If it were not for the development of the myth of alien visitations the
study of strange aerial phenomena could have become a serious pursuit for
amateurs, with the possibility of making useful contributions to
scientific knowledge. Unusual phenomena do tend to be ignored or
discounted by professional scientists until the accumulation of reliable
evidence forces them to take them seriously.
A good example of this is the British tornado. In The Daily Telegraph (20
May 2000) Philip Eden notes that until about 50 years ago it was generally
agreed among meteorologists that tornadoes never occurred in Britain. An
important reference work by Meteorological Office climatologist Ernest
Bilham entitled The Climate of the British Isles, published in 1938, made
no mention of tornadoes. It was not until 21 May 1950, when a tornado
caused serious damage in southern England, that British meteorologists
began to take them seriously. Of course the British variety is much
smaller and less spectacular than the American (everything is bigger in
America) but that was hardly an excuse to ignore them.
Our knowledge of British tornadoes owes a lot to the work of amateurs, who
continue to provide useful data. Their work is taken seriously by
professionals because their data are generally precise and reliable. How
different this is from the situation among ufologists, with their batty
theories, their occult dabblings and loony conferences. If only the
investigation of UFO reports could be pursued in a rational, scientific
manner. If only . . .
THE LOCATION is Exwick Parish Hall, on the outskirts of Exeter. It is a
hot sunny day. An old sky-blue Mercedes crunches into the hall's car park.
The imposing figure of Jonathan Downes steps out of the car and marches
into the hall. He shouts across to Nicholas Redfern:
"You bastard! You
slap-headed bastard!"
Apparently, Jon had been waiting to pick him up, but Nicholas had got to
the hall under his own steam. This genial banter took place on the second
day of a weekend-long event staged by the Exeter Strange Phenomena
Research Group, which was drunkenly hosted by Jon (swearing man of Exwick)
Downes.
The weekend had begun with a screening of Jonathan's dubious film, The
Owlman & Others, on the evening of Friday 5 May. A full programme of
lectures was held at the hall on the Saturday, and on Sunday there was a
guided tour of Dartmoor and its mysteries, followed by a visit to Dartmoor
Wildlife Park and talks on big cat sightings.
Emmet Sweeney began the Saturday session with the contention that the
construction of pyramids and megaliths was in response to a cometary
near-miss. This occurred in 1400 BC and it caused mountains to rise and
huge tidal floods. The comet was "seen" as a giant serpent which came
because the Gods were angry, and it explains why dragon mythology is
prevalent throughout the world. Pyramids, and constructions like Silbury
Hill, were built for human sacrifices to the Gods so that they would no
longer be angry. Sweeney acknowledged that these ideas were developed by
Immanuel Velikovsky, whom he regards as a Fortean hero, in his book Worlds
in Collision.
A member of the audience, Dr Robert Morrell, contested the need to revise
the chronology of Egyptian history to fit this theory but he and Sweeney
remained at loggerheads. They also had a sustained argument about the
validity of dating techniques, with Dr Morrell supporting modern methods
and Emmet pouring scorn on the way the establishment sifts and selects its
data through dodgy "scientific" dating procedures. Of course, sifting and
selecting is pretty subjective, especially when there are exciting
theories to prove . . .
Continuing the theme of serpents and dragons Richard Freeman described the
different types of dragons, from heraldic to worm-like that inhabit
mythology and legend. He then went on to wonder if such myths came into
existence as a way of explaining the discovery of dinosaur bones, or if
sightings of large reptiles and snakes could have been responsible. A more
imaginative theory is that dragons were real animals, which were able to
fly by filling their stomachs with helium gas, and the expulsion of gases
through their mouths accounts for their fire-breathing reputation. At the
other end of the spectrum, dragons could just be a collective myth, or
even thought forms created by the collective unconscious. Whatever your
preferences, Richard concluded that dragons are firmly entrenched in our
psyche, and they lurk in the shadows of our perception. Considering he was
busy swigging from a bottle of lager throughout the talk, I think he was
trying to lure dragons from the depths of his psyche, but then that is
only one of my dodgy theories.
Worm-like serpents and dragons are said to protect the entrances to
tunnels that riddle the area round Marsden Bay, Tyneside. Mike Hallowell
revealed that a succession of rabbit-skin wearing hermits, who claimed to
be reincarnations of the first hermit, lived in the tunnels. The Romans
were thought to have hidden their loot in the tunnels, and several people
who lived in them, from the 17th century onwards, suddenly and
mysteriously became rich. Had they found the Roman loot, or that of the
smugglers and wreckers who plagued the bay over the centuries? Another
mystery is that the tunnel entrances attract intense paranormal activity,
particularly apparitions of Cavalier soldiers.
Since Jon did not want talks on UFOs or aliens, and wanted a chance for
other Fortean topics, my mind was grasping for ufological thoughts. So I
relaxed in the thought that F.W. Holiday's The Dragon and the Disc neatly
linked prehistoric remains with dragon worship and UFOs. In the light of
the previous talks you could argue that UFOs are a lingering collective
memory of a cometary near-miss, and that the tortured abductees are
today's sacrifice to the Gods. How does that sound, Mr Velikovsky?
There was a quiz at 5 p.m. between Jon's team and the visiting speakers.
Jon was at his most vocal now; he cursed at the knowledge and/or luck of
his rivals, and when asked to calm down a bit he brilliantly replied:
"It's my party and I can swear if I want to." Fortunately, his team won by
one point, so WW3 was avoided.
Looking as if he had been attacked by a gang of blood-sucking vampires,
David Farrant gave the next presentation. He sat on a chair next to the
stage and said he did not believe in vampires as depicted in Hammer Horror
movies. Psychic phenomena exist in three forms, he said. There are image
ghosts that have no intelligence, moving poltergeist-type phenomena could
be the creations of the subconscious or unconscious mind (he did not rule
out many different levels of consciousness) and, finally, there are
outside entities that can communicate with humans.
In his mission to investigate sightings of a tall, dark entity, with
glowing red eyes, seen near Highgate Cemetery in 1969 and the early 1970s,
David became a target for police and media attention. He was arrested by
the police when he was conducting a "psychic seance" at night in Highgate
Cemetery. They said he was trying to find a suitable corpse to drive a
stake through, which David hotly denied. He was taken to court and dubbed
a vampire hunter by the press. Strangely enough the magistrate's name was
Christopher Lea. On this occasion he was acquitted, but his fame caused an
escalation of desecrations at Highgate Cemetery.
The police were not happy with this situation, and although David avoided
Highgate Cemetery after his court case in 1970, by 1972 he was lured to
the grave of a pirate in Barnet. A tall, dark, ghostly figure was seen
there, but when David went there one night all he saw were eight burly
police officers. After being held for three hours, he was finally charged
with indecent behaviour with a woman in a churchyard. When it came to
court he was fined £10.
In 1973 he went to a burnt-out house in Crouch End, on a mission to
communicate with the dead. Since it was a cold winter's night, he and his
colleagues lit a fire on a thick tin lid. Residents of a nearby home must
have seen it and reported it to the police. This time he was arrested for
arson, and he went to the Old Bailey, but he was acquitted again.
An architect who parked his car outside Highgate Cemetery came back to it
to find a skeleton inside it. The police suspected David and raided his
flat, where they found material on Wicca, pictures of naked women (nothing
obscene, said David) and an altar. The police thought he had robbed a
grave, and that he wanted the skeleton so that he could attempt to
communicate with the dead. He called the police liars but his real
downfall was because, by his own admission, he was guilty of sending two
effigies to police officers at Barnet police station. The judge took a dim
view of this behaviour, and he gave David two years' imprisonment for
sending the effigies and desecration. Apparently, his fellow inmates were
reasonably sympathetic to his plight and he had some good conversations
about the occult in prison. One can only admire his stubborn refusal not
to be swerved from his psychic studies, although this is a lesson in not
taking on the law or attracting media attention.
Malcolm Robinson obviously knows how to avoid vampires; he was full of
energy and enthusiasm. He began researching UFOs and ghosts in the late
1970s, and was a complete sceptic. Now he thinks there is something real
and mysterious going on; in his own experience at haunted houses he has
been touched by ghostly presences, he's seen psychic lights, and heard
ghostly singing. In dealing with the tabloid press he has seen his
investigations sensationalised but without the consequences suffered by
David Farrant.
The last talk was by UFO author Nicholas Redfern, who looked at the CIA's
involvement with Noah's Ark. Through the Freedom of Information Act, he
received a 500-page file titled "The Ararat Anomaly". It took two years
for the agency to respond to his request, and he had almost forgotten
about it. The file tells how, in 1949, a US pilot returning from a spying
mission photographed a boat-like structure on Mount Ararat, Turkey. In the
1950s this was taken sufficiently seriously for them to launch an
expedition to investigate the "boat". Since then the CIA seems to have
dropped its interest in the matter, although Nicholas thinks there are
more files that have yet to be rediscovered in their archives.
Noah's Ark seems an unlikely candidate for CIA interest, but the agency
did set up "Operation Often" which attempted to use black magic and voodoo
to fight the enemies of the US of A. They were certainly willing to use
myths and superstitions against their enemies, so it was not a great leap
of imagination to use religious discoveries to reinforce Christian,
democratic values if the opportunity arose.
As the day progressed Jon Downes got louder and more boisterous, so it is
left to our imaginations what he was like the next day on Dartmoor.
Nevertheless, the conference was imaginatively put together, with a high
calibre of speakers from far-reaching parts of Britain, and I hope it will
become an annual event.
Often the people you meet at such conferences are more interesting than
the official events, and in this case I had the opportunity to talk to
Robert Morrell and Sid Henley. They were the leading lights of the
Nottingham UFO Investigation Society (NUFOIS), in the 1970s, and their
Meadow Lane headquarters held many meetings and was the home of the
original UFOIN files. I visited the place several times, and it was a
handy place to conduct research. Over the years, like most UFO groups
NUFOIS fell apart, and Meadow Lane is now the base for Robert and Sid's
Fortean secondhand book business. They are not so interested in UFOs, and
expressed the opinion that modern ufology is not very aware of past
research/mistakes. In the light of this I looked up an old issue of
NUFOIS's UFO Research Review published in the summer of 1975 (price 25p).
This contains articles on map reading, radiation and the ufologist, and a
long compilation of Scunthorpe UFO reports by Nigel Watson. Interestingly
enough there is mention of Dorothy Kilgallen's 1955 report, about British
scientists and airmen examining a wrecked "mysterious flying craft". The
same story appears in Nick Redfern's recently published Cosmic Crashes
book, but with the passage of time such throwaway bits of gossip become
the stuff of grand theories and Government manipulation.
The precarious state of ufology can also be gauged by the fate of the
original UFOIN and NUFOIS files. A former member of NUFOIS took them away
and neatly filed them in his home. Unfortunately, he suddenly died and his
relatives gave Robert and Sid 24 hours to collect them, or they would end
up in a skip. They collected the files, which had been tipped
unceremoniously out of the filing cabinet, and they passed them on to
someone they can no longer remember the name of. When you think of all the
effort expended to collect such data, and the territorial in-fighting over
cases and witnesses, this story just shows how ufology is but an ephemeral
whim.
Changing babies David Sivier's article in Magonia No. 69 mentions how
different cultures in the past have rejected "difficult" or "abnormal"
children, and branded them as changelings.
On a personal level this is an understandable coping strategy. I have been
told about a couple in London who had a Downs Syndrome baby, but they
would not accept it as their own. The mother had given birth to four
healthy babies previously, and she could not believe her fifth was any
different. Both mother and father thought that the staff had swapped this
baby with their healthy one and no persuasion would change their minds.
However, they did not totally reject the baby as the mother said she would
breast feed it until she got her healthy one back. I don't know what the
eventual outcome was, but it looks as if there was a glimmer of hope that
they would accept it as part of their family.
Given that such suspicions exist in contemporary "enlightened" societies,
it is no wonder that the notion of changelings was so potent in the past.
It is also not such a great leap of imagination to go from hospitals to
scientists, to aliens, replacing foetuses or babies for their own
purposes.
Escape from Freedom Near the end of 1999 I received a rather strange
video called Freedom 2000. It was fronted by a woman called Heather Bell
who calls on young people in Scotland to fight the repressive forces of
the establishment. There are constantly changing images behind Bell as she
threatens to blow up buildings, hack bank computers, contaminate petrol
and soft drinks. She is quoted as saying: "We will do what we have to do.
It's either freedom or death, whatever is necessary."
Lothian and Borders Police and the Serious Crime Squad took an interest in
the video, and it was not too surprising when I got a letter from Heather
Bell which said: "Unfortunately, due to the unpredictable reactions from
the authorities, I have had to leave the country urgently and go overseas
temporarily."
The Sunday Post (Glasgow), of 7 and 14 November 1999, featured the stories
with the headlines: "Anarchists threaten to destroy Scots industry" and
"Anarchist flees as Scots group probed".
This is all sensational stuff, but it isn't exactly what you would expect
of a blood-thirsty anarchist video. The background images are all
carefully composed and controlled by fancy special effects, and Heather
Bell gets to wear virtually everything in her wardrobe. These are very
arty and style conscious anarchists. Another problem with the video is
that you have to wade through what seems like hours of Bell telling us
this is a very subversive, anarchist, revolutionary and naughty video. Any
subversive will fall asleep before they find out her plans for the
overthrow of Scotland.
Everything became clear when I got another letter from Bell, headed
"Freedom 2000 Was A Huge Hoax!! But No One Thought It Was Funny!" She went
on to say: "Heather Bell is NOT an anarchist! Heather Bell is a fictional
character, an actress, whose aim was to create emotion and unsettle the
audience. Well, she certainly did that!!"
Rather than frighten people, Michele Baird, the creator of Heather Bell,
claimed Freedom 2000 is a satire, using ridicule to expose vice and folly.
Isn't that what crop circle makers and "experimental" UFO hoaxers say? I'm
sure John Rimmer would agree that these are all cases of art attacks.
Saucer pictures The Sunday Times of 26 March shows recently discovered
pictures of Project Y. This was a vertical takeoff jet that looked like a
flying saucer. It was designed by British engineer John Frost, and was
built by Avro-Canada at their laboratory near Toronto. Funding for it ran
out in 1954, but Frost continued on a scaled-down saucer-type aircraft,
which was nicknamed the Avrocar. Dreams of making the Avrocar an aerial
equivalent of the jeep ended in 1961 when US funding was withdrawn.
Over
the years these projects have inspired rumours that the British government
was the mastermind behind the UFO mystery. Only recently, Nicholas Redfern
in Cosmic Crashes (Simon & Schuster, 1999, pp. 278-279) suggests that a
UFO sighting in 1956 over Manchester was caused by an experimental craft
from AVRO's Woodford works. He goes on to state that it was either a
back-engineered alien vehicle, or we had advanced terrestrial technology
which was kept from the public arena. With such advantages why hasn't
British technology dominated the world? Or is it a case of our aliens not
being as good as those who have crashed in other countries?
I'm Jack Surprise, surprise, it wasn't the curator who pretended to be
Spring-Heeled Jack in the Scooby-Do serial mentioned in the last issue of
the Supplement. Turns out it was the manager of the Sherlock Holmes
Gallery who didn't like working with a hippy slob, and it was his way of
closing the gallery and getting out of his work contract.