Much has been written about the dread experienced by J. Robert Oppenheimer following the detonation of Trinity in 1945, depicted in Christopher Nolan’s new movie biopic of ‘the father of the atomic bomb’
But one of the most chilling outcomes of the Cold War nuclear stand-off that followed was the fear that a nuclear device could be smuggled into the West by air or sea…and there was no effective method to detect its presence – until it was too late
The innocuous cover of the report commissioned by the British Government in 1950 to investigate the threat posed by the clandestine introduction of nuclear weapons into the UK (image by David Clarke)
This nightmare scenario was considered in 1950 by a Top Secret panel set up by the UK Government soon after the outbreak of the Korean War under the obscure cover-name ‘The Imports Research Committee’.
‘This is a valuable record of occurrences connected with visits to this planet by unknown entities in flying saucers and other unidentified flying objects. It must not be destroyed or taken apart…it is hoped that in the event of some major catastrophe, this record and others like it will help to prevent the truth of these visits from becoming legends or myths to future survivors’
The unique card index of UFO sightings 1947-69 at Newcastle Library (image: David Clarke)
These prescient words were typewritten by Henry Bennett Lord in July 1960 when members of the Tyneside UFO Society (TUFOS) donated their precious materials to the people of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, via the city’s Central Library.
The TUFOS archive includes audio tapes, scrapbooks, glass lecture slides, a card index of sightings covering 1947-69, files covering investigations and copies of the society’s bi-monthly magazine Orbit.
Unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) have long been SETI’s elephant in the room. Astronomers seek evidence of ET intelligences by searching for exo-planets and listening for signals from alien civilisations.
But should the search effort be restricted to outer space? What if anomalous phenomena exist in the Earth’s atmosphere or even on the surface of the planet? Are SETI looking down the wrong end of the proverbial telescope?
Read more about my adventures at the Durham Law School symposium on UAPs and SETI in my SubStack blog.
Folklore experts from across the world will gather in Sheffield this summer to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the birth of urban legend studies in Steel City.
Scholars who specialise in supernatural legends, rumours, conspiracy theories and ‘friend of a friend’ stories first met at Halifax Hall at the University of Sheffield for the very first conference in the summer of 1982. Since then ISCLR conferences have been held every year in Europe and North America apart from 2020 during the Covid pandemic.
The original Perspectives on Contemporary Legend seminars in Sheffield launched the academic study of what was, at that time, a new genre of folklore: the ‘urban legend’ or ‘urban myth’.
Urban legends are modern stories told as true but which include traditional motifs that are usually attributed to a ‘friend of a friend’. During the 1980s stories about phantom hitch-hikers, alligators in sewers and urban horrors such as Spring-heeled Jack were popular. More recently these have been replaced by alien abductions and social media horrors such as Slenderman and political conspiracies.
Delegates from the USA, Canada, South Africa and Europe will present their research in the week beginning Monday 26 June in the Charles Street building on City Campus. They will discuss how legend scholarship has evolved and expanded its remit to incorporate new stories, conspiracy rumours, fake and folk news in the age of pandemics and perma-crises.
One of the panel themes asks ‘Is the Truth still out there?’ and marks the 30th anniversary of The X-Files. In the TV show that premiered in 1993, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson played FBI agents who investigated cases of monsters, serial killers, UFOs and alien abductions and other popular urban legends.
The 2023 conference is hosted by the Centre for Contemporary Legend (CCL) research group that includes Dr David Clarke, Dr Diane A. Rodgers and Andrew Robinson from the university’s College of Social Sciences and Arts.
The CCL organised the donation last year of the Professor John Widdowson folklore archive to the SHU library Special Collection. Prof Widdowson, now 87, one the original founders of ISCLR, co-hosted the inaugural meetings that began in 1982. In addition to the legend presentations there are plans for live music and dance, film screenings and an excursion to legend locations in the Peak District National Park.
Associate Professor David Clarke, who co-founded the Contemporary Legend research group at SHU said: ‘We are proud to announce that experts from across the world are “coming home” to Steel City to celebrate the 40th anniversary of urban legend studies.
‘Since 1982 Sheffield has become known across the world as a centre for excellence in the study of folklore and contemporary legend.The choice of Sheffield Hallam as the host reflects the impact of stories, legends and beliefs on every aspect of our lives in the 21st century.’
Dr Diane Rodgers said: “Public interest in folklore and contemporary legend is apparent with the unabating proliferation of folk horror media, and the re-engagement of younger generations with anti-establishment themes inherent in folklore can be seen splashed across all forms of social media.
“We are excited that the continued vital relevance of the discipline to modern developments across society will be reflected in the variety of papers and discussions at the conference.”
ISCLR 2023 is an academic conference hosted by Sheffield Hallam University. Delegates must be members of ISCLR and a fee is payable for registration. Special discount rates are available for students and members of The Folklore Society. To register, we strongly recommend using our online form, located here: https://forms.gle/zNeRvHjV7RbEKfdf8
They say that nature abhors a vacuum and that is definitely true in the case of the mysterious Calvine UFO photographs
Last week the Scottish Daily Record reignited the hunt for the elusive photographer when it revealed the name Kevin Russell. That name appears on the reverse of the print that was processed in their Glasgow office in August 1990, before the paper turned over the negatives to the Ministry of Defence.
From 9 March 2023 my postings will move Substack where my domain is DrClarke.substack.com
My first Substack post examines the recent UFO and spy balloon shoot-downs over North America in the context of the long history of covert aerial reconnaissance that dates back to the early years of the Cold War.
drdavidclarke.co.uk will continue to host new free content. It will also provide access to some of my most popular archive pages and past posts that date back to 2011.
Initially access to my new Substack content will be free for my valued followers and subscribers.
But in due course I intend to introduce an optional paid for subscription that will include access to more regular updates plus some additional features that I am working on.
Please support my investigations, research and writing by subscribing!
The shoot-down of a Chinese ‘spy balloon’ and three other mysterious objects over North America has kicked off a flurry of renewed media interest in UFOs.
But current speculation about the military value of balloons for long-range espionage ignores the long history of balloon systems employed by the US intelligence agencies.
These top secret Cold War programs triggered off UFO flaps during the 1950s years before the arrival of the U2 spyplane and more recent satellite surveillance systems.
Declassified documents from Western intelligence agencies also reveal how the military monitored media reports of UFO sightings in order to track their balloons to the targets.
The conference is ‘coming home’ because the very first conference, organised by the former Centre for English Cultural Tradition was held at the University of Sheffield in July 1982.
The Perspectives on Contemporary Legend conferences effectively launched the academic study of this new genre of folklore.
Contemporary legend includes the study of all kinds of modern legends, rumours, conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’ that circulate actively in the present or have circulated at an earlier historical period.
The speaker list for the seminal 1982 conference included Jan Brunvand (author of The Vanishing Hitch-hiker), Professor John Widdowson, Paul Smith, Sandy Hobbs, Gillian Bennett and others whose scholarship has become legendary.
The 2023 conference will be organised by SHU’s Centre for Contemporary Legend team that includes Dr David Clarke, Dr Diane A. Rodgers, Andrew Robinson along with friends and collaborators from The Folklore Society.
The seminars and speakers will be based in the new, state-of-the-art multi-media Dorothy Fleming lecture theatre in the Charles Street section of City Campus, five minutes walk from the railway station and Showroom cinema in the heart of the Cultural Industries quarter.
In addition to the series of seminars there will be live music, film screenings and a legend excursion to visit locations in nearby Peak District National Park.
As you can imagine we are all pretty excited about staging this prestigious event in Steel City…so-called because of its adopted patron Vulcan – the Roman and Greek god of fire and forge, whose statue stands upon the tower of the Victorian Town Hall.
Keep watching this space and the ISCLR website and Facebook page for updates including a Call for Papers.
The Ministry of Defence no longer hold records about the mysterious Calvine UFO photograph, says the UK Armed Forces minister, James Heappey MP.
The government minister was responding to a Parliamentary enquiry to the MoD submitted by my Sheffield Heeley constituency MP and Shadow Transport minister Louise Haigh. I asked Louise to send a list of questions to MoD after one of the original photographs was revealed in my story published by the Daily Mail on 13 August.
In his letter Heappey says that ‘due to the historic nature of this alleged incident’ the only surviving papers are those in DEFE 24/1940/1opened at The National Archives in 2009.
‘The Calvine photographs were discussed in 1996 in the House of Commons where the then Minister of the Armed Forces [Nicholas Soames MP] confirmed that while the negatives were examined by staff responsible for air defence matters, they were not retained by MoD as they contained “nothing of defence significance”,’ his letter adds.
In his response the Minister ignored my question, submitted via Louise Haigh: ‘was the UK Air Defence Quick Reaction Alert system triggered on 4 August 1990 by the presence of an intruder aircraft’.
But he did respond to another question concerning whether authorisation had been given to the US Air Force – or any other US military – to fly or land an experimental aircraft in the UK, by passing the buck.
‘While we are aware that the existence or otherwise of a “secret American Aurora aircraft” was linked to this alleged event, with a number of theories suggesting that it was this aircraft that was allegedly seen, this is not a matter for the MoD, rather it would be a matter for the US Government,’ he said.
‘However, the UK Government has given no authority for any such aircraft to fly over or land in the United Kingdom and has no evidence to suggest that any such aircraft has’.
Louise Haigh also asked, on my behalf, whether a D-Notice was served on the Scottish Daily Record newspaper in 1990 to ensure the six images were not published.
His response says D-Notices are the responsibility of an independent body, the Defence Media Advisory Committee. The DSMA is administered by representatives of the UK military, secret services and Press – one of whom in 1990, was the serving editor of the Daily Record, Endell Laird, who died in 2015.
In 2018 I asked the current secretary of the DSMA if he would comment on a 22 March 2000 memo by Ron Haddow, author of the MoD’s Condign report, that referred to ‘a press D-Notice issued’ to deal with media questions relating to a secret US ‘ASTRA/AURORA’ project.
Extract from a formerly classified UAP Policy file that refers to a D-Notice issued during the 1990s relating to ASTRA/AURORA (credit: UK Ministry of Defence)
The secretary’s response was ‘there is no standing DSMA (and before that DA or D) notice that solely relates to US stealth aircraft in UK territory but that does not mean that a D/DA notice could not have been issued in connection with such an event’.
DSMA was aware that when in development, the US B2 Stealth bomber was a top secret programme. Among a number of issues ‘the shape of the aircraft was very sensitive and thus publication of Stealth bomber photographs would have been discouraged’. He added:
‘I do not know of any DA or D notice issued in connection with a US stealth aircraft on UK territory. Records before 2005 are incomplete and in any case, advice to editors is confidential’.
Meanwhile the former News Editor at the Daily Record has described the Calvine photos as ‘the strangest story imaginable’. He admitted his paper had missed ‘one of the biggest exclusives we ever had’.
Malcolm Speed retired in 2015 after 40 years as a journalist working for the Mirror Group newspapers. He was news editor in 1990 when the paper had a daily circulation of 700,000.
Speed said he saw the Calvine photograph in August 1990 shortly before he left the Glasgow office on his annual summer holiday.
‘I did see the photograph and can confirm the story is true,’ he told me. ‘One of the images was shown to me by picture editor Andy Allan, now deceased. It looked amazing then and I was surprised that it was not published’…
‘Later when I returned from holiday and quizzed Andy about the photographs he told me he had sent them to the RAF who had told them they were fakes.
‘I was surprised he sent them to the RAF before they were published, especially given issues such as copyright and ownership.
‘Andy was very reluctant to talk about the photographs and said he had given his word to the photographers to protect their identity. I was never told their names.
‘After that all discussions about the photos were discouraged. None of this makes any sense if the photographs were simple fakes’.
Speed said he later raised the issue with the paper’s editor, Endell Laird, who was close friend of Andy Allan. He denied all knowledge of the photographs.
‘Even if they were fakes I still find it hard to believe why they were not published. We published all sorts of images if they were newsworthy. These photos should have been a front page teaser and blasted over a spread inside for every day of the week.
‘There is something very odd about the decision not to use them that I cannot explain.‘
Speed says he thinks the mystery will never be resolved as most of the people ‘at the epicentre’, including Laird and Allan, are now deceased.
Since the Calvine photograph went viral on social media the internet has been buzzing with ingenious and contradictory theories that seek to debunk the image as just another fake UFO photograph.
Perhaps the most bizarre theory suggests the photo is actually an inverted image not of an object hovering in a cloudy sky, but of something partly submerged in a body of water. The promoters of this theory believe the ‘UFO’ is actually a small island or rock in a Scottish loch: the bottom of the ‘diamond’ is actually a reflection of the island and the Harrier is a man sitting in a rowing boat.
Photography lecturer Andrew Robinson, who produced hi-resolution images of the print in Sheffield Hallam University‘s photo laboratories, says the image does superficially look like a reflection of a flat object sticking up from a body of water.
‘But your gut instinct tells you that it isn’t an inverted image. The other items in the image and all the angles are wrong for this to be a reflection. Quite apart from this the mirror stillness of the lake with not a single ripple and the lack of any surface debris (leaves, twigs, bubbles etc) whilst not impossible would be highly unlikely.
‘There is a distant landscape clearly visible beyond the fence line. This would not appear if this was a reflection’.
My view is that both the island (and the man in the boat) are all in the eye of the beholder.
The Calvine photograph. A rock sticking out of a loch, or a Christmas ornament suspended from a tree branch. Every photograph tells a story (credit: Sheffield Hallam University/Craig Lindsay)
Sceptics rightly say the most straightforward explanation is that the diamond-shaped UFO is actually a small model hanging from a thin thread near the camera. Belgian sceptic Wim van Utrecht believes he has identified the UFO as a five-pointed cardboard ‘Christmas star’ ornament suspended from the overhanging trees visible in the photograph.
But as the Calvine photo includes both the large UFO and a tiny Harrier jet, a more ingenious arrangement would be required.
According to Van Utrecht the two pranksters, after suspending the ornament from the tree, produced a fishing rod and while one of the men ‘moved the small Harrier [model] around the “saucer”, his companion snapped the pictures’.
As of writing, scrutiny of a high resolution TIF version of the Calvine image has failed to detect any evidence of strings, wire or other suspicious anomalies although experiments by Van Utrecht have found that fishing line is very difficult to detect in any camera image.
If correct the clever hoaxer would have had to produce six convincing images in sequence including one that included a second fainter Harrier jet that was identified by the RAF’s JARIC photo agency, according to the UK MoD records.
The Calvine UFO mystery, unlike many other UFO legends, presents us with only two possible explanations.
(1) The photographs are or were a clever hoax – most likely involving a small object (or objects) suspended in front of the camera, as Van Utrecht has suggested. If true then perhaps the prank got out of hand when it initially fooled the UK Defence Intelligence staff and RAF photo experts.
(2) They are genuine photographs of something unusual in the sky. There are many possible ‘somethings’ quite apart from secret military technology (for example a kite, a blimp or UAV). There are no other possibilities as far as I can tell.
My position is that even if the photographs are fakes it makes no difference to their status as an evolving modern legend – or their news-worthiness.
Some people say the camera never lies. But that is not true. In reality, every photograph tells a story.
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.
What is Folklore?
Once upon a time… ‘Folklore’ meant ancient ballads or fairy tales or the peculiar superstitions and customs of ‘primitive’ peoples. Today folklore is a tool for studying custom and belief, urban legends, modern myth and even rumours spread via the internet. Much folklore can be found online and buried in the narrative content of media and social networking - from legends and reports of ghosts, UFOs and 'big cats' to language, customs and traditions. The study of folklore is centrally and crucially important 'in our attempts to understand our own behaviour and that of our fellow human beings' according to one scholarly definition. Folklore is a vital and ongoing area of study and one of the few academic disciplines that engage, in a fundamental way, with everyday life.
Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ)
City University’s centre of investigative excellence. Visit for info on the CIJ summer schools and workshops on investigative techniques.
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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