Nick Pope - Open Skies, Closed Minds

Open Skies,
Closed Minds

Nick Pope

All Rights Reserved

Copyright Nick Pope with M J Trow 1996, 2014
Foreword copyright Timothy Good 1996, 2014

First published in 1996 by Simon & Schuster

This edition published in 2014 by:

Thistle Publishing
36 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BU

www.thistlepublishing.co.uk

To Mum.
In loving memory.

Author's Note

Unless stated otherwise, the views expressed in this book are my own, and should not be construed as representing the official position of the Ministry of Defence or any other agency.

'Yet, across the gulf of space... intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic... regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.'

H.G. Wells
The War of the Worlds
(William Heinemann)

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As with all books, this one was a team effort, with many people playing a part in producing the finished product. I would like to mention the following key players:

I would like to thank my agent, Andrew Lownie, for all his patient help and encouragement, and for coaching me through the complexities of authorship; without Andrew, this project would never have got off the ground.

I would also like to thank Mei Trow, who collaborated with me in writing this book, shaping it into something that we could both feel proud of. Mei brought common sense and humour into the text, and his sound research and illuminating insights considerably enhanced the whole project.

I am grateful to everyone at Simon & Schuster, who coached me through the various processes associated with turning a manuscript into a book, and provided me with all the help and advice I needed. I am especially grateful to Martin Fletcher, Jacquie Clare, Gillian Holmes, Lisa Shakespeare, Cathy Schofield, Aruna Mathur, Glen Saville, Aniz Damani and Caroline North.

Thanks to Timothy Good for writing an excellent foreword, and for casting an expert eye over the text.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a number of ufologists and other researchers of the paranormal, whose enthusiasm first helped convince me that their subjects were deserving of serious investigation, and whose wit and wisdom have continued to shape my own beliefs. We do not necessarily agree on everything, and they do not all believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, but they have all done ground-breaking work, and are a wonderful group of people. I cannot possibly mention them all, but I would particularly like to thank John Spencer, Timothy Good (again), Budd Hopkins, Graham Birdsall, Philip Mantle, Tony Dodd, Colin Andrews, Jenny Randles, Ralph Noyes and Lucien Morgan.

I am eternally grateful to Mark and Vivienne Birdsall, and everyone at the Quest Picture Library, who tracked down and made available most of the wonderful photographs in the book.

I would like to thank my many friends and colleagues at the Ministry of Defence who have, almost without exception, supported me throughout this venture, offering me encouragement and support through some rather difficult times.

I am grateful to my father for his words of wisdom, expert advice, and all round support. Thanks also to my stepmother, Helen, and my brother, Seb, for their support, and to Michele Kaczynski for being my chief confidant during the writing of this book.

I would also like to thank Nick Forbes at the Public Record Office, Charles Halt, Ed Walters, Ray Santilli, Ian Macpherson, Lizzie Wickham, Laura Newell, Yetunde Koledoye, Richard Horsley, Jane Goldman and all the other people I've forgotten to mention, but to whom I'm no less grateful.

Finally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the various witnesses, named and unnamed, whose stories helped shape my understanding of the UFO phenomenon. I did my best to get to the bottom of the mysteries that intruded upon your lives, and I hope that when I couldn't solve them, I at least helped you come to terms with them. Despite all the traumas and unanswered questions, you are in a sense, the lucky ones. You have actively participated in something that the rest of us are still only beginning to acknowledge, let alone understand.

FOREWORD

by Timothy Good

My first encounter with the Ministry of Defence department which handles UFO reports from members of the public took place in 1963, when I reported by telephone the sighting of an apparently unknown object which hovered over my south-east London suburb as well as the home counties for several hours one August evening. The ministry promised to investigate, and within a few days of the sighting provided me with a valid explanation. In numerous communications with the ministry since that time, my enquiries have always been treated courteously and seriously, and in company with most leading researchers, I share the ministry's official position that the majority (perhaps as high as 90 per cent though I believe this to be an arbitrary figure) of sightings can be explained in terms of conventional aircraft, airships, balloons, stars, planets, laser displays, and so on. My only disagreement with the ministry is on its insistence that the remaining 10 per cent of sightings represent nothing beyond our present knowledge and do not constitute a threat to national security. Then came Nick Pope.

I had a great deal of correspondence with Nick during his tenure as UFO desk officer at Secretariat (Air Staff) 2a from 19911994, and his comments always reflected official policy. Thus, when Nick initiated meetings at his own behest with leading UFO researchers in the UK, I began to wonder if the official policy had changed. As it transpired, I was mistaken, but when first I met Nick in 1993, in company with the well-known author and investigator John Spencer, who arranged the meeting, I was astonished to discover not only that Nick was well informed, but also that he was completely objective about the UFO phenomenon. As he explained to me over a pizza in Whitehall, he was getting paid to do the job so, unlike most of his predecessors, he felt it incumbent upon him to study the subject. 'I made it my business to go out and seek expert opinion,' Nick told me in 1995. 'I needed to know what was going on, and I was keen to meet the key players and to hear their disparate opinions.'

Although Nick's initiative was frowned on by some of his fellow civil servants in Sec(AS)2a and mocked by others an unprecedented era of co-operation with UFO researchers ensued. Nick's belief that this co-operation would facilitate the handling of public enquiries was fully justified. For instance, I well recall one case, involving the sighting of an illuminated 'spaceship' reported around the London area in November 1993, when Nick and I shared the task of contacting various civilian authorities to try to identify the object. The 'spaceship' turned out to be an illuminated airship, flown by Virgin Lightships.

Of particular interest in this book are those reports received by Nick during the course of his official duties which appear to defy a conventional explanation. Back in the 1950s, Air Minister George Ward, in his statements to Members of the House of Commons, often explained away UFO sightings as 'balloons' particularly those reported by Royal Air Force pilots. But in 1954, when he was challenged about this by his friend Desmond Leslie, a second cousin to Sir Winston Churchill and a former Second World War fighter pilot, Ward revealed several reasons why he felt obliged to publically 'explain' these reports. One of these was fear of ridicule. 'What am I to say?' said Ward. 'I know it wasn't a balloon. You know it wasn't a balloon. But until I've got a saucer on the ground in Hyde Park and can charge the public sixpence a go to enter, it must be balloons, otherwise the government would fall and I'd lose my job.'