Two items from my tv show - Philip Mantle from Flying Disk Press on his new Ufology Blue Plaque idea - And the full version (without the tv tech glitch!) of ex-police officer and veteran UFO investigator John Hanson's research on UK police forces' investigations into UAPs etc...
Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
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Now, on this edition of the show, two things to do.
Number one, we're going to catch up with Philip Mantle from Flying Disc Press about what I think is a great scheme.
He's actually beginning to give out blue plaques to put on places marking great events and great individuals in ufology.
The first one is being presented to Calvin Parker, the man behind the Pascagoula case, you know, the alien abduction in 1973 of Calvin Parker and Charlie Hickson by a strange craft with strange beings on it, and many witnesses more appearing even now, even this last year, as Philip would tell you if he was here himself.
So Calvin Parker gets the first one of these, rightly, I think, for his very credible and very fascinating story, but there are many more to come.
So that's the first item from my TV show.
The second item is one that we had a problem with on TV.
And thank you for pointing it out because I didn't know about it until after the show ended.
And we had John Hansen on, former police officer, one of my favorite people, one of my earliest guests on The Unexplained, who's worked so hard with The Haunted Skies books, and now has what I think is a terrific book.
Great book full of illustrations and documents and proof items.
It's called Policing the Haunted Skies.
Many stories of UFO cases that were investigated and sometimes clamped down on and shut down by officials, by British police forces up and down this great nation of the United Kingdom.
So we spoke with him about that.
On television, there was a glitch.
And for some reason that I don't know, they're still investigating it.
Commercials and promotional items were fired over the top of my TV show, spoiling the last 10 minutes or so.
So I'm going to get for you here the full sound version of this with John Hanson so you can hear the conversation as it was meant to be on television.
And I am told that whatever happened, technically, will not happen again.
Like I say, they're investigating at the TV station.
And as you know, I have no control over any of that.
I do have control over the website, the name, the intellectual property, the show, you know, the podcast here, everything else.
But I don't control what the television station does or the technicalities of what they do in their studios.
So, you know, I know that you know that, but just to make that point, and I am very sorry, you know, on all our behalves that that happened.
But you're going to get the full sound version here.
Radio listeners heard it okay, but TV viewers had a problem with things appearing that shouldn't have been there.
So I'm sorry for that because we lost some of the content, but it won't happen again.
All right.
Let's get to the first item then.
Philip Mantle and the blue plaque scheme for great UFO individuals and great UFO happenings.
I think you've had a great idea, Philip, to do this blue plaque scheme to recognize some of these people.
Talk to me about how that idea came about, will you?
Yeah, I mean, I was just walking around the town where I live, Howard, and we have a couple of these blue plaques on the wall.
And I'm sure people are aware of them in their own towns and cities.
Most of them are done by English heritage.
And it's some dignitary in the past who did something, you know, good for the town or invented something.
Most of the people have long since been forgotten, of course, but it's nice that they're commemorated.
And I just thought, well, I've been involved in ufology for over 40 years, and we never give ourselves any credit anywhere.
So I thought, well, can I do a blue plaque scheme and fund it myself if it's not too expensive?
I had no idea if that was possible.
So I looked online.
Yes, I can get a smaller version made at a reasonable price.
And I thought, well, why not?
Let's do it.
And, you know, I've been working with Calvin since 2018, and he just seemed to me to be the obvious choice.
He's not in the best of health.
He's actually moving house, or hoping to.
So I thought, well, it'd be nice to put the plaque on the wall when he leaves.
Are you going to go there to where he lives and put the plaque there?
No, it's actually en route as we speak, Howard, across the Atlantic.
And, you know, Calvin is aware it's coming.
Where he puts it or what he does with it will be entirely up to him.
But I've explained the procedure.
And, you know, God willing, next year I'll do a couple more.
And this is meant not just located in the States or in the UK, but I'm looking internationally.
But it will just be me that makes the decisions.
I don't think it's the kind of thing you can do by committee, Howard.
Now, we'd probably be squabbling for hours or something.
If you were to design, what do they say?
If you design a car by committee, it would have square wheels.
So it's much better that you do it yourself.
But, you know, I can think of some cases if you want to go around the world.
There's the Varghinia case, Varginia case in South America, which would be very good where aliens are said to have literally walked down the street.
That would be a good one.
Well, there's also UFO researchers as well, Howard.
You know, again, nobody gives us a pat on the back, do they?
We're not in the honestly skipping here.
I don't see me or you getting RMBE or well, you might get a knight of now.
No, I think I blotted my copybook years ago.
It's not going to be coming my way.
But it's a great idea.
There are loads of people.
And I think you should go slightly left field with it.
I don't think you should start necessarily, I mean, here I am telling you what to do, but the obvious people, maybe leave them a little later down the list.
And some of those people who've been forgotten.
I tell you what I would do.
I would be awarding one to Stanton T. Friedman's widow family.
Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of ideas.
I mean, I have a list, Howard, and I've also been speaking to one or two colleagues in different parts of the world.
And they're talking about people who we've probably never heard of, if we're honest, but nonetheless, they're just as important to the subject as anyone else.
So we'll wait and see.
The first one's on its way.
I've got a few.
I want to get a few good ones up and running.
And then people are aware of it, Howard.
And then, you know, I'll happily take suggestions like the one that you've just offered now with Stan.
And there's a book in it.
There's definitely a book in it because you can bring all of those stories up to date and you can, you know, photograph if the people are still alive, the blue plaque with the people.
And if they're not still alive, the blue plaque on the location, whatever it is.
Well, I had a TV producer say the same thing to me.
He said, there's a television documentary here, Philip.
You going around the world, you know, sticking these plaques up or with ever, whoever.
And I said, yeah, it'd be great as long as you're paying for it.
Did the line go quiet then?
No, I mean, he just came out of the blue.
I just explained what I was doing.
He said it would make a great TV.
I think it would.
And can I just say, if they're looking for a narrator, I am both number one, available and too cheap as the bosses of this TV.
Well, I would say if they're looking for a presenter, send Howard.
I'll just pick the location and send Howard.
You know, why not?
I'm very flexible.
I think it's a great idea that you've had.
Nobody's had this idea, but that's why you're doing what you do, Philip.
What's coming up in the book line then?
What can we expect next?
Well, we'll stick with Pasca Gula because next year is the 50th anniversary.
As I said, Calvin's not in the best of health, but myself and Dr. Irina Scott have a new book out next year.
And it's a lot of new information in it, Howard, that you will have never have seen before.
You will get a copy, I can assure you.
And it will be the hardbacks.
I know you like them.
I love that.
I didn't look.
I mean, we have to say that your books are available in paperback, but the hardbacks are particularly special.
I love to get one of those coming.
Well, next year, with it being the anniversary, we've also worked on a three-part television series documentary.
So that will be out.
And there's even a graphic novel.
What I agreed to do when I first started working with Calvin Parker was to try and leave his story as a legacy.
Because he's not going to have any grandchildren.
So we'll tell your story in the best way we can and make it available to whatever audiences we can, big and small, Howard.
We have a four-part TV documentary drama series, all written by a professional writer.
We just want somebody to come forward and say that that's for us.
But aside from Pasca Guggler, you know, the books continue.
And I must, I'll have a good slate of books from first-time, some of first-time authors here in the UK.
They'll start off recounting their own experiences and how it affected them, then on to other sightings that they've investigated and so on.
And that will continue.
We have others from across the pond in the US.
Philip, they're counting me down.
I'm sorry.
That's what we've got in a nutshell.
it's going to be a big year check out the website which is Philip Mantlevar and don't forget to look out for more great books over this next year, 2023, upcoming from Flying Disc Press.
Now, as I said, the conversation with John Hansen that was spoiled on television.
This is the sound version in full without the glitches in it.
And we're talking about his great research, Policing the Haunted Skies.
Coming to you from London every Sunday night, as it is here in the United Kingdom.
Sunday afternoon, if you're in the United States, Monday morning, if you're like Shane watching in Sydney, or viewers in Singapore and Japan, like Philip Jackson, who's watching in Japan, I know at this moment.
We encircle the globe like a large intelligent blanket.
Well, fairly intelligent blanket.
The Unexplained with Howard User.
If you want to check out my website, it is theunexplained.tv.
My Facebook page is the official Facebook page of The Unexplained With Howard Us.
It's so nice to be back, you know, in front of the bright lights with all the atmosphere of showbiz all around me here.
If only you knew.
All right, let's talk with an old friend of this show.
It's been a couple of years since we've spoken, John Hansen, UFO investigator, man who diligently does his research, former CID officer with the West Midlands Police.
And according to the forward of his new book, which is all about police, logged and reported UFO cases, the forward is by Leslie Leake, retired Staffordshire Chief Inspector.
He says, John Hanson, former CID officer, as I said, is arguably, in my opinion, one of the finest researchers and writers of the UFO phenomenon in the world today.
You're going to get no disagreement from me about that.
John Hanson, thanks for coming on.
Long time, no talk.
Absolutely right.
It's a pleasure.
And thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to come on and talk about something that I'm very passionate about, as you know.
And this is like, I've been doing this for 27 years.
And you've given so much of yourself of it.
To it.
Sorry?
You've given so much of yourself to it.
Well, I have.
I mean, in a nutshell, if anybody thinks that they can write books on the chosen subject and make money, and I've never made a penny.
And I think it's important to point that out, mainly because it's cost me a bloody fortune.
But I feel, as I said, passionately, that I'm there to preserve people's records for posterity, and I've traveled all over the country.
And you yourself were kind enough to do a forward.
I can't remember which book it was.
I think it was two books ago, John.
I think.
Even I've lost track of them.
A few books ago, yeah.
I was working on, I'm going to look at volume two and three yet on this.
But I will say that I've been very kindly assisted by, well, I don't think this happens very often.
We've got a serving police officer, Inspector Roy Teague, who's assisted with contacting the National Association of Retired Police Officers and asking for people to come forward.
And quite a lot of people have come forward.
And really, to cut a long story short, you know, there's something pretty inexplicable out there.
There's a lot of evidence in this book, but there's a lot of evidence in other books.
But I think you're the only guy that gives me coverage and gives me time to talk about these things because sadly, for some bizarre reason, I can never get anybody from the press interested in any publicity at all.
Leave it with me, Carl.
Why is that then?
Well, it's just maybe I look.
You say it's not.
A lot of it is the way that you put yourself forward, I think.
And, you know, some people are better at putting out press releases.
Maybe, I don't know.
But it's just, and also it's just being at the right, you know, the story of this life, as my father, who was a police officer, as you know, used to say, son, you've got to be in the right place at the right time.
So you're in the right place.
This is the right time.
Let's talk about the book, Policing the Haunted Skies.
Now, listen, if you're all right with this, and let me just say right up front.
I'll send you a book, actually.
Yeah, no, I've got the PDF.
I read the PDF today.
I'll send you a book.
All right.
Well, no, I'd like to have.
And could you sign it for me?
Of course I'll sign it.
No, we haven't talked about it yet.
No, no, no.
I'm sorry.
It's important.
Right.
All right.
We'll give you an address to send it here.
That's that out the way.
Let's talk about the book.
Now, you go through it, and I think it's a very good way of doing it in force order.
So we start at Avon and Somerset, and I think offhand we go all the way down to South Wales with an S. Maybe Warwickshire.
Is it Warwickshire?
No, no, no.
We go down to the Metropolitan.
I think it's Met Metropolitan.
Right, yes, you do.
You do.
And I think there is one South Wales case.
But anyway, let's start then.
And before I do start, let's say this.
You've got a lot of cases in here and a lot of documentation and a lot of quotes from people who were serving police officers that other people don't have.
That's the thing we have to say up front here.
You know, we've all heard, and there are great stories of Alan, we've heard of Alan Godfrey's famous case in 1980.
Wonderful story.
There are many, the Calvine case, we know about that, and the police were involved in that one.
But you've got a lot of stuff that other people don't have.
Now, that takes a lot of work.
But just before I start digging into the stories and telling you which pages of the book they're on, so you can be on the same page as me, how did you do this?
How?
How did you get all of this material?
Well, because I went originally, this started in 1995 when a very close member of the family, a police officer, joined in 1995 in Birmingham.
He saw something very odd along with a number of other witnesses.
And at that time, I just retired and he contacted me and said he'd seen this UFO.
And I thought he was the worst for drink or he was off his trolley.
Because, of course, I never saw anything during my service.
And I thought such things were the figments of imagination or excess alcohol.
And it was only when I checked out and then found a number of other sightings in a particular around that particular period, I wrote to the British Astronomical Association.
And I never forget these things.
A guy called President Mobiley, I think his name, sent a postcard to me saying he told his fireball coordinator to stop getting involved with UFO nuts.
So he's classed me as a UFO nut.
And it's crazy because all we seek, it really is an answer.
I mean, and as I say, I was hooked.
I wanted to contact as many people as I could.
And over the years, you know, there's so many people, as I say, that I've tracked down and traced.
One of the original ones was Police Constable Roger.
I never know how to pronounce his surname.
It sounds a little rude, but Police Constable Roger Willie and PC Clifford Waycott.
And that was the 24th of October 1967.
And that was a very short period of time in which so many people reported seeing what they described as a flying cross.
And it was a flying cross, but it certainly, in my opinion, looked like a cross, but it may well have been parts of it we couldn't have seen.
But a lot of people saw that and it was explained away as Venus and clearly wasn't.
Where was this?
So that was over at Devon, in Holsworthy, Devon.
And I managed to track down so many people in the space of one day that had seen it.
Clearly, it wasn't Mars or Venus or whatever.
And the disparaging, the discouraging thing about this business getting involved is one's inability to try and convince others.
And I appreciate we've had this conversation before, because there's something out there in its entirety.
And you mentioned about Alan Godfrey and one or two others, but that's the singularity.
The entirety Is masses and masses of sightings.
And one of the reasons why myself and a lady called Shirley Edwards will probably give me a rollic information of her name.
She's on the back.
She's been helping me do the archives.
Well, we can check with the archives.
If you give me a specific date, I can check the archives.
And we've got, what, sort of 26,000 files here.
Most of them are original statements.
So we can produce the evidence.
But quite often, in passing, and what springs to mind is the BBC One show invited me down to Rendlesham Forest to have a natter about Colonel Holt, who's a friend.
And I'd said to the director first, well, look, you know, it isn't just about December 80.
There's an awful lot of other files I've got with similar objects seen.
And the lady initially said, well, bring them down.
And then when I took them down, she said, I don't want you to use them.
So it was judged in its singularity.
And that is a problem because there's a massive amount of material.
I mean, that's the problem, isn't it, John, that you can easily get buried in all of this stuff if you're not very careful.
So I have a little tiny bit, even though they're at the BBC, I have a tiny bit of sympathy for that producer who said that.
But equally.
But no, but equally, I'm with you if there's other material.
Now, 1980, we weren't going to talk about Rendle, but let's just briefly do it.
But yet another anniversary is coming up next month.
So let's just talk briefly about Rendlesham.
I've heard from many people that it wasn't just those three nights of activity, but there was a prelude to it and things happened after it.
So presumably you have some of that information.
Well, of course, absolutely.
I mean, there's so many things spring into my mind about those particular sightings and sightings from Hull and sightings from Hopton in Norfolk, triangular objects.
And I interviewed that family and they were threatened.
And it just goes on and on.
And perhaps, as Dr. Alan Hyneck once said, after he began to believe in the existence of this phenomenon, we are too rich in imagery.
And that is the problem.
There's so much, but it's important that it's preserved.
And yes, the Rendlesham case was certainly very interesting.
And I'm trying not to talk about it because I could natter all night long, as you know.
So I'm trying to restrict because I could talk about the Hull and Colonel Richard Spring and what happened in Hull, precipitated visits by senior officers to the air base in January.
And it just goes on and on.
And when you talk about something that happened in Hull in the January, is that the January of 1980 or the January of 81?
It would be, no, it would be December of 1980 or September.
It's in, no, it's not in this book, it's in the book.
Do not publish a book six or 700 pages because the cost of ink's gone up.
And I don't put my book on Amazon because Amazon are too expensive.
So I print my own.
And we've got a colour edition.
I think you deserve a colour edition, not the black and white.
No, I've got the colour PDF.
Okay, we've covered a lot of ground there.
And I think we need to have a separate conversation about it.
I'm just going to shut up.
No, it's fine.
I like to hear you talking.
You know, the worst possible thing when you're doing this, if somebody gives you one or two word answers, that is the interviewer's nightmare because you literally, you've got to be, and I'm very good at another question, another question.
Let's dive into the cases then in the book.
Crack on, then, as they say.
Crack on, exactly.
Page 25, Avon and Somerset, starting with the A's.
Police officers attend the scene after a report of three spheres seen in the sky.
Jeffrey Bird, an investigator for Probe, which I assume is a magazine, told of a number of interviews held with a resident of Withywood, Bristol, known as Mr. P, who was out fishing with a friend, Jim, on Portised Docks one afternoon in 1947.
Now this is, 1947 is the year of Roswell, we have to say.
That's right.
When they noticed what appeared to be an aircraft on fire.
As it got closer, they saw a circular angled object, aluminium in colour, showing a pimple or a dome on the top.
Now, this is 1947, and as you're going to tell me, that is a classic UFO shape report.
But look at the year that it happened.
1947.
Yeah, well, we've got sightings from Herefordshire.
I'm not even sure if this is one in the book where I traced a lady who's lived in Fownhope, Herefordshire.
And her July 47, when the guy that runs the farm and the lady that lived there, housekeeper, were awoken at about three o'clock in the morning and they ran out.
He picked up a shotgun, went out, and they saw this thing had landed in the apple orchard.
And initially, if somebody had said this to me when I first got involved, I would have thought, right, I find that very difficult to believe.
But I listened to what they'd had to say, and it was fairly, I managed to track down that they'd lived there, they both passed away.
But clearly, something very unusual had happened.
And the story was that the MOD and the, wasn't the REF then, was it, but the REF came and they were warned to keep quiet.
And a lot of these reports, you look at hundreds of reports, there's no embellishment.
They nearly always follow the same characteristics.
So the Herefordshire one is of interest, particularly in view of the fact an incident that happened in 1999, Which I would like to just briefly mention because that is a lady called Doris, a sweet lady who was on her way home with a daughter, Cheryl, New Year's Eve, 1999, and just coming up to Wigmore.
And I only spoke to her last week, Doris, and this thing appeared over the top of the vehicle.
And they're not the only ones, but the worst part about this is that when Doris got home, she had quite, she had a hole big enough to put your fist through in a chest.
Yep, stitched her up.
And again, not unusual.
So she went to hospital, they stitched her up.
And to this day, she's still got problems with her bust, as she calls it.
But she says that she's been to hospital, she's had checks, and they've said there is something there.
We don't want to operate.
We don't know what it is.
Now.
Hang on, so this...
This is 20 odd years ago, but nevertheless, something had punched a fist-shaped hole indentation.
And we think that, according to the medical reports you're telling me about, something was left by whatever.
It was.
It's something I've come across.
I don't know if you can see that.
Can you see that?
I can.
Yeah, just hold it up a little higher and still, just slightly higher.
That's fine.
We can see that.
That looks like a torpedo.
That's to do with another lady from London.
That's another story.
But with Doris, all she wants is an answer.
She's written to prime ministers.
She's written to presidents.
She just wants an answer.
and she destroyed her health.
And her daughter...
Sorry to jump in, right?
No?
Is she aware of how that was put there?
Does she remember anything about how she acquired that?
Well, no.
I mean, I know we're sort of going off the cover here, but I live not too far from Ulster, which is in Warwickshire.
And a lady there called Janet was going home with her son.
And every time I visit Ulster, old sister, what do you want to call it?
The church, I remember that case where she and her son were driving home and they saw what like a helicopter hovering over the church without a tail.
And there seemed to be some figures inside of it, seemed.
We're not saying there are figures inside it.
But when she got home, she had quite a nasty hole in her nose.
Now, a lot of people would laugh because these things can't be happening.
The sad part about it is that they do happen and it upsets people and it changes their lives.
And I can't, as I say, give any explanation.
I can only report what people have told me.
But Doris is a lovely lady.
I just find it, as I say, disheartening a bit because some of her records have gone missing.
And that's not unusual.
I've even got a police officer sighting up in Leicestershire and a similar sort of thing happened to him.
He only reported to the MOD, but he was threatened.
And also he had some strange things happen.
The surgeon.
So you're saying that, I mean, there's a lot to take in here.
That in that case, and in Doris's case, they kept records of this, and those records haven't just disappeared, i.e.
been lost, they have been disappeared.
Is that right?
Absolutely.
Somebody's taken them away.
Absolutely.
And I mean, that leads to all sorts of things.
But you're saying that this is pretty common, where people are finding themselves punctured in different ways, perhaps have what you were, we haven't used the term, but alien implants put there.
I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we assume happens in Arizona, not in Ulster or wherever.
Oh, my God, yeah, all over the place.
It is quite an emotional thing.
But yeah, I just feel sorry for the people.
I mean, there was a copper.
I knew him personally.
I mean, this isn't second or third hand.
I knew him personally.
He contacted me.
He actually initially contacted, as I call him, We Johnny Jenkins in Scotland, who's produced some cracking stories relating to what police officers have seen.
And he contacted him.
And what happened?
He was out fishing.
Stanwick Lakes.
It comes to me up here because I can't, I still got to be writing it and trying to remember it.
But it comes to me up here.
Stanwick Lakes.
And he was fishing.
He'd got the maggots next to him on the side.
And then something appeared over the lakes, a silver object.
And it hovered above the lakes.
You could see the water was frothing below it.
And he thought, what the hell is that?
And he was going to pick up a branch to throw it.
And the thing shot off.
And he looked round and saw that the maggots have pupated.
Now, as I understand it, maggots take 48 hours to pupate.
And I'm not a fisherman, but he thought that was highly unusual and reported it.
And he was persecuted and his records went missing.
And as he said to me, when he retired from the force, he happened to be moving.
I think it would be down to Bognar Regis.
And he said, the receptionist, who was sorry, also retiring, said, I wonder if I could have a word with you.
She said, you've obviously inquired what has happened to your hospital records and a doctor's records.
And we haven't been able to help you.
But she said, I will tell you that two men came into the surgery and removed the records.
Let's park it there, John Hanson.
I want to get into some of the specific cases in the book, which is Policing the Haunted Skies.
I think you're getting the impression here, I'm talking to you watching this now, that John Hansen is a man who knows his stuff.
It's all in here.
Years and years of investigation.
Now, John, we're going to have to be very focused in the next 10 minutes.
So I want to get into some of the stories, okay?
and it's done.
We've said it's done alphabetically.
Sounds like you're telling me, Howard?
Hello?
Sounds like you're telling me to behave myself.
Well, no, John, we've tried that before.
We know it doesn't work.
I'm just giving you some gentle pointers here.
So that's all I can do.
I mean, just you know, think, think of me as a guide in difficult times, John.
It's fine.
All right, let's, I'm going to cherry-pick some of these.
I'm going to cherry-pick some of these stories.
Think of the word in sideways.
Cambridgeshire.
Page 43 of the book, John.
Cambridgeshire Police Constable Cyril Ayres attends the scene of a UFO sighting to interview witnesses.
In mid-February, 1980, more than a dozen railway men working at the town's locomotive yard watched a strange object hovering and diving through the sky over the flag grass hill area.
Driver, Stanley Bolton, was one of the first witnesses, told us it was 12.30 a.m.
The foreman had just sent me outside to do a job.
You could hear a pin drop.
It was that quiet.
I then saw this really bright light.
It turned orange as it moved over Creek Road.
It looked like it was burning up, far too big to be a shooting star or a plane.
It was about 100 times the size of a star.
Wow.
When Mr. Bolton told other workers about what he'd seen, they laughed at him until they saw it themselves.
By the time police constable Ayres arrived in response to 999 calls made, there was nothing to be seen.
The men told me what they'd seen.
I couldn't see anything, but by their attitude, I knew this was not a hoax.
That's not just one person.
That's a bunch of people all working.
They all saw this huge thing.
That's an astonishing story.
So many like that.
I think if it's okay just to mention one of them that also got to me was the Metropolitan Police Officer who was on the police helicopter.
It's in the Metropolitan Police.
I don't know, I looked 77 or something, but he was, as I say, directed to a report of an armed robbery at Heathrow Airport.
And as they were flying over there, this cigar-shaped object shot past the helicopter and then was seen to drop to the ground and roll along the ground, past somebody out exercising a dog, and then shoot up into the sky again.
So Humphrey Bishop, that was his name.
I actually interviewed him at Chigwell Police Station.
Probably he's gone by now.
Very intelligent man.
He was the observer and he put a full report into the superintendent who asked him to come up to see him.
And the superintendent said, what's all this crap?
He said, because you were just chasing a model aircraft.
Well, so, and you're off the police helicopter.
And then a couple of days later, he was invited up to up to London and he met with presumably men from the MOD.
And they told him that it was a UFO.
It was, I can only tell you what he said to me.
And he said that they told him it was from the mothership, which is a bloody awful expression.
Hold on.
The MOD people told him it was from the mothership.
That's right.
And this was a police officer.
That's right.
Yeah.
Humphrey Bishop.
And then he said to the guy in there, look, I've been taken off the helicopter.
And the bloke said, don't you worry about that.
You'll be back on the helicopter.
And he was the next day.
So Croydon, that's where he went.
He had to go to Croydon cycle.
And hang on, this happened in the Metropolitan Police.
What year was this again?
Roughly.
Roughly, that's 70-something.
Well, it's going to be in the back.
The trouble is, I can't remember everything.
But, you know, the ballpark details of it are, the ballpark headline is that his senior officer said, you're off the helicopter.
70% of the time.
This was a model plane.
Okay, 79.
This was a model plane.
Then he was interviewed, as so often happens, by a couple of people who've come up from the ministry.
You'll find the Alan Godfrey story.
There were people from the ministry involved in that, too.
And they said to him, actually, what you think you saw, you did see.
And it was from the mothership.
Did they then say, you've got to keep schhtum about this?
No.
No.
On an occasion, they didn't, which is unusual because they normally do.
So many cases go through my mind.
And I won't diverse.
Nigel Flapp, all 52, BBC came to see him, saw a UFO on the way home, told his brother, didn't want any publicity.
BBC came, they interviewed him.
And then two men came to see him and said, if you don't shut up, you're going to die.
And obviously, he'd already, the BBC had already been to see him by then.
It doesn't make sense, but none of this business makes sense at all.
But as I explained initially, the characteristics of behavior, conversation, and what I've referred to in the police book as shenanigans.
And we have the Burmarsh incident, don't we?
The one with the Home Secretary.
Yeah, that was another mysterious incident that was.
Hang on, when was that and what was that?
The Burmarsh case, that was Kent.
Chris, a guy called Chris Rolfe.
Funny enough, I just picked up the page.
Chris Rolfe investigated that from Kent.
And some, you know, Chris and a guy called Jerry, they did an excellent job.
I'd be proud to serve alongside them as detectives because they do.
I mean, they've written to very important people and they've been fobbed off.
But also, once again, they've had people come to see them who claim to be, for example, from the post office or from the gas board.
No way.
They were men in black.
Bogus, Yeah, well, we call, well, men in black, I don't know where they're from, but certainly there is a department.
I think you probably agree with me there, that from the number of reports you've heard, that there is a department that leans on witnesses, particularly if they get a bit close to, I suppose, close to comfort.
And then there's the fallacy that a triangular UFO is an example of covert top secret technology.
But for God's sake, we talk about triangular UFOs.
People talk about the Belgium UFOs.
I mean, I could show you hundreds of UFO sightings involving from the Essex area and Suffolk area involving what appears to be triangular objects.
And in fact, in the book, there are two forces, but one of them is Essex, where there seem to have been more than the average number of encounters and reports.
That's right, yeah, yeah.
So what was this one, these reports of triangular craft over Essex?
Well, Essex and Suffolk and Norfolk were prone to a lot of activity going back to the 1950s.
So, and of course, it appears to have come over from the Belgium area over to the Essex and Suffolk areas.
And I was fortunate, thanks to Brent.
I don't know if you've ever spoken to Brenda Butler, who wrote Sky Crash, but Brenda has a friend called Ron West.
Well, Ron West from the East Anglia UFO Paranormal Society, I am proud.
I've only met him once, but when he passed away, there's thousands of individual sighting reports signed, not redacted, not bloody well crossed out by people that merely only ever say what they saw.
And this is what they say.
And all of these triangular objects.
Okay, were reported in Essex.
I mean, look, to give you this amount of time is not really fair because I've never seen a book that is so crammed with stories, original stories, stories that I haven't heard before.
We're coming up to the end of it, John.
Really?
Time flies when you're having fun, as they say.
Merseyside Police, my own area.
I'm going to pick just one, page 240, and I'm going to read it, and then we've got about a minute to sum it up.
Merseyside Police encounter strange being.
February 77, Mrs. Barbara Steele was at her home in St. Gabriel's Avenue, Highton.
She asked her son Stephen, who was 11, to empty the rubbish into the waste bin at the back of the house.
He returned a short time later, very agitated, said he'd seen a large head looking at him.
I naturally thought he must have been mistaken, tried to calm him down, but he was insistent, so I went to have a look for myself.
Walked into the back garden, shocked to see a pair of legs at the bottom of the garden, which belonged to a tall, well-built figure, over nine feet tall in a white suit with a kind of visor covering its face.
I shouted, get out of my garden, as you would, of course, if there was a nine-foot-tall alien in your garden.
It had no effect, surprisingly enough.
It stood there looking at me.
What a great story.
Well, that's right.
And two officers attended and they took notes.
They looked for themselves and it had gone by then.
As I say, they took notes and they said they would deal with it.
And as I talk to you, so many other reports come shooting into my head.
It doesn't matter what part of the country, where police officers have obviously been told to keep their proverbial mouth shut and not get involved after.
And this is this, I have quite a number like that because it doesn't do your career any good to.
Well, no, and it was always like that.
We are out of time, but I'm going to do one thing before we conclude this, John, and we've only got seconds.
If you, and I have a number of serving police officers and retired police officers watching and listening.
You've got a story.
My website is theunexplained.tv.
Please tell me the story.
We'll mention it here and I'll pass it on to John.
John Hansen, I've got to say goodnight.
The book is called Policing the Haunted Skies.
John Hansen, charming man who's worked so hard for so many decades on all of this.
And his book is called Policing the Haunted Skies.
Before that, you heard Philip Mantle from Flying Disc Press.
More terrific guests in the pipeline here at the home of the Unexplained until we meet next here.
My name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained Online.
Please, whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm, and above all, please stay in touch.