We (AOPB) wanted to try various things to get more data on UFOs. Firstly, we had to be mobile and get to an area where UFO activity had picked up (they were never that helpful but...)
The Rocket Research Group was a simple idea. Up and down the UK in the 1970s/1980s there were rocket men: they built and launched small rockets but mainly in places like the Yorkshire Moors.
Franklyn Davin-Wilson had managed to design a small package that fitted into the nose cone of the rockets (the rockets were about 3m or so in length) with wires leading out to external sensors. We had everything worked out and then...
The Civil Aviation Authority told us "No". But as they were only a "cooperating" authority we carried on until a much higher organisation head said "no". "We cannot possibly risk even the remotest possibility that a rocket would hit something sending it off course or sending fragments all over the place."
Well, that was us told.
The next idea was sensor packages fitted to helium balloons that were tethered and fitted to the back of an old Bedford van so we could get directly under any UFO and send the balloon up at speed. We could not aim a balloon like we could a rocket but getting right under a phenomenon and (as someone put it) "Shoving an helium balloon up its jacksy" seemed fair enough.
Unfortunately, as the balloon and gear was fitted we were told that new regulations meant we could not purchase the large amount of helium we wanted. Party entertainers could purchase the stuff but not us. This seemed to be a bureaucratic thing and we tried but...
At this point my colleague Franklyn suggested (sarcastically) that "We ought to all be equipped with catapults and small sensor packs and when a blessed UFO turns up we all aim, fire and see who gets lucky!"
We were basically blocked. Then a few ideas came to mind. I could think them up or suggest them but was not technically qualified to try building anything. There was an idea to use oscilloscopes, get cooperation from radio hams -it went on and on. Then, through a contact of Air Vice Marshal Sir Victor Goddard we got a radar operator volunteer but I asked how we were going to put him to use and the response was that "off hours" (yes, radar stations did close at RAF bases "after hours") there was "an old radar unit we might use so long as you do not draw attention".
So, when it was permitted, we sat around while the radar man did his stuff. Quite boring. One night we got a radar return at 0200 hrs -something coming in from the west and on a trajectory that would take it over Kent and out over the English Channel. Franklyn looked at the screen and tapped it and asked the radar man "Is this set working properly? That is covering a hell of a distance quickly!" The man checked his little red note book and told us the date. "We know the date" I responded and he turned the radar set off which caused Franklyn to burst out loud with "What are you doing?!" The man looked at us and said quite nervously "We never saw that. It is not a UFO. We just never saw that".
We did not speculate but a week later the radar project was gone.
As the original AOP people died off -Dave Cowdy first then Franklyn (only 46 years old) the team shrank and some of the remaining members could offer occasional advice but were way too old for field work. Lord (Brinsley) Clancarty and some of his House of Lords friends with an interest in UFOs and the right connections passed away as did Goddard. At the end of the day I was the main investigator and was still getting cooperation from official bodies (which had never been obstructive) and as the early small drones came in they were expensive but could carry the old sensor packages and I proposed using drones when UFO activity peaked and it seemed that at last things were coming together. Then the last two funders passed away.
The Blair government came in and somehow it was made aware of the officially unofficial work and blocks were immediately put in place to prevent any "silly UFO stuff" embarrassing them and I was left out to dry. All the promises made in the 1970s were now gone.
I still think that the idea of drones with sensor packages -especially now that drones are cheaper and the data packages can be made smaller and cameras fitted- are a good idea but that needs to be backed up by the technicians who can analyse data and NOT rely on just a drone operator making a claim. It needs hard science back-up and probably financing also.
There, I have now "blabbed" after 40 years.
