Welcome to my website
I am a Research Fellow in Journalism at Sheffield Hallam University where I specialise in teaching media law and investigation skills. Before I entered academia I worked as a news reporter for The Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post and spent four years working as a Press Officer in local government. My Ph.D is in Folklore and was completed at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield, in 1999. Since 2008 I have been working with The National Archives (TNA) as their consultant for the ongoing release of the UFO files created by Britain's Ministry of Defence. My latest book, How UFOs Conquered the World: the history of a modern myth, was published in 2015.
Snopes.com – Rumour has it…- Is This a Whale in a Venice Canal? July 24, 2017
- Charlie Gard’s Parents End Legal Battle for Experimental Treatment July 24, 2017
- Man With Chainsaw Wounds Five People in Swiss City, Sparking Police Manhunt July 24, 2017
- SNOPES.COM COMMUNITY: WE NEED YOUR HELP July 24, 2017
- Marijuana Business Offers Weed for Weeds on Cleanup Day July 24, 2017
- Magonia Blog
- PICTURING PHILOSOPHY July 23, 2017
- AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES July 21, 2017
- NORTHERN ECHOES: 50 YEARS ON July 18, 2017
- SIGNPOSTS TO UTOPIA July 16, 2017
- GOD'S BLACK EYE July 12, 2017
- Mark Pilkington & John Lundberg – Folklore & Deception in the UFO Age
- Mirage Men in The Guardian August 18, 2014
- Mirage Men Double Disc DVD June 16, 2014
- UFOs and F-14s over Iran May 2, 2014
- We have lift off! March 27, 2014
- Mirage Men revealed by Greenwald? February 25, 2014
- Bob Sheaffer’s Bad UFOs
- "Disclosure" Mania Flares Up Again June 26, 2017
- In Search Of "Progress" in UFOlogy - At the End of the Road? June 19, 2017
- William Tompkins Reveals Reptilians, Nordics, Nazi Saucers, and Much More May 22, 2017
- Tom DeLonge's "Sixtyish" Days to UFO Disclosure Become "Ninetyish" May 17, 2017
- Satellites Flash and Flare April 7, 2017
- The Skeptic magazine
- Ooops! TWO errors in previous message! October 1, 2015
- October Spookiness! October 1, 2015
- Empirical Sex Talk on Dacryphilia, tonight October 1, 2015
- Little Atoms 393 – Timothy Snyder & Black Earth September 30, 2015
- Ash Pryce on "How to talk to the dead" @ Greenwich SitP, 7:30 pm, 7/10/15 September 30, 2015
- Charles Fort Institute Blog
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- Curt Collins on saucers in pop culture
- UFOs, Sea Serpents, Ridicule and Disinformation July 17, 2017
- The Saucers That Time Forgot July 11, 2017
- Dr. J. Allen Hynek: Ufology is a Mess June 30, 2017
- 1954 UFO Whistleblower: Frank E Keely June 23, 2017
- John Keel, Witness to the Birth of the UFO Subculture June 16, 2017
- Andrew May’s Forteana blog
- Pseudoscience and Science Fiction October 9, 2016
- Astronomical debunking October 2, 2016
- Contradiction - the All-Video Murder Mystery September 25, 2016
- Sacred Porn September 18, 2016
- Astronomical computers (old ones) September 11, 2016
- Paul Kimball’s The Other Side of Truth: Don’t believe, don’t disbelieve. Think
- Political Paul July 24, 2017
- Haunted - Stalking Dillon July 24, 2017
- Haunted July 23, 2017
- I Went to a Hockey Game and Some Synchronicity Broke Out! January 17, 2016
- A New Era for Physics? January 16, 2016
Tag Archives: Bloomsbury
Cat’s out of the bag?
The Beast of Bodmin Moor was really just a large domestic cat according to a study commissioned by the British government. Two tabloids, The Sun and the Daily Mail, revealed the results of the 1995 investigation, based upon information taken from … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ADAS, alien big cats, Beast of Bodmin Moor, Bloomsbury, Britain's X-traordinary Files, Cornwall, Department for the Environment, Elliot Morley MP, Essex lion, Feral, Fisheries and Food, George Monbiot, Ministry of Agriculture, Paris tiger, the Pembrokeshire Panther
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Solway Spaceman mystery is 50 years old
It is 50 years since Jim Templeton took the famous image of a figure in a space-suit hovering behind his daughter on the Solway Marshes in the English Lake District. Since that family outing in May 1964 when the figure … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aliens, angels, Anne Templeton, anomalous photographs, BBC Cumbria, Bloomsbury, Blue Streak rockets, Britain's X-traordinary Files, Carlisle fire service, Chapelcross nuclear power station, Cumberland News, Cumberland spaceman, Elizabeth Templeton, Jim Templeton, Kodak, Men in Black, MIB, NASA, RAF Spadeadam, Rational Wiki, Solway Marshes, Solway spaceman, spirit forms, Zeiss Pentacon camera
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Haunting my bookshelves in 2012:
Here’s my choice of other key books that floated my folkloric boat during 2012: The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Victorian urban folklore and popular cultures, by Karl Bell (Boydell Press). As readers of my blog will know, the mysterious figure … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged A Natural History of Ghosts, Bloomsbury, David Clarke, folklore, ghosts, Hallucinations, Jack the Ripper, Karl Bell, Ministry of Defence, MoD, Oliver Sacks, Roger Clarke, spring-heeled jack, Sweeney Todd, The Angel of Mons, The National Archives, The UFO Files
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The UFO Files Rebooted
The second edition of The UFO files was published by Bloomsbury on 13 September 2012. You can order the book from Amazon here or via the publisher’s website here. The National Archives press release on the book can be found … Continue reading
UFO Files bought by Bloomsbury
As reported in The Daily Telegraph, the Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury has bought The National Archives’s entire backlist of publications. The deal includes my 2009 book The UFO Files and other best-sellers such as Genealogists’ Internet by Peter Christian. It has also … Continue reading
