If you wish to contact me by email my address is: furnival.news@googlemail.com
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David Clarke is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He teaches media law and his research specialism is contemporary legend. Previously he worked as a journalist for The Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post and spent four years working as a Press Officer in local government. His PhD in Folklore and was completed at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield, in 1999. From 2008-13 he acted as consultant and curator of the MoD UFO files project with The National Archives. His books include The Angel of Mons (2004) and How UFOs Conquered the World: the history of a modern myth (2015). In 2018 he co-founded the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University. This blog covers his twin research interests in journalism and folklore. The views expressed in the contents are entirely his own.
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drdavidclarke.co.uk 
Hello David, Its been three years since i e-mailed you about my experiences in the Longdondale Valley and as i received no reply from you i presumed you had not received my e-mail.
I am the gentleman who was driving home to Leeds in 1973 and witnessed the blue/white light.
You must have received my e-mail as you have printed my story(thanks very much) The incident is still very clear in my mind after nearly 40 years and i am pleased that you have published it and other people can now read my account of what REALLY did happen that night.
Many thanks
Peter Maddison-Sharpe
Just read the lemon head encounter by the two boys in the u.k.. I don’t really follow ufo stuff. However, a year or so ago, I woke to a shadow beside my bed whispering “we want you to come with us”. The same phrase the boys heard. During the same period, not the same nite, I woke up twice with my head at the foot of the bed, absolutely gasping for a single breath of air. Can’t remember if these incidents happened before or after the whisper… in retrospect, it seemed more like an invitation than anything… according to the lemon head uk sightings date, I think maybe im close to the same age as the boys… I was sitting here watching a bill Murray flick and thought id type in that phrase on google “we want you to come with us”. Hit the first link, and the chills ensued… got drunk with a buddy one nite and wrote a silly song about it “ancient aliens in my bedroom … whispering in my ear”….. mom told me one time that someday everyone will be gray. She was speaking of interracial marriage in the car after I saw my first mixed couple. Must have been 6ish. It echoes volumes to me now… “big maybe their in the room rite now, in their invisible cloaks somehow”…
just read a review of your book.you say almost all? I heard arnold coined the phrase saucers.
What about Jal1628? the F15 rock in 2013. the channel islands with to pilots and their passengers
Regard Laurie
Hello Daviid
My wife has just corrected me and says it wasn’t coming from edale but exactly if lying in the direction of
Where the crash site is of the b29, it was flying really low and was a massive military plane we were sitting at the stream in Jacobs ladder near edale, looked at a photo of the b29 and it was exactly like that it was a beautiful July day 2013
Hello.I am writing to you from Mutare,Zimbabwe. I just read your article about the Crying Boy painting . Yesterday while looking for a friend of mine l walked into a second hand shop and found the huge painting of a crying boy going for only $13.I made inquiries about the owner of the picture and was told that “a white guy brought the painting and he does not want it anymore that is why its that cheap” I asked the lady in the shop if she knew anything about this picture and the myths surrounding it.She was totally ignorant about it. Is the myth still valid? Will my house be grazed to the floor by fire if l buy the picture?
Hi Lucia – thanks for posting. Yes, the legend is still valid in that people keep repeating it and believe in the existence of a curse, that is the nature of folklore!
But there is no evidence that any of these paintings cause fires. Fires are caused by careless humans and/or accidents in the home!
Dear Mr Clarke,
I have read with much interest your book “How UFOs conquered the world” and you seem now more critical about the earth light hypothesis. I know that some field observation projects were carried in the Pennines area. Were the results negative?
I am running an observation project in the province of Quebec, Canada about such alleged phenomena. Witnesses sometimes describe luminous spheres and other shapes near the ground and the occurences seem recurrent. I am therefore monitoring all UFO reports (as these will reported as UFOs) to catch sightngs where the description is luminous phenomena occurring near the ground in order to do field observation with cameras and instruments at these locations to get at least good pictures and videos and preliminary magnetic measurements (this will be merely present-absent measurements).
So I would like to know what occurred with the projects in UK.
Thanks in advance,
Jean
Thanks for your message…I will try to gather some useful information on work done in the UK and respond to you privately.
bests from Dave
Just watched the unexplained season 2 ep 3 mysterious curses and saw the picture of the crying boy. I have this picture with the initials of AZ in the top right corner. Had this since early 60’s and just love it. I never knew there was a story behind it, so interesting.
Katie t.
I have been reading some of your works and viewing the UFO reports and your videos on the National Archives website. I know that you are a skeptic in terms of UFO cases, but I was wondering if this had anything to do with you getting the job at the National Archives with the UFO files? I noticed that you worked in the civil service as a press officer from 2000-2004 was this with the National Archives or elsewhere? Many thanks
Hi Stuart, if you mean did they ‘offer me the job’ because I was a skeptic then no.
Neither did it have anything to do with previously working for the civil service either, but that certainly helps in understanding how files and archives are created and opened to the public.
I was offered the opportunity to act as curator of the file release (not a paid job) because I spent years as a journalist visiting the National Archives looking for stories.
Between 1998 to 2007 when the decision was taken to release the files, I spent approximately 6 months of my life in the reading rooms, digging out files and publishing stories about them in the media and on my blog.
So I was in effect the resident ‘expert’ on UFOs when the opportunity to lead on the release came about in 2008.
This came about through hard graft and expertise in the subject area.
David you’re no doubt aware of the BBC podcast series The Battersea Poltergeist currently being aired. Have you written on this case, I’d be very interested to hear your view on this or perhaps similar cases.
Hi Nicholas sorry I wasn’t aware of the BBC podcast but will seek it out. thankyou!
Hi, I’m also a Sheffield native like you and I was wondering if you know anything about the 6 egg shaped craft that flew, slowly, and very low over the main road on abbeydale road back in February 1996? I haven’t been able to find anything about it. They had bright light coming out of them and flew in a v formation only about 25-30ft off the ground over the top of the cars at about 5-10 mph. It was only early evening and there were plenty of people around, people even came out of the broadfield pub to see. Once it was by the pub they all broke off in different directions. One of them stopped above the trees and fired tracer bullets (?) Over sheldon road. I was only 14 at the time and was stood with a few friends at the bus stop. One of my friends lived on sheldon rd at the time and they said the houses were having electrical problems. I would love to know if you have heard about this
Hi Leah, thanks for the story, no I have heard never heard anything about this particular sighting before. Was it reported in the Sheffield Star? I worked at The Star in 1996 and don’t recall anyone calling about this.
I’m not sure if it made the paper but I know it was seen by lots of people, I even randomly got talking to someone in a bar years later who saw them too but he was on the over near the abbeydale cinema. My friends brothers saw them too. I’m surprised nobody reported it because it was so blatant. I’ve spent years pondering their agenda as to why they would fly so low and slowly like that over a busy area, they must have wanted to be seen by lots of people. Who knows..?
Hi, I just read an article about ufo sightings over or near schools in the 1970s.
This is really interesting to me as I have a memory of seeing a silver disc flying above my school sometime in the 70’s. I’m not sure the exact year but I was in primary school and I was born in 1971, so it could have been 77.
The school was Cookridge Primary in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The silver disc hovered and flew over the playground and near to a watertower, we as children just thought it was a radio controlled Frisbee type thing. (Maybe a meter in diameter)
Hope this is of interest to you. Feel free to contact me.
Regards
Marc