David Clarke                                         News                                     November 2007

REMENISCING AT WARMINSTER (181107)

Back in the swinging sixties the small Wiltshire town of Warminster became a mecca for UFO spotters. Bank Holiday weekends saw hordes of saucerers descend upon Cradle Hill, overlooking the town, in search of 'The Thing' made famous by a local journalist, Arthur Shuttlewood.Some twenty of those who cut their teeth on the Cradle Hill beat as teenagers returned this August bank holiday, older and wiser, for a vigil to mark the 60th anniversary of the birth of the UFO mystery. Among them was sceptic David Simpson, who brought along the simple spotlight he used to recreate the hoax which fooled UFO spotters and Flying Saucer Review back in 1970. But apart from Simpson's flashing light nothing else arrived to disturb the clear, starlit sky.

Organiser Kevin Goodman quipped that although 'nothing was seen, old hippies [were] everywhere.' Indeed, skywatch veterans have now begun to form a social network 'who have memories and tales to tell of those halcyon days.' Goodman's own sighting and contact experiences, and those of a group of his close friends, are chronicled in UFO Warminster – Cradle of Contact. He and fellow researcher Steve Dewey, whose own book on the enigma was reviewed in FT 209:57, now jointly edit the definitive website on the Warminster UFOs. It's a goldmine of Fortean nuggets from those more innocent days before the advent of abductions, crop circles and other more recent UFOlogical fads.

Wiltshire Times, 30 August 2007

Kevin Goodman's book can be ordered from the Warminster website,

http://www.ufo-warminster.co.uk/

IRISH EYES ARE SEEING SAUCERS (181107)

Prompted by the recent releases of official UFO archives by the British and French governments, the Irish defence forces have released their own X-files under the country's Freedom of Information Act. The dossier contains details of sightings spanning a period of almost forty years. The earliest dates from 11 July 1947 - just a fortnight after Kenneth Arnold's sighting - when a shopkeeper filed a report on a flat circular object, white in colour and hollow in the centre 'like a big wheel or large plate' moving swiftly through the sky of County Kerry. In Ireland the age of the flying saucer ended in 1984, when the Defence Forces closed their files. Ironically, one of the last sightings logged turns out to be the most intriguing of all: an off-duty policeman and a farmer cutting peat in Donegal heard a 'gushing sound' and saw grey missile 'like a household iron with fins at the back' zoom over their heads. Officials in Dublin suspected this was a remote-controlled drone launched by the British or American navies while a newspaper claimed it was a sea-launched guided missile gone astray. At the height of the Troubles, aliens were not seriously suspected.

Irish Times, 20 September 2007

CHANNEL ISLANDS UFO REMAINS A PUZZLER (040807 update)

Experienced pilots frequently see UFOs but are reluctant to report their experiences for fear of the publicity that inevitably follows. Pressure from both the commercial airlines and the UFO industry often means few pilots are prepared to make official reports of their experiences to the authorities. But in April one courageous pilot, Ray Bowyer, broke the taboo by speaking publicly about two UFOs he saw over the Channel Islands whilst on a regular flight from Southampton to Alderney. His sighting is possibly the most important UFO event in recent years because his testimony is supported not only by a number of passengers, but also by the pilot of a second aircraft and, possibly, by radar evidence.

Bowyer – who has over 20 years flying experience - was at the controls of a BN2a Trislander approaching Alderney when he spotted a "brilliant sparkling object" hovering in the clear sky on the afternoon of 23 April. At this stage the Trislander was at an altitude of around 4,000 feet and the UFO appeared to be 10-15 miles away. Initially he believed the light was a reflection from glasshouses on the island of Guernsey, but as he got closer the object became larger and a second, which appeared identical in shape and size, became visible. The first object initially seemed at the same altitude as the plane, but later they seemed to descend towards haze and cloud above the islands, which were visible below. Bowyer then realised the object he first saw appeared to be much larger and further away than he had first assumed. At least five of his passengers could also see the phenomena which were visible for around 12 minutes and the pilot was able to study them in detail for around ten minutes through binoculars. He said the UFOs appeared elongated, with sharply defined edges and a "dark graphite grey patch" about a third of the way along their length. All the while he was talking to Air Traffic Control at Jersey, who initially said they could see nothing on radar. But after a number of requests the controller confirmed they had "a primary contact" in the area described by the pilot. At the same time, the pilot of a Jetstream aircraft en route to Jersey was asked if he could see anything. As he passed the island of Sark he reported seeing a cigar-shaped object "yellow-beige in colour" behind his aircraft, in a similar position to that described by Bowyer. As the Trislander began its landing approach pilot lost sight of the UFOs in the haze.

Bowyer filed a report with the Civil Aviation Authority and the story quickly leaked to the Press. The Ministry of Defence quickly decided that because the sighting occurred in French air space there was no threat to the UK and therefore no official investigation was required. They also poured cold water on the radar sighting on the basis that Jersey's radar was "secondary only and therefore unable to achieve a primary radar contact", in stark contradiction to the controller's story. As an exercise in buck-passing this took some beating as yet again the MOD decided to cut and run rather than investigate a UFO incident in any detail.  Despite the lack of interest displayed by the authorities a small group of UFOlogists both in the UK and France have begun a detailed investigation of the incident and the results will be published here in FT in due course.

In the meantime speculation about the cause of the sighting has continued. In June The Sun newspaper published an imaginative artist's impression of the UFOs, claiming the pilot had estimated each was "up to a mile wide." In fact this was an inaccurate estimate based upon the pilot's impression that the objects were further away than he initially thought. A writer in the local Alderney Journal suggested the lights might have been sundogs, created by reflections from ice crystals in the atmosphere. But this explanation was dismissed by Bowyer who said he had seen these before and they did not resemble the position and appearance of the UFOs. Some experts have linked the sighting to the earthquake which struck the south Kent coast five days afterwards (see FT 224:2). This theory remains speculation at this stage. Meanwhile, the MOD released their file on the pilot's sightings via their FOI website, along with a further section of their UFO data base which contains brief details of sightings reported to them between 1999 and 2001.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FreedomOfInformation/

(Guernsey Press & Star, 26 & 28 April; BBC News Online 25 April; The Independent, 4 May; The Sun 22 June; Alderney Journal, 23 June)    

1947-2007: 60 YEARS OF UFOs  (update 080707)

The 60th anniversary of Kenneth Arnold's seminal sighting of 'flying saucers' over the Cascade Mountains has now come and gone. The equally significant anniversary of the legendary Roswell incident is upon us. Predictably, most of what has been learned over the past half century has been forgotten in the rush to examine the latest 'evidence' for the greatest conspiracy theory of them all. The latest 'evidence' - yet another confession from beyond the grave - is just as contradictory and unconvincing as all the others that preceded it. The importance attributed to this story in some quarters perfectly illustrates the fundamental position the Roswell incident now plays in the UFO mythology. Those UFOlogists who believe the US Government has concealed wreckage and bodies from a crashed flying saucer will accept nothing less than total confirmation of their preconceived ideas. From this perspective, the Roswell incident - in the form of the cover-up of an ET crash-landing - cannot be disproved only proved. Roswell is now beyond all rational discussion or examination. You either buy it or you don't. As you have probably gathered by now, I don't.

For those who yawn when Roswell is mentioned it was a refreshing change recently to experience a different manifestation of UFOlogy - European UFOlogy - in action. The European approach to UFOlogy has for decades been radically different to that in North America, with its obsession with paranoia, cover-ups and alien abductions. Perhaps because of its traditional interest in philosophy, French UFOlogists in particular have adopted a sceptical, psycho-social approach to the subject. While this approach has had its adherents in Britain, post X-files UFOlogists here have tended to gravitate towards the American point of view perhaps as a result of the perceived language barrier which separates us from UFOlogy as practised in Europe. The EuroUFO network of scientific UFOlogists, to which I belong, is slowly helping to break down these artificial barriers to produce a new continental framework for serious research.

It was through the Euro UFO network that I was pleased to accept an invitation from the Italian UFO group CISU to speak at their UFO Congress to mark the 60th anniversary of the birth of the UFO mystery. The congress itself was held in the Alpine resort of Saint Vincent, set in the beautiful Aoste Valley, against a wonderful panorama of the Italian Alps. The event began with a press conference and was followed by the opening of a gallery exhibition of UFO photos and films and a visit to one of the region's observatories. It culminated in a day of public lectures held in a luxury hotel in Saint Vincent on Sunday, 24 June. Several hundred people attended the free public event, to hear presentations by the crème de la crème of European UFOlogy but primarily representing scientific UFOlogy in Italy, France, Spain and the UK. As the UK's representative I gave a short presentation on the MoD Defence Intelligence files on UFOs which are shortly to be released by the British Government. One of the highlights of the congress was undoubtedly the presentation of Jacques Patenet, director of GEIPAN, the French Space Agency's "UAP research and information group" which recently opened its archive of files on a public website. M. Patenet explained how GEIPAN investigate and assess UFO incidents working closely with the French gendarmerie. The sober, scientific approach that was evident throughout the proceedings was in stark contrast to the wild-eyed circus-like atmosphere in evidence at many so-called 'UFO conferences' I have attended in the UK over the past quarter century. This dichotomy in approach was further underlined by the content of the discussions that took place in the private workshop of the EuroUFO.net group which ran parallel to the public presentations on the day of the congress. I hope this congress will be the first of many and that, as a result, European UFOlogy will once again develop a unique and fresh approach to a subject that badly requires a radical shake-up. I wish to thank CISU for their hospitality during my visit to Italy and specifically to Edoardo Russo, Maurizio Verga, Vincente-Juan Ballester Olmos, Isaac Koi and all the others, too many to thank individually, who made our visit such a memorable one.

CISU's Congress website can be found here: http://www.ufosaintvincent.com

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THE BBC MARKS 60 YEARS OF UFOLOGY (update 080707)

BBC Online have marked the anniversary with two separate articles which draw upon my research over the past three decades. The first was a rather poorly researched and constructed Magazine Feature, 'Saucers in the Sky', which attempted to summarise what UFOlogy had achieved during the past six decades. The story, here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6268708.stm is typical of the superficial treatment UFOlogy receives in the mainstream media, and readers seeking substance over spin are advised to read Fortean Times superior contribution in their summer 2007 special issue.

Meanwhile BBC Wales' Tom Bourton bucked the trend and took up my suggestion that he should go to the National Archives in Kew to examine a batch of new MoD files released under the Freedom of Information Act. These files contain all the remaining UFO reports and correspondence received by the ministry between 1976 and 1984. The papers contain some hitherto unseen material that I am currently reviewing for the Fortean Times 'Secret Files' series. Hidden away in two files is evidence of the RAF's investigation of UFO encounters reported from West Wales during the 'Welsh Triangle' flap of 1977. Further details can be found in my Secret Files article on the Welsh Triangle and Tom's article can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6740247.stm

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THE UFO TOP TEN  (update 080707)

Fortean Times special issue to mark the 60th anniversary of the UFO mystery is out now. Editor David Sutton asked a panel of UFO experts - representing a wide selection of sceptics and ET believers - to select their 'best cases' and say what they believe we have learned about the phenomenon during the past six decades. A selection of the results can be perused here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/ufofiles/525/60_years_of_ufos_the_top_ten_cases.html

My contribution, shared with co-author Andy Roberts, can be read here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/ufofiles/523/david_clarke_and_andy_roberts_ufo_top_ten.html

For our Top 10 we chose one multi- and one solo witnessed, genuinely unexplained, UFO incident to illustrate the many different faces of the UFO phenomena. You can read more about the RAF Topcliffe/Mainbrace sighting from 1952 in my article on the Little Rissington incident. But it's necessary to point out that after three decades the one thing we have learned, above all else, is that there is no such thing as 'the UFO phenomenon.' Instead, there are many different, sometimes related, phenomena that both UFOlogists and the media habitually lump together under the banner of "UFO" which most people automatically equate with "extraterrestrial craft." In fact, these UFO phenomena - in the plural - include a vast range of known, unknown and little understood natural phenomena, both earth-bound and space-related. Alongside these physical phenomena are a host of human ones, as diverse in origin as sleep paralysis and simple hoaxing. This mixed bag is further distorted by the influence of the media, folklore and popular culture all of which encourages ordinary folk to equate all UFOs, whatever their origin, with alien spaceships. Unfortunately this is the one category for which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Our Top 10 choice included one extra category - that of the most hyped UFO story in the past 60 years. This has to be Roswell. Government and public all agree 'something' happened at Roswell. No one can agree what! Decades of wishful thinking and selective interpretation of the available evidence has muddied the waters to the extent that many UFOlogists are now convinced an alien craft landed and no amount of contrary evidence is going to change their minds. A myth is not only in the making, it's being lived.

Introducing the UFO panel results, David Sutton adds: 'Perhaps no grand consensus was reached, but it's fascinating to see just where we are 60 years since Kenneth Arnold's historic sighting (whatever it was) from a number of different perspectives, as well as seeing just which cases drawn from the intervening decades have held up as genuine mysteries in the increasingly cold light of serious research.

                                                     

FLYING SAUCERERS ARRIVE  (Update 010407)

It took years to write and research but 19 April 2007 sees the publication of Flying Saucerers: 'A Social History of UFOlogy,' by David Clarke and Andy Roberts. Published by Bob Trubshaw's imprint Alternative Albion the book is as it says on the tin - a history of British UFOlogy. Unlike other UFO titles it isn't about sightings per se, or the tiresome controversy that surrounds whether they are ET or not ET. Instead, it takes a radical new approach to the subject of UFOs and UFOlogy, concentrating instead upon the people and the personalities who have had a formative influence on the history of the subject. The book opens in 1947 when flying saucers were entirely an American phenomenon and examines how the craze for seeing them spread across the Atlantic to the British Isles in 1950. It examines how, from that point onwards, British UFOlogy developed in its own inimitable style with its own uniquely British cast of believers and sceptics, of whom Desmond Leslie and Patrick Moore are probably the best known. The chapters discuss how the first British flying saucer clubs were founded and chart the media's chequered love/hate relationship with UFOlogists. We also take a look at taboo areas such as contactees, cults such as the Aetherius Society, demonic theories and UFOs and the hippy movement in the sixties. The book's coverage ends in 1978-79 with the arrival of Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the House of Lords UFO Debate which was in many way the high water mark for belief in UFOs both in the UK and North America.

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FORTEAN TIMES OPENS SECRET FILES, MARK 2

In 2005 I wrote a series of seven articles for Fortean Times magazine to coincide with the release of a swathe of MoD UFO files under the Freedom of Information Act.  All seven articles can be accessed on my UFO pages. So much new material has emerged under the FOIA since then that FT have commissioned a follow-up series for 2007. The first article in the series, covering the East Anglian UFO flap of 1996, was published in FT 223 (June 2007) and has since appeared on FT's relaunched website here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/ufofiles/442/the_1996_east_anglian_ufo_flap.html

Further files in the series will feature the French UFO Project, DI55's 'UFO retrieval' squad, the phantom helicopter flap and an article on recent UFO sightings by UK civil airline crews.  Keep watching this space for updates.

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 MoD opens its files on UFO sightings to public

James Randerson

Thursday May 3, 2007

Guardian Newspaper Link

The Ministry of Defence plans to open its "X-Files" on UFO sightings to the public for the first time. Officials have not yet decided on a date for the release of the reports, which date back to 1967, but it is hoped to be within weeks.

The move follows the decision by the French national space agency to release its UFO files in March, the first official body in the world to do so.

UFO buffs will be keen to find out what officials knew about some of the UK's most famous sightings and whether any action was taken. One celebrated event - at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, in 1980 - has been dubbed "Britain's Roswell" after the UFO incident in the US in 1947. At Rendlesham there were several witness reports of a UFO apparently landing. The released files should support or discount claims that radiation was detected at the site after the event.

David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University and author of Flying Saucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy, said opening the MoD's files would make it harder to sustain the idea that evidence for the existence of aliens has been suppressed. "The more of this stuff that they put on their website or put in the national archives, the less it will cost the taxpayer, because at the moment people are writing in about individual incidents and they are having to respond," said Dr Clarke, referring to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents due for release are witness reports of apparent UFO sightings, many by civil pilots and military personnel. Most were simply collected and filed by a small, secret unit within defence intelligence called DI55. A few are thought to have been investigated further by the military, but the details have never been made public. There are 24 files due for release, each containing 200-300 reports of sightings, plus internal MoD briefings and correspondence.

 MoD OPENS ITS 'X- FILES' [from Fortean Times 223 (June 2007)

Britain's Ministry of Defence are to publish their secret archive of UFO reports to dispel claims they have been hiding knowledge of alien visitors to the UK. The move follows the release of the French Government's UFO archive via a website which documents more than 1,600 sightings over three decades. So many visitors logged onto the French Space Agency (CNES) website at its launch in March that servers crashed.

Since 1977 the French agency has operated a special UFO research section who have collected thousands of reports from eyewitnesses. Around 28% have remained unexplained after detailed investigations. Despite claims to the contrary, the British MoD have never employed any full-time UFO investigators and say their interest in the subject is confined to their strictly defined responsibility for defence. Reports made to them are received by an office in Whitehall which, until recently, copied them to air defence experts in the RAF and the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). Unlike the French who carried out on-site investigations drawing upon the skills of the gendarmerie and police, in Britain most reports were simply read and filed away.

Although the MoD claim no UFO report has ever been judged to be of defence significance, a small number were subjected to detailed investigations by the RAF and DI55. The nature of these investigations, and their findings, have until recently been a closely guarded secret. During the same thirty year period covered by the French UFO project, more than 7,000 UFO reports were collected by DI55 whose precise role and responsibilities the British Government refuse to discuss.  Until recently it was feared all 24 of DI55's UFO files could be destroyed as they had been exposed during storage to deadly asbestos dust along with 63,000 other 'sensitive' intelligence files from the Cold War. But at the end of a £3 million publicly-funded project all the contaminated papers have been saved and are scanned onto CD roms.

A decision was taken earlier this year to make the UFO archive a priority for release via the MoD's website which already hosts the papers on the Rendlesham Forest incident and the Condign report. The first electronic scans of the UFO files, which begin in the mid-1970s, will be added to the website later this year. The DI55 archive contains numerous reports by service personnel including RAF and Royal Navy pilots and by civilian aircrew. They also include the material used by the author of the Condign report who analysed more than 3,000 UFO reports collected by the MoD during the ten years 1987-97.

DI55 are a branch of the MoD's Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) whose main duty is to collect information on guided missiles and space weapons by covert methods. They have monitored UFO reports since 1967 and gave scientific and technical advice on sightings to the civil servants who run the UFO desk elsewhere in Whitehall.  The MoD claim DI55's interest in UFOs ended in 2000 after the 'Condign project' was completed. In answer to a Parliamentary Question from Norman Baker MP in March, the Government admitted the study cost an estimated £50,000. The project report, classified 'Secret - UK Eyes Only', was seen by only a few senior officials in the RAF and intelligence services. Its existence came to light in May 2006 when a copy was released to researchers David Clarke and Gary Anthony following a Freedom of Information request.

Resources:

French Space Agency UFO archive:

UK Ministry of Defence FOI pages:

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Daily Express, Tuesday, 10 April 2007 page 11 - Day & Night gossip column

Near Miss for UFO Fan Philip

A BOOK has uncovered a secret plot which would have seen Prince Philip - whose interest in UFOs is widely documented - meet one of the world's most famous alleged alien abductees, George Adamski.

 Polish-American Adamski claimed he had encountered visitors from Venus and had travelled the solar system with them. His book on the supposed encounter became a huge hit, selling more than a million copies.

 The proposed meeting in 1959 between Adamski and Philip - the magazine Flying Saucer review once claimed the royal to be a subscriber - was engineered by aristocrats, including General Sir Frederick Browning - a private secretary to the Queen and husband of writer Daphne du Maurier - and ex-RAF pilot Desmond Leslie - a second cousin of Sir Winston Churchill.

 "This alone shows how far these bizarre ideas had penetrated the upper classes and royalty," says Dr David Clarke, co-author of the book, Flying Saucerers: A Social History of UFOlogy.

 "There's no doubt from the documentation we have that Prince Philip and his uncle Lord Mountbatten were UFO enthusiasts, and I'm sure Philip would have met Adamski if he felt he could have got away with it. But it looks as if he realised the danger this would place him in - not least the huge potential for embarrassment for the royals if it leaked out.

 "He was wisely advised by his equerry Sir Peter Horsley. His response is written in Prince Philip's hand across one of the letters offering to arrange the secret meeting. 'Not on your Nellie!' wrote Philip. 'He may not be a crank but he's a bit too fanciful for me.'"

 Still, Clarke says Philip's interest in UFOs was heartfelt. "As far as I know there has never been any official Buckingham Palace comment on Philip's interest but Sir Peter Horsley confirmed all this to me shortly before his death in 2001," he says.

 "He acted as a go-between for Philip and the UFO world, collecting reports made to the RAF and even inviting UFO witnesses to Buckingham Palace. All this material was kept by the Duke's private secretary, so he must have a considerable UFO archive at the Palace."

 Surely it's time to open it to the public?

Back in 2001 the Sunday Times claimed that Marlon Brando was to star in a film about the Mons legend based upon footage apparently showing an angel discovered in a junk shop in South Wales. The following year BBC Radio 4 revealed this story was an elaborate hoax (see my Fortean Times 170 article). But now the Angels of Mons look set to make their appearance on the big screen in time to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War in 2008. According to Film London The Angel of Mons is a supernatural historical drama that takes place during the Great War. It is the story of a young ex-suffragette who goes to the front as an ambulance driver to find out whether the Angel of Mons really exists. The script billed as supernatural drama/romance was written by Alice D Cooper and won the Women in Film and Television Script Initiative Write Time. The script was optioned by London-based Chocolate Chilli and has a budget of £4-6 million.

A synopsis can be read here:

http://www.chocolatechillifilms.com/Angel%20of%20Mons/AOM.htm

http://www.chocolatechillifilms.com/in%20development.htm

LITTLE GREEN MEN VISIT WHITEHALL?

It is impossible to prove a negative but claims that Britain's intelligence chiefs are sitting on proof of ET visitors have been dealt a fatal blow by the latest releases under the Freedom of Information Act. They reveal that the debate between believers and sceptics was equally as fierce in the corridors of Whitehall as it is in UFOlogy, which would be needless if the Government really knew the ultimate secret . In February we obtained copies of documents which reveal how the MoD's intelligence staff spent three years debating the possibility that UFOs could be ET craft before defence chiefs gave the green light for the Condign Project which analysed 10,000 reports made over three decades. The new papers many marked Secret UK Eyes A - reveal how the idea for a study was the brainchild of an un-named RAF intelligence officer who lobbied his bosses for three years before tens of thousands of pounds in funding was found for the project. In his sales pitch he admits: 'I am well aware that anyone who talks about UFOs is treated with a certain degree of suspicion [but] I am briefing on the topic because DI55 have a UFO responsibility, not because I talk to little green men every night!' At his briefing in 1993 the scientists and engineers present treated the subject seriously, while those without a scientific background made the usual jokes about little green men and mass hallucination. In a report dated 1995 the same man says the MoD had never established if UFOs were a threat and if in future it turned out they did exist there was the potential for severe embarrassment. He added: 'if the sightings are of devices not of this Earth then their purpose needs to be established as a matter of priority possibilities are: 1. Military reconnaissance 2. Scientific 3. Tourism.'

The Guardian, 22 February 2007

                                             

Millions of words have been written about UFOs and tens of thousands of books and magazines have been published. In addition, an enormous archive of information has been amassed over the past 60 years by UFOlogists across the world, much of it hidden away in private collections. Few, if any, have considered there was any historical significance to their papers beyond their lifetimes. Inevitably, on their deaths their life works have been disposed of by relatives who did not share their fascination with the subject. Incredibly, despite the rich history of UFOlogy, attempts to establish a UFO archive have never gone beyond the drawing board in the UK. But fortunately, colleagues in Sweden have come to the rescue. The Archives for UFO Research (AFU) was founded in 1973 at Norrkoping, near Stockholm and has become a little-known centre of UFOlogical excellence. What began as a small private collection of books and magazines has grown slowly to become what AFU modestly describe as one of the most complete repositories of UFO data and UFO folklore in the world. When I visited AFU in May 2006 I was amazed to find it had a semi-permanent staff of volunteers from the local community, all dedicated to preserving and cataloguing the latest donations of books and papers from UFOlogists across the world (see picture). AFU is run by UFO Sweden and, with help from a grant from the Swedish authorities, recently moved to a new building complete with 400 metres of archive shelving. In November last year AFU vice chairman Clas Svahn and co-worker Anders Persson visited the UK to collect more donations from UK stalwarts Janet and Colin Bord, John Rimmer, Jenny Randles and Hilary Evans. We urge Forteans and UFOlogists everywhere to support AFU's sterling work to preserve our subject s history.

*Archives for UFO Research, PO Box 11027, S-600 11 Norrkoping, Sweden

CONDIGN UPDATE

2006 proved to be a landmark year for British UFOlogy with the release of formerly secret Government records under the Freedom of Information Act gathering pace. By far the most important document to emerge is the four-volume Condign report written by a mysterious UFO expert employed by the Ministry of Defence between 1997-2000. Some sensitive sections of the report dealing with the limitations of radar in the detection of UFOs were removed when the report was released to us last year, along with other information provided in confidence by foreign nations (primarily our friends in the US of A). But we appealed this decision and as a result the MoD decided to release some further sections of the Secret UK Eyes Only document. These contain some interesting insights about ongoing military research into unidentified aerial phenomena, and specifically plasmas, for military purposes. One section reveals that MoD technology masters have already been briefed about those phenomena associated with plasma formations, which have potential applications to novel weapon technology. Clues about the nature of this work are revealed by a newly opened section that deals with ongoing Russian research into UAPs, or earthlights . This reveals that a number of scientists in Russia have measured, or at least detected mysterious EM fields which have caused human effects on those who have approached UFOs and UFO landing zones. Even more amazing the report claims that a number of Russian and Chinese, but no UK aircraft, have been destroyed and at least four pilots have lost their lives chasing UFOs . The report's author says ominously that the Russians appear to be using their knowledge of plasmas to develop new types of stealth technology and are trying to use UAP-type radiated fields to affect humans. They are also investigating the possibility of producing and launching plasmas as decoys in combat zones, using airflows to shape them into saucer shaped volumes . The next time we hear about UFOs reported over Iran or Afghanistan we know who to blame!

COSFORD INCIDENT DISSECTED

The controversy that followed the Channel 5 programme on the UFO flap of 31 March 1993 (Secret Files 1 article) has led the Ministry of Defence to upload their complete case file onto its website. The files can be downloaded from the MoD publication scheme website.

The contents, compiled by former MoD UFO desk jockey Nick Pope, are dissected by British researchers Joe McGonagle and Gary Anthony on their new websites dedicated to what has become known as the Cosford incident . Their websites, launched in November, are textbook examples of how professional UFO investigations should be conducted. Their findings confirm that the vast majority of the sightings reported to the MoD that night were of the debris from the Russian Cosmos rocket. Since leaving the UFO desk, Nick Pope has relentlessly promoted an imaginative version of this case as his second best evidence for ET visitors to the UK (after Rendlesham). But oddly, following these revelations Pope went into denial, refusing to answer questions on the case, posed on the UFO Updates list, on the grounds that McGonagle's work was conclusion led and, even more bizarrely, that constructive debate is clearly not on the agenda. Judge for yourself by reading Pope's poorly constructed and flawed account of the case at:

http://www.nickpope.net/cosford_incident.htm

and compare it with the results of Joe and Gary's investigations at:

http://www.uk-ufo.org/cosford/

http://www.mithrand.karoo.net/index.htm/cosford.htm 

ZUT ALORS!

The French have always taken a low key, pragmatic approach to the subject of UFOs. Their investigators are extremely sceptical and France, in line with most European countries, has few high profile UFO cases. Nevertheless, the French space agency, CNES, holds a database of over 1,600 UFO events, gathered over 30 years, and has just announced that it plans to release them, on-line, to the public in early 2007.

An official at CNES, Jacques Arnold noted that they had about 6,000 reports, many relating to the same event, "Often they are made to the Gendarmerie, which provides an official witness statement ... and some come from airline pilots," he said. However, the personal details of the UFO witnesses will be withheld to protect them from being pestered by space fanatics !

WARMINSTER UFOs

 The UFO book publishing scene in the UK has been somewhat moribund over the past few years. It would appear that the huge advances paid out to authors such as Tim Good and Nick Pope have been counter productive. Sales have not matched expectations and this in turn has led to mainstream publishers being unwilling to take on new UFO material. The dead hand of corporate orthodoxy reigns in the publishing industry and risks are rarely taken. However, as with the way punk displaced the tedium of so called progressive rock, a new breed of small publishers has sprung into the breach to ensure that new and vibrant UFOlogical material gets out to the public. Steve Dewey and John Ries recent book on the 60s UFO scene at Warminster In Alien Heat (published by Anomalist Books read my Fortean Times review) is a case in point. Now Kevin Goodman has launched an e-book, Warminster: Cradle of Contact which tells the story from the point of view of a sky watcher on the Wiltshire hills, see: www.ufo-warminster.co.uk. 

News Archive

2008

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                                                Copyright (c) David Clarke 2007.