Table Of Content

BC.*FERA BUItETEN Journal of the Ilritish [IF0 llesear.ch Association In This Issue : UIi'Os - The Photographic [vitlence I{ypnogogia No: 14 Oct,t'lov 1999 British UFO Research Association Officers and Council Menrbers 1999-2000 Tl'c Bririrh UFO Rcscnrch Associ'rtion (Bt,FORA Ltil, b) cuarrnicd Iin,rxlc(l lt6,t ltcsislcrcd ,nlicu l6 $rxLwrv. Il,ngcss IIill, Sl|sscx, l?lll5 95l. l{cgistt-rc(l i'r t,, (lt) {)t2U492,t. lrrcorl)o|lrli g dle Ilri(ish Itlro Associatioo (foundcd 1962) & (hc l-ondon Ulro ltescarch Organisalion (forndcd I959) cotrNcrL T'ESEAIICII & INVES'TIGATION Stephen Camble (Chairrnan) \'lanfred Cassirer Robert Digby Director of Investigations : Tony Eccles Nlichael Hudson Gloria Dixon Brian James Robin Lindsey (Addless as Central Olfice) N,Ialcolm Robinson John Spencer Email : [email protected] Kate Tavlor Arnold West ., Phone . 0191 236 8375 Director of Research : John Spencer BUFORA CENTRAL OFFICE (Address as Central OIfice) l6 Southway, Burgess Hill, Email : [email protected] Sussex, RHl5 9ST (No personal vlsits) Postal Training Corrrse : Phone. 01444 236738 Dave Pointon Email : [email protected] 5, Chapel Street Web : http;//www.bufora.org.uk Mount Pleasant, Mow Cop Stoke-On-Trent. OTHER OFFICERS Sta{Is, ST7 4NP President (No personal visits) Vice-Presidents Lionel Beer, FRAS Phone. O1182 522620 Arnold West Enrail : [email protected] Membership Press OlTicer James Danby lvebsite Richard Conway UFOCall Jenny Randles Nelvscuttings MichaelHudson BUFORA Bullctin is tlle .cgular publication of lhe British UnidcDtified I;l! ing Obiect Ressrch Asso- ciation. Vie\ys e\Fresscd in subtnittcd contributitus do not rcprcscnt thc \]c$s or frlicies ofllUF( )RA, thc Edibrial board, thc Cotrncil or otlrcr ollicers. e\ccpl $here spccificalh identilicd as such. All rights rescncd. Ihis prrblicali(n fiay nol bc s{orcd or duplicatetl in anr'$al r ithoul the e\press $rillel con- scut of thc publisher. Page 2 n(tFOR,I Itullcti,t CONTENTS EDITORIAL Editorial Science and UFOs ln the lew days before I wdte this both Here & There the newspapers and the lnternet have been full of reports and replies made by astronomer Dr Jacqueline Mitton at The SETI@HOME Projecr a recent scientific meeting. The gist of Steve Gamble her statement seems to have been that govemments have been slow to fund NIC Meeting the search for extraterrestrial lile partly because of the public's obsession with UFOS. Media and the Paranormal Tony Eccles There was much debate over what exactly she had said and if a cerlain amounl of licence had been applied in Hypnagogia & Lucid Dreaming I7 some of the reponing, but never the Kate Taylor Iess it raises an important point. Visual Evidence 23 In the UK a large proponion of 'pure' Brian James scientific research (as opposed to that mainly carried out by companies directed towards a product) is funded Lectures 28 by the government. Research proposals are assessed and rat€d excellent. good and not good. However in most years more than 50o% of excellent proposals have to be turned away because oflack offunds. In this climate funds are givel to those projects that llave the most likelihood of producing successful results. Many I ilr intcrcstud in purchasing olcl ol rhe scientists involved in the few. I.Jlr() ho,rhr and rnagazirrcs. i\nv often privately funded, SEl'l reasonrrhlc oficr'eolsidqrcd. programmes think there is littlc llel,li(.r t('i Ilr: lUikc lludson possibility ol success. And any study (l/o: l'O ltox .17 t of UFOs has sinrilar likelihood. Any ( nnl( rl) u rj thoughts of ollcially sponsored firnded licnt ( ll l(;ll. research must l'ade into the distance l)lge.i I.-ROM III'RE AND spent sonre tinrc ser erelv ill in hospital .I-HERE 1-he gooci nelvs is that he is now re- covering We send hinr our best u,ishes for a speedl recoven' Ncw Council Members BtIFORA Website Wc welcome Kate Taylor and Brian Richard Conrvay and Jav Loring have Jarnes to the BUFORA Council. They been working iard on redesigning the are both well known to many members Bt rFOR{ uebsite This is now begin- as contributo.s to the Bulletin and as ning to take shape Sections about active members of both the Research meetings and pans of the research and lnvestigation sections pages are up and running The website is at : Near Miss wrwv bulora.org.uk The CAA has just released a report on a near miss of an Oslo bound aircralt Bulletin \Yrtiers Panel on l2th June 1998. The pilots reponed that a small metallic object ln order to help in the running and passed within 20 Get of their aircraft. compilation of the Bulletin, a writers The captain first reported a flare. then panel has been assembled. Invites said it looked like a srnall fighter, the have been issued to several people. co-pilot reported just a bright light. We are pleased to be able to report Air traffic control recorded nothing on that Gloria Dixon. Brian James and radar Following their year long inves- Kate l aylor hare-joined tigation. the CAA were unable to iden- 1ift/ the object. Strange Daze Website .lin Keith Following on fronr the announcement in issue l2 that Gloria Diron had be- We regret to report the death of con- come editor of Strange Daze maga- spiracv researcher and aulhor Jim zine. we can no\r report that Strange Keith on 8th September 1999. Re- Daze norr has its oun \vebsite. This pons are that Mr Keith died of compli- can be tbund at : cations during surgury to repair a danr, aged knee. \ ,-\\,1v strangedaze ic24.net Philip Mantle Fornrer Council member Philip Mantle has been in the wars again and has Page 4 The SETI@HOME Project NIC MEETING CAMBRIDGE Steve Gamble 23rd October 1999 gArso uapnn ooufn BceUdF inO RthAe lmasetm Bbuelrles tihna;v ea bI rpidlagne t oo nho 2ld3 ardn NOIcCto mbeeer,t inwgh iinc hC awmil-l been working on the SETI@HOME begin at 2pm and finish at 6pm The Project. This is a large multinational venue will be rhe Family Room. Uni- perxotrjeactet rrteos tlroiaolk cfiovirl ispaotsiosnibsle isnig nrasd oiof corn Public House, Church Lane. Trumpington, Cambridge transmissions. I hope that as many provisional and About five years ago NASA started a accredited investigators as possible project to look for radio transmissions can attend this meeting where there fiom exlraterrestrials using some of will be discussion and debate on the the largest radio telescopes in the issues of BUFORA's moratorium on world. Unfbrtunately, after a couple hypnosis, the postal training course of years budget cutbacks meant that and a general look at the way UFO the project was axed The projecr sci- investigation is conducted and the entists did not just give up, but ser problems that are emerging in several about trying to raise funding for the areas panicularly with regard to UFO project from private sources. This video footage and photographs I they managed to achieve, and so Proj- look tbrward to seeing you all in ect Serendipity was born. I believe the Cambridge. current project is smaller than the one originally planned, but nonerheless ir is Gloria Heather Dixon going ahead. This uses observing time using some of the largest radio telescopes in the world to look for intelli- gent signals across a srnall pan ol the spectrum To do this they target re- scope at Arecebo This means that gions of the sky where there are starts their equipment has to point at that re- gion of the sky that lhe nrain expcri- similar to our Sun nlent wanls to observe, but the believe As a parallel project,. that over a two to three year period SE II@ttOME project seeks ro ma.tph ea they will be able to record all ol'the uhole band of the sky ar high resolu- band they are interested in at least tion twice. l'hey are doing this by piggy backing their equipment on other ex- perinrents using the large radio tele- l'hc SETII@flOMll projccr has less tirnding than Project SelcndipiLl'. al, I)uge 5 thouqh several large conrpanies lrave lonrr thenr nrade substanlial donations (( onrputer manufacturer Sun Micro- The scientific team involved in the slstens is one that springs to mind as project have said that there is only a harinu donated probably several hun- very slinr possibilirv thar the project dred thousand dollars of contputer will find any evidence of extraterrest.i- eqLripment. ) als. But if you don't look the you definitely won't find any evidence However, due to their lack of funds thev have developed a novel way of By the 20th September the BUFORA analysing the data they collect. They team had processed over 300 packets have developed a program which runs of data and contributed collectively on a computer instead ol the normal over one year of computer processing screen saver. This means that when time. the computer would normally be idle it can be doing useful work. There are lhose who will say "Why is BUFORA gelling involved in looking They have recruited approaching I 2 for extraterrestrials?" Well, although nillion people from around the world, over 40 theories have been put flor- in over 200 countries or states to run ward to explain UFOs. one of lhose is this program. When the program the possibility that UFOS are exlrater- starts to run it downloads a packet ol restrial. And since BUFORA is sup- raw d613 4s1q55 the internet Then the posed to investigate all possible theo- computer can disconnect lrom the ries, it is legitimate to look for ET. internet Next time the screen saver activates, the computer starts process- It is the opinion of this writer that ing the data How long it takes to there is no hard evidence of ETs visit- complete work on an individual packet ing our planet, but if evidence is found ol data depends on what type ol com- from space that ETs exist. this possi- puter is being used and how fast the bility must move up the pecking order. is processor When all the work on a gilen packet of data is completed, a (New recruits to the BLFORA team message asks pennission to connect to would be welcomed) the internet. The results are sent back to SETI@HOME and a new packet of dala is downloaded. The downloading process lakes less than five minutes. At SETI@HOME all the results are The BUFORA rvebsite can correiated and if sonrebody finds a sig- nal worthy ol' further study be accessed at : www.bufora.org.uk SE II?HOME send an email ro in- Page 6 The Good, the Bad and chines. the Downright Ugly - a Despite the fhct that some had appre- look at the how the media ciated these early science fiction nov- portrays the subjects of els, the ideas that humans would one day go into space were not really ac- UFOs and the paranor- cepted as people were using steam, mal. gas and plimirive inrernal corrrbubtion engines as a means ol travel alongside Part Two horse and caniage. ln 1898 a German Anthony Eccles produced car called the Cannstatt The idea of this anicle is ro examine Daimler could travel at a top speed of how the media has treated the subject 25 mph. On Dec. 17, 1903, two of the paranormal over time. I have American bicycle nranufacturers, Or- specifically focused on the subject of ville and Wilbur Wright, made the tirst aeroplane flights in history, near Kitty UFOs. Hawk, in Nonh Carolina. Orville flew ln Part One I explored how unusual their wood, wire, and cloth aeroplane aerial craft had been reported and por- 37 metres at a speed of 48 kph. ln trayed in the newspapers, especially 1900, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin with the multitude of'scareship' sight- flew his first airship, the LZ-I. lt was ings that were observed in the US and 128 metres long and could reach a top Europe in the latter pan of the nine- speed ofabout 27 kilometres per hour. teenth century. These mysterious air- Fantastic speeds and altitudes were lhr ships lhat were noted as travelling from being obtained. But few had rec- great distances in such shon time ognised that the human ability to cre- spans. These machines seemed to go ate first in the imaginations ofthe nrind slightly beyond the capabilities oi the would eventually one day beconre a airships being created at tlut time. physical reality. Obviously. the idea about flying ma- Like anything else rhat is created, in- chines was not new. Sometimes an ar- ventions and their moditications were ray of new spangled machines became a time consuming aflair, they become the focus for fantastic voyages into rapidly improved during periods of unconquered territories such as outer warthre. Therefbre, space travel, at the space. Jules Verne had wrilten a book beginning ol the twentieth century, about a journey lo the Moon during was not seen as a realistic concept ex- the later years of the nineteenth cen- ccpt. perhaps, with the passirrg ol'a 1ury, where the human spacemen had great length oltime At a linre when encountered Moon beings. H.G.Wells pcople were witnessing nrysteriuus air- wrote, irr 1897, about rhe Earth being ships and their unusral pil()ts. real air- inraded by Ma ians that wreaked ship and aeroplane teclrnology was haioc in large tripod walking nra- vcr.r- linrited. 'lhe invcrrtions rvc have I)age 7 c:realed lbr today be-uan as nrere erents reach the pavei rrf thc newspa- lhoughls in the imarrinations of crea- persn If so. uould lher have received tive peofle, such as authors. just over Arnrv Intellieence backins that stated a hundred years ago that these things uere being seen lor real and that they did not know what This ties in nicely with observations was responsible for them? My answer about exotic IJFO sightings in that the to that would be no UFOS take on the appearance of shapes that later become the shapes of The Second World War had ended by our own advanced technological air- plunging the world into a new era, the craft. Atomic Age This vias the beginning -Ihe of a v€ry tense period of politics that first half of the century was a fas- was known as the Cold War. This was cinating era for tjre observations of a significant time as the observation of strange anomalies and experiences. unidentified flying objects by credible The popular texts lend to cover UFO witnesses had increased, especially as sightings from the Ninete€n Forties, the public became more aware of what and particularly fron] the US, more Alomic science could accomplish, such lhan anywhere else in the world This as exploring into space. can be possibly explained due to the fact that there is more information t would like to draw the reader's at- available reearding US sighlings Typi- tention to a wave of sightings that cal of this was a fascinating event that really began in the Thirties, but re- was seen in the press and was known ceived recognition again in 1946, and as Foo Fighlers These were seen dur- had appeared over the skies of Scandi- ing the Second World War and were navia, especially Sweden. reported seriously by the newspapers in the belief that they were unique se- Up until this time the press had always cret weapons being built by Germany been curious about the subject of UFOs and have been willing enough to 'fhe slories of pilots \rere sometimes tell people's experiences as they were supported by statements made by the reported to have happened without un- Arnry Intelligence who were obviously necessary ridicule or scepticism. Dur- interested inlo looking closely at such ing this period, the Swedish 'ghost a weapon. Surprisingly, at the close of aeroplane' phenomena took the Euro- rhe War the Allies had discovered that pean press by storm, it appeared to not the Axis forces had come across these only sppsxl lo the public s curiosity strange fireballs too, calling them Feu- but it also carried with a number of se- erball. One ol my arguments was that rious implications for the Srvedish ilthe Allies had known that these were authorities and about the nature of the not secret weapons and that they could subject itself not identiS the source of such a phe- nornenon, would the reports of such The sightings had consisted of huge Page 8 t t, tRt th chn muhi engines craft that hovered and craft being tlown over Sweden! f.lerv over a number of cities making a thunderous noise. One such exanrple Such visual experielces had described had even occurred over New York on a variety of crati. but all ol them ap- the 26 December 1933 The New peared with no markings ol tlreir York Times had reported the incident body ln l-cbruary lOl4 tlrcse siBlrrings describrng the mysrerious object as cir- were rapidly increasing This alened cling over New York with such a tre- the Swedish governrncnt. For the first mendous noise and tlying during a ter- tinle the joint def'ence ministries of rible bhzzard At 930 in rhe rnorning Sweden. Norway and Finland decided the aeroplane had been visible than to carry out an investigation, in an at- ranished only to return nearer three in tempt to recognise the origins of these the atlernoon. persisting llying in mysterious aircrali. weather nor suited to any flying at all. All airflelds had cancelled their flights Description details, conveyed by pub- throughout rhe time ofthe blizzard, no lic and rnilitary observers, were very emergency landings had been made, no sinrilar. The 'ghost aeroplanes' were aeroplarres were reported as missing, Iarger than anlthing that had been en- lo aircraft had been logged as flying countered, even by the standards of fbr that day! aircraft being developed in Europe. They could fly in all weather condi- In Pite6, Nonhern Sweden, on the 22 tions and ovcr dangerous mountarn January 1934 a clergynran of Lang- terrain The combinat;on of govern- trask had reponed that during the pre- ment eftbds came lo a blank, they vious two years he had seen strange could not find thc country ot origin, craR in the sky rimc and time again bases fbr the aircrat'r to fly liom and 'lwelve of which had flown over his ground guide lbr the weather condi- parish in the summer of 1933, one af- tions. ter the other and always in tlre same A direction soulh-west to nonh-east. press release was made by the Each ofthese weirdly shaped craft had Swedish Major-General Reulersward, flown at a very low altitude with no wlrich said, markings or national insignia. One on ''It i.s ohyious.fntn u co tp.u.i.\on ol occasion they had flown so low that tlk.\t' tL'lln't:i th,t rllcg ,u tnll t: wthheract aappppeeaarcreJd t oto b cb elh raee c lonctnkpuitl:! iAn tuking pluce ()\,et .)tr milii(u), tc- striking detail was that the machines had only one wing on either side A Ilot), report.\ huve hccn ret tit,td fion detail that occurs in aircrail during the n:liubla par.xtnl tho lwvL cLttt'll oh- late thi ies and early fblties suclr as scrwd /htse nystariotls fltu.s. Atrl thc aircrali lionr the Second Wollcl Warl .strtrtc rth.ser*tti0rt i.t nale rtlrtrtcdl-1'. lliiJ Ilrc cl(tgvl aD scrrr iu.h Arr irrr. lht ntrluttc.s pot.tt.t.sttl tk) ttu/r()n4l Itr.te ', ,/t\igniu (n idulific.tli(rt Dtdrk.\. Jt i\ Back to S\\ed!.n ard a decade later. tnrJro.t.\thl( tu) c\l)luin e|'o)' lhr vhol. aller a de\astalins \\orld War. the lrlrctrrn(Don o.\ inqgi otion. lhe huge ghosl aeropianes rrere suddenly qtk'sli(nt i.\, vho qt'e thev oLl v'h)' replaced bl phantonr rockets or'ghost hova tlrcy penatroted our uir,space? " rockets . This uould be a good example of any apparent paranormal attach- Between 1934 and 1936 the phenome- ment to these sightings illusrraring that non seemed to disappear. Well lor a the phenomenon appears to stay one shon while anyway, but the sightings step ahead of our own technological returned in 1936. The objects had inventions. A decade later tbese'ghost llown funher nonh this time. passing rockets'would appear at a time when in a soulherly direction over the top weapon scientists were working on the half of Norway, then diagonally into development of rocket and missile ca- Sweden and then back again. pabilities. A method of either deliver- ing an atomic bomb to an enemy na- To deviate slightly, it would be worth tion or take hunrans to the stars. mentioning that in this year a film hit the cinema screens in 1936 which Concern in Scandinavia was shown in starred Raymond Massey It was based the way large numbers of biplanes on a novel by H G. Wells called The were deployed by the Swedish Air Shape ofThings to Come, the film was Force to intercept these 'ghost rock- called Things to Come. Briefly, the ets'. Media coverage of these events film depicted the Earth after a terrible was not only extensive, it had also rvar. A plague ensues wiping out most consisted of a number of rare photo- of the population The few survivors graphs that had captured the phenom- begin a new life and rebuild society. ena in flight The; invest their few resources in technology, but they are unable to sus- These 'ghost rockets' had closely re- tain life on Farth for very short time sembled the Cerman V-2 rocket What is created, with this technology, bombs that were used by Hitler to tar- is a single rocket ship which is de- get civilian centres in England and signed to send a selected lew to a dis- France. Rockets had actually been wit- tant but fertile planet lhat could sup- nessed crashing into lakesl Further- port human life. Maybe I could sug- more they seemed to be busy crashing gest a tenuous link between science into lakes than the land itself. tlction and real experiences on a sub conscious level. If we had film lootage However, by 1946, rvho rvas still using of these ghost aeroplanes from 1936 these rockel hombsn Were the Ameri- would we todav recognise the basic cans and Soviets experimenting with shape as a B-52 bornber, for example, V-2 lechnology or er Scandinavian air- the kind that were used in Vietnam? space? lfthis was tlle case then the US Government had not mentioned any- Page I0