Welcome to my website
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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- Magonia Blog
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- 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
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- 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
- Cash-Landrum UFO Disinformation: Rick Doty & Bill Moore June 22, 2022
- Bill Moore and UFO Disinformation Accusations April 29, 2022
- The Pentagon UFO Program: Documents Released April 7, 2022
- UFOs: The Long Black Road December 23, 2021
- Contact in Texas: The Lost UFO Photos November 18, 2021
- 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
- Nick Pope - Useful Idiot of the Far Right June 29, 2022
- Who Are They? What Do They Want? May 16, 2021
- An Empty Suit April 20, 2021
- Synchronicity, Irish Style September 9, 2019
- Project Blue Book - A Review January 28, 2019
Tag Archives: flying saucers
Churchill’s Secret War
Winston Churchill’s interest in strange phenomena and UFOs makes the cover story in the November 2018 issue of Fortean Times magazine. Top Secret War chronicles the British Prime Minister’s curiosity about a range of unexplained phenomena during his long career … Continue reading →
Close Encounters of the Playground Kind
My latest book UFO Drawings from The National Archives is published by Four Corners books on 18 September. It contains 40 colour and black and white images selected from the Ministry of Defence files at the archives in Kew. From … Continue reading →
Alien Art: 70 years of UFO sightings
70 years ago Kenneth Arnold reported nine strange ‘saucer-like’ flying objects in the sky – and launched the modern UFO mystery. On landing his plane in Oregon on the afternoon of 24 June 1947 the businessman and private pilot became world … Continue reading →
Michael Swiney (1926-2016)
Retired Royal Air Force officer Michael Swiney, who observed three UFOs while flying a training mission in 1952, has died aged 90. Swiney’s close encounter occurred shortly after a wave of unexplained sightings during the NATO operation Mainbrace. According to Captain Ed … Continue reading →
UFOs Conquer The World
My new book How UFOs Conquered the World was published on 14 May and is reviewed by The Sunday Times here. In his review James McConnachie says UFO believers will not like this book, ‘it is not a classic debunking. … Continue reading →
How UFOs Conquered the World
How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth, will be published in hardback by Aurum Press on 14 May 2015. It is the story of the long, strange trip that I began almost forty years ago when I … Continue reading →
UFOs and the mythical ‘acclimatisation programme’
Every so often the release of archive documents throws up another gem from the bygone era when flying saucers really were taken seriously by world governments. The most recent turned up in a collection of papers produced by Irish diplomats … Continue reading →
Saucery in Pop Culture
NASA’s preparations to test a saucer-shaped spacecraft have placed the iconic ‘flying saucer‘ back into the popular consciousness. In a BBC Magazine feature journalist Jon Kelly explores how the saucer ‘has served as visual shorthand for the gleaming, jet-propelled, post-war … Continue reading →
The Will Smith Effect
Despite all the claims about ‘the death of UFOlogy’, the never-ending stream of movies and satellite TV shows, such as Chasing UFOs and UFOs: The Untold Stories prove the idea of UFOs and alien visitations is more alive than ever. And the … Continue reading →
Sir Patrick Moore (1923-2012): astronomer and flying-saucerer
The death of Sir Patrick Moore, at the age of 89, is a sad loss to astronomy and for all those who grew up with his iconic BBC programme The Sky at Night. Patrick will be remembered for bringing astronomy … Continue reading →
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