Tuesday, 30 August 2016
It Sounds Dramatic But -SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal
The Observer http://observer.com/2016/08/not-a-drill-seti-is-investigating-a-possible-extraterrestrial-signal-from-deep-space/ has this story an it is intertesting that this all came about because of a privately circulated paper so that others could check and agree or disagree about the "signal". This is scientific caution and not looking like an ass -I'm old enough to remember "strange signals" detected by Jodrell Bank in the early days -those turned out to be interference from a lawn mower.
It is exciting but there is so much noise out in space everything has to be double and triple checked yet there has to be something if SETI is going to spend time and money on this.
My local radio station presenter just announced that "Scientists listened for a blip signal over the weekend. Guess what? They found nothing. Face it: we're alone in the universe, scary but that's it!" Well, there you have it. A man who can just about babble out a sentence, gets song titles wrong, seems stuck in the early 1990s and worries about his loss of hair just gave his opinion. SETI take note.
The RATAN-600 Radio Telescope in Russia. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Kardashev’s motivation for coming up with the scale was that if we can understand how advanced civilisations source their energy, we can look for clues that they are harvesting or using it in our observations of stars and galaxies. In fact, his scale provides a crude way of quantifying the detectability of a technological civilisation. Type III civilisations would hypothetically have a huge impact on their host galaxies, and be clearly identifiable due to their interactions with galactic objects such as stars and black holes. More speculatively, the transportation and communication mechanisms such a civilisation might use between these bodies could also be detectable. Recent searches found no evidence that such a civilisation exists in any galaxies in the local universe, though. For Type I and II detectability is harder, but any Dyson spheres out there could be observable. They would absorb and reemit their host stars light, changing the observed spectrum.
Alternatives and extensions to the scale have been proposed. Type IV civilisations can control the energy of clusters of galaxies, or even the entire universe in some definitions. Such propositions can feel a touch ridiculous, and the scale has been criticised for being too speculative. If we cannot understand advanced civilisations, then surely it is impossible to predict their behaviour? Whilst this is arguably true, what is beyond doubt is the profound impact of such thinking on how we view our own civilisation and the means of powering it. Even if we are alone in the universe, the Kardashev scale has influenced the dialogue surrounding our own civilisations source of energy in the future. If we can avoid destroying our own planet through global warming, or ourselves through nuclear war, how will we power ourselves in to the vast and exciting future?
It is exciting but there is so much noise out in space everything has to be double and triple checked yet there has to be something if SETI is going to spend time and money on this.
My local radio station presenter just announced that "Scientists listened for a blip signal over the weekend. Guess what? They found nothing. Face it: we're alone in the universe, scary but that's it!" Well, there you have it. A man who can just about babble out a sentence, gets song titles wrong, seems stuck in the early 1990s and worries about his loss of hair just gave his opinion. SETI take note.
The RATAN-600 Radio Telescope in Russia. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space
If the signal is truly from an alien world, it’s one far more advanced than ours
An international team of scientists from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is investigating mysterious signal spikes emitting from a 6.3-billion-year-old star in the constellation Hercules—95 light years away from Earth. The implications are extraordinary and point to the possibility of a civilization far more advanced than our own.
The unusual signal was originally detected on May 15, 2015, by the Russian Academy of Science-operated RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, Russia, but was kept secret from the international community. Interstellar space reporter Paul Gilster broke the story after the researchers quietly circulated a paper announcing the detection of “a strong signal in the direction of HD164595.”
The mysterious star’s designation is HD164595, and it’s considered to be sun-like in nature with a nearly identical metallic composition to our own star. So far, a single Neptune-like (but warmer) planet has been discovered in its orbit—HD 164595 b. But as Gilster explained, “There could, of course, be other planets still undetected in this system.”
Decorated Italian SETI researcher and mathematician Claudio Maccone along with Russia’s Nikolai Bursov of the Special Astrophysical Observatory are the principal scientists working on the apparent discovery. They claim that “permanent monitoring of this target is needed.”
“The signal conceivably fits the profile for an intentional transmission from an extraterrestrial source,” said Alan Boyle, author of The Case for Pluto who reported thestory for Geekwire. “In any case, the blip is interesting enough to merit discussion by those who specialize in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.”
Observing the latest star of interest - HD164595 - with the Allen Telescope Array. https://t.co/CvDTwQFaVT#ATASETI https://t.co/9rCZu5Bfzh
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The signal’s strength indicates that if it in fact came from a isotropic beacon, the power source would have to be built by a Kardashev Type II civilization. (The Kardashev scale is used to determine the progress of a civilization’s technological development by measuring how much energy was used to transmit an interstellar message.) An ‘Isotropic’ beacon means a communication source emitting a signal with equal power in all directions while promoting signal strength throughout travel.
In his acclaimed work “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations,” Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev explained that a Type II civilization would be able to harness the energy of their entire host star. The most common hypothetical example of this would be a Dyson Sphere—which is a massive artificial structure that could completely encapsulate a star and transfer the energy to a nearby planet.
Basically, if the signal was beamed out into the galaxy without aim or direction, that would require an enormous amount of power to actually be detected. But what if the signal was beamed specifically at our solar system? Well, that would require less energy and could indicate the presence of a Kardashev Type I civilization—meaning that it could be a highly technological, contemporary society that harnesses the solar energy emitted by its local star, much like our planet does with solar panels. This particular civilization’s social structure is theorized to be completely globalized and interconnected.
“The signal is provocative enough that the RATAN-600 researchers are calling for permanent monitoring of this target,” said Gilster. And that’s exactly what is transpiring. As of last night, the SETI institute is diverting its Allen Telescope Array in northern California to investigate while their counterparts at METI International (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) will use Panama’s Boquete Optical Observatory.
The detection of the mysterious signal and the ensuing investigations will be discussed at the IAA SETI Permanent Committee during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on September 27—the same day and location where Elon Musk will reveal his plans to colonize Mars. The Observer will be following up on both these stories from the Congress.
Robin Seemangal focuses on NASA and advocacy for space exploration. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he currently resides. Find him on Instagram for more space-related content: @nova_road.
Above: a cut away diagram of an idealized Dyson Shell -a variant on Dyson's original idea.
Below: a far more dramatic interpretation of a Dyson Shere.
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The Kardashev Scale will need explaining and, luckily, astrobites gives a good explanation:
Classifying Civilisations: An Introduction to the Kardashev Scale
Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev in the 1960s
Theorising about extraterrestrials is hard. Since we only have one data point, our own little civilisation on our own little Earth, trying to pin down what extraterrestrial civilisations will look or behave like stretches the imagination, to put it mildly. But there is one commodity that most theorists agree any advanced civilisation will need in large quantities, and that’s energy. Just over 50 years ago, a Russian astrophysicist named Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev proposed a scale for ranking these hypothetical civilisations based on their energy consumption. The Kardashev scale was intended to help direct searches for signals from intelligent beings. Over the past few decades huge effort has gone in to detecting such signals, some of which have been written about here on Astrobites (seehere, here, here, and here). So anything that helps us narrow the search, or understand the target better, is certainly welcome. But the scale is more than just a practical tool. Since its inception it has led to hypothetical new energy consumption mechanisms, inspired generations of science fiction writers, and influenced thinking around our own future energy consumption.
The scale has three types that follow the scale of astrophysical structures in our local universe. A Type I civilisation has complete control over the energy of its host planet. It would, for example, be capable of collecting all the starlight that falls on the planet. Other than coating the surface completely with solar panels, collecting such vast amounts of starlight could be achieved using solar power satellites, transmitting the energy to the surface wirelessly. Power from fusion reactions on an industrial scale could also be used to produce similar amounts of energy over geological timescales.
Type II civilisations have control over the energy of their entire host stars. The engineering challenge of achieving this would be huge, but conceivable structures have been proposed. One of the most famous is the Dyson Sphere, which encompasses an entire star and captures all or the majority of its energy output. A candidate for such a system has been proposed recently, the snappily named KIC 8462852. It’s light has been changing erratically in ways hard to explain through our current understanding of the physics of stars. But is it a Dyson Sphere? It’s a controversial claim, and certainly not one that will be confirmed any time soon until further, detailed observations can be made.
Type III civilisations completely blow the first two away, being capable of controlling the energy of an entire galaxy. This could be achieved using a whole population of Dyson spheres around all the stars in a galaxy, or by tapping the energy of the Black Hole at the center of the galaxy. Controlling energy on this scale would require unimaginable feats of engineering, as well as interstellar transportation mechanisms far beyond human capabilities today.
Puny Earthlings
Where does our own civilisation sit on this scale? Kardashev initially proposed that humanity was close to a Type I, but subsequent reclassifications have taken a more self-critical view. Carl Sagan’s modified Kardashev scale, which allows for continuous values, put humanity at a meagre 0.7. Some predict that our total power consumption could hit Type I levels on Sagan’s scale in around 200 years, but we are still incredibly far from realising Type II or III status.Kardashev’s motivation for coming up with the scale was that if we can understand how advanced civilisations source their energy, we can look for clues that they are harvesting or using it in our observations of stars and galaxies. In fact, his scale provides a crude way of quantifying the detectability of a technological civilisation. Type III civilisations would hypothetically have a huge impact on their host galaxies, and be clearly identifiable due to their interactions with galactic objects such as stars and black holes. More speculatively, the transportation and communication mechanisms such a civilisation might use between these bodies could also be detectable. Recent searches found no evidence that such a civilisation exists in any galaxies in the local universe, though. For Type I and II detectability is harder, but any Dyson spheres out there could be observable. They would absorb and reemit their host stars light, changing the observed spectrum.
Above:Cartoon showing the different Kardashev types. Each rung on the ladder uses larger astrophysical objects as its energy source, from single planets to whole clusters of galaxies. Source: Cirkovic 2015, Kardashev’s Classification at 50+: A Fine Vehicle with Room for Improvement
Alternatives and extensions to the scale have been proposed. Type IV civilisations can control the energy of clusters of galaxies, or even the entire universe in some definitions. Such propositions can feel a touch ridiculous, and the scale has been criticised for being too speculative. If we cannot understand advanced civilisations, then surely it is impossible to predict their behaviour? Whilst this is arguably true, what is beyond doubt is the profound impact of such thinking on how we view our own civilisation and the means of powering it. Even if we are alone in the universe, the Kardashev scale has influenced the dialogue surrounding our own civilisations source of energy in the future. If we can avoid destroying our own planet through global warming, or ourselves through nuclear war, how will we power ourselves in to the vast and exciting future?
Practical applications
Are we alone(r)?
Alternatives and extensions to the scale have been proposed. Type IV civilisations can control the energy of clusters of galaxies, or even the entire universe in some definitions. Such propositions can feel a touch ridiculous, and the scale has been criticised for being too speculative. If we cannot understand advanced civilisations, then surely it is impossible to predict their behaviour? Whilst this is arguably true, what is beyond doubt is the profound impact of such thinking on how we view our own civilisation and the means of powering it. Even if we are alone in the universe, the Kardashev scale has influenced the dialogue surrounding our own civilisations source of energy in the future. If we can avoid destroying our own planet through global warming, or ourselves through nuclear war, how will we power ourselves in to the vast and exciting future?
The Path of Counter-actuality: I Have A Willingness To Admit To The Unkown
"Have you actually read any of my books or blog posts?" I ask.
"No" is the usual response. But, hey, they've seen the nutty stories in the newspapers and magazines and the "joke" items on TV news. And when you see programmes such as Ghost Adventures, Mountain Monsters and all those others you have to admit that, based on those, walking the line of counter-actuality makes you look like a nut.
However, people who are supposed to be friends take this attitude because you are the friend who is "completely mental". And, no, they haven't even taken up your offer to lend them your books.
How do you manage to explain in a few sentences things that you have crammed in your brain since you were a child? You cannot. Sasquatch? "Snicker. That's a man in a suit!" Or how about "sea monsters"? I prefer to call them unidentified sea creatures because we are finding new species all the time in our seas and oceans and even newspapers and magazines in the 19th century knew (though they treated it as a joke) that there was a seasonal migration of unusual sea inhabitants: "It is only June well before the month of September when the famous sea serpent is usually sighted" but if any of those creatures still exist in numbers -who knows. All a "joke" of course.
Poltergeist activity I have seen for myself and I have no doubt of that because of the circumstances at the time. Poltergeist are more than likely creatures of the Id. And creatures of the Id can be so solid that a person can see, feel and even smell them -ask Ruth. I am not saying that spooky little goblins are invisibly throwing things about. Nor some very angry dead person. The secret lies within the human mind. "You are completely mental!" they say.
If I ran across a field, through woods, climbed the rock conveyor belt of the largest quarry in Europe, sat in a car as the driver just swerved in time to miss a bus -all to chase unexplained lights then I did so based on knowledge and not expecting to get gang-probed by a bunch of aliens. My own close-to observations of strange light phenomena: "Oh, you've seen flying saucers and little green men!" Where did I ever say or write such a thing? Never. But seeing still makes me a "nut" in the year 2016. It's almost like living in some dark age of blind science at times.
A strange, lizard like creature seen at the roadside. Large "non Native" cats seen by people around the country -the good footage never gets shown or if it does some TV celebrity shows a badly cut up version and despite what is seen states: "It is not" and the Public say "Well, he is on TV -he'd know!" We have good plaster casts of tracks, hairs, DNA evidence/results and we have the evidence of the kills. If I presented plaster casts of fox tracks, some bagged fox hair, DNA tests showing the animal seen was a fox and footage of a fox (no matter how shaky or unclear -I need to get a new camera unless someone wants to sponsor me?) there will be a declaration of "That is a fox!" Exactly the same if a badger. If a deer. If a domestic cat. But if it all says "lynx" or "puma" or even "Panthera pardus" well, clearly "it ain't"
Why do a lot of prominent naturalists, zoologists and others talk to me freely about these animals -even state they believe these animals are there- yet will not say so publicly? I think I have answered that one but let us add in the fact that funding they receive or donations for research could be stopped because those with the money, having no knowledge on the matters, really do not want to give money to "a loony." In some institutions, even with evidence, governmental work means speaking out could lose you your job -and it has happened.
If naturalists, zoologists, the police forces I have advised between 1977-2007 with all their reports, photographs and evidence were to get together and issue a joint statement after a discussion what change would it make? Not much. People would know that medium sized cats, like other species, have been living and breeding in the UK for at least three centuries. Locals have already known it in some areas for many decades. That's it. Despite the cranks in the cryptozoology and "Fortean" circles and their various claims I can tell you that no person has ever been attacked or killed by a large cat living in the wild in the UK since 1799. Captive animals in circuses -yes. But they are shot and not living feral.
We know all of this. Saying it makes you a "crank".
This is the most basic of subjects: wildlife. Nothing "paranormal" or "other dimensional" just, as one police force logs them in its day-book, an "ABC" -Another Bloody Cat. Fact.
Unidentified sea creatures. Again -natural history/wildlife. David Rains Wallace in Neptune's Ark (University of California Press, 2007, p.XIX) refers to whale watching and there being odd things at sea.
The Canvey Island Dead Aquatic ("humanoid") Creatures of 1944, 1953 and 1954 I started looking into in the mid 1970s thanks to my late friend Franklyn A. Davin-Wilson. Finally solved it all beyond doubt in 2008. Various "Mystery Canids" in the UK I got involved in, again 'thanks' to Franklyn, in 1976. All wrapped up in 2011 in Canids.
I doubt I can afford 30-45 years to look into more mysteries!
Every time you look into a report or case you know that there is only one person who can be relied on. Yourself. You have to check every angle. Look for "tells" when witnesses are talking to you. Look for similar but little known reports. A visiting policeman from Dyfed looked over a case file back in the late 1990s (he brought plaster casts of tracks for me to look at) and told me "This is better than some police reports". Good (smug smile to self).
When I was a youngster, and later, in Germany, my aunt and gran asked "Is Herr Professor hungry?" I had no idea that because I always seemed to be in thought if not reading books (some times 2-3 at a time) or closely studying something I was being called "Herr Professor". "The Professor" stuck.
I understand that I don't "fit in" with what are termed "normal" groups of people. People often describe me in three ways: either they think I am some type of "university boffin" (I have my name on technical papers and been described as a "noted naturalist", which does not pay by-the-way) or some strange delver into the "paranormal". Or, "a nut case".
I mix with the very respectable, reasonably normal and the "odd people". That is walking the path of counter-actuality. If you have no idea what is on either side of that path-way then don't criticise or call me names. Those that usually do often have to swallow their pride when they veer onto the pathway by accident. Then, suddenly, you are not a "nut".
Saturday, 27 August 2016
And Here We Go Again. More Wolves To Be Wiped Out
In the last few years we have seen, in Europe and the United States the ongoing slaughter of wolves. Officially and 'Unofficially'.
Now a rancher pushes his cattle into a wolf den area and "Its okay to kill the wolves".
Proving again that there is really only one vermin on this planet.
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Profanity Peak
Now a rancher pushes his cattle into a wolf den area and "Its okay to kill the wolves".
Proving again that there is really only one vermin on this planet.
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Originally published August 25, 2016 http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/profanity-peak-wolf-pack-in-states-gun-sights-after-rancher-turns-out-cattle-on-den/
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife authorized fieldstaff to kill the Profanity Peak wolf pack to prevent more attacks on cattle in the rangelands between Republic and Kettle Falls
Gabe Spence, of the WSU Large Carnivore Lab, listens for the signal from radio collars on the Profanity Peak Washington State University
The state is going to wipe out the Profanity Peak
By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times environment reporter
For the second time in four years, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife is exterminating a wolf pack to protect Len McIrvin’s cattle — this time, a WSU researcher says, after the rancher turned his animals out right on top of the Profanity Peak
Robert Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Lab at Washington State University , has radio-collared 700 cattle and dozens of wolves, including animals in the Profanity Peak pack, as part of his ongoing study of conflicts between wolves and livestock in Washington . He also camera-monitors the Profanity Peak
“This livestock operator elected to put his livestock directly on top of their den site; we have pictures of cows swamping it, I just want people to know,” Wielgus said in an interview Thursday.
McIrvin, of the Diamond M Ranch, near the Canadian border north of Kettle Falls , Stevens County , in northeastern Washington , did not return calls for comment Thursday. The allotment Wielgus monitors, and McIrvin grazes, is on public land in the Colville National Forest
The cattle pushed out the wolves’ native prey of deer, and with a den full of young to feed, what came next was predictable, Wielgus said.
After the wolves repeatedly killed McIrvin’s cattle, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, as per its protocol, authorized shooting wolves in the pack by helicopter, killing the pack’s breeding female by mistake. The department then stopped the killings after the wolf predations subsided.
But the department announced Saturday that after more cows were killed, it would eliminate the entire Profanity pack. That killing is ongoing, and department staff killed four more wolves this week, bringing the total to six.
The department targeted the Wedge Pack after McIrvin lost cattle to that pack, near the same area.
McIrvin has refused to radio-collar his cattle to help predict and avoid interactions with radio-collared wolves, Wielgus said.
He called the killing of cows by the Profanity Peak
Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife authorized fieldstaff to kill the Profanity Peak wolf pack to prevent more attacks on cattle in the rangelands between Republic and Kettle Falls
By contrast, Wielgus has documented no cattle kills among producers who are participating in his research studies and very few among producers using Fish & Wildlife’s protocol.
“In Washington , more cattle are killed by logging trucks, fire and lightning than wolves,” Wielgus said.
Carter Niemeyer, of Boise , Idaho , a wolf expert who led the effort to reintroduce them into Idaho for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service before he retired in 2006, said things won’t change until the Forest Service changes its policy to bar grazing on allotments with known active dens and pup rendezvous sites.
“If this were on private land, it’s turn the page, ho-hum,” Niemeyer said. “But public lands have to be managed differently. Those lands belong to all of us, and so do the native wildlife.”
Killing the wolves is not a lasting solution, he predicted. “It is a short-term solution to a long-term problem; they will just come back,” Niemeyer said.
“It puts the responsibility on the managing authority; it’s, ‘Come get your wild dogs, you said you would, and you set the protocol, and I want these wolves out of here,’ and he (McIrvin) has a good track record of demanding that.”
But it’s the pack that’s got to go, not the ranchers using the allotment, said Ferry County Commissioner Mike Blankenship.
“The McIrvin family has run cows on that allotment for 73 years, and now all of a sudden they have to pull out because of wolves and go somewhere else?
“I haven’t met anyone here who wants them wiped out,” Blankenship said of wolves. “But we want them managed.”
The commission last Friday passed a resolution authorizing the Ferry County
“For the most part, the local people believe the removal of that pack is long overdue,” Blankenship said. He said the county depends on a healthy ranching economy, which is also part of the state’s culture, custom and history.
“You don’t think Seattle had wolves originally? I am more than willing to pay as a county to round these critters up and bring them to you. If they are in your backyard, you have a whole new attitude about it,” Blankenship said.
Wolf advocates have been dismayed by the state’s decision to kill the pack — 11 animals of a total estimated state population of 90 wolves in 19 packs, as of early 2016.
Listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act west of U.S. Route 97, the wolves are not protected east of the highway. People remain their biggest impediment to recovery, which is required by state law.
Since July 8, 12 cattle have been killed or hurt in the Profanity Peak
Donny Martorello, the department’s wolf-policy lead, said the state remains committed to wolf recovery and coexistence. It confirmed its first wolf recolonizations in 2008, and so far has authorized lethal removals in three instances.
“The majority of the time, these two can coexist,” Martorello said of wolves and livestock. “The department is committed to wolf recovery, but we also have a shared responsibility to protect livestock from repeated depredation by wolves.”
Wolves were hunted to extinction in Washington in the early 1900s, but have been gradually recolonizing, from populations in Idaho and British Columbia .
Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2515 or lmapes@seattletimes.com
Thursday, 25 August 2016
The Greys and Alien Abductions -Hopkins, Mack and Definitely Jacobs Got It Wrong
I need to explain WHY I think Budd Hopkins and John Mack got it wrong and why David M. Jacobs has gone just plain crazy on alleged alien abductions.
I'll not go into great detail as that is in my next book From Beyond Time & Space but....
Everyone who sees a light in the sky is an
abductee. Fifty or one hundred people
watch a UFO and they have all been
abducted? According to Jacobs yes. Jacobs and Hopkins, the Wise Men of
abduction research, sat down and were happy to estimate that 2% of the Earths
human population had been abducted. So, in 2013 the human population was around
7.125 billions so 2% means one hundred forty-two million five hundred
thousand people on Earth are abductees.
And if you marry an abductee and have kids then those kids will become
abductees.
Utter bull-shit. I have observed 'UFOs' at fairly close proximity on several occasions (I am not talking about alien craft here) -the same thing hundreds of thousands of other observers have seen and which Jacobs and Hopkins call "UFO sightings".
On the first occasion I was packing my suitcase to go on holiday when I saw the quite large object. I was also watching a movie on TV -fumbling for my camera in the case I turned and object was gone. The scene in the movie was still playing out and my clock showed less than a minute had passed. I "saw a UFO" -and was NOT abducted
On two consecutive Saturday nights I stepped from a bus in the country area I lived and looking up, some distance off was a "UFO" -same colour, shape, etc., each time. I thought I needed to get the bus driver as a witness but as I turned I tripped, looked up. Object gone. So walked across the road and into where I lived and hardly three minutes had elapsed. The second time the object vanished as I turned to ask the driver the time and point it out. Again, 10-15 seconds. I saw a UFO on two weekends and was NOT abducted
When I lived in a block of apartments and had my best ever view of a "UFO" and observed it for around ten minutes I was not abducted. How do I know? When the object first appeared I had the radio on and the 05:00hrs radio news was on. The radio was on the window shelf next to my clock. The University clock tower chimed 05:00hrs. I noted times for movements the object made and also kept an eye on the horizon as it was dawning. I can account for EVERY minute of the sighting.
On other occasions -ditto.
I have interviewed so many people who saw UFOs -some hovering over their houses, in the streets outside their houses or passing near their cars. Because I had heard of what I termed "Time Lapse" cases the one thing I always asked about and focussed on was duration of sighting. It is the most basic question you ask to offer possible explanations (aircraft, satellite, meteors etc). No very odd periods of time missing. In fact, times were confirmed in many cases by other witnesses or family who stated "He arrived home same time as usual but a bit shaken". These UFO witnesses were not abducted by aliens.
I talked to pilots -military and civil. Some carrying passengers on their aircraft. They saw UFOs but were not abducted by aliens. Even in the 1970s and 1980s if an aircraft did not respond it was investigated by people on the ground or interceptor aircraft. UFO sightings and every minute accounted for because the pilots wanted to know WHAT they had seen and knew if they reported the event they had better have everything written down including times.
You see how Jacobs' theory -or "it is a fact"- falls to pieces. Go through UFO literature. Jacobs is quite literally throwing everything out the window because, as he states he is the "only one" who understands what is going on.
Aliens can mind-scan abductees to see what they have been
doing since the last abduction. They can
"upload" information to abductee minds -even though they can only
remember some of it. Hybrids scan abductee minds and control them -as do
hubrids. So why, after generations, are
the ultimate end product, the super mind hubrids such dumb-asses. Seriously, they do not know how to rent an
apartment and when they do they live there as a group (are they “special needs”?).
They need help with getting furniture they bought back to
their apartment. These super
intelligent, mind controlling hubrids are such dumb-asses that they cannot
drive a car or own one -they mentally command an abductee to stop what they are
doing and drive to transport things.
Money. These super intelligent
folk cannot understand the decimal system of currency. If they can float
abductees in and out of buildings in cities why can they not move furniture in
that way? Why buy stuff for the house
when you can just ‘abduct’ it from a store and put it straight into your home?
We really have not, as a planet, attracted the galaxy's
finest.
Taught everything from
when little hubrids and as they grow up and reach adulthood mental retardation
sets in.
It falls to pieces and despite Jacobs screaming at us I am afraid that if you keep insisting that Mr Floppy the pet bunny rabbit is in fact a rhinoceros and there is an end to it....well,Mr Floppy is not the problem.
But then we have an even more ludicrous angle.
A gradual take-over because, as Jacobs has stated over
and over again like some evangelist on a super high: these aliens are totally
unstoppable. "Don't even try
-nothing you can possibly do!". Well,
no, a gradual generation by generation slow build up to taking over the Earth
really does not make sense at
all. Not using even the worst logic going.
Their technology to enter buildings undetected. Control human minds. By-pass or stop security alarms, CCTV and
even cameras. Their craft can move about invisibly, cross the vast reaches of space, pick up cars and large trucks and no one other than the abductee knows this is going on. Well, I would guess that within an hour they could send
"Greys" or whatever into every single military or governmental
facility and mind control every human there and disarm the military and control
politicians. Absolutely no one anywhere
can stop them. “We are in control. This is our planet now. You are….” I think
you need to put your own words there –“slaves”?
An 1898 US Navy ship -the "opposition" to Aliens.
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This is what Jacobs seems to not realize. No, they are taking more than a century (in
fact over two hundred years) to rape or have their females impregnated -or
female abductees being raped by male abductees- and abducted many millions to
breed super intelligent half-wits.
In 1898 the Greys or Insectalians or whatever the hell they
are could have taken over the Earth.
Full stop. We had hot air balloons,
a few airships, Gatling guns, Gardner
guns, breech-loading artillery, some Iron-clad naval vessels…still a lot of
cavalry. Basically, we were not even
very well organised ants : we had one empire fighting or struggling against
another in the name of a queen, emperor, king or despot. What you might call a
“walk in-take over” scenario. But no.
More "oposition" -US Gatling guns -1898 Spanish-American war
_____________________________________________________________
Jacobs, and again, those who have allegedly read his work
and support it, cannot see just how absurd all of this is? How one thing
contradicts another? That it is just
sheer nonsense?
Roswell alien craft crash. Never happened. "Foil and a rope" in the FBI telegram that kicked this all off. Not good for interplanetary travel really. What Roswell debris is held in the US National Archives and has been filmed? Exactly what the telegram stated. No craft, no alien bodies just a huge money spinner. Aurora UFO crash. We know that was a newspaper hoax to try to revive a dying town. It was a hoax and proven to be a hoax. Money spinner.
Flatwoods 1952 landing (go look it up) has become so distorted since the 1990s because it is a money-spinner. To hell with the actual real incident let's make stuff up!
The same old faces popping up on TV telling us the "truth" about UFOs are feeding us lines and making money and securing their places as "personalities".
What is going on regarding abductions is sticking out in the literature like a ten feet high sore thumb. But either those involved are blind, ignorant or just do not want that truth. This is what I will be looking at in the book.
Fiction has taken over from fact. People love the fiction: millions being abducted, government cover ups and Disclosure (after 16 years of "Next year" I think it fair to say there is no such thing as "full Disclosure" coming -of what?) and every ghost story involving evil dark entities, demons, the Devil (he is very busy apparently) and so many claimed, by alleged paranormal 'experts', portal/entrances to and from Hell that you are less likely to find the toilet door in your own house.
We need to get rid of the things that purely obfuscate...everything. There may well be occasional visitations by aliens but who would know? We need to push this "Greys" nonsense out of the way and those people continuing to promote it need to be treated for what they are. Frauds. Delusional or really unaware of what they are really dealing with.
And the genuine "abductees" need help and support and are NOT "crazy". Ask Ruth.
And the genuine "abductees" need help and support and are NOT "crazy". Ask Ruth.
Wednesday, 24 August 2016
Some Times....
...Coincidences ARE Stranger Than Fact
A lot of things in my files, reports, notes etc., I still treat as confidential. Most of those associated with the AOP Bureau are now dead but as I found out recently, their families are very clear that names not be published. Pity really. But the families of Lords and Ladies as well as ranking military men can afford the lawyers!
But this is the problem I am left with and I will not waver from having given my word (over 40 years ago) on confidentiality.
With reports there are other problems. At the very outset I pointed out to "The Committee" that if we expected astronomers, meteorologists as well as military persons to cooperate with the work then there had to be something in place to guarantee them anonymity. My idea was the Joint Scientific Intelligence Communications Document (JSICD).
As the AOP Bureau expected to exchange and forward reports as well as information the term "Intelligence" was used. Ufologists jumped on this and I was told it was "very James Bondish" and even sounded "very fantasy". This showed the narrow thinking of Ufologists. "Intelligence", "Intelligencer" was a word used in old newspaper titles and magazines. It referred to gathered news and information not spying and I got sick of explaining that to dim-wits. JSICD just meant that a document containing reports, analysis and technical information was guaranteed confidentiality. Then some astronomer said "Yes but what about-" and so the JSICD had to be ammended and each time was designated an amendment letter so by 1995 we had gone from JSICD (A) to JSICD (I).
It just guaranteed confidentiality of persons involved nothing more. It was always taken for granted the Grey Book project itself would last ten years (1977-187) but eventually, I was the only one left alive so officially stopped Grey Book in 1995.
All these years later, I think it "safe" to reveal bits and pieces and what went on "behind the scenes" could get odder than the reports we received.
You know, Franklyn Angus Davin-Wilson really ought to be far better known than he is. That's him to the right with that smile!
I first met Franklyn at a Bristol meeting of the British Flying Saucer Bureau (BFSB f. 1953) back in 1976, I think. I was speaking to a few people and grabbed a break when this short, skinny chap wearing a Russian style fur hat came up to me. Someone said to me:"That's Franklyn Davin-Wilson" and then moved off. Franklyn stretched out his hand and beamed a huge smile -displaying a large set of canid teeth. I shook his hand and said "Fox teeth aren't they?" His smile grew as he popped out the false set of teeth he had a dentist make from fox teeth. "I like you!" he said. Apparently people normally gasped or backed off when he gave them his vampiric smile!
Franklyn had become interested in UFOs reports after leaving the army in the 1960s and reading the accounts of astronomers and astronauts about their own encounters. A former Bristol Grammar School student (the BGS seemed to spawn, uh, "eccentrics"!) he was a founding member of the British Computer Society as well as a keen astronomer. Franklyn was a constant ally while I was at the BFSB as a committee member and later editor of its UFO News Bulletin and his support continued on into the days of UFO International. Along with Dennis Cowdy, a founder in 1952 of Manchester Flying Saucer Research, Franklyn was at the core of the Anomalous Observational Phenomena Bureau and Project Grey Book.
Franklyn advocated that every published UFO account should not be accepted as suitable for inclusion unless there was a second or third source -even then, the more sources the better and if you could check the report yourself -much better. This has stuck to me every day since.
In the mid-1970s Franklyn even advocated the use of computers in UFO reports analysis and also for the analysis of UFO photographs. He did design a computer card system for BUFORA but they seemed to drop the idea.
His specialist field of research were Signals From Space, Astronomers and UFOs, Unidentified Orbital Objects and photographic analysis.
Franklyn could be somewhat fractious at times when dealing with fools and although interested in the possibility, after speaking to Leo Sprinkle at a BUFORA Convention (scribbled on a margin of the notes of his meeting is :"The Day Mountbatten was murdered") on retrievals of crashed "flying saucers", Franklyn was in two minds because "so many of the buggers are supposed to have crashed!"
As seemed to be his wont, Franklyn often set me off on searches and some lasted decades -"The Vampiric Sheep Killer of Badminton" started after Franklyn mentioned the case featured in The Books Of Charles Fort and thirty years later I wound the whole mess up and even discovered a lynx had been shot at the time. The full story can be found in The Red Paper: Canids. The other little mystery that took up many years was "The Dead Aquatic Creatures Of Canvey Island" -again, detailed in Some Things Strange & Sinister.
There are others but I still keep busy on those.
On New Years Eve, 1983, Franklyn felt unwell and went to bed. He died of a heart attack caused by a possible blood clot. He was around 43 years old. He was the third member of the AOP B to die of a heart attack (Dennis Cowdy was the first) but his loss was deeply felt and his research notes are still with me. Every new years eve at Midnight I remember the old sod.
Some of my strangest moments were with Franklyn.
In the 1970s after late night meetings we would drive back to where I lived in Downend and we would often talk for an hour or two in his car before I was "released"! We were discussing signal frequencies on one dry Summer night -Franklyn had been talking about this at a meeting. So, out of the blue, Franklyn suggested we use his specially converted car radio to send a signal out to "any green little buggers -or tall, blond Venusian women!" I joked that it was worth a try in an attempt to humour him.
Franklyn sent out a Morse Code signal. We sat in the silence listening -only the occasional owl call interrupting the silence. We started to nod off. Suddently, we sat bolt up-right: a strange, guttural voice was coming from the car speaker. Franklyn's response was: "Ah. I didn't expect that!"
So Franklyn send another Morse message and the voice came through again. We just could not understand what was being said. Franklyn tapped out the code again and the voice seemed snappier in tone. We checked frequency, direction but could not explain what was going on.
"You don't suppose-?" asked Franklyn rather sheepishly and before he even finished I told him I did not think it was an alien. At Franklyn's insistence I opened the passenger door window to look up "in case". The voice suddenly became clearer. We were being warned that we were "fouling up" an emergency radio band. With the speed of light, Franklyn disconnected his radio and turned to me with a rather sheepish grin: "Perhaps this ought to be our little secret?" he suggested. And it was. Until now.
On another occasion, Franklyn had decided that some of my talks needed props. In the 1976-1983 period I wrote numerous articles and gave talks on, obviously, Alien Entity and CE IIIK cases. I dreaded what he had planned but just before I was about to leave to give the talk in question the doorbell rang. On my doorstep was a 6 feet (1.8m) tall figure in all encompassing lycra-like suit and -only the face was uncovered. Suddenly, a 3 feet (90cms) high little figure with large head and dressed in silver came into view: "Now say you don't believe in us!" came the campy mocking voice. The props had arrived.
The demonstrate various entity types (there were no "Greys" back then), Franklyn had scoured old shop bins until he found a mannequin and then the necessary clothing. A childs doll (a rather large one!) was found and its head replaced with an adult mannequin head that he had worked on. Silver spray-paint and job done.
Giggles abounded at the talk but the props made the point. Talk over, the 'aliens' were loaded into Franklyn's car. We had to go back to his home to drop things off but as we were heading back to Downend we both realised we had a couple of aliens seated behind us. It was eventually around Midnight that we arrived in Downend (where all activity seemed to stop after 5 P.M. on Winter evenings) but such was my insomniac reputation that two old friends were waiting. One was an RAF man the other in the Army and both were in uniform. Franklyn suggested getting the props so while I made coffee he and my two friends went to the car to get them.
A female journalist who had been covering UFO stories was on her way back from covering a UFO sighting and with her was a press photographer. She decided to call in and so her car had arrived only a few minutes before the photographer said "Look!" The duo watched as they saw me over-seeing two military men as they walked to the back of my house...carrying a dead alien in a clear body bag. The photographer realised -too late- that his loaded camera was in his lap.
Things looked bad for me but it got worse.
I got to know a few police officers and some had a very wry sense of humour. A patrol car pulled in behind the journalists wondering what they were doing. The officers approached the car and spoke to the duo who explained what they had seen. One officer then told them: "Mr. Hooper is engaged in secret work of a nature we cannot divulge but we must ask you to move on and say nothing of what you have seen. Understood?" The journalist nodded and they drove off.
So, next day, after talking to her editor, the journalist contacted me. She explained that she and a colleague had seen me lead two military men carrying a small, large headed body wearing silver in a plastic bag into my house. Also, they had been cautioned by on duty police officers who told her they were "on security detail." As I tried to explain the situation (the two policemen had told me about a joke with a couple in a car) it all seemed very odd...two military men...a dead alien...police on security duty. I then learnt that the photographer had completely forgotten to take photographs due to shock at what he was seeing. Pity.
A very embarassing moment came one Winter's night when Franklyn answered the phone for me. A woman reported that she had gotten home after a weekend away and was observing an orange ball of light over her house. The police had given her my number and when I talked with her I learnt that the ball of light was about 2 feet (60cms) in diameter and seemed to be moving around a chimney stack. "To the Bat-mobile!" shouted Franklyn as he ran to get the car ready.
Another mad drive and we arrived in the Clifton area of Bristol. And there, as the woman pointed out, was the orange ball of light, slightly flickering. Two police officers who had been called to the scene were asked whether they had gone up to check it out? "Sorry, mate" said one with a smirk "burglars we investigate but UFOs -you're the professional!" I turned to Franklyn and told him one of us needed to go up onto the roof. He wished me good luck and added "It'll help cure your vertigo!"
So, I got up onto a wooden shed, then the house extension and up a fire ladder (never used but in good shape thankfully) and on to the flat roof of the house. I took out a pen knife with the aim of tossing it into the ball of light -I never saw the old lead pipe on the ground. I literally went flying. Apparently, the police below saw me reaching for the light then scream out (more a yell really) and I was down. The police entered the house with Franklyn and the owner in pursuit.
Rubbing my knees, I went over to the light that just was not convincing me...it turned out to be an old roofers lamp that was still wired in and seemed to be shorting out. So much for a "mini UFO". But why was there a woman screaming inside the house?
The skylight opened up behind me and up popped Franklyn's head -a big grin on his face. "We're having much more fun down here!" he told me. I disconnected the lamp and walked over to the skylight and looked down. On the staircase stood the woman, very embarassed and uttering "sorries" all round. The smiling policemen were leaving. "What the hell is going on?" I asked myself.
A young woman in a bathrobe came from a bedroom followed by a hurriedly dressing young man. Apparently, the woman's daughter, who was supposed to be away, invited her boyfriend for the weekend and at one point adjusted the roof top TV antenna and had pushed the wire from the roofers lamp back into a hole on the chimney -causing the shorting. The couple were then "amorously involved" when the daughter noticed a large bearded man skulking past the skylight (I'd not even seen it). My yelling out followed by her screaming and all sorts of things were being assumed -especially as I had 'vanished'- and all rushed to the rescue.
Oh, how Franklyn thought it was so funny. He even told me: "You know, as I saw you climbing onto that shed I suddenly thought that it would have been easier to ask the house owner to let us in so you could get up onto the roof" and when I said "Well, why didn't you say anything?" the reply was "I didn't want to spoil your 'moment' of course!"
At least on other occasions Franklyn and I chased UFOs together -particularly at Cradle Hill, Wiltshire. Fun days.
But this is the problem I am left with and I will not waver from having given my word (over 40 years ago) on confidentiality.
With reports there are other problems. At the very outset I pointed out to "The Committee" that if we expected astronomers, meteorologists as well as military persons to cooperate with the work then there had to be something in place to guarantee them anonymity. My idea was the Joint Scientific Intelligence Communications Document (JSICD).
As the AOP Bureau expected to exchange and forward reports as well as information the term "Intelligence" was used. Ufologists jumped on this and I was told it was "very James Bondish" and even sounded "very fantasy". This showed the narrow thinking of Ufologists. "Intelligence", "Intelligencer" was a word used in old newspaper titles and magazines. It referred to gathered news and information not spying and I got sick of explaining that to dim-wits. JSICD just meant that a document containing reports, analysis and technical information was guaranteed confidentiality. Then some astronomer said "Yes but what about-" and so the JSICD had to be ammended and each time was designated an amendment letter so by 1995 we had gone from JSICD (A) to JSICD (I).
It just guaranteed confidentiality of persons involved nothing more. It was always taken for granted the Grey Book project itself would last ten years (1977-187) but eventually, I was the only one left alive so officially stopped Grey Book in 1995.
All these years later, I think it "safe" to reveal bits and pieces and what went on "behind the scenes" could get odder than the reports we received.
I first met Franklyn at a Bristol meeting of the British Flying Saucer Bureau (BFSB f. 1953) back in 1976, I think. I was speaking to a few people and grabbed a break when this short, skinny chap wearing a Russian style fur hat came up to me. Someone said to me:"That's Franklyn Davin-Wilson" and then moved off. Franklyn stretched out his hand and beamed a huge smile -displaying a large set of canid teeth. I shook his hand and said "Fox teeth aren't they?" His smile grew as he popped out the false set of teeth he had a dentist make from fox teeth. "I like you!" he said. Apparently people normally gasped or backed off when he gave them his vampiric smile!
Franklyn had become interested in UFOs reports after leaving the army in the 1960s and reading the accounts of astronomers and astronauts about their own encounters. A former Bristol Grammar School student (the BGS seemed to spawn, uh, "eccentrics"!) he was a founding member of the British Computer Society as well as a keen astronomer. Franklyn was a constant ally while I was at the BFSB as a committee member and later editor of its UFO News Bulletin and his support continued on into the days of UFO International. Along with Dennis Cowdy, a founder in 1952 of Manchester Flying Saucer Research, Franklyn was at the core of the Anomalous Observational Phenomena Bureau and Project Grey Book.
Franklyn advocated that every published UFO account should not be accepted as suitable for inclusion unless there was a second or third source -even then, the more sources the better and if you could check the report yourself -much better. This has stuck to me every day since.
In the mid-1970s Franklyn even advocated the use of computers in UFO reports analysis and also for the analysis of UFO photographs. He did design a computer card system for BUFORA but they seemed to drop the idea.
His specialist field of research were Signals From Space, Astronomers and UFOs, Unidentified Orbital Objects and photographic analysis.
Franklyn could be somewhat fractious at times when dealing with fools and although interested in the possibility, after speaking to Leo Sprinkle at a BUFORA Convention (scribbled on a margin of the notes of his meeting is :"The Day Mountbatten was murdered") on retrievals of crashed "flying saucers", Franklyn was in two minds because "so many of the buggers are supposed to have crashed!"
As seemed to be his wont, Franklyn often set me off on searches and some lasted decades -"The Vampiric Sheep Killer of Badminton" started after Franklyn mentioned the case featured in The Books Of Charles Fort and thirty years later I wound the whole mess up and even discovered a lynx had been shot at the time. The full story can be found in The Red Paper: Canids. The other little mystery that took up many years was "The Dead Aquatic Creatures Of Canvey Island" -again, detailed in Some Things Strange & Sinister.
There are others but I still keep busy on those.
On New Years Eve, 1983, Franklyn felt unwell and went to bed. He died of a heart attack caused by a possible blood clot. He was around 43 years old. He was the third member of the AOP B to die of a heart attack (Dennis Cowdy was the first) but his loss was deeply felt and his research notes are still with me. Every new years eve at Midnight I remember the old sod.
Some of my strangest moments were with Franklyn.
In the 1970s after late night meetings we would drive back to where I lived in Downend and we would often talk for an hour or two in his car before I was "released"! We were discussing signal frequencies on one dry Summer night -Franklyn had been talking about this at a meeting. So, out of the blue, Franklyn suggested we use his specially converted car radio to send a signal out to "any green little buggers -or tall, blond Venusian women!" I joked that it was worth a try in an attempt to humour him.
Franklyn sent out a Morse Code signal. We sat in the silence listening -only the occasional owl call interrupting the silence. We started to nod off. Suddently, we sat bolt up-right: a strange, guttural voice was coming from the car speaker. Franklyn's response was: "Ah. I didn't expect that!"
So Franklyn send another Morse message and the voice came through again. We just could not understand what was being said. Franklyn tapped out the code again and the voice seemed snappier in tone. We checked frequency, direction but could not explain what was going on.
"You don't suppose-?" asked Franklyn rather sheepishly and before he even finished I told him I did not think it was an alien. At Franklyn's insistence I opened the passenger door window to look up "in case". The voice suddenly became clearer. We were being warned that we were "fouling up" an emergency radio band. With the speed of light, Franklyn disconnected his radio and turned to me with a rather sheepish grin: "Perhaps this ought to be our little secret?" he suggested. And it was. Until now.
On another occasion, Franklyn had decided that some of my talks needed props. In the 1976-1983 period I wrote numerous articles and gave talks on, obviously, Alien Entity and CE IIIK cases. I dreaded what he had planned but just before I was about to leave to give the talk in question the doorbell rang. On my doorstep was a 6 feet (1.8m) tall figure in all encompassing lycra-like suit and -only the face was uncovered. Suddenly, a 3 feet (90cms) high little figure with large head and dressed in silver came into view: "Now say you don't believe in us!" came the campy mocking voice. The props had arrived.
The demonstrate various entity types (there were no "Greys" back then), Franklyn had scoured old shop bins until he found a mannequin and then the necessary clothing. A childs doll (a rather large one!) was found and its head replaced with an adult mannequin head that he had worked on. Silver spray-paint and job done.
Giggles abounded at the talk but the props made the point. Talk over, the 'aliens' were loaded into Franklyn's car. We had to go back to his home to drop things off but as we were heading back to Downend we both realised we had a couple of aliens seated behind us. It was eventually around Midnight that we arrived in Downend (where all activity seemed to stop after 5 P.M. on Winter evenings) but such was my insomniac reputation that two old friends were waiting. One was an RAF man the other in the Army and both were in uniform. Franklyn suggested getting the props so while I made coffee he and my two friends went to the car to get them.
A female journalist who had been covering UFO stories was on her way back from covering a UFO sighting and with her was a press photographer. She decided to call in and so her car had arrived only a few minutes before the photographer said "Look!" The duo watched as they saw me over-seeing two military men as they walked to the back of my house...carrying a dead alien in a clear body bag. The photographer realised -too late- that his loaded camera was in his lap.
Things looked bad for me but it got worse.
I got to know a few police officers and some had a very wry sense of humour. A patrol car pulled in behind the journalists wondering what they were doing. The officers approached the car and spoke to the duo who explained what they had seen. One officer then told them: "Mr. Hooper is engaged in secret work of a nature we cannot divulge but we must ask you to move on and say nothing of what you have seen. Understood?" The journalist nodded and they drove off.
Outside a radar unit RAF Manston c 1979
So, next day, after talking to her editor, the journalist contacted me. She explained that she and a colleague had seen me lead two military men carrying a small, large headed body wearing silver in a plastic bag into my house. Also, they had been cautioned by on duty police officers who told her they were "on security detail." As I tried to explain the situation (the two policemen had told me about a joke with a couple in a car) it all seemed very odd...two military men...a dead alien...police on security duty. I then learnt that the photographer had completely forgotten to take photographs due to shock at what he was seeing. Pity.
A very embarassing moment came one Winter's night when Franklyn answered the phone for me. A woman reported that she had gotten home after a weekend away and was observing an orange ball of light over her house. The police had given her my number and when I talked with her I learnt that the ball of light was about 2 feet (60cms) in diameter and seemed to be moving around a chimney stack. "To the Bat-mobile!" shouted Franklyn as he ran to get the car ready.
Another mad drive and we arrived in the Clifton area of Bristol. And there, as the woman pointed out, was the orange ball of light, slightly flickering. Two police officers who had been called to the scene were asked whether they had gone up to check it out? "Sorry, mate" said one with a smirk "burglars we investigate but UFOs -you're the professional!" I turned to Franklyn and told him one of us needed to go up onto the roof. He wished me good luck and added "It'll help cure your vertigo!"
So, I got up onto a wooden shed, then the house extension and up a fire ladder (never used but in good shape thankfully) and on to the flat roof of the house. I took out a pen knife with the aim of tossing it into the ball of light -I never saw the old lead pipe on the ground. I literally went flying. Apparently, the police below saw me reaching for the light then scream out (more a yell really) and I was down. The police entered the house with Franklyn and the owner in pursuit.
Rubbing my knees, I went over to the light that just was not convincing me...it turned out to be an old roofers lamp that was still wired in and seemed to be shorting out. So much for a "mini UFO". But why was there a woman screaming inside the house?
The skylight opened up behind me and up popped Franklyn's head -a big grin on his face. "We're having much more fun down here!" he told me. I disconnected the lamp and walked over to the skylight and looked down. On the staircase stood the woman, very embarassed and uttering "sorries" all round. The smiling policemen were leaving. "What the hell is going on?" I asked myself.
A young woman in a bathrobe came from a bedroom followed by a hurriedly dressing young man. Apparently, the woman's daughter, who was supposed to be away, invited her boyfriend for the weekend and at one point adjusted the roof top TV antenna and had pushed the wire from the roofers lamp back into a hole on the chimney -causing the shorting. The couple were then "amorously involved" when the daughter noticed a large bearded man skulking past the skylight (I'd not even seen it). My yelling out followed by her screaming and all sorts of things were being assumed -especially as I had 'vanished'- and all rushed to the rescue.
Oh, how Franklyn thought it was so funny. He even told me: "You know, as I saw you climbing onto that shed I suddenly thought that it would have been easier to ask the house owner to let us in so you could get up onto the roof" and when I said "Well, why didn't you say anything?" the reply was "I didn't want to spoil your 'moment' of course!"
At least on other occasions Franklyn and I chased UFOs together -particularly at Cradle Hill, Wiltshire. Fun days.
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