The first results from the National Folklore Survey reveals data on a range of extraordinary experiences and beliefs

The results of the first National Folklore Survey for England have revealed more than four million people say they have seen ‘something in the sky they could not explain’.

It also found that almost one third of those surveyed, aged 16-75, say they believe the existence of extraterrestrials has been covered up by governments.

Millions of people also report close encounters with ghosts, angels and other inexplicable phenomena. But one in five have never told anyone else about the strange things they have seen or experienced.

Read all about it on my Substack blog….

Peasant Poet John Clare experiences UAP

I’ve seen the midnight morris-dance of hell

On the black moors while thicker darkness fell,

Like dancing lamps or bounding balls of fire,

Now in and out, now up and down, now higher,

As though an unseen horseman in his flight

Extract from Will-O’-Wisp by John Clare (1793-1864)

Since the beginning of recorded history people from every profession and background have reported experiences with anomalous lights.

However they are described – most recently as UAP, UFO, flying saucer or just plain old fashioned unexplained lights – they always hover at the boundaries of our perception.

Much is made of the reporting skills of police officers, astronomers, aircrew and military pilots who report unidentified flying objects. But what about our writers and poets who are keenly aware of their surroundings and the world around them? They are also trained observers who, by nature of their calling, absorb details that are often translated into vivid imagery.

William Blake is of course famous for the mystical visions that he experienced throughout his life, including the angels, demons and other spiritual entities that accosted him in everyday places, from windows to stairwells.

Lesser known but equally profound are the weird encounters with anomalous lights and other supernatural creatures that are described in the prose and poetry of John Clare. The so-called ‘Peasant Poet’ was born in 1793 at the Fenland village of Helpstone, now in Cambridgeshire but at that time in Northamptonshire.

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Did aliens build the mysterious Nazca lines in the Peruvian desert?

Are they linked with the so-called ‘Nazca mummies’ recently promoted as ‘non-human’ fossils that some claim are more than 1,000 years old?

The answer to these two questions is a simple No….

But the complete lack of evidence to support these beliefs does not convince those who appear in the American TV series Ancient Aliens, currently in its 20th season (254 episodes).

The current revival of interest in the fascinating ancient astronaut mythology is the subject of my most recent by-lined feature in the Daily Mail/MailOnline (paywall).

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RAF test pilots reveal their close encounters with UFOs

UFOs – or UAP – are a worldwide phenomenon. Since 2017 when new testimony from US Navy aircrew first emerged media attention has been focused on North America. But British military pilots have reported close encounters with ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’ since 1916.

During my research for the UK National Archives UFO project (2008-2013) I interviewed 25 retired and serving aircrew who served with the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm. All had reported encounters with ‘aerial phenomena’ between 1944 to 1966, when such things were known as flying saucers or UFOs. An even larger number were ground based personnel who tracked anomalous phenomena on radar.

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The summer of 2023 may mark the highpoint of a renewed resurgence of interest in UFOs both in the corridors of the Pentagon and for the world’s media. But all the online debate around whistleblowers and imminent disclosure obscures the fact that UAP are a global phenomenon.

So far the response of the UK government to US intelligence interest and NASA’s separate, ongoing study, has been muted. The official line is that MoD closed its UFO desk in 2009 after some 50 years acting as the focal point for sightings reported by members of the public. This followed the transfer of its surviving files to The National Archives, a process for which I acted as consultant. If you believe MoD’s boilerplate responses to recent FOI requests, the UK government has no further interest in the phenomenon.

But as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan may have once said ‘events, dear boy, events’ have a habit of changing game plans. In July 2021, after the US Director of National Intelligence released its second ‘preliminary assessment’ of UAP, Lord Aamer Sarfraz put the UK MoD on the spot during a mini-debate in the House of Lords. The Conservative peer, who sits on the National Committee of the Joint Security Strategy, wanted to know if as a result of the change in US policy the MoD planned to reopen its UAP investigations and what data it held.

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