The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently declassified some much hyped UFO documents, and deposited them at the National Archives Office, where anyone can peruse them. Well, please excuse me if I don’t jump up and down, screaming ‘yabba dabba doo’, like a latter-day Fred Flintstone who’s eaten too many artificial food colors. Don’t get me wrong – some of them are interesting enough to read, especially the ones pertinent to my own locality. But what do they actually tell us about the UFO phenomenon? Exactly diddly squat, that’s what. Oops. Please excuse that inadvertent and paltry rhyme.

What interests me about the release of these documents, is not their contents, but what may lie behind their release. I haven’t had a chance to read the full contents of the PDF versions of these documents yet. Each one is hundreds of pages long, and believe it or not - I have a life outside ufology! But the contents I’ve perused so far are a little disappointing. Maybe I was naively hoping for too much?

I can’t help but ask this question. Why would the MoD release this collection of documents now? Some people I’ve spoken with have come up with one of my most dreaded ufological bêtes noires – ‘it’s all part of a gradual system of disclosure’. No! Go away! All the majority of those documents tell us, is that a schoolboy in Skegness, a housewife in Hartlepool, or a butcher in Bolton, saw lights in the sky they couldn’t identify. Where’s the REAL information? Trying to get hold of that is like trying to get milk from a bull.

I’ve been asking ‘why?’ ever since I first heard the release of these files mooted. For some reason, I’ve always felt that the MoD found UFOs to be a proverbial pain in the butt. No, let me qualify that. I think the MoD finds public interest in UFOs a pain. I think that pain probably intensified in 2000, with the inception of the UK’s Freedom of Information Act. Ever since the MoD announced it was to release its UFO files, I’ve held the suspicion that the British government is trying to wash its hands of the whole UFO issue. At least, on a public basis, anyway.

Click to read more ...

(A very big thank you to Lesley for inviting me to participate in this exciting new venture).

Someone asked me a question the other day, which set my teeth right on edge.

‘So you believe in UFOs?’

I wasn’t immediately sure why this question irked me so much. It may have been the loud and condescending tone my inquisitor used. Or it may have been the fact that several other patrons of the coffee shop turned to stare at me as if I’d just stepped off a flying saucer, complete with bald head and big, buggy eyes. I could have happily beaten my companion about the head with a chair leg at that moment – and I’m a very placid person, normally.

I quickly realized that the tone of his voice and his choice of words, could be seen as a loaded statement. Now, I don’t normally take issue with the word ‘believe’, although I’ve come across a number of people in the UFO community who do. When I use the word ‘believe’, I mean it in the sense of crediting something with veracity. However, I just knew this patronizing guy was using ‘believe’ in the sense of following a credo, having blind faith. That, I didn’t like. I don’t ‘believe’, in his sense of the word, in anything. For the first time, I understood why some people don’t like this word in association with UFOs.

Click to read more ...