The UFO that Never Was?: the Calvine photographs

Posted on July 31, 2021 by Dr David Clarke

Is this blurry image really the ‘most compelling evidence’ for UFOs visiting the UK?

A photocopy of a line drawing showing one of the Calvine photographs (Crown Copyright)

Does it show a secret US ‘black project’ operating over Scotland?

Or are the Calvine photographs an aerial version of the Loch Ness Monster?

After a lengthy investigation, drawing upon responses to FOI requests and testimony from MoD insiders, I can provide some possible answers.

Click here to read my Calvine case file.

An aura of mystery has grown around this story because the identity of the photographer is currently being with-held by the MoD, under Data Protection laws, until 2076.

Despite the fact that he or she originally sent their negatives to a Scottish newspaper, The Daily Record, the name of the photographer remains redacted from MoD UFO files released by The National Archives in 2009. The newspaper did not publish a story and passed the images to the Ministry of Defence.

Today, more than 30 years later, it seems that first generation images, taken from the negatives, remain squirrelled away in the UK and/or US intelligence archives (or both).

Pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic – and Freedom of Information requests – might lead to their release.

The image on the right (below) is a ‘colourised version of a blurred image’ published by the UK tabloid The Sun in October 2020, based upon a photocopy of a drawing that was released by The National Archives.

According to which version of the story you believe, the original is one of six colour photographs taken by two men walking near the A9 in the Scottish highlands one August evening in 1990.

They show a dark, wingless diamond-shaped craft accompanied by a smaller aircraft, identified as a RAF Harrier jet.

Both were seen and photographed as they buzzed a remote Scottish valley, 20 miles north of the town of Pitlochry.

What is often not mentioned in media accounts is the incident allegedly happened on Saturday 4 August 1990, just two days after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, triggering off the first Gulf War.

Another curious fact is the Calvine photographs were completely unknown to the public until 1996 when Nick Pope, ex-MOD desk officer turned UFO pundit, published a brief account of the sighting in his first book Open Skies Closed Minds.

In the book Pope says his Head of Division – who he does not name – believed they might show the mythical US spy-plane Aurora that was the subject of much Press speculation at the time.

Pope claimed that expert analysis had revealed that the photographs are ‘not fakes’, but neither they nor he accepted the Aurora theory. He added:

‘The Calvine report remains one of the most intriguing cases in the Ministry of Defence’s files. The conclusions, however, are depressingly familiar: object unexplained, case closed, no further action’.

Speaking to The Sun in May 2021 he went further, claiming the photos are ‘sensational’.

He added: ‘The photos are pretty much as good as it gets. They were assessed by the defence intelligence staff as real…they were clearly visible, sharp focused, broad daylight with the Scottish countryside in the background.’

According to three separate senior MoD sources and documents I obtained from responses to Freedom of Information requests, the photographs were indeed the subject of several expert investigations. These were carried out by the Defence Intelligence Staff, the RAF’s JARIC agency and by the Pentagon.

The dossier reveals how, in 1992, the DIS sent an image of a ‘possible research vehicle‘ flying in Scottish airspace to the CIA. That image was sent to the Pentagon where it was subject to further US-UK analysis, as revealed in a document written by the UK’s Air Attache in Washington DC.

Extract from letter sent by RAF Air Attache in Washington, Simon Baldwin, to Sir Donald Spiers, MoD Controller of Aircraft, on 18 December 1992 (Crown Copyright applies)

But although my sources disagree about what they images show, they all agree that whatever was captured on film was not a UFO because it was not unidentified. That might explain why a full set of papers are missing from the UFO files released at The National Archives in 2009.

A source in MoD’s defence intelligence staff, whose identity I have chosen not to reveal, claims the object in the photograph was identified as a US experimental aircraft. He says it was operating from a RAF base in Scotland and was escorted, not shadowed, by RAF and US aircraft.

If true this would contradict Parliamentary statements in 1992-93 that no authorisation had been given by the UK Government for the US to operate experimental aircraft in its airspace.

‘There was nothing extraterrestrial about what was seen in Scotland,’ he said. ‘No one else other than the Americans had anything like it at the time. We were not allowed to say exactly what it was. But we knew what it was.’

He claimed the US agencies ‘went ballistic’ when they saw the image, which he said had been captured by civilians in ‘a one in a million chance’.

But his story is contradicted by RAF Air Commodore Simon Baldwin, who commanded Britain’s last V-bomber squadron that saw action in the Falklands War. Baldwin was serving as Air Attache in Washington when one of the images from Scotland surfaced at the Pentagon in 1992.

When I spoke to Baldwin he dismissed the theory that the object in the photograph was a Stealth aircraft. He believes the whole story is a spoof – the same word he uses in a memo sent to MoD in December that year that I obtained using the Freedom of Information Act.

Baldwin says he was called in by a 3-star Lt General after the CIA sent one of the photographs to the Pentagon without informing them the source was UK MoD.

In the misunderstanding that followed, it emerged that the Pentagon believed the image actually depicted a RAF experimental aircraft developed using secret Stealth technology, shared with the British, without the knowledge of the US Government!

Baldwin believes the story – and the photographs – were the result of an elaborate hoax that briefly fooled the intelligence services.

He says the photographs – one of which he saw – depict ‘an airborne Loch Ness Monster’.

Baldwin’s involvement is revealed in a series of letters he sent to London whilst Air Attache during 1992, copies of which I obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. One was addressed to Sir Donald Spiers, Controller of Aircraft at MoD, a 3-star rank at the time.

The prank explanation was confirmed by Sir Donald, a former Assistant Chief Scientist RAF. He said that he recognised the black and white image from the MoD files as the same one he saw at the time. There was, he said, ‘no doubt that the photograph was a spoof,’ a conclusion he claims is based upon analysis by ‘our technical experts’.

So, who should we believe?

It seems to me that we have three options.

No 1 – the Calvine photographs show an unidentified, extraterrestrial spacecraft shadowed by RAF/US aircraft flying in broad daylight over Scotland. The UK and US intelligence agencies have covered-up the evidence for 30 years and have silenced both the photographer and the newspaper that was sent the photographs.

But if this was true the conspiracy has not been very effective.

Why if the photos were ‘above top secret’ was a poster-sized copy of one image printed out and placed on a wall in the MoD office where it could be seen by civilians such as Nick Pope? (for more details see my case file here).

Even if this was an error, why did the intelligence services then allow Pope to blow the gaffe in his book that we know was subject to security clearance before its publication?

And why did MoD agree to the the release at The National Archives of poor quality black and white photocopies of the images 13 years later?

No 2 – the ‘object’ in the photographs is a super-secret US experimental project such as the TR-3 Black Manta or the hypersonic Aurora. This is the explanation offered by my Defence Intelligence source. I am convinced he is telling the truth as he remembers it. This is not impossible but seems unlikely.

I remain unconvinced that such a project could be concealed for three decades. Also, if it is so super secret, why risk flying it in broad daylight on a weekend evening in Scotland when it could have been tested in secrecy at Area 51 or above the ocean? When I asked Nick Pope about this possibility he said ‘we know where we exercise and we know where we test’ and where you test your exotic hardware is generally over the sea at night.

Even so it remains possible the images show a UAV or some other experimental platform that was undergoing tests shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in Kuwait. Only the full release of UK and US analysis of the images – and the photographs themselves – can resolve this question.

No 3 – To quote Sherlock Holmes ‘once you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth’.

Using Occam’s Razor I believe we can eliminate option 1 as fiction that belongs to a plot from The X-Files. It would be nice to believe it but the evidence simply does not stack up.

Option 2 is not impossible but remains unlikely. This leaves us with one remaining theory that makes the fewest uncorroborated assumptions. The only explanation that makes sense is the photographs are fakes. Either this was a deliberately created hoax or an opportunistic one, in that the person or persons concerned photographed a Harrier then, when the pictures were processed, found a flaw on the negative that they then tried to pass off as a UFO.

Due to the compartmentalised nature of the UK MoD this would explain why both Nick Pope and my DI source had no ‘need to know’ about the results of the UK-US analysis of the images that must have happened early in 1993 and has left no record in the released documents.

It would also explain why the photographer has not come forward, despite significant media coverage. It might also explain why the Daily Record spiked the story and why no one (including MoD at the time) has been able to trace the source of the RAF Harrier shown in the image.

If it really was a spoof then the unusual date, time and location provided in the original report to MoD might also be false. As it is a pre-digital image there would be no way of proving its precise provenance.

Interest in the Calvine photographs continues to grow as the story becomes a prototype UFO legend. The idea of a vast conspiracy to hide the truth is characteristic of how these stories grow and become part of the larger UFO mythology.

Last year I told a freelance journalist how The National Archives had removed the name of the Calvine photographer from a MoD dossier that mentions the photographs, first released in 2009.

This revelation was published by The Sun on 10 October 2020, along with the ‘colourised version’ of the image and a comment from Nick Pope, the man who first released news of the story in his 1996 book.

But the tabloid omitted any reference to the actual source of what it called ‘a complaint lodged under the Freedom of Information Act about the National Archives withholding documents’ that was ‘now under investigation by the UK information watchdog’.

It went on to claim ‘a dossier into Britain’s most significant UFO sighting is to be kept secret for another 50 years’ adding further layers to perceived cover-up.

But the redaction of the name was not ‘without explanation’ as the tabloid claimed, nor was it anything to do with a massive cover-up of the Calvine images.

The facts are that the names and addresses of all UFO witnesses and MoD officials who dealt with their reports have been routinely redacted from files transferred to The National Archives since 2005. From that date section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act, covering personal information, replaced the former ’30 year rule’. This has been further complicated by the arrival of the GDPR European legislation covering private information.

The name of the photographer is just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of other names and addresses currently being with-held from those files under the draconian Data Protection legislation, sometimes for up to 80 years.

The TNA decision to withhold the name, if upheld on appeal, will remain in force until 1 January 2076. If successful it will ensure that, unless he comes forward voluntarily, we will never learn who took the Calvine photographs in either his and our lifetime.

Only pressure from politicians and the media will resolve this mystery once and for all.

Of course it would be a better story if the Calvine photographs turn out to be genuine ‘compelling evidence’ for UFOs – or indeed, top secret military technology.

But if they were the result of a clever hoax that successfully fooled the MoD, the CIA and the UFO community, then maybe his decision to remain anonymous might be a very sensible policy!

Text copyright Dr David Clarke 2021

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

How UFOs Conquered the World – without firing a shot

Posted on June 11, 2021 by Dr David Clarke

BBC History Magazine/History Extra published my article that explains how the idea of visitors in mysterious flying objects grew from its origins in the Cold War into the most enduring modern myth.

You can read the main feature here (password access required). There are links to a UFO timeline (1946-2021) and my list of the Top Ten UFO sightings from Kenneth Arnold to the USS Nimitz here.

History Xtra‘s Rachel Dinning also recorded an interview with me that can be downloaded as a podcast. The History and Mystery of UFOs, here.

International media interest in UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) has intensified following the release of the Pentagon’s intelligence report on UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) on 25 June, almost 74 years since the first modern report of ‘flying saucers’ by pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947.

Pressure has grown after three years of news coverage that began with a story published by the New York Times in December 2017 that revealed the existence of a semi-secret Department of Defense programme that investigated UAPs.

A series of close encounters reported by US Navy pilots led the Office of Naval Intelligence to establish a UAP Task Force in August last year.

The last time the CIA convened a panel to review the best evidence for UFOs (or ‘flying saucers’) was in 1953 at the height of the Cold War.

The recommendation of the Robertson Panel was that federal agencies ‘take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired’.

And here we are 68 years later awaiting a new US intelligence report on a subject that refuses to die. Commenting upon the enduring mystery, in History Xtra I say:

‘Today, as tensions grow between the USA and its main adversaries Russian and China, how fitting that unidentified flying objects should once again become a factor in what some historians have called the Second Cold War.’

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

ATTACK OF THE DRONES

Posted on May 15, 2021 by Dr David Clarke

At 9pm on Wednesday, 19 December 2018, a security guard left work at Gatwick in Sussex, Britain’s second busiest airport. As he waited in the rain for a bus he saw two lighted objects hovering low in the sky inside the complex. He immediately called the airport control tower to report a breach of security and soon afterwards the main runway was closed to air traffic.

As police patrols combed the area clusters of further sightings were made. According to some media reports the object or objects seen was described as an ‘industrial specification’ drone. More reports poured in until 9 am on the following morning, Thursday 20 December.

By daybreak 58 flights into Gatwick had either been cancelled or diverted, five police forces were involved and the Sussex constabulary had sent up its own drones and a helicopter in search of the intruders.

According to a BBC Panorama investigation 140,000 people were caught up in the chaos that followed the airport closure. The 33-hour shutdown at Gatwick led 1,000 flights to be cancelled or delayed at an estimated cost of £50 million to airlines.

Fearing further incursions, on the afternoon of 20 December Gatwick called in special military radar systems that can jam the signal between operator and the drone.

According to new information released in response to Freedom of Information requests by the Department for Transport, further drone incursions were logged at 2.30, 7.45 and 10.30.

The very last confirmed sighting was logged at 5 pm on Friday, 21 December – almost 48 hours after the first drone ‘sighting’.

As the panic spread, there was much speculation about the identity and motives of the drone operators. Some media sources claimed airports were being targeted by terrorists or eco-activist groups for attacks using drones.

Sussex Police continue to believe that a real drone or drones were involved in the Gatwick incident. But at an early stage in their investigation doubts were expressed by one of their own senior officers, Det Chief Supt Jason Tingley, who told the BBC: ‘We cannot discount the possibility that there may have been no drone at all’.

The Gatwick case shares some similarities to the phantom helicopter scare of 1973-74 that began with a series of ‘sightings’ by security guards at quarries where explosives were stored. These convinced senior police officers in northern England the IRA were using a stolen or unregistered machine to steal explosives or for use in a jailbreak. As in the 1974 scare, the Sussex police decision to launch their own helicopter to investigate the mysterious intruder at Gatwick triggered off a spate of ‘sightings’ of the phantom drones.

Among the new drone witnesses was a Brighton-based press photographer, Eddie Mitchell, who drove to Gatwick with his cameras at the ready and two of his own drones locked in his boot. At 5pm on 20 December Eddie saw and photographed what he believed were the white, green and red lights of the drone as it hovered above Gatwick airport. But when he downloaded the images it became apparent that he had actually snapped the Sussex police’s own helicopter!

Eddie later told The Guardian ‘if I’m making a mistake – and I fly drones two or three times a week – then God help us because others will have no idea’.

But the tabloids were less concerned about the identity of the object in Eddie’s photographs. As Ian Hudson who runs the UAV Hive website explained ‘some journalists just didn’t really care if the photos they were using were a drone or not’. One of Eddie’s images continues to appear on The Sun website captioned as ‘the drones’.

Ian told me ‘the idea a couple of drones were flying around in the rain for prolonged periods’ seemed far-fetched.

He also finds it ‘beyond credible’ that not one single clear photograph or video of the intruder has emerged and ‘a number of camera operators that were at Gatwick have spoken out since on social media about their belief there was no drone’.

Even more persuasive is the evidence from the specialist counter-drone systems (known as C-UAS) installed at Gatwick airport in the hours after the first sighting. One arrived at 2.40 on 20 December and another was in place by 9pm when visual sightings were still being reported. Both were capable of detecting both the drones and their transmitter but neither recorded anything unusual.

Despite these evidential problems in April 2019 Gatwick’s chief operating officer, Chris Woodroofe, told the BBC the airport authorities had received 170 separate ‘credible drone sightings’ from 115 people including trusted staff such as security patrols and police officers. ‘They knew they’d seen a drone. I know they saw a drone,’ Woodroofe said. ‘We appropriately closed the airport’.

At the time of writing the operators have never been identified. A married couple from Crawley were arrested by Sussex Police and held in a police station for 36 hours on the basis that they owned a collection of model aircraft. They were released without charge after questioning. In June 2020 Sussex police paid the couple £200,000 in an out of court settlement. No one ever claimed responsibility for the scare or claimed the £50,000 reward offered by Gatwick for information that might lead to those responsible.

In the aftermath, the government passed new legislation to widen the exclusion zone around airports from one to five kilometres. Nationwide, police forces were given more powers to seize drones from their operators and prosecute those who break the strict regulations that prevent them from being flown in sensitive places.

Sussex Police formally closed their investigation of the incident in September 2019 after 18 months, having spent £800,000 on their inquiry, with no further ‘realistic lines of inquiry’. The force said it had ruled out a link with terrorists and there was no evidence ‘it was either state-sponsored, campaign or interest-group led’. They believe it was a ‘serious and deliberate criminal act designed to endanger airport operations and the safety of the travelling public’.

Drone experts including Ian Hudson interviewed by journalist Samira Shackle for her Guardian investigation remain unconvinced. Probing more deeply, what exactly did the witnesses at Gatwick actually see? A moving object with bright lights attached that hovered and was seen fleetingly on a rainy night in darkness. In any other context this would be classified as a sighting of a UFO. From the point of view of the airport authorities and police this must be a drone because UFOs do not exist.

But as Hudson told me, basic facts about the case don’t support this theory. ‘The first sighting was in the rain,’ he said. ‘Drones tend to fail in the rain. In fact there are few models that are capable of any kind of semi-reliable rain use’. Commercial drones also have in-built geofencing software that block them from flying near sensitive locations such as prisons, stately homes and airports.

If the operators were clever enough to hack the drone’s software and evade the regulations to fly them into Gatwick airspace, why did they allow the UAV to carry lights? ‘The normal lights on drones are low power LEDs that couldn’t be seen at a significant distance,’ he said. ‘Also drones aren’t equipped as standard with a strobing light. Any mischievous drone pilot that didn’t want to be caught wouldn’t use lights. You would turn them off in the software or tape them up’.

Hudson and fellow UAV operator Gary Mortimer filed a series of FOI requests asking Sussex police and the Department for Transport for basic information about the more evidential sightings made by police and security guards.  Hudson asked for confirmation of one description given to the media at the time that ‘the alleged Gatwick drone was industrial sized’.

But on 5 May this year the DfT admitted their records ‘do not hold any information on the description’. Hudson tells me this suggests neither the police nor the government have any clear account of what the drone actually looked like. He said the DfT had consistently hidden behind national security as a “get out clause” when quizzed about the specifics.

Mortimer briefly flirted with the idea of the scare being a cover for some other covert operation. Now he feels the actual explanation is more prosaic. He told Shackle ‘one option is that something that wasn’t a drone was reported and then the next day, police flew their [copter] there and people saw that’.

As UFO investigations have discovered time after time, ordinary objects can suddenly become extraordinary when people expect to see something unusual – or in this case threatening – in the sky. During the phantom helicopter scare of 1973-74 there was widespread anxiety about Irish terrorists and police confirmation of the sightings triggered off a visual epidemic. Today that anxiety has transferred to other terrorist groups and mysterious drone operators.

The 2018 scare was not the first cluster of mysterious aerial sightings in the vicinity of Gatwick airport. Earlier incidents were reported in 2017 and the MoD’s archived UFO files reveal how on 15 July 1991 the crew of a Britannia Airways Boeing 737 returning from Greece and descending into Gatwick at 14,000 feet saw ‘a small, black lozenge-shaped object’ zoom past at high speed 100 yards off the port side. Ground controllers confirmed a ‘primary contact’ was visible on radar 10 nautical miles behind the 737 moving at a speed estimated as 120 mph. Helium-filled toy balloons could potentially reach this height, but commercial drones cannot.

More recently a series of airprox reports from aircrew involving close shaves with ‘unknown objects’ in Gatwick airspace have been investigated by UK Airprox Board (UKAB) which is sponsored by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Military Aviation Authority (MAA). Statistics from UKAB’s log reveal a dramatic increase in reports of drones and other ‘unknown objects’ made by civilian aircrews in UK airspace from just seven in 2018 to 31 in 2019.

The log includes an incident from April 2018 that was placed in the highest collision risk category. At lunchtime on 28 April 2019 the runway at Gatwick was temporarily closed after the crew of an Airbus 319 climbing out of the airport saw an object breaking through cloud at 17,000 ft (5,200m). According to the crew ‘it passed below them from the centre of the aircraft and under the right-hand wing’ and was clearly contrasted against the clouds. The small object ‘appeared dark green in colour with a white light on top’ and may have been hovering. As a result of this close shave, three other aircraft were diverted to other airports.

Further details of recent UKAB investigations and the possible sources of the current UFO-drone epidemic are explored in my article Close Encounters of the Drone Kind in Fortean Times 406 (June 2021). Special thanks to Ian Hudson and UAV Hive for information used in this article.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rendlesham UFOs 40th anniversary: The Man from the Ministry speaks for the first time

Posted on December 26, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of Britain’s best known UFO legend, when unidentified Christmas lights haunted the sky above Suffolk’s Rendlesham forest.

Books, TV dramas and films have portrayed the sightings reported by groups of US air force personnel who witnessed the puzzling events outside the perimeter of RAF Woodbridge over two nights in December 1980.

Simon Weeden – MoD UFO desk officer 1980-81 – pictured during the 1980s (Copyright Simon Weeden)

Until recently little was known about how the British Ministry of Defence had dealt with the incident.

When the contents of Lt Col Charles Halt’s now famous memo were broken by The News of the World in 1983 the MoD said his report had been passed to ‘staff responsible for the air defence of the UK’ who had decided it was ‘of no defence significance’.

In 2001 the MoD agreed to release their file on the case to me after I used Freedom of Information legislation to apply for access.

But the ‘Rendlesham file’ was mainly a collection of correspondence with members of the public years after the incident itself. It did, however, contain original documents from 1981 that I used to piece together what happened in the corridors of Whitehall.

Now the former MoD civil servant who received Col Halt’s report and worked with RAF experts to establish the facts has agreed to explain exactly how their decision was reached.

Simon Weeden joined the MoD as a junior civil servant after the general election of 1979 when Margaret Thatcher won power for the Conservative party. As a graduate entrant he was assigned to defence secretariat DS8 – the MoD branch responsible for UFOs – in the following year.

Dealing with UFO correspondence was a tiny part of his duties and his department had no resources or remit to investigate hundreds of sightings that reached the ‘UFO desk’, mainly from members of the public. He said:

‘Our role was primarily dealing with correspondence from ministers and members of the public…We didn’t investigate but acted as fact-finders, consulting with experts in areas like radar and air defence.’

Then early in January 1981 an unusual report arrived on Simon’s desk. The subject matter was ‘Unexplained Lights’ and it was signed by Lt Col Charles Halt, USAF deputy base commander at RAF Woodbridge.

Halt described how on 27 December a US security patrol had reported seeing a triangular object in the forest after responding to reports of an unusual lights outside the back gate of the NATO complex.

The following day Halt’s report said unusual marks were found at the ‘landing site’ on the ground and in the trees. Col Halt reported having supervised a second night-time expedition into the forest. On this occasion unusual radiation readings were detected at the ‘landing’ site and Col Halt and his men saw a ‘red sun-like light’ moving through the trees.

Halt’s dramatic account was accompanied by a covering letter signed by Squadron Leader Donald Moreland, the British liaison officer. He forwarded the account of ‘mysterious sightings in the Rendlesham forest near RAF Woodbridge…for your information and action as considered necessary’.

Squadron Leader Donald Moreland, RAF Woodbridge’s British base commander, who liaised with the USAF (Copyright David Clarke)

Weeden said that Moreland’s note, dated 15 January – 18 days after the sightings – was the first time MoD was notified of the sensational events.

‘Nearly always the reports we got were from ordinary members of the public,’ Simon said.

‘This one was very unusual in that it came from a military source within our organisation. It is the only one of its kind that I can remember from my time working on UFOs for DS8.’

His first action was to circulate Halt’s report to the specialist branches that he relied upon for guidance on what action, if any, was required.

Among these was a RAF air defence branch, Ops GE, whose experts monitored UK airspace using real-time data from radar stations that defended the East Coast. These were the front line in the ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union at that time.

In the days that followed RAF Squadron Leader Jack Badcock checked Halt’s report with the joint CAA-military Eastern Radar at RAF Watton, near Thetford and with the RAF sector radar HQ at RAF Neatishead in Norfolk.

‘The MOD priority at the time was to establish if this was something that had an air defence aspect…Should we be concerned about this? Did it come up on radar? Did anyone notice anything odd…bearing in mind that the radars at Neatishead and Watton were manned 24 hours every day by skilled radar operators.’

But none of the radar stations checked reported anything unusual on their logs over the Christmas holidays. If there had been an air defence alert, RAF Ops would have known about it.

‘Aircraft were scrambled on a routine basis,’ Simon added. ‘If something is out over the North Sea and you don’t know what it is, it’s not responding, you would send up a Phantom or Lightning to have a look and see what it was.

‘But once we had been through all the basic checks and found there was nothing seen on radar, no obvious explanation, no obvious threat to air defence, we decided no further action was needed.’

How The News of the World broke the story in its famous pg1 splash of October 1983 (Credit: Ian Ridpath)

Simon did recall talking to his RAF colleagues about other potential explanations. US Air Force night time manoeuvres, people such as poachers moving around in the woods at night with lamps ‘that sort of thing’ were considered.

‘This was quite a flat part of the world and maybe these were lights from quite far away that were shining through the trees,’ he said, referring to the theory – championed by skeptic Ian Ridpath – that the airmen saw the flashing beacon from the Orfordness lighthouse 6-7 miles away.

But the MoD did not investigate UFOs and even though Badcock was told Col Halt had made a tape recording of his adventure in the forest, it was decided not to ask for a copy because it would ‘reveal no better report than that already received’.

Weeden also copied Halt’s report on radiation anomalies to desk officers in the Defence Intelligence staff who had resources to follow-up if required. But although DI55 said they could not explain Halt’s report they decided not to investigate further.

‘Our interest was never in unidentified flying objects as potential spaceships,’ he explained. ‘Unidentified flying objects are exactly that. They are unidentified. They might have lots of natural explanations but we would not put any effort into investigating, to try and sort out exactly what it was once the initial assessment had decided we didn’t need to worry about it’.

Simon Weeden left the MOD many years ago and this event is not uppermost in his mind but, despite the lack of concern at the time, he does not dismiss the UFO phenomenon. After leaving the MoD in 1988 he trained as a clergyman and spent the next 30 years in parish ministry. 

‘People do have extraordinary experiences,’ he told me. ‘That’s a fact. So I would never poo-poo those people who say to me they have had things like near-death experiences or felt some kind of angelic presence at times of crisis.

Simon Weeden: final word (copyright: David Clarke)

‘I do believe that people have experiences that can’t be explained. But they can be interpreted in a number of different ways. The interpretation depends upon what your viewpoint or standpoint is. If people have a propensity for conspiracy theories or alien manifestations they will interpret them through that filter.’

And Simon’s final word on the Rendlesham Forest UFO mystery 40 years after the events?

‘I think this is obviously something that exercises people’s imaginations. People want to know what the explanation is. I suspect that at the end of it all the explanation is probably going to turn out to be something quite mundane. But I can’t say that definitively; because I just don’t know.’

The 40th anniversary of Britain’s best known UFO legend has also been marked by a BBC News feature here. The article includes quotes from John Burroughs, whose book Weaponisation of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, was published earlier this month. John served in the US Air Force for 27 years and was one of the three man patrol that was sent to investigate what was first thought to be a plane crash in the forest beyond the RAF Woodbridge perimeter.

BBC reporter Nic Rigby also interviewed forester Vince Thurkettle who lived in the Rendlesham forest at the time and who was visited by two mysterious men who arrived at the Forestry Commission office late in December and asked if anyone had reported strange lights in the vicinity of the USAF complex.

Vince believes they may have been British officials who had heard rumours about the UFO incident. But it is more likely they were local journalists who had been tipped off by the Suffolk police who had responded to call from RAF Woodbridge in the early hours of Boxing Day morning.

One of the first civilian investigators to begin inquiries into the UFO mystery is Jenny Randles, author of the first book on the legend, Skycrash (1986) and UFO Crash Landing (1998).

Earlier this month I interviewed Jenny along with John Burroughs for a special extended 40th anniversary edition podcast UFO-LORE. Jenny had not spoken to John since 1988 when they last met at UFO conference in Arizona.

The free-flowing discussion that follows touches on many of the more puzzling aspects of the mystery that continues to fascinate and engage people across the world so long after the original events.

You can listen to the podcast on SoundCloud here or visit our Facebook page for more information here. UFO-LORE is also available from iTunes and Spotify.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Two Podcasts: All About UFOs and Covid-19 folklore

Posted on October 3, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

Children’s publisher Usborne have reissued the classic 1977 title All About UFOs from The World of the Unknown series.

The UFO title is the second in the series to be brought back through popular demand (a companion volume on ghosts was released last October).

Having been a fan of the book since my own childhood I was delighted to be invited to be a guest on the amazing Folklore Podcast for the launch, along with the impressionist and amateur astronomer Jon Culshaw who has provided a foreword for the new edition.

The resultant podcast can be downloaded here and the book is available from Usborne here. All about UFOs is written for young adults but is, in my humble opinion, far superior to any other book aimed at an under-18 audience for this subject matter.

Much like Jon, I was captivated by the idea of UFOs from an early age. This title with its wonderful illustrations and engaging practical tasks – such as how to fake a UFO photograph – fired my imagination.

The text did not pull any punches, introducing youngsters to ‘what [was] known about the flying saucer mystery’ at that time including UFOnauts, radar evidence and the many and varied explanations for unusual sightings.

Missing from the list of topics are the ubiquitous alien abductions (apart from the Betty and Barney Hill story), conspiracy theories and the twin legends of Roswell and Rendlesham that have become the twin pillars of the modern myth. Apart from these more modern obsessions the contents reveal little has changed since 1977.

The text poses some key questions such as where do UFOs come from? Are they spaceships guided by creatures from other worlds? Or are they figments of people’s imaginations?

All About UFOs will make a fantastic birthday or Christmas present for any youngster with an inquiring mind!

On the subject of podcasts Sheffield University‘s annual Festival of the Mind includes a 40 minute programme recorded and produced by me and my Sheffield Hallam University colleague Andrew Robinson on Folkloric Customs in the time of Covid-19.

The 40 minute podcast, available here, summarises our ongoing project that aims to collect and preserve images and personal experiences of new customs, rituals and traditions that have emerged in the United Kingdom since the country entered lockdown in March this year.

A Covid 19 scarecrow from Sheffield, Yorkshire, May 2020 (copyright David Clarke)

The Centre for Contemporary Legend (CCL) based in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam is interested in many different manifestations of legend and narrative.

Rituals such as the now defunct #ClapforCarers and the decoration of windows, pavements and scarecrows to thank NHS and other frontline workers are new folklore deserving of scholarly attention and study.

In the Festival podcast Andrew and I discuss older antecedents including the legend of the Eyam plague in the Derbyshire Peak District and we assess the impact lockdown has had on existing calendar customs such as Castleton Garland and Hastings May Day.

Images of new and emerging folkloric and ritual customs can be found on the CCL website here along with information on how to contribute to the project.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

25 years ago: Alien film a FAKE says movie wizard

Posted on August 15, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

25 years ago crowds gathered to see the world premiere of the ‘alien autopsy‘ film at an international UFO congress held at Sheffield Hallam University.

At the time I was journalist at the Sheffield Star and according to expert Philip Mantle,  author of the definitive history of the legend, it was my exclusive story that tipped off the international media to what became a huge ‘silly season‘ story.

The weekend of 18-19 August 1995 saw the first public showing of the film in Hallam’s Pennine Lecture Theatre during the British UFO Research Association’s 8th international congress. Tickets sold out and TV news crews from around the world were camped outside in Hallam Square eager to interview the key players in the breaking story.

UFOlogist and author Philip Mantle who wrote the definitive history of the ‘alien autopsy’ film, photographed at his West Yorkshire home in March 2020 (copyright David Clarke)

As anticipation grew one week later a segment from the footage was broadcast in the UK as part of the Channel 4 Secret History documentary series. From that moment onward it became part of one of UFOlogy’s cause celebres, the ‘Roswell incident’. Today, images from the autopsy film are now a part of the pop culture UFO mythology.

Many continue to believe the US government has successfully covered up the crash of an alien spacecraft near the New Mexico town in 1947. In The X-Files era, the search was on for hard evidence to confirm this belief – and what better confirmation could there be than actual footage of the autopsy carried out on the alien pilots?

The Alien Autopsy legend became the source of a British-made movie starring celebrity comedians and TV presenters Ant & Dec, currently hosting Britain’s Got Talent and Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. For more on this film, read my accompanying blogpost Won’t Get Fooled Again? a summary written with Andy Roberts to coincide with its release, first published by Fortean Times in 2006.

Some continue to believe the footage really was shot in Roswell in 1947 and for years the film continued to attract a small but noisy group of proponents. My exclusive story, published on page 1 of the Sheffield Star 18 August, 1995, did not reveal the author of the hoax but it was prescient in identifying the source: someone within the movie special effects industry:

———————————————————————————————————-

ALIEN FILM A FAKE, SAYS MOVIE WIZARD

SPECIAL effects wizards today dismissed a film claiming to show a dead space alien as a fake.

Hundreds of enthusiasts and dozens of TV crews from around the world are heading to Sheffield Hallam University for the sell-out congress organised by the British UFO Research Association this weekend.

But today experts at Pinewood Studios who create effects for big-budget Hollywood films said they found the ‘alien’ was really ‘a very good fake body’ when they examined the footage.

Believers said the grainy black and white film showed a top secret US army autopsy on an alien pilot killed when his flying saucer crashed in the desert at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

The program for BUFORA’s 8th international congress, UFOs: examining the evidence, where the alien autopsy footage was first shown publicly in 1995 (David Clarke)

Channel 4 are planning to use the film as part of a worldwide TV probe into claims that the US government secretly recovered a crashed spaceship and have covered up the truth for 50 years.

Cliff Wallace, of Creature Effects at Pinewood said experts could see evidence of a seam down one arm of the creature which suggested it was a life-like model.

They also picked out the words ‘VIDEO TV’ written on parts of the wreckage claimed to be from the crashed saucer.

‘This film is a fake – there’s no doubt about it,’ Mr Wallace told The Star.

‘It’s been done very cleverly by someone probably within our profession and there is no possibility that it could have been filmed in 1947.’

War of Words over flying saucer film: my inside story, published on p6 of the Star, 18 August 1995

Mr Wallace, whose company made a lifesize model of Sean Connery for the film First Knight, said he believed the film had been made as a publicity stunt for a forthcoming movie on the UFO mystery.

Today, London businessman Ray Santilli, who has been trying to sell the film to TV companies across the world, was not available for comment.

He has claimed he bought it from a retired US army photographer, now aged 82.

—————————————————————–

In his definitive account of the story, Roswell Alien Autopsy: the truth behind the film that shocked the world, Philip Mantle writes (p39):

‘The first the public was to learn about the film was on January 14th, 1995, when [Reg Presley, the late lead singer of The Troggs] was interviewed on a BBC Breakfast TV show. He surprised everyone by announcing what he had seen – a film of “real, live aliens”. There was no great reaction to this announcement as the show in those days did not have a big audience. In the meantime, I having now seen the AA films, asked Santilli if he would show it at a British UFO Research Association conference I was organising in Sheffield for August that year [1995]. Surprisingly, Santilli agreed. Shortly after this I received a phone call from local journalist and long-time UFOlogist David Clarke, of the Sheffield Star – one of Britain’s biggest newspapers. Clarke was writing a small article for the paper about another local UFO researcher and asked for a few quotes on the proposed August conference. I gave him a few lines and and, as an off-the-cuff remark, noted that an ‘alien autopsy’ film was to be shown as an exclusive. 

‘Clarke published his article and I was subsequently contacted by White’s Press Agency in Sheffield. They wanted to know more about the AA film and I answered their questions – never expecting anything to come of it. Within hours of White Press Agency sending their story out around the world [my] phone began to ring off the hook.

Philip Mantle’s definitive book on the alien autopsy film, revised edition 2020

‘The story was out. The conference sold out in no time and Santilli was besieged by journalists, UFO researchers and TV companies…’

Mantle’s book documents the origins of the legend and examines the trail of evidence that exposed the hoax in forensic detail. Roswell Alien Autopsy: The Truth Behind the Film That Shook The World (Flying Disk Press 2020) is available from Amazon.

You can also watch a four-part documentary Alien Autopsy: The Search For Answers that follows Mantle’s investigation of the film, available from Amazon Prime and I-tunes.

Coincidentally this summer also marks the centenary of another set of faked images – in this case black and white stills – that became a legend and part of Yorkshire’s folklore.

In August 1920 two cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, took three of the famous ‘Cottingley Fairy photographs‘ in and around the beck behind Elsie’s family home at Cottingley, near Bradford in West Yorkshire.  These three images complemented two others, produced in 1919, that convinced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, that fairy folk really did exist.

In 1975 Elsie, then aged 74, in a TV interview, said: ‘I have told you they are figments of our imagination and that’s what I’m sticking to’.

It was not until 1982, sixty years after the story broke,that the two women confessed the photographs were drawings of ‘fairies’ that had been cut out of popular magazines and held in place by hatpins. Even then, Frances continued to maintain they had seen fairies and the girls took the photographs as proof that would confound their skeptical parents.

Much like the alien autopsy film, the story of the Cottingley fairies continues to capture the popular imagination today. There have been dozens of books about it, two Hollywood movies and numerous TV programmes and documentaries. The story is often described as one of the greatest photographic hoaxes of all time.

But is hoax the most appropriate word to use when you are dealing with matters of belief? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a hoax as ‘a humorous or mischievous deception with which the credulity of the victim is imposed upon’.

What I have learned over 40+ years investigating extraordinary beliefs and experiences is that when people believe in something so strongly – whether that’s belief in fairies or aliens – individuals will interpret what emerges from the camera as confirmation of their beliefs.

Seeing isn’t believing – believing is seeing!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Won’t Get Fooled Again?: The alien autopsy film (2006)

Posted on August 15, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

This piece originally appeared in the Flyingsaucery column of Fortean Times 210 (2006) to mark the release of the movie Alien Autopsy.

UFOlogists are always keen to play down the amount of hoaxing that goes on within the subject and to be fair, hoaxes only account for a small proportion of UFO reports. But many of the central planks of the subject such as ‘good’ photographs, contactees and ‘leaked’ Government documents containing evidence of secret conspiracies are rooted in hoaxes of varying complexity. It is only now, after more than a decade, that one of the most complex and influential UFO hoaxes has finally begun to unravel.

On 5 May 1995 a large group of people, mainly UFOlogists but also representatives of various religions, journalists, MoD minions and others gathered in the hushed darkness of the Museum of London’s film theatre. They were there at the invitation of video entrepreneur Ray Santilli, to view a film that would change the face of UFOlogy for more than a decade. A film showing an autopsy on a non-human creature possibly, it was hinted, from the infamous 1947 Roswell Incident.

Santilli later related how he had been offered the film whilst on a visit to the USA to buy up film of Elvis Presley and other early rock’n’roll stars. When a retired military cameraman showed him the special film he had harboured for over 40 years Santilli was indeed all shook up. It was too good an offer to turn down and so he raised the cash and brought the film, all 22 reels of it, back to the UK where it was edited down into usable material and the rest is history. Until now.

Santilli’s story, and the subject matter of the film came at just the right time for UFOlogy. The hit TV show The X Files was making cultural waves and clueing the general public into the possibility that alien craft really had really crashed and were in the possession of the military. Conspiracies were everywhere and the western world was primed and ready for some actual evidence. Santilli’s film appeared to deliver just that.

Despite warnings issued by more wise and experienced UFOlogists the mass media saw the film as easy, punter-grabbing copy. The AA film (as it became known) was seen by an estimated 1.2 billion people across the globe. It was splashed across a thousand newspapers and eventually turned into a mega-selling video.

Since 1995, UFOlogy has been arguing over the film’s authenticity and some diehards have been desperately trying to shoehorn the footage into one of the many ‘crashed saucer’ scenarios.  Along the way, a number of professionals and experts from the fields of model making, forensic pathology and other disciplines came out in vocal support of the film being the real thing. But none of their questions could be answered because Santilli consistently refused to allow the film stock it to be properly analysed and changed portions of his story over the years.

Time passed and during 2005 rumour had it that Santilli was involved with making a movie about the AA film. Not a “serious” movie but a comedy directed by Jonny Campbell starring the UK’s answer to Pinky and Perky, former child actors Ant and Dec (Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly). Surely not? Why was the man who discovered The Greatest Story Ever Sold considering selling out by making a comedy – even one billed as being “based on true events.” The reason soon became clear, Santilli was finally going to reveal the real ‘truth’ about the AA film and it could be no coincidence that this ‘truth’ was to be revealed just two days before the comedy hit the cinemas. More worryingly, both these events were taking place days after the most important date in the hoaxer’s calendar, April 1st!

Sheffield Star 18 August 1995

Santilli had conspired with the incestuous TV industry to feature on a programme called Eamonn Investigates…The Alien Autopsy film. The Eamonn in question, former Breakfast TV anchor man Eamonn Holmes, revealed the ‘truth’ at 8.00pm on April 4th [2006] on Sky One, playing the part of a hard nosed investigator, keen to learn the truth about the AA film. This was post-modernist docu-comedy at its best, with all parties clearly in the know and hamming it up to create yet another ‘truth’ about the AA film.

But what lay behind the alien on the autopsy film itself? Well, it’s not so much what lay behind as what lay within – sheep’s brains in jelly. No prizes for guessing that the alien, the autopsy and the hype surrounding its 1995 was a hoax. However, Santilli didn’t like the word ‘hoax’. He much preferred the term ‘restoration’, for the simple reason that whilst his film had been a mock-up there really had been a real AA film after all! What?  Santilli was patient with Holmes (no Sherlock, this one) and carefully explained that there had been an original AA film and there had been a genuine military camera man.

Nevertheless, by the time Santilli and co had raised the cash to buy the film stock it had deteriorated, so the only way to show the world (and recoup the investment of course) was to make ‘restoration’, the kicker being that tiny parts of the Santilli AA film were from the original AA film. ‘How much?’ asked Holmes. ‘I don’t think any of us knows anymore,’ smirked Santilli’s sidekick Gary Shoefield. ‘Less than 5%,’ Santilli smirked back. Santilli and Shoefield did more smirking than was strictly necessary as they told the story of how they made shed loads of money from human gullibility. It’s their apparent glee at making money from the gullible that will cast a shadow over their hoaxing achievements.

It emerged that the AA film was shot in flat in Camden’s Rochester Square, using a manikin built by a model maker in just three and a half weeks. This was sculptor John Humphreys, the unsung hero of the AA film, who explained how he made the model and packed it with bits of dead animal spare parts, all bought from Smithfield market. Sheerluck Holmes duly questioned the butcher who had sold Humphreys the meat. He cheerfully ‘fessed up that he knew it was for making the model of an alien. Humphreys also played the surgeon in the AA film, so he could be sure that his model was treated like the cosmic cadaver it was supposed to be. But the blood on the knife as he sliced the critter – how did he do that? Glad you asked. Quite simply he smeared animal blood on the unseen side of his surgeon’s knife which trickled off as he made the ‘cut’, giving the illusion the blood came from the newly opened body.

By all accounts they had a real laugh making the AA film, even when the first ‘alien’ didn’t work and they had to create a new one. A ‘fun atmosphere’ was how Humphreys described the experience, which also involved some of Santilli’s work colleagues playing other roles. The recreation of this sequence in Campbell’s film Alien Autopsy really is the highpoint of the movie, with its farcical depiction of dotty relatives, actors slipping on gore and extras fainting on the set.

A model, some genuine instruments, shaky film and lots of raw meat, all obvious now you think about it. But at the time, when seen together in the context of the prevalent Roswell myth, well, it all seemed to make sense to a great many people. UFOlogical sleuths were quickly on the case in the late 1990s seeking to track down the original cameraman, as he held the key to the whole story. Only he could back Santilli’s claims up and give his story the authenticity it needed. And lo, Santilli came up with the goods, organising a TV interview with the cameraman who, obviously, supported Santilli’s story of the film’s provenance and subject matter (played effectively in the movie by Harry Dean Stanton). UFOlogists not being too bright this put them off the scent.

In Eammon Investigates the elusive snapper was revealed to be yet another twist in the Santilli created hall of smoke and mirrors – just a bum picked up off the street and given lines to speak to camera. Another hoax, but one which put ufological sleuths off the scent of the real cameraman. Confused? Well you should be keeping up then!

Was any of this contrived expose true? Who can tell. The AA film is surrounded by so many layers of falsehood and deceit that it would be unwise to take Eamonn Holmes’ ‘investigation’ as the final word. That the AA film was a hoax is about all we can deduce for certain. And whatever you may think about hoaxing and hoaxers credit must go to ray Santilli and his chums for being shrewd, highly manipulative masters of popular culture who had the Big Idea, the cash and, most importantly, the cojones to carry it off, fooling and making millions along the way. The Never Ending Story, with its tantalizing promise that genuine alien footage still exists will allow them to milk the easily gulled for years to come, whilst adding yet more layers to the mish-mash of disparate elements that comprises UFOlogy.

In the early days of their attempts at marketing the film the hoaxers approached a number of tabloid newspapers, all of whom offered them largish sums of money to tell the film’s story. The News of the World offered the most, a rather tempting £50,000 and Santilli was all set to go with it until the editor revealed that he would want the film verified first and payment wouldn’t be forthcoming until after publication. Oddly – or perhaps not – Santilli severed further communication and decided to market the film himself, largely through dupes in the UFO field.

UFOlogists, for all their self styled investigative rigour had been waiting for years for something like the AA film which, at last, give them the credibility they craved. The British UFO Research Association’s (BUFORA) Sheffield conference in 1995 was largely given over to promoting the film to UFOlogy and to the media. Unfortunately the media, whilst happy to sell papers on the back of the AA hype, decided the AA film was risible and the film’s corrosive influence set serious UFOlogy back many years and was effectively the beginning of the end for BUFORA. The media once again associated UFOlogists with cranks, crackpots and people desperately seeking something.

The program for BUFORA’s 8th international congress, UFOs: examining the evidence, where the alien autopsy footage was first shown publicly in 1995 (David Clarke)

All in all there was a lot of talk and little analysis in Eamonn Investigates. Forteans, when they see the program, will be mulling over what it tells them about the power of the media and human credulity, which is seemingly limitless. The expose also spoke volumes about the degree to which we put our faith in so called ‘experts’ when they tell us that a rubber mannikin, sheep’s brains and buckets of animal blood compose an alien and that ham-fisted Londoners are trained military autopsy personnel.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to the UK’s Philip Mantle, UFOlogical maven and one of the unwitting pawns in Santilli’s game, who did much to help publicise the AA film: “After watching this tonight I can honestly say that I do not believe one word of either Santilli or Shoefield and I have no doubt that the film is nothing more than a complete fake. There is and never was any original film and there is and never was
any US military cameraman. Santilli & Shoefield had little credibility as it was but now they have none.”

Caveat emptor!

Alien Autopsy was released in UK cinemas on 7 April 2006.

Text copyright 2006 David Clarke and Andy Roberts

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Britain’s Ritual Protection Marks

Posted on August 9, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

‘Witch marks‘ is a relatively new term popularly used to describe a range of ritual protective marks and charms that are carved and etched into the structure of churches, grand buildings and caves in Britain and elsewhere.

I have summarised the most recent scholarship that added to our knowledge of these mysterious carvings in the May 2020 issue of Fortean Times (FT392). Some have been dated to the late middle ages, such as those identified on wooden beams in the National Trust property at Knole in Kent.

Others such as the ubiquitous double V or ‘Marian marks’ have been identified in both pre-Reformation contexts and more recent locations – dating to the Victorian era – when it was used as a more generic evil-averting symbol.

Apotropaic carvings, counter-witchcraft charms and the folklore that surrounds them will be the subject of my next book currently in preparation. My PhD, completed in 1999 at the University of Sheffield, examined carved stone faces and heads that performed a similar function in buildings and archaeological sites across the British Isles. The word apotropaios means ‘to turn away’ and reflects their evil-averting function.

Thousands of these secret charms have been identified by folklorists and archaeologists during the past two decades. The marks were largely ignored by architectural historians before this century because they were so common and easily dismissed as graffiti or masons marks.

An example of a so-called ‘Marian mark’ or apotropaic symbol carved on the wall of a medieval rock shelter at Stanage Edge in the Peak District National Park (copyright David Clarke)

The subject hit the national headlines in February this year when a huge collection of markings, dating from the medieval period to the 19th century, were discovered at Creswell Crags on the border between Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in the English midlands. The crags already had an international reputation as the site of the only confirmed Ice Age art in the British Isles.

Earlier this century similar examples of marian marks and other apotropaic symbols had been identified in the Cheddar cave complex in southwest England.

Brian Hoggard completed a thesis on charms and runs www.apotropaios.com that provides a database and clearing house for new examples. His book Magical House Collection: The Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft (Berghahn 2019) lists the principal ‘charms’ found in buildings and archaeological contexts as so-called ‘Witch Bottles’ or Bellarmines, concealed shoes, dried cats, horse skulls, written charms and ‘protection marks’ (the so-called Witch Marks). The gazetteer contains hundreds of examples from across the British Isles and parts of the northeast USA.

In my Fortean Times article I list the major categories of ritual protective marks identified in the British Isles. These include:

An example of a ‘daisy wheel’ or hexafoil carved on a beam inside a medieval barn in Derbyshire (copyright David Clarke)

  • Daisy wheels, hexafoils or triskeles – based on an ancient solar symbol, these geometric marks were sometimes cut with compasses. Examples have been found in many Tudor buildings in plaster and wood.
  • Pentagrams – the five pointed star was described as a potent protection against demons in ancient texts and is mentioned in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Examples are much more difficult to find but have been identified in a number of secular and religious buildings.
  • Marian Marks – the VV symbol is probably the most ubiquitous example of protective charms in the British Isles. The mark invoked the protection of the Virgin Mary, ‘virgin of virgins, mother of Jesus Christ’.
  • Mesh Marks – these are often found etched into secret places in old buildings and functioned as demon traps to ensnare evil spirits in an endless maze.
  • Burn Marks – these were made with a candle or taper as a form of protective magic that aimed to expose timber to a deliberate flame to protect wooden buildings against disastrous blazes of the type that were common in the past.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Going ‘out there’ in SoCal: Fortean Traveller

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

One year ago, in June 2019,  I spent a week on the road in southern California  with friends Dr Tom Clark and Professor Chris Bader seeking out UFO contactee cults, quirky museums and modern ghost-hunters. Our account of the trip, written with Tom and my wife Carolyn, appeared in the Fortean Traveller section of Fortean Times  388 (January 2020).

Roadtrips in the first half of 2020 have been postponed thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. So here for your enjoyment is an account of our memories from last year, in anticipation of future adventures and reunions with good friends.

Giant Rock in the Mojave Desert, California, where George van Tassell hosted his ‘Spacecraft Conventions’ from 1953 (credit Carolyn Waudby)

Most people visit Southern California for the sunlit white beaches and Hollywood celebrities. But with a population of well over four million, it’s not surprising that there’s a whole host of options to interest the Fortean traveller. We set off with our host, Professor Chris Bader – author of Paranormal America – to investigate a number of infamous alien visitations, hauntings and as much weird Southern California as we could fit into a week.

We set up a base camp near Professor Bader’s office at Chapman University in a quirky little guesthouse called Ruta’s Olde Town Inn. With three rooms, as much breakfast as we could eat, and an interesting display of vintage childrens toys and ephemera, it was located in something of a ghost hotspot, with a number of haunted houses nearby. On the edge of Anaheim in Orange County, it was a perfect base to begin to explore SoCal.

And there’s the thing. Los Angeles is huge. Its freeways are like spaghetti, its intersections constant and choked with traffic. It has flyovers that frequently soar into the sky before slamming you down into a NASCAR-like race to the next turn-off. It is also rightfully notorious for its poor public transport, so it’s worth taking the time to understand both the Amtrak and Metro systems. Before you plan your schedule consider whether you’d be better off hiring a car and steady yourself for a white-knuckle ride.

Distinctive interior design in the Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon, California (copyright David Clarke)

But once you’ve gained your bearings, SoCal is hugely rewarding. After a brief sojourn to the Church of Scientology bookshop in Santa Ana, we began our trip by visiting The Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego and about a two hour drive south out of Los Angeles. Unarius is an acronym for the ‘Universal Articulate Interdimensional Understanding of Science’.

It was founded in 1954 as a kind of galactic consulate by Ernest and Ruth Norman who had built up a small following through their psychic readings and channelled messages from space people. Its purpose is ‘to advance awareness of the inter-dimensional science of life as based upon principles of fourth-dimensional physics’.

Ruth styled herself as the Archangel Uriel and after the death of Ernest in 1971 she became its public face. Her channelling work stepped up a gear, as did the production of her gowns and Norman predicted a mass-landing of flying saucers in 2001 on a piece of scrubland near the Unarius headquarters.  When this failed to happen the Unarians concentrated on their past-life channelling that continued after Ruth’s death in 1993.

With colourful murals that still adorn the walls, the World Teaching Centre hosts on-going workshops that are designed to help its students understand the continuity of consciousness. In pioneering a new science of reincarnation, they continue to use ‘past life therapy’ to channel those lives into the written word. With no Karma that it cannot overcome, the likes of Napoleon, Yamamoto, and ‘the last Inca, Atahualpa’ have all been channeled into biographies that can be purchased from the bookstore. But not all past lives are as memorable. When we asked our guide who he had been he said, ‘yeah, I was a Russian painter, what’s his name…? Hell, it doesn’t matter!’

Dinosaurs still walk the Earth at the Creation and History Museum in Santee, where exhibits aim to prove that our planet is only 10,000 years old (copyright David Clarke)

For a different sort of religious experience, just a few blocks away in Santee is the ‘Creation and Earth History Museum’. Originally opened by the Institute for Creation Research its exhibits are largely aimed at proving that the Earth is, in fact, only around 10,000 years old. Among other claims, it provides ‘evidence’ to suggest that the world was indeed created in just six days, that the Grand Canyon was formed in a matter of weeks, and, perhaps most surprisingly, that dinosaurs were present on Noah’s Ark (but, given their size, only young ones).

Without any hint of irony, it is suggested that over a number of generations the dinosaurs later died out because they weren’t well adapted to the world after the flood. There’s also a surprising assertion that Karl Marx was ‘(according to some) a Satanist in college’, and a diorama that encourages children to sit with a fluffy sacrificial lamb and ‘reflect on the ultimate sacrifice – Jesus the Lamb of God’ in front of a scene that does indeed depict the sacrifice of a lamb.

To continue with our contactee theme, we ventured out into the heat of the Mojave desert to visit The Integratron near the tiny town of Landers, California. This unique circular structure was built by George Van Tassel, a former aircraft mechanic who lived in a house under the Giant Rock – a massive seven story granite boulder – three miles drive away. The subterranean ‘house’ beneath the rock was excavated by his buddy, German immigrant and prospector Franz Critzer. But during WW2 Critzer came under suspicion of working for the Nazis and was blown up when dynamite store exploded during a police siege. Van Tassel bought the property in 1947 and opened a café but few people ventured out to this remote place before the flying saucer craze arrived in SoCal.

Early in 1953 George Adamski, a Polish émigré, stunned the world with his account of a meeting with the angelic pilot of a ‘scout ship’ from Venus that landed near Desert Center. Soon afterwards, whilst meditating, Van Tassel began to channel messages from space people and was ‘astrally transported’ to meet the Council of Seven Lights. From 1953 he hosted annual ‘Spacecraft Conventions’ in the shade of the Giant Rock that attracted up to 10,000 saucer fans eager to hear the latest wisdom from Ashtar and legions of other entities with unpronounceable names. Adamski and all those who followed him to create what Greg Bishop and Adam Gorightly call the ‘Golden Age of Contactees’ spoke here at one time or another.

During the ‘60s the LSD-soaked desert scene attracted Keith Richards and Gram Parsons, who reportedly tripped out on mushrooms whilst skywatching at nearby Joshua Tree National Park. But the only evidence of visitors that we could find was UFO graffiti on the remains of an airstrip and nearby rocks.

The Integratron, built by UFO contactee George Van Tassell in the Mojave Desert, California (copyright David Clarke)

Van Tassel claimed the space people taught him a method through which he could rejuvenate the human body and, using his new-found knowledge and funds provided by Howard Hughes, he designed and built a cupola-shaped structure that could harness the EMF energy necessary to effectively recharge the cells in your body as if they were an electric battery. Unfortunately for Van Tassell this was not enough to save him from a heart attack in 1978. But his Integratron survived plans to turn it into a disco and today it is a listed building in the US National Register of Historic Places.

Its new owners adapted it to offer ‘sound baths’ to locals and passing tourists and the small gift shop stocks a range of flying saucer-themed clothing and trinkets. The ground floor of the Integratron has wall displays on local history and the saucer conventions plus a small library of UFO books.

These days you can join fellow pilgrims for a ‘soun-bath’ inside the Integratron (copyright David Clarke)

The leader of the sound bath ceremony makes a number of large quartz drums ‘sing’ so that they reverberate around the dome-like structure until it produces an all-encompassing sound. We were invited to climb into the roof space and relax on mats arranged in circles facing the curving walls.

Fellow pilgrims were a mixture of young yogis and older dudes and, given the New Age vibe, we were surprised to hear a potted history of ‘50s contactee stories before the auditory experience began. We found it impossible not to feel immediately relaxed, so much so that a warning was issued to those prone to snore not to spoil the moment for everyone else.

Within seconds of the first low G-note there was some very loud snoring from an unidentified source but the ambience was ruined only temporarily. Sound baths are proving very popular so if you want to experience the delights of the Integratron we recommend you book ahead here.

Perhaps the most unusual ‘haunted house’ in SoCal: the RMS Queen Mary offers regular ghost tours and paranormal investigations (Copyright David Clarke)

For those who like their more Fortean adventures to be more ghostly, SoCal is also home to a large number of haunted houses. Perhaps the most unusual is the RMS Queen Mary, now permanently docked at Long Beach. Once the flagship of the Cunard and White Star Line, and a former holder of the Blue Riband, the cruiseliner took her maiden voyage in 1936 and remained in service through WW2 until 1967, when she was converted into a floating hotel.

With such a distinguished past – and a reported 50 people are reported to have died on board – perhaps it’s not surprising that it picked a few ghosts along the way. Indeed, the ship has been voted as one of the top ten haunted places in the USA and now offers both ghost tours and paranormal investigations.

Opting for full immersion, we enjoyed an entertaining evening in the bowels of the ship staring blankly at EMF meters, taking EVP recordings, and generally looking for any sign of ghostly activity. Whilst our host appeared certain that there was ‘something’ on at least one of the recordings, we were less convinced.

What was undeniable, however, was that two of the security guards were seriously spooked and reported having their own weird experiences whilst on patrol. One young man in particular clearly believing that he had heard his name being called behind him. His fellow guard, a grandmother who worked in a hospital by day, admitted there were parts of the ship she didn’t like venturing into.  ‘There’s good ones and there’s bad ones,’ was her summing up of the RMS Queen Mary’s ‘spirit’ presence.

Leaving the ghosts of the Queen Mary behind, we then did what all LA tourists do and took a trip to Hollywood. But whilst many people walk up, down, and around Hollywood Boulevard looking for the names of famous stars they might recognise, just around the corner on Afton Place lies the Headquarters of the Aetherius Society, an international organisation that is dedicated to using and spreading the teachings of advanced extraterrestrial intelligences.

Once inside we admired the immaculately tended flowers and garden, iron gates with a shimmering star-scape engraved into the metalwork and a crystal-ball topped fountain inscribed with the words ’Service To Humanity Through Protection’.

The HQ of the Aetherius Society in Los Angeles (credit: Carolyn Waudby)

The ‘society’ or New Religious Movement was founded in the mid-50s by an English contactee, George King, a London taxi driver, who began his journey as a psychic medium and yoga master. After reading Adamski, he swapped the Great White Brotherhood for the Space People and in 1954, whilst washing the dishes in his Maida Vale bedsit, a voice announced: ‘Prepare Yourself! You are to become the voice of Interplanetary Parliament!’

In the verdant gardens outside the Aetherius Society HQ (copyright: David Clarke)

This was the first of hundreds of messages King received from Cosmic Masters including an extraterrestrial called ‘Aetherius’ who, it later emerged, lived on Venus. Over the next 30 years, King would continue to commune with Aetherius and other disembodied entities from Mars, Saturn and elsewhere in our solar system.

On one occasion he was ordered to go alone to a hill in Somerset where he met the Master Jesus who landed in a flying saucer. In 1958 King moved his HQ permanently to downtown LA and a number of his followers continue to live out their lives in a small community based around King’s former bungalow home. The shop sells Aetherius Society literature and tape recordings of King’s channelled messages from the Masters.

All these contacts led King to develop his New Age religion to spread enlightenment, selflessness and ongoing action protect the Earth from a range of threats from outer space and, more recently, climate change. But Greg Bishop notes that in 1997, soon after King’s death, the mass suicides of followers of the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult in nearby San Diego caused both the Aetherius Society and the Unarians to open up and explain ‘why they were not all like that bunch’.

As it happened we chose to visit on a day that most of the congregation were making their way up Mount Baldy, one of the society’s Holy Mountains. These are used for ceremonies that store spiritual energy as part of the society’s ongoing battle to save us from all kinds of natural disasters. Little did we know that, just over ten days after our visit, SoCal would be rocked by an earthquake that measured 7.1 on the Richter scale, the largest tremor to strike the region in 20 years. The epicentre of the quake was the town of Ridgecrest, 240 km north of Los Angeles,and sparked fears of further devastating quakes along the San Andreas faultline.

Oblivious to the pending threat we did what all tourists do and went off in search of the Hollywood sign, then hit the six-lane freeway back to Orange before LA’s infamous rush-hour began.

Left to right: Chris Bader, David Clarke and Tom Clark outside the Unarius Academy (credit: Carolyn Waudby)

Notes and further reading/watching:

Dave and Tom wish to thank Chris and Sarah Bader and Carolyn Waudby. We stayed at Ruta’s Old Town Inn at Orange and flew to LA by Virgin Atlantic. Ghost Tours of the RMS Queen Mary can be booked online here

Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop, ‘A’ is for Adamski: The Golden Age of UFO Contactees (Gorightly Press 2018)

Farewell, Good Brothers (Dir: Robert Stone 1998)

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Close Encounters (at a distance): the UFOlore Podcast

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Dr David Clarke

The first episode of the UFOlore podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify and TuneIn.

We hope this weekly dose of discussion surrounding the folklore of UFOs and those who see and believe in them will be a nostalgic distraction from the Covid-19 crisis for many like-minded folk who are currently in lockdown.

UFOlore is a joint research project with journalist Richard Wilson and writer Jim Chisem, with assistance from a number of colleagues from the Department of Media Arts and Communications at Sheffield Hallam University and elsewhere.

Earlier in 2019 Jim interviewed me about my work on The National Archives UFO project for the British Online Archives podcast Dr Clarke versus the Flying Saucers. The podcast that resulted proved so popular that Jim approached me with the idea for a more regular podcast – and some YouTube films – that tackled the subject in an educational, non-sensational way.

It was a happy coincidence that TV journalist Richard had already proposed a mini series  that interviewed those who had seen and experienced unexplained aerial phenomena. Work had begun on filming just before the Covid-19 virus became a pandemic in March so this part of the project has been placed on hold for now.

But with the first two episodes of the podcast in the bag we decided to launch on Easter weekend – with apologies for the sound-quality on episode #1.

Future episodes will include a discussion with a retired schoolteacher who observed a triangular UFO over Sheffield city centre and with a special constable who experienced ‘missing time’ during a strange experience in North Yorkshire.

UFOlore also has a Facebook and Instagram page. Please like us and we welcome constructive comments and ideas for future episodes.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment