizens.

A way in real life Spain to make a point without being considered a political enemy, you might wonder?


Meanwhile 'back in the land of the UMMO' a period of terrible oppression followed with libraries burned and such like until the arrival of a very Christ-like figure Ummowoa who was sentenced to torture and death but mysteriously vanished at that point and created a religion.

It is hard not to equate this kind of story (hardly your usual alien contact fare) with the politics of Spain in the 60s and 70s and the use of liberal voices to inspire freedom thinking at the time. The claimed mind game experiment seems well moulded round that rather more credibly than a real extraterrestrial encounter with suspiciously Earth like political problems.

If true this reflects an interesting side to the ‘real’ UFO mystery and how social forces such as these really are part of the overall equation.

But do we accept this confession at face value, as might seem sensible?

Some researchers are reluctant to do so arguing that the whole UMMO affair is so well planned and huge in scope that it seems beyond the capabilities of one person to have engineered consistently over years and in such sophisticated detail.

For instance the hoaxer said that he sourced the plastic  from the US space industry - then the only place this was available and so guaranteed to baffle locals in Madrid in 1967. But he put them into 99% pure nickel tubes equally hard to come by then.

The alien culture created in the many messages was complex and more cohesive. Occasionally it touched on things at the forefront of knowledge that inspired scientists interested in the story.

Consider the UMMO concept of Waam Waam, basically translating as plural cosmos, in English - which is a form of multiverse concept that is today better thought of by physicists than it was 50 years ago.

Of course, it is not really very likely that aliens from UMMO did briefly dally just with a few folk from France and Spain. And the photos of the Madrid ‘spaceship’ are themselves long established as hoaxed with computer analysis study of them appearing to show string holding models up otherwise masked by the background sky.

If that cornerstone of the case crumbles so readily then the whole UMMO affair that followed has to be equally suspect.

But even as a hoax it is remarkable in its attention to detail and its apparent motivation as some kind of long term strategy using UFOs to follow some deeper psychological necessity.

Moreover its effects outlived the original creation. Pena himself said that by the latter years things were appearing that were tied into the UMMO universe that he did not himself invent. Someone else did!  It had adopted a kind of quasi reality that the hoaxer no longer has the ability to control.

In a way it is like when someone creates a ‘universe’, such as Game of Thrones.  The original novels tell the author’s conception but it becomes so huge as a cultural effect that this becomes ever more diluted.

The vastly successful TV series has taken it in its own direction diverging from the novels. Now that this story is nearing its end (the final series is being filmed for on screen in 2019) others are being brought in who are fans of the story to create ‘new worlds’ tied into Westeros.

Indeed the pilot just commissioned for the first spin off episode is to be created and the series run by Jane Goldman, who I mentioned in NUN last month when referring to the X Files conference in Manchester where we both lectured.

Jane, who is married to Jonathon Ross, who I know from talking to him is interested in UFOS, has also written about the subject herself. 

This is just coincidence of course, but it shows how the real and imaginary worlds of UFOs can mesh in ways that impact hugely on modern culture.


Aside from these authorized additions to the world of Game of Thrones there are many examples of ‘fan fiction’ where those who love the stories have adopted the universe created and penned their own stories that are set within the framework originally created but having nothing directly to do with it.

This happens a lot in this kind of 'alien' fiction - almost every major TV science fiction series from Star Trek to Doctor Who - has a vast array of authorized and unauthorized story telling loosely connected.

Someone creates a world and everybody adopts it as sufficiently 'real' they have a stake in letting it develop.


So it should not be a great surprise to see this occurring in a real world social experiment of a space adventure if that is indeed what this is.

Or, perhaps, on the scale of the collective consciousness of mankind where instead of UMMO or Game of Thrones there is a mass creative writing project penning without our realising it the latest episode of 'Game of Saucers'.


But there is one further possibility about UMMO that caught the attention of one of the most brilliant minds in UFO research, Jacques Vallee.

He has suggested that UMMO might be a larger creation with more sinister overtones than a psychologists pet experiment.

Moreover he sees the parallels that I do with the British equivalent long term saga - the story of APEN.


Vallee speculates that the ‘experiment’ was real and some of the political manipulation, too. But that the originators of the experiment were one, or several intelligence agencies playing a game of chess with the public for rather darker reasons.

This side of the story will come more to the fore next month when the story crosses the English Channel and arrives in British UFOlogy.

The saga began and developed over a not dissimilar time scale And another group of strange people appeared claiming to be from a mysterious four letter word place who had emerged from the shadows and decided to make contact.

APEN had arrived.


To be continued next issue....






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194

MAY 2018


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CONTENTS:   WHY DID THE MOD STOP COLLECTING UFO REPORTS?  
Special Investigation

The MOD as UAP and the Yorkshire Moors Encounter, 1972

Sing a song of saucers - music of the spheres 

Picture above:- How DI 55 revealed their role in UFO investigation

EDITOR: JENNY RANDLES     10 Marton Green   Stockport   Cheshire   SK3 8LT

E:MAIL     nufon@btinternet.com

JR Comments…..

Why were the MOD interested in UFOs?
 

For a long time we have speculated about why the Ministry of Defence bothered to investigate UFOs for so long, until officially closing the doors 9 years ago.


This was particularly perplexing in that they had insisted that nothing strange or probative had ever been uncovered to suggest that UFOs possessed defence implications, let alone that any were alien in origin as per popular speculation.


The US Air Force dropped their 22 year study half a century ago in 1969 when Project Blue Book shut up shop. So why did Whitehall carry on collating UFO sightings from airports and police officers and the public for another four decades?


Over the past 25 years a huge stream of ‘files’ has been released onto the PRO (public record office) in Kew. At first this was every January after the expiration of the 30 year rule protecting documents such as these from being made public.


That only really started with files dating from the mid-60s as earlier ones were ‘routinely destroyed’ as being of no presumed public interest!


A few earlier reports escaped the cull via copies retained in other records that were not casually discarded so got released if found. This was quite exciting in the period when regular batches of fresh cases were made accessible each New Year.


I was an early visitor to see the national archives in Kew in those days and in the mid-90s made several visits looking at the files from the 1960s as they appeared. I also was asked to be filmed doing this at Kew and then follow up on some of the cases on behalf of the BBC for a TV documentary that I wrote and presented for them in April 1996.  


This looked at two specific cases involving
early releases - the Burgh Marsh ‘Cumberland Spaceman’ photo taken on 24 May 1964 by local fireman Jim Templeton which had some documentation because of a coincidental link with footage of a ‘UFO’ captured during launch of a Blue Streak rocket from Woomera in Australia a few days later.


In the mid-60s these former missiles had become
a European space programme booster rocket assembled at RAF Spadeadam near Burgh Marsh where the Cumberland ‘spaceman’ photo was taken shortly before testing of another rocket in the Australian outback.


The connection was a coincidence and neither chance event is a real UFO and definitely not of alien origin. The Templeton photo is either a fluke that resembles a spaceman or a hoax played on the witness afterwards by a colleague and the Woomera launch footage is just a lens flare caused by the strong Aussie sun.

However, you can see why the fluke connection of the two might have led to some interest in official quarters.


I was able to go to meet the Templeton family in Carlisle and record their account as to how they launched a police investigation into the photograph because Jim was a photographer for the force at fire crime scenes.


The long married couple told me of how they were then visited by two strange acting men who used numbers not names for one another and claimed to be from the MOD then following up this encounter!

These men behaved
oddly and were asking puzzling questions about the atmospheric conditions and the reactions of local cattle on the marsh.  


No MoD records reveal evidence that anyone did visit the Templeton’s from data released onto Kew. But the Templetons both saw these strangers and I am certain that they were real - though the origin of who they were remains more of a puzzle.


Ex MOD UFO desk officer turned UFO writer, Nick Pope, told me on my BBC documentary that he thought the two men might be rogue UFO buffs ‘play acting’ as men from the ministry to get the witnesses to open up.


Perhaps - but we know for sure that REAL men from the ministry did visit PC Colin Perks in Wilmslow less than two years later in February 1966 as we saw in the full story reported (below) in Northern UFO News 192.


And that Alan Godfrey also had such a visit from someone who was certainly not a rogue UFO investigator (as he had the MOD case file with him on that visit in 1982 as described by Alan in his 2017 book - Who or what were they?) He gained access to senior staff at a police station with the credentials shown so is not likely to be a brazen UFO investigator impersonating someone else. 


So it remains very possible the Ministry or some other agency sent people to see the Templetons given the obvious potential defence links between  their story and the British space programme. That there were none in the end matters little.
 

Even though the two events had nothing to do with UFOs as it transpired the possible link would have been sufficient reason to engage an investigation.  Though, the eccentricity of the two men on the day is very hard to square with a ministerial origin and might better fit Nick Pope’s rogue UFOlogists.

No files exist to reveal any conclusions on this case - just as there is no file at all about Alan Godfrey’s case at the archives - including the report which we know WAS  sent by the West Yorkshire police but has not been released.


The other case I covered on that BBC documentary (which can be viewed on You Tube as Britain’s Secret UFO Files) was a radar/visual encounter at Lakenheath in East Anglia that occurred on 13/14 August 1956.


As it predated the retention of MOD files there is no actual investigation on that case released onto the National Archives at Kew.


But there are 1950s cases and documents that survived and some notes about radar visual encounters from the period when it happened - making its omission from that list even stranger.


We only know of its existence because it involved joint bases in East Anglia and the US Air Force reports about it did emerge in the States.  They were published in the late 60s and early 70s and a British Squadron Leader then came forward to affirm his role in the story coordinating intercepts on the night.


However, I tracked down and interviewed two of the RAF aircrew flying jets that came into contact with something over East Anglia on that night. There were sightings around both Lakenheath and Bentwaters airbases and we went to Lakenheath US Air Force Base and filmed the crew  revealing their log books that recorded the event for the first time in 40 years. Then let them describe the encounters with an object on that strange night back in 1956.

Most interestingly, whilst what these men encountered definitely was NOT caused by it, as they were too far distant, one of the things seen that night further south was blamed on a rather familiar object by UFO skeptics. The Orford Ness lighthouse - so famous for its later association with the Rendlesham Forest saga in 1980.

It here got the blame first round for this 1956 case. However, no direct evidence was found.
Even so it has to be the only lighthouse in UFO history blamed TWICE for two of the most significant cases on record.

After these early files had created puzzles and many questions of which the above are just a fraction, Dr David Clarke was invited by the PRO to act as project coordinator and help release all the more recent UFO files onto the public record.

This was necessary after the turn of the Millennium - following the Freedom of Information laws requiring open data access.


Dr Clarke was well suited for this role as he was a Fortean researcher interested in historical oddities, had been a journalist covering UFO cases for some years and teaches as an academic at Sheffield Hallam University.


David was noted for his skeptical approach to UFOs and 35 years ago when he was still a teenager I actually published one of his first case investigations in this very magazine.

It was an object seen by a nurse from a Yorkshire hospital ward and David went above and beyond to look for an answer - mapping traffic patterns in the middle of the night outside the hospital and visiting the ward at the same unearthly hour as the event to get the view that the witness had days earlier.


From this expert investigation I knew quickly that David was going to be a huge asset to UFO research in Britain - and so it proved.


In this incident David had speculated that an astronomical explanation seemed possible and following that clue I was able to check records and establish when writing up his report for NUN that the nurse had clearly been watching the moon.

It is surprising how often this common sight does trigger UFO reports when seen low through mist, for example.


Years later, just before he started work for the achives - in 2000 - Dave Clarke, Andy Roberts and I co-authored, The UFOs That Never Were, one of the few books to look entirely at solved UFO cases.


Whilst all three of us are proud of that work it totally bombed sales wise. We could not give the thing away - which sadly shows how little importance UFO enthusiasts - quite wrongly in my view - afford to this side of the phenomenon.


From the early 2000s large batches of older files were released by the national archives every few months, gradually publishing all data and catching up over the decades via tens of thousands of pages.  David issued guides for the media on the highlights of each release as they were usually too big for journalists to plough through looking for anything interesting.

 After several years this brought the data right up to the closing down of the MoD UFO project in 2009. All files are now accessible via Kew.


Indeed the last batches covering odds and ends that were initially held back for various intelligence reasons or through bureaucratic necessities have only just filtered out this year.


It was possible to freely download on line most of these MOD case file and policy documents for a time after each batch was released and I have vast collection of these mostly boring, redacted bits of data that cover assorted lights in the sky sent into the MOD from the public or via airports and police.

They were hardly ever followed up at all, let alone in any meaningful way. Most have all identifying detail removed such as witness names.


Of course, a few good cases are lurking in there but it is a bit like seeking just one cornflake on a cornflake factory production line. And investigating them is hard unless the same case was reported to the UFO community, as a few of them were, meaning the identity of the witness becomes identifiable and not unknown behind redacted ink.

Most of them are of less use than the countless thousands of sighting report forms held on the archives of dozens of UK UFO groups collated in equally haphazard fashion during the second half of the 20th century.

Interestingly, UFO groups, that once used to exist in every major town are heading towards extinction and UFO investigation of that type has ended publicly around the same point as the MOD has decided to shut up shop.


Meaning any claim from conspiracy theorists for a cover up behind the ministry ending their interest would have to account for why UFO groups seem to have run out of steam in the same manner and timescale.


So where does this leave our assessment of why the MOD persisted in chasing such apparently worthless data for so many decades?

Well, a great place to look for clues is David Clarke. He has long published a blog that in archive fashion has looked at the data he helped steer onto the public domain over the past decade and you should check it out as an informative read.

It provides a fascinating historical account of the details of this story as it emerged and has just been updated early in May 2018 with what may be the final chapter covering the last MOD file release saga.


In early May the Guardian posted a piece about this new data suggesting that the ‘end game’ David reveals was linked to DI 55 - a ‘defence intelligence’ unit long known to be connected with MOD UFO study.

Indeed the role of DI units connected to MOD UFO files was only accidentally revealed and then became intriguing. This happened when the air staff office that acted as a shop window for UFO interaction with the public sent out letters to UFO researchers in 1982/3 (including me) that mistakenly left on the distribution list showing where they sent other copies - as in these DI intelligence agencies.

The cover photo of this issue shows one of those accidental file releases naming D1 55 and other locations they forwarded UFO data onto from the Air Staff public desk.

The files only just released show the embarrassment that the significance of this ‘cock up’ caused as it was soon spotted by UFOlogists such as myself and commented upon.  We recognised the significance of intelligence agencies reviewing the UFO data the MOD tended to dismiss when asked as never being of much interest.

The mistaken release of the distribution list compromised some of the MODs thinking on data about the Rendlesham Forest case which by chance was then at a key stage of being made public. It might be why the Halt memo surfaced in the USA (via the MOD) but was denied to anyone in the UK asking the Air Staff for a copy.
 

These newly revealed files show that for years after their role was discovered DI 55 were getting letters asking them trivial questions as UFO buffs imagined them the ‘true’ home of UFO research, even though that seems unlikely.

They were most likely just reviewing the data to assess its potential relevance to the defence of the realm - to see, for instance, whether a UFO might be an undetected intrusion by a foreign power using unknown technology - perhaps a stealth drone or experimental propulsion system.

The scientists and ex RAF personnel employed were well suited to cover these questions.


These DI units, of course, are the places from where any REAL ‘Men from the Ministry’ visited UFO witnesses such as PC Colin Perks in Wilmslow in 1966. And they did so rarely and only when there was good cause  - in the Perks case probably because physical residue was reportedly found at the site where he saw an unknown object.

It will certainly be a valuable exercise to look at the range of cases where visitors from a DI unit did apparently go to see witnesses following up a sighting.   There may be a pattern that illuminates which cases they regarded as worth that risk.

Other apparent examples include Alan Godfrey, where again physical traces were left and there was suspicion of a possible ‘plasma’ event.

And another case I looked into that happened in North Yorkshire in 1972 where police officers were seemingly involved in a puzzling manner.  I will include details of that interesting case later in this issue as it is worth comparing with the others incidents where on the spot follow up visits seem to have happened.

The Ministry going out and meeting witnesses is a seemingly rare occurrence and collating those cases where might reveal clues about what attracted them to that case above others.

I think the possibility of an atmospheric energy or plasma seems to run through them with bright energetic glows featuring. Someone might have thought this was where the ‘real’ UFO phenomenon was going to be found.


From the newly released documents discussing how the DI agency were wrestling with the UFO mystery around the turn of the Millennium it looks like they were desperate to find a way out of the game.

They tried to argue that their brief should have nothing to do with UFOs, per se, and was about foreign earth power technology and what it could do and if it was intruding into our air space. Which seems reasonable enough.

So they were not interested in aliens - as such -  just foreigners.

The outcome was the already released (though deeply redacted) Condign Report that was being penned by a DI agency source around the time David, Andy and I were releasing our solved UFO book in 2000.

But which was only released to Kew a decade later after a bit of a fight. Once you read it you can see why.


This in depth study used the term UAP instead of UFO, something UFO researchers had been doing since the early 80s for cases we have long felt were unexplained atmospheric phenomena. And also because we wanted to avoid creating the impression that by using the word UFO we implied we believed that the things being discussed might be alien spaceships.

Seemingly the MOD reached the same conclusion for much the same reasons that we did!

This led to the prospect assessed by Condign that some UFOs might be a rare plasma phenomenon of some sort (a kind of super ball lightning - a term I have used about them before) and that may or may not be useful as a power source and might put aircraft, including military aircraft, at risk.


So - far from shutting things down as irrelevant to the MoD - the unnamed author of the Condign study gave reasons why maybe the MOD should perhaps have been paying more attention all along.  


Indeed the report suggested of these energy events that the MoD ‘has no idea what they are’.

This meaning UAP, not UFOs in the more exotic sense the public would assume if that word were used, of course!   
 

It is not hard to see why that line was never released by the MoD to the media - though it is pretty much what most sensible UFO researchers have argued in our writings for years as the reason why the MOD continued to collate data.  

They might not think they are spaceships from Mars but if they might be an enemy power technology or something you can harness yourself to turn into a weapon to use against an enemy then you keep collating the data and looking at what it tells you.

Though, interestingly, DI 55 did ask for no more reports to be sent to them after receipt of the Condign study!

The reasons are unclear as much of that part of the file is a sea of black ink and redacted argument.


Reading some of the author’s justifications for retaining interest in these UAP I kept thinking I could have been writing these words for the MoD  within the Condign report. In fact I had written similar ones in several books and articles.


So I was smiling that some might even suspect that I had secretly authored this report as an MoD sleeper agent.


I didn’t, of course, and the author, as David Clarke’s blog explains, was someone far better qualified to discuss these matters so anyone thinking that the MOD employed a UFO investigator would be wrong.  

Anyhow, whilst the Condign author believed in UAP as likely a kind of plasma and a possible source of technology that the MOD might harness for their own needs - it seems that this person struggled to persuade the Ministry of this theory just as much as I have failed over the years to convince UFO researchers that plasmas might be triggering UFO events.

Here, for instance is what I wrote in 1998 in ‘Something in the Air’ - my book about mid-air UFO sightings.  This was being written at the time the Condign report was starting to be put together unbeknown to me:-

 
‘UFOlogists on the whole view such cases in a most inappropriate manner - as an alien invasion. Too little is done, either by them or scientists, to try to understand what may be a fascinating, perhaps even dangerous problem and certainly one that offers a potentially invaluable source of energy.

This is one reason for the so-called cover up regarding UFOs allegedly conducted by the authorities.


I believe that long ago all major nations realised that most UFO sightings are examples of mistaken identity and others stem from strange natural phenomena.

 
Few - if any - have the remotest likelihood of resulting from an alien invasion. Yet, any government scientist worth their salt will have advised their respective administration that these reports offer insights into some untapped energy source.

The race is on to harness this power and to become a global leader in a hot technology that everyone will want during the 21st century.


In those circumstances it would be a positive advantage if people only ever talked about UFOs in the context of aliens and little green men because this would ensure that scientists not under government control do not spend much time investigating these matters.


If you want the political edge then you must tackle these issues covertly and not share what you are discovering through the pages of New Scientist.’

 

This now looks almost as if I had inside knowledge of the Condign research, but it was just an educated guess based on following the MOD argument on UFOs for 25 years.

My view that a plasma was possibly the cause of the object seen by Alan Godfey stems from the above.  But the theory has been scoffed at by most researchers in Ufology just as the Condign author faced similar rejection at the MOD.


Perhaps it will indeed prove to be nonsense. But at least I know how the author of the Condign report feels in trying to argue for something that builds a bridge between science and UFOs.


And we will both be proven either right or wrong!


Either way the MOD decided enough was enough and shut up shop for good in 2009.


The MOD had long been in a quandary about how to look into the subject without implying that there really might be UFOs (or UAP) traversing British skies. Condign helped provide an end game.
 

It was all a bit ‘don’t say anything to suggest we are really interested when we have been telling them for years that we are not’.  Yet even when they ended their role exactly how and why they did so was fraught with worry over how to persuade people they were not withholding further dark secrets.

Cover ups never die in the popular imagination - so whilst I think there is no substance in this theory I also know it will probably never go away just like the idea that the Apollo Missions never went to the Moon and were all filmed in a studio has not.

David Clarke’s blog reports in depth with quotes and extracts from the new files and he will tell the full story soon. For now do read his  work and see the extraordinary story unfold.

It is a fascinating insight into the machinations of the corridors of power.   

 

https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/
 
 

THE MOORLAND UAP AND THE MEN FROM THE MINISTRY

 
This is one of the most fascinating cases that I have investigated involving the MOD and mystery visitors. It has hidden depths that I will not go into here, as they are not directly relevant to the Ministry side of this story, but add nuance to the case itself. Particularly in what they reveal about how witnesses can be prone to experiencing the extraordinary in many shades and forms.

UFOs are but one colour on a very rich spectrum of events that intersect throughout a lifetime.


These witnesses first reported a different story to me that I investigated along with colleague Roy Sandbach. But after looking at the ghostly events and missing time adventure of this well to do couple who live in a smart home in Cheshire it became clear that they really started with an episode on the night of 16/17 August 1972.


Sandra was a professional dancer and her husband Peter ran a construction business. She had been performing far from home on this warm Summer evening on the north east coast. Because she would not finish until midnight her husband had arranged his schedule so that he could travel over 100 miles north and drive her home.


After such an exhausting day for both of them they were heading back through Swaledale in North Yorkshire. It was about 2 am and they were on the A 61 between Thirsk and Ripon at what I estimate to be near the village of Baldersby.


This is an interesting spot, though in the darkness on an unfamiliar route they were not to know. 


Just south of here is the military field at Dishforth adjacent to an RAF base called Topcliffe.


Readers of Who or What Were They? - Alan Godfrey’s book - will recognize the importance of this. Dishforth is where he did his police officer training. And Dishforth and Topcliffe airfields were both part of the 1952 UFO encounter amidst the Operation Mainbrace NATO exercise that also saw a UFO buzz a nuclear weapons equipped US aircraft carrier off the Yorkshire coast.


These events were extraordinary in their time and led to the then prime minister - Winston Churchill - ordering an investigation. That was one of the first jobs to be carried out by a young Defence Ministry aid who was working for the minister and went to Yorkshire to gather evidence. His name was Ralph Noyes.


That study led to Churchill ordering the creation of an investigation unit into UFOs that matched the one created in the US as Project Blue Book. 

In the UK that study became the UFO desk that operated from Whitehall right through to 2009 when, as reported above, it was shut down.

Noyes himself would rise in rank to run the full department including that UFO desk and oversaw those who manned it. This was over two decades before Nick Pope took the job in the 1990s and Noyes later told me how on taking the role he was shown gun camera footage of strange glows being chased by RAF planes. To him they were evidence of real unknown phenomena but did not appear to be craft or alien in origin.

This footage has never been released from the archives and is officially supposed to have just got lost somewhere over the years.
  

Ralph Noyes was a fascinating man who first came openly into the UFO mystery after his retirement in 1983 and for several years he was very helpful to our investigation of the Rendlesham Forest case where Noyes was adamant he saw evidence of a ‘cover up’ by the MoD that he had long worked for.  As doing that was a no no during his tenancy he suspected there had to be good reasons why they acted so differently over this particular event.

He and I coordinated pressure on politicians searching for answers and he was a part time UFO lecturer in his retirement. Ralph gave me an excellent interview not long before he died about MOD files.

Noyes believed that most UFOs were explainable but that a few represented a natural phenomenon - a UAP in fact, though I do not think he used that term. 

He once told me that he thought it was akin to a rainbow - something so strange occurring in the atmosphere that it once would have been deified by witnesses until we had the science to understand how it happened.

UFOs were not, in his view, signs of aliens, but an energy phenomenon we might one day tame.  But right now were still perceiving it in the 'deification' stage where in this case the 'god' was an alien.

He thought that the MOD were interested in understanding the power involved in this natural phenomenon and perhaps using it in some way - probably as a weapon - hence the cover up.

If this is all sounding like a familiar record, it is, but I can assure you that Noyes was NOT the author of the Condign report - though he might have influenced the person who was, just like his thinking certainly influenced my interest in UAP.

Noyes wrote one UFO book after retirement - an extraordinary novel that clearly used the Rendlesham Forest case as a platform to explain via fiction because he felt unable to do so in fact what he really thought might be happening. It is about global forces harnessing power for offensive and defensive use culled from what we otherwise call UFOs.

That novel is ‘A Secret Property’.


Returning to Sandra and Peter on that Yorkshire road there is more to tell, because just a few miles south west of where they were driving was another military complex. RAF Menwith Hill just outside Harrogate is a vast electronics communication facility with golf ball dome technology that is a hive of covert interception activity. Jointly run by the UK and US and coordinated via the NSA - the US National Security Agency - it is very interestingly in the midst of an area where glowing light UFOs have long been reported.


So, quite without realizing it, as they drove home that night, Sandra and Peter were in a hotbed of both UFO activity and military covert intelligence facilities.  Somewhere that if a UFO appears it would get the attention of the Ministry of Defence.


Which seems to be what happened that night.


Driving south west they saw to the south and east of them an object that appeared to be descending into a small copse.  Peter slowed right down and as they cleared the trees they could see that it had, in fact, come down in a field beyond here.


Sandra told us ‘It was a large melon shape. I had no idea UFOs were supposed to look like that. I thought they were like saucers.’


Her husband added that its colour was very vivid. ‘It was a really bright green like those florescent socks’.


From apparent distance (50 feet) the size of the object was estimated to be around 30 feet across.


My first theory here was that this might be the moon, despite the colour. But checks revealed that it had gone below the horizon several hours earlier that Wednesday.


They were travelling the A61 at that point in a convoy of 4 vehicles which were close together in the dark surroundings.  They were not travelling fast because the lead vehicle was a by chance a police car!


The witnesses are certain the occupants of the other three vehicles saw the object saying ‘it was impossible to miss in the sky ahead of us as it came down’. Indeed they saw them all slow to almost a stop suggesting they did do.


But nobody appeared to get out for a closer look.


At this point the object, now apparently on the ground in the field, did something extraordinary. A door opened in its side.


‘It was a vivid blue/white,’ Peter told us. ‘In sharp contrast to the vivid green around. It was like a slow motion flashbulb as it appeared’.


Sandra was more explicit likening it to when you used to turn off an old fashioned TV screen but in reverse. ‘It appeared from nowhere like a dot and then opened up into a T shape several feet across’.


Further discussion suggested that it might be akin to an ultra violet colour as Sandra said it reminded her of a sunbed lamp’.


There was now a very strange sensation - Sandra reports. ‘I felt a compulsion to get out of the car. To walk across the field to it. Something just made me want to get out and I started to do so.’


Peter added - ‘Yes, I grabbed her. I was pulling her back in. I had to drag her away from doing this.’


Both also added that in recalling this scary part of the story they had just realized that something else odd was happening.

It will sound familiar to you given the name of this website.


‘You know,’ Sandra told us, ‘that was strange. There was just no noise. Not even trees in the wind. Nothing. No normal night sounds.’


Peter started nodding, realizing she was right and that this eerie stillness had descended as they stopped to watch the landing and as his wife had tried to get out of the car.

This state of consciousness was the Oz factor.

‘That was the weirdest part. The silence. There is always something even at night. Birds twittering. Rustling. But nothing was doing nothing that night.’ he added.

As Peter hauled her back from heading out across the field as if following the ‘pied piper’  toward the landed object Sandra smiled as she recalled what he cried out to her, thus breaking the silence.


‘Sod this for a game of soldiers!’ Peter screamed - as he put his foot down and drove off at speed.


Oddly they do not recall passing the police car directly ahead of them on the road but would have had to do.

Their next memory was of the road ahead being clear and nobody else around them and them well on their way back to Cheshire.

We asked if they got home early or late, but as Peter said pointedly - ‘When you see something like this you don’t spend time looking at clocks.’


The couple arrived home in the pre-dawn a couple of hours after the sighting and were very surprised as they hurried back toward their house.


A police car was parked outside their door waiting for them!


Two officers got out and asked the couple quizzically - ‘Have you anything to report?’


They had decided en route they were not telling anybody about what just happened, so they said no. But were asked further questions - such as where had they been? Why are you returning home in the middle of the night?

They just mumbled replies hoping the cops were merely being cautious and were eventually allowed into their house.

Sandra felt that this was just a routine patrol being suspicious of their arrival after 4 am. Peter thought not as being parked waiting at their home was odd.

The Yorkshire police car would have seen them ‘flee the scene’ of the UFO landing and might have taken their number and sent local police to trace it and wait for them to reach home.


Either way they went to bed right away and fell asleep - though Sandra woke just 3 hours later ‘on a high’.  She was literally euphoric and pleaded with Peter to ‘tell the world’, but he was much more reticent about doing so.


Sandra insisted they should and so phoned the local police that morning to say they had seen a UFO land and rather surprisingly two officers arrived before noon to interview her, which is certainly not what you would normally expect in these circumstances.

She was sure they knew what she was going to tell them. Indeed they more or less confirmed that by saying at one point - ‘Other cars were there, too, weren’t they?’ Something they could only know if they had been told this already.

This was quickly confirmed when the officers added that the ‘York police’ were investigating and had told them they had solved the case -  ‘it was just a large tent’.

Sandra shook her head as she was asked: ‘Do you want to change your story in the light of that information?’

Her reply was succinct. ‘I have very good eyesight. I know what I saw.’

That was it as far as the couple was concerned. Sandra had reported it. Peter was happy to forget it. But that proved impossible.


A week later their regional newspaper carried a story about how a local couple had ‘fled in terror’ and on reading the story intrigued were stunned to learn that the couple were them!

At no point had they spoken to the press. They knew the police must have given them the story but had no idea why they would do so and were most upset.

Interestingly, this is very similar to what happened to Alan Godfrey where the police called the press and he was told to give an interview. Colin Perks, the police officer in Wilmslow was also put in the spotlight in this way by the police.


Could it have been a distraction tactic to subtly associate what was witnessed as a UFO in the traditional sense of that word within the public imagination? A distraction IF instead it was something else which the powers that be knew about but wanted to obscure. Odd tactic if this is the case.
 

Of course, the simplest option is that local media do talk to the police to get interesting stories from the case blotter. But they usually want to talk to the witnesses on something like this. Hard to understand why the police would on three occasions in cases where the MOD was involved bring the media into the picture of themselves.

However, if you think the extraordinary actions of the police had ended here, you would be wrong.

A few days after the article (which gave the couple’s address and led to ‘UFO buffs’ pestering them to tell their story) the police phoned to explain that the national papers now wanted to hear their story, too, and they - the police - would organize a press conference for the couple!


Sandra was by chance then working abroad in a cabaret so Peter, never keen to talk about this in the first place, accepted the police protection that was being offered.

On the day several reporters arrived at the house and the officer in charge set up a rota so they would be able to use the phone one by one to call in their story to the editor - then retired to the kitchen to make some tea!

I have never come across anything like this from the police in a UFO case before.  It is really strange behaviour.


You might now be wondering why this story was not front page news and common knowledge to UFO researchers everywhere in 1972.

The answer is that a ring on the door aborted the entire press conference before it got underway!

A brand new looking dark car was parked outside and two men in black suits walked in. Only one did all the talking and led Peter away to another room for ‘a quiet word’.

Here the men flashed cards revealing they were from the defence ministry and said they wanted all the reporters to leave immediately.


‘It is in your interests that you do not talk to anyone about this experience’, the man explained.


Peter told them that none of this was his idea and the police had reported the story and set up the press conference but these reporters were here now so what could he do?


‘Leave that to me’ the man from the ministry said and went out and asked all the reporters to leave.


Peter heard a few murmurs of discontent but never understood how they were persuaded to leave by this man relatively easily.


So I talked to someone at the local paper and asked.


They did not recall the incident, then 16 years earlier, but suggested in similar situations the only thing likely to persuade them to leave such an open event was one reporter explaining they had signed the witnesses up to an exclusive.

This may be why the man from the ministry took Peter aside, to create the belief he had just negotiated the rights from him via a big money deal.

After the press had gone the ministry officer asked Peter a number of questions about the event.

He told me, ‘You know what is odd. Before they were made to leave the reporters all wanted me to tell them the full story. I never got the chance. These ministry people were only interested in one thing - the florescent T shaped door. The man kept asking me to tell him about it over and over and in as much detail as I could recall. It was really strange. He was obsessed with that part alone.’


What this story tells us about why the MOD are interested in a tiny few UFO cases and go to such lengths to pursue them as they seemingly did here is fascinating.

It may be a major clue as to what these things really are  - be they UFO, military technology or UAP.

 
 
 
 

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

 


In my column for the May 2018 issue of the newsstand magazine Fortean Times I told the story of how singer Kim Wilde came to record a new track - the chorus of which gives the name to her comeback album - Here Come The Aliens.


This month she is on tour around the UK in an alien themed show built around this cheery new rock anthem.

And it was all based on a real UFO sighting she had from her garden in Hertfordshire in June 2009.

Kim did not report what she saw at the time - worried about being asked if ‘wine was involved’ - but other locals did decide to tell the media about it.

I also tracked down the MOD file on this case - one of the last just before they shut up shop for good weeks later.


In fact the MOD report from the one witness whose story found its way to them came via a nearby air base. It was a masterpiece of uselessness. It described what was seen merely as a ‘UFO’ and that was pretty much it.

Actually the witnesses here saw more than one object (as did Kim) and took a photograph too. On the day that photo appeared in the press the MOD wrote to the witness telling them  that they knew of no other reports locally.

Whereas the local paper was by now full of them!  Indeed even the MOD records show numerous other similar reports around the period that Kim Wilde had her sighting.

This rather demonstrates the fact that the MOD closing the UFO department is not much of a loss to science as its data was often of this typical degree of worthlessness.

In truth this sighting is most likely to be explained - possibly as a laser light show, or fire lanterns at a summer fete.  But as Kim Wilde was already a space and science fiction enthusiast since watching the moon landing in 1969 then any UFO sighting would take on personal moment and who cares about the men from the ministry if a good pop record eventually emerges.

What is more interesting here is the association between pop music and UFOs. It has long been surprisingly close.
 

John Lennon once wrote a personal sighting into a song - saying ‘There’s UFOs over New York and I ain’t too surprised’ following an object seen from his apartment at 9 pm on 23 August 1974.


He was with his secretary May Pang and they watched it from a telescope that Lennon had set up. They reported it to the media and there were several other witnesses who had come forward.


It was a
large, circular object and May Pang later  described it as ‘shaped like a flattened cone and on top was a large, brilliant red light…with a row or circle of white lights that ran around the entire rim of the craft."

Lennon was far from the only musician to be fascinated by this mystery. There seems a strong affiliation between musical creativity and UFO interest.


Kate Bush,  Shaun Ryder (who even met Alan Godfrey), David Bowie and Robbie Williams have all dabbled in UFO investigation or been associated with groups or read UFO magazines.  There are plenty of others.


In Scotland the group CE IV featuring song writers Brian McMullan senior and junior have produced several albums of UFO related music with lyrics about cases or the phenomenon in general.

They have played to large crowds and their website reveals they are working on a new album to mark the 30th anniversary of their popular work - ‘Abduction’ -  released in 1988.


Their interest was spiked by a personal sighting on the night of the original Live Aid concert.


As I mentioned in an earlier issue in the late 60s I wrote some lyrics for my brother’s group, Passion Wagon, who never had a record deal but did play many gigs around the UK and are one of those who are immortalized at the venue for having played the Cavern Club in Liverpool during that Merseybeat era.


Far more impressive in the writing stakes is renowned American UFO researcher Jerome Clark who has written country and western music that that has been recorded by hit artists such as Emmylou Harris.

Mind you I have at least actually appeared on an album track from Captain Sensible - in the sense that he sampled my voice from a radio interview about UFOs as part of one of his songs. Though not Happy Talk!

And there is the Californian group Unwritten Law whose song that starts with the great lyric - ‘Look to the sky at night and dream’ is actually titled Oz Factor, after which their second studio album is also named.

The links go even deeper as my mum once had a sighting of a UFO with the next door neighbour when she lived in Irlam back in 1978. I was away at the time but interviewed both witnesses and our neighbours extended family who were playing outside at the time as the two women chatted. Some of the kids shared the incident.

One of that extended family grew up to be quite well known as a musician, her brother’s son being then an 8 year old lad called Jason - Jason Orange - who was for many years part of Take That and sang with the aforementioned Robbie Williams and co and wrote many well loved songs - including the title track to the movie Stardust - Rule The World.
 

However, the most interesting musical connection has to be a young lad who once worked with my uncle in the Rossendale Valley.  He has worked as a tailor and lives in the same small village where I was born - Stacksteads in Lancashire.

My Stacksteads family name was even Taylor.

In October 1978 this man called me from his home to report a UFO sighting having got my number via Jodrell Bank.

We did not know of the family link at that point.


A few months later, in February 1979, he called me live on that number as he witnessed a spectacular UFO from his window and watched it descend into a quarry behind his house.

This was a quarry where my great grandfather had once actually worked.

Mike went to his get his brother Ray and they climbed the hills in the dark and had further strange experiences as they wandered around the quarry in the dark.

That case turned out to be an extraordinary one that baffles to this day and ended 30 miles west when a security guard working on the pier in Blackpool watched as the UFO that zoomed across Lancashire flew over the Irish Sea seemingly pursued by a USAF fighter jet at low level with a roar of afterburners that shook the pier.

Just before this sudden event made him look up the guard had been reading that week’s issue of Titbits magazine and an article within it that was an interview with  ‘Britain’s UFO Girl’ - by which the magazine meant me.

The full story of this encounter is told in Alan Godfrey’s book - Who or what were they? Alan’s sergeant, of course, also being the husband of my childhood babysitter and my cousin.

So quite a strange circle of links there.


But there is one more twist to come as the Manchester Evening News of 11 May 2018 reports.

In the Manchester Pop Trail feature it talks of uncovering a ‘forgotten story via a rare 1965 press release’.

The story was not forgotten by everyone though. I was aware of it.  For it reports the recording career of a 1960s band.

The paper had discovered the single released on Mercury Records label titled ‘My Little One’ - a Christmas track from the Rossendale band The Idols.

The Idols had, like my brother’s group and that of my cousin, Les Brazil, been playing the same local clubs in those swinging sixties driving around in big painted vans whilst I recorded them onto sadly long lost tapes via my Grundig tape recorder.

My brother was most travelled covering much of the country.

But all three groups are featured on the Manchester Beat music archive website with photos and details of their music and updates of what happened next. As they were playing shows in the city often at that time.

My cousin’s group which became Chalice went to an audition in London and met a manager who wanted to sign up either of the groups Mud or Paper Lace, missed out on both and so signed Chalice instead.

On understanding they moved to Australia.

They recorded very melodic singles and albums and some of their records were made at the famous Strawberry Studios in Stockport run by the successful 10 CC.  

One such track and the accompanying pop video - The Writings on the Wall - is playable via Manchester Beat.  


In Australia they had a good career and even appeared in one of the Aussie soaps. Les stayed near Melbourne and worked in the music industry  - though he has been back a few times to say hello.     

 
As for The Idols, that was a name they had to adopt on getting a record deal in 1965 because their original  - The Vikings - was taken by a recording artist already.

The lead singer and song writer was Mike Sax who wrote several singles with brother Ray.


One of these - Don’t Walk Away - actually became a number one hit i
n Turkey.

Mike Sax, real name Mike Sacks, is the witness to the Stacksteads quarry encounter, and Ray, his co writing brother, was also involved in the UFO events. 

Mike went on to become a UFO investigator as part of MUFORA in the 70s and 80s and was one of the team most closely involved in Alan Godfrey’s case investigation as Who or What Were They? explains.

The Sacks brothers may not be recording professionally any more but their love of singing and songwriting goes on.

You can find old and new versions of some of the Idols music on You Tube and some excellent new recordings and songs written and played by the Brothers as a kind of new mini album they produced in 2013.

Some tracks touch on the mystical with Mary Celeste about the mysterious ship and Merlin, about magic and the wizard.

Check them out and see for yourself how singer songwriting and UFOs seem to have a long and deep relationship.


Picture

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193 
     APRIL
  2018


Contents: Ancient Astronuts - Moon Landing UFO ,  Mid Air Encounter over USA Feb 2018

EDITOR:    JENNY RANDLES
10 MARTON GREEN    STOCKPORT   CHESHIRE  SK3 8LT    
E mail:  nufon@btinternet.com

Photo above:  The NASA space shuttle launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida in November
1983.  Did astronauts see UFOs in space 14 years earlier. Did ancient astronauts visit Earth much earlier still. And did airline pilots see a UFO at 50,000 feet in February 2018?



JR Comments….
ANCIENT ASTRO-NUTS?
 
One of the first UFO lectures I ever attended was by British writer Raymond Drake who was in his 60s back then and so a veteran when he gave a talk at UMIST - the Manchester University.

He was an interesting person who specialised and wrote several books about the possibility that aliens have been visiting Earth throughout human history.  

Each of his titles involved trawling through ancient texts and records or paintings and cave art to find what might resemble contact with unearthly beings that had originally been interpreted not as extra-terrestrials but Gods.

His first book, Gods or Spaceman?  appeared in 1964 and the last - shortly before his death - was Cosmic Continents in 1986.  In 11 titles he scoured the world looking for evidence in the manner of Charles Forte - after whom the magazine Fortean Times is named - and who was Drake’s hero.

Though he rarely gets the recognition today, he actually predated by several years the one name most people associate with this ‘ancient astronauts’ school of thinking.

That, of course, is Swiss researcher Eric von Daniken - whose book ‘Chariots of the Gods’ was a global sensation in 1968 in the year when we first circled and soon after landed upon the Moon as humanity became a spacefaring race for the first time. 50 years and 21 books later he has just released his latest - ‘The Gods Never Left Us’.

I can still remember the global sensation when von Daniken first hit the news with the media shout line - Was God an Astronaut? I was at school with a job delivering newspapers and the posters and serialisations were intriguing.

Certainly I could never have dreamt that three decades later I would lecture alongside von Daniken at a conference in Vienna.  Though that event is more memorable for me regarding what happened at the start of my talk when I wandered towards the screen to point out something in an illustration projected onto a screen and promptly fell into a pit invisible in the darkness.
 
Embarrassed more than anything - as cameras were filming! - I scrambled up and somehow got through my lecture. Not realising until the pain kicked in that I had broken fingers on my hand. I needed hospital treatment on arriving back in the UK and still get the odd twinge from the damaged digits.

Daniken later designed and opened a theme park on this research and alien astronauts theme at Interlaken in his native Switzerland. That was in 2003 - and, although it has had limited success, its several pavilions still look at various themes taken from his books.

It is easy to see why the concept of our history having been influenced by aliens coming to Earth long ago was beguiling at the height of the space age. And might be a little old fashioned after long now being the subject of movies and TV series such as Stargate.

We wondered at the start of the space age if somehow vastly intelligent and scientifically advanced beings had guided our primitive selves towards civilisation with ancient humans being aware of their true origin. Instead we interpreted them as godly beings becoming the basis of multiple beliefs and religions.       

In the 1980s this concept was taken in a very interesting new direction with a 5 book series of science fiction novels - ‘The Canopus in Argos’ series - written by Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing. I was thrilled to meet her, too, when we did a BBC radio show together as she had long been a heroine of mine.

Two of her interlinked series of novels - Shikasta in 1979 and The Sirian Experiments in 1980 - focus on the same story as told from two perspectives. They cover vast periods of time as differing aliens visit, report back on, interact with and in some cases experiment upon life on Earth and humanity in particular. 

Though dense and allegorical in many ways to her unique views about civilisation which led to her rejecting a Damehood -  they are a lasting literary mirror to the simplicity and guesswork of the searchers for ancient astronaut history using images and artefacts. Yes these vaguely resemble something like modern technology and suggest that this might be of alien origin as it could not then be constructed by anyone terrestrial.

This kind of thinking has not disappeared. You only need to look at the schedules of some of the satellite TV channels to find them full of Ancient Aliens and similar shows that dissect these matters to the nth degree.

The concept of ancient astronauts is viewed by UFO researchers in one way or another. Either as over interpretation of mundane things judged out of context - or as proof that the aliens we think might be coming here today and abducting people have been around and maybe doing that for countless centuries.

Either way this focuses the evidence as if it supports - or does not support - the modern extra-terrestrial hypothesis that some think explains the stranger cases that we observe right now.

So are there really ancient astronauts in our far history or is the theory simply astro - nuts?

However, there is another perhaps more interesting way of thinking about this subject which does not stand or fall on the existence of any aliens ever coming here but still has significance for the UFO mystery itself.

It could reveal a very long term force within human consciousness - the desire to not be alone but have someone to share our seemingly unique grasp of science and the cosmos. We alone on Earth seem aware that the universe is far more than just us on this rocky world whilst experiencing the day to day mundane details of life and survival.

We dream of the great beyond and aspire to find others out there amongst it. And this is not just a 21st century thing. We have been pondering such matters for millennia. It is deeply engrained into the soul of the human species. It is why we created a pantheon of Gods and supernatural entities pulling the strings and dancing in shadows.

Aliens are really just the modern day extension of a very long history of the need for another.

There are many ways we can see this in the history of humanity - every generation has its own version of the supernatural and beings that dance upon the edges of reality.  UFO researcher Jacques Vallee in books such as Passport to Magonia introduced this netherworld of elves and fairies, sprites and demons into the same company as greys and Martians.

And asks the question are these beings in any sense real entities that exist just beyond human perception? Or are they manifestations of the cry of a lonely species desperate for something to aspire towards - be that Gods who give purpose to our destiny or beings that infer there is magic and other realities beyond our day to day fight for survival?

Today are we asking the very same question but focusing it in a modern way appropriate to our age of scientific endeavour - seeking aliens with knowledge that could bring wonders we cannot yet achieve?

The literal reality of what might be an ancient artefact of a ten thousand year old alien invader or a accidentally shaped rock fossil that acts like a simulacra to tease our human senses is not really the point. The things we perceive might be astronauts or our senses might just be going a little gaga.

What does matters is that, just like lights in the sky are to us today, these things burrow into our consciousness as a source of wonder and imagination that then toys with our primeval need not to be the only one who understands the profundity of what lies all around us in this universe.

UFO research is in many ways the 21st century version of the ancient druid priests or the necromancers and mystics of old trying to look beyond the crack between the edge of the universe and call out 'hello' to whoever might be there.

No wonder the extra-terrestrial hypothesis will not die. Evidentially it has long been on life support but it is a dream that we seem to share deep within the human spirit.

95% of what we see are readily explicable and the rest of things as yet unresolved might more likely be caused by things from this Earth rather than another.

But we do not want to be alone and we will cling on to that hope for as long as the lights in the sky fly amongst us.
 
SIGHTINGS:


MID AIR ENCOUNTER  OVER ARIZONA

24 February 2018 
 

“Was anybody, uh, above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?” the voice of the pilot said.

“Negative,” an air traffic controller replied.

“Okay....Something did.”
 
These were the confused words spoken by the pilot of a Learjet operated by Phoenix Air and then flying at 37,000 feet over the western USA heading towards California.

He was talking to the Air Traffic Control at Albuquerque, New Mexico  at about 3.30 pm on a bright sunny afternoon in late February.

So far this is just like hundreds of other mid-air encounters involving aircrew  - although ones in broad daylight are rarer than nocturnal sightings where misperceptions of things such as meteors are common. These can look very spectacular far above the clouds in very clear air and not, of course, be seen below cloud cover on the ground. So might not easily be recognised at the time for what they are.

These factors can also make them look big and close and in a vulnerable aircraft very scary indeed. Such reports date back to the dawn of aviation. Because we had entered a strange new realm above the clouds and were seeing things that had always been visible through human eyes for the very first time.

“A UFO!” A voice from the Learjet cockpit interrupted the silence.

“Yeah,” the pilot followed with sounds like a chuckle

Three minutes after the above incident an American Airlines Airbus was flying at 40,000 feet and over the Sonoran Desert between Picacho and Mammoth not far away from where the Lear Jet had been.

Ironically this desert was the location of a close encounter in the famous Steven Spielberg movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind 40 years ago - a film based on real sightings in astronomer J Allen Hynek’s book ‘The UFO Experience’ . Also in that film was another scene of an aircraft to air traffic control communication based on a real case like this one.

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) was caught on the hop when a US magazine featured the report in early March and took the remarkable step of quickly not only confirming the events had really occurred but authenticating a release of the digital recording between the control tower and both aircraft cockpits and allowing it to appear in the Phoenix New Times.

"Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area," Lynn Lunsford, of the FAA said to the paper.

"We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons."

This suggests that the FAA had not been aware of any such traffic due up there or were able to explain what was seen by the crews of the two jets just three minutes apart.

Albuquerque ATC had alerted the crew of the American Airbus 321 on a flight from Dallas to San Diego after seeing from their radar track that they were heading across the path of the object reported by the Lear Jet pilot just before. Though no UFO was on that screen. Just the two aircraft.

 “American 1095, uh, let me know if, uh, you see anything pass over you here in the next, uh, 15 miles,” the controller says on the tape of the communication.

“Let you know if anything passes over us?” the pilot responded puzzled by the unusual request.

“American 1095, affirmative,” the controller said. “We had an aircraft in front of you … that reported something pass over him and, uh, we didn’t have any targets. So just, uh, let me know if you see anything pass over you.”

“Alright,” the pilot responded still a little confused.

Then the Lear Jet pilot returned to the conversation to add more detail for the crew of the new aircraft passing into the location where the UFO had been to digest.

“I don’t know what it was….It wasn’t an airplane, but it passed us going the opposite direction.”

Moments later, the Airbus pilot was back on air.

“It’s American 1095. Yeah, something just passed over us. Uh, I don’t know what it was, but at least two-three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us.”

That means that it was above the 40,000 feet that the Airbus 321 was then flying at.
 
“Okay, American 1095. Thank you,” the controller replied.

Then he asked the Airbus pilot: “Can you tell if it was, uh, in motion or just  hovering?”

“No cannot make it out — whether it was a balloon or whatnot,” was the reply.

But the Airbus pilot added that the thing had a “big reflection” as it passed overhead. He said it was traveling “several thousand feet above us, going the opposite direction.”

“Was it a Google balloon?” came a suggestion from an unidentified voice.

“Doubtful,” the pilot replied.

To which another voice commented using that word again: “UFO.”
 
This was the extent of the mid air encounter described over the recording. But Lynn Lunsford, for the FAA, later issued a statement to The Washington Post that the air traffic controller was “unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area.”

However, there were possible resolutions that the FAA were looking into.

“We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons.”

However, no such identification had been made at date of writing that anything of that nature was in the area at the time.

In late March the pilot of the American Airbus gave an interview to his local US TV station KTAB to describe what he witnessed. He was Blenus Green, with 20 years of experience and a former B 1 pilot with the US Air Force.
 
‘I was looking out of the windscreen to see if it was there and, yeah, I did. I saw it. It was very bright but not so bright you couldn’t look at it…..It didn’t look anything like an airplane.’

He added that normally an object lit by the sun reveals its shape by illumination on the appropriate side - but ‘this was bright all the way around. It was so bright you couldn’t make it out - what shape it was.’

Whilst the Learjet pilot did not go on TV the boss of the Phoenix air group confirmed they had done a full debriefing with him and after talking to the pilot were left thinking ‘what the hell was it?’.

They said they had chosen not to go public because they were afraid he would be ‘overwhelmed’ with interest if they did.  But he was a 15 year veteran with over 14,000 hours flying time.

The company did confirm that they were flying an Air Ambulance mission for the Military Air Mobility Command at the time.  And says in the debriefing he and the co pilot both saw the object and said ‘what the hell is that?’

They also commented on the brilliance of the light emitted and how it felt like ‘when you woke up in morning and stared at a bright light’. So the illumination clearly was unusual. Though the skies over Arizona can be very clear at that height - it ‘filled the whole windshield’.

Both pilots used their fingers against the cockpit windscreen to try to judge height as it passed them in the opposite direction and estimate that the unknown object was at around 50,000 feet.  Too far away for the aircraft collision alarm signal which never sounded.

The pilot was familiar with all sorts of balloons such as research experiments. But that this was not like one and they estimated it passed them moving at ‘a similar speed that an airliner would’ - which, if true, would eliminate a wind borne balloon as the explanation.

Mid Air encounters in daylight between aircraft and UFOs have been reported before but multiple sightings of the same object are rare.  Incidents where the Air Traffic Control are directly involved also enhance this case.

One of the most interesting UK cases of this kind is the following:

15 July 1991  Sussex, UK

A Britannia Airways Boeing 737 was inbound to London Gatwick at 5.45 pm on a sunny summer afternoon after a return holiday flight from Crete in the Mediterranean. 

Descending through 15,000 feet and crossing the Sussex coast south of Arundel and under London air traffic control the co-pilot spotted something approaching fast ahead of them. He yelled to the pilot a collision alert as it was only an estimated half a mile away when first seen and rushed rapidly past their right hand wing in seconds. They estimated it came within 300 feet of hitting them but they reported no wake turbulence.

They described the object as small - but it could have been larger and further away as the lack of wake suggests.  It was reported to ATC and in the subsequent Air Proximity
report and to the MoD UFO department described as resembling a ‘black lozenge’

London ATC reacted immediately to their radio report of the object and their description of it as a ‘near collision’. Gatwick radar control immediately confirmed that they had an unidentified target on radar that had just passed the 737 and its unsuspecting passengers and was now about 10 miles behind them rapidly heading out towards the English Channel.

The UFO was not any known military traffic and that it was not giving a transponder signal so not any known civilian traffic either. They measured its departure speed as about 120 MPH.

More seriously the lozenge was on the radar screens heading into the path of a second inbound aircraft following the 737 towards landing. Because it was further out it was slightly higher than the Britannia aircraft, but the ATC were not about to take chances and ordered the second aircraft to change course in a series of turns and clear out of the way of the unknown target.

The UFO on radar had changed its course, was below the second aircraft (whose crew did not ever see it) and soon after this change of course the object disappeared off Gatwick radar heading for France.

Because of the ‘live’ radio communication of this encounter aircraft enthusiasts were immediately alerted to this event as they overheard it and the media got quickly involved. The Civil Aviation Authority were not thrilled as they were planning a several month AirProx investigation and did not want to comment prematurely.

Needless to say some of the reporting was a little over the top and aliens and spaceships were hinted at when nothing of the kind was being described. The airline and the CAA were less than thrilled with this complication and tried to shut down cooperation - which only enhanced suspicions of course.

Quite reasonably the authorities expected to find an explanation of some sort with diligent enquiry. Perhaps a military drone had strayed into airspace where it should not be. But aliens were the last thing they needed to be talking about whilst that was happening.

At first the prime candidate for an explanation was a meteorological balloon, released every few hours to test wind speeds and directions at different heights. One had been released from nearby Crawley but it had been carefully plotted - which these things are as that is kind of the point of releasing them. It never got close to be at 15,000 feet near the 737.

Indeed it was at the point of the sighting heading east with the wind at 42 mph whilst the UFO had been heading south at three times that speed. Too fast given the wind then recorded for a balloon.

They did consider a ‘toy’ balloon released from a Summer fair, for example. But one of those being large enough, fast enough, flying against the wind and even reaching 15,000 feet without bursting was considered very unlikely.

A balloon expert suggested that there were records of these reaching 7000 feet - under half the altitude of this UFO. But the met office said they had no data of one reaching more than 6000 feet. Their weather balloons were larger and went much higher but they knew where they all were and none were near the 737.

The press furore soon died down and we managed to get access to a copy of the CAA report on their investigation in April 1992 - although it was to be 2009 before that file was released publicly via the Ministry of Defence UFO files.

Indeed I wrote about this case in my book covering mid air UFO sightings - Something in the Air (Robert Hale, 1998).

The team based at RAF Uxbridge did run with the toy balloon theory in the final analysis despite concerns over how one of these (at just a foot long) was close enough to be seen as described without actually striking the aircraft. Not to mention the fact that it could not be the unidentified target on radar as something that small would not register. Yet that appeared to be the same object seen visually.

Group Captain John Maitland did argue that he ‘suspected’ that it might be ‘some sort of small balloon’ but would not comment further as none were traced.

The CAA report concluded that they did not have enough evidence to judge ‘what damage could have occurred had the object struck the aircraft’ but agreed that ‘there had been a possible risk of collision’ with whatever the UFO was.

However, not long after the report there was a new type of toy balloon - the UFO Solar - that started to be sold in Europe. It used the sun’s rays, could reach great heights, travel long distances and was shaped as a 10 foot long black cigar shape.

Once these started to appear in UK shops the possibility that this was what was encountered over the Sussex coast did emerge as a possibility.

Though it remains unclear if it could have been tracked on radar (some balloons this size can be) or how it would have reached 120 MPH the case has to be considered as having a likely explanation.

Indeed several other similar cases were recorded in the next few years.  But whether a balloon or some other kind of airborne UAP the risk to air traffic was obvious and became the basis of a then secret MoD file, the Condign Report, created around 2000 and eventually released (heavily redacted) more recently.

This report carried out by a military science expert under an MoD grant made clear that there was a risk of collision between air traffic and 'UAP' - a term he had adopted instead of UFO rather as many in the UFO community long have to avoid the implication that we are talking of some kind of machine. It is evident that the possibility being considered here was some sort of  atmospheric phenomenon might also be a cause and source of threat.

When you bear in mind the concerns right now about the rising number of drones being flown by amateurs near to aircraft landing and taking off and the potential risk of collision, you can gauge the problem.

These drones are relatively small, often only inches across.  These UAP appear much bigger and potentially far more deadly. 
 

SPACE ODDITIES
 
The risk of flying 40,000 feet above the Earth and colliding with a UFO is obvious. Lives are at risk. But what if you are much higher and outside the planet's atmosphere altogether?

There have been many reports of UFO encounters involving missions into space. Mankind has been able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere and reach orbit for over 60 years and we have landed astronauts on the Moon, sent robot probes to wander for years filming and digging into the surface of Mars and taped recordings of human civilization that have been despatched out beyond Pluto heading towards potential alien races trillions of miles away.

In many respects it is not a surprise that just as in an aircraft  when ‘up there’ in space odd things have been perceived.

It is a new hostile environment and there is no atmosphere to distort vision so things look very strange. Plus most observation is done via many layers of equipment and very thick windows which act as the only barrier between life and almost instant death for the crew so necessarily heavily protected.

During many early manned flights from the late 50s onward things were seen for the first time - such as auroral displays around the pole from above. Or multiple micro meteorites visible in the vacuum of space in ways they never  can be from beneath a thick atmosphere.

Debris ejected from missions and even human urine - literally humans 'boldly going' where no man has gone before - were mistaken for UFOs as they floated weightless and were curiously reflected by unfiltered sunlight.

Right up to the long duration shuttle missions of the 1990s and the permanent habitation of the international space station where astronauts have now been living often for a year at a time conducting experiments and observations free of our gravity there have been UFO sightings and claims of cover ups of alien contact.

Some of these appear to have involved observations of rare interactions between energy particles and the Earth's atmosphere that only became apparent when we were actually living in space for years on end and so in a position to catch one of these things occurring.

Most stories of astronaut UFOs have taken on a life of their own by telling and retelling of episodes that started off as a rumour or a joke and ended up being conveyed as truth by the 100th person to have relayed them.

I recall meeting a radio ham in London who told me with apparent sincerity that he had heard Neil Armstrong talk to NASA from the surface of the Moon in July 1969.

‘They saw aliens there - in a crater’ I was assured. He added that we axed future Moon missions on 'alien orders' and would never build a space station because ‘they’ had warned us off. 

This non return to the Moon after the early 1970s with several later missions cancelled was, in reality, down to budgetary reasons as the cost of manned flight is huge and the risk to life immense when technology had improved to allow instruments to do all that was necessary more easily.

This tale was told to me just a few years before we actually did build that space station, so presumably the aliens relented and allowed us up there after all.

Fast forward to April 2018 and we now have a new story - that ‘lie detectors’ have proven that the astronauts were telling the truth when they described some of the most famous spaceborne close encounters.

Notably this meant one case involving Buzz Aldrin, now 88, and part of the crew of the lunar landing, Apollo 11, in July 1969, the first to land humans on any location off the Earth.

He was in fact the second human to set foot on the Moon minutes after Neil Armstrong ‘giant leap for mankind’ in which they saw those aliens up there who promptly sent us packing - if you believe the radio hack (as I don't).

Probably this is the one event that school children will be guaranteed to learn about from our lifetimes for the rest of future history. 

The story that did the rounds in the UK media (a British tabloid started it) was that Aldrin had just passed a test that proved he had really seen aliens on route to the Moon.

That he had reported back to NASA ‘something out there that was close enough to be observed - sort of L shaped.’

However, he was understandably rather peeved within hours of this claim breaking - because that is not at all what really happened.

Here in his own words is what he really reported at the time:
 
 "On Apollo 11 (in July 1969) en route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us. There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world -- it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft.

So in the close vicinity, moving away, were 4 panels. And i feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels. Which one? I don't know. So technically, the definition could be ‘unidentified.’


‘We well understood exactly what that was. And when we returned, we debriefed and explained exactly what we had observed. And I felt that this had been distributed to the outside world, the outside audience, and apparently it wasn't, and so many years later, I had the time in an interview to disclose these observations, on another country's television network.

And the UFO people in the United States were very very angry with me, that i had not given them the information.


It was not an alien.

Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence. That's what Carl Sagan said. There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost CERTAIN that there is life somewhere in space. It was not that remarkable, that special, that unusual, that life here on earth evolved gradually, slowly, to where we are today.


But the distances involved in where some evidence of life may be, they may be hundreds of light years away."
 
That is what Aldrin said on Reddit  - the online news media question and answer site - about his sighting - whilst talking freely about the lunar landing.

That was back in 2015. It is consistent with past reports from him referring to the episode over the years. And as it predates the press report in April 2018 by 3 years was not influenced by it.

Okay, so no UFO then, let alone aliens. So what about the lie detector test?

Well even that is a bit misleading. The story broke in the British tabloid media on 8 April 2018 and involves a claim that Aldrin and several other astronauts  - Gordon Cooper, Edgar Mitchell and Al Worden had all taken part in an experimental test of new equipment by the Institute of Bio-acoustic biology in Ohio.

Which they did - sort of - but without any of them knowing - which was particularly true in the cases of Cooper and Mitchell as both were dead when the testing occurred - Cooper 14 years before!

The organisation involved used some new equipment they are marketing on their web site to test the voices recorded at the time of these astronauts all describing back to NASA by radio what they saw and which in later years have been said by some researchers to be UFO events. 

They aimed to establish that a better kind of test on voice was possible, although lie detectors are notorious for uncertainty about their provenance and are rarely used when establishing this is a necessity such as in a court of law.

This is what they reported about the test they did on Aldrin’s voice from the 1969 message to Earth without him knowing about it.
 
‘Aldrin believes what he is saying emotionally but has doubts intellectually. His ego, on a highly spiritual level, is solidly involved. He has a firm belief in what he saw but logical awareness that he cannot explain what he saw; therefore he thinks he should be doubted. His gut level emotions and system of integrity is well grounded with the exception that he has some issues around people asking too much of him and expecting him to take care of things for them. For the benefit of the people, he wants his statements about his seeing a UFO to be believed.’
 
Exactly how you equate that interpretation using this new equipment with what Aldrin himself said three years before that assessment of his radio voice 49 years ago is up to you.

But as proof of alien contact or a major cover up of a close encounter?

Sorry, not for me. 
 
 
 
APEN AND UFOs - RENDLESHAM FOREST Will be held over until the May issue.





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   192
   March
   2018


THE PC PERKS SPECIAL  - left PC Perks sketch of UFO, centre site of encounter, right sketch by Mrs Walker
with thanks to Google Earth

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EDITOR: JENNY RANDLES

10 Marton Green   Stockport   Cheshire  SK3 8LT

e mail address:  nufon@btinternet.com


Contents:   The future of the UFO conference.....Special in depth case history - everything you need to know about the PC Perks, Wilmslow, Cheshire close encounter and its importance to UFO research


J R COMMENTS:
CONFERENCE CALLS
 
For almost the entire history of UFOs there have been conferences - or conventions as they are sometimes called, especially in the early days and in America. They still happen to this day, and several are promoted at the back of this issue of Northern UFO News for later in 2018.

They are outliving most of the local investigation groups and the national associations - such as BUFORA in the UK. These once ran such events virtually every year and crowds of hundreds or even thousands would attend. At one big event near Hyde Park in London I recall even a famous newscaster wandering around with a camera crew filming an item for the national news. This was at the height of UFO fascination when the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind was hot 40 years ago this month!

I have lost count of how many of these events, often lasting two or three days, that I must have attended or lectured at since my first one in Manchester. Though I do recall with a smile my lecture that day at UMIST ending by asking for questions and the sight as the whole audience turned as one - not to see me, but the questioner, whose voice they recognised!

It was none other than William Roache, father of Linus (US TV star of Law and Order and, currently, with Clare Danes in the latest series of Homeland).  William himself is equally famous as his alter ego Ken Barlow in Coronation Street - a character he has played continuously for 55 years - making him the longest running actor in a single role in the history of world television.  Even then I knew that he has long had an interest in strange phenomena and I interviewed him for my book - Phantoms of the Soap Operas.

My experience of these events all over the world since 1975 have been mostly enjoyable and they are a great opportunity for like-minded people to talk freely to one another and for worried witnesses to test the water and hear ideas about what might have happened to them and, just perhaps, come forward and report their story for the first time.

The local media can also be attracted and in turn the promotion can help a group get their message across to the public.

So I am the last person to decry their value and I have long been willing to give presentations and not charge lecture fees as I know some authors are wont to do. I was happy to talk just for travel expenses in the same way that I did when invited to schools, arts festivals, libraries or bookstores. Indeed I gained as much from being there as I hope the audiences sometimes did.

I got to meet many of my own childhood heroes at these events, too, sometimes even sharing a platform with them left me rather star struck. This left me as thrilled as anyone to watch Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, John Keel and many more major players in UFO history present their views. And I was willing to suspend judgement and enjoy being a somewhat more reductionist foil when appearing alongside pop culture presenters like Eric von Daniken.

These big names were there for a reason, of course, as I understand from the conferences that I have had some hand in organising. The first one being the BUFORA event in Birmingham in 1976 where I was not myself yet beingasked to present talks - indeed Peter Warrington and I had just started work on our first book together - UFOs: A British Viewpoint.

But I remember the discussions as the event was put together and some of the presentations - from Roy Dutton’s attempt to create a mathematical model of UFO event prediction to the neatly titled lecture about photographic cases - They Shoot UFOs, don’t they? 

Then there was a Fortean Times London event where Budd Hopkins declined to debate so was replaced by a cut-out, and Vienna, where I fell off a stage at the start of my talk and had to present with broken fingers ignoring the pain, or Sydney where I had to walk out amidst dry ice to the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey in what felt like an extraordinarily cringeworthy entrance.

Another one in Manchester in 1997 saw me give a talk to an X Files convention along with Jane Goldman, writer of one of my favourite movies, Stardust (by chance the film that made a star out of Clare Danes - looping synchronistically back to my other Manchester appearance two decades earlier).

At the X Files event I had to fill in at a Q and A audience session when special guest Jerry Hardin - Deep Throat from the X FIles TV series - was otherwise engaged (no doubt plotting more machinations of the cover up!)

However, fun as such events have been, most actual UFO conferences have never really progressed UFO research in any meaningful way. They raise the profile of a group or, these days, sell a popular on line access tabloid paranormal publication, and, of course bring in funds because nobody pays anyone to do UFO research this side of the MIB in the mythical employ of some covert intelligence agency.   

Only one conference that I attended ever achieved that. This was in June 1992 and occurred in (or more correctly just across the Charles River in Cambridge from) Boston, Massachusetts.

This event was at MIT - the most prestigious university and considered the world leader in science. Here for five days occurred what in my view qwas a model event was held that should have been a template for the future of UFOlogy.
Yet somehow never was.

What the MIT UFO Abduction Symposium did was act as a working event, sponsored by a grant to pay for invited speakers to attend. And to be not so much aimed at the public so featuring talks on popular topics to gather the generally interested. It was created by a physicist and a psychologist and set the aim of laying down what we knew about alien abductions and what we needed to know to progress knowledge, with suggestions as to how we might go about bridging that gap.

Researchers around the world were sent a list of themes and questions and encouraged to present papers on as many of these as they wished.

They were also encouraged to conduct original experiments or test out ideas posed by the set of questions.  Those invited were based on the submissions offered and told which papers they should get together, along with any projects, over the coming months.

At the event itself there were witnesses, scientists, sceptics and researchers from around the world. I was unfortunately the only one invited from the UK but was honoured to do so and presented several papers - one based on an original experiment into the difference between imagined aliens as perceived by those who had read UFO literature and those who had not.

Each presentation was strictly timed by buzzer light alarm on the podium and restricted to just a few minutes to ensure no waffle. I can see many of you gawping at the prospect of me doing that!  It worked, though, creating a fact packed week of papers with ample time to debate around the issues and time at the end to determine protocols to put in place for future research.

The media were not widely invited but one award winning reporter was asked - CDB Bryan - who (and here we go looping back coincidentally again) was the author of the 1976 book Friendly Fire, investigating a real life military incident during the Vietnam War. In the movie of his book Bryan himself was played by Sam Waterston, later to become the Attorney in the long running US TV franchise Law and Order. The role that then passed to Linus Roache when Sam had moved on.

Bryan’s book (Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind) based on his time at the MIT event is an excellent outsider’s perspective. He started out as a sceptic knowing little, as he told me when he interviewed me during the event, but he was clearly being won over by the care and concern being applied to this event by the organisers,  David Pritchard and John Mack.

Mack wrote a best-selling book on abductions but tragically died not long after in an accident when he was in London. Pritchard, the scientist, compiled all the presentations and Q & A sessions into a mammoth book afterwards.

Together these two volumes convey the facts but not the excitement of trying something really new that this event represented.

Anyone who had anything to contribute that might help us decide the way to take abduction research had the chance to take part whatever their perspective. And as such it was almost unique in UFO history.

Of course, it was hugely ambitious - possibly overly so as it tackled such a big area of our research and over so many days was awash with ideas and information.  So as a legacy it probably did not change a great deal.

But I was surely not the only one who hoped this was a pointer towards the future.

I mooted to several sources in UFO research at the time that we needed to do something like this in the UK - more narrowly focused, perhaps, so there was a smaller area of study that could be covered in a few days with new ideas and protocols suggested.

Indeed I suggested something like Car Stop or Vehicle Interference cases was a good place to start. There are maybe 1000 such reports well documented in UFO history and they form a coherent set of questions as to what causes a car engine or lights or both to fail in the presence of a UFO.

These cases point right at the heart of the cause of UFOs, as they imply a physically real energy. They are not reliant on perception or imagination. Hard science is involved. What is more there were obvious opportunities here to bring in outsiders - people who have never had an interest in UFOs or looked at the evidence. Car mechanics, electronic engineers, physicists and so on might well have invaluable suggestions and avenues of future research to offer to the inevitably more narrowly focused perspectives of UFO researchers.

So here was a chance for a really focused UK event on the lines of the MIT conference - something that just might have taken us forward.

Unfortunately, I could not persuade any major group to consider it as it would sacrifice the commercial opportunism that conferences have always been. You cannot make money from and might need to pay for the running of an event of this type. So it was a no go and back to inviting big name speakers talking about their latest case or theory to as many members of the public who will buy a ticket.

I feel this is a big missed opportunity in UFO research and that, if we ever want to get beyond being seen as a bunch of enthusiasts trying to persuade a disbelieving world that aliens have landed, then we have to think out of the loop like this and take some risks.

I have on UFO chat lists suggests that we might take advantage of the rise of the internet and the ability to have virtual conferences and instant communication through electronic mail means that this possibly could be done cost free and more easily than was possible 26 years ago.

Still no interest has surfaced. But I honestly believe that this is the future of UFO research. It does not have to be on Car Stop cases. It can any of many possible selective areas of UFO research where we can bring outsiders into the assessment process.

In fact being out of the public limelight might attract people who would never dream of giving a paper at a UFO conference and risk being reported in the local rag.

When MUFORA - the local Manchester group that helped found this magazine some 44 years ago - was active we found ways to work on cases in a similar way - getting help from those who would not do so openly but were intrigued by the mystery to offer suggestions and insights.

This way we often got scientists at Jodrell Bank to assist with data or even run an experiment. We got help from atmospheric physicists and even Ministry of Defence specialists to case conference significant reports.  Peter Warrington and I also spent time with Kodak at their labs in Hemel Hempstead assessing and trying to solve UFO photographic cases.    

On one occasion we were even able to trap a UFO and solve a series of cases by coordinating a skywatch on its path with Peter being in the radar room of a major facility watching the tracks of air traffic as the UFO appeared. As a result its identity was for one of the first times ever 100% solved.

It was a major airline with a regular cargo flight throttling back engines and all but gliding in lights off so they could enjoy the view - whilst scaring the hell out of witnesses below them on the flightpath.

This extraordinary experiment not only solved a case that might otherwise have never been solved but it ended up being portrayed on TV as an episode of the long running TV series Heartbeat.

Sadly we got no credit for that, but they did acknowledge to me that our work was the source for the fictional account where the plucky copper solved the UFO sightings in a darn sight less time and more easily than we did in real life.

So, I remain convinced that the legacy of the MIT conference is there to be explored. And I just wonder how we go about finding a way to make this work to the benefit of some real progressive UFO research.

Let us know if you have any suggestions!       
 

AS I WAS PROCEEDING….

The full story of the PC Perks, Wilmslow, Cheshire case
 

In the book Who or What Were They? by Alan Godfrey (2017) there is reference to a case that was relevant to his own story in many ways - the encounter of another police officer 14 years before him in the nearby county of Cheshire.

That previous case was mentioned because of Alan’s dramatic new revelation that someone professing to be from the Ministry of Defence had visited him at Todmorden police station to reinforce his allegiance to the Official Secrets Act .
Alan was persuaded under supervision by his senior station officer to not discuss several things.

These included more than just his own close encounter from a patrol car on Burnley Road Todmorden, West Yorkshire, in November 1980. He was also quizzed regarding letters that the MoD were aware had been sent to PC Godfrey from a scientist in Moscow.

The letters were asking him questions and seeming to link his story to the well-known events in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, just 4 weeks after Alan’s own encounter. The ‘Man from the Ministry’ wanted these letters -  which arrived at a time before the wider British public learned of that case via its front page coverage in the News of the World in October 1983.

So concerned was PC Godfrey over this MoD interest in a Soviet Union contact that he destroyed the last letter over fear for the safety of his family.  

Puzzlingly the policeman was also enforced the secrecy act to prevent him discussing his on scene presence and subsequent investigation of a mystery death involving the discovery of a body atop a coal heap in Todmorden. That happened some five months prior to his UFO encounter.

This death went through three inquest sessions, to which Alan was never called, despite being first on scene and officer who was present at the identification of the body of Zigmund Adamski  - a man who disappeared 5 days earlier for no known reason over 20 miles away. He was also the PC who traced a key witness that proved Adamski was already dead before he arrived on that heap of coal his eyes staring skyward seemingly in fear.

There are local rumours to this day about what really happened to Adamski but the inquest left the verdict open, nobody was ever arrested in connection and the Coroner later called it the most puzzling case of his career. He even told the press he did not rule out a possible UFO connection - although there is no actual evidence for one beyond coincidence of Alan Godfrey’s role and a reported sighting nearby a few hours before the body was found.

Whatever the case this visit from an alleged MoD officer was a factor in Alan Godfrey leaving the force when his position became hard to sustain under such restraint and given his fear for the safety of his young family.

However, there was one problem with this visit by that Official Secrets Act toting officer. The Ministry of Defence supposedly do not investigate UFO cases first hand. They merely collect sightings on bits of paper from police or airports and file them in their office - tens of thousands of which have been released over the last 20 years onto the Public Record Office.

They occasionally do some internal investigation, but - according to heads of the MoD department over the years, notably Nick Pope, who left the MoD to become a UFO writer - they do not visit witnesses at the scene as seemingly was the case with Alan in 1982 if this man was who he claimed to be.

Yet, when I collated several stories where witnesses claimed the same thing had happened to them for my book ‘The truth behind the Men in Black Phenomenon’ Nick Pope told me clearly that he thought these stories were probably caused by rogue UFO investigators who were pretending to be with the government and in effect visiting witnesses in ‘disguise’.

As there was a most peculiar band of UFO investigators who called themselves APEN - Aerial Phenomena Enquiry Network  - who between at least 1974 and 1984 acted very strangely in connection with major UFO cases and went to some lengths to seem to confuse and discredit genuine UFO researchers - that is not quite so absurd as it sounds.

In next month’s Northern UFO News I will look in more detail at the APEN story and their little known connection with this magazine,  Rendlesham Forest and more - as I had several run ins with them myself.

However, there is no obvious reason to connect APEN directly with the MIB cases I have investigated such as Alan Godfrey’s where an origin in the Ministry of Defence was clearly stated. APEN always wanted to take credit for their actions not hide behind the MoD. And it seemed improbable that they would forge official credentials or risk using them to enter a police station and jointly quiz a policeman alongside his commanding officer.

Moreover in Alan’s book much added evidence was given as to why the Man from the Ministry at least had actual authority within and over the police force and at the headquarters of the force itself.  Alan later saw him there, for example. Rogue UFO investigators cannot explain any of that.

As you will see - though - this case from 1966 offers a much more direct support for Alan Godfrey’s story. Alan had no idea about the existence of this previous episode when we were writing his story last year. I had to inform him about it.

But it indicates at the very least that one swallow does not have to make a Summer on its own when we have solid proof of a second one.  

The events occurred in the north Cheshire town of Wilmslow, south of Stockport. A prosperous place that has many TV celebs and footballers living locally who have called it home in the decades since these events.

PC Colin Perks was working the very same shift as Alan Godfrey - 10 pm to 6 am - and it was in the early hours of Friday 7 January 1966 when he saw what he did.
At the time he was 28, married with a baby daughter living locally in town. He had trained as a motor mechanic before joining the force in 1962.

That Thursday/Friday night shift was cold with a light easterly breeze and clear skies but brightly lit with the Moon actually at full.

After 3 hours on shift PC Perks had a refreshment break between 1.15 am and 2 am in the station before heading off back into the chilly streets to patrol the shops looking out for any trouble.

He was in fact engaged very much in the same jobs that Alan Godfrey was 14 years later, though alone on foot, not in a patrol car as was Alan.

After walking the area without incident for about two hours PC Perks was on what was then the A 34 Alderley Road (which to the north headed towards Manchester as Wilmslow Road and to the south towards Alderley Edge - associated long associated with tales of the supernatural, wizards and witchcraft popularised in the books of Alan Garner).

Today it still exists but is a B road as the A 34 is now a modern by pass around Wilmslow. Perks walked around the Rex Cinema and headed south checking property for any signs of a break in at the large rows of shops in this area. At about 4.10 am he was checking the rear yard area of one shop with a deserted car park and service access road to the shops adjacent when he heard a strange noise.

‘I heard a high pitched whine for a moment,’ he told BUFORA in a report signed 1 May 1966. ‘I couldn’t place the noise as it was most unfamiliar with the normal surroundings.’  He later added that his initial thought was that it was an alarm at a jewellers shop but that was quickly recognised as not the case given the steady and high pitched note.

He turned around towards the source of the noise, now facing south east across the empty car park and a field beyond with the main rail line south towards Crewe and London a few hundred yards away. Most of the land beyond here was open countryside then and indeed still is.

The general view from where PC Perks was located during his sighting is indicated from the Google streetview image on the cover. This dates from 2017 and the store to the left is the building he was checking and the car park is the same one. There are more things in the view now but the UFO was to the right of shot as you are looking into the picture.

As he continued in the BUFORA report - ‘ I turned around and saw a greenish grey glow in the sky about 100 yards from me and 35 feet up in the air. I stopped in my tracks unable to believe what I could see.’

He paused for a few seconds to gather his composure and then made the following observations.  It was ‘about the length of a bus - 30 feet….I estimate it being 20 feet wide and 15 feet high. It was elliptic in shape and emanated the greenish grey glow which I can only describe as an eerie greeny colour….It appeared to be motionless of itself, that is there was no impression of rotation.  It had a flat bottom.’

He told fellow police officer Gary Heseltine - a UFO investigator - that there was no light emerging from the underside making the air below seem dark. But the green glow spread out on all sides from the object by several feet. He described the shape as being ‘tiered’ and akin to a ‘dustbin lid’.

You can see Colin Perk's sketch of the object on the cover.

Throughout these observations the high pitched whine emerging from it did not alter in pitch.  It was stationary for about 5 seconds before it started to move very fast away towards the east south eastwards vanishing rapidly.

Of this motion PC Perks reported: ‘It did not appear to rotate but move off sideways with the 30 ft side to the front and rear. It is possible that the short side given as 20 ft may in fact be longer as I was looking under the object at the time and may have been deceived.’

He insisted ‘there is no doubt the object I saw was of a sharp, distinctive, definite shape and of a solid substance.’ He saw no ‘portholes or other place of access’ but ‘the glow was from the exterior of the object. This was the only light visible.’

PC Perks was, of course, aware of then fairly recently electrified main line railway ‘about 500 yards east of me’ and referred to it in his report to BUFORA pre-empting suspicions that he had had himself but saying it was not connected with the wiring or operations here:-  ‘The noise I heard had nothing to do with electric trains’.

He contacted from the police station later that day both Jodrell Bank science centre and Manchester Airport, each just a few miles away. Neither had any explanation to offer for what the officer had seen.

Other details from his BUFORA report were that the object was brighter than the full Moon very visible that night and resembled a ‘luminous dial’ as found on some 1960s florescent ‘glow in the dark’ clocks and watches. He says its path away from him was level to the ground at a consistent height.

He also described the noise as ‘that of a high speed electric motor’.

His sketch of the UFO is very much like a classic flying saucer shape - rather more than you might expect from his actual account. He used the term ‘dustbin lid’ when asked to liken it to a familiar object by BUFORA.

When asked to give an opinion as to what the UFO was he states intriguingly: ‘Flying craft of the future’.

The form was filed with BUFORA but no actual investigation seems to have happened in 1966. It was assessed by John Cleary Baker who concluded that the fact that the officer immediately reported it to his superior officer on return to Wilmslow police station ruled out a hoax as ‘flying saucer spotting is hardly an open sesame to promotion in the police force in the UK’.

He also assessed the prospect of a sudden hallucination but pointed out that as he was outside in the cold and alert checking stores that whilst in a single witness case it ‘could be due to hallucination, of course. (so) one is obliged to fall back on common sense’ and that he rejects hallucination because of the lack of ‘any obvious reason why otherwise normal persons could suddernly become the prey of gross delusions’.

After a promising start to the assessment, J-C-B, as he was known and whom I never met as I joined BUFORA council a decade later, drifts into ‘the possible reasons for the UFO being where it was at 4.10 am’ and rules out survey missions and so asks ‘what are these low hovering UFOs really up to?’

This rather shows the thinking of UFOlogists five decades ago where the idea that it was a craft and what it was up to is taken as a given. As opposed to my thoughts that this sounds like some intriguing kind of UAP - an electrical energy or plasma or ball lightning akin phenomenon and the presence of the electric railway might not have been irrelevant.

So, yes, intriguing case but with an aftermath that really makes it into even more of one - as we are very far from telling the full story yet.

In those days there were no personal radios and to report back to base officers had to go to a phone box (indeed special police ones like that in Doctor Who were still then situated around towns for this purpose but ordinary phone boxes were used too).

PC Perks was calling in every half an hour but after this returned to the station to advise his sergeant.  The officer could see the shock in his face and  despite fellow officers chuckling about whether there were any Daleks  aboard, passed it on to the superintendant. It then made its way to the Chief Constable of Cheshire and, with the clear belief of those who knew PC Perks, decided to file an official report with the Ministry of Defence.

Where, of course, the file sat for the next 30 years with its secrets awaiting discovery in 1997 - although we did have a clue about something interesting before then.

BUFORA learned about this case when a short item appeared in the Daily Mirror on 3 March 1966: - ‘Beg to report, Sir, one flying saucer’. This was what led to them seeking a report from the officer itself.

Though the press story was only a brief account it did have one intriguing sentence in it that BUFORA seemingly missed: -’ A Man from the Ministry went to Wilmslow to investigate’.

Man from the Ministry was the very phrase that 16 years later the person used to describe himself by when he went to Todmorden to see Alan Godfrey.

It would be three decades before we learned more about that earlier visit in Wilmslow than the one line the Mirror.

Meanwhile the case was quietly forgotten by UFOlogy until 9 years later, in 1975, when I was asked to join the council of BUFORA at a meeting at Newchapel Observatory in Staffordshire organised by Tony Pace.

In those days computers cost millions and were the size of a room. Having science A levels I had recently spent a year before college working for an insurance company to transfer all the car registration details around the UK from hand card index files onto their first computer.  

BUFORA, of course, could not afford an actual computer (home ones were still a decade away) but designed a system using knitting needles!  As I had worked with card transfers and could knit I got the job of transferring data from raw case files to these cards. They had holes punched in them that allowed some sort of analog version of a computer sorting process to occur when looking for data. A system that had had its day pretty much as soon as the process of transferring thousands of UFO files onto it was completed !

As a result I spent a long time viewing all the BUFORA case files and re-evaluating them into a four tier system designed for the transfer. I also made copious notes of cases like this one that I was trying to persuade BUFORA to let me write up as ‘Case Histories’ that would present their best cases and raise funds for the group.

Sadly we never did more than one of these - the Peter Day Cine Film case released as ‘Fire in the Sky’ (before there was a UFO movie of that title about a different case!) But at least I can partly put that right here with this detailed study of what would have been one of those case histories.

In the knitting needle computer system at BUFORA a Red rated case meant solved as an IFO, orange meant it was very likely an IFO but this had not been proven, Yellow meant it could still be an IFO but had enough interesting features to possibly be unexplained so needed more data. And Green meant it was on present evidence interesting and currently unexplained.

The PC Perks case had no real evaluation on it other than the comments from JCB (John Cleary Baker) in the file itself. It had been filed and forgotten.  I checked through old copies of the BUFORA magazine and his comments in the two paragraph evaluation on the file that I summarised earlier did appear in the Summer 1966 edition of that journal but there was nothing new. And no follow up appeared in the magazine until I stopped looking after 1968.

However, my coding process of all the BUFORA files turned up a bit of a twist as there was a second sighting of the same object that nobody at BUFORA had spotted to connect with the PC Perks case. Perhaps because the witness gave two possible dates, one of which was ruled out as soon as I accessed weather records. So it clearly was the other date - which the witness described as 4.30 am on 7 January 1966 and within minutes of PC Perks.

This witness was a 52 year old catalogue compiler, Mrs Walker. She lived near Styal Prison just outside Morley Green, down the Altrincham Road with a view over fields back to what is now a Texaco garage toward where PC Perks was located. This was about a mile south and east of where the PC was in Wilmslow.

Her account was quite sketchy and not  pursued for reasons apparent in a moment. It was basically a report form sent in by DIGAP - the Stockport based UFO group affiliated to BUFORA in the late 50s and 60s and indeed this magazine in the 70s. MUFORA occasionally did joint investigations with them as late as the 1980s and the psychologist Dr John Dale, involved in the Silpho Moor ‘crashed saucer’ affair (see Northern UFO News 191) was a member.

Mrs Walker describes seeing a ‘pearly luminous green’ saucer like object with f- rom her sketch - obvious similarities to what PC Perks drew.  She was in her bedroom and ‘looked through the window’ to see this object ‘stationary’ and ‘it then moved away at terrific speed (70 mph)’ . She reported no sound.  It was said to be in view ‘3 to 4 seconds’. Her drawing from the form is on the cover, too.

Not having connected it with the PC Perks case - despite the weather described on the form establishing quickly to me it was on the same night  - BUFORAs investigation team of the time had evaluated it on its own. On 24 November 1966 it was concluded by them as ‘Insufficient information - such as there is perfectly consistent with meteor.’

So it was officially filed as solved and as a ‘Bolide’, or fireball meteor, some of which are known to be green and which is not at all an unreasonable conclusion when seeing this report in isolation.

Or, indeed, even in conjunction with PC Perks. Apart from the lack of hundreds of other reports beyond Wilmslow that surely would have resulted if this was the answer. I searched hard for these but could not find any apart from a brief account in Flying Saucer Review of a shipboard sighting from the Irish Sea several hours earlier that night.

However, there was a very definite meteor event two weeks earlier - on Christmas Eve, 1965, when the biggest (to date) meteor to hit land in Britain struck the village of Barwell, in Leicestershire at tea time. One of the largest pieces was retrieved from a hole under the local park the very week that the PC Perks story broke. 

All told many pieces were recovered but the majority of the rock that shattered on passage through the atmosphere and on impact is still lying in pieces locally unrecovered in that Leicestershire village.

Amazingly nobody was hurt on the ground, despite one smashing a window in a house and the fragment landing in a vase where it went undiscovered by the homeowners for weeks.  Another damaged a car and the poor owner was denied the cost of repairs as the insurance company deemed it an act of God. So the owner asked the local Church to pay up and they refused also!

Many witnesses out carol singing saw the fall over the space of a minute or two and some even walked over the fragments on the night unaware what it was. Even the poor car owner thought it was a rock tossed by vandals.

Only a very brief white flash of light was seen before impact. Certainly nothing like PC Perks or Mrs Walker described.  

A bolide as large as the one this case would have to be would surely have been recorded by astronomers but I cannot find evidence that it was.

So in 1975 I grouped these two reports together as soon as I saw them and wrote on the file ‘This report appears to be a backp-up witness to PC Perks and the story is very consistent with his description’. 

I classified the whole case as Green so potentially unexplained.

Tony Pace at Newchapel Observatory, when later preparing the files in a future BUFORA case reshuffle (28 Jan 1980) noted below my assessment: ‘See above - if you refer to the PC Perks case - this one may be more significant as corroborative evidence? ‘

This was, as far as I know, the extent of what BUFORA did with this case file - although it is possible they have re-evaluated it again since I left any official job with the group 20 years ago  as I have, of course, not seen their files during that time.

Interestingly when I traced the 1966 Mirror report cited above I found that their ‘science reporter’, Arthur Smith, had offered what I today recognise as a pretty good stab at explaining this case - one we would today term a UAP. He pointed out that: ‘strange electrical conditions of the atmosphere sometimes lead to sightings of this sort’.

Indeed, this is interesting because of two clues that emerged later when I and also ex policeman Gary Heseltine managed to actually talk to PC Perks. He reported then that a few yards from where he stood watching the object there was an electricity sub-station. However, he was adamant that the humming noise that emerged was nothing like any faint hum he ever heard from that facility. But, of course, seeing an unusual atmospheric phenomena of an electrical nature near to both a then new electric rail line and a sub station is something we have to at least consider might be related. 

I would really wish someone in UFO research had asked the science writer to say more about what he meant about ‘strange electrical conditions’ (ball lightning perhaps?)and to cite other examples he must have known about to say what he did. Unfortunately this will have been seen as an offhand sceptical dismissal by UFO researchers. A UFO was a UFO was a spaceship back then, not something boring like a UAP.

One other thing appears to be reported from PC Perks, but I do not know where or how, as - so far as I can tell - he did not say this to Gary Heseltine and did not to me either, is that a US catalogue of UFO related animal disturbance cases reports that PC Perks said dogs in the local area were seemingly reacting to the high pitched whine he heard. 

If true, that is most interesting as it may tell us something about the frequency of the whining sound. But I can find no source for it.
 
UFO researchers of 1966 will have been happier with what PC Perks told the press conference. He told me this was set up by his boss, a sergeant (but the Mirror did not quote this part). Perks said:  ‘I have always been sceptical about flying saucers and life in outer space but there is no other explanation.’

Yet recall his BUFORA report form 7 weeks later describes the object as a ’flying craft of the future.’

The next step takes us to January 1997 when the 30 year rule allowed the MoD to release onto the Public Record Office in Kew all the remaining UFO files from 1966 and, from then onward, all future years in annual batches. Until the Freedom of Information Act of the early 2000s led to the more rapid release of all subsequent files up to 2010.

After that point the MoD stopped collating UFO data altogether and closed their 'X Files'. The process of that file release programme has only recently ended.

UFO researcher Nick Redfearn was the first person to visit Kew in 1997 and find the MoD file on the PC Perks case. I accessed it a few months later and then set about trying to find and interview him. I did so , eventually, but he was extremely reluctant to talk at first.  I only discovered why when he agreed to say a few things two years later.

He told me that just like Alan Godfrey after his 1980 sighting PC Perks had been reminded that he was a signatory to the Official Secrets Act and so should not talk about the incident once there was an MoD investigation. Yet just 8 weeks later the police openly asked him to give a press conference to tell his story!

What’s more they allowed the police to report that the case was ‘secret’ and under investigation by the Ministry.

Readers of Who or What Were They? will see the pattern here was repeated and how it confused  Alan Godfrey and led him to suspect someone was trying to get him out of the force. It was certainly a very contradictory act in both cases - sign the official secrets act, keep quiet, but here go and talk to all these reporters and tell your story to the tabloid press.

The MoD file on release in 1997 reveals that this report was forwarded to them by Manchester Airport after PC Perks called them to ask if they knew what it was the next day. He confirmed to me that they told him they would be sending it on to the Air Ministry. Which was standard practice.

Perks explained that on return to the station other officers present said he looked like he had seen a ghost. But they soon realised he was deadly serious.  In fact so persuaded was his sergeant that at first light after his shift was officially over Perks, his sergeant and another PC went to the sighting location and discovered some shards of glass on the area of the deserted car park. They considered it might be car windscreen or lamp fragments but on a subsequent visit the debris had ‘disappeared’.

On the day of the press conference  two months later resulting in the Mirror story his station superintendent, Hugh Kenworthy, had, Perks said, referred to him as a ‘reliable’ officer and a ‘trained observer’ and that this was why he involved the Cheshire chief constable - who in turn also contacted the MoD, triggering them to investigate.  The Mirror omitted that part too.

At that conference Supt Kenworthy told the reporters (only one of whom mentioned this and just in the local paper) ‘I am reasonably satisfied that this man (PC Perks) has seen something very unusual.’ He added (again ignored by the national press) ‘ The Ministry investigated….The sighting has remained a secret.’

When I called Perks he was surprised that the details of what the MoD did once they began to follow up his case had now been revealed, because, he told me, he had been reminded that he should not talk about that part.

Consequently he never told BUFORA and expected never to do so as he took the secrets act seriously.  

Despite several attempts he was reluctant to go any further than the above with me at that stage and sadly died before I got chance to ask him again about the content of the MoD file released.

As for that file, about 20 pages on the case - referenced National Archive file: AIR 2/17983  -  this carried his report and sketch, seemingly identical with the ones given to BUFORA, the tick form filled in from his call to Manchester Airport and forwarded to the MoD, again adding nothing, and a letter from his Superintendent supporting his status as a respected officer in terms much as noted above from Kenworthy.

But what was interesting was that four copies of these reports had been sent to DI 61 - a defence intelligence unit.

Even more remarkably it was from here that they sent an officer to visit the sighting location and search for the glass like shards the three policemen said they found in the area hours after the sighting. The MoD men interviewed the policeman in considerable detail. They clearly took this report seriously enough to do that.

Questions asked included: ‘a number of points arising from the statement (PC Perks) made on the 8th January,"  said the DI 61 supervising officer in the file.

These questions were  : "What sort of noise did the UFO make?" "What was its speed when it began to move?" "What was its altitude?".

That visit from the MoD to Wilmslow occurred on 1 February 1966 and included the site of the discovery of some traces of  the ‘glassy’ substance on the ground, as described. This was on the open land over which Perks had seen the UFO hover 4 weeks earlier. As seen in the Google scene on the cover.

The Man from the Ministry did not seem convinced the debris was relevant to the case but DI 61 were sufficiently puzzled to ask for radar files to be checked for the time of the event. Nothing was observed by Manchester Airport radar at the time, and nothing seems to have been reported back for the date and time as far as the file indicates.

The DI 61 officer who assessed this case file, we presume after visiting Perks, was Flight Lt Mercer. On 18 February he concluded the report by saying that the ‘single witness nature’ of the case made it ‘difficult to evaluate’.

Sadly they never seem to have been aware of the back-up witness from Morley lurking in the BUFORA files. Though it is not likely it would have made much difference other than establishing the UFO itself was actually real.   Which I think the MoD had accepted anyway.

Mercer did conclude that had some scientific observer been present during the event ‘it would probably be quite easily explained.’ Though did not suggest in what way that might be. But he said that he was satisfied with the sincerity of the account and that something happened that puzzled PC Perks.
 
As for Flight Lt Mercer believing that someone scientifically trained on site could have identified the event. Perhaps they would or perhaps not, and the actual nature of what was seen is certainly open to interpretation.

Of course, concluding that it was a flying craft from the future, as Perks had put it in his BUFORA report, or from space, as I think the BUFORA investigators of the day hoped, would clearly be pushing it.

But what this case reveals with total clarity is that the events reported by Alan Godfrey in his new book are not at all unprecedented - as pretty much the same thing happened to this young copper who saw a UFO in similar circumstances but 14 years before Alan.

Indeed he was then also paraded in front of the media, reminded of the Official Secrets Act and visited by a Man from the Ministry (in this case department DI - as in Defence Intelligence - 61 - which appears to have been involved in following up other UFO cases that might involve physical evidence of some sort reported by public servants).

 That link alone is evidence for the potential veracity of both a cover up of sorts and the many other cases where witnesses claim they were visited and ordered to stay silent following a close encounter by people claiming to be from the MoD.

I have investigated half a dozen such cases myself in the UK - which obviously poses one very big question.

How many other such visits occurred to witnesses who NEVER came forward and told their story out of reverence to the request for secrecy?

Indeed, we can ask further - are these all highly respected witnesses such as police officers, military officers and the like?

Just as a quick experiment, I took a small batch of MoD cases from the two year period between 1964 - 1966 and endeavoured to trace witnesses once those files were released onto the Public Records Office after the 30 year rule.

As names and details are usually redacted this was very hard and with the passage of time most were impossible to find. But I did successfully contact half a dozen through clues on offer and, remarkably, two of them told me they had been also advised ‘by someone from the Ministry’ to not speak to anyone else about what they saw as it was a ‘secret’.

One was an ex RAF pilot. The other was an ordinary citizen who could not be forced to sign the Official Secrets Act or reminded of their allegiance. Yet someone was still trying to use persuasion to stop them talking about their UFO encounter. They said they had been reminded that it might not be ‘wise’ to talk to others as they might find it damaging their credibility to do so.

The implication being that someone at that time wanted to investigate UFOs and try to deter that fact being widely known.

This poses new questions - notably how often did they do this? Why did they choose certain cases to risk visiting the witness when, as Nick Pope says, in his day running the ‘UFO desk’ (during the 1990s) this was never the case?

Were these visits even sanctioned by the UFO desk in the first place? Or was that just a kind of public relations shop window with real decisions occurring elsewhere? And were just this defence intelligence division digging into certain UFO cases and ordering silence without that fact necessarily finding its way back to the person manning the public interface desk like Nick Pope was?

If so then, why, and why just a few selected cases?

Answer that and we might know what is going on behind some part of the UFO mystery. Or at least what the MoD at that time THOUGHT might be going on.
Which might not necessarily be the same thing.
 

 

FORTHCOMING  EVENTS

 
 
19 MAY 2018   Woodbridge, Suffolk  
 
Rendlesham Forest Incident Presentation 2018
with John Burroughs, Brenda Butler and Ronnie Dugdale Saturday May 19, 2018, 7.00pm
 
Following on the success of the 30th anniversary Rendlesham Forest Incident Conference December 28, 2010 we are able to announce presentations by witness John Burroughs, USAF (Ret) the only person to be involved on two separate nights, Brenda Butler original investigator and co-author of Skycrash and local researcher & one of the most knowledgable RFI investigators Ronnie Dugdale.  Ronnie has been working on a timeline of events for a number of years that has involved talking to a number of witnesses and will present this detailed analysis at the event.

This event will be held at: Woodbridge Community Hall, Station Road, Woodbridge, IP12 4AU. Saturday 19th May, 7.00pm till late.

Seat numbers for this event are limited. Further information including additional guests or activities may be confirmed at a later date.

We are able to offer the following 2 ticket options:
1) Evening Presentations Ticket: £11 per person.

The entry price for the evening presentation is £10 per person + £1 to cover paypal fees. To order your e-ticket using paypal please hit the paypal button below. We will issue you an e-ticket number via Paypal in notes and you will be admited entry to the Community Hall upon arrival following check-in at the door. Please make a note of your e-ticket number and your Paypal transaction ID number.

2) VIP Ticket: Dine w/guest speakers on Friday 18th May followed by personal event & to entry to evening presentations on Saturday 19th May: £16 per person.

We are also offering the opportunity to dine in a local Pub with the guest speakers on Friday 18th May followed by a personalised talk through the events that occurred. The dinner will start at 6.30pm and is sold at an additional price of £5 per person + £1 to cover paypal fees. (Total cost £16 per person). Please note we have a maximum of 20 places and this is offered on a first come first served basis.   Please note this does not include food. We have reserved the dinning area of a local Pub and we will notify you during April the menu on offer. Although food is not required to be paid for in advance we will require details of what you wish to order from the menu during April. Meeting at the pub around 4pm for drinks, mees and greet followed by dinner at 6.00pm  Full details including name and location of the Pub will be emailed upon purchase.
                                                                                                                                                                                         There will be a question and answer session to close the evening.   Questions call us on 07811 021230, email info@spaceportuk.com or visit the event facebook page. Everyone is welcome.  


OCT      6 - 7 October 2018   St Annes, Lancashire
 
LAPIS CONFERENCE 2018
 
 
This will be a two day event in St Anne's, Lancashire on the 6th and 7th of October. Our venue is
The Lindum Hotel, a lovely family owned venue situated on the seafront.

Speakers confirmed:

Alan Godfrey

Alan Godfrey had a good career as a policeman in a Yorkshire town. Then he was called upon to investigate a body on a coal heap.
 
Who was this man? Why did he die?
 
Within weeks PC Godfrey had a close encounter of the weirdest kind. 
 
What was that UFO above his patrol car?  Why did half an hour just disappear?
​
Alan will be talking about his encounter and the repercussions that followed. This will be primary source evidence about one of the most significant UFO cases that have been documented. A lecture not to be missed. 

Alan will also be selling and signing copies of his new book "Who or What Were They?"
​
​
Ann Winsper
 
Ann Winsper is a ghost hunter and Parapsychologist, and co-founder of Para.Science psychical research and investigation. Ann has been investigating hauntings for nearly 40 years, and is currently a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire researching the psychology of Electronic Voice Phenomena. Ann is a regular speaker at conferences, giving giving talks on EVP and the paranormal in general.
 

Jenny Randles 
 
Jenny Randles was born in the Pennine hills on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border – a region that has for decades had the highest percentage of alien abduction and close encounters in the UK.
 
Over a million copies of Jenny’s books have been sold since 1979 with editions in more than 20 countries.
 
Her books have been about UFOs, ESP, precognition, time slips, spontaneous human combustion, and even the paranormal experiences of actors from soap such as Coronation Street and Dallas.
 
After her last book - Breaking the Time Barrier - about the race to build the first time machine - Jenny went on a 15 year hiatus to be a full time carer but has started writing again after working with Alan Godfrey to help him publish the untold story.
 ​
Jenny has spoken at previous LAPIS conferences but this will be her first presentation in person anywhere since bookstores on the Isle of Man in 2003 and we are delighted that she is able to be part of this event.
  

Juliette Gregson
  
Juliette W Gregson is a Heritage Photographer, taking pictures of derelict buildings, art deco, small toys in hedges, Preserving the Past for the Future ! She loves to go out and catch iconic images of our town and the surrounding areas. Local historian Juliette has written for the BBC, provided research for ITV and many other publications, local & national over the years. Juliette has always had an avid interest in the paranormal and weird happenings in her local area and will be talking about this at the LAPIS conference.
 
 
 
 
 




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191

FEBRUARY

2018

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EDITOR:  JENNY RANDLES                           COVER ARTWORK:   ROY SANDBACH


10 Marton Green   Stockport   Cheshire   SK3 8LT


e mail address:    nufon@btinternet.com




Contents:  Where have all the UFOs gone?     Close Encounter in North Wales       Do UFO investigators treat

witnesses fairly?  The Unknown side to the Oz Factor - after the UFO has gone      David Clark finds

 Yorkshire's crashed UFO in the British Museum

















JR Comments…

Where have all the UFOs gone?
 



On 8 February 2018 the Daily Mail in their ‘On This Day’ column posted a

story from the paper 64 years earlier. Back then, in 1954, the MoD (or Air

Ministry as then called) investigation project was still very new.  But it

took the chance to announce a significant change away from the ‘flying

saucer’ terminology of the day that had lasted since the Kenneth Arnold

sighting in 1947. Though that pilot’s account was misinterpreted by a

reporter (he never saw a saucer shaped craft and was referring instead to

its motion).



The 8 Feb 1954 Mail item reported that ‘UFOs - Unidentified flying objects -

is now the official name for ‘flying saucers’ in British Air Ministry records.

It is estimated that there have been at least 10,000 ‘sightings’ of these

strange phenomena of the skies since the war. Every report made to the

Air Ministry and its US counterpart is checked.’



So we have just passed the 64th anniversary of the search for answers

about UFOs and, of course, many of these 10,000 reports (certainly the

ones from the UK) have never seen the light of day because they routinely

destroyed some of the early ones before they decided to release data 30

years later onto the public record.



As such getting a proper grounding on how the number of sightings

fluctuates and if there have been changes in what kind of things people

see has long been difficult.



Robert Moore has published on line some fascinating figures recently.

They were supplied to him by long serving Italian researcher Edoardo

Russo.



This data comes from official data for UFO sightings recorded by GEPAN,

the French government agency that involves aerospace and atmospheric

scientists and has investigated activity since the 1970s.



These days it is hard to monitor official UFO sightings in either the US or

the UK as they shut down their respective UFO investigation departments

– in the case of America before the French even set up theirs and in the UK

the MoD closed their desk about 8 years ago – finally removing something

they seem to have regarded as a headache almost from the start. 



Even GEPAN (now GEIPAN) have scaled things back but are at least still

trying to keep a record for what they call OVNIs (a straight translation of

UFO into French). Mostly because they are recorded by the same unit that

tracks satellite re-entries and so gets reports of these anomalies

alongside.



These are the recent number of sightings :



2012: 176 reports...


2013: 204 reports


2014: 184 reports


2015: 197 reports


2016: 64


2017: 24



The sudden fall off a cliff over the last 2 years is notable. Especially given

that several times even the highest number of reports shown was common

20 or 30 years ago.  So where have all the UFOs gone?



Jerome Beau does note that there is some misleading inferences from

these raw figures as these are processed reports only. Recent ones tend to

take more time to pursue and could increase in number as they get

processed. The agency also assesses cases in a way that means they

eliminate obvious IFOs before publishing these figures – something not

true of most annual figures around the world or in the past.



So perhaps the drop off is not as acute as it might seem.


As Robert himself astutely notes the true picture is hard to draw from any

part of the world nowadays owing to how UFOlogy has become very much

an on line pursuit. This comes with the demise of most of the major

international UFO groups as real world active bodies and the

disappearance of investigation groups going out and seeking sightings at a

local level in anywhere near the numbers that used to be true.



Only in America – where MUFON – the Mutual UFO Network – still seems to

be as publicly visible and active as ever  – are sighting numbers holding up.



So would that be true everywhere else if we had any kind of credible

method to collate what scattered sources of ongoing UFO reporting exist

out there?



UFOlogy is suffering from fragmentation and disintegration of the

coordinated whole that we had as recently as the turn of the Millennium.



How exactly we do anything about that – if we even can or have the will to

do so – is another matter.



In reply to Robert’s comments
Mark Newbold asked if this decrease was

evidence that ‘signs & wonders are becoming passé.’ Though he noted that

sightings of fairies are on the increase  - not something you would likely

predict. Though it probably reveals both that the human spirit has a need

for this kind of imaginal thinking and that all phenomena within it go

through peaks and troughs of activity and always have.



So I would not necessarily write UFOs off just yet as consigned to history.


Paul Hammond noted several undoubtedly correct reasons for the present

downturn – that we all spend so much time looking at screens rather than

the sky, for instance. Plus that we have become familiar with many things

that in the past have generated UFO reports but were really IFOs – such as

satellites and fire lanterns. Something new will come along to trigger other

UFO waves soon – maybe ‘specially adapted’ toy drones



Robert himself pointedly asked - who needs real aliens when you have the

stuff Hollywood can produce in such realistic fashion these days?



Maybe that is relevant, that our need to dream is fulfilled in other ways.


Robert further flagged up what he called ‘the death of the expert’. He

means the lack of an authority figure for people to contact – so they either

‘keep a sighting to themselves or report it to other witnesses, who have

taken the role of trusted people over that of "UFO experts"’. You will see

later in this issue an actual witness talking in not dissimilar terms.



This is a valid suggestion, because we have always needed that point of

contact to bring in reports – most witnesses having no awareness of our

insular world so, unless they have a way to report via a TV show or a

lecture or an address in the back of a book, how would they know where to

go other than another person who confides in them that they have seen

one too?



In the past that would have led to the formation of a local UFO group by

witnesses bonding together out of mutual interest. This gave a new access

road to discovering future sightings. We live in a world where that no

longer happens. At best they will chat about it on Facebook or some social

media site - isolating one another from the world by accident.



Robert adds wisely that – unlike 20/30 years ago -  ‘UFOs are an everyday

thing today, a significant number of people believe in them and don't

require validation from an expert. They know what they saw.....’



This is true but also if you see a UFO then you no longer need to seek out

someone who ‘knows about these things’ as you can Google it and educate

yourself in minutes. Though how accurately you will be informed by that

process is rather up to the whims of fortune and what potentially crackpot

idea has made its way up the search agent’s rankings that week to be the

first thing you are directed towards.



As President Trump might say, your perhaps very important close

encounter might get swamped by ‘fake news’ and disappear up the Uranus

of someone telling you about the demonic beings who have taken over the

body of the President and anyone else of note….because….well, because

they are talking out of their Uranus probably.   So another key piece of

UFO data is swamped by on line drivel and lost forever.



Robert Moore added here that UFOs ‘are often encompassed within the

concept of "conspiracy theories" - the ultimate kiss of death for any

subject wanting to be taken seriously’. 



So your sighting would once have been taken on by BUFORA or a local

investigation group and be thoroughly researched and documented and

published in the then serious UFO literature.



But these days it gets dumped alongside all those tales of beings from

Uranus and its credibility as far as the rest of the world is concerned is lost

to posterity as it lacks investigative validation.



Robert rather cleverly phrased where this all left us : - ‘Culturally, the UFO

is far from dead - they live well in our mental worlds - but not so much in

our physical one!’



My take on this discussion at the time was to say that: ‘In my view most of

the points raised are contributing to the drop in interest but the key one is

the rise of virtual everything versus real life anything….social media have

basically become life and living life has paled. You can look up anything

and assume you know everything without getting up off your seat - let

alone head off on a cold night to a UFO window area or to track down and

interview a witness.



UFO investigation groups - once thriving in every town - are on the

endangered species list. And on top of all of that UFOs always have risen

and fallen in numbers and we may well just be in a lull. This lull could be

spiced up by cultural apathy that always follows a Fortean phenomenon

after it survives a few decades and has basically stood still throughout that

time.’



Trying to think of a positive way forward I suggested: ‘The only way to

revive UFOlogy is probably to reinvent it as something else.’



If we start over again we just might find what we were always looking for

but somehow got lost on the way toward trying to find it.



Just how we reinvent UFOlogy as something else - though - is quite another

matter.



Any ideas, please let us know!
 
 
 
 


North Wales Attempted Abduction


 
Yorkshire UFO investigator Sacha Christie - one of the public battlers with

Rendlesham witness Larry Warren last year -  has left that ongoing

internet fight for a while to relate a detailed first hand encounter that she

had in North Wales 20 years ago.



Her account appears in full on her blog, which is typically to the point of

her strong views on UFOs.  Well worth you taking a look.



Sacha Christie - Infomaniac Housewife


It caught my attention for several personal reasons.
 

One of these is the date, which coincidentally happens to have great

personal resonance for me.

 


The other is the location – the Berwyn Mountains of North Wales – which is

a remote spot I visited often with Paul because his family owned a caravan

by the River Dee near the village of Llandrillo. During the 70s and 80s we

visited there for weekends or longer on his Triumph Bonneville. Indeed we

were staying there in 1981 when reporters for a tabloid pursued me trying

to get me to reveal Alan Godfrey’s identity when they first broke the story

of the Zigmund Adamski mystery death – as explained in Alan’s new book

Who or What Were They?

 


Llandrillo also was the scene of the celebrated ‘UFO crash’ (or earthquake/

meteor/ rabbit poachers using spotlamps   - if you follow the conclusions

of UFO researcher Andy Roberts).

 


This was in 1974 and made national news at the time. Indeed it was widely

believed that some military operation had searched for and found a

downed UFO by locals. They chatted about this to Paul and I in the pub

when we visited the area and they had no idea of our UFO background as

this was before my first book was published in 1979.

 


Most likely these folk witnessed some military activity as we encountered

plenty of field exercises during our time walking between there and Bala

or Llangollen. And after the ‘crash’ there were some scientists wandering

the moors because it was thought possible the meteor had come down

locally (though it hadn’t) and these are of great interest in helping define

our knowledge of the solar system.

 

There are also comparisons with the case 6 years later in Rendlesham

Forest, of course.  Most are obvious but one of the least well known

concerns the appearance of a shadowy bunch of ‘rogue’ UFO ‘investigators’

calling themselves APEN (Aerial Phenomena Enquiry Network) who

created mayhem in northern UFO research during the 70s and 80s.

 

They were particularly active in two episodes – one being the ‘crash’ near

Llandrillo in 1974 and the other being Rendlesham in 1980. 

 

I will say more about APEN in a separate article next issue as they pose

interesting new questions based on some new data. But for now you can

see why anything happening in these parts has my attention.



‘The inane ramblings of an Anti-Pharmageddonist,Ufoologist,UFO Witness,

Experiencer, Sensitive, Par-abnormal Investigator, Agenda Bender,

TruthFINDER, Writer, Speaker, Artist, Poet, Web addict and Red Pill Rebel

Without a Pause.’



This is how Sacha introduces her report on 2 February 2018 called - A Group

Close Encounter, UFO landing in Wales, February 1997.



The incident was on 4 February 1997 and she says that it has a major

psychological reaction when every anniversary approaches. I get that

because my own resonance with 4 February – which has nothing at all to

do with UFOs – leaves me similarly distracted.

 


Sacha adds that others in the party who shared the close encounter 20

years ago have reported similar annual psychological stress around the

time even though they did not recall the exact date.  Close Encounters in

my experience certainly can profoundly destabilise the life of a witness

over the years. Alan Godfrey is again one who can testify to that.

 


A party of  6 (two of whom were young children aged 4 or 5)  went to a

cottage at Glyn Cieriog, about 8 miles across the Berwyn tops east of

Llandrillo. Around 7 pm on 4 February 1997 Sacha’s boyfriend called her

down from where she was planning a bath and showed her through the

kitchen door some lights in the distance.

 

It was a heavy winter with low cloud. I recall from my stays around there

how because you are quite elevated but confused as to this by the flowing

River Dee when any low ceiling clings to the mountains it can seem alive –

almost emerging from the slopes as if rising heavenward. Mists can

encircle you quickly too.

 

It took her a while to see what her friend was pointing at – ‘a little squiggle

of light’ as she described it. She told him it was just lightning, a fair

assessment as it was intermittent.  He told her to keep watching and it

became obvious there was too uniform a pattern in the flashes to be

lightning. 

 

Sacha realised that the cause of this was around five miles north-west

around the small village of Berwyn which I again recall well because Paul

and I used to ride out to this quiet lovely spot beside a chain bridge. In

those days the railway between Llangollen and Bala had recently closed

and the trackbed lay empty and derelict. Today it is thriving as the line has

been reopened from Llangollen, through Berwyn, on to Corwen and is a

popular tourist attraction using steam trains.  

 

Back in 1997 - after five minutes of pulsating the light grew much brighter.

It moved in a zig zag towards the startled group. Then it was directly ahead

and took on the appearance of an ‘enormous jelly fish rippling bright white

but gentle pink, yellow and hints of green through the clouds’.

 

Sacha says the light show was very bright and ‘made the clouds look like

mashed potato with light beaming through it’. Hence the rippling effect

that made it look like a jellyfish.

 


By now all five of them were outside the cottage they were staying in and

it seemed to hover over a field, obscured within the clouds, before edging

right over the top of them.

 


They stood in silence, not talking, just stunned by the sight. Only

afterwards they wondered why nobody thought to call for help, such as

from the police.

 


Then, as they all stared heavenward, Sacha says that an orange strobe

light appeared on the wall of the house to her right. As she switched

attention she then saw a large sphere on the ground with steam or mist

swirling all around as it pulsated slowly.

 

At this point her young son was shaking, and screamed that a hand had

just touched his foot through a small hedge.  So she yelled out for them all

to return inside the cottage.  And immediately they did as if the close

encounter had never happened

 

Her boyfriend started drying the dishes. The children began playing. The TV

was switched on. Only Sacha seemed mystified by this behaviour.  So she

screamed that she was heading back out there -  ignored by the others.



 
Unsure even now why she left her child inside she walked towards the

sphere that had landed nearby - now a very dull grey, no longer pulsating

light.

 

Sacha recalls being baffled as to how she was doing this without fear and

in a ‘switched off’ state of mind. Possibly in the grip of the Oz factor.

 

On approaching the landed UFO she could see that it had a ring of lights

that were around sixty feet wide and ‘lines of light, like florescent strips’

emerging from the centre. It ‘looked like the underneath of a mushroom

white circle in the middle, fins going to the edges’.

 

She kept asking herself why she was out there stood next to this thing in a

‘switched off state of incredulity’. Then heard ‘bare feet running towards

me, fast’ and ‘something bump into my lower back as if it was running past

me(which) dragged my jumper with it’.

 

It was running towards a nearby stone wall but there was no sound of a

collision. She fled inside the cottage where it all became ‘surreal’.

 

Her senses went out of synch in an over-reaction of compensation. Sounds

seemed too loud and sights too bright - she was ‘utterly freaked out’.

 

Sacha and her boyfriend and son booked a taxi to Wrexham and fled the

cottage making their way back to Yorkshire by bus. It left her with a

terrible legacy of fear.  For many years the group were driven apart by

these events and thirteen years later when they traced each other again it

was clear they had also been impacted – though none had reported what

happened or wanted to discuss it.  She had really hoped that one of them

had discovered a simple explanation.  But none had.

 

Sacha’s blog is well worth reading because this is just a summary of her

account and she has telling comments about the state of the UFO

community and how and why cases of this magnitude might not be getting

through.

 


This actualises the debate just reported in this issue about how and

why we might not be uncovering the true extent of the ongoing UFO

phenomenon in 2018.

 


Sacha refers to a lack of ‘respect in the community’  and that amidst

‘professional UFO researchers’ and ‘professional speakers’ that ‘witnesses

aren't good enough these days unless they are all polished and ready to

speak at a conference and do the radio circuit’.

 

She chastises the lack of support for witnesses and the risks of hypnotic

regression. I agree. Back in the 70s and 80s when there was still a UFO

community we did try to create a code of practice to recognise many of

these things. Paul and I travelled the country on that Triumph Bonneville

where we held several discussions in far flung cities from Swindon to

Nottingham.

 

The result was a ‘code of practice’ that recognised the witness as

fundamental to any case and tried to build in some protection rather than

exploitation. It prioritised anonymity unless or until a witness chose to go

public themselves and eventually a voluntary ban on the use of hypnosis.


 It was I think important at that time and adopted by BUFORA later who

even would not accredit investigators unless they accepted this code.

Some refused and were thus not allowed to act in that capacity.

 


With the demise of UFO groups as an active reality and the rise of UFOlogy

via internet, chat shows and commercialised events I am not sure how

much of that code has survived or is even remembered that it once

existed.  Certainly, given what Sacha says in her blog she must feel not a

lot. 

 

As she puts it of the UFO community – ‘Generally everyone else knows

better than the witness and the only person who is ever wrong is the

person who had the sighting!’


 
I can imagine that it must feel like that at times and how frustrating that

has got to be - hence spending so much time discussing her comments.

 
 
I think they pose questions that we ought to be considering anew as we

have moved away from bothering about witnesses too much. Yet they are

at the epicentre of every UFO event. We, as analysts, are of secondary

importance coming in afterwards attempting to make sense of what they

say.

 

Though often only hearing in what they say what we want to hear.  We

probably need to take more seriously some of the things that seem more

incidental - such as the emotions and after effects described by Sacha

here.

 

The witness is at the heart of any UFO experience and, whilst we have to

be able to regard what they say with objectivity and assess and theorise

around the events, we also should not forget that they were there and we

were not.  

 

UFOlogy has become an internet fuelled industry and it may well have had

an effect on how willing people are to come forward and tell their stories

today.

 

One of the reasons I created Ozfactorbooks alongside the release of Alan

Godfrey’s book telling his own story was because I think it is time that

more witnesses take that kind of opportunity afforded by the ease of

reaching out these days and telling their story widely in their own words.  

 


It is too easy for those of us who investigate in an almost abstract sense to

forget the life changing consequences that having a close encounter can

bring to someone.

 

I saw Alan’s story was bringing that point home  spectacularly and so was

happy to go all out and help him to get across to as many people as

possible this side of the equation. It reveals a truer essence of the UFO

mystery than anyone endeavouring to explain things away can ever hope

to do.  

 

I am as conscious as anyone that I have only told part of the story and it is

important that witnesses do so for themselves. So I will endeavour to use

Ozfactors books to promote what they want to say. This is a free site with

no financial aspirations or to do anything but tell it like it really is out

there.

 

In that sense the platform is yours. So, by all means, tell us your

experiences and what you think of UFOlogy in 2018! Just contact me (even

in confidence)

 

nufon@btinternet.com.
 
 
 


STATES OF MIND


 
 
One final observation I will make about Sacha’s story concerns the state of

consciousness that she describes in the period after it ended. How

common is that reference to an altered state where senses go haywire

once the UFO itself has departed?

 


It might be very important. In fact, whilst it used to be thought (even by

me) that the Oz Factor state occurs immediately before and during a close

encounter we must regard another possibility - that it continues

afterwards in perhaps a different form.

 

What is the Oz Factor anyway?  I don’t pretend to actually know. I only

coined the word as shorthand for a set of symptoms that witnesses were

describing immediately before and during the close encounter they had.

 

It was typified by an odd state of mind where the perception of time and

space altered in ways that were out of the norm. So ambient sounds would

fade away, time would stretch and seem almost meaningless and there

was a sense of awe and emotional suspension that was almost mystical.

 

Does this cause the experience to happen - almost like shifting onto a

different mental plane that allows you access to the extraordinary? Or is it

caused by the experience itself - a physiological reaction to energy emitted

by the UFO that alters awareness and adapts the chemical responses

within our being to subsequently manifest as strange moods and

behaviours?

 

If so these can certainly be expected to outlast the event itself by a time.

That is, of course, what Sacha’s story suggests.

 

So are there other examples? There certainly are. Here are just a few.
 

A family were on a shopping trip on 8 August 1992 near Hockliffe in

Bedfordshire. The adults and two young daughters were amusing

themselves on the busy road by singing Beatles songs.

 


Suddenly everything changed and the children stopped singing mid note.

The adults described it as an inward focusing of consciousness that just

took over - ‘like going in on ourself’.

 


Everything around them then stopped. No traffic sounds or noise of car on

road. All four occupants were silent. They were also immersed within a

weird light in the form of a curtain of mist around the car. Time stretched

out and stopped. Then they just ‘emerged’ and all sounds were back.

 

Except they were not physically located where they had been and, it

turned out, had travelled around 8 miles whilst within the Oz factor

without any memory of doing so.

 

They continued to their destination at the stores but none of them

recovered quickly. For hours afterward the children were totally subdued

and the adults in a peculiar state of sullenness that they could not shake  -

along with physical sensations such as tingling, muscle paralysis and

shooting pains akin to electricity coursing through them.

 

They were also, as the husband put it, ‘out of synch with reality’ for several

hours afterwards. The mother struggled to operate the car door handle

and kept missing it with her grasp. Her husband’s coordination was so

scrambled he could not operate the pump to fuel the car.

 

This persisted for the rest of the day and they were so taken over by this

lingering Oz factor that they even drove to her mother’s house and

seriously asked her if they were dead! It felt to them as if they were ghosts

trying to function in a sensory world that had phased out of somehow.

 

Happily they recovered the next day with only minor ongoing effects.
 

An almost identical aftermath to an encounter was described to me by a

man who was walking through Delamere Forest in Cheshire seeking a lift

at 3 am on 29 June 1971. An electric blue light appeared. His travelling

companion fled in terror but he became ‘oddly calm’, walked towards it

and then mysteriously found himself walking out of the woods some

distance away.

 

He was left for hours where his senses ‘were out of line’ and his ‘body

coordination was out of synch’. His senses also seemed oddly heightened

like the aftermath of taking hallucinogenic drugs - which he had not.

 

Then in Oxford, Maine, on 27 October 1975 two men in their car were

surrounded by another glowing light but they lost all sense of time and

space and came to inside a greyish mist over a mile away with no clue how

they had got there.

 

For some hours they felt completely disorientated and they could not

coordinate their bodies to even stand properly. They could not form words

or hold anything in their hands and it took hours to regain normal

functions. One said it felt like being a baby and having to relearn how to

do the things we all take for granted.  They saw what they knew was the

moon but it appeared to their senses differently with a strange hue.

 

It took a day for them to ‘return’ to the world they lived in before they

encountered the UFO and the Oz factor took hold.

 

In another case I was told when in Boulder, Colorado on a road trip with Dr

J Allen Hynek a couple driving at Longmont on 19 November 1980 - just a

week before Alan Godfrey’s experience - were surrounded by a blue glow. 

 

Within moments the radio filled with static, the headlights failed and they

felt like they were ‘sucked up’ into the sky. A glowing mist now surrounded

them and they ‘came to’ further along the road with no idea how they got

there and an hour later with no conscious gap in time.

 

The comparisons with Alan Godfrey’s account are obvious here and in the

prior reports. These are far too consistent not to be important clues

pointing us towards something.  

 

Again in Colorado for several days afterwards they were ‘not right’. Indeed

the wife, who was pregnant, was hospitalised as a precaution and

thankfully the child was born safely but prematurely a few days later.

 

Meanwhile her husband was just as disorientated. He had no bodily

coordination and could not walk properly. They stopped at a garage to try

to recover from this aftermath but he could not even walk through the

door to get help as he was unable to gauge doing so without bumping into

the doorframe repeatedly. He said the attendant assumed he was drunk.

 

Gradually both returned to normal but as these stories show (and I have

many more) coming out of the far side of the Oz factor is in many ways

more traumatic than the experiencing of it whilst the UFO event is

happening.

 

So Sacha’s story is certainly not a surprise to me and may, in fact, tell us

something highly significant about the nature of the UFO phenomenon.

 
 
 


DAVID CLARK FINDS THE SILPHO SAUCER
 
 
One of the great artefacts of British UFO history has been found by Dr

David Clarke, the Sheffield Hallam University lecturer who steered release

of the MoD UFO files over the past decade.  Or at least bits of it have!

 

Some 35 years ago David was a teenage UFO investigator whose cases

often featured in this magazine. Later Andy Roberts and I co-authored a

book with him regarding the value of solved UFO cases (The UFOs that

never were, London House 2000).

 

David released the news of his accidental discovery to the Yorkshire Post -

he used to be a reporter - on 8 February and the full story will be told by

him in an article for Fortean Times next month.

 

It happened when he was lecturing at the British museum in London about

the completion of the release of all the MOD UFO files now they can be

accessed by any member of the public. He was told by a staff member that

they had bits of a UFO in their store room and did he want to see it.

 

It turned out to be from the missing ‘object’ that ‘crashed’ on Silpho Moor

near Scarborough on 21 November 1957.  Only weeks after the Russians

sent the first Sputnik into space.  These remains were sent to the museum

in 1963 for analysis as a potential ‘space’ junk and stored ever since.

 

I reported my investigation into this case in UFO Retrievals (Blandford,

1995). We knew that three men had claimed to be driving on the moors

when something was seen in the sky. One climbed a rise looking for it and

allegedly saw embedded in the soil a small saucer shaped object - 18

inches diameter and 9 inches high and weighing 15 kg.



Of course, this means that if real it would have to be piloted by VERY little

green men.  But the adventurous witness was not alone - as a couple were

nearby who claimed to have seen it fall.

 

He returned to drag his disbelieving companions up Reasty Hill but when

they got there the couple and UFO were gone.  The companions

disbelieved him but determined to prove his story he put an advert in the

local paper and was contacted by the couple who agreed to sell the UFO

for £10 -  hundreds of pounds in today’s money - after quite a bit of

haggling.

 

I got involved many years later - by which point it had long reputed to have

ended up on display in a seaside café and then just disappeared.

 

Living in Stockport  I got to know Dr John Dale, a psychologist, who was a

pioneer investigator with the local group DIGAP in the 50s and

investigated some of the classic cases of the era when I was at school -

including this one. I was really there to discuss (and experience) regression

hypnosis so I could write about this with direct knowledge when assessing

abduction cases. But Dr Dale’s stories of 1950s UFO cases (even long before

my time as a UFO researcher began!)  were fascinating

 

John gave me access to his files  but would not let me copy them - so I saw

his interviews and the photos he took of the intact object before it was

dismantled for study. And I read the results of analysis carried out by a

metallurgist at Manchester University.

 

Opening the object there was no propulsion system inside and just a coil

and a series of 17 thin copper sheets that had very simplistic hieroglyphs

etched onto them as a kind of scroll book.

 

I possibly even met the scientist by chance as I visited the metallurgy

department when I was at the University studying physics (though without

knowing this story about his role in this case unfortunately - or I would

have asked questions). The report that I read at Dr Dale’s was conclusive -

though - and proved that the ‘saucer’ was not extra-terrestrial in origin.

 


The materials were just lead and copper - good quality but with signs of

machining and the symbols etched onto it using a metal stylus. The

scientist’s tests established that it could not have been heated by the

friction it would have faced if entering the atmosphere from space. It

came from Earth.

 

Dr Dale also got a language expert at the University to translate the

symbols. It was very easy as the code was simple.  Based only on a simple

L shape in various clock face orientations. Not exactly the product of an 

extra-terrestrial Einstein.

 

The message  - which I read - was a very silly story and in a 2000 word tale

allegedly from a male and female alien (Ullo and Tarngee) warned humans

never to fly into space as we would not survive the physical forces. There

was some childish chatter about alien views on rock music and how they

had four women for every man on their world’. It was really as far from an

alien reality as you could imagine and very much an obvious joke.


Of course, we DID fly into space under 4 years later when Yuri Gagarin 

became the first astronaut. The rest of the message was riddled with

equally dated 1950s 'banter' and in places typically sexist of the Earth

of that era. Though I guess on other worlds they might have 4 female

ETs to every 1 male, it strikes me as more likely the fantasy of the -

very terrestrial - hoaxer.

 

This whole case was self-evidently a hoax but, indeed, what a hoax. The

metallurgist said that the cost of materials and skilled manpower to create

the saucer exceeded the sum paid to purchase it several times over and

the motive for doing this at all is obscure given that nobody ever really

seemed to gain anything or took any credit so far as we know.

 

Now that David Clark has found the remains that had been stored in a ‘tin’

and kept in the Museum for 55 years we might find further answers via the

inevitable publicity that will follow.   The hunt is on to try to trace the rest 

and there are even plans (the BBC report) for the Museum to put it on 

display next year now that they have recognised its cultural interest. 

 

We are also trying to chase up John Dale’s files and hope that they were

retained by someone after his death - believed to be a few years ago.


 
So if you knew John Dale or have any clues as to the whereabouts of his

UFO records then please let me know.

 

Exactly who built this wannabee crashed spaceship and what they hoped

to achieve by creating modern folklore we may never know after so many

years. All the main participants are gone, sadly, as may be whoever went

to the trouble of making this object.

 

Though one thing is for sure - whoever that was it was not two love struck

aliens called Ullo and Tarngee! 


Happy intergalactic Valentine’s Day!










Picture
Picture


















































190  January 2018




EDITOR: JENNY RANDLES     COVER PHOTO: BBC



Address: 10 Marton Green, Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8LT


Email:
nufon@btinternet.com


Contents:   Aliens are out there special edition











 


        The cover photo dates back to the very early days of Northern UFO News in

October 1975. It was the first ever TV show written and presented entirely by UFO


investigators in the UK and must have been one of the first anywhere in the world.

 
       The programme was part of Open Door – a BBC 2
series when that channel was

still in its infancy. This
allowed you to write and present an argument for some


message that you were trying to convey that was not
getting time on TV otherwise.

 
        We filmed that episode the same day as another
feature on Chicken’s Lib – and

the chickens thought they
were starring in The Great Escape and chaos ensued.  


They wrecked the set back drop and my handbag had to
be used as a prop to plug a

hole they chewed through it! 


 
         Those involved in this great opportunity that we  
blagged our way into getting

out of the BBC were
part of the then trailblazing alliance of
independent local

groups, UFO societies then being common in every  
town. We shared resources,

pooled data and arranged joint conferences and publications.

 


      We united to argue why UFO investigation should be
taken seriously from a script

that I
  helped to write. My first serious UFO writing outside a few issues of Northern


UFO News beginning earlier that year but this was nationwide on the BBC!
 

     The programme resulted in nearly 200 sightings
coming into NUFON for

investigation by the groups in the
network. I will look at some of them next month.


       Left to right:   Mike Dean, of the Wirral UFO Society, Peter Warrington of the


Manchester UFO Research Association, who later wrote 2 books and an article for

New Scientist with me, Trevor Whitaker, Yorkshire UFO coordinator for BUFORA – the

British UFO Research Association, Jenny Randles (this was my first ever TV

appearance aged 23) and Roger
Stanway, who was part of the Staffordshire UFO

group  at Newchapel
Observatory and a superb investigator and Chairman of BUFORA.

 

        Sadly Peter Warrington is the only one other than me still  in the field 43 years

later. Even he has been out of UFO research for a good while but we caught up a few

weeks ago and had a good chat about how things have changed across the decades. 


You might not have heard the last of him just yet.





THIS EDITION OF NORTHERN UFO NEWS DOES NOT FOLLOW THE USUAL PATTERN

WITH REVIEWS AND SIGHTING REPORTS. THESE WILL RETURN NEXT TIME IN THE 

FEBRUARY ISSUE. HERE WE ARE LOOKING AT SOME MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS IN THE

SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE THAT ALL OCCURRED LATE IN 2017.


    


JR Comments:


 
      
For many years there has been an almost assumed belief that UFOs and alien

visitors are one and the same. Prove the existence of one thing and you will establish

the reality of the other.



        Of course, the truth is quite different. UFOs stand or fall as something unresolved

on their own merit and very few of them have ever provided pointers towards proof

of alien existence.



        Ironically, science has moved in the opposite direction. In the early 1970s when I

was at college in Manchester I took astronomy classes from one of the first

researchers looking for alien worlds around other stars. His name was Professor

Zdenek Kopal.



        In reality he was an expert in binary stars near the Earth – systems where two

stars rotate around each other and as a result distort the orbits of one another. Much

like the Earth and the Moon are almost twin planets orbiting a common point because

the relative sizes are much closer to one another than moons and planets tend to be.



        The gravitational effects of this mutual interaction on orbits is very clear to all of

us on Earth – as the pull the Moon has on our seas causes the bulge that results in the

tides that drive a lot of our weather.



        So whilst observing how twin stars interact with one another he had to be aware

of the possibility of complicating factors caused by large planets circling either star in

the mix. Yet these were impossible to see at vast distances from Earth as they will not

be visible against the huge glare of the star they orbit.



        Back then methods for seeking out planets around other suns in this way were

very restricted. We had only just put capsules into space and were still landing on the

Moon – in fact we got some moon rock to look at in these classes because of the

university operation of Jodrell Bank. They were involved in NASA missions and indeed

Kopal had coordinated the mapping of the Moon for use by the Apollo landings –

hence my thrill at getting to see real Moon rock at such a very early stage.



        The primitive search for other planets meant that scientists had to look very

carefully at stars through the best telescopes on Earth and seek very tiny wobbles in

their orbit. These resulted from the gravity of very large planets tugging on their Sun

as they revolved around it.



        Finding Earth sized planets was impossible then and finding anything at all as

much guesswork as evidence.



        Still Kopal was convinced there was good enough data to think that a couple of

stars nearby had gas giants larger than Jupiter in orbit. And if these existed –

he believed – it stood to reason they were common out there and that probably a few

stars had planets that were sufficiently Earth like to be potential homes for life.



        He was surprisingly downbeat about this likelihood. Not a fan of UFO reports

which he considered were all hoaxes or mistakes (I did ask him) he nonetheless was

very adamant of the consequence of us finding a potentially habitable world out

there.



        I recall his chilling words across almost half a century. ‘If we hear the space

phone ringing we should hang up and not answer.’



        He explained that it would be like us going into the jungle and assuming a lion or

a tiger would come up to us and ask for a saucer of milk. They are more likely to treat

us as a threat or prey and, if unprepared, we would be in danger.



        Modern astronomy has improved in leaps and bounds. Take computers for

example.



        We had one at Manchester, where Alan Turing, of course, had lived so this was

one of the key places where computers were invented. That one was the size of a

room and far less powerful than the one on the phone you carry.



        Today’s computers can do far more and much faster and identify ‘wobbles’ around

stars and other measurements such as minute light output as planets pass in front of

suns.



        Moreover, we have other methods not possible until the last 20 years – such as

telescopes in space above the atmosphere linked to computers and able to give visual

unobstructed views with far better definition than even giant ones on Earth could

achieve.



        We even now have ways to discover the elements in the atmosphere and

extrapolate a good estimate of what the planet will look like.



        From all the options now available over recent years the number of proven

planets around other stars has risen dramatically from a handful to thousands. New

discoveries are made every week.



        From all this we now know for certain that it is extremely common for stars to

have formations of planets around them like our Sun does. And that the make up –

small, large, some rocky with atmospheres, others dense gas giants like Jupiter or

Saturn is not far removed from what we see sharing orbit of our Sun with us.



        Just before Christmas the discovery was announced of a planetary system with

the same number of planets and a similar mix to our own solar system around a

distant star.  That means there will be countless others like it yet to be found and that

it is a virtual certainty that planets with similar conditions to Earth are common ‘out

there’.



        Whilst this does not prove that any of them harbour life, it means that is now far

more a probability than a possibility.  Aliens almost certainly ARE out there on some

well favoured planets that had just the right conditions for it . Not

necessarily close enough to easily get here. But real.



        This is, of course, as big a discovery as finding microbes on Mars (another equally

likely possibility given methane changes also recently found there).



        As Spielberg might say – We are not alone. 


        The question is whether that directly says anything about the nature and reality

of the UFO mystery. But this was given an interesting twist in the weeks before

the year's end.



            

 


If we hear that space phone ringing - oh boy!



 
      When I was first hearing Kopal speak those words about alien contact

 

almost five decades ago they really inspired me. My brother was in a group that,

whilst they never turned professional, had some success touring the North. Indeed

they are named on the wall of the Cavern Club in Liverpool as one of those who

played alongside the likes of the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers.

 


        In my fledgling days as a writer I did help write some songs – one based

on what Kopal had said.

       

        It contained words like:
 

Somewhere in the far off depths of space

(don’t answer, don’t answer, hang up)

There is someone looking at the human race

(don’t answer, don’t answer, hang up)

They have eyes on everything that you do

(don’t answer, don’t answer, hang up)

If you don’t watch out they’ll be coming for you

(don’t answer, don’t answer, hang up)

 

The space phone’s ringing – oh boy

The space phone’s ringing – oh joy

The space phone’s ringing – out across the universe.
 


        And if you think that was bad it got even worse! Though to be fair I was still in

my teens so.... 

 

  
      Most of my song lyrics were – it will be no surprise to hear – frankly weird.

The reaction of the group usually comprised of head shakes, mumbling and words like

– what the *!*! is that supposed to mean?

 

  
      Needless to say that ‘ditty’ was never in much danger of being heard ringing

around the Cavern and I soon decided on a different way of getting my thoughts

across by writing prose instead - though I never stopped trying out lyrics.   


 
      
But at least the above shows how Professor Kopal’s concerns about these things

had taken root in my head and the key facts were not going away.

 


        So what happens if there is life out in those distant solar systems? Do we answer

Kopal’s space phone or pretend that we are out?

       


        If you were a very clever ant and found a mobile phone and it rang - what then? 

Do you announce your presence as an intelligent species to the caller without a clue

who or what that entity is and, more importantly, if they could trace where you were

and had the ability to come find you pretty fast.

       


        You might be expecting to say hi to another creature not wildly unlike an ant and

of similar intelligence and sharing your ant like concerns. Not a being who is

thousands of times bigger and heavier than you are such as any typical human and

who could crush you underfoot by accident or design and without knowing or thinking

just by coming to find where you are.

 


        We are teased by all those science fiction movies to imagine that aliens will be

more or less like us with a few extra digits or big eyes and a green cast – plus a slight

difference in technical ability. But look at the vast array of life on our one planet or

what meeting the dominant life form from a past era on this world might entail. 

 


        A spaceship full of T Rexes would not be what you were expecting to come

crashing out of a flying saucer saying take me to your leader – we’re a bit peckish

after a long flight from zeta reticulii.

 



        So how should we react if there are real signs that scientists might regard as a bit

more meaningful than flying saucer reports that aliens might actually be out there

and are trying to attract our attention?

 


        In December a research study by two astronomers  claimed to have found 234

possible intelligent species ‘out there’ around other stars as we are slowly one by one

searching for planets. This is a task that will take decades as there are rather a lot of

them in the cosmos.

 


        Ermanno Borra at Laval University in Canada suggested a few years ago that we

might seek out communications beamed our way using lasers as the coherence and

intensity of these beams are well known.

 


        Just small toy lasers can blind pilots flying thousands of feet above your head and

have led to criminal prosecutions in the UK from idiots doing this on aircraft passing

near my home in Stockport on final approach to Manchester Airport. 

 


        Other lasers are used to measure distances with phenomenal accuracy and can

be beamed from the Earth to our Moon with almost no ‘spread’ of the beam 

unlike when, for example, you shine an ordinary flashlight onto a wall just a few feet

away.  

 



        Borra suggested a search using computers for evidence of tiny variations in the

light of stars potentially caused by aliens on an orbiting planet beaming the advanced

ET version of Morse code signals through the universe. And one of his graduates – Eric

Trottier – decided to look for just that.

 


        He used computers to search 2.5 million stars and seek out what could be such a

laser message. And he found what he was looking for in 234 of them.

 


        That, of course, is a tiny number – just one in ten thousand of the ones scanned.

But IF these really are messages from species who have figured out this is a simple

and energy efficient way to say ‘hello’ to others out there then that number is huge

and means millions of alien civilisations must actually be out there looking for us.

       

        The messages have the predicted periodicity (
1.65 picoseconds)  and they are

nearly all coming from planets around stars like our Sun that would have the best

chance of having planets with life similar to us. That is an interesting coincidence.



        Borra is impressed and claimed that “intuitively’’ he strongly suspects  ‘’it is an ETI

signal.” 



        Other astronomers disagree and think it more likely there will be a natural

explanation rather than alien yobs beaming lasers at us in some cosmic attention

grabbing exercise. 


        Indeed we have been here before when, for instance, pulsars were

first detected by radio telescope by Jocelyn Bell in November 1967 their vast energy

and regularity got some astronomers excited that these might be calls from distant

species out into the cosmos calling attention to themselves. 


        Even Jocelyn Bell herself admitted it crossed their mind and (mostly in jest)

labelled the signal LGM-1 (for Little Green Men) before it got its proper

astronomical term after the origin was identified.



        They turned out to massive energy from rotating neutron stars - a major

discovery with great uses in stellar cartography but not as exciting to the

world at large as a ringing space phone from ET.



        However, the Lick Observatory in California is sufficiently interested in these

new findings to start a programme that will search through the stars that have been

flagged up by Borra and Trottier and assess the make up of any planetary systems

they find around them from which such laser like messages might reasonably be

beamed.



        Nonetheless it is fair to say that most astronomers  are less than convinced and

think the chances of this really being the first detection of alien messages from out

there are basically zero.  They remember false dawns like pulsars too well.



        No doubt we will find out more once that search of the 234 stars for planets is

carried out.



        Or will the findings of that scan just make the debate even more intriguing?

         It is literally a case of watch this space....



        Which brings us to Oumuamua - because here it started to look like maybe all

those chickens running round our BBC studio in 1975 had come home to roost.

 

 


Oumuamua

 

        Soon after the above stories came news that a very odd looking object had

headed our way from beyond the solar system – potentially one of those aliens come

to answer our own space phone perhaps – and origin unknown!



        The unusual name is an Hawaiian word stemming from its discovery in October

2017 from a large telescope there. By then it was 85 times further than the Moon from

 Earth – pretty close in cosmic terms – but already heading away from the Sun having

passed through our system on a long trek from somewhere else in the universe.



        Oumuamua means ‘scout’ and whilst first assumed to be a comet, then an

asteroid, the more we discovered as it passed by the more we realised it was neither

and whilst similar something brand new - the first thing we had seen in our system

that was conclusively not from round here.  It was moving so fast that it would never

be captured and stay part of our region of space by the Sun’s gravity like all the

planets, asteroids, meteors and comets we see all the time have been.



        Once gone Oumuamua would never return and would head off on a vast journey

of millions of years before it potentially passed any other planets like Earth around

the next star it happened upon.



        Unless, of course, Scout was a ‘scout ship’ roaming space looking for life and

being here was no accident as someone ‘out there’ had come to find out about life

on planets they had detected round OUR distant star.


        Indeed it reminded some people of a similar scenario predicted by the foresight

of British Science Fiction writer Arthur C Clarke, the man behind the movie 2001: A

Space Odyssey and the TV series that investigated UFOs and other events – The

Mysterious World of Arthur C Clarke.  He had penned a novel with just such an event

happening – Rendezvous with Rama - where Rama did turn out to be an alien probe.



        The size (800 feet long), reddish colour and very odd shape – not like normal

meteors or asteroids and resembling an aircraft fuselage or cigar – was another thing

that intrigued on first sight and gave some people pause to wonder if that space

phone had finally rung – or that Galactic Telecom had sent engineers our way to

demand we pay the bill!



        The fast speed, outward trajectory and darkish nature of what is a small object

explains why it was only seen when it was right on top of us and has limited the

window of visual observations from even large Earth based telescopes.



        We do know it headed to us from roughly the direction of the star Vega –

relatively close to Earth at 25 light years distant. This is a younger star than our Sun

and larger and bluer - but in a similar stage in its life cycle to ours.  No planets have

been found around it but evidence of debris from out of which planets might form.

Earth sized planets are very hard to detect around a star this big and bright by current

means.



        However, this does not mean too much because even at its fast speeds

Oumuamua has taken half a million years to get here from Vega and Vega was not

where it is now in relation to us at that time.  So it came from elsewhere really, such

being the factors of time, space and astronomical dynamics at these huge numbers



        It is already heading out of the solar system and, having intersected Earth’s orbit

days before first spotted it will pass the orbit of our outer planet Neptune in 2022 –

but will not actually leave the vast outer reaches of our solar system until about the

year 22018 AD!  Put a date in your diary perhaps and leave it to your ancestors.



        The media speculation that this was an alien probe was not entirely absurd and

many astronomers at least considered it possible – not least because of its shape and

the metal rich nature of its composition.  But it was always far more likely to be a

natural part of the cosmos that may well have been flying through the Milky Way (our

galaxy) for many millions of years. If it had stayed on a steady trajectory we could

have been the first planetary system it came anywhere near and that just by chance.



        Nonetheless the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia spent six hours

tuned into it across 4 frequency bands on 13 December 2017 just in case it had a space

phone aboard and this was still ringing.



        Nothing was detected that suggested it was an artificial object. And other studies

by radio telescopes used in the SETI project seeking messages from other stars also

found nothing.



        Even so Oumuamua is of huge interest to science and there are plans to try to

design a way to go study it. The fast speed taking it away from us makes that

impossible with any conventional technology and even something new and faster that

is theoretically possible would likely have to launch in the next few years or by the
 
time it met up with this cosmic voyager it would be so far away that it would make

study and getting data back to Earth hard.



        Nonetheless it is hoped that a ‘Rendezvous with Oumuamua’ might happen in real

life during the 2020s and whilst nobody expects it to turn out like it did in the Clarke

novel, this will be one of the great space missions in human history – genuinely

probing a true unknown.




                 A VERY HAPPY NEW  YEAR TO ALL READERS  

                                      













Picture
Picture




189    DECEMBER 2017


EDITOR: JENNY RANDLES            COVER PHOTO: ??????


Address: 10 Marton Green, Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8LT


Email:
nufon@btinternet.com


Contents:  Why FOs, Major articles elsewhere, The big debate - (F)lying saucers, Book of the moment, Britain's Roswell?, Investigations  - UFO stalker goes live in UK,  'UFO near miss at Heathrow', Isle of Man ship 'irradiated' by UFO, UFOs and atomic bomb blasts, Weird EM and Oz factor events in Co Durham, Coming Events








     The cover photo matches the theme of this month's editorial

See if you can solve this UFO encounter.

The answer is after the end of the editorial if you give up!









J.R. Comments…..



Why fos?

 


       One of the questions I have been asked about this monthly magazine since its

return, mostly by those unfamiliar with the original when it appeared between 1975

and 2002, is about the number of solved cases that appear as opposed to unexplained

reports.

       What’s that all about, seems to be the concern? Why IFOs (Identified Flying

Objects) rather than just publishing the unsolved cases that are coming in – sticking

to only UFOs in other words?


       It was always this way with NUN and there is a very simple reason why such cases

feature in here more than you might expect. Because there are far more out there

than the unexplained kind!

       At least 95% of sightings end up as what we might term Why fo’s?  So more

common by a factor of almost 20 to 1 and anybody researching any topic that has that

degree of disparity between its evidence is not doing their job properly without trying

to understand why.


       With UFOs the question is usually what could these unexplained phenomena

really be?


       But with IFOs it is often a different question - why was something simple radically

misperceived?


       These Why fos actually matter a great deal. For a start they pose a key question –

which is probably the first one all those interested in UFOs should ask before taking

that interest further.


       If we can solve the vast majority of cases as ordinary things then how do we know

we could not solve the rest of them given the appropriate time, data or just good

luck?


       That might seem almost heretical. I have actually had people accuse me of being a

government agent for even suggesting it.  But it is a really fundamental point about

the entire UFO mystery and if you do NOT consider that question at all then you are

simply investigating this subject from a biased perspective.


       No scientist studying any novel phenomenon would consider it undeniably real

without first being sure that is not something else already understood being

perceived slightly differently for some reason or another.


       If someone reports what looks like a new type of cloud, for instance, it has to be

measured against all the known types and meteorologists do not just leap to the

conclusion that this is a new one before being sure it is not an unusual version of one

already known.


       So if UFOlogy has any pretence to be some kind of scientific study it has to adopt

that same approach.


       Question number one must always be – is there a fundamental difference

between the majority – the solved cases – and the minority – those still defying

expectation?


       When in 1977 the French government created a team of scientists called GEPAN 

(Study Group into Unidentified Aerosopatial Phenomena) they did so attached to the

aviation and space research units at Toulouse. They did some splendid work in the 20

years or so they were involved and I met some of the scientists working in France and

the US was impressed with their clear sightedness on the Why fo problem.


       They tried to solve all their cases very hard and also cared about why IFOs were

perceived in the way that they were and what lessons can be learned from the

reasons why an IFO was reported as if it were a UFO.


       During the years that the French team were state funded they documented over

3000 cases that were studied in conjunction with the French police - the Gendarmerie.


       Many studies into the better cases (not deemed IFOs) were published as near

book length reports such as the landing with traces at Trans-en-Provence. If you can

read French try to access off the net as it is rare to have such work by scientists.


       The difference with the UK was marked. Here sightings – even those made BY the

police – were filed as a simple form and often left to rot until the 30 year rule led to

their eventual release as a set of basic near meaningless data with almost always no

actual follow up investigation or conclusion.


       Even then, almost inevitably with a bureaucracy saddled with a problem that they

did not really want, there were cases that went AWOL – such as any report into Alan

Godfrey’s case in Todmorden that we know was submitted by the police and that

someone claiming to be from the MoD had in their hands when interviewing this

witness as described in his new book. He enforced the Official Secrets Act onto Alan

whilst holding it.


       This is bound to lead to suspicions that the best cases were handed elsewhere for

further study and escaped release under Freedom of Information alongside the tens

of thousands of less promising ones. 


       Whilst that conclusion is in my view probably not true the possibility that it could

be fuels conspiratorial thinking. Even if it is more likely many files are just lost or

mislaid or are still out there in unexpected filing cabinets that one day might

resurface.


       Most UFO groups I have been involved with have a similar problem storing data as

there was rarely any money to fund doing so and if you scatter files then the better

ones inevitably drift from place to place.


       This is simply because they are the most interesting ones to active researchers

so these are bound to be the ones that get looked at most and may go astray.


       Conspiracy is the exciting conclusion many UFO researchers will leap to when in

truth cock up or simple carelessness is more the likely cause.


       Another study was carried out by the Battelle Institute in the early 1950s in the

USA as a series of quantitative tests looking for differences between the sub total of

IFO cases and the residual UFOs.


       GEPAN later found 14% unresolved and likely to be UFOs against 86% IFOs. But

were choosing the better cases to follow up. Yet with most UFO groups and military

studies like the US Air Force they collate all cases even if little investigation occurs

into them leading to the higher consistent IFO rate.


       Or, more often, a plethora of bits of paper not deemed unexplained but termed

‘insufficient data’.


       Battelle’s study found some things that might be considered scientific proof that

the unsolved cases really are different from the solved ones. They checked a number

of factors and this certainly appeared to suggest the two data sets were not entirely

aligned.


       In reality it was not quite so straightforward. For example they found that IFOs

were common in less clear atmospheric conditions and UFOs more common in good

visibility. But then poor visibility is bound to obscure or alter the perception of

mundane things to perhaps make them look strange.


       Does it really support the totally different nature of a UFO that these are often

seen in good conditions? To a degree, yes it might, but not quite to the extent we

assume.


       Nonetheless, you can only ask such questions and reach meaningful conclusions if

you investigate IFOs in the first place to allow for this kind of comparison.


       There are other reasons that the Why fo deserves our attention. They are by far

the best way to learn the art of becoming a UFOlogist.


       Unsolved cases seem impressive but will be in the great minority for every

investigator just because the long consistent data we have reveals that fact. They can

also be very frustrating as they leave you with just a set of questions and no real

answers. 


      Yet IFOs provide a trail of clues and evidence that you can follow towards a

reasoned conclusion.  They show the true way in which a UFO investigator has to act

as a paranormal detective.


       The purpose is to solve a case just like a detective must seek to solve a crime. In

neither case do you always succeed. But the satisfaction when you do should be

identical.


       It is from the experience of finding answers that we learn what methods to apply

to the next puzzling case that it becomes our job to solve.


       An extraordinary number of different things have been put on record as resolving

UFO cases. There are literally hundreds of them – from road signs to bin bags in the

wind and from cows to telegraph poles even mistaken for alien occupants.


       Teaching these cases and the way to research options was always something I put

to the fore of the investigator training course that we ran at BUFORA.   


       Like it or not IFOs are a major part of the UFO mystery and you cannot afford to

ignore them.


       So they will form a feature of this magazine because it is our job to learn the

lessons that they teach and apply them to the next riddle that we confront.


       By understanding the IFOs that have been solved during the past 70 years we put

ourselves in the best possible position to make reasoned inferences about the

scientific value of the remaining cases that we cannot yet explain.


       And will enhance the credibility of that case if it remains unexplained after we

apply the knowledge gained from the resolved cases that came before.  



Did you solve the IFO photo on the cover? It is a photo I took in my garden of the eclipse of the moon. In context, easily solved if you know all the facts. If you do not and someone submits this to you as a UFO photo you would have to ask the right questions to get to the truth. It helps to know that the odds say any photo is unlikely to be a real UFO....but, of course, that any one just might turn out to be if no solution appears after you consider different possibilities.

         
      
 
 

MAJOR ARTICLES ELSEWHERE


 

Fortean Times  Issue 360 December 2017

80pp  Cover price £4.50  12 issue subscription £48 UK, £58 Europe, £68 Rest of World, or

$89.99 US
customercare@subscribe.forteantimes.com


There is the intriguing story of the ‘drunk’ man arrested in Wyoming, not far from the

Devil’s Tower where a new festival was set up to mark the 40th anniversary of the

spectacular rock formation’s central role in the Spielberg movie – Close Encounters of

the Third Kind. Abductees and UFOlogists gave talks and crowds attended in costume

at this iconic venue. The said man told police that he was a time traveller from the

year 2048 back to warn locals to flee before the aliens arrive next year. He asked to

speak to President Trump.  His drunken status was apparently a necessary

consequence of the time travel method used in the future! So it was just a case of

Bacchus to the future, I presume.....Sorry…..


Peter Brookesmith updates news on the 1965 Kecksburg, Pennsylvania ‘UFO crash’

assessing some of the ideas mooted to try to explain the event.  And finally my

column – in tune with the Autumn season – looks at the ‘falling leaf’ effect in UFO

reports with some cases and science and theories as to its cause.


The most interesting article is an in depth look by Mark Salusbury investigating the

mystery lights of East Anglia placing the lights around Rendlesham and Orford Ness in

context with folklore and heritage sightings of strange drifting lights across the

centuries. 
 


 

THE BIG DEBATE

(F)lying Saucers

 


       Seventy years ago on 24 June 1947 the world was introduced to the phrase ‘flying

saucer’.

       Whilst this is a term that may have had isolated use earlier it had not become

established as a meaningful phrase or accepted as the term applied to a whole

phenomenon.  But now it was something that was ‘up there’ and amenable to both

investigation and for literally anyone to see if they chanced to be in the right place at

the right time.


       In other words UFOlogy was born. Though UFO itself was a term created by the

early USAF investigators five years later once they realised something important.

Most UFOs were not really shaped like ‘saucers’ and nor were they much evidence of

alien craft. Even that early they could see the world conflating all sorts of things into

one and the same as those ‘flying saucers’.


       However, it is even more significant to realise something that several UFO

researchers have pointed out across the years since 1947, but which the world at large

tended not to notice. The original sighting – by pilot Kenneth Arnold – did not see a

flying saucer shape either.


       He described it variously as a crescent or a tailless missile but not as a saucer

shape. The idea that he did was created by an enterprising journalist who picked up

on his description of the formation of several objects that Arnold thought were new

US air force jets or missiles.


       Arnold, somewhat oddly, had specifically described how these objects skipped

through the air – talking at one point more sensibly of a boat bouncing over waves.

 But settling on a saucer being tossed across water when we might think more usually

of a stone and seeing how many times we can make it bounce.


       Either way the reporter coined the phrase from out of this gaggle of words as

Arnold struggled to describe NOT the shape but the motion of these objects. And his

accidental odd choice of a bouncing saucer instead of say a pebble resulted in ‘flying

saucer’ gathering an illusion of reality from that headline as if it were an actual

shape. Which it never was but had rippled through the collective unconscious over the

decades as the phrase reinforced over and over by alien invasion movies, comics and

any cultural influence you can think.


       The power of words to influence reality is vividly illustrated by this impact. Even

today a saucer shaped object in – say – a cartoon will instantly conjure up in your

mind the image of little green men.


       As in, the one on the readers page competition. Take a look…..an alien outside the

White House.  You know it is an alien because of the saucer. Yet the saucer could just

as easily have been a pebble. And would not be in the form that it is but for a

momentary choice of words by a local journalist 70 years ago and the

misinterpretation of what a witness had meant.


       Just how often does our reality in the UFO world stem from what has really

happened as opposed to someone’s assumption as to what they thought has

happened?


       Because hardly any UFOs are seen skipping through the air like Arnold’s formation

of ‘jets’ did. Had that side of his story got the emphasis would it still be true that we

think of a flying saucer in the singular and not a flight pattern formation of them – as

of course was very common in 1947 just after World War Two.


      Very few UFOs in today’s reports are even saucer shaped. Yes, there are one

or two. But they are surprisingly rare. It is as if the misreporting of Arnold’s 1947

sighting influenced popular culture profoundly and had an impact of sorts on the

UFOs that people see in the sky. But only a modest one that is not sufficiently

powerful to make it even one of the top five shapes of UFOs being reported today. 

Balls of light, egg shapes, stars, cigars and triangles are all more common.  

  
       Flying saucer UFOs are not entirely unheard of. But they are rare enough for the

anomaly to be obvious between what culture assumes ‘alien craft’ to look like and the

far broader miscellany of how UFOs appear.

 
 

 

BOOKS OF THE MOMENT
 


The Rendlesham File: Britain's Roswell?

Andrew Pike



Flying Disk Press, November 2017

See:
http://flyingdiskpress. blogspot.co.uk/
 

$17.81 Kindle download      From Amazon

1183 pp (kindle)  (786 pp softback)

ISBN: 978 0955 191 312
 
 
      You might wonder what else there is left to say about Britain’s most famous case –

the events in Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980. I have lost count of how

many books have been written about it since Brenda Butler, Dot Street and I

published the first one -  Sky Crash - in 1984.

       But there are certainly a lot. More than about any case in history other than

Roswell.

       Does this new venture (a major update based on a limited edition some years ago)

earn its place as a worthy new addition?


       The answer is an emphatic yes. It takes an almost forensic approach from the

scientific perspective of the author. It cannot be called a light read or low on depth.

But it is not impenetrable. At times it is exhaustive in how it dissects parts of the

story. But it is never hard to follow.


       Any case can benefit from a fresh look with new eyes and this is probably the first

attempt to consider the physics of what might have caused the UFO events which

certainly takes it in a new direction.


       I suspect that the more you know about some of the fields of science that are

contemplated the more fascinating you will find the assessment of what might have

been going on in and around the atmosphere above the woods that weekend the

more intriguing this book will unfold.


       I have long suggested that at heart of this case it appears to have involved a UAP

alongside various misperceptions. I tinkered with research going on into over the

horizon radar on Orford Ness and wrote about this in Fortean Times in early 2016. But

it never really led anywhere. This book may reveal why. 


       Even if some parts of it lose you amidst the blur of data and giant page total you

will have much respect for the author’s attempt to consider a wide range of sources

to offer balanced evidence on every facet of the story. He comes as it as neither a

witness nor a UFO researcher and not as someone from the MoD or USAF and his

approach is not as believer in UFOs or sceptic.


       As a working scientist with crucial knowledge of plasma research (which any

reader of Who or What Were They? Knows I think is central to the nature of UAP) then

he had a head start. By chance  he was on a science project in the area in 1980 and

whilst his work had nothing to do with the events he started to suspect that

something else going on locally might have been.


        So he went out asking questions about the rumoured events and investigating

even before UFO researchers did. In fact it is likely he was the source of the rumours

that Brenda, Dot and I documented in Sky Crash about ‘scientists’ who were asking

questions of foresters and locals even before the Halt memo was sent to Whitehall. If

it was the author and a colleague then they inadvertently created the idea of the MoD

responding fast amidst a cover up as we assumed – wrongly – that only the

government would have been ahead of the game to send scientists in January 1981!


       We are led by the author on some intriguing new paths through all the facts and

figures that he uncovered then and in later years and genuinely new insights from his

unique scientific perspective whilst on the spot.


       I have no hesitation in saying this is the most important new book on the case I

have seen in years.  


       Does he get everything right? No, of course not. None of us ever have done that

writing about this fiendishly complicated series of events.


       But I had surprisingly few quibbles and was heartened by his willingness to think

outside the box and look for different possible interpretations of events you might

have long taken for granted.


       This book is exactly what the Rendlesham case has needed. An outsider with

expert knowledge coming in and reviewing things that many of us were just too close

to be able to see or even know without his expertise.


       A most impressive contribution to UFOlogy.


 
 
 
 
INVESTIGATION

 

UFO Stalker Live
 

An interesting new project from the US UFO group MUFON is a map of their ongoing

sighting reports. These are mainly from America, but, as one of the few remaining

longstanding and still very active international groups, following up about 6000

reports a year, they do have plenty from their UK members.


This new website is at
www.ufostalker.com


The map is a clever idea that allows you to track around the planet and see recent

UFO activity and instantly identify hotspots.


You can zoom in to your local area and click on any of the symbols (a saucer or an

alien, for example) to bring up brief details.  At the bottom are updated statistics for

the number of sightings coming in over the last month or year and figures to show

how numbers are changing.


A simple but very effective tool.
 



Recent UK cases revealed on there include (with comments added by me):
 

13 August 2017  Disley, Stockport, Cheshire

At 15.37 a high altitude hovering UFO was reported with lights on, seen above Lyme

Park.
 

Note: They have kite festivals here in the Summer. Which in the past have led to

sightings.
 


27 October 2017  Menston, Yorkshire


At 17.38 a witness looking out of their kitchen window saw a shape changing object

that was making no sound. It appeared as both a bell and a dumbbell shape.
 

Note:  Menston has had extensive flaps of UFO activity in the past – usually of

‘earthlight’ like phenomena.
 


28 November 2017  Manchester


Witness was driving on the East Lancashire Road at 09.05. On the right they saw a

bright orb of light that kept appearing and disappearing in the low sunshine. This was

followed by a ‘cylinder type object, passenger plane sized, going over’.
 

Note: There were several candidate aircraft that passed low enough to be seen

around this time. Notably a BMI Embraer heading North to Inverness having just

taken off from Manchester. And an inbound Flybe Bombardier from Belfast that

crossed slowly over roughly parallel to the East Lancs at between 5000 and 6000 feet.    
 


UFO ‘buzzes’ Jet


19 November 2017   Near Heathrow Airport, London
 

These days video cameras offering live round the clock feeds are everywhere and for

transport enthusiasts they are proving especially popular. You can watch dozens of

train lines and stations live across the globe and quite a few airports are now

monitoring ins and outs for anyone to view wherever you are in the world.


Whilst some feeds are free often you have to pay a subscription to watch these

cameras. So if one of them catches a UFO then you can bet it will be used to good

effect.


That happened to the one overlooking the runway on the fringes of London Heathrow.

It recorded the spectacular sight at 20.09 and 36 seconds as a trail of smoky mist with

a bright oval mass at its head crossed right through the view heading left to right and

downwards. Two seconds after it disappears a large commercial airliner sails through

on its final landing path to the runway passing the ‘exact spot’ where the UFO was

moments earlier.  In fact as it disappeared from view a second aircraft circling the

field is visible passing in the near ‘vicinity’ of the UFO.


The footage is stunning and a great illustration of a UFO sighting - except, of course,

this is an IFO.


The footage is not doctored. The object was very real. In fact there are19 other

reports of it - as I publish - that were submitted to astronomical sources. 14 were in

France, as far south as the alps. Another from Switzerland. And there were 4 others

from the UK – all in the South east within 20/30 miles of London.


This UFO was a stunning fireball meteor – part of the Leonid shower - probably only a

foot or so in diameter but blazing spectacularly as it vapourised.  This was miles high

in the atmosphere and probably many miles away from Heathrow (given how it was

seen nearly 1000 miles south that is clearly proven).


As a result the aircraft were in no danger at all. The apparent proximity was just an

optical illusion.


Still worth all interested in UFOs looking up the Airlive Heathrow video which they

have put on Youtube and Twitter as it shows just how impressive these things can be

to a person caught unawares and usually without a camera to hand for the few

seconds of view. So next time a witness reports one to you as a UFO – and they will! –

you can judge for yourselves exactly why.
  
 



UFOs REVISITED


A look back at the status of major UFO cases in the NUFON archives from the decades


1957 – 2007.
 



FIREBALL XL 2
 

If you thought the fireball event above was a one off – think again. Another

spectacular extra-large one was in the news 60 years ago. And this time it became

something of a legend on the Isle of Man where I tracked down the story in 2002

whilst researching my book – Supernatural Isle of Man. 


It was also reported across the Irish Sea on the mainland as you will see.


This time it did rather more than momentarily scare plane spotters observing an

airliner. It drained the colour out of a fishing vessel – quite literally. 


At 02.30, on Friday, November 29, 1957, this huge fireball slanted down out of the

starry night sky over Liverpool. It had been seen by star gazers in Dublin and County

Meath, too, and many more witnesses in England, from as far south as the West

Country right up to the Lake District.


These people out at that early hour had watched the twinkling golden blob of light

coming from the North heading south towards Wales.


It reputedly changed course as it passed above Liverpool’s deserted night-time

streets, now trailing sparks behind as it continued its descent.


As this took place, 57 year old Fred Sutton – skipper of a Fleetwood based fishing

trawler – was stunned when the man on night watch yelled as an intense flash of light

which he presumed to be lightning lit up the sky.


The watch was at the wheel of the 600-ton Ella Hewett then a mile or so off the Isle of

Man, bound for the rich fishing grounds of Iceland in the days before EEC quotas and

Cod Wars destroyed the industry on which Fleetwood then depended, I knew

Fleetwood as a thriving place from my visits as a child around 1957 and lived there

after the devastation following EU membership.


Back on the Ella Hewett it soon became apparent that the crew watch had seen the

trail of golden flames witnessed on the mainland as it exploded violently in mid air.



The flash from the object was so intense, it bathed the large ship in an eerie glow that

fell like a shower of energy with a bizarre consequence not apparent until the dawn

light of morning.


Then something utterly weird was noted as they moored off the east coast of the Isle

of Man. A new coat of white paint on the front of the vessel’s bridge, only just put on a

few days earlier in preparation for heading from Fleetwood north towards Iceland,

had been ‘removed’. As a result of the flash – the crew claimed – it had somehow been

stripped back to just visibly pinky red lead undercoat that had been put on beneath.


It stayed that way for the day but then changed back!


In a message next day to the owners back on the mainland the skipper radioed:

‘Yesterday bridge pink; today normal white’.


More correctly a few hours after the ‘UFO’ exploded the white paint had ‘disappeared’

revealing the reddish lead undercoat and then the normal top coat white returned

just as quickly a day later. The whole crew had witnessed this event.


The vessel’s owner was baffled – saying they thought the message was a joke at first,

but ‘Skipper Sutton is a most dependable man. He has sailed with us for more than 20

years. We have implicit trust in his word.’


All he could do was speculate about ‘radiation’ from the explosion seen – ‘which

caused the red oxide undercoat to show through the white finishing paint’.


Another theory was some magnetic effect separating the iron particles from the

undercoat before returning to normal after the magnetism ebbed away.  Being

moored they may not have noticed any other oddities caused by the ship’s hull being

magnetised.


On arrival back at Fleetwood after they had sailed to Iceland and

returned to base with their catch the crew confirmed the story and skipper Sutton

added: ‘It was no fisherman’s tale. The bridge was definitely pink the morning after

the flash and while we were on passage between the Isle of Man and Scotland. But 30

hours later it was white again.’


Theories that the flash caused problems with the eyesight of the crew temporarily did

not work as all saw the effect whether they had been on deck or inside quarters and

not seeing the explosion. And for this colour distortion to only effect the paint for a

day seems unlikely.


As I discovered witnesses on the Isle of Man a few miles from the vessel had seen the

‘fireball’  too and with powerful binoculars said that they could spot “white-hot sheets

of metal” and other fragments falling from the glowing mass towards the spot where

the Ella Hewett was located. This is strange as it implies a low height whereas the

wide spread of sighting reports does not.


Another ship in the Irish Sea saw the incident, too. A coaster sailing from Liverpool to

Glasgow near the island was beneath the object as it exploded. Skipper  J Jones was

one of three ‘standing at the window of the wheelhouse’ when a blue-nosed ‘shell or

projectile’ making a ‘hissing’ noise passed over at ‘mast head height’ and lit up the sea

beneath. ‘As the flash hissed over our bows everything turned light blue’.

Jones added sardonically that it was over in seconds but ‘had it hit us it would have

been a terrible mess’.


There was also a very loud bang that rudely awoke many in Merseyside, Cheshire,

Lancashire and the rest of the North-West that morning.


The Air Ministry said that no aircraft was missing, as the initial thought was that this

fireball was an exploding plane. RAF bases across the country were also besieged with

calls from witnesses asking about the fireball. Oddly the Royal Observatory

astronomers at Herstmonceux, East Sussex, said they “attached no importance” to

the fireball.


No doubt just their way of saying it was a meteor.


One has to presume that this was indeed a fireball of some sort and given the spread

of sightings over 200 miles exploding miles high up in the atmosphere as it exploded.  


Yet – if that were so – how was it audible at the same time as it visually passed over

the ship?


Given the much slower speed of sound versus that of light the lack of an obvious lag

indicates it was perhaps not as far away or high as we might think.


Just think of how far the clap of thunder lags behind the flash of lightning and we can

even judge how many miles away a storm is from that gap. This is the same effect

that should have appeared here.


Except that sounds from meteors have been reported coincident with the sighting and

not minutes later. And they are often a fizzing type noise. Indeed scientists trying to

work out why we hear sound coincident with seeing a meteor and not long afterward

discovered that those with certain hair styles or in certain paint environments and in

quiet locations such as out at sea are more prone.


This is because the intense pulses of light radiation caused by the high energy

involved is effecting your body and environment and that IS travelling at the speed of

light, not sound.


The fizzing reported by the ship crew was different from the explosion heard on the

mainland. The crew were likely detecting the pulses of intense energy showered onto

them. Those on land only heard the explosion as the object was destroyed and that

noise reached them possibly minutes later coming from many miles up in the

atmosphere where it burned up.


This certainly seems to have been a very dramatic fireball whose nature is not fully

understood. And given the effects on the Ella Hewett paintwork possibly one of a type

that we are not otherwise familiar.


Perhaps the energy pulses emitted and heard as the fizzing sound were unusually

potent and caused the odd effects on the paintwork.


So even a humble meteor can to a degree be an energy emitting UAP with interesting

physical effects associated that might relate to some very rare atmospheric effects

and so much more worthy of the tag UFO than the vast majority.


Indeed an interesting case occurred later not far from the Isle of Man, on the coast of

Galloway. Here a farmer saw another object pass over and claimed that his hair

turned white overnight as a result. Theory was that he was ‘scared’ that way. But if

this was also an energetic fireball that sent pulses of intense light energy – just as

scientists found studying why we ‘hear’ meteors – the hair is particularly susceptible

to absorbing it. And those with frizzy hair tend to hear the effect best where the

surface area of the hair exposed is maximised.


So a simple IFO these cases were not! And they prove surprisingly instructive.


As for the Ella Hewett, it suffered an even worse disaster five years on in 1962 when it

struck the wreck of the HMS Drake and sadly was completely wrecked.    
 
 
 

GOING NUCLEAR
      


In October/November 1957 planet Earth entered the space age when the Soviet Union

launched two orbital missions – Sputnik 1 and 2.


The first proved the technology, the second took the first lifeform from this world

into space – Laika the dog.


Humanity became a spacefaring race at that point.


Intriguingly, as it happened the world went through a major wave of UFO activity of a

very unusual kind. The period September to November 1957 was awash with major

close encounters.


It involved one of the earliest recorded ‘abduction’ cases – a man who claimed to be

‘picked up’ by aliens on the banks of the Mersey. And in October/ November

two of the earliest cases of what eventually became recognised as alien ‘genetic’

hybrid baby stories followed.


One of these was a series of encounters that began in Birmingham and resulted in the

witness supposedly giving birth to a part alien baby. Whilst over in Brazil the famous

Antonio Villas Boas case occurred to a farmer ‘seduced’ by a female entity who

indicated the intent was for her to have his baby in space.


And – literally hours before Laika the dog left Earth for ever in what will be a moment

in history taught to children for all time  – a massive series of ‘car stop’

events occurred around New Mexico – where multiple vehicles were immobilised in a

spectacular series of UFO fly bys never repeated on that scale.


Sci Fi thinking of the day suggested 'they’ had witnessed our development of nuclear

weapons in and around White Sands, New Mexico in 1945 and now our ability to pose

a threat by being able to reach space, and we were now  on ETs radar.


And during the above series of events a UFO appeared right over the disused bunkers

where the world’s first atomic blasts had been observed just as the world entered the

space age.


And, if that was not enough of a dig in the planetary ribs as Sputnik 2 prepared to take

off the following case was reported to me.    
 


October (up to 4 November) 1957 Maralinga, Australian Outback,

South Australia

 

The event was reported by an Royal Air Force man in Australia part of the team

cleaning up the site in the desert where Britain had for some time been  recklessly

detonating modest nuclear weapons despite the risk of radiation exposure on not just

the observers but the innocent indigenous aboriginal population.
 


The Antler series of tests of up to a kiloton had occurred to two or three weeks earlier

and the testing was to move elsewhere so the area was being dismantled by the

witness and the rest of his team.


At dusk the then Corporal who contacted me and his colleagues were dragged out of

the Maralinga base canteen to go see the atom test site at dusk. Something was

sitting there – ‘like a king on his throne’ – as described to me.


It was a silver blue disk with a metallic sheen and what looked like a line of windows

on the edge.  It was hovering there in total silence presenting a ‘magnificent sight’ as

he described it.  He said it was so clearly visible you could even see what looked

like plating on the sides.


The local air traffic controller saw it too and contacted Alice Springs and another

airfield within range. Neither had any traffic over the outback.


As you can imagine given the nature of the site security was intense so anything

‘intruding’ into airspace was unimaginable. Such were the strict precautions that all

cameras were under lock and key and had to be ponderously signed in and out so no

footage was secured despite the object being there in plain view for several minutes.


As dusk drew in it simply flew away in total silence.


My only thought as to a possible explanation was that this was some most unusual

cloud formation caused by the outback air that was static over the site and then

drifted off as temperatures fell.


But, of course, the account from the witness as to the apparent solid

nature of the object is hard to square with that outside of a major misperception by

several trained observers.


The witness ended his report to me with these words:  "I swear to you as a practising

Christian this was no dream, no illusion, no fairy story but a solid craft of metallic

construction".
 



1977:
 
 

1977 was a wave year in the UK.  Indeed we later published a special review titled ‘The

Great Wave’.


Many have since ascribed this to the arrival of and mass publicity about the still

celebrated movie from Steven Spielberg – Close Encounters of the Third Kind – based

to some degree on his non fiction book ‘The UFO Experience’.


Indeed Hynek ruefully once told me that his publishers argued he had sold film rights

behind their back – although he never made much money from the movie and clearly

had no idea that was what anyone would think he was doing by just helping out a

young film maker to get the UFO side of his story accurate.


In fact the biggest influence of the Hynek/Spielberg liaison was possibly on his son,

Joel, who has gone on to become an award winning special effects designer on

Hollywood movies such as Predator and What Dreams May Come. Inspired to some

degree by seeing his father involved with the making of that still hugely popular UFO

movie and in which his dad even appears as himself meeting the aliens toward the

end. Allen also told me that they edited out a scene where the being from the

stars was baffled and amazed by his impressive beard and decided to stroke it!  


However, Close Encounters only appeared in the US late in 1977 and did not arrive in

the UK until Spring 1978. So it had no real influence over the 315 cases we recorded at

NUFON for that year in the special report.


For comparison other year totals were 1974 (72), 1975 (157), 1976 (163) – showing how

clearly 1977 stands out.


The report lists every case with raw details and our conclusions.  Of these cases by the

point of report 80% of them had been resolved as IFOs.


Some of the different things that caused UFO reports that year which we explained

(outside the most common such as aircraft (11%), meteors (10%) and astronomical

bodies (9%) ) – were frost, sunset flare, model aircraft, tornado and mushrooms!  The

latter was the cause of a ‘landing site’ found in Staffordshire.


There were two ‘flaps’ of note. A week in March when 23 sightings occurred –

including one of the UKs best known ‘car stop’ cases at Nelson, Lancashire on 9 March

 (described in Who or What Were They?)  And another in May when 19 cases occurred

in a week including a daylight close encounter at Sandbach, Cheshire on 19 May.


During the year an unusual high of 2.2% of cases involved sightings of aliens.


Over 9% of the unknown cases occurred between 1 and 4 am. And under 5% between

8 am and 4 pm.


Below I will summarise one of the most interesting cases from that 1977  wave –

still unexplained to this day.
 


HOT BIKE


6 June 1977   Barnard Castle, Durham



This impressive case was investigated by the CHRYSIS local group headed by Brian

Straight.


At 23.30 on a dark and dismal night for mid Summer the witness, a 16 year old farm

worker, was driving his motorbike home in heavy rain on the B 6278 near the village

of Lartington outside the market town of Barnard Castle.


There was little traffic given the weather but the rider noticed two fuzzy purple glows

behind and, thinking they were lights on a vehicle, he kept looking back in case it was

trying to overtake given the wet road and as he was climbing a hill.


Seconds later a Jaguar car started to overtake and he slowed to let it do so. But as it

did a huge fuzzy purple glow swamped both vehicles from above with a hazy pinkish

tinge.


Instantly he felt power drain from his bike and the throttle would not respond. He

also felt intense heat on his back and legs and could see steam coming off his soaking

wet leathers as if being evaporated by the radiated heat from the glow.


Both the car and the bike were seemingly ‘pulled’ up over the rise despite (as the

driver of the Jaguar confirmed) each losing engine power. As they topped this the

fuzzy purple mass vanished.


The rider applied the brakes instinctively after losing control but this had had no

effect as he was ‘pulled’ upward but they were so worn as to be found to be

useless and needed resetting,


The two vehicles came to a halt and swapped notes about the amazing experience.

The car had also lost power for about 30 seconds and the bike rider’s

leathers were bone dry and stiffened by heat. Despite the heavy rain the frame of the

bike was bone dry as if all water had evaporated. It was also extremely hot to the

touch.


The car driver confirmed this to CHRYSIS but was so shaken that he chose not to get

involved further.


On arrival home at about midnight the bike rider’s mother immediately noticed how

red was the hands and face of her son. It was as if he had been heavily sunburnt in

those few moments at near midnight on a rainy night.  The effects faded after a day

or so.


However, he did come down with a severe stomach pain and felt unwell a few days

later. Though whether this was connected or simply a stress response we do not

know.


I should also add that about 20 years later one of the witnesses to this case contacted

me to report they were having problems involving a tumour and were

concerned if the incident might have been involved.


What could I say to them? I can only add that I have been involved in three other

cases where a witness came in close proximity to something such as this and later

developed similar problems. So I could not rule out a connection with whatever

massive energy led to the other physiological effects and to the vehicles involved.


This is a classic case of a UAP – the kind of UFO that is clearly physically real and

highly energetic and potentially dangerous. For me the real reason why we should be

investigating these cases thoroughly.


Interestingly, Heather Dixon, the current Director of Investigations for BUFORA and

part of the North Eastern UFO team, has reported on the BUFORA site another

incident that occurred very close to this location about 7 years later. In fact it was just

a mile away on the same road as Lartington and in the location where the purple

mass flew over the motorbike and Jaguar.


This case involved a couple who rented a cottage in mid Summer at Cotherstone and

had some weird experiences there. These included numerous Oz Factor like episodes

in and around the cottage. One was when they saw a figure cross a small bridge

during a walk nearby as they ‘sensed’ tingling presences in the air around them.


The figure seemed to vanish into thin air crossing over the adjacent River Tees. As the

husband approached the structure he felt his foot disappearing downwards into

nothingness as he tried to stand on the bridge and was quickly pulled back by his

wife instead of 'falling' into the unseen abyss where the bridge physically was.


The couple decided not to go out walking again during their stay.  But their days at

cottage was stressed out and largely sleepless as they felt ‘out of synch’ with reality

throughout as if they were not in the same time and out of phase by a second or two.


This is another comment I have heard from witnesses in Oz Factor cases. As if it is

distorting their entire perception of time.  


As they were preparing to depart the place the wife fell into a deep sleep from

which she could not be woken and her husband, watching TV, noticed the signal start

to show interference and fade. Then the wall plug jumped out of the socket as did the

one from the fridge.


The French Windows began to vibrate and rattle and he felt very strange. Outside

above the nearby river with its bridge that seemed to act as a doorway into an unseen

reality there was a huge strange purple mass covering the sky and

seeming to pass over them very slowly. He felt disoriented and ‘sad’ as the thing

disappeared.


Again this is another common aspect of such cases I have heard witnesses express

before (see the case of Jay at Walsden in Who or What Were They?)


The husband reported to Heather that the weird state of consciousness during this

encounter was like ‘dreaming on your feet’.  Or ‘like a plate of glass between us and

everyone else’.


His wife had now woken from her stupor and spoke suddenly – ‘I am glad it was you,

not me’. Words she could not explain and seems to have uttered unconsciously.


They were more than happy to get away from that cottage.


The links between these two cases might be important in understanding what could

be the cause of two independent and fascinating cases.


Heather has been to the location and says there are local stories about a strange

mist.  I hope she can tell us more as that, too, might well be relevant.
 
 
 

 
 
 
COMING EVENTS



 


A reminder that Nigel Mortimer is hosting a most unusual on line event - What Really

Happened at Rendlesham Forest?  
 


Using an ET/Spirit Communication device he hopes to uncover the truth?


Apparently this certainly different investigation methodology will scour the ether to

reveal what has been hidden from us otherwise by nefarious means.


Nigel Mortimer is hosting this experiment on


28 December 2017 at 800pm  
 

It will be live at 

https:// flylfotcomdev.jimdo.com/live-event/  
 
 
 
 
OUTER LIMITS MAGAZINE Conference

Saturday 1 / Sunday 2 September 2018  

Freedom Centre, Preston Road, Hull  HU9 3QB

Hosted by editor Chris Evers it will be Outer Limits Magazine’s first ever two day

event.





 
 
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT AN EARLY BIRD BOOKING FEE, (discount prices end midnight

UK time on the last day of January 2018 see here:



http://chris0597.wixsite.com/outer-limits-mag/conference-2018 ).

Headline speaker

Retired former deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters, Col. Charles Halt.

The man whose memo paved the way for the Rendlesham Forest case to become #

public knowledge and whose tape recording of the mysterious events over the second

night of sightings have led to it becoming world famous.


Mary Rodwell is a professional counsellor, hypnotherapist, ufologist researcher and

metaphysician. Principal of ACERN (Australian Close Encounter Resource Network)

and one of Australia's leading researchers in the UFO and Contact phenomenon.


Mary is making a rare visit to home shores and will be discussing her involvement in

the Star Kids project, her new book The New Humans, and much more, her lecture will

feature filmed footage of events.


The conference will also feature former P.C. Alan Godfrey, who is discussing the

events around his sighting, his new book and a period of missing time.

Outer Limits Magazine award winner John Hansom will present a lecture based on his

many years of investigations of UFO reports from 1940 to the present.


And welcome Bridlington’s Paul Sinclair with a fascinating discussion from his own

investigations in to UFO cases in his locality. Such as the losses over several years of

RAF Tornadoes in Bridlington Bay. Pauls first publication Pauls second book, Truth

Proof II,will undoubtedly form the basis of a great presentation.


Host and Outer Limits Magazine editor Chris Evers will present a small talk outlining

strange events from a ufological year gone by...



http://chris0597.wixsite.com/outer-limits-mag/conference-tickets-here





 
 
Conference:
 

UFO TRUTH MAGAZINE CONFERENCE


Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 September 2018


Holmfirth Civic Hall, West Yorkshire


Don Scmitt, USA

Brien Foerster, USA and Peru

Robert Fleischer, Germany

Alan Godfrey, UK


For prices and details


www.ufotruthmagazine.co.uk





LAPIS – the Lancashire Anomalous Phenomena Investigation Society – are also

planning to host  a conference at the:-
 

Ashton Park Hotel in St Annes, Lancashire


On:
 


Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 October 2018
 


This is a revival of the popular events that were held by this long standing group in

various Fylde Coast resorts during the 1980s and 199 


More details of the weekend as soon as they are available. 












Picture
Picture


     
                      188   NOVEMBER 2017



                 EDITOR: JENNY RANDLES    COVER DESIGN:  ROY SANDBACH

        
                        Address: 10 Marton Green, Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8LT


                      
                                   email address
nufon@btinternet.com



                  
  
                 Contents: JR Comments - Rendlesham Questions, the big debate

                   - ufos at sea, oz factor aboard ship, books of the moment - UFO

                      drawings from the national archives, investigations - Wales,

                     Cornwall, Somerset - cases and events from 1957, 1977, 1987,

                    1997 and 2007 - including sing song aliens and a daylight disk

                     over Majorca.  Forthcoming Events. 







J.R. Comments…..





Rendlesham Questions



 
   Other than Alan Godfrey’s abduction there is probably one big

case that happened in the UK that is truly renowned around the

world. 

 
   Interestingly it happened just 4 weeks after Alan Godfrey’s

abduction in late 1980 and does interact with it to some degree

as readers of Alan’s new autobiography – Who or What Were

They? -   may discover for the first time.


  In essence it seems to have sparked Cold War interest

involving the Soviet Union that in turn came to the attention of

the Ministry of Defence in London. 


  If you accept the origin  stated by the man sent to see Alan at   

Todmorden police station - professing to be a ‘man from the

ministry’- then it begs disturbing questions about why

surveillance and scare tactics were put in place.


  At that time Alan was not even aware that the Rendlesham

Forest case had occurred because this intervention preceded

the first published articles even in the UFO literature from me

during 1982.


  I should stress that I knew some of these revelations in Alan’s

book when they occurred but was constrained from talking

about them for reasons that will be apparent based on what

happened to him in their aftermath as the book describes. So he

is not claiming these things retrospectively.


  You have to read Alan’s account in context – as he is not

himself persuaded that the man really was from the MoD. But

regardless of his origin someone, somewhere in high authority

and able to order senior officers about was snooping into

possible links between Britain’s two best known cases soon

after they happened. And that is something that requires us to

wonder how and why they did so.



  Indeed there is no apparent evidence of this mutual interest

inside the files released by the MoD on the Rendlesham case. 

But the files on Alan Godfrey’s case seem harder still to even

discover although it was officially reported to the MoD by the

police. Indeed this ‘man from the ministry’ held that dossier in

his hands when he visited Alan in Todmorden police station

proving it did at that point exist.



  This is just the latest in a long line of twists and turns about

the Rendlesham case over the years. Once termed ‘a ghastly

embarrassment to UFOlogy’ by sceptical astronomer, Ian

Ridpath, supports his view that it is explainable as things like

a bright meteor, stars and a lighthouse. Many sceptics agree

with him and it has been  controversial pretty much from the

start.



  Yet 37 years later it has spawned more books than any other

single incident apart from Roswell. Roy Sandbach did an oil

painting of the events witnessed inside that Suffolk forest which

features on the cover of this issue above.



  There are also several forums on line and Facebook pages

devoted to discussion of the affair. And as with all big

controversies these have generated many varied attempts to

explain the evidence that has led to some internecine warfare

even between a few of the witnesses.



  This has recently exploded across the internet around the

validity of the story of the first USAF witness to speak out on the

Rendlesham case – Larry Warren.
 


  He told about the event in the very early days (1982/3) when

all we knew was largely just a bunch of rumours. Though

definitely being on the air base at the time of sighting his claim

to be an eye witness has led to some within the USAF supporting

him and others not. Some have long defended what he said.

Others suggest he heard rumours or was only peripherally

involved. Though he has always stood by his story.



  Warren’s account appeared under the pseudonym Art Wallace

in the News of the World when the case first went public outside

of UFO research in October 1983 and Larry has been one of the

most voluble witnesses ever since.



  Having met him I have always found him an amiable chap who

tells his story well and who is easy to get along with.  But he has

a thing over how much the News of the World paid people for

their story that we have never fully agreed over. The paper did

pay big money by UFO case standards – all be it shared across

many people who assisted their series of articles – but in so far

as I know from my meetings with  them it was not some of the

larger sums that I have seen   bandied around the UFO field.


   I know several UFO authors (not me I should stress) who have

been paid more than the paper paid to witnesses and

researchers in total. But it was  between £15,000 and

£18,000 I believe. Perhaps a couple of thousand each.


  Dot Street and I used our share (which was only in low four

figures combined) to fund a month in the USA to chase

the case. That research formed a key part of our book Sky Crash

that with Brenda Butler (who was unable to come with us)

we published the following year and was the first to appear

exclusively about this case.



  The money was modest enough that we travelled on overnight

buses sleeping on seats for nights on end and stayed in houses

of friendly researchers rather than posh hotels. It was the only

way to get the job done. Certainly we used the ‘windfall’ from

the tabloid to investigate the case. Neither of us could have

afforded even to fly to the USA in 1983 otherwise.



  I say this not to disparage Larry Warren’s credibility. The

stories about the News of the World money – like many aspects

of the Rendlesham case – have simply become self-fuelling

speculation with so much chatter and many people pondering

the whys and wherefores over every little aspect of it. I only 

wanted here to set the record straight as far as I know it

because Larry is far from the only one bothered by this matter.



  It was nobody’s fault, just circumstances.  And because

multiple people were paid money by the paper for contributing

to weeks of features, including front pages, the ultimate

total of what they paid or even everyone they did pay something

to will be to a certain extent guesswork.



    But if something as relatively trivial as who was

paid what by a newspaper kicked off some kind of row in the

UFO world surrounding Rendlesham then it is no surprise that

every little bit of every witness story has been picked apart in

the grand debate – Larry Warren’s inevitably included.


 
   That does not mean his story about the case is true or false 

 - a caveat we should always bear in mind about any witness or

any sighting. They rarely go out to seek money but if the media

offer recompense for giving exclusives then most people would

accept. I see nothing wrong in that. Just as the media see

nothing wrong in exploiting witnesses all the time. So if they

fund UFO research inadvertently, all the better.



  In my view you just have to listen to any witnesses and then

judge their testimony on its own merits or demerits.   



  With writer Peter Robbins Larry published his own account as

part of a 1997 book about the case - Left at East Gate.  However,

the recent debate over aspects of his story has spilled over from

a great deal of squabbling on the net to see temporary

suspension of sales of that book by its current American

publisher seemingly due to concerns about various claims and

counter claims.


 
   Hopefully this will have an amicable resolution, because -

whilst I understand the forces that have driven them to act like

this - as a writer I find it hard to defend the denial of a right to

read any testimony – no matter how disputed it may be. Yes, his

story may have doubt but as a key early part of the case it still

has to be evaluated in any overview.


  Yet something has to be accessible so that it can be interpreted

alongside the resulting criticisms of it. That is the essence of a

free society.



  This case is always going to be hugely contentious and like

every other controversial UFO report (of which there are many)

you have to form conclusions by balancing differing viewpoints

and extreme arguments. Removing any evidence makes this

balance much more difficult to achieve.



   I can accept how some people and some witnesses will feel

protective of their own credibility and have a desire to make

Rendlesham Forest respectable in so far as they perceive it. But

in a field as fraught with extreme claims and theories such as

this sometimes we just have to agree to disagree with some who

do not share our opinion or our version of what happened.


  We have to trust to the wisdom of others to decide what they

believe on due consideration of all the facts.



   Some people are rallying to Larry’s defence, of course and I

will report if anything new develops on this disturbing news.

However, this much disparaged case – having been assailed on

many fronts by UFO sceptics, the media and even some UFO

proponents - is showing no sign of losing that controversial tag

any time soon.



  Like Alan Godfrey’s story it is now 37 years old but neither are

remotely looking like fading away quietly or becoming a dead

duck!


   But then Roswell is 70 years old and nobody is forgetting 

that in a hurry. Indeed a revival of the TV series in which the

Roswell aliens take human form and become US high school kids

is in the works.


 
  Hopefully TV will not create a Rendlesham Forest saga out of all

that has gone on after the case. But you never know.
 





MAJOR ARTICLES ELSEWHERE
 



Fortean Times  Issue 359 November 2017


80pp  Cover price £4.50  12 issue subscription £48 UK, £58

Europe, £68 Rest of World, or $89.99 US



customercare@subscribe.forteantimes.com



 
  As usual with the issue out over Halloween this has lots of  


interesting ghost and witch stories and research. Including an


investigation into the classic Tennessee Bell witch case. 



  There  are also reports on the mystery toxic fog over Sussex in  


August and the claims of a sonic weapon attack in Cuba. 



  UFO copy is more limited this month with a piece from Peter


Brookesmith looking at cases of interaction between mediums


and psychics and alien contact. With some curious experiments


ongoing to ‘build a bridge'.


 
  My report this month looks at recent scientific research that


 might give pointers towards the natureof the Oz Factor state.
 

 



THE BIG DEBATE


UFOs at Sea
 

 
 
   I have received a letter from a lady asking me to

comment on something she read in a book.


  Mrs B from London was reading ‘Down to the Sea in Ships’ by

Horatio Clare (Chatto and Windus, 2014). This is an account of

his time in the  occupation of ‘writer in residence’ on container

ships. Something that, like many of you I suspect, I had no idea

even was a career that you could have.


  It seems that on p 214 of this book he reports a story from a

crewman about a UFO sighting that he experienced with

another sailor whilst amidst the Indian Ocean.


  The object was a ‘bright blue light’ said to be ‘too fast for a

plane’ and, when it passed directly over the deck, was seen to be

‘cigar shaped’ and ‘leaving a neon blue trail which lasted for

some time’.


  My initial suspicion about this was a bright fireball meteor or

even space debris burning up.


  However, given the location I believe it was more likely a

missile launch that exploded a cloud of gas in the upper

atmosphere. These have been done to conduct scientific

experiments by observing how the vapour spreads and

dissipates. Barium is commonly used to create a bluish colour

that is easy to track from the ground and these tests are widely

launched over the Indian Ocean given open space for this. 


  NASA images from such tests into things like the

magnetic and wind forces in the very upper atmosphere seem

to be very like the reported effect. 


  Without a sighting date it is not possible to be sure, but this

makes sense of this onservation.


   However, Mrs B asked if ‘night-watch crews might

be ideally placed to witness and record exact position, time and

speed of such objects. ‘And she wonders if they have ever been

encouraged to report such sightings.


  This is very sound thinking and I would add that out at sea you  

are well away from any artificial lighting and no blocking

horizons and so may have one of the best possible views of

something strange up there.


  We have paid lots of attention to air crew reports from

witnesses aboard aircraft above the clouds. And whilst their

stories are fascinating there are many things such as other

aircraft to be mistaken around them and there is, of course, less

time and ease of observation when in charge of a Jumbo jet than

when on a quiet night watch aboard a ship.


   It would be interesting to hear if anyone has contacts in the

shipping industry or awareness of sources where we might

publish a plea for such reports.


  Or, by all means do it yourself and if you get any reports back

from the project – let us know.


  There is an interesting ship board UFO encounter briefly

mentioned inside Alan Godfrey’s book – this one even involving

radar tracking. I am hoping to try to get more information on

that case from the police officer reporting it to feature in a

future issue of Northern UFO News.


   Meantime here is one of the strangest ever ship board

encounters that was reported to me.


   I cannot explain it. If you think that you can do let us know.
 



The Sky and Sea Went on Forever:


  This report was told to me some years ago by an elderly man,

Bill, who had spent years at sea. It happened in October 1928 at

about 8 pm when he was working on a tanker ship that ferried

goods to and fro across the Atlantic. 


  They were some miles out to sea but heading for Miami when

something happened, which - over half a century later - was still

vivid in his memory and that he could not get over and so

he contacted me.


   As they would be docking next day he walked to the library to

relax for a little preparing for the coming exertions once they

reached the US mainland. But as he entered the door something

odd occurred. It was like reality changed and the air around him

seemingly ‘stopped breathing’.



  There was an eerie silence and he felt almost isolated and

alone – something never possible when on a small vessel shared

with other crew who you could not really get more than a few

yards away from for days on end.


  Baffled that nobody was in the library, as that itself was

unusual so near the end of a long crossing, he returned outside

to see that his instant isolation did not cease. There was not a

soul in sight at any point around him on the ship. He knew

immediately this just could not be.


  In many ways –although he did not know it – Bill was

describing the Oz Factor to me. This sense of timelessness after

which this website is named is often reported in context with a

UFO close encounter and features strongly in both Alan

Godfrey’s case and the Rendlesham Forest episode already

mentioned in this issue.


  But it does happen in other situations – timeslips being

another common scenario where witnesses will frequently

comment on this sudden shift in how they experience reality.   


  From back out on deck things were even more mysterious for

Bill. There was no sound of engines. No waves lapping against

hull. It was, as he put it to me, like he was inside a bottle where

everything was suspended in time.


   Fearing he had somehow missed an emergency that had seen

the engines stop and the ship to be abandoned, he peered over

the edge to see if lifeboats were afloat.


  What he saw was much weirder and more scary than that.


 
‘
There was a grey misty sheen. Everywhere I looked the sea and

sky blended into one wall of seamless grey. The monotony went

on forever. I could see no horizon. Nothing was moving. It was

exactly as if time stood still and I was no longer a part of the

world
.’


   From where he was Bill could see almost every part of the ship

deck as it was largely flat. But not one other person was in sight.

Almost in despair, but with a degree of logic, he sat down on the

deck – which he knew was so narrow that anyone passing would

have to see him, or fall over him. And someone had to come this

way soon as they always did on a busy ship.


   Then shortly after he crouched down he heard a crew member

come rushing towards him shouting with relief.



  ‘Where have you  been? ‘


  The man said they were getting convinced that Bill had fallen

overboard as the whole crew had scoured the boat repeatedly

but could not find him.


  He tried to explain about the strange sight outside the ship –

but when he pointed over the rails everything was normal – sea,

sky, horizon, engines, swell. Moments after seeing what he had

it was an everyday scene.


  Not possible, the crewman told Bill. He had been missing for an

hour and they had searched every inch for him during that

time.  They eventually just told him that he must have fallen

asleep in some spot they had somehow missed and dreamed the

episode. It was the only option that made sense to them.


  Bill never accepted that suggestion and said he knew this had

really happened but could not in any way explain what ‘this’

was.


  If this event had occurred in a more modern age than the pre

UFO mystery 1920s a UFO investigation group might have taken

it this way and I can more or less guarantee that somebody

would have had him hypnotically regressed.


  What then if he had ‘recalled’ seeing a UFO and having an

‘abduction’ experience?


  Would we accept that as what really happened or should we

stick with what we know? Which is not a lot but certainly is a

very strange ‘altered state of consciousness’.   
 
 




BOOKS OF THE MOMENT
 

UFO Drawings from the National Archives

David Clarke


Four Corners Books  September 2017


£12


128 pp  illustrated


ISBN  978-1909829-09-1
 


  David Clarke started out as a teenage UFO enthusiast working

with the Yorkshire UFO team associated with NUFON over 30

years ago. Since then he has become a doctor, a historian and

has featured often on TV documentaries. But he has retained his

interest in UFOs, whilst becoming increasingly sceptical that

they are more than a psychological and sociological

phenomenon. With perhaps a few anomalies thrown in.


  Dave was an ideal choice to shepherd the release of the

Ministry of Defence UFO archives into the public domain

through the  first decade of this century when the Freedom of

Information Act made this inevitable.  He had the hard

headedness not to be  overly ebullient and yet a grounding in

the subject that was 100% genuine.


  So with each new batch of files he pointed out to the media the

highs and lows within the densely packed sheafs of often

indecipherable tedium and steered the jaded press onto what

he saw as the key things from each release.


  Along the way he released several books based on the data,

largely demystitying everything in sight, Whether you

appreciated that or considered him a ‘disinformer’ (which is 

rubbish given that his interest in the subject is very real and

long term as I can personally testify) he did a splendid job.


  Now that task is largely ended as the files are out, bar the odd

one or two that were held back and may yet appear later. And

the MoD has shut up shop and no longer collects UFO reports to

stuff into dusty files and get ignored.


  So in what is probably his last word on the matter he now

releases a book with the unusual slant of basing it around the

sketches and drawings of sightings from the UK that any

seasoned UFO researcher will know well as many similar ones

will  accompany cases in their own dusty filing cabinets.


  That really is the gist of this book – the breadth of artistic

prowess or otherwise that brightened up the endless

questionnaires of dry text within the MoD records. And a little

about the case itself to put the images into context.


  Some cases you might recognise, others likely never made an

impact on the wider world. But together they are a visual

snapshot of UFOs as they were in the UK during the second half

of the 20th century. 



 

INVESTIGATION
 


Space Men of Harlech


June/July 2017  Morfa Dyffran, Gwynedd, Wales
 


MUFON is one of the longest standing American UFO groups and

has been around since 1969. I have lectured in the States at

their conferences several times (most recently in Washington in

1999).


They have become interested in a spate of UFO reports from a

remote beach in northern mid Wales that is a favourite haunt of

naturists. So much so that MUFON has posted notices on trees

in the area asking for brave witnesses to come forward.


These sightings on Morfa Dyffryn south of Harlech have been

reported throughout Summer 2017 – not just by those on the

beach, um, ‘sunbathing’, but also locals out walking dogs or on a

stroll.



The notices refer to ‘strange lights, plasma balls and other

apparitions’ being observed around the sand dune strewn

location not close to any major towns.


Typical cases include a man walking his dog who took some

scenic photographs but saw nothing whilst taking them. But on

viewing them by computer later spotted a small ‘orb’ of light in

the sky over the sea.


Another witness described an object that was composed of 5

rings that slowly circled around the beach area and stood still in

mid air at one point for up to 10 seconds.


Sadly not much photographic evidence has been captured –

perhaps not surprisingly. Nudists would have to be rather

inventive over where to hold their cameras.


Locals are not convinced anything strange is going on. They

point to the development site for UAV – Unmanned Aerial

Vehicles – to the south at Llanbedr. This is used to test

experimental pilotless craft that might catch out non locals

unaware of this technology.


It is also a popular spot for those flying their own drones for

recreation or photo reconnaissance and for kite flying given the

healthy winds that blow in off the Irish Sea.
 
 
 

Journey into hype – r – space


17 July 2017  Fistral, Cornwall  
 


In mid July local and then national media sources picked up on a

series of reports coming in from Cornwall describing a blob like

UFO witnessed in daylight.


Surfer Kiefer Krishnan was one of the first to submit something

caught on his ‘Go Pro’ camera in the sea off Roche Rock. He

claimed not to see it until viewing the footage which at the very

end looks like a fuzzy blob almost ‘drawn on’ to the film. You

might at first be forgiven for thinking it is a splash of water out

of focus but it changes shape and looks a bit like a fuzzy  letter

‘E’ on its edge.


The water splash idea rapidly vanished when more and more

reports were made as this ‘social media’ wave progressed.


Sightings from around Truro and St Austell also featured

further video clips of similar ‘snake’ like fuzzy blobs – some

taken from dashcams on the front of cars driving on local roads.


As the media gathered pace theories accelerated – one popular

one being a flock of starlings performing their customary

aerobatics. Though this was not to last long as the murmuration

displays do not tend to occur in mid Summer.


By now there were some worrying signs obvious if you were

paying attention to the spread of reports. The unusual number

of film clips being one and the rather ‘tacked on’ nature of the

images that made them look quite unlike something in the sky

or even filmed at the same time as the footage of the actual

goings on such as the surfing or the drive.


Another big clue that should have alerted any UFO investigator

was the disparity between what was in the sky and what the

people in the video clips were doing. They were all going about

their business not noticing or reacting in any way to the UFO 

they filmed at the same time. Once or twice that would not be

too odd if they just failed to see it.


But being in all the clips it was starting to look more like a

conspiracy than bad eyesight or bad luck.


And so it proved. Once the national media started to run with

the UFO wave the admission came that this was a ‘social

experiment’ being used to harness the power of the internet

and modern communications to plug an event.


The culprits were the well-known West Country tourist draw –

the global biodomes in a disused quarry of the  Eden Project.

Hence, presumably, the fuzzy 'E' shape in shot.


They were launching a new ‘Journey into Space’ zone at the very

popular attraction and had decided ‘spaceships’ of the

imagination were a clever way to get noticed. 




Warminster Thing Returns (or not)

Cley Hill, Somerset, 19 August 2017
 


Cley Hill is a name well known to UFO researchers. It was the

focal point of strange events during the 1960s when the so

called ‘thing’ was reported in and around the nearby town of

Warminster, Wiltshire – popularised to wide media appeal by

Arthur Shuttlewood, a local journalist.


Then 20 years later during the heyday of the crop circle mystery

those various swathes of pattern in the corn and oats led to yet

more speculation about messages being marked on the Earth.

Though it is now widely thought that most were hoaxes.


So no surprise that when something weird was seen in the sky

over the infamous hill that UFOs were not very long in getting

associated this summer.


It was first seen in May by people around Frome. But three

months later several people reported the object just after dusk

on a Saturday night and one man succeeded in taking footage of

this on his way back from a day at a ‘Rum’ festival!  


The footage certainly looks quite spectacular – revealing at first

a firey glow that moves and spirals upwards then erupts a trail

of sparks in its wake.


Obvious answers such as a meteor are quickly eliminated due to

the erratic flight pattern. A flare is not practical either because

this twists and turns in a very controlled way rather than

something being wind born. It is also too fast.


There is an answer – however. This case was resolved as being

an innovative stunt flying aircraft. It does aerial displays

attaching fireworks to its wings as it loops around the sky. 


Whilst this might sound rather dangerous the team involved are

clearly skilled. By deliberately operating on summer nights

just after it has gone dark the stunning visual effect that this

creates is enhanced.


Of course, viewed from a distance where the plane itself is

unseen and the sound not heard or the display not known about

and we have yet another new type of IFO to add to the ever

growing list of explanations.




 
UFOs REVISITED
 

Whilst the above modern day reports are a tad disappointing in

terms of adding new evidence to the UFO mystery, this section

of Northern UFO News, each month will look at events and cases

that featured in Northern UFO News exactly 20, 30 and 40 years

ago - so currently that means late1977, 1987 and 1997 – 

adding in my continued reports to Fortean Times during our

absence and so ringing us to 10 years ago - in 2007.  


Each issue I will highlight some of the things that stand out from

any or all these time periods. The idea being to see what we can

gain from looking at these things anew after decades of

UFO progress.
 


1977:


In the early phase of the then relatively new NUFON - Northern

UFO Network – an alliance of local investigation groups sharing

their case research and activities through this magazine – we

had already just held the fourth annual conference.


The first three had been in Liverpool (1974), Manchester (1975)

and Sheffield (1976). In 1977 it was the turn of the Nottingham

UFO Investigation Society to play host.


Indeed two towns were already bidding to stage the 1978 event.

In a short time it had become like the Olympics!


This kind of cooperation was innovative in the UFO field and

made it possible to stage bigger and better events by sharing

the load as part of this NUFON alliance.


The idea was to retain total autonomy of how to run yourself

locally but to share common goals in a free – no ties, no fee

network of like minded regional UFO investigation teams.


This allowed these events to act as a kind of annual summit

meeting to plan research and develop new ideas – that by the

early 1980s would lead to the Code of Practice – a voluntary set

of rules to abide by when dealing with witnesses and the media.

It set a trend for global UFO research by being the first to put

any limitations on the use of regression hypnosis to protect

witnesses.


The Nottingham conference was also an innovator in having half

the sessions devoted to lectures aimed at the wider public so as

to educate and inform about the subject. And the other half of

the procedings being much more fact based and research heavy

discussions of ongoing cases or proposals for joint projects

that NUFON might better organise by groups working together.


It is sad looking back now to think that with the far fewer local

groups around today and relative lack of cooperation and even

limited communication that in many senses 1977 seems like the

‘future’ and today the ‘past’.


Is there anything we can do to revive this spirit of mutual

cooperation, I wonder?
 


Crewe Station of the Air


An interesting case ongoing around the conference happened on

3 September 1977 at Crewe, Cheshire – location of the still busy

railway junction.


But this involved very busy things in the sky over the town

investigated by prolific local team FUFOR.


Several witnesses saw a hazy white light moving North

Eastwards. One group heard a faint buzzing noise aside from a

witness who heard nothing. But had to have his ears syringed

later when it turned out they were blocked. Between 22.30 and

23.08 there were several sightings, including two ambulance

crew members.


The case was solved by Manchester Airport who confirmed that

in the then very early days of package tours by air things at

Ringway, as it was still known, were exceptionally busy for one

of the first times but by no means the last. As such the

inbound jets were being put into a new holding pattern over the

area around Macclesfield and Buxton still used today.  The holds

and turns by the planes coupled with the unusually clear

atmospheric conditions meant that this activity was visible from

as far south as Crewe in ways that had not been obvious before.


This shows how small changes in existing everyday events can

combine to create a UFO flap.


In fact when I was doing teacher training at a village school near

Crewe four years earlier we ran a class project that

investigated UFO sightings over a local wood. The kids loved it

and the UFOs being seen then turned out to be an earlier

manifestation of this same plane effect, coupled with some

poison sadly killing fish in a pond in the wood. Local rumour

had connected this with the 'flying saucers'. Whilst my school

career was very short lived this exercise proved a nice way

to teach connected scientific  thinking to intrigued children.


In those days all you could do when researching air activity was

guess possible causes and  phone or write to various places

hoping that they might assist you in the solution. Often, of

course, they heard the words UFO investigator, thought notcase

and politely sent you packing.


In the UFO world of 2017 things are much improved. There are

now invaluable free resources on the internet – including plane

tracking software such as flightradar24.com.


Designed for aviation enthusiasts it is a massive plus for UFO

investigators as the software lets you put in the location of a

sighting and the time and date and it reruns what was going on

in air traffic terms overlaid onto a map. So that you can plot

where your witnesses where and in what direction they were

looking and solve many aircraft caused encounters very fast

indeed – identifying the airline, aircraft and all details of its

height and speed and flight path.


If you pay extra to subscribe to sites you can get enhanced data

allowing rerun for longer periods (free sites usually only offer a

few days of reruns which will only help with sightings that you

investigate very rapidly). 


With a subscription even cases months old might

well be quickly resolved – or made more mysterious if the data

shows no air traffic was located where the witness described

seeing the UFO.    The internet has in some ways killed off real

life on site UFO investigation but there are some ways in which

the technology has helped enormously. This is one.
 



1987:
 

The thing that went bump in the night
 


This case was investigated for IUN  in Yorkshire by stalwart

researcher Rod Haworth, who I am sorry to report is not very

well at present. So it is nice to be able to reflect on better times
 
for Rod and his expertise.


The sighting occurred on 17 May 1987 in north east Lancashire at

Earby near Burnley.


A 47 year old company secretary was awoken at 4 am by a

terrible crash downstairs. She hastened to see what had

happened and discovered a chopping board in her kitchen had

somehow fallen to the floor and on its way had smashed a glass

into many pieces.


After clearing the mess she went back to bed but could now

hear a ‘deep droning noise’ that appeared to be hovering right

on top of the bungalow.


Though she had often seen and heard military aircraft passing

over on exercises nothing matched this sound so she went to

the window and witnessed an ‘immense light’ that was ‘the size

of an orange held at arm’s length’ but that was a deep green

colour. It seemed to be pouring out of a glassy sphere but no

actual shape was visible.


From the path it was taking it had clearly been moving slowly

right over the house about the time the ‘accident’ happened and

was now heading south towards the village of Foulridge.


Around then I was making a series of radio documentaries

called ‘Fact or Fiction?’ for the BBC in Manchester. I had spent

some time with Burnley based ghost investigator Terrence

Whitaker and as part of one episode he had explained to me

the spooky history of the aptly named Foulridge.


It was rife with a history of paranormal goings on and one of the

things persistently reported from the area was of household

objects mysteriously cracking or smashing on their own.


In the past they had been blamed on witchcraft – as

nearby Pendle Hill was associated with some of the most

infamous trials of this nature in the UK.  Now here was the same

thing linked with the more modern supernatural phenomenon

of UFOs.


This case points up the unexpected connections that can tie old

and new paranormal happenings and why sometimes you have

to look beyond the modern interpretation of any event and see

that the same thing reported long ago would have been

interpreted in an entirely different way than it can be today.


This investigation of events without described boundaries is the

Fortean approach, as in the magazine Fortean Times, and can

from time to time point research in unexpectedly interesting

directions. It is intriguing how often witnesses to UFOs also

experience other types of strange phenomenon.
 



1997:
 

The big talking point in the field 20 years ago was in the

aftermath of the movie ‘Independence Day’ featuring an alien

invasion.


The movie created much interest in UFOlogy and the local

Manchester group (NARO) set up an exhibition and assisted a

local cinema in Heald Green to promote the film.

This was mutually beneficial bringing in several interesting

cases - of which more in a moment.


However, someone else tempted to speak out was Professor

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant wheelchair bound cosmologist

portrayed by Eddie Redmayne in the 2014 movie ‘The theory of

everything’.


In the wake of Independence Day he was persuaded to tell the

media that the movie may well be right and the Earth could

really face danger if we were to meet aliens.


He likened ‘first contact’ to Columbus meeting the first native

Americans with humanity coming off as they did – ‘I don’t think

they were better off for it’, he quipped.


Hawking was then rather unwisely tempted to offer his views on

UFOs which resulted in him proving that even a genius destined

to go down in history alongside the likes of Newton and Einstein

is not infallible.


Saying he was surprised that Earth has not yet had alien contact

he quickly added – ‘and I don’t think UFOs are evidence’.


So far so okay until he added: ‘Why reveal yourself only to

cranks and weirdos? I think such visits would be much more

obvious and probably more unpleasant.’


I know the media can mistranslate what you say – or perhaps his

computer voice generator was having an off day – but many

close encounter witnesses have had pretty unpleasant

experiences and how overt alien contact would be surely

depends on many factors.


If we plan to study a community of carnivorous dinosaurs

discovered on a remote island we would probably not land in

numbers and set up a zoo. We would study at a distance and get

our bearings first.  If we had any sense and were not writing a

movie, that is.


More to the point – dear Professor – I think labelling many of the

respectable people who have had close encounters all cranks or

weirdos suggests he has not exactly done his homework on the

matter.


But at least we know that even a genius is not infallible.


Having said that…. I did say I would come back to those post

Independence Day cases. So here is one that might have the

Professor smiling.
 



Alien Love Song
 


The report is strange. It came from a man (Ron) located in the

East Midlands and started in 1955 when he was a passenger on a

train near Prague.


He woke from a doze to find a strange woman facing him. She

had beautiful skin and piercing blue eyes and her voice had an

odd sing song like lilt.


After telling him they would meet again they did, later that

decade, hundreds of miles away in Nottingham city centre. She

walked up to Ron in a coffee shop, held his hand and in that sing

song voice asked him to marry her. Then promptly vanished!


The saga to rival Star Wars continued with Ron seeing UFOs in

the form of lights over the coming months and years zig zagging

through the air and shifting through the colour spectrum.


Then two similarly ‘beautiful’ men approached him in a pub. The

‘leader’ had the same piercing blue eyes and sing song voice

with long blond hair. These beings made reference to a ‘crash’ of

a UFO, which Ron denied knowing anything about – but as they

left the blue eyed one whispered into his ear – ‘we come to help

you’.


In the early hours of the following night Ron awoke from sleep

hearing a ‘beautiful chanting voice’. Going to the window to see

who it was, down below were the two beings from the pub –

with the blue eyed one doing the serenading!  


Because he was naked Ron could not go down to them and also

felt ‘dumbstruck’ by this event (well you would, wouldn’t you?)

So did not make his presence known.


Moments later he heard the sing song blond alien say – ‘He is

not coming to the door…we may as well leave.’


And that was the last contact he ever had with the musical

entities from the X Factor galaxy.


Which, incidentally, was a newsstand magazine of the 1990s

before it was a Simon Cowell TV show and I wrote some articles

for it - meaning I can legitimately call myself a writer for the X

Factor.


If I actually wanted to that is!


Whilst some of you might be thinking that this case

is less ET and more tee hee and maybe Stephen

Hawking had a point after all , it is interesting to

compare the  usual alien contacts with ugly grey entities

performing medical  probes and scaring the life out of those

‘abducted’ with this rather old fashioned tale that shares more

with how alien contact cases often were during the 1950s.


Indeed this Nordic  (as in Scandinavian) appearance was not at

all rare in the earlier  more innocent days of close encounters.


Quite how UFOlogy arrived at Indepedence Day like encounters

from ones that seem more like La La Land instead

is a good question.


And it probably has a good and significant answer.



In 1997 Northern UFO News was rather lost for words like Ron

was here. And when he asked us – ‘It is a fact, is it not – that the

space people have musical voices? We had no real idea what to

say or do next.


Perhaps one of you has a suggestion.  
 



2007:
 

Fortean Times was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the birth

of the modern UFO phenomenon with the Kenneth Arnold

sighting on 24 June 1947.


In a special edition many long term UFO researchers offered

their take on where we stood at that point.


NUFON stalwarts David Clarke and Andy Roberts perceptively

noted that ‘the subject is not as clearly defined as it was and has

broadened to include a wide range of New Age beliefs….ufology

will continue to mutate
.’ 



‘We have enough strong cases to believe a genuine mystery

exists’
– said abduction expert Thomas (Eddie) Bullard. Whose

recent paper was mentioned in the last NUN and is still active a

decade later.



Nick Pope, former head of the MoD data collection team Air

Staff 2A turned UFO writer championed the Rendlesham Forest

case as ‘probably the world’s most significant UFO case’.


Long term US UFO researcher Jerome Clark who worked with

Allen Hynek at the Center for UFO Studies noted with his

customary astuteness that ‘What we call the UFO Phenomenon

appears to be two superficially related but in fact unrelated

matters. One is an event phenomenon: the UFO of radar/visuals,

ground traces, photographs and films….to all appearances

advanced technology….The other is an ‘experience’


phenomenon which links ostensible UFO encounters to older

supernatural traditions….genuinely and deeply anomalous, but

subjective and visionary, as much mysteries of consciousness

and imagination as of anything that might be out there in the

world’.



I guess it is only fair that I report what I said when asked like

many other long term researchers.


‘every sighting- however puzzling – is potentially open to an

eventual resolution, even decades after it has been

reported….The ‘UFO phenomenon’ is a catch all phrase that our

society has coined to explain what has turned out to be a

diverse range of events with various different resolutions. These

are falsely perceived as a cohesive mystery, largely due to social

and psychological factors such as media exploitation and human

desire to believe that we are not alone as a species….UFOlogy

needs to mature and accept that there is no conspiracy to hide

some shocking truth of alien invasion. There is no cover up, just

a cock up caused by typical bureaucratic ineptitude obscuring

only the fact that the powers that be were just as much out of

their depth as we are.
’
 



Also part of the 60 year anniversary I wrote a ‘time line’ for

every year from 1947 scattered throughout the issue pointing

out things we can learn now from what happened then.


As they are relevant here these are just my ‘anniversary’ ones:
 


1947:  Early UFOs are often seen in what are now rare

formations or patterns


(Lesson: The reported form of sightings affects what others see)
 


1957: Major radar encounter in Scotland and multiple car stops

in the American west demonstrate the significance of physical

evidence.


(Lesson: Science will take UFOs seriously when it has analysable

physical data)
 

1967: Colorado University is given a grant to study UFOs, but

researchers fall out over what questions to ask and the

assumption that UFOs are alien craft.


(Lesson: Disproving the existence of alien craft is not the same

thing as disproving the existence of unidentified flying objects)
 

1977:  Close Encounters of the Third Kind awes audiences around

the world amidst the biggest ever wave of UFO sightings.


(Lesson: UFO stories, told without needless sensationalism, will

enthral and baffle)
 


1987: Some cases spark fears that evidence was hoaxed to fool

the UFO community,


(Lesson: While less than one per cent of all UFO cases are

hoaxed these tend to involve some degree of notoriety and hard

evidence)
 


1997: American witnesses find implants placed in their bodies

during abductions, with some being surgically removed.


(Lesson: The universe is largely composed of the same stuff and

identifying non terrestrial origins for any claimed physical

evidence has proven tricky)



 



POSTSCRIPT : A REAL PUZZLER


The commemorations brought to light many old cases and here

is one that dates to an anniversary before Northern UFO News

even began – 60 years ago in 1957. It remains a riddle so if you

have any ideas about it let us know.


 


AN OLD FASHIONED DAYLIGHT DISK


August 1957  Port de Soller, Majorca


The witness, Geff, was a miner but had become disabled thanks

to asbestosis and was retired when he reported this case to

MUFORA, the Manchester group.


We were impressed by his objectivity and observational skills.

He had served as an aircraft recognition instructor for the RAF,

training recruits on how to observe and document and recognise

what they saw in the sky. He also had 15 years as a special

constable in the police and reached the rank of sergeant.


When he contacted us he pointed out that he had no interest in

or knowledge of ‘science fiction’ and just wanted ‘to know

whether there are answers to what I saw’.


It was the first few days of August in a year well before the

tourist industry reached the island of Majorca and this bay was

much more secluded than the hotel filled beach haven that the

late 60s and air travel brought.


To be there in the 50s you needed money or connections or to

be serving in the Med.


It was about 4 pm on a sunny afternoon with just a couple of

other people on the beach on the northern shore of the island (a

couple from Bournemouth whom Geff got to talk to and who

saw what he saw).


‘Suddenly directly overhead there was a bright flash’ he noted. ‘ I

thought it was a passing plane, until I saw another reflection in

the same area but lower down. I was still watching when there

was another reflection, lower still.’


He now realised that the flashes were caused by the sun

reflecting on a bright metal surface that was dropping vertically

down over the narrow beach with cliffs to his right and the sea

to his left.


It was a thin plate or disk like object seen edge on and

descending vertically under control towards the water.


Initially he thought it must be part of a plane such as a tail fin

falling out of the sky after a disaster high above and he was

tracking its path with relief aware it would hit away from them

or any other people he could see.


But then ‘It just stopped dead, twisted but did not turn and

presented itself full on as a flat round disk.’ As he jumped to his

feet and yelled pointing at the thing it ‘hovered’ in mid air right

before them ‘impossibly’.


Geff adds its motion was unlike any aircraft – it turned in ways

no plane could - instantly and smoothly. Aerodynamically it

made no sense.


In appearance it seemed a dull alloy that was several feet across

but not large. It now headed off the sea and started to move

away over the cliffs giving a view of the underside as it did so.


By now it was ‘travelling fast but not excessive’ and on the base

had a very strange cross shaped set of markings that might be

taken as retracted landing legs.


‘Ye Gods!’ he recalls yelling out as he had memory of seeing

German experimental aircraft in the War and he was worried

this was some super power with amazing new technology.


The ‘landing’ pods that he assumed hid the gear were peculiar

because it passed close enough over their heads for them to see

they were covered by what looked like a black tar like

substance.  Other than this there were no windows or cockpit or

any sign that anybody was flying the thing.


All the time he had thought of an aircraft but he knew  from the

moment it stopped dead and did an instant right angled turn

that we had no aircraft able to do these things.


If this sort of sighting happened today we would no doubt

suggest some kind of drone or secret aircraft being tested over a

remote bay. But remember this was in the pioneer days of jet

aircraft 60 years ago. If this account is as honest and accurate as

it seems there are few options I can think of as to what was ‘up

there’.


Over to you!
 
       

 
 
 
 
COMING EVENTS
 


Nigel Mortimer is hosting  a most unusual on line event -



What Really Happened at Rendlesham Forest?  
 


Using an ET/Spirit Communication device he hopes to uncover

the truth?


Apparently this very different investigation methodology

will scour the ether to reveal what has been hidden from us

otherwise by nefarious means.


Nigel Mortimer is hosting this experiment on


28 December 2017 at 800pm  
 


It will be live at 


https:// flylfotcomdev.jimdo.com/live-event/  
 





OUTER LIMITS MAGAZINE Conference


Saturday 1 / Sunday 2 September 2018  


Freedom Centre, Preston Road, Hull  HU9 3QB






With five recognised speakers two not UK based, OLM is

providing the very best in investigators and experiencers

directly to our conference venue for you.


Hosted by editor Chris Evers it will be Outer Limits Magazine’s

first ever two day event. Here Chris reports on what to expect.


FULL LIST OF SPEAKERS AND EVENTS


Saturday 1st September 2018


Bridlington based Paul Sinclair will present a fascinating

discussion, highlighting events from his own investigations in to

UFO cases in his own locality. Some of which have made national

and international headlines. Including losses over several years

of RAF Tornadoes in Bridlington Bay and how these are

associated with events of high strangeness.


Our second speaker is OLM Award winner John Hanson - along

with his partner Dawn Holloway author of the Haunted Skies

series of books and the Halt Perspective publication on the

Rendlesham Forest Incident of 1980.John will be discussing

these investigations.


Former Police Constable, Alan Godfrey’s first attempt at

documenting, the truth about his own encounter and his period

of missing time is presented in his softback Who or What Were

They? Telling of his own extremely close encounter and the

Zigmund Adamski death, on a Todmorden coal heap, less than

six months earlier.


From being told to do press conferences to how they were trying

to have him removed from his West Yorkshire Police Force

occupation Alan will discuss these events and more.


Mary Rodwell RN is the Founder and Principal of Australian

Close Encounter Resource Network. (ACERN). Born in the United

Kingdom (UK) and migrating to Western Australia in 1991, she

currently resides in Queensland. Mary is a former nurse,

midwife, and health educator and was employed as a

professional counsellor for the National Health Service UK and

Australian counselling agencies.Since 1994 Mary has worked in

private practice as a professional counsellor, hypnotherapist,

metaphysical teacher and international speaker. ACERN’s

primary role is to offer professional counselling, support,

hypnotherapy and information to individuals and their families

with ‘anomalous’ paranormal experiences, particularly

specializing in Abduction-contact experiences.


Her talk will outline many of the accounts from children as

young as 7 to much older individuals.


Finally our Headline speaker is none other than the former USAF

and Rendlesham Forest Incident witness Col Charles Halt (ret).

He will be making a welcome return to the UK and to his first

OLM conference, where his lecture will focus on the events

surrounding what is now known as Britain's Roswell.
 


Sunday 2nd September



A very special one off event hosted by Outer Limits Magazine

and presented by Mary Rodwell.


Beginning at 12 noon and ending at 4pm Mary will present a

workshop designed for those who have experienced a close

encounter or who wish to investigate such encounters.




For further information on this conference join our 2018

Conference Facebook page here:


https://www.facebook.com/OLMCONF2018/






            
                       
IF YOU WANT TO SEND IN ANY EVENTS OR PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS

                       OR DIRECT US TO  
LOCAL SIGHTINGS CONTACT US  AT



                                                        NORTHERN UFO NEWS



                                                       
nufon@btinternet.com

                                                                                              
                                                                         

                                                                       OR  AT      


                                                 
                                  
                            10 MARTON GREEN       STOCKPORT     CHESHIRE    SK3 8LT





 





























Picture


187           OCTOBER 2017


Picture




EDITOR :   JENNY RANDLES             COVER DESIGN:   ROY SANDBACH


Address:  10 Marton Green, Stockport, Cheshire SK3 8LT

email address: nufon@btinternet.com


Contents: Introduction:- Back to the future....Major articles elsewhere....Investigations - New twist on mid air sighting from Surrey.... The Big Debate.... Books of the Moment - three new UFO titles on Allen Hynek, 24 June 1947 and a lost abduction from 1959.... Coming Attractions













JR Comments:-        Back to the future



    It is 16 years since I edited what was never planned to be the final edition of 

Northern UFO News. Then domestic circumstances meant that I was forced to take a long

break from the UFO field to become a full-time carer, so I promised myself on behalf of any

enthusiasts who had part of their £6 for 5 issues subscriptions still owing that one

day it would come back.


     Well here it is. 


     Of course, what I could promise in 2001 and the reality of 2017 are very different. The

world has changed dramatically and UFOlogy has been dragged along with it not exactly

kicking and screaming - more like a feeble whimpering. A magazine such as Northern UFO

News was already an anachronism of the 21st century – one of the last of 20 or so that used

to exist in the UK alone -  and is even more ‘quaint’ now with the vast expansion of social

media giving access to almost any kind of information.



     This begs the question whether there is even a point to the return of NUN. And, in some

large degree, whether the UFOlogy that existed during the 1970s, 80s, 90s and (very early)

00s throughout which it was issued has been consigned to history along with it.



     The good news is that it will cost nothing for anyone to read this time around, so even if it

seems like something out of the dark ages then it can carry on for as long as I have time to

edit each monthly edition – due around the end of  the first week of the month for those

who want to make a regular date. And if you don’t want to bother, that’s fine by me, it will be

here if you ever want to look - with all the older editions too.



     This first return edition is deliberately retro, with some of the original design logos and

Spartan design - though I will tinker with upgrading and new graphics as we progress. Treat

this as a dry run prototype learning as we go.   So panic only slightly if this

might seem especially old fashioned. I may not keep it that way but will respond to what

people want.


     Even if that future look updates itself to take account of modern technology,

my plan is to keep the content much as it always was in the ‘olden days’. So it will be me

collecting news and events and commenting about the debates alive in the field then

current.


     Firstly, though, I want to add a note about the cover illustration from Roy Sandbach.

Every issue after the early days we had a UFO related line drawing on the front page and

over 26 years there were several regulars who enjoyed the challenge. Roy was one of those

who illustrated several covers and was a close friend who worked with me investigating a

number of cases with MUFORA – the Manchester UFO Research Association – later renamed

NARO – Northern Anomalies Research Organisation. One of the founders of the NUFON 

(Northern UFO Network) alliance of local groups working together. 


      As you can see from all these 'names' made out of letters and as the term 'UFO' in the

first place should imply, this field has always loved its acronyms.


     MUFORA were a local team that looked into many classic cases even before I joined in the

early 1970s and with whom I worked for 30 years, Roy being part for the last 20. Sadly he

passed away in the long gap between these issues but his case work and illustrations are a

great legacy.


     This particular image is a colour painting he developed from a line sketch that he first did

as a cover for NUN issue163 some 24 years ago. Colour was just not possible with the old

style of UFO magazine run off by a small home printer based company in the East Midlands

who kept costs down for local mags so we only had to charge a modest subscription. But it is

now nice to put that right in colour as a tribute to Roy.


     So, how has the UFO world altered in these past 16 years whilst this magazine has been

engaged in a very long ‘time lapse experience’?


     Ironically my editorial in that ‘final’ issue in 2001 commented on the global news story

then rife that UFOlogy was dead as a result of the reports of the closure of a group in Bristol

that had been around since the early 1950s. And whilst that was, as I think you can see,

rather premature just as my editorial then predicted. But I  also noted the challenge that we

faced from the internet and how UFOlogy needed to embrace it rather than run scared. As

used well it can become our friend and help greatly in case investigations.


     Certainly, as that Bristol closure presaged. there are not as many UFO groups as used to

thrive in every major town or the national associations that once had member numbers as

high as four figures and annual budgets in the tens of thousands of pounds. BUFORA and

ASSAP, two national associations, still operate – though BUFORA more as a virtual presence

than the once dynamic public face of the subject in the UK and ASSAP, whilst still thriving,

has a broader scope than just UFOs
 

     A few local UFO teams have bucked the trend and half a dozen or so of the British UFO

researchers who were involved in the groups allied into the Northern UFO Network – with

which this magazine was always loosely aligned – have moved on from being bright young

enthusiasts to somewhat less youthful but still productive researchers.


     Some key figures from British UFOlogy when this magazine began - like David Clarke -

 are still out there. He is now celebrated for his role in steering the release of the MoD UFO

files through the National Archives, writing several books tied into them. Another early

pioneer with NUFON links is Andy Roberts, who was closely involved with David via the West

Yorkshire UFO Research Group. He has published books over the past 16 years.


     Indeed those two and myself jointly created one of my last pure UFO books – The UFOs

That Never Were – that was published in 2000 by Allison and Busby and devoted mostly to

cases that became IFOs – or solved.


     Another one in from the start of NUN, Nigel Watson, hit the headlines recently for writing

a handbook for the motoring specialist Haynes on UFOs.   
 

    This small core of ‘old and not yet quite so old UFO buffs’ aside UFO research now largely

happens in virtual reality. There are still conferences like the international ones that used to

run every year gathering investigators from around the world to present their research, but

not so many set up by long term UFO groups as today they are more commonly related to

popular magazines. These inevitably focus on the more extreme areas of UFO research,

from cover ups and conspiracies, or captured aliens and men in black. Nothing wrong in

looking into these areas, per se, as we all have done in the past.


    However, it seems to me that some of the objectivity and caution that used to demark

British UFO research and its conferences has become rather lost in the process of following

the perceived audience. As magazines inevitably have to reach an audience and sell copies

so they will pursue the anticipated interests of that audience.


    You get that feeling too from viewing the flood of TV shows about UFOs that now abound

on the zillion channels out there. From what used to be a rare event when the BBC or ITV or,

even in their earlier days Sky, would make a UFO documentary every now and then and do

so reasonably with a well balanced approach we now seem to get 100 shows a year that

delve into rumours and tall tales and chase an audience that sees UFOlogy as an X Files

episode rather than a real phenomenon to be scientifically resolved.


    It may be an inevitable sign of changing times and there is true fascination in many of

these stories – though often more that than there is credibility.  Should we mourn the

passing of an objective approach and a steady drift towards subjectivity? Does it matter if it

gives the public what they want to hear?


    The UFOlogy I recall of old had its moments but often drifted into this territory too and

there always was a battlefront in any mass market magazine or large membership group.

Here that was between bringing in the money via attracting lots of members who would

probably have become interested in the subject through the mass market extremes and

possibilities. And the much smaller number of dedicated investigators who were genuinely

interested in solving the riddles of UFO reality, wherever they led us.


    In a way this always came down to money. UFOlogy needed funds for groups to function

and conferences and events to happen. To get those funds it had to attract the majority

likely to believe in 10 impossible things before breakfast time. And as a result there was

some income to keep the group functioning to do the case studies and research as long as

you provided enough speculation to keep the majority subscribers happy too. Such uneasy

bedfellows were never fully compatible.


    There is no easy way out of this dilemma and the demise of many UFO groups and the

virtual reality in which much UFO debate now occurs has exacerbated the trend away from

hard investigation towards colourful speculation. Web sites and forums thrive on this. You

can tell tales anonymously, which in some ways opens doors but in others releases demons

such as fabrication without the risk of retribution.


    Northern UFO News will reflect the reality of the UFO community as it is and not ignore

either side of things – but as we are not in any way dependent on money coming in or really

bothered if 10 people or 10,000 people read what is in here each month we will have a

degree of freedom of discretion to attempt some level of objectivity in our discussion.


    UFO sightings are still happening and they still need investigating. And I am as convinced

as I ever was that not all of them can be wished away as merely IFOs – although 95% of

them are so identified and that reality should never be ignored because we learn a lot from

their investigation.


    There are nonetheless real mysteries to be explored and, in my view, new science to be

found behind them. And it is not impossible that some intelligence other than our own is

involved in this enigma. Though – it is equally important to emphasise – that it is

also perfectly possible that the UFO mystery has no alien component at all and this

speculation is a red herring leading us astray through understandable excitement around

the thrill of the chase.



    Of course, finding aliens really is a big deal and so any possible clues that might lead us

there are worth consideration, even when they often go somewhere else in the end.


    So now you know what to expect out of future issues of this magazine. Objective

commentary on what is going on – aware of the possibilities, but equally aware of the

realities – and with no axe to grind or belief system to promote.


    We will be happy to debate any idea and any possibility with any of you – so long as you

accept our right to not necessarily agree with them.   





Major Articles Elsewhere
 



     In this section we will point you towards articles that appear within the UFO literature

during that month. Though we need to find them, as there are fewer now than there used to

be.


     We will be on the lookout and if you want your magazine to be featured, just point us

towards it.

 
    But to start off this month I will point you to one magazine that I do see every month

because I have been writing a column for it during the years since the previous issue of

NUN.  However, this is a special publication and you can easily find it in major newsagents

such as WH Smith or you can subscribe.




Fortean Times  Issue 358 October 2017


80pp  Cover price £4.50  12 issue subscription £48 UK, £58 Europe, £68 Rest of World, or

$89.99 US




customercare@subscribe.forteantimes.com



   
     Named after the great American collector of anomalous tales, Charles Fort, who wrote a

number of books in the early 20th century that still sell today and was the first to identify

and publish examples of many of the unexplained phenomena widely researched even

now. This covers all around the UFO mystery, time anomalies and much more. For decades

this magazine has continued the collection and analysis of these things in Fort’s image. It

has around 14,000 subscribers.
 

     In this issue Alan Murdie describes apparitional events close to river crossings.

Two recent essays by long term UFO giants are reviewed looking at where we stand 70 years

after the Kenneth Arnold sighting in 1947.
 


    Veteran Spanish researcher V J Ballester Olmos provides a pessimistic stance on how lack

of proof of alien presence has led him to speculate an almost myth based ‘reality’ created by

self-fuelling reports and theorising.  


    This is countered by American abduction specialist Thomas (Ed) Bullard  who to a point

agrees about the lack of tangible evidence but resists descending into pronouncing UFOlogy

on its way out by hoping we can still find a path on which something truly unexplained

remains at its core.



     Peter Brookesmith, who was editor of the highly regarded Orbis ‘Encylopedia’ – The

Unexplained – that sold in newsagents during the 1980s – tries to find a way to balance

these two perspectives from such highly respected figures in the field.  


     Liverpool professor Rob Gandy has a fascinating article looking into paranormal

experiences involving motorbikes that hit home as they were eerily linked to me in ways

these things often happen. Two of the prime cases occurred at Mersey Square in Stockport

and in a Mersey Tunnel from Wallasey on the Wirral that the author notes links him as he

has lived in both towns. Well snap, Rob. I have too. Moreover, I was a pillion rider often in

the 70s and 80s on my partner Paul’s Triumph Bonneville – during one journey on which

when passing through Wiltshire we, too, had a strange experience that I related in the one

book Paul and I wrote together – Alien Contact.


    My contribution to this Fortean Times coincides with the 40th anniversary this autumn of

the release of the Spielberg movie – Close Encounters of the Third Kind. That classic was

based on the real UFO stories in Dr J Allen Hynek’s book – The UFO Experience – and Hynek

is in the movie itself. I describe how I did some work for the movie company on the UK

release of the film in early 1978 and the extraordinary social impact it had. This was a major

point for public awareness and acceptability here and I try to show some of the things that

occurred.      
 

 



Investigations
 



     In this section my plan is to look at a few cases every month, as we always used to do in

Northern UFO News.


    Then, of course, we had a network of groups around Northern Britain investigating

sightings and sending in the results. Nowadays we do not.


    So how big this section is each issue depends on you to report things that happen down

your way or point us towards stories in your local media. Then we will delve into them and

report back.


    Despite the name of the magazine we will not be restricted geographically as we once

were . Except to planet Earth perhaps! 


    So send your contributions in to the details at the end of this magazine and we will try to

follow them up and report back in here.


    First up here is a case that featured in my book – Something in the Air – published in 1998

by Robert Hale. My last of several pure UFO books for that publisher who recently closed

down after nearly a century.


    As the title suggests that book is about mid air encounters – UFOs seen from aircraft or in

connection with them from the ground. Though it also coincidentally revealed the difference

in approach between the rather more subtle British presentation of the phenomenon  and

the USA, where my American publisher found it necessary to retitle the book as the

somewhat hysterical – UFO! Danger in the Air.


    It occurred on 27 August 1979 – by coincidence the day Robert Hale were publishing my

first ever UFO book. The event involved a Cessna 150 G-BBNX (November Xray) that took off

from Blackbushe Airfield in Surrey at 14.40 on a sunny afternoon. It was investigated by

Omar Fowler of the Surrey investigation group.


    A flying instructor and a pupil he was training, a lieutenant from Sandhurst military

college, were at 2000 feet and just as the instructor was about to pass over control he was

forced to react swiftly and grab them back – putting the aircraft  into a steep banking

descent.


    An ‘object’ now ‘rushed past’ the front of the Cessna narrowly missing a collision.  It was

about a foot wide, doughnut shaped and silver like a blob of mercury.


    The experienced pilot attempted to twist and turn as the object seemed to circle round

them and radioed back to the airfield that the UFO was ‘playing’ with them. He was sure it

was under powered control and after flying underneath them then climbed to 3000 feet with

the Cessna heading up after it.


    At one point, the lieutenant, more able to look at the object not being at the controls saw

it close up and described it as a series of metallic honeycombs and rotating slowly about

one revolution a minute. He even saw hint of an aerial emerging from the metal surface.

Another pilot from the airfield claimed a more distant view of the same object the following

day.



    I argued in my book that this was likely a remotely piloted craft of some sort and noted it

was heading towards Farnborough – home of much experimental aviation tech at that time.


    But no proven origin of that sort from here emerged and flying such a device in and

around the known path of aircraft from a busy field would seem rather dangerous.


    I mentioned this case (though not all details) in an article in Fortean Times earlier this year

and by chance this has produced a follow up.


    Terry Clark contacted FT to explain that he was on duty as radar controller at Farnborough

that day and ‘controlled’ the flight of the Cessna 150. Such control still happens to this day as

Blackbushe Airfield has no radar of its own. Light aircraft usually apply visual flying rules but

there is so much air traffic in this part of the UK – with Farnborough arrivals and departures

through the air space and military traffic from Odiham – that it is good safety for radar to be

monitored for any potential traffic conflict.


    It is clear that Terry is being truthful as he reports things not in my brief reference in that

issue of FT but are in the original report. He names the pilot, which I did not, pointing out he

was an ex RAF test school instructor at Farnborough with great flying experience but

how he received much ‘banter’ from colleagues after reporting this UFO sighting.


    Clark even knew the Cessna itself as he had actually flown the same aircraft. So when

the pilot of November Xray reported the UFO sighting to him later he could only say that

nothing had been on his radar screen other than several other aircraft he was controlling

away from one another that afternoon.


    When the Farnborough radar controller was next at Blackbushe he met with the Cessna

pilot who showed him a sketch of the object that he and his pupil both clearly saw that day.

Unfortunately Clark has since lost this in a house move but he did ask a scientist at the

space department of the Royal Aircraft Establishment to comment on the image at the time

and describe anything experimental it might be.


    He suggested that it ‘might’ be a balloon with appendages attached but not know how or

why this would occur.


    Interestingly Terry Clark had actually joined BUFORA out of personal interest but the

flight instructor witness told him he was ‘trying to forget’ the whole thing – possibly because

of the reaction he received after reporting it in the local newspaper.


    Intriguingly Clark was later contacted by a ‘local inventor’ who said he lived near Reading

and claimed that he had built and flown this ‘flying saucer’.


    Farnborough Space Department confirmed to the radar operator that they were aware of

this man and his device which used an ‘electromagnetic cannon’ that launched projectiles

high into the air.



    Whether this bizarre answer is the cause of this case or this sighting remains unresolved

who knows.But it just shows how even very old UFO cases can take new twists and turns

years later.


    So alongside new sightings in this section of future issues of Northern UFO News, I will be

looking back at some of the interesting cases we featured in the respective issues exactly 40,

30 and 20 years previously to see if today we can shed any new light on them – as thanks to

Terry Clark we possibly can do here.    
 





The Big Debate

 

    Every now and again I plan to open up space to a big issue that dominates the UFO

mystery and ask you – the readers - to contribute your thoughts or arguments or personal

experiences that push you in one direction or another on this topic.


    Well to kick off this month I think we should pick up on the theme of the Ballester-

Olmos/Bullard essays mentioned earlier about the state of UFOlogy.



    It is often widely (though wrongly) presumed that a UFO is, basically, an alien spaceship.

Whereas in fact it is what it says on the tin – an unidentified flying object – of which alien

spaceship is simply one possible theory to explain some examples.



    Once the ‘go to’ answer for many investigators and still hugely popular on the internet

older researchers – as we saw from those essays – have become ever more cautious

because of the lack of supportive or physical evidence.



    Such as? Well, such as photographs not just of blobs in the sky but landed UFOs that are

self evidently not human machines. Or good quality shots of what are clearly not human

beings but some kind of alien.  Not to mention other problems – for instance – non

terrestrial DNA left at a close encounter site or materials not found on Earth like a new

element or metal alloy from elsewhere off this planet.



    When we send a spaceship to another world we leave proof that beings from elsewhere

 sent this probe to that world.  It is reasonable to ask where the reciprocal evidence is

if UFOs are craft coming here from another planet.



    Are there explanations for this? Perhaps you know of some evidence? Could there be ways

around this omission or things that we should be looking for.


    Or does your personal experience of something that to you had to be non terrestrial

convince you? If so, then join the debate, tell us about it and try to persuade the doubters.


    When this debate has run its course we will start another one based on the next hot issue

within UFOlogy.

 
 
 


Books of the Moment
 
 


      UFO related books from mainstream publishers in the UK are very sparse. Whilst I have

never personally had an agent for my 50 books I am advised by one successful agent who

has worked with some researchers in the field that circumstances are challenging. Some of

his clients have moved abroad to find more work and others seem to be happily publishing

on their own.



       This method has been revolutionised both in simplicity and quality since the last issue of

NUN appeared and I expect it to lead to an increasing flood of new works – such as Alan

Godfrey’s Who or What Were They? (published later this month) – which appear via this

route of do it yourself book creation.  



       This magazine has always told you about the new literature out there for you to read

and we will do so whatever its origin.



       Look out for the following recent new books that I know about:
                                  



The Close Encounters Man

Mark O’Connell

William Morrow  June 2017

416 pp 

$17.99 Paperback

From $12.23 on Amazon Books

ISBN 978-0-06248-417-8
 



    A biography of the ‘father’ of modern UFO research, a man I was fortunate enough to

know a little during the final decade of his life.


    He was the ‘close encounters’ man because he created the definition of UFO sightings

from which the famous movie derives its name. So he invented a phrase that has entered

the English language and has long outlived his death in 1986.



    Hynek was a very kind and funny man (huge fan of Monty Python as I discovered when we

did a road trip across the States together) and who cared deeply about finding answers to

the subject. 



    He was in at the start of UFO investigation by chance as a local astronomer to the base in

Ohio where the USAF created their UFO investigation team. This got immortalised in the

1970s TV series ‘Project UFO’. Hynek was the science consultant throughout trying to resolve,

but not always succeeding, the cases that came the way of the military.



    After the USAF closed shop in 1969 he created the Center for UFO Studies with like

minded scientists. And tried hard to find a scientific way to investigate this mystery shaping

much of modern  UFOlogy in the process.



    This is a long overdue biography of the man and his time in and out of the subject. A man

born with the arrival of Halley’s Comet and so ‘destined’ to be a space scientist and who told

me he long knew that he would leave the stage when that comet returned. As indeed he did!
 





Three Minutes in June

Bruce Maccabee

Amazon June 2017

141 pp

$14.95   $7.30 Kindle edition

ISBN 978-1-54713-005-4

 


    Bruce Maccabee is another long time UFO researcher from the US who has specialised in

the investigation of sightings by pilots.


    So it is no surprise to see him release this case study of the sighting that created the term

flying saucer and in turn the modern UFO mystery. This new book appeared on its 70th

anniversary.


    The report by Kenneth Arnold over the Cascade Mountains in western USA on 24 June

1947 was key in so many ways and this book tells the story and its aftermath in a

straightforward manner.
 




No Return

David Booher

Anomalist Books  July 2017

$15.96  Kindle edition $11.94

ISBN 978-1-93839-886-5




    Possibly the only thing that you might need to know here is that Jacques Vallee, the great

pioneer UFO thinker, pens the foreword to this book. If he agrees to do that it usually means

it is worth reading.


    This is a case that many people will never have heard of but is potentially one of the very

first alien abduction cases dating back to February 1959.


    It was discussed briefly in the early years of UFO research in that context but because of

what happened it fizzled out and was lost to any future consideration. But now that has

changed after a four year diligent investigation by the author.


    A man who worked as a military technician driving back to his base in Utah saw

something  fall from the sky and – thinking it was a plane crash – left a note on his steering

wheel saying he had gone to help and marked his car with a sign asking to stop any other

passers by on the remote road. Then headed off towards the ‘crash site’.


   A day later he woke up in hospital 20 miles away telling this story but with no memory of

what happened in between. He asked if there were any survivors, only to be told nobody

found any evidence of the air crash he claimed to have seen.


    Soon after recovery he disappeared from his base and was listed as a deserter but nobody

heard from him again. So the case remained a half mystery that was never resolved.


    But the author traced him and has pieced together an account of what may have

happened.  Looking at the options of both an alien abduction and a mind bending military

experiment of which he was an unwitting participant.


    Whether either or neither resolve this puzzle it is fascinating to suddenly have a whole

new, if 58 year old, case to get your teeth into.

 



Coming Attractions
 

     This is the section where you can promote any events that you have coming up – from

lectures, to conferences, or book signings, webcasts, etc - in fact anything that others can

attend or tune in to.


     Give us enough notice and we will let everyone know.  

 




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