The Audio Will Be On Part III

Our guest today is our friend Nick Pope, the former head of ufo investigations for the Ministry of Defence in the U. K.

Hello Nick, how are you?

Today we will be discussing the wave of ufo sightings in the U. K. and related events. First of all I would be remiss, if I didn't ask you if you believe that there has been a substantial increase in ufo activity in your country?

Nick Pope:

Yes I think there has been undoubtedly. That having been said, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between whether you are dealing with an increase in sightings, or an increase in media reporting of sightings, but actually I think in this instance and I am very close to the situation, what we are dealing with is both. There is no smoke without fire, meaning that the media has a part to play here, but ultimately this is event led. There is no doubt about it, we have had a series of very interesting ufo sightings here in the U. K. and we have actually had a lot of incidents by volume.

Ken:

Some people are suggesting that there is some reason for the increase in sightings, do you believe that there is something going on in the U. K. that we are unaware of?

Nick Pope:

I am not sure about that, the honest answer is I don't know. Perhaps I can just outline the two ufo events which have really crystallized the debate over here and brought this into focus. They happened really within a couple of hours of each other. The first late on the night of June the seventh this year, when three soldiers on guard patrol at Tern Hill Barracks in Shropshire, saw a ufo fly directly over their base. One of them had a cell phone and had the presence of mind to take film, because he had a film capability on his cell phone. He took some footage of this and through a rather convoluted route, news of this went firstly to the Ministry of Defence through the chain of command, but also to Britain's best selling national daily newspaper the Sun. The Sun got hold of this story and obviously soldiers seeing ufos and filming them while on duty, directly over the base, obviously that was not just a ufo story, it was a security issue. They put it literally on the front page, so it has been front page news here in the U. K.

Ken:

Would you say that this is the largest ufo wave of all time in Britain?

Nick Pope:

I am not sure, Looking back and one has to take a long view. One can certainly look back to 1967, which was a real peak year, not just in the U. K., but in the U.S. and indeed, all around the world. I am not sure if we are quite equaling the events of 1967 yet, but of course what we are in now is a situation where we are a multimedia society. These days as opposed to 1967, if somebody sees something, it is on YouTube within a matter of hours. It is on blogs, it is on websites. I don't know if this equates in numbers of sightings, certainly in terms of impact, yes this is as good as it gets. I mentioned that there were two sightings. Just a matter of hours after the soldiers had seen the ufos on June seventh. In the early hours of June eight, the three person crew of a police helicopter, which was coming to land at an air force base, RAF St. Athan in Wales. The crew saw a ufo and the media reports then disagree about what happened next, one of the reports suggest that there was a near miss, followed by a chase with the helicopter only breaking off pursuit when they ran short of fuel and realized that they weren't going to catch the ufo. Subsequently there was a denial that a chase had taken place, though there was confirmation of the sighting. Researchers here in the U. K. are trying to clarify the position and as I speak, Freedom of Information Requests are being made on these incidents. Obviously here we have two high profile sightings involving police and military, literally making front page news. Those two things, I think, opened the flood gates.

Ken:

Let me ask you this, I hadn't planned to ask this question. You bring up the fact that Freedom of Information requests are now being made. I was under the impression that all sightings that were given to the Ministry of Defence, were posted on the Internet and there would be no reason to have to make a Freedom of Information request?

Nick Pope:

Well that is an interesting question and it perhaps plays into something that is related to this. I think a lot of people are saying why this interest in ufos? Yes it is amazing that we have had these police and military sightings. The other thing and I think that your question kind of alludes to this, is that in May of this year the Ministry of Defence did indeed start the process of releasing it's entire archive of ufo files. Now these were made available on the national archives website and within a few days of the first batch being put online, they received nearly two million downloads of the material. The difficulty with that is, that this is a four year program. There are so many tens of thousands of documents and they are being released in chronological order, starting with the oldest. Material on these new sightings may well be three or four years in the future, unless specific FOI requests are made now.

Ken:

So they still honor the Freedom of Information requests?

Nick Pope:

Oh yes indeed, though there is one very important proviso to that, there is an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act, which allows you to refuse a request, if the information requested is going to be released on a future date. The Ministry of Defence has to take a case by case view of that and on something like these police and military sightings. I think that they are having to decide to release the information now. They could have hidden behind the material intended for future release exemption. I have been in touch with a few ufo researchers here in the U. K. and they are getting answers to their requests on this.

Ken:

Oh that is very interesting.

As a lay person, it looks to me like there has been more of the orange type craft, that are often described as bright orange lights or flaming orange objects sighted, not only in the U. K., but everywhere, do you think that this is true?

Nick Pope:

Yes it is and I think that undeniably that a number of these reports are so called Chinese lanterns, fire lanterns, whatever name you call these things. They are increasingly popular at weddings. and other celebrations and they are even used quite deliberately in pranks, sometimes to cause ufo reports. These are sort of mini hot air balloons that have sort of a little light underneath. There is a canopy, they rise on the wind and drift in the wind and they do tend to glow red and orange. I think that when one is looking at ufo reports involving multiple orange red lights drifting fairly slowly in the sky in groups, very often we are looking at these sky lanterns.

Ken:

Well it is funny, because quite frankly I had never heard of Chinese lanterns until I started seeing them being used as an excuse for many of the sightings. I don't think that they are too popular in this country.

I had read on the Internet, that some people were stating that the U. K. has a triangular black aircraft that can fly across the sky very slowly. Some say that this has to do with experiments in the U.S. and U. K., with an aircraft that uses helium in conjunction with pulse jet engines. The Helium supposedly keeps the craft at neutral buoyancy, allowing it to sort of float across the sky with the assistance of silent electric motors. Have you heard anything about this?

Nick Pope:

The whole issue of prototype aircraft and prototype unmanned vehicles is obviously an area that I can't really discuss in any great detail. I can say generically that at any give time there are going to be prototypes that are going to be tested and flown in our airspace. Generally speaking these things are test flown in fairly remote ranges and restricted military air space areas. In my experience these are not the sort of things that the public will see and misidentify as ufos. Certainly there have been a lot of reports, not just from the U. K., but from Belgium, the United States, from many other countries, of these large triangular shaped ufos. Again descriptions have indicated that these things can move from a virtual hover to very high Mach speeds, in just an instant. Yes those reports are out there, but I am really not able to go too far down the road on speculating on prototype aircraft.

Ken:

Have you heard of any of these black triangular aircraft flying extremely low to the ground?

Nick Pope:

Oh yes, I received several reports from the U. K., one very famous case from March 1993, that involved one of these things flying over two military bases. I spoke to the metrological officer at one just hours after his sighting. He described this thing, probably no more than four hundred feet above the ground. He described it as midway in size between a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and a Boeing 737. Just in the last week I received another report from the public, describing this, probably...., again it is difficult to estimate, but certainly less than one thousand feet above the ground, probably more like seven hundred feet. Yes several reports of that sort of thing.

Ken:

Do you think that it is possible that the Strategic Defense Initiative is responsible, some of the aircraft that they are designing are responsible for mistaken ufo sightings?

Nick Pope:

Again as on the question where I touched on the whole prototype aircraft and the uavs (unmanned aerial vehicles), it is not an area that I am able to discuss in any detail. To my mind SDI is primarily a defensive scheme. I am not sure how triangular craft would fit into that? I can't rule it out, but it is not an area where I have any specific knowledge and if I did, it is not an area that I could really discuss.

Ken:

I find it amazing that a country the size of the U. K. is experiencing so many sightings, what are your thoughts on this?

Nick Pope:

Well I think that it is a combination of things. As I mentioned earlier, undoubtedly. there are a lot of sightings, but I don't think that one can underestimate the importance that the Sun has played in this and I am talking about Britain's best selling national newspaper, to literally put a ufo story on the front page and then to make a public appeal to other people who have seen things to come forward, particularly if they have got photographs and videos. What that does, I think, is that it creates a receptive environment. It creates a situation where I am sure in the normal course of business, where a lot of people who see ufos and don't speak out either because they don't know who to contact or because they fear ridicule and disbelief. When you see it on the front page of literally the best selling daily newspaper in the country, if you see that they are running stories about police officers, about military personnel having these sightings, I think that people who had their own sightings think, well it's okay to speak about this now. It encourages them to come forward, where previously they would have remained silent, or at least a proportion of them would have. I think there are two things, yes we undeniably have a wave of ufo sightings in the U. K., but we have brought the environment, due to the constant media coverage,we have got that situation where people are feeling comfortable about speaking out.

Ken:

Has any reports of extraterrestrials been made during this wave of sightings?

Nick Pope:

I have received notice of one or two entity encounters, but I've not yet been able to investigate them. Mainly we are talking about ufo activity, but yeah there are entity sightings and indeed abduction reports. That is something, it's not new. It has happened over the years, that we get these reports and there certainly have been some recent ones.

Ken:

I see where people are calling for an investigation by the Ministry of Defence. They want the ministry to look into the ufo phenomena. Do you think that if enough pressure is brought to bear, that this will happen, it seems to go against their policy?

Nick Pope:

Well I am one of the people that has called for an investigation. I guess that is a question where I can really answer with an affirmative and say that I firmly believe that a combination of media and public pressure will force the MOD to investigate and particularly in relation to the sightings by the crew of the police helicopter. If we are led to believe and this is still being looked at, that this was a near miss in controlled military air space, then it seem to me that whatever one believes about ufos, that this must be regarded as an air safety issue. You don't have to be a believer or a skeptic to realize that if you have a near collision in controlled air space, that someone needs to take a look at this. Yes I believe that there needs to be an inquiry and that if the media keeps up the pressure, that there will be an inquiry and I think that inquiry needs to do three things. Firstly, interview the witnesses to get the clear first person testimony on the record. Second, analyze the film footage and the photographs. The MOD has the equipment and the technical expertise to do that and it should be done. Thirdly, look at the radar tapes, both the civil and the military radar information that must be available and see if anything was tracked. It is easy to do and I believe that given the air safety issues, I believe that it is important that this is done.

Ken:

When you were talking about the conflicting stories about the helicopter and the ufos, were you referring to the story that the helicopter had been chased by sixteen ufos, because that is what we had heard over here?

Nick Pope:

No I wasn't. The initial story which the Sun ran was that there had been this near miss and that the helicopter had given chase. In that story there was only one ufo. It was a disc shaped craft covered in lights and a chase took place over the Bristol Channel, with the helicopter only breaking off when firstly in ran short of fuel and secondly it realized that it just didn't have the speed to catch up to the ufo. Within twenty four to forty eight hours, South Wales police had issued a statement in which they sought to downplay the issue and denied that a chase had taken place. They simply confirmed that there had been a ufo sighting. They said that there hadn't been a chase. I wasn't referring to any suggestions that the helicopter had itself been chased by sixteen ufos, but as I mentioned a number of ufo researchers here in the U. K. have Freedom of Information requests in the system to try and smoke out the truth of precisely what did go on.

Ken:

So there is a possibility that maybe the helicopter itself was chased?

Nick Pope:

That is a possibility. Until we receive the documentation setting out what these people reported, what we are dealing with is a very confusing situation, with different media reports and different ufo researchers putting a slightly different slant on things. Investigations are ongoing.

Ken:

Has any ufo activity been reported over or near Fairford, a base that the U.S. has military aircraft at. I ask this question, because it has been suggested that some new military aircraft are of the silent type and can look like triangles from a certain angles and are black?

Nick Pope:

I don't believe so, but of course we have just had the international air tattoo at Fairford, which is one of the largest air shows held in this country. There have been a lot of sophisticated aircraft flying around there and some of them will have been training for that before hand. I believe in the next day or two we have the Famborough Air Show and it is one of the iconic military air events that we hold here in the U. K. I think that generally speaking, as I mentioned earlier, you are not going to see secret prototype aircraft at these public air shows. You are going to see sorts of aircraft that the public know and are familiar with.

Ken:

Well some of the aircraft that we see already can look like triangles....

Nick Pope:

Oh yeah, you have only to look at the stealth fighter, the stealth bomber and indeed the new Eurofighter Typhoon, which is the Royal Air Force's replacement for the Tornado F-3 fighter. Certainly delta shaped aircraft, as you rightfully say, they have been in our skies for many years. The other one to report is a very famous old aircraft, the Vulcan, a magnificent aircraft from our past, here in the U. K. At a cost of several million pounds, private enthusiasts here in the U. K. have restored the last flying Vulcan. That took to the sky just fairly recently. It is a wonderful aircraft, but it is obviously a recognizable aircraft. If it flew over your house at two hundred feet, it would take your roof off.

Ken:

I have no hard evidence, but some say that the increase in ufo sightings started near the end of 2005. Would you agree with that?

Nick Pope:

I am not sure, I would have to go into the statistics and I don't really have those in front of me, so I can't answer that with any degree of certainty.

Ken:

Okay.

Is there an increase in the sightings of ufos over military bases in your country, I know that one occurred, as you said, over Shropshire and Fairford?

Nick Pope:

Well again without the statistics, without the detailed breakdown in front of me I.... and again I am always leery of statistics taking a snapshot, I think you have to take a look at them in detail over two or three years, so that you can do some proper trained analysis. Certainly some of the most spectacular sightings over the years have been over military bases. One only has to think of Bentwaters and cases like that. Again, without the statistics in front of me I am wary to start speculating on that in detail.

Ken:

You have a lot of fans Nick. Some people say that you would like to reveal more, but can't because of non disclosure agreements. We all know that most former employees in sensitive positions in your country and here, have to sign them. If you hadn't had to sign one, would there have been more that you would have been able to tell us about ufos, I am not asking for anything specific?

Nick Pope:

No I guess so, but not wanting to sound to clever about it..., of course if I hadn't signed a non disclosure agreement, I wouldn't have anything to disclose, because I would have never been privy to any classified information anyway. Of course yes, all government and military employees, certainly here in the U. K. sign their non disclosure agreements. Over here we call it the Official Secrets Act, that is what we sign, on your first day in government service and also on your last. It binds you for life, so on my last day in government service in 2006, I had to sign a reminder form, as it were, reminding me that just because I left that it didn't release me from my oath of secrecy. It binds me to the day I die and probably further than that, if they could get away with it. To answer your question, yes I think that there are things that if I hadn't signed that, that I might be able to say, but not a sort of space ship in a hanger, as I like to call it, smoking gun. If that sort of thing exists, I was never briefed on it.

Ken:

Is there any one area in the U. K. that you would say is getting the most sightings?

Nick Pope:

No, again it really does seem to be national. There are sightings from remote parts of the country and there are also sightings from some of our major cities. There really doesn't seem to be any particular focus to this. That in itself is really interesting. Again, we are not dealing with a localized situation. We really are dealing with something national and perhaps even international. That is one of my standing points that I make about this. None of this is a national situation, of course it is international and we all have a piece of the puzzle and perhaps it needs better coordination to see if the wave of sightings that we have in the U. K. is actually unique, or whether it is actually part of a wider situation? The problem is that although we have fairly good contact in some countries, particularly some of the western democracies, there are many, many parts of the world where we really don't have access to what is going on. We really don't have an idea as to how many ufo sightings there are, or what sort of cases are being reported?

Ken:

Do you think that any companies, such as UFO Balloons, in London, are responsible for some of the ufo sightings?

Nick Pope:

Well undoubtedly there will be and we talked earlier about sky lanterns, Chinese lanterns, whatever you call them. Certainly ufo balloons. Britain has just started doing some airship flights over London over the summer, again as something for the tourists. All these things undoubtedly will give rise to some ufo reports, because many of these things turn out to be misidentification. I think that is the point. After investigation one can eliminate these prosaic explanations and then focus in on the really interesting cases. Yes some of these ordinary things will explain some of the sightings, there is no doubt about it.

Ken:

Tiny Wales seems to be getting quite a bit of the action, is there anything special there that might attract ufos?

Nick Pope:

Sorry pardon me, where?

Ken:

Wales.

Nick Pope:

Oh Wales yes. I am not sure, I think what happened is because the sighting of the police helicopter took place in Wales, it got quite a lot of publicity. That I think encouraged a lot of people in Wales who had seen things, to come forward. Partly it was the fact that one of the two spectacular sightings that started this coverage took place in Wales, that was a factor. The other thing is that we just had a tv documentary about a very famous case from Wales in 1974 and that I think focused interest again on ufo sightings in Wales.

Ken:

A sighting by a professor at Cardiff University on June 12, was the third in five days in the same general area. The sightings took place in Tern Hill barracks, St. Athan and Brecon Beacons. I believe these places are about in an area no grater than 150 miles, but I could be wrong, but they are pretty close. In your opinion, what would be so interesting about this area?

Nick Pope:

I don't know, I honestly don't know. Again I think we are speculating on what is a ufo and indeed if there is an intelligence behind them, I can't necessarily say that there is. What they would find interesting and what we would find interesting may be two completely different things.

Ken:

Sure.

Nick Pope:

Yeah and the other point is that just because something was seen in a particular place, that doesn't mean that was the particular place that it was most interested in. It may have been on it's way to, or indeed from somewhere else.

Ken:

Some universities in the U.S. Have nuclear reactors on their campuses. Is this also the case in the U. K. and if so, have ufos appeared over these universities?

Nick Pope:

In Britain, certainly when I was in the MOD, we had an absolute policy that we never discussed any nuclear issues. That leads to counter terrorism counter purposes, so that is not something that I can comment on at all.

Ken:

Okay.

When ufo sightings are judged, the credibility of the witnesses comes into play, am I correct?

Nick Pope:

Yes indeed.

Ken:

What do you think that a Royal Navy aircraft engineer saw above the M5 motorway when he reported seeing a ufo? The disc was traveling for up to three minutes above junction 21, near Weston-super-Mare, in Somerset.

Nick Pope:

Yes this is a very interesting sighting and clearly there is no such thing as an infallible witness, but inevitably these two people who witnessed this both worked at the Royal Naval Air Station at Yeovilton. They are both familiar with aircraft, military aircraft, they see them on a daily basis. Yes when people like that, when soldiers, police officers, when pilots see ufos, inevitably I think that the public regards them as I say, as not perfect witnesses, because there is no such thing, but inevitably as slightly better than the average person in the street to estimate speeds, distances, heights. that sort of thing and just to be familiar with the sort of thing that perhaps many members of the public might be less familiar with in terms of objects, or phenomena in our airspace.

Ken:

I don't know if you are familiar with this, but I am going to ask you this question anyway. If you know, has ufo activity picked up around the Hadron Collider site in Geneva Switzerland?

Nick Pope:

I don't know if it has or not, I haven't been following that. I have been following the story of the large Hadron Collider with great interest. As you know it is the largest machine ever constructed on this planet. The massive new particle accelerator that scientists hope is going to unlock fundamental secrets of the universe, relating to the big bang, dark matter, hidden dimensions, exotic new particles, etc., etc. These are tremendously exciting times for science, it is an interesting question. I haven't checked to see if there has been an upsurge in ufo activity or not.

Ken:

I only bring that question up, because you would think that something like that would be of interest, if these were extraterrestrials.

Nick Pope:

You would think so, but then again if they were, they would have built their own large Hadron Collider on their own world and maybe they know the results of these experiments, before we even start them.

Ken:

That's for sure.

Do you feel a certain amount of responsibility to be absolutely sure of something before you say anything about it, because of your former position in the government?

Nick Pope:

Yes I do. inevitably I am not trying to put myself on a pedestal here, but people do look to me to give a lead on this subject. So yes, I try and think carefully and a very important point, I try to differentiate between what I think and what I know. I try and make it very very clear, when I am giving an opinion, or when I am giving a factual answer to a question.

Ken:

The U. K. Is surrounded by the ocean and many people think that there may be bases under the ocean where ufos come from. Have there been any recent sightings of ufos coming out of, or going into the waters off the coast of the U. K.?

Nick Pope:

There have been fairly consistent reports, over the years, of ufos coming out of the ocean and various lakes and things and on the mainland. I mean, I guess It is a trueism that we probably know less about the deep, deep ocean than we do about the surface of the moon. Whether there are bases down there as some people suggest, I simply don't know. I mean clearly it is an area that needs to be explored more, whatever you think.

Ken:

I am going to ask you to speculate a little, would you mind?

Nick Pope:

Sure.

Ken:

Okay.

It seems that the increase in ufo sightings might correspond with activity on Mars. It was recently reported in a not too well respected tabloid, that the Phoenix Mars probe had spotted something moving under the ice and had been shaken violently until the ice samples fell out of the scoop. Do you think that we are possibly provoking more ufo attention by our actions in space exploration, assuming that at least some ufos are extraterrestrial?

Nick Pope:

Well okay, I'll make it clear that this is complete speculation on my part, but it seems logical that the things that we do that would be of most interest, if some ufos are extraterrestrial, are I think two things. Firstly our nuclear activities and secondly our space exploration. I think that those are the things that make us dangerous and make us capable of exporting that danger out into the wider universe. That is obviously complete speculation on my part.

Ken:

Do you think that there is disinformation being put out, to hinder us on ufo investigations?

Nick Pope:

I honestly don't think that there is. I have been accused of this myself. You have only to put my name and the word disinformation into Google and find an awful lot of hits.

Ken:

I am certainly not accusing you.(laughing)

Nick Pope:

In all honesty and I tell you this by someone who has twenty one years experience in government, even if we wanted to we wouldn't have needed to. The ufo lobby is, I think, it's own worst enemy. The government doesn't need to get involved. There are so many feuds and disagreements and charlatans, so many things coming from left field that government, even if it wanted to muddy the waters, absolutely wouldn't need to.

Ken:

Greenham Common used to be an American Cruise missile site and had the longest runway in the UK. Supposedly the runway was broken up and used on the Newbury Bypass. Do you think it is possible that it really wasn't and test fights are being made from there that could be mistaken for ufos and the photos of it on Google Earth are not accurate?

Nick Pope:

No I don't think that's possible. My understanding was that the longest runway in the U. K. was actually the air force base at Machrihanish, Scotland. I believe that was actually designated as one of the diversion airfields for the space shuttle. That might be worth checking out, but I don't see a ufo connection in this and I don't see any need to fool Google Earth on this, or indeed any reason to suggest that this would be done.

Ken:

If we compare the sightings of objects today to those when you were with the Ministry of Defence, are most of the objects described similar or different?

Nick Pope:

They would be similar. Really since the eightys there has been this rise in the sightings, we discussed this earlier, these large triangular and delta shaped craft and again other motifs are fairly common. In the last twenty years, certainly the idea of ufos firing narrow beams of light down at the ground, ufos emitting low frequency humming sounds and particularly the movement as ufo are reported in one moment as moving very slowly, or hovering and then the next moment accelerating away to the horizon. Those are the common things that are reported, but it is not something that changed since I have left the MOD. It has remained pretty constant over the last twenty years or so.

End of Part I