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.
What is Folklore?
Once upon a time… ‘Folklore’ meant ancient ballads or fairy tales or the peculiar superstitions and customs of ‘primitive’ peoples. Today folklore is a tool for studying custom and belief, urban legends, modern myth and even rumours spread via the internet. Much folklore can be found online and buried in the narrative content of media and social networking - from legends and reports of ghosts, UFOs and 'big cats' to language, customs and traditions. The study of folklore is centrally and crucially important 'in our attempts to understand our own behaviour and that of our fellow human beings' according to one scholarly definition. Folklore is a vital and ongoing area of study and one of the few academic disciplines that engage, in a fundamental way, with everyday life.My Tweets
- @showroomcinema Fantastic I hope you will showing Nomadland? 8 hours ago
- RT @showroomcinema: 📢BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: Grab yourself some popcorn, make your way to your favourite cinema seat and wait for the lights to d… 8 hours ago
- RT @Al_Humphreys: “Solitude restores body and mind. Lonelinesss depletes them.” An interesting distinction for adventures: https://t.co/bua… 11 hours ago
- RT @AndrewMarr9: Another extraordinary thing about Shirley Williams. As prisons minister, in 1966, she wanted to find out what life was rea… 11 hours ago
- RT @yorkshirepost: A woman looking for shellfish on a beach near Filey was astonished to find a three-toed footprint belonging to a Jurassi… 11 hours ago
Blog Stats
- 706,046 hits
Snopes.com – Rumour has it…
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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
- 40 years and the Cash-Landrum UFO Case December 11, 2020
- Flying Saucer Swindlers: Four Convictions November 6, 2020
- UAP Task Force: The Pentagon Responds to Questions September 2, 2020
- UFO Documents: Provenance and Credibility by Barry Greenwood June 28, 2020
- Pentagon Answers on Navy UAP Investigations May 18, 2020
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
- Synchronicity, Irish Style September 9, 2019
- Project Blue Book - A Review January 28, 2019
- Stan Friedman Retires March 13, 2018
- Halifax gets Haunted! September 29, 2017
- Haunted Extra, Vol. 1.01 - Queen's County Museum Revisited August 17, 2017
Tag Archives: Rendlesham
Who Dares Wins?: Britain’s Roswell meets the SAS
‘If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise…’ (Anne Murray) Christmas 2018 marks the 38th anniversary of the mysterious events in the Rendlesham forest near RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk that became Britain’s best known … Continue reading
UFOlogy: Dead Again?
On 4 November The Sunday Telegraph posed the question that has been asked many times before: What is the point of UFOlogy (the ‘study of UFOs’). “Having failed to establish any evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life, Britain’s UFO watchers are … Continue reading
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
Fireball lights up northern sky
Hundreds of people reported seeing a fireball meteor that lit up the night sky across parts of northern England at 9.40 p.m. on Saturday, 3 March. Some excellent footage of the fireball has been posted on YouTube and can be … Continue reading
If you go down to the woods (again)
The Rendlesham forest UFO mystery is back in the headlines, after the Sunday Telegraph published a summary of my exclusive interview with the former Bentwaters Base Commander, Ted Conrad. Col Conrad, now retired to his native Texas, has broken a quarter … Continue reading
Lost in the land of Oz
The idea that UFO files have gone missing because governments are desperate to conceal evidence of alien contact has re-emerged as a cause celebre for conspiracy theorists. The controversy was stoked earlier this year when it emerged the British government … Continue reading
UFO Files break records
The release of the seventh collection of MoD UFO files has broken records for the The National Archives website. The number of hits on the UFO page has now reached 8.5 million, with almost 60 hits per second on the … Continue reading