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May 17, 2009 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
55:56
Edition 20 - Psychic Medium Phoebe

First on The Unexplained is Liverpool Psychic Medium Phoebe who made her name as a guest onRadio City 96.7 and City Talk 105.9s Late Night City with Pete Price.

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Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world on the internet, by webcast and podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
Hey Martin, thank you very much for the remixed version of the theme tune.
Do you hear that?
Martin has worked really, really hard on a new version of the Unexplained theme tune based on the old one, but as you hear greatly improved.
Martin, I can't say how grateful I am to you for doing that for me.
What do you think of the new theme tune?
There it is.
That's the one we'll be using from now on at the beginning and at the end of this show.
Now, to business, thank you very much for all the emails that have come in over these months, especially for some reason over the last fortnight or so.
A lot of people getting in touch, some regulars and a lot of people in different parts of the world discovering the show for the first time, liking it and telling other people.
If you like this show, please pass the message on and tell your friends.
That's the way that it will spread.
It's almost viral in the way that it works.
I don't know whether I should say that, what with swine flu being around in this world, I wonder if it will turn out to be a pandemic.
As a lot of the experts say, certainly in the UK, they're telling us we're in for a bad winter here in the northern hemisphere with this, which may well mutate into something else.
But I guess we just have to observe that situation and perhaps in the future, when it has become whatever it might become, if indeed it does, we can talk about this again.
There are people in this world, as you may have heard, who think this is an engineered crisis to take our minds off other things.
Well, that's a subject for maybe David Icke or somebody else who appears regularly on this program.
Coming up on this program, we're going to talk to a man who is perhaps the longest-serving UFO investigator in the UK.
He started his work and a group way back in the 1950s, and his interest began in the 1940s.
The guy's name is Dennis Plunkett.
He was recently featured in a national newspaper in the UK, and we have him on this show.
Before Dennis, I'm going to be talking to a Liverpool character.
She's becoming an institution.
Her name is Phoebe, and she's a psychic who I met up in Liverpool when I was working there last year, and I thought, you've got to hear this lady.
Her reputation in the northwest of England is spreading, and I have a feeling before this year's out, more and more people in the UK and elsewhere will know about her.
And if I can do anything to help that, I certainly will.
So we'll get Phoebe's life story, talk with her very, very soon.
Before that, a couple of things to get through.
I'd like to say hello to a few people who are regular emailers to this show and have supported me consistently from the beginning, both on the radio show and on the transition to online.
Wendy, Sean, Graham, Lee, Steve, Jamie in Brisbane, Judith in London, Charles, Peter, John, who had some very interesting thoughts recently about remote viewer Major Ed Dames and whether we should feature him again.
Chris in Humberside, Jeremy, Roger, Stewart, Derek in Reading, Andy and Shaz, hello, Andy and Shaz, Richard, Phil, Tom in Aberustwif, Tim, Frank, Rosemary in Brighton, hello, Rosemary, Ryan, Joe, Mark at BFBS, Forces Radio, the two Nigels, Ira in the US, Bob, Jimbo, and the show's many, many listeners who get in touch with me from places like San Diego, Bangkok, Thailand, Reykjavik, Iceland, Toronto, Canada, and Africa, South and West.
It's amazing how something that is produced on a very, very small scale, with no budget whatsoever, you know that, can reach out and actually touch people's lives.
I'm staggered by that, and this is a measure of the new media.
The fact that somebody like me doing a show like this in this way, how would I have got it out to you in the past?
Well, probably I wouldn't have even bothered because what would you have had to do?
Duplicate CDs or tapes or something.
Get it on mainstream radio, possibly.
Possibly not if it's the UK, who knows.
But now I can do it directly.
And that's what I think is beginning to happen.
Now, before we get to the guests, I just want to say a couple of words about a subject very, very close to my heart.
And that subject, if you know me, if you've ever heard me, you know this is going to be the case.
It's radio.
I made my first broadcast when I was 16.
I was interested in radio since I was a child.
I've always wanted to do this, and I've never done anything else.
But radio is in a bit of a state in the UK.
Everybody I seem to talk to in the business say it is time for a big change.
Now, there are many good and sincere people running radio stations in the UK, and there are some who seem to have lost their way.
And I think it's down to those of us who've been around for a while and have a view on all of this to get together and do something about it.
Enough people talk to me about it, but it really is time for some kind of sea change.
There is a shift, for example, to listening online.
There is a shift to new forms of content.
This is one of those forms of content, and I'm glad to be in the front line of all of that.
But I do think it is time for a change.
So if you agree with me, maybe you're in this business and maybe you're not.
Get in touch with me at unexplainedh at yahoo.co.uk and let's do something about it.
That's unexplainedh at yahoo.co.uk.
Now I know that speaking out in this way, there are going to be people who will knock me.
It's a funny thing in this business.
There are some people who've really, really supported me right the way through my career.
They've believed in me and I will always, always be grateful to them for what they have done.
They have never wavered in their backing for me and what I do.
And there are others who feel that if you achieve anything, maybe you win a couple of awards here and there, you need to be brought down a peg or two.
Well, I'm still standing just about.
I'm doing my stuff on the internet and working in various places and I'm still here.
And that, as they say, is the way it is.
A phrase that I used to use on radio when I worked in London some years ago.
Now, let's get to our first guest.
I said that Dennis Plunkett, a veteran UFO investigator, is coming up soon.
But before him, somebody I think is going to be a household name in the UK and maybe further afield before very long.
I first met her last year when I did some radio work in Liverpool.
Was very, very impressed with her.
She works with a guy called Pete Price on a late-night phone-in show there on City Talk 105.9 and Radio City.
Her name is Phoebe, and I would like to introduce, in the old movie style, I would like to introduce Phoebe to you now.
Hello, Phoebe.
Did you like the build-up?
I never thought of it was really, I will live up to the expectations that you've got for me.
Hopefully, you know, things are going really well at the moment.
And, you know, as long as I can help, You know, more people, even you know, across the world or wherever.
You know, the more I can give, you know, spiritually to everyone, you know, the more you know, I love what I do, and you know, I love working with my abilities.
Well, you know, everybody these days, it's almost like the 1960s again, I think, Phoebe.
Everybody knows and loves Liverpool these days.
After the capital of culture year last year, it seems to me that the whole world is back in touch with Liverpool.
They do.
I think, you know, people, you know, it's like the coming home, isn't it?
As if, like, I don't know, everything's been, I don't know, relit and, you know, everyone's looking to Liverpool now, you know, for inspiration.
And there's so much going on.
If you know, you go into the heart of the city and everything.
And, you know, I feel, I don't know, as if Liverpool is coming alive again at this moment in time.
I think it is.
I don't think there's been a time like this for Liverpool since the 1960s and the Beatles.
And you know, that I rediscovered my home city last year and I came up and did some stuff and, you know, met you then.
Yeah, yeah.
And I couldn't believe how the place has changed, how modern it is.
It reminds me of some terrific ultra-modern American city.
It's so go ahead.
It was a big deal to Liverpool, didn't you?
Come in and think it was a little bit thingy, but now I think it seems to have come alive again, even as you enter Liverpool.
But the one thing there always was in Liverpool, it's always been a really creative place.
It's full of actors and musicians and artists.
And it's all right to be whatever you want to be in Liverpool.
Liverpool always seemed to me to be open-minded about psychics and mediums and that sort of thing.
Yeah, I think, you know, now it's even become more so.
You know, I think people are so, you know, into, you know, psychics and, you know, psychic ability and meditation and, you know, really looking for hope and inspiration.
And I think now, you know, it really has become, you know, something to be around.
People love being around psychics and, you know, people who give them a little insight into the afterlife and, you know, what's going on around them.
But there's a great tradition of it.
You know, I've never told you this, but my granddad on my dad's side, Granddad Hughes, in Bootle, he used to read the teacups for people.
No, my man used to do that as well.
Isn't that strange?
That's the link we've got.
I don't know whether this is a Liverpool thing.
I know it's a British thing.
I'm not sure if it's something that's known all over the world, but the British love tea, of course they do.
And in the days before tea bags, there were people who would look at your tea leaves in the bottom of the cup and actually be able to tell you your future.
And some of them were very accurate.
I'm told great stories about my granddad just by reading the teacups and the leaves.
Well, you know what?
I think the tea leaves are so accurate.
You can't do as long a prediction as what you can if you're doing tarot or angel cards or a medium ship.
They normally do about six months, don't they?
Ahead of, you know, what's going on around you, six to twelve months.
That's right.
Yeah, they do.
They do, I mean it's very, very, Well, do you know what?
That was the most common thing.
They used to sit around in the rooms, and I think the neighbours and everyone would gather maybe on Sunday afternoons and they'd do little predictions for the whole street.
When I was, oh, I must have been about 20 or so, and I was training to do all of this.
I went to Waterloo, which is sort of fairly posh.
It's north of Liverpool.
And I met this lady who'd been a school teacher.
She was a retired school teacher and she was very Liverpool posh, terribly, very much so.
And she told me these stories about seances in central Liverpool in the 1930s, and particularly about a Mrs. French who used to make spirits or things that purported to be spirits appear and walk around the circle.
Oh, right.
And they'd actually walk around the people that were doing the seance.
Well, there's so many of them, you know, in Liverpool.
Even now, you know, they take place.
You know.
The trouble with it is there's a lot of fakery around, though, isn't there?
Yes, there is.
Yes, there is.
You know, I do agree with that.
There can be, you know, sometimes you can think, oh, how are these people practicing?
You know, and I do get a little bit upset myself sometimes, you know, when I hear of a few tales, you know, about people getting told they've got cracked auras and, you know, pay so much to get it fixed.
And I always say people don't ever pay, because a true spiritual person, if they saw something like that, would, you know, if they could have the ability to heal it, they'd do that out of the goodness of their heart.
They wouldn't, you know, try and con you out of hundreds of pounds.
So I always say to people, be very careful, you know, who you go to, make sure you go to someone who's recommended.
You know, and I suppose also one thing that we always say, and you've got to do it when you do radio, and I'm sure when you do radio with Pete in Liverpool, you know, you kind of have to always say, don't live your life by this.
Yeah, you have to say, I know it might sound awful, but nowadays you have to say, you know, when you've done a reading or when you're about to do a reading, you have to say it is for entertainment and it is, you know, just for guidance, you know, not to live your life directly to what you're told because, you know, you've got different pathways in life and you've only got to take a different turn and life can go in a different direction.
So, you know, I always say to people, be very careful and you know, don't have readings too close together.
If you can, try and space them out because you know, if you go too much, your head can become a little bit chocker, you know, with all the information that you gain.
And well, that's true.
And also, there's a great temptation for people to like psychic shop to go around to different psychics and mediums and try and get a different take on everything.
And, you know, no, two, the truth of it is, from what I've seen over the years, no two will tell you the same thing.
No, no, you know, there's different, you know, and everyone works in different ways because I, you know, work with a group of psychics and, you know, I see, you know, everything they do.
And, you know, we all work differently.
You know, we do have all, you know, the same ability, I'd say, you know, in different areas.
Well, that's interesting.
So you say that you work with a group.
I didn't know you worked with a group.
So how does that work where you all see the same things?
Well, we don't exactly see the same things.
We all do similar work, you know, with spirit.
I work with a group and we do different venues.
You know, we'll give people readings.
We won't actually read at the same time.
You know, it's individual separate readings.
But, you know, you learn spiritually through them.
You know, a little bit of guidance about meditation and certain things like that.
But I see they're all giving out the love and they're all giving out direction.
But they do all work a little bit differently, you know, in some areas.
But we all have the same beliefs, you know, with spirit world.
Okay, now you're, I think, you would call yourself a psychic medium, right?
Yeah, clear audience.
I do work, you know, and I actually see spirits and actually hear it.
So, you know, I do, you know, I see it and hear it.
Okay, and if you see it and hear it, does it happen all the time?
So when you're in, you know, you're in the supermarket, do you still see and hear things, or do you do it to order?
It's quite strange, you know.
Karen's as I've even been on a bus once and I had to tap someone and say, you know, I've got such a person with me, which was quite bizarre.
That was when I was a bit younger and I didn't know how to control it, you know, as well as I do now.
And, you know, I'd approach people and, you know, say things to them.
But I have learned sometimes it's not always good because sometimes people don't want to know, sometimes people don't want, you know, I don't know.
Some people can be a little bit standoffish.
The majority of people love it and they'll gather around you and want to hear more and more.
Well, I think the ones who don't love it, in my experience, they tend to be afraid of it.
They just don't know what to make of it.
Yeah, I always say, you know, if you haven't been touched by spirits or you know, you haven't experienced, you know, a proper maybe reading of somebody, you don't actually know what it entails, you know.
But I think it's something you've got to want to do.
I don't think it should be something you just think, oh, I'll do for you know a joke, just go along.
I think, you know, sometimes people don't take it seriously enough, you know, when they're going for a reading because something might come through and it might shock them.
So I always think, you know, really think carefully before you do go for a reading of anybody.
Can you think of one instance, and you don't have to name any names, don't need to, of course not, but where somebody's come in and you've told them something that's really absolutely flawed them?
Yeah, I can actually, you know, I had a young, I had an incident of a young man come into me.
I won't mention no names.
He'd come into my office, he sat down with me and he was in a terrible state.
He was about 28, I think he was about 28.
And he was in a terrible state when he came in.
He was shaken and, you know, I knew something was terribly wrong with him, but I wasn't actually prepared for what Sally told me.
Sally had told me he'd actually had a fight with his brother five years earlier and he'd actually hit his brother and his brother had died.
Oh my god.
And the lad in question, I had his brother say, and tell him I forgive him because if it wasn't him, it would have been me.
It was just a tragic accident.
Good God.
And had this thing gone to the police and all the rest of it?
Yeah, he'd been actually in prison for two years for the manslaughter of his brother.
It was actually, it was a freak accident.
He hit his head.
Now, you mentioned Sally.
We've got to explain that Sally is your guide.
Yes, Sally's my spirit guide.
I used to have my nan and granddad behind me for many years when I was younger.
And to be honest, they didn't make much sense.
It was a little bit of clash of heads, two spirits at once.
It's like stereo.
Yeah, but then when my aunt Sally passed away just over 10 years ago, she came behind me and, you know, it seemed, I don't know, me and her seemed to work a little bit better.
Now, I've often wondered how this can be.
I've heard a lot of psychics and mediums say that they have a guide and quite often like you, they've got a name for the guide, they know who it is.
And this is your aunt, who's Sally.
But I always thought that when people die, one of the things that I get told all the time is that people hang around for a bit and are around us.
And then they go on this big, long journey to another plane and to enlightenment and all the rest of it.
So how come Sally is still around you?
I feel she must have, you know, what I gather, you know, certain spirits, she didn't actually have any children of her own in life.
She had quite a tragic life herself.
You know, she lost her boyfriend when she was very young in a tragic accident.
He was on a milk float and died over in Birkenhead.
And she never actually, you know, was with anyone else.
So I feel her family, you know, she feels she wants to help still, you know, within spirit world.
So she doesn't want to pass over.
So she's been allowed as a guide.
That's the only way I can describe it.
I don't understand myself, you know, how people get chosen.
Well, I was going to say, you know, she's been allowed to do it.
You say, but who does the allowing?
Who says, okay, well, you can do it?
I've never given someone powerful, but I've never been told.
I know that might sound bizarre, but I've never been told as this big God person or wherever.
But I do gather this higher, you know, authority that, you know, puts spirits in place and, you know, tells them they can guard over, you know, God over us down here.
I've actually had people come up to me who've actually walked in, you know, when I've been doing, you know, readings in venues and said they're living guardian angels down on earth.
And, you know, sent messages to me, you know, said little things to me.
And I thought, God, that's crazy.
Hang on, you've had people walk in who said that they're a living guardian angel.
They're walking, you know, down here with us, you know, within the earth.
And they've actually come over to me when I've been in venues and said, I've got this message for you, Phoebe, you to carry on doing this.
And, you know, I've said to other people, did you just see them as well?
And they're like, yeah, we saw them.
And they've actually come over to me and said, you know, I had one lady come over and she said she lives in Ireland.
And she said, I'm a real-life walk and guardian angel.
She said, I live down here.
She said, Bruh, I'll never pass over.
And it was very strange, you know.
So I'm not too sure about that side of it.
I don't know whether anyone's looking at that.
Well, that's definitely a first for me.
If you know anything about that and you want to email me here at this show, unexplainedh at yahoo.co.uk, if you've got any stories, then I'll pass them on to Phoebe.
Yeah, because she was, you know, from Ireland, a dark-haired lady, and it was the most bizarre thing ever.
But she told me things about myself that nobody knows.
Well, isn't that, listen, before we started recording this, and I won't say the name or anything like that, but I gave you a piece of information that had somehow come into my mind, and I don't know how it came into my mind.
And I debated with myself whether I should tell you this thing, and I did, and you said it made sense to you.
It was right.
Yes, it did.
It did.
It's somebody who's come around me recently, and they are pushing me to do things, and you've answered a question, to be honest.
You know, I know which way to go now.
I'm going to take that as a positive thing.
But I've got to be skeptical about this.
You know, doing what I do, I can't buy into all of it.
So there it is.
I've had this piece of information to give you in my head somehow for a few days now.
And I've thought, am I a nut?
What is this?
Have I got to pass this on?
What have I got to do?
It's just like messages that do get sent.
like signals, isn't it?
You know, like radio and wavelengths Is that telepathy?
Is that some spirit giving me information?
I feel it's spirit.
You know, you know, I feel spirit trying to tell you little things, you know, to pass on.
And something even sometimes you can feel off the person that, you know, you can feel that.
Maybe when you spoke to me, you felt that coming through.
Hey, maybe I should become the first radio psychic.
No, that's stranger things that happened.
The first psychic presenter.
I don't know whether I should.
I felt like when we were together, I don't know.
I just felt such a pull off you.
Well, this is a strange thing, isn't it?
you and I met and we did a little tour of a haunted, well, we'll call it haunted, but it wasn't really haunted in a bad way.
But there were spirits in this big house we went to in Liverpool.
And I've never met you before, and I just felt like I've known you all my life.
It's really strange.
I did feel that, you know, about you.
When I was looking at you and everything, and when we were walking around, I felt so comfortable.
It just felt like second nature walking around.
I felt really at ease.
Strange thing, but I guess, you know, that quality with you helps with your work.
When people walk through the door, they're going to be a bit, unless they're giggly and stupid and they want to know whether they're going to get married anytime soon.
But unless, you know, if they want to know something serious, they're going to be a bit nervous when they come to see you.
Oh, you know, they are, and you'll feel it sometimes.
And you have to, you know, because some of them will come in and they'll say to me, oh, you're so nice compared, you know, to some psychics will make them sit very still, hands still, you know, not allowed.
And I say, no, you should just be yourself.
You know, I don't feel you've got to act in a certain way to impress Spirit World.
You know, just come across as yourself.
And, you know, Spirit World will help you and guide you.
I do hold people's hands, you know, when I give readings, which I can't do when I'm on air, you know, for City Talk with Pete.
But, you know, what I do, you know, when they come for a private reading, I hold the hands and I work with their vibrations.
Because for some people, it's entertainment for some people, it's a bit of fun for others.
But for other people, it's a real serious decision to take to go and see somebody who is, you know, psychic medium.
You've got to watch, because, you know, as I say, you know, I feel like sometimes, you know, you're working with people, it's people's lives, you know, and you have got to be so careful, you know, how you word things and how you say things.
And, you know, I've had some strange cases.
I've even had, you know, women coming in who have been getting, you know, really abused by the partners.
And I've had the opposite, you know, I've had men coming in who have been, you know, getting, but I've had like quite a few cases.
I've got one girl, you know, I've done a documentary recently for a university and she's actually gone down on, you know, she's done a lot of interview and everything because her life's completely changed since she's had her reading, you know, off me.
She's got a completely different person.
She was like trapped within her life.
And what did you tell her that changed her life?
She walked into me and she sat down.
And as soon as she sat down, Sally said she feared for her life, really feared for her life.
She said, This girl I'm so afraid for.
So we started reading that and I started telling her things.
And I said, I could see this partner around her.
I said, and you know, I said, you haven't told anyone how bad it is, what you know, what's been going on.
And basically, he'd been abusing her for over four years, told her she wasn't worth anything, nobody'd ever want her.
Was actually hitting her and things, but she had to hide the bruises, you know, with jumpers.
He was hitting her in places where no one could see.
So, you know, I said, I actually feared for her life.
And if she didn't change within a few months, I could feel, you know, real devastation around her.
Now, look, the sceptics who listen to this show and they email me all the time will say, well, you just looked at the woman.
She probably looked afraid and you just assumed this.
Oh, no, she was full of ultra glow and, you know, she was like quite a little.
She'd actually actually come on and do an interview for you if you wanted one to even, you know, back up what I'm saying because she was so alive now.
You know, she's left them.
She's training to be a midwife.
And, you know, she's getting on with her life.
And, you know, if you see that, you know, if you actually, you know, watch the little documentary maybe sometime about it, you'd see, you know, what a difference that it has made to her life.
And how does that make you feel that you've made that kind of a change to somebody?
It makes me feel good because I'm thinking she would have still been living in that dark place if she hadn't have heard me on the radio.
She said she heard me on the radio and she picked up the phone, you know, and she said she was petrified, but she knew she had to get some, you know, advice.
She wanted someone else to see it, she said.
She said she wanted someone to say this isn't right.
I think for people, you know, the time comes when you know you've got to take a step, you've got to take some action, you've got to do something.
And when push comes to shove, you do it.
And if that something is going to a psychic medium, something you maybe haven't ever done before or considered, then that's the point, isn't it?
That's the tipping point.
You have strange things.
So with me, with spirit, they come to my bedroom even, you know, a few days before their people are due to come through Edens off me.
And they'll actually sit on my bed and try and give me information, you know, before they're even coming.
Like a briefing.
No, I know the girls, Mum went by me mentioning.
I had one girl come and she was coming through to me, saying to me, go to Everton Road, go to Everton Road.
I think you'll know where Everton Road is and live in Road.
Oh, yes, I do.
And I actually had to go there.
It was like the middle of the night.
And my son's friend was here.
And I said, oh, take me, take me, I've got to go, I've got to go.
And I had this young lady just running up and down the road, you know, in front of me in spirit.
And she was saying, my mum's coming.
She had the most gorgeous long red hair, this girl just running up and down the road.
And she said, Tell me, mum, it's not my cousin's fault.
I just got off the bus to step it in the stop early and got hit by a car.
Oh, my God.
And then, as soon as the mum walked in, I knew it was her because the girl just stood behind her.
And it was really, you know, it was really, and I give names and the dates and everything for that one.
So that's really, you know.
And her mum says, anything you want to do, Phoebe or mention it, you know, you can use me.
She said, because it was unbelievable, you know, what comes through.
But it shocks me sometimes, you know, some information you do get.
It is quite strange.
Well, those examples you've given me are some of the best.
And I've been talking to mediums and psychics and people who do this kind of thing for years, ever since I was like a student broadcaster.
They're amazing stories, Phoebe.
Does this run in your family?
Because I met your mum as well.
And doesn't your mum do a bit of this?
Well, she won't actually practice my mum.
My mum, you know, it's a strange story.
She had a shop, you know, here Derek had a shop in Montague Road in Old Swann, Liverpool.
And, you know, underneath that shop, there was found a mass grave.
But when my mum was a little girl, she used to have very strange, you know, occurrences with spirits.
She used to actually see them sit up in bed and watch them carrying boxes, you know, like monks, she said they were with boxes carrying them all night.
Monks?
Yeah, she said she could only describe them as monks, you know, like in long brown cloaks.
And she said they were always very busy.
About 10 o'clock at night, they'd come and she said she'd sit up in a bed, prop herself up and just watch them.
But she said it wasn't until years later that she realised they were spirits because I think then days you weren't allowed to talk about them because she really where her shop was, there was a big church around the corner, and her mum was very religious.
So, you know, in those days, especially in Liverpool, my God, religion is still really strong in Liverpool.
There were things that you just daren't do.
Yeah, it was really strange.
And the monks in the shop, she said the only time she heard them talk, they said they come through a girl called Cassie.
And then this is like really strange.
You know, this is actually a family member, so I know I'm alright talking, you know, about this.
And there was a young girl in the street called Cassie.
And, you know, she was only about 12.
And she told her mum, she said, some men have come in my bedroom in the night and said they're coming to take me over the other side.
And her mum said, don't be silly, don't be silly.
She said, you know, this isn't going to happen.
You're fine.
You're healthy and everything.
Poor little Cassie went out skipping on a step and my mum said she passed away right in front of everybody.
And there was no explanation except for the links.
Another lady up the road as well got told the what's called the men were saying that coming for the little girl on the end of the road she needs to be a helper in spirit.
Now I'm not sure about spirits like that and how they you know command things like that.
It seems a little bit strange but the whole of Montacue Road is really an airy place.
You know with I think there was like 15,000 there were so many bodies found underneath you know and they believe they actually moved on it was a grave you know from the middle of town that they've moved there and because they didn't mark it you know the spirits have been very you know unrest they've been you know looking for rest well you know most people don't know much about liverpool those who don't know liverpool those who haven't lived there those who are not from liverpool but there is some tremendous history there well i know the echo done a piece on that in 1973 it's the local paper yeah the echo you know that
should be down in documents in 1973.
You know, there was, like, a big thing done on that, you know, about the mass grave and everything.
Now, look, Phoebe, in the last few months, I know you've moved to a new office and things are starting to happen for you.
What would you like to happen, though?
Because we talked at the beginning of this about, you know, people who charge fees and they make money out of doing all of this.
Do you want to be a star?
Um, I'm not in it for the stardom.
I just like to help people.
I know that might sound bizarre.
I'd like to do, you know, how can I put it, murder things, you know, like where you could go, I don't know, solve some crimes or, you know, I'd like to do that side of it.
Well, I know somebody who does that in America.
You need to check her out.
Her name is Anna, A-N-A, Vangelina, and she works out of very close to Chicago, and she works with the police.
Yeah.
So maybe you could do a bit of that.
Yeah, I'm really, you know, into that side of it.
I do love doing my stage show work.
I do love, you know, I love it when I, you know, do a good stage show and people come through.
And, you know, like my last one was a bit dramatic.
I had someone's dad come through, and it was quite, you know, I knew the lady wouldn't mind.
He'd actually, I know it might sound awful, but he'd died eating a bacon sandwich, and he said it was the best way to go.
He probably is, you know.
Well, the whole audience will laugh.
Unless you don't eat bacon.
And the girl said, you know, it was typical, a dad to make everybody laugh.
So, you know, I do love doing that, because I love, you know, I love everybody's energy is.
But I'll tell you something.
I've seen some of these programmes of, what's his name, Colin Fry on television, who I think his shows are shown around the world, and I've met Colin a couple of times.
I think it must be the most nerve-wracking thing to go cold in front of an audience, and you're not primed about who's there, and start to tell people things, because there's always the fear that you could be wrong.
Yeah, well, I work, I've been told I work a little bit different to most people, because I'll actually go round an audience, and I'll say it's like your mum, your dad, your sister, your brother.
You know, actually go over to people.
I don't know how I do it, but it's through Sally, I think, because Sally will say her sister's coming through, her mums, and, you know, some of the mediums I've worked with have said you've never seen anybody do it that way.
I haven't heard of that.
I've seen mediums, work audiences, where they've said, now then, I've got an Alan here.
Does anybody know an Alan?
No, I don't do that.
Because everybody knows an Alan.
See, that's what I call a stand.
I always say I don't like someone who stands up and says, do you know this person?
I'll actually go over.
I'm not trying to big myself up, but if you come to one of my shows, he's actually recorded one recently, and you will see the cameraman actually dropped his camera.
Did he?
So you had an impact on him then?
Yeah, I got his friend who, you know, took his own life a few years earlier, and I said it to him, and they actually come as sceptics, and they've gone away believing now.
I once had a thing in London where I met this woman, and she's now gone, she works in San Francisco, I think, as a psychic, and I was talking to her about some projects she had, and I said, who's Florence?
And she said, oh, I know Florence.
She used to work with me in the theatre.
She did a little bit of research, and apparently she didn't know, I don't think, Florence had died.
And I'd said, who's Florence?
Oh, right.
Now, where did I, I don't know, it's all very, very bizarre to me.
It's just spirit, isn't it, giving you messages?
I don't know.
Even when I met you, there was a spiritual uplift, but it's probably as well, because you love it so much, you know, you're really in touch with your spiritual side.
Well, I love all of this.
It's very hard to kind of combine this, because for most of my life, for my career, I've done news.
That's what I did.
I trained as a journalist at Radio City in Liverpool, and I was a hard news guy for years.
But there's always been this side of me, Phoebe.
Don't know what that is, but it's very, very odd.
Hey, listen, will you come back on this show again?
Yes, of course, I will.
Because I want to talk more to you in the future.
Yeah, that's brilliant.
But what I wanted to do, this show's got listeners all over the world, and I won't be surprised at all if I start getting emails from people in all sorts of different places who want to know more about you.
So this is a little introduction to Phoebe in Liverpool.
Have you got a website yet, Phoebe?
I just got a website,
to get in touch with me you can go to yoliverpool.com yoliverpool.com that's easy phoebe listen thank you very much and you can hear phoebe if you're in the northwest of england and you can also hear it online on the pete price show which is a late-night talk show very good award winning in fact in liverpool and that's how phoebe and i first met phoebe thank you very much for coming on oh thank you for having me and that's liverpool psychic medium phoebe and you can find out more about her at yeoliverpool.com and i think you're going to hear more about phoebe
in the Years to come.
Now, as promised, Dennis Plunkett, man who's from Bristol and has been researching UFOs for more than 50 years.
Dennis Plunkett is now online to The Unexplained.
He founded the British Flying Saucer Bureau back in 1953, which he's had to disband now, but he's passing on his records to a new generation of people.
And I'm delighted to have Dennis Plunkett online now to The Unexplained.
Dennis, thank you for coming on.
My pleasure.
Now, listen, I have to apologise to you before I do anything, Dennis, because until I read this piece in the Mail on Saturday newspaper here, in the magazine section of it, I knew nothing about you or your organization.
And you've been around for such a long time, and I should have known.
So I've got to apologise for that.
It's not a real problem, actually, Hugh, Howard, because we had a very, very big start to our campaign, you know, back in the 50s and 60s.
Well, you did.
We had 1,500 members.
Absolutely.
Reading the piece about you and your organization, your interest in all of this goes back more than 60 years, doesn't it?
It does, yeah.
Tell me how it started.
Well, at the end of World War II, I was very intrigued by the information that was coming out of Europe and out of the Japanese period where they were having a confrontation over there with America about the fact that the aircraft were apparently followed into the target by luminous spheres.
And the luminous spheres, in fact, upset the workings of the internal combustion engines in the aircraft.
Were these the thing they call the Foo fighters?
The Foo Fighters, yeah.
Okay.
So that was 1944.
About three years later, of course, unfortunately, my cousin disappeared with the aircraft over South America, you know.
Well, I read about this.
Now, your cousin was on board an aircraft, as you say, in South America, which, if the accounts are to be believed, completely disappeared.
The aircraft, the wreckage of it, has never been found.
Yeah, well, the aircraft was found after 51 years.
It has the dubious record of being the longest disappeared aircraft crash, you know.
And what do you believe happened there?
Well, nobody mentioned the fact that when I did my research after the disappearance, I got in touch with magazines and people in South America and that, you know, where it happened.
Some didn't posit a reply, but others did.
And apparently for the preceding three months in the summer of 1954, that's the summer of Rosswell, of most of the good sightings were around about that time, the early days.
But the thing is that the information that they gave out, and I've got copies of it, is the fact that in the high Andes, there's an observatory called the El Salto Observatory.
And that was monitoring the skies, the ionosphere and the atmosphere around Earth.
And these aircraft type weapons or whatever came into the airspace of Chile at speeds in excess of 3,500 miles an hour, you know.
So there had been sightings around that time.
Things had been happening.
People have been seeing things.
The first country, as far as I know, that was the first country to be visited by UFOs or flying saucers as they were known then, you know.
It's a great big leap between what obviously was a terrible happening there and your cousin disappearing in this air crash, though.
Isn't it a big leap between that incident and you believing that UFOs were connected with that happening?
Well, I didn't think it was such a big gap to jump over, you know, because, of course, the Foo Fighters were already well known for the previous two years.
It was also well known that they affected the performance of the aircraft when they got close to them, the engines, the communications and things like that, you know.
So I thought, well, why is it not possible, especially as there's been three months of activity in Chilean airspace, that perhaps the stardust was affected with an object coming up close to the aircraft?
Stardust was the aircraft, the kind of aircraft.
And having the same adverse effects on the engine and steering and all that.
You don't have to be a very clever person or an engineer to work out that there may well have been a connection.
Well, I thought it was logical because, of course, the Panorama did a programme on it, the BBC, and they said it was all down to high winds, that the aircraft wasn't in the position it realised that it was in.
But I mean, it's a far cry to say that they were only four minutes from touchdown.
That was the message to the man in the control tower.
It's at Santiago Airport.
In theory, they crossed the most hazardous part of the journey, i.e.
the high Andes, and they'd gone onto the flat coastal plain if they're only four minutes from touchdown, you know.
But it didn't touch down, of course.
It didn't turn up for another 53 years.
So very, very old.
So this means that you are left with your suspicions.
Does anybody else, perhaps, in South America, share your feelings about this?
Well, I've not met anyone that shared them as importantly as I do, because, of course, it was a blood relation that disappeared.
It's not just a name conjured out of the space.
And round about that same time in 1952, when we were a fairly strong organization by then, we'd been working and then we became a proper organization in 1953.
You say we, by that time you'd started a campaign and you had members.
There was no internet then, so hard to recruit, I guess.
1,500 members worldwide.
And how did you get members then?
Well, they came through by various means, you know, through magazine adverts and things like that.
And we had loads of letters and loads of foreign stamps, if you were a stamp collector, you know.
And the same thing happened, of course, when the Times wrongly said that we'd closed.
Within two days, I had over 100 international calls from the world, you know, saying, don't close down.
Don't let them close you down.
So isn't it interesting that in a pre-internet era, and these days we tend to think that nothing can happen and you can't get any kind of campaign going and you can't get any kind of interest going in anything without being able to use the World Wide Web, there you were doing it with magazine articles and letters.
And conferences and skywatches and all of a variety of things that people did in those days, you know.
But back in the 50s, I would imagine, the fact I know because I went to school in the late 60s and into the 70s, anybody who had an interest like this was regarded, certainly in the UK where we've always been a sceptical bunch, regarded as being a bit strange.
What was it like for you then?
It was quite bad, actually, in a way, because of the fact that my colleagues, obviously I'd go away for lunch and come back and find all sorts of strange drawings and messages, you know, in the office all about me, all anonymous, but quite humorous to some of them, you know.
I don't think the management looked down on it very happily because of the fact it was interfering with the staid, if you like, the state atmosphere of a drawing office.
I was a draftsman at the time.
And were you working, you were a civil servant for most of your career, weren't you?
No, no, the last 18 years.
Okay.
Before that, I was with Rolls-Royce, with Hawker Siddley.
I worked on Concorde.
I did many of the jobs that were so, how can I put it?
They weren't received gladly by management because we were giving answers like we're going to have late flight dates.
You're not going to sell 200 Concorde.
It's going to be more like 20, you know.
So I joined the Skill Center as an organization that used to be run by the government to train unemployed people.
Well, very valuable skills.
And you're retired, though, now?
I've been retired for ages, you know.
So that gives you more of an opportunity, I would imagine, to pursue this lifelong interest of yours in UFOs.
It's absolutely marvellous.
I mean, look at the people that I've talked to, given talks to, I've been on various TV shows and radio shows, you know, locally and nationally.
And it's been good.
It's been good.
I've enjoyed it.
But as we've said, attitudes back in the 50s have changed.
Things are different now.
Much different, yeah.
I've had some funny things happen to me over the last 60 years.
Well, you have, and certainly reading this piece in the Daily Mail newspaper at the weekend, I was fascinated by your discussion of how it was when you were in the RAF, weren't you?
The Air Force in the UK.
And you had experiences there, but very difficult to talk about those experiences at the time.
Tell me about those.
Well, the first thing I saw was most of England must have seen it, I think, like a comet coming down from north to south.
I think it traversed most of the country.
It was around about lunchtime, you know.
Lots of people reported that, and I actually saw it from the RF station.
But the more important one, and less flamboyant, was the fact that this, I was out on my own checking over the plant that had come back from the Far East.
We had to make mothballing it, you know, checking that it would start and all the rest of it.
I happened to look up, and it was a wet, miserable day in the middle of nowhere, the fight, the camp was, to see a sphere appear out of a cloud.
It was a big dark rain cloud.
It came out, it hovered for a few seconds, or it was very difficult to tell the time.
It was certainly there.
And I was noticed it, you know.
I was starting to take a real interest in it, and it disappeared back into the cloud again.
When you say a sphere, was it a ball of light?
No, it was dark.
It was dark against a light sky.
It came out of a black cloud.
It was a darkish colour, probably black.
And it was one of those awful days, you know, drizzle rain and whatever.
But I saw it quite clearly, and I should never forget it.
And what made you think that this was something...
This was not something that we'd produced on Earth?
Well, the strange thing is that within two weeks, I had this particular order, you know, and other people had the order.
And I can read you the last paragraph, if you like.
This is an RAF censorship order, 30th of 12th, 53, when I was in the station.
Whereabouts was this, by the way?
It's RAF Church Lawford.
It's between Rugby and Coventry.
Okay, so it's like 50, 60 miles north of London.
Yeah.
There's only two paragraphs, the final paragraphs.
The Air Ministry has stated that it's very undesirable for information about aerial phenomenon observed by air crew and ground personnel to be communicated to the press and members of the public before such information has been examined at Air Ministry.
The public attach more credence to reports by Royal Air Force personnel than to reports by members of the public, and it is essential that information of this kind should be controlled officially.
All service personnel are warned that they are not to communicate to anyone any information about the phenomena they have observed except through official channels.
Wow, so they're telling you you're in a privileged position, you need to be responsible and you've got to keep your mouth shut.
Well that came out two weeks after I had seen this sphere.
But that's what they're saying, isn't it?
They're saying you're in a privileged position, you've got to remember that and you need to keep your mouth shut.
Yeah, now obviously I can able to talk to it because several authors over the last 50 years have mentioned it.
They've managed to obtain copies as well, you know.
And with your interest in all of this, was it hard to keep your mouth shut, which they wanted you to do?
Well, it was when I was there.
Of course, I was able to talk amongst my colleagues when I came home on leave for the weekends and that, you know.
And what were your colleagues?
The people who worked with you there on that base?
They were very excellent engineers, electronic people, and that from, mainly from the BAC, British Aircraft Corporation.
So these people would know the difference between something that is from down here and something that is from somewhere else?
Oh, yes, I think so.
And I mean, in those days, it was basically just nocturnal lights, just a light against the dark sky.
But nowadays, of course, you've got objects, for example, the one that appeared over Eupin in 1991 in eastern Belgium, was picked up by five NATO NATO radar sites and pinpointed.
They sent up F-16 top-of-the-range aircraft to intercept it.
And as they went towards it, it dropped, hovering at 10,000 feet, it dropped to 500 feet, 9.5 feet further down, within two seconds.
And no aircraft that we have designed here is able to perform like that.
It didn't did worse, well, more important things.
It made 17 changes of height, speed, and direction in 22.3 seconds, in less than half a minute.
So there's some technology up there, there's extraterrestrial technology on display, I think.
And who were the people who reported this?
Who actually reported it?
Do you know?
The sighting you're talking about here in Belgium.
Were they Air Force people?
Yes, I've got it on tape.
I've got a tape of the Belgian Air Force General.
He had an international press conference to talk about it and to say they'd approach Russia and they'd approach America and us.
And no one Said that they had anything that could do that sort of flying, you know.
Does it frustrate you that from time to time there are reports in our media, and there was one just a couple of years ago where I think it was an Orinye Airlines aircraft flying near the Channel Islands.
The pilot and co-pilot of this plane saw something huge that was tracking them fast and tracking them at enormous speed.
The guy gave an interview to channel television there.
I later tried to interview him and couldn't because he'd stopped talking by that point.
A lot of pilots don't talk about it after the first time.
But this thing was amazing.
It should have made worldwide front page news.
I thought so, wouldn't you?
And it just went away.
Do you understand?
Do you have any idea, having looked into all of this for six decades now, Dennis, why that might be, why these things appear in the distance?
I know that in America they had an act was passed that if any pilot, civil or fighter pilot, reported any UFOs, the penalty could be either $10,000 and 10 years in jail, or one or the other.
And that's well known within the community that those procedures exist, you know.
So I think you've ended up round about with 3,500 pilots have reported UFOs.
But certainly that put a kibosh on the reporting in America.
And other laws they brought in are just as draconian, you know.
I mean, 10 years in jail and $10,000 fine for reporting a UFO sighting.
So people investigating UFOs there and here in this country, perhaps less so in the UK, they were trying to do it with both hands tied behind their backs, really.
But I'll tell you a document which is really convincing.
I have a copy of it in front of me, and it's for early warring in defense of the North American continent.
It's called MERINT.
Have you heard of that?
I haven't.
Tell me.
It's a radiograph procedure.
It says what to report.
And it shows you six things to report.
One is guided missiles.
Next one is a destroyer, a ship.
The third one is conventional bombers.
The fifth is submarines.
And you can guess what number six is.
I think I probably can.
A Venusian-type UFO with the band going around it, like you've gone in Trinidad Island in Brazil some years ago.
So that was printed.
This form was printed in hundreds of thousands of copies and spread across Canada and America for the people, observers, pilots, military people.
But so they were actually instructed that if they saw this sixth item on the list, they could report it.
Oh, yes.
It says, send this to any report, send it to the United States Naval Radio Station, the Canadian Naval Radio Station, the United States Coast Guard radio station, the United States Commercial Radiograph Station, the Canadian Department of Transport Coastal Section.
And there it is.
It's in black and white, and as I say, published by tens of thousands and distributed throughout, well, two big continents.
It's interesting, isn't it, that the Canadians, I think, are quite open about these things.
A couple of years ago, I interviewed a man who you may have heard of called Paul Hellier, former Defence Minister of Canada, who believes and has come out and actually said on shows like one that I did on national radio that he thinks there is more to this than meets the eye.
He's sure there is and people need to know.
Well, I'm sure you're right because I've seen Canadia.
I've had a friend who emigrated to America and Canada.
He finished up in Canada.
But he used to send me regularly letters and in there he also had photocopies that he'd received from the government saying that though things existed, they weren't able to report on them.
Back in 1952, the first study that NASA financed, I think, was with the Brookings Institute, which is a think tank in America.
And they asked them, what would we do, for example, to minimize public panic?
And they said, well, the thing is, if you go back two or three hundred years in history, when the conquestadors and people like that opened up Central America or the Far East and that, the natives thought they were gods.
But the more they saw them and the more they realized they were human beings, the more they accepted them.
And this is the philosophy that the Brookings Institute came up with, that having a form of, how can I put it, you have to change people's opinions about things, and they've done quite well because if you look at the last five Gallup polls between 1950 and 19, the end of the last century, it was back in the early days, it was one in 10 believed, and now it's eight out of ten believed.
So the pendulum is swung right across.
That's right.
I did a radio show in Liverpool about two or three months ago, and there was an item, and I think it was in The Express or the Daily Mail in the UK, that said people's attitudes to not only UFOs, but things like ghosts have shifted enormously recently, and more people than ever now believe in these things.
And it makes you wonder, what is it?
All right, we've got movies, there's a new Star Trek movie out now, but what is it exactly that has made people shift in the way that they believe and think?
Well, I've got a list of documents.
I used to give a talk on why things have changed, and I've got a list of documents, engineering documents, electrical documents, coming out of papers and that, even children's sweet packets.
And there was a tremendous amount of this publicity in an overt way or covert way that was put into advertising, you know, since the Brookings Institute suggestion that you could change people's minds.
as we've said on this show many times before, the general thought is, and that report actually said it, that the thing that would change people's perceptions and perhaps make them not afraid is to use popular culture, movies, radio shows, television, all the rest of it to make them...
to soften them up.
Yep.
I'll tell you what, there are things that make...
And it was just a simple, I think I told you, a simple walk up to the library.
The phone rang in the library.
The librarian beckoned me across.
It was from somebody who wanted me to give a talk.
I asked for a pen and a piece of paper.
She gave the pen to me and jokingly said, I want it back.
But she said, you can have as much paper as you like over there.
And these were slips of paper around about four inches long and about an inch and a half deep.
So anyway, I wrote the contact details down on what was apparently a clean piece of paper, got home, got in touch with the woman, turned the piece of paper over to find that it was the title of a book and it was the Roswell Autopsy.
So I felt very offset that somebody was giving me a nudge in the ribs.
So I rushed back up to the library, they must have thought I was mad, got a table in the corner and went through the 500 pieces of paper.
There was not anything there connected with any fringe subject whatsoever.
So with the one I had.
Doesn't it make you think, Dennis, that there must be more to, as is often said, more to heaven and earth than we can possibly see and experience and know about?
Well, that's a point about this.
You know, I mean, I couldn't come to terms with it for some time because just before that was a bit low.
The ratings had gone down, the number of people in the club were diminishing.
And I thought to myself, I wonder, you know, why should I carry on doing this?
Dennis Plunkett, it's been a pleasure to talk to you.
I had no idea about this story of yours, the six decades of investigation.
I mean, this has been your life's work, it seems to me.
Can I say one thing which I've forgotten?
It's very important.
Please do.
Before the plane disappeared, the Stardust, the Chilean operator at the airfield had a mysterious message come from my cousin.
And the message was not so much a message, it was a single word, and it was STENDEC, S-T-E-N-D-E-C.
And what does that mean?
It's never been explained officially, but I think it starts with S-T-E, so it could be St. Elmo, St. Elmo's fire that can enter a plane and go through the solid plane and come back out again.
It's an electron magnetic type of thing to happen, you know.
But that's the nearest I can get to because it's such an out-of-this-world word.
It doesn't seem to mean anything, you know.
And coupled with what the astronomers said were happening in the same country at the same time, I'm sure there's a connection.
Do you think you'll ever get the answer to it?
I think I'm nearer to it than I was.
Well, Dennis, I wish you well with that, and I'm very, very pleased that you've been able to talk to me about your life's work.
The man's name is Dennis Plunkett, and for all these years, he ran an organization researching UFOs, the longest existing organization, and now he's passing his records on to a whole new generation.
But as we said, didn't we, Dennis?
You can never quite retire from this.
No, it's part of my life.
Dennis, thank you very, very much, and I wish you health and happiness and excitement and interest in everything you do.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for interviewing me in such a gentle way.
Well, no, it's my pleasure.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you.
Dennis Plunkett, talking about a previous era when ufology was a very, very different thing to get involved in, especially if you worked in the UK and perhaps you subsequently became a civil servant.
But you had to be brave and you had to stick to your guns and stick to your beliefs.
And there's a man who clearly did a long time ago.
Dennis Plunkett.
This is The Unexplained.
My name is Howard Hughes.
Thank you very much to Graham Mullins, my webmaster, for putting this show online.
In just a second, I'll let you hear our brand new theme tune from Martin once again.
And just to tell you, the next show is probably going to be a special with a man who's written a very, very dynamic and interesting book about the Titanic.
Now, you might think that you've heard everything there is to say about the Titanic.
I'm going to talk to a man who's got some more to add to this, and what he has to say will fascinate you.
I hope that's whetted your appetite.
Don't forget, you can contact this show on my email address, unexplainedh at yahoo.co.uk, and please register a hit on the website, which is www.theunexplained.tv.
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