The Angel of the Golan Heights

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Dr David Clarke

As the centenary of The Angels of Mons, the greatest urban legend of WW1, approaches, I am on the look out for rumours and stories about supernatural intervention in modern warfare.

So I was pleased to read a contemporary story in a review of Valery Rees’s new cultural history of angels by TV historian Tom Holland (author of In the Shadow of the Sword).

In his article for Guardian Review, Holland tells the story of an Israeli veteran of the Arab-Israeli war in 1967 who claimed to have met an angel.

“During the battle of the Golan Heights, a Syrian shell had sent him flying from his tank,” Holland writes. “As he lay wounded and immobile on the ground, he saw enemy soldiers advancing towards him. They raised their guns. Then, abruptly, a golden figure appeared. The Israeli had been chosen, so the mysterious figure informed him, for an awesome mission. God wished him to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Then all went black.”

When the soldier woke he was being treated in hospital. But shortly afterwards he was visited by United Nations staff. On telling them his story they were astonished as, a few days earlier, they had interviewed a group of Syrian soldiers.

“These had spoken of a golden figure that had miraculously appeared between them and an injured Israeli, and put them to flight.”

This story was “proof enough” for the Israeli that an angel had indeed appeared in the heat of the battle to save him that day.

Holland does not refer to the Angels of Mons, but the Israeli soldier’s story could have been written at the height of the Great War. During the crisis of 1914-15 newspapers in Britain and the Commonwealth were filled with similar accounts.

For example this story, allegedly from the lips of a Lancashire Fusilier wounded in the Battle of the Frontiers, was reported by nurse Phyllis Campbell in the London Evening News (31 July 1915):

“It’s true, sister. We all saw it. First there was a sort of a yellow mist like, sort of risin’ before the Germans as they came to the top of a hill, come on like a solid wall they did…no use fighting the whole German race, thinks I; it’s all up with us. The next minute comes this funny cloud of light, and when it clears there’s a tall man with yellow hair in golden armour, on a white horse, holding his sword up, and his mouth open as if to say, ‘Come on boys! I’ll put the kybosh on the devils.’ The minute I saw it, I knew we were going to win. It fair bucked me up – yes, sister, thank you…”

Both accounts refer to a “golden figure” that appeared in the midst of battle at the moment that defeat was imminent and annihilation was expected. So unless the Israeli soldier was familiar with the accounts of the Angels of Mons published in 1915, then here we have a good example of a personal experience that appears to reflect a legend of supernatural intervention in battle that can be traced all the way back to prehistory.

Herotodus, in The Histories (written from 450-420 BC) gives examples of Greek deities appearing in the midst of battle with the Persians, pursuing and slaying the enemy forces. There are, of course, many similar examples in The Old Testament, which the Israeli soldier in Holland’s account would have been more familiar with.

As for the soldier’s mission to rebuild the Temple, Holland notes that any such project would have to demolish the Dome of the Rock, which stands on the site where an angel spoke to Abraham.

In Muslim tradition, the prophet Muhammad was brought from Mecca to Jerusalem by the angel Jibra’il (Gabriel) in a miraculous night-flight prior to his ascension through the heavens. The Dome of the Rock was built to commemorate this event.

Ironically, my first blog post in 2011 was a report on a UFO alleged photographed and filmed by tourists at the Dome of the Rock.

UFOs and angels may vie for position in the supernatural traditions of the modern world, but really here’s nothing new under the sun.

*Valery Rees’s book From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels, will be published by IB Tauris in March.

*A short story aimed at teenagers, Angel of Mons, based on the WW1 legend, by author Robin Bennett, was published by Monster Books in October 2012.

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Heads and Tales

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

Well the Apocalypse that wasn’t predicted by the ancient Mayans didn’t arrive. But it won’t be long before the End Times industry picks another date for the end of the world and starts spreading the word.

Some stories are just too good to be allowed to die and the Hexham Heads is another one of them (see my posts, Twilight of the Celtic Gods and Celtic Curse Tested?). I’m on record as describing the legend of the two small evil-looking stone carvings dug out of a garden in Northumberland by two children in 1971 as ‘a classic in the supernatural field that remains an unsolved mystery to this day’, so here’s why.

In Quest for the Hexham Heads (CFZ publications) Paul Screeton has produced an almost definitive account of the legend, pulling together three decades of lore into an entertaining romp through one of the weirdest stories in the Fortean literature.

Almost definitive because the author’s personal quest referred to in the title – to discover the current whereabouts of the heads – is ongoing. This lingering element of mystery adds to its power and longevity.

My friend, the archaeologist Dr Anne Ross, who died after a long illness this summer, played a central role. Back in 1972 she was drawn into a series of events that would not be out of place in a story by M.R. James when the two ‘Celtic style’ heads arrived at her Southampton home for examination.

During their stay Anne was tormented by the appearance of a terrifying apparition in the form of a werewolf that was seen and heard by other family members. Her youngest son, Richard Charles, gives his own account of the creature in a postscript to Screeton’s book.

In 1994 his mother told me that she was unaware at the time that similar hauntings – including the appearance of a creature half man, half sheep – had occurred near the place of their discovery.

Anne had made the mistake of going on record to say she believed the head’s baleful influence may have been absorbed from a Celtic shrine at their place of discovery in Hexham.

The joker in the pack was lorry driver Des Craigie who popped up shortly after her story was published to claim he had made the heads from artificial stone for his daughter to play with when he lived at the house in Rede Avenue, Hexham, years earlier.

I could appreciate the dilemma she faced because in 1990 I became the part-owner of a ‘haunted stone head’ from Ryshworth Hall in West Yorkshire that had been the subject of similar lurid tabloid headlines. This artefact became the centre of much attention when Andy Roberts and I put it on display following our talk on ‘cursed heads’ at the 2011 FT Unconvention.

Like the Hexham heads, our head was just a lump of stone carved with a face, according to one version in 1978, and buried by a former owner of the hall who was ‘sitting on his cloud rocking with laughter.’ So what is going on?

Are these artefacts really imbued with an ancient Celtic curse or are all these stories just creations of over-active imaginations? Well the answer to such questions is rarely cut and dried. My view is pretty much the same as that articulated by Doc Shiels in a letter quoted by Paul:

‘I really don’t think it matters too much when the heads were made, or who made them, the things worked and that’s what matters.’

The power of ‘cursed’ artefacts, whether they be ‘Celtic heads’ or Egyptian mummy cases, ultimately emanates from the enchantment generated in the minds of those who handle and write about them, as the content of this book amply testifies.  Paul’s background as a journalist and his amiable and eccentric writing style helps the reader navigate through quite a bit of padding – including diversions into speculation about ‘window areas’, wulvers, the stone tape theory, exorcism, Celtic mythology and much else – before we reach the meat, as it were.

By p172 he suggests the movement of the heads, whatever their provenance, may have ‘allowed a portal to open and release a daimonic reality hybrid.’ This simple act, he adds, may have generated ‘a warp in the time continuum whereby the carved head industry of [Celtic Britain] inspired a concrete plant worker and later a schoolboy…to follow suit via a subliminal level.’

At this point I wondered if the author was either pulling my leg or about to fall into the same elephant trap that snared Anne Ross. But then in his conclusion Paul appears to snap out of the spell woven by the heads and admits he may have failed to see ‘the larger picture.’  The larger picture being?:

‘…there’s no denying those artefacts’ provenance was essentially irrelevant to the mayhem and mystery they caused. Essentially they belong to myth.’

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UFOlogy: Dead Again?

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

On 4 November The Sunday Telegraph posed the question that has been asked many times before: What is the point of UFOlogy (the ‘study of UFOs’).

“Having failed to establish any evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life, Britain’s UFO watchers are reaching the conclusion that truth might not be out there after all,” writes Jasper Copping. “Enthusiasts admit that a continued failure to provide proof and a decline in the number of ‘flying saucer’ sightings suggests that aliens do not exist after all.”

This lack of proof, according to the Telegraph, could spell the end of UFOlogy as a subject by the end of the decade. But of course if you set out to prove either that UFOs are alien craft or don’t exist and spend years chasing a chimera you will inevitably end up either a ‘believer’ or a skeptic. As there is no evidence for visitations from aliens the only way to get around this problem is to believe, so making it a matter of faith rather than of evidence.

Which brings me back to the whole point of the article.  The peg is  that a special “summit on the future of UFOlogy” will be held at the University of Worcester on 17 November. Organised by the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP), a panel of speakers will ask if there is anything to be gained from rehashing the same old cases over and over and if not, whether the subject really is in terminal decline. So it is dead? Most seasoned observers will agree the numbers of significant and evidential UFO events have declined in the past decade as the debate has become increasingly focussed upon the twin myths of “saucer crashes” and alien abductions. As the obsession with abductions has died away, we have seen the resurrection of tired old sacred cows such as Roswell and the new Roswell (Rendlesham), both endlessly revived and re-revived for new audiences.

Meanwhile the closure of many long-standing UFO magazines and groups that once provided a platform for discussions on a range of alternatives to the ETH has reduced the subject’s internal pluralism. In its place, whole UFO communities have migrated online where discourse has grown increasingly polarised and extreme. UFOlogists have always been obsessed with government cover-ups but the influence of conspiracy theories and the arrival of Exopolitics have taken these ideas into more extreme and alarming directions.

One beacon of light is the venerable British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) which held its 50th anniversary conference in London in September.  According to founder member Lionel Beer it was “standing room only” at the association’s first conference in 1962, when the subject was fresh and exciting.  Membership may have dwindled since then but according to blogger Andrew May most of the British UFOlogists who attended were less single-mindedly fixated on the extra-terrestrial hypothesis than their American counterparts. Officially, BUFORA styles its approach as “scientifically factual” and lectures included references to “political, cultural and social influences” on UFO reporting. Investigations chief Heather Dixon pointed out that 95% of the 500-plus sightings received each year have rational explanations. But in a perceptive feature, BBC journalist Jon Kelly noted that scientific UFOlogy was its own worst enemy as the rank and file membership don’t want to hear about misperceptions and IFOs: “Questions from the floor tend to concern whether they think a spacecraft landed at Rendlesham Forest or if the American government is covering something up at Area 51.”

Is UFOlogy dead or alive?  I predict ASSAP may be posing the same question in 2022 but as far I’m concerned the subject remains interesting as an example of living myth. The question ‘do aliens exist’ is actually nothing to do with ‘do UFOs exist’. Of course UFOs exist, in that people see unidentified things in the sky. Their stories and interpretations of what they have seen remain interesting for a whole series of reasons, none of which have any bearing on the existence of extraterrestrials. The bottom line is that UFOs = aliens is a dead end.

Postcript:  The Sun published a by-lined version of my argument under the headline ‘Closed Encounters: Is it time to admit aliens don’t exist’ on 7 November. Ironically, the standfirst introducing my article says, “…here National Archive UFO expert argues why he has concluded aliens are little more than a myth.”  The implication being that myth = false. My argument is actually far more nuanced. UFOs are a modern myth but a myth is simply an explanatory system of belief to which people turn to explain phenomena they don’t understand. Journalists habitually equate myth with falsity, but that’s not the original meaning of the word. I think that may have been lost somewhere in translation!

A far better exploration of the issues raised by the conference, quoting Dave Wood of ASSAP, Jenny Randles and myself, was published by The Huffington Post on 14 November. The comments received by journalist Lee Speigel following publication are worth reading. They reflect the central position the UFO myth plays in the lives and belief systems of many people. The mere suggestion that interest in UFOlogy may be in decline has been interpreted – wrongly – as an attack on an article of faith. The comments simply validate my opinion that the UFOlogy is a religion not a science.

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Sheffield’s spring-heeled legend

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

It’s Hallowe’en and time for me to tell a ghost story that is rapidly becoming Sheffield’s best known supernatural legend – the Park Ghost or Spring-heeled Jack. Last week I was surprised to find my account of the ghost’s pranks in Victorian Sheffield, published in one of my books 12 years ago, had been immortalised on a tourist information sign in the Cholera Monument gardens, near the city centre.

An artist’s impression of The Park Ghost or Sheffield’s Spring-heeled Jack (credit: Ann Beedham)

‘The legend of Spring-heeled Jack’, with text based upon a chapter in my book Strange South Yorkshire (1990) forms the centrepiece of the display, produced by Sheffield City Council. I heard the story of the ‘Park Ghost’ from my grandparents during my childhood, but in 1990 few people were still alive who knew anything about the Victorian legend. Whilst working as a journalist for the Sheffield Star, I tracked down the original accounts of the scare from the newspaper archives of the Sheffield Telegraph and the long defunct Sheffield and Rotherham Independent.

I also found a written account by city historian Henry Tatton who, writing in 1934, referred to ‘the Park Ghost, alias Spring-heeled Jack, could spring like a goat and jump through five-barred gates like a cat. It used to appear at all times of night, robed in white, and suddenly appeared in front of people, mostly courting couples, and then suddenly disappeared when anyone tried to get a hold of it.’

Tatton said the ‘ghost’ used to appear from the grounds of the Cholera Monument, off Norfolk Road, in the city’s Park district (hence the ‘Park Ghost’).The striking monument – which can be seen towering above the city’s railway station – marks a mass grave where 402 victims of the epidemic of 1832 were buried. Forty years later, in the spring of 1873, police were called in by terrified residents who were being terrorised by a creature that emerged from Clay Wood quarry ‘springing and jumping about the quarry and over walls.’

Many people will have heard of Spring-heeled Jack, the fire-breathing, leaping bogeyman who terrorised London in the early part of Queen Victoria’s long reign. Spring-heeled Jack has rightly taken his place alongside Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd as the best known Victorian bogeymen. He was immortalised in the Penny Dreadfuls where he was portrayed as a ‘Batman’-type vigilante with a futuristic costume, wings and spring-heeled boots.  And today we’re seeing a resurgence of interest in this mercurial figure with books, films and websites dedicated to re-telling the legend.

So it’s no surprise that the Park ghost became known – in gossip and rumour – as ‘Sheffield’s Spring-heeled Jack.’  In the 1930s Henry Tatton wrote that the reign of terror continued for several years and sightings of ‘the ghost’ spread from the Park district to other suburbs of the city and as far as Rotherham.

‘People were afraid to go out at night and they used to carry sticks to attack it,’ Tatton wrote, echoing the stories told by my grandparents who said they were threatened in childhood that ‘Spring-heeled Jack’ would come for them if they misbehaved. ‘This went on for a long time, until people started to go out in crowds to try to capture it and the ghost had some narrow escapes.’

The scare reached such proportions that thousands of people began to congregate at the Cholera Monument and nearby Clay Wood at night waiting for the ghost to appear. An account in the Sheffield Telegraph dated 23 May 1873 noted that ‘not less than two thousand persons, principally youths and young men congregated in the haunted district, much to the annoyance of residents.’ A task force of policemen were drafted in to restore order but the youths began throwing stones and a mini riot ensued. During the mayhem that followed two officers received serious head injuries that required hospital treatment.

The identity of the ‘ghost’ never emerged but there was much speculation that he was a member of well-known Park family who was assisted in his anti-social activities by a local gang. City newspapers reported a rumour that he was a ‘young fellow of weak intellect who has undertaken to appear nightly from Easter until Whitsuntide for a wager, if he successfully frightens a certain number of individuals and escapes the law.’  A similar rumour was reported to the Lord Mayor of London during the metropolitan Spring-heeled Jack scare of 1838. London newspapers reported a bunch of ‘rascals…from high families’ had accepted a wager to appear as ‘a ghost, bear of devil’ to ‘destroy the lives of not less than 30 human beings’, principally young women.

The full story of Sheffield’s best known legend will have to wait until the publication of my book Scared to Death and other Victorian ghost stories. But in the meantime, watch this space for more news on the return of Spring-heeled Jack.

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Dark River and Sheffield Spooks

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

The nights are drawing in, Hallowe’en is approaching and traditionally this is the time for all things supernatural.

Sheffield has a rich folklore of ghost stories and superstitions and this autumn Steel City will play host to a range of spooky events including England’s largest Hallowe’en-fest, Fright Night, held in the city centre from 3.30-8.30 on Sunday 28 October.

To kick off the festival of spookiness writer Carolyn Waudby and artist Michael Hutchinson will be presenting Dark River at Kelham Island Industrial Museum at 3 PM on Sunday, 14 October as part of the Off the Shelf festival of words (tickets available from Crucible Theatre box office, Sheffield, or online here). The event takes place in a haunted part of the museum. Poems inspired by the mysterious past of the River Don will be complemented by the screening of images inspired by the project. The poems draw upon mythology, superstition and the folklore of plants and are written in different voices including that of a corpse on its way to Wardsend cemetery. The river Don was once known as the Dun (or dark river) and in medieval times was associated with a sinister rhyme:

the shelving, slimy river Dun

each year a daughter or a son.

In the 19th century the historian Joseph Hunter speculated that the rhyme may have referred to a time when animal or human sacrifices were offered to the water gods. More recently, in an article published by The Guardian, Pulp band-member Russell Senior mentioned that he and Jarvis Cocker once threw money into the river to appease The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water (a hooded figure who appeared in a scary 1970s public information film to warn children of the dangers of playing near water).

Following this on Sunday 28 October sees both the Fright Night extravaganza, which attracted more than 40,000 visitors last year, and a poetry reading on the legend of highwayman Spence Broughton. The latter event takes place at the atmospheric Hill Top Chapel at Attercliffe, close to the site of the gibbet where Broughton’s body was displayed for 36 years after his execution at York in 1792. For the Off the Shelf festival Rob Hindle will be reading his poem sequence The Purging of Spence Broughton. Ticket details are available from the festival website.

On Hallowe’en night, 31 October, storyteller Marion Heywood will be entertaining an audience at the Lantern Theatre, Nether Edge, with folk tales, legends and traditions of South Yorkshire. These include the haunting tale of the Green Lady of Firbeck, the Hand of Glory and the mysterious boggard. Again, full details of the event and how to book tickets can be found on the festival website.

Last but not least, on Bonfire Night I will be presenting a preview of a new writing project based on my research into 19th century ghost stories on Monday, 5 November, in a talk for the Bradfield Historical Society.

Scared to Death and other ghost stories from Victorian Sheffield, will tell the story of a woman who died from fright after a close encounter with a spectre  in a city centre cellar and detail the exploits of Sheffield’s most famous spook, the infamous Spring-heeled Jack, who terrorised residents during the 1870s. The talk, at Bradfield parish hall, starts at 7.30 and more details can be obtained from secretary Malcolm Nunn, here.

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The UFO Files Rebooted

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

The second edition of The UFO files was published by Bloomsbury on 13 September 2012. You can order the book from Amazon here or via the publisher’s website here. The National Archives press release on the book can be found on their website here.

The UFO Files – 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2012)

Since publication of the first edition in 2009 some 30,000 pages of new material have been released by the Ministry of Defence to The National Archives, which has been making the files available via a special UFO project website. The new edition has been updated with additional material including:

  • 19th century UFO sightings from The National Archives collection
  • RAF fighter pilot Roland Hughes’s UFO encounter over Cold War Germany
  • Royal Navy test pilot Captain Eric Brown’s close encounter with a ‘flying saucer’ in 1956
  • A police constable’s interview with two mysterious ‘men from a government agency’ following a UFO sighting in Sheffield
  • Col Ted Conrad’s account of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident
  • ‘Their Last Word on UFOs’ – a collection of position statements from politicians, military officials and scientists.

Plus a new chapter summarises the key revelations from the UFO files released from 2009-2012, including the story of the Boston/Skegness UFO flap of 1996, the role of the RAF Fylingdales in UFO tracking and the events which led to the release of the MoD’s files and the closure of the UFO desk.

The book blurb provides some further background:

They are often described as ‘the real X-files’ and for decades they were kept locked in the archives of Britain’s Ministry of Defence. But since the arrival of Freedom of Information more than 50,000 pages of official documentation on UFOs have been released to The National Archives in Kew, southwest London.

Journalist David Clarke led the campaign for the disclosure of the files and as the consultant for The National Archives UFO Project, he has had unique access to both the files and many of those who were responsible for UFO investigations at the MoD and RAF.

This fully revised and expanded edition is the first comprehensive history of the MoD’s UFO investigation unit. Although official investigations began in the 1950s when Winston Churchill demanded to know ‘the truth’ about flying saucers, this book reveals official interest stretched back to before the First World War. Alongside extraordinary sightings by ordinary people The UFO Files also includes accounts of close encounters reported by civilian aircrew and military personnel, mysterious phenomena seen on radar and related phenomena such as ‘crop circles.’

The stories are brought to life by dramatic witness statements from the files, supplemented by interviews – many undertaken by the author – and rarely seen photographs, drawings and images of newly-related documents, to offer a unique guide to one of our most intriguing modern mysteries.

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Air Traffic Control, UFOs and the FOIA

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

Each month Air Traffic controllers receive reports of flying objects ‘that don’t conform to normal flight patterns’ the head of Britain’s National Air Traffic Control Services admitted on BBC Radio 4.

Towards the end of a general interview on the Today programme (17 August 2012), reporter Simon Jack took the opportunity to ask a question posed by his children who wanted to know ‘if you…or your staff have ever been unable to identify a flying object.’

Traditionally, NATS and Civil Aviation Authority officials prefer to avoid questions on UFOs like the plague, but on this occasion Chief Executive Richard Deakin was pressed for a Yes/No answer. His response, which you can listen to here, was:

“It’s a yes…not just in the UK but around the world, typically around one a month.’

But he quickly downplayed the significance of this admission by adding that ‘it’s not something that occupies a lot of my time.’

Simon Jack was surprised by Deakin’s statement as it appeared to suggest the ‘skies are buzzing with UFOs.’ But the head of NATS was not given the opportunity to explain the vast majority of these ‘flying objects’ turn out to be terrestrial aircraft that have strayed into busy airlanes, military aircraft, microlites, hot airballoons and a host of other routine  hazards.

But a far more accurate litmus test of how frequent reports of ‘UFOs’ (or UAPs) by aircrew actually are can be found in the records kept by the Civil Aviation Authority, the government agency that employs NATS to run air traffic services in the UK.

As a private company NATS is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But I have received a series of interesting responses to FOIA requests for data on Mandatory Occurrence Reports (MORS) and Near-Miss investigations recorded by the CAA. The MORS scheme is for aircrew to report occurrences ‘which endangered or which, if not corrected, would have endangered an aircraft or its occupants’. Although not designed specifically to capture UFO data any sightings reported by UK aircrew – whether in UK airspace or elsewhere in the world – enters the CAA database and is subject to Freedom of Information requests.

MORs (see example above) tend to be little more than one paragraph in length and simply summarise the incident, often without any obvious resolution. But in those cases where crews report a more serious near-miss (or airprox), an independent team of experts is called in to carry out a more detailed investigation. Possibly the best known example of an airprox involving an unidentified flying object was the near-miss reported by the captain and first officer of a Boeing 737 approaching Manchester Airport in January 1995. You can read Ian Ridpath’s account of this interesting case here.

The response to my most recent FOI requests to the CAA reveal that between December 2004 and October 2011 ten ‘mandatory occurrence’ reports were logged by the authority. One of these referred to the UFOs reported near Alderney in the Channel Islands by pilot Ray Bowyer in April 2007. Just two of the reports had led to separate air proximity inquiries by the UK Airprox Board (UKAB).*

This figure of ten suggests that Richard Deakin’s guesstimate of one per month refers to a larger body of sighting reports that never make it onto the CAA’s database, as we should expect the numbers of MORs to be nearer 80 for the six years ending in 2011. However, it is well known that aircrew and ATC controllers are reluctant to file UFO sighting reports because they wish to avoid publicity and others fear the effect it could have on their flying careers.

A determination to downplay UFOs and avoid being drawn on this issue appears to be endemic at the CAA and Ministry of Defence, as UFO files released at The National Archives have revealed. One senior MoD official, responsible for flight safety, even referred to the official attitude as “ostrich like” in a 1977 memo, writing that:

“If we do not look, it will go away. If it does not officially exist, I cannot get terribly worked up if someone sees one, in the busy airlanes over the Channel or anywhere else.” (UFOs – Flight Safety Considerations, TNA DEFE 71/33)

Possibly the most interesting revelation from my FOI requests is that the Civil Aviation Authority (and by default NATS) decided two years ago to continue collecting UFO reports made by aircrew and air traffic controllers, despite the MoD’s determination to shut down its own X-files.

The MOD closed its UFO desk and reporting facilities in December 2009. In January the RAF wrote to the Head of Aviation Directorate requesting that ‘any reports received by the Department of Transport or air control centres are not forwarded to MoD and that members of the public who make such reports are not encouraged to believe an investigation will take place.’

Members of the CAA Safety Regulation Group met at Gatwick airport to discuss the changes on 11 March 2010. According to a copy of the minutes I obtained (see extract below) there was a lengthy debate on the subject after which CAA decided to update its guidance to air traffic controllers on how to handle UFO reports in future.

Extract from CAA minutes 11 March 2011 released following my request under the Freedom of Information Act (credit: CAA)

Soon after this, a special instruction was issued to ATC centres that ‘UFO reports [should] no longer be forwarded to MoD for investigation’ but reports remained of interest to the CAA.

This was because ‘UFO reports have been used and continue to be used for issues related to flight safety…some UFOs eventually become Identified Flying Objects (IFOs) following investigation, therefore it is still a requirement for controllers either observing a UFO or receiving a report from aircrew to consider if the sighting has any flight safety significance.’

One outcome was the issue, on 1 July 2010, of a updated version of the 45-year-old guidance document appended to the Manual of Air Traffic Services covering reporting of UFOs by aircrew (see extract below)

Of significance is the fact that CAA have decided to remove two items from the reporting procedure that dates back to 1968. This relates to UFOs observed ‘through surveillance means’ (e.g. by radar only) and visual sightings reported by members of the public. From 2010 any reports originating from the general public have been forwarded by CAA to the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA).

This move shows that the CAA, like the MoD, has no interest in UFO reports from the public regardless of how credible they may be. It also has no interest in ‘UFOs’ observed on radar without visual corroboration, as long experience has shown the majority of these can be explained as atmospheric phenomena.

*Recent MORs that have resulted in separate investigations by the UK Airprox board include (1) a sighting reported to ATC at Bristol Filton of an ‘unidentified object at 6000ft overhead’ at the same altitude, flying under the nose of the aircraft, on 21 February 2010.  Nothing was seen on radar. This was assessed as a ‘conflict with an untraced object in Class D airspace’ by UKAB.

(2)  a report by the crew of a MD 80 of an object that ‘looked like a parachute/hang-glider’ at FL170 over Lambourne, Berkshire, on 25 April 2010. Nothing was seen by other traffic in the area and the incident was assessed as ‘Conflict in Class A airspace with an untraced aircraft. No further CAA action possible.’

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Seeing Sprites

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

Six years ago I used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the release of a secret Ministry of Defence report on ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ (UAP). The study, codenamed ‘Project Condign‘, concluded that UAPs – as the MoD’s Defence Intelligence Staff preferred to call UFOs – existed but were most likely a type of poorly understood atmospheric plasma related to ball lightning.

Press coverage of the report’s conclusions was superficial (a typical headline was ‘Sorry ET, you’re just a puff of plasma’ – The Sunday Times, 7 May 2006). UFOlogists and believers in extraterrestrial craft were unimpressed, with most dismissing the report as a ‘whitewash’.

But since 2006 evidence that some, if not all, the ‘unidentified’ UFOs are indeed types of atmospheric plasmas keeps piling up. One intriguing article was published by the Science Daily on 14 August under the title ‘Seeing Sprites: Researchers catch glimpses of electromagnetic bursts high in the Earth’s atmosphere.’

An extract follows:

“High above the clouds during thunderstorms, some 50 miles above Earth a different kind of lightning dances. Bursts of red and blue light, known as “sprites,” flash for a scant one thousandth of a second. They are often only visible to those in flight above a storm, and happen so quickly you might not even see it unless you chance to be looking directly at it. One hard-to-reach place that gets a good view of sprites is the International Space Station. On April 30, 2012, astronauts on the ISS captured the signature red flash of a sprite, offering the world and researchers a rare opportunity to observe one.

Indeed, sprites are so hard to catch on film, that pilots had claimed to see them for almost a century before scientists at the University of Minnesota accidentally caught one on camera in July of 1989. Since then, researchers aboard planes have occasionally snapped a shot, but it continues to be difficult to methodically film them. So a group of scientists, along with help from Japan’s NHK television, sought them out regularly for two weeks in the summer of 2011.

Filming at 10,000 frames per second on two separate jets, the team recorded some of the best movies of sprites ever taken — movies that can be used to study this poorly understood phenomenon and the forces that create them. By filming from two jets flying 12 miles apart, the team mapped out the 3-dimensional nature of the sprites. Ground-based measurements rounded out the picture.

During those two weeks, the scientists hopped into their planes in Denver, Colo. each evening and chased storm clouds. Just figuring out which direction to fly next was a full time job, assigned to a single person with a computer watching the weather systems. Once a plane found a hot zone of sprites, however, they often lucked into filming numerous sprites in a row. The sprite’s first flash is usually followed by a break up into numerous streamers of light — figuring out what causes this divergence is one of the key things researchers will try to understand from these films.”

You can see still images and footage of sprites on the phys.org website here.  Like other types of UAP, scientists believe sprites are related to lightning, in this case in the form of an electrical discharge 50 miles above thunderstorms. A fact that explains why it took so long for sprites to be identified and categorised.

Science Daily makes the valid point that the weather we experience on the surface of the planet is often considered to be entirely separate from the weather higher up in the atmosphere on the edge of space. In fact as the research on sprites demonstrates, ‘some fundamental science connects these two regions, opening physics questions about the interchange of energy between them.’

If the two regions are interconnected, then it follows that UAPs observed in our atmosphere (commonly known as UFOs) might be related to UAPs in the mesosphere – 50 km above the Earth’s surface. Indeed it seems likely that atmospheric plasmas related to sprites and other energetic phenomenon in the middle atmosphere may be the source of some classic and unidentified ‘UFO’ reports made by the pilots of civilian and military aircraft since the advent of high altitude flights in the mid-20th century. For more on UAPs, Project Condign  and related atmospheric phenomena see my page here.

Meanwhile, the National Archives of Australia are continuing to follow Britain’s lead with the release of a stream of files on UAPs reported down under. In August a file with-held for 30 years revealed details of an incident that was probably the closest the Royal Australian Air Force has come to scrambling fighter jets to intercept a UAP.

The alert was sounded after air traffic controllers tracked strange phenomena on radars at Sydney airport in June 1983. They watched targets located to the north of the city moving at ‘alleged speeds of 1100-6500 km/h that suggested high altitude.’ Three RAAF officers were sent to investigate, with instructions to scramble Mirage jets ‘if a reasonable chance of interception presented itself.’

But what was called Operation Close Encounter ended when a Squadron Leader K. Keenan checked whether the radar blips could have been caused by ‘unusual atmospheric conditions’. Seasoned UFOlogists (and fighter controllers) will be aware that such phenomena are a common explanation for UFOs on radar. ‘Radar angels’ were a hazard for early air defence radar systems in the US and UK until some were identified as migrating birds and others as anomalous propagation and other meteorological phenomena (see my article Radar Angels). This type of ‘angel’ – a temperature inversion that creates fast-moving phantom targets on radar screens – was invoked by the USAF to explain the ‘flap’ over Washington DC in 1952 and other classic UFO ‘radar/visuals’ such as the phenomena observed at RAF Bentwaters/Lakenheath in 1956 may have similar explanations.

The Australian files reveal that even during the 1980s some air defence personnel were unfamiliar with the appearance and behaviour of ‘radar angels.’ Keenan’s report reveals the costly RAAF operation could have been avoided by a simple check ‘across the width of an entire corridor’. He said tests showed the radar UFOs reported by Sydney airport ‘were generated entirely by radar interference known colloquially as “running rabbits”’. And his report shows that military personnel are just as susceptible to UFO fever as your average enthusiast. His conclusion reads dryly: ‘Fortunately there was no temptation to launch aircraft and add to the fuel bill occasioned by use of the RAAF Datsun.’

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The Scottish Roswell?

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

Picture the scene: A shepherd visiting a remote area stumbles upon strange wreckage strewn across the ground which could be the remains of a crashed spaceship. The debris consists of pieces of unusual metal and strange drawings. On reporting his find at the local police station, search teams and military personnel descend on the area. The wreckage disappears – no one knows where – and civilians are told to ‘keep quiet about it.’

You are probably thinking ‘Roswell, New Mexico, 1947’.

But no, this incident occurred in the Scottish Highlands one spring morning in 1962. It has uncanny links to its American cousin, even down to the ‘cover story’ used hide the true identity and purpose of the ‘crashed spaceship.’

In the Scottish case the shepherd, Donald MacKenzie, reported the debris ‘looked like a Sputnik’. In the early ’60s all Soviet spacecraft were subject of intense interest in the West at that time. The debris found by William ‘Mac’ Brazel in the New Mexico desert was also found at a fortuitous moment in Cold War history:  during the summer of 1947 no one could pick up a newspaper in North America without seeing a mention of ‘flying saucers.’

When Brazel reported his find to the local sheriff, intelligence officers from the Roswell Army Air Base came out and collected it.  A hasty press release announced the air force had captured one of the ‘flying saucers’. But what appeared to be a quick resolution of the mystery was soon deflated by an official statement that the debris was actually from a lowly weather balloon. This was too good a story to die. Some of those who had seen and handled the wreckage were not convinced. And the seeds of a modern legend had been sown.

In the Scottish case the shepherd’s story was initially greeted with a deal of speculation, probably based upon the quality of the local malt whisky. It was three months before a team from RAF Kinloss reached the crash site near Ardgay in Easter Ross. By now it was October 1962 and the world was collectively holding its breath as the Cuban missile crisis played itself out on the international stage.  The Cold War was at its most dangerous phase.

What the team found on the remote moor was a strange box-shaped object, large enough to have carried a person, but with no signs of damage caused by the intense heat that would have been expected if this really was a satellite. The structure contained spaces for cameras and a brass panel that explained, in pictures, what the finder should do in the event of discovery to claim a reward. Buried nearby were ‘a number of bottles of colourless fluid’. Had someone reached the scene and removed items from the crash site? The ambiguity left some members of the team convinced this was indeed part of a crashed Soviet spacecraft and some believed that until the end of their lives. But if so why was it in such a good condition? And where was the parachute?

As Frank Card’s history of the RAF Mountain Rescue Service (Whensoever, Ernest Press 1993) points out, like all good legends this ‘was an event that, by its nature, has remained unknown, except to the privileged few ever since.’ And when the team’s report found its way to Squadron Leader John Sims at RAF Kinloss he made inquiries with the Air Ministry. He was told he had ‘no need to know.’ All mention of the incident was excised from the base and team records. Shades of Roswell yet again. What was it about the crashed object that required a security crackdown under the Official Secrets Act?

Secrecy breeds speculation and the crackdown on questions simply encouraged rumours to spread and others to pass on stories they have heard to others. Today the legend is firmly established in the folklore of the region. In July 2012 it resurfaced again in a BBC News Online story that claimed ‘a former RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team leader has told how he sought evidence that a Russian satellite crashed in the Highlands 50 years ago.’ According to this version, former Kinloss Mountain Rescue Team leader David ‘Heavy’ Whalley was so fascinated by the rumours that he made his own inquiries into the team’s records, but could find no mention of the discovery in the logbooks. But a colleague, Jack Baines, was part of the team that visited the crash site. ‘They found various bits and pieces,’ Whalley recalled.

‘Jack said the team were told to keep quiet about what they had found. When he told me the story I first thought it was an urban myth, but he convinced me and I believe they definitely found a crashed Sputnik.’

And this is the point where the uncanny links between the Ardgay and Roswell incident come into sharp focus. For aviation historian Keith Bryers is convinced the debris found in Scotland was not a spacecraft at all. It was in fact the payload of an American spy balloon similar to the Mogul balloons which the USAF later admitted was the source of the original Roswell incident.

The evidence he has collected is convincing and consistent with information I found in British government files released at The National Archives. Years before the first satellites, the USAF used Scotland as a base for launching enormous camera-carrying balloons designed to spy on the Soviet Union. The UK base for the balloon project – code-named ‘Moby Dick’ or Project 119L – was the Royal Navy airbase at Evanton. For a period in 1955-56, dozens of balloons were launched from the base near Inverness, on a mission to ride the jet stream to the Soviet Union where cameras attached to the glassfibre gondolas took photographs of military and nuclear facilities on the ground.

A 1956 file marked ‘Top Secret- USAF Meteorological Experiments’ describes the gondolas as box-shaped and weighing 400 ibs and painted bright yellow. It adds: ‘Recovered gondolas are to be treated as ‘classified’ equipment and under no circumstances is a gondola to be opened.’  A press release in a file listing ‘cover stories’ dated 9 January 1956 adds:

‘Large plastic balloons, which have often been mistaken for “flying saucers” will carry meteorological instructions, including cameras to photograph clouds and radio equipment to record atmospheric information.’

These balloons were enormous – up to 176 ft in height and 128ft wide (the height of a 20 storey building) and the USAF believed they could evade the Soviet MiG fighters by rising to 55,000 ft. Once clear of Soviet territory the gondolas were designed to drop into the Pacific Ocean where VHF beacons would guide recovery squadrons to the precious payload.

According to files on the project opened at The National Archives in 1998, the Pentagon spent $68 million on the balloon programme and created an elaborate smokescreen to conceal their true purpose. If the balloons were shot down or captured by the Soviet Union the official line was that they were ‘part of an Air Force meteorological survey of the northern hemisphere’, in effect ‘weather balloons’, much the same cover as was used at Roswell. Bogus press releases were written and only the most senior USAF and RAF officials were told what the operation was really about.

Ironically, despite the massive investment, the balloon project was a dismal failure for the West. Soviet fighters shot down many of the balloons and 50 were put on display in Moscow.  And by March 1956 when the project was terminated, a more effective method of aerial reconnaissance – the manned U-2 spyplane – had begun operational flights. Of the 448 balloons released in total, just 40 gondolas were successfully retrieved – just one of these originated from Scotland. The final word goes to  Keith Bryers, who says he believes the device found by Donald MacKenzie was probably the remains of a Moby Dick balloon that had ‘blown off course shortly after launch and that US personnel simply removed the most sensitive items thus avoiding the effort of recovering the whole device probably in foul weather.’

Six years passed before the shepherd discovered his Sputnik and triggered off a modern legend: Scotland’s answer to the Roswell incident.

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UFO Files make waves

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Dr David Clarke

The release of the ninth collection of MoD UFO files by The National Archives continues to make news across the world.  On the first day of the launch (Thursday, 12 July) the website received almost 60,000 visitors – an uplift of 80% from normal traffic.

Approximately 40,000 pdf files were downloaded during the first first 24 hours, the second most popular being the highlights guide I produced working with The National Archives press team, followed by the various UFO Policy files.

I have listed some of the more interesting media coverage below, including feature articles in The Huffington Post, The Guardian, BBC News and the Daily Mirror. Broadcast coverage reached an estimated audience of 3,336,000 whilst newspaper circulation (national and regional) reached almost 6 million readers.

The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph riffed on the celebrity tabloid headline ‘Tony Blair briefed on UFOs’, whilst missing the more interesting line about military interest in the capture of UFO technology for use in ‘novel weapons technology’. Others, including the Daily Mirror and USA Today preferred the line about the Ministry of Defence taking seriously the light-hearted suggestion by an intelligence officer that alien tourism was one explanation for UFO flaps in the ’90s.

The Huffington Post has published several features on The National Archives UFO project, the latest being MoD UFO files by Lee Spiegel . Lee’s interview with me from New York was the only media to highlight the item from the files that referred to Defence Intelligence concern about the possibility that fatal accidents involving RAF aircraft could have occurred in the past as a result of the crew taking evasive action to avoid a UFO.

The Guardian’s defence correspondent Richard Norton-Taylor concentrated upon Defence Intelligence interest in UFOs, noting that ‘officials had to cover their backs because of persistent claims of UFO sightings and questions from the public.’

Broadcast coverage included a live interview with ITV Daybreak and news items on Sky News and BBC national and regional programmes:

BBC News Online: Blair was briefed on UFOs

BBC News Online: What was it really like working on the UK’s X-files?

BBC Radio 4 Today programme: The MoD UFO files (Report by Sanchia Berg).

The Voice of Russia: UFO Mysteries

Sky News: UFO files on display

During the launch I was a guest blogger on The National Archives website here and you can read the official press release on the files here. The files are free to download for the first month at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos

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