Arguably, the modern era began with three roots – the late 19c mystery ‘airships’ reported in the western USA, the ‘foo fighters’ reported by airmen in WW2, and the ‘flying saucer’ sighted near Mt Rainier, Washington in 1947. Then came Roswell in mid-1947. Roswell is a town in New Mexico. Debris was collected from an alleged flying saucer by US Air Force personnel from their nearby base, there were credible eye witness accounts of alien bodies. All of this initial flow of information was quickly shut down by the military. Nevertheless, the case grew legs and continues to be studied to this day. However, over time, fact, supposition, theory and conspiracy have become intermingled, those primary witnesses have passed on and Roswell has become a bit of a circus. Wiki delights in pointing out how, in 2024, none of it has any factual basis. Fine, nothing happened then.

But Roswell was certainly ground zero for the military and high government sealing off knowledge and facts concerning UAPs from the general public for ‘security reasons’. Only in very recent times, with the Congress UFO hearings, are we being drip-fed with certain information.

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The UK’s ‘Roswell’ is Rendlesham Forest. Rendlesham is in rural Suffolk – RAF Woodbridge stood there until 1993 and US Air Force personnel were also stationed there. In December 1980, one of the USAF security guards, John Burroughs, saw a multi-coloured beacon in the distance. When he and colleagues approached there was an explosion of light and a red, oval object lifted up from a clearing and shot away towards the coast. It was however three years before the story became public by the release of a memo by Lt Col Charles Halt stating that troops were sent to investigate ‘unusual lights in the sky’. This prompted other contemporaneous accounts, such as visits by so-called Men in Black (MIBs) to a forestry worker who they questioned closely.

Today, Rendlesham Forest has become something of a theme park and is a bit of a joke amongst locals.

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The acknowledged leading body in UAP research is MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). Though US-centric they have ‘chapters’ all over the world. As well as being a research hub they maintain a cohort of field investigators and a database of incidents.

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One of the world’s most prominent researchers is Californian Preston Dennett. He has written over thirty books as well as countless articles. One of his specialities is in combing the world for newspaper reports which might otherwise be termed one-day wonders. Of course, with the dramatic decline in regional print newspapers, this work is invaluable. I’ll just choose five ‘schoolyard’ incidents to illustrate just the sort of things he discovers

• Altus, Oklahoma 15/10/1954. ‘Keith’ was on his way to school. A ‘saucer’ appeared and stopped, hovering 400-500 feet above the ground. A traffic cop was at a road intersection – he stopped the traffic as a number of drivers got out of their cars to get a look. Human-form persons looked out of windows of the craft. This lasted 20-30 seconds. This thing rapidly shot off only to return and hover again before heading off again at high speed, shortly pursued by a F-86 jet fighter from a nearby base. The incident, after the initial report, was rarely mentioned again.
• Iron Mountain, Michigan 6/5/2002. ‘Dale’s’ experience was at a local Christian school. He was in the playground with many other students. The bell rang, the children lined up to go back inside, and one of the kids looked up and pointed, “What’s that?” A dark, solid object was hovering there. Silver, metal plates, no windows or doors. The teachers hurriedly rounded up the children and sent them inside. When Dale left for home later, the object had gone. Nothing more was heard.
• In 1978, in the playground of St Mark’s School, Muiryfaulg, Glasgow, Scotland a group of children were playing games. One of the children, Euan, reports that they saw a UFO hovering above a nearby fence. “It glistened in the sun, it was about four feet across. It looked weird, like two fedora hats together.” It vanished before they could call a teacher. It was 25 years before Euan finally reported the incident. “Although I was young the memory of the incident has remained vivid in my mind and I am sure of what I saw.”
• Wuhan University, China, 13/11/1978. a student, Zhang Zhengmin looked up and saw that the moon looked unusually large and brilliant in the western sky. He returned inside and mentioned this to two fellow students who said he must be mistaken – the moon should be in the eastern sky. They all went outside, the object was still there glowing reddish-orange though the top half was obscured by mist or cloud. Slowly it moved to the north-west, becoming dimmer. When the view was blocked by a building they ran to higher ground but the object had disappeared. It is worth noting that Wuhan Uni is now a centre of UFO research in China.
• Florence, Arizona. On 6/3/1978 recess had ended at Florence Elementary School and a teacher, Jerry Ysaguerre lined up the students to march them inside. Suddenly one of the students called everyone’s attention to a ‘garbage can lid floating above trees to the south-east. This had a dome on top and five equidistant circular marks along the bottom. The object started a series of manoeuvres – up, down, sideways before disappearing upwards at great speed. The case was researched but nobody else in the area was found to have seen it.

What are we to make of these various sightings, all seen by multiple people? There are many, many more, so much so that they get almost boring and routine.

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Over here in Jersey I tend to follow researcher Paul Sinclair. He is a down-to-earth Yorkshireman and, by his own admission, no expert. Nonetheless he commands great respect amongst his fellow researchers for the enthusiasm with which he tears into the unknown, collates reports and regularly puts out YouTube live streams and guest interviews. In doing so it seems to have made the coastal area of east Yorkshire, especially between Bridlington and Scarborough, something of a hot spot for all sorts of high strangeness. Most common are orbs, triangles, all sorts of lights in the sky, over the sea (even in the sea) and the reporting thereof has become fairly common. Inland there have been numerous reports of cryptids – dog-like, wolf-like creatures in fields, in woods. There have been periods of farm animal mutilation. As to UFOs and alien abductions, Paul himself can show you the very real and otherwise inexplicable marks on his body which he said were inflicted in childhood during some very scary night times. You can get a feel for his body of work at truthproof.uk, find the link to his busy YouTube channel and buy his books.

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In the USA the acknowledged centre of all things paranormal is of course Skinwalker Ranch in Utah – check it out if you haven’t already.

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So to conclude this short look at UFOs/UAPs, what do you make of them? There are thousands of reports and people are less shy these days in making those reports. Undoubtedly a percentage are hoaxes or people have jumped to wrong conclusions. But let’s say some at least are unexplained by science as we know it. Are these visitors from our own galaxy, another galaxy, maybe another dimension? Who are they, what do they want? Are they in fact already here, maybe existing under the sea, within the Earth itself? Are they physical as we know the term, or do they impinge themselves upon our imagination? How much do the military know that they’re not saying? Are we in fact – as some have theorised, all an experiment, a sort of petri dish for a more advanced race? Are we being studied and will they eventually save us from ourselves?

If you know the answer let me in on it.