Email from Don Ramkin

I received an email from my colleague Don Ramkin who has been a regular visitor to Rendlesham Forest over the years and who is now very much involved with paranormal investigations from his neck of the woods in Bexleyheath, London:

"I had to contact you as last week, 22nd April to be exact, my brother called me to the back garden and pointing north asked what an object was that he'd spotted high up, but it could be seen as a dot with the naked eye. I grabbed my binoculars that are 7 x 50 magnification and upon finding the object, wasn't quite sure what I was looking at, as it looked like what I thought was one of those parachute type kites, but then it was too high up to have been and I couldn't see any kind of chords attached but it looked as though it was changing shape. I then thought it must be helium balloons that had gotten loose but then the realisation hit that this object was totally static in the clear blue sky and even though there WAS a breeze in the air was neither gaining nor losing altitude and now seemed to be rolling on the spot. But we watched it for at least 10 minutes until it simply seemed to disappear and I scanned around but just couldn't see it anymore.

You can imagine my surprise when on Thursday April 28th I bought a copy of The Sun newspaper, and on page 43 was a story and still photos of an object that had been filmed by a Dutch tourist over Westminster Abbey in London and what he describes is EXACTLY the object myself & my brother had been watching over our area , and upon watching the actual footage it just confirmed it for us that this was the same object we had seen and that it was acting in exactly the same manner, but I thought I would let you know of this weird sighting.

See the tourist's video Here
Source : The Sun Newspaper 28/4/11

Don's background:

"I have always been into the paranormal since a young age & was definately the weird kid in school for whilst most other kids were going to Butlins or days out (not that we didn't do that at times), I was quite happy to spend hours in cemeteries, finding them both peaceful yet busy as I could always sense something around me, but from 12 years old I got into ufology in a big way and read all I could about them. I was fascinated by the universe and planets, and watched all the documentaries on ufos and still do now. Then, when I was 18, I began attending skywatches, conferences, and seminars and met some good people in the field of ufology along the way and so it just carried on from there, but I must point out that I've always held a fascination for everything in the paranormal field, from ufos to hauntings to strange creatures etc.' as I like to keep my options open.

As you are aware, I spent at least 10 years every single weekend going to Rendlesham forest in Suffolk where the 1980 incident occurred, attending skywatches including the one Malcolm Robinson organised in 2004. I've attended when Larry Warren has returned and walked us round (he refers to me as Alice Cooper) and I also attended the recent 30th anniversary conference at Woodbridge. I saw my first black triangular craft pass over Boasts Field silently in 2006, but whenever I am in Rendlesham Forest I get a heightened feeling of spirit activity and have seen shadow beings, as well as photographing and experiencing some pretty weird stuff in there, but more than that - bizarre as it sounds - it was the 10 years visiting the forest that sent my psychic abilities into overdrive for which I am eternally grateful as it helped me to move onto a career in paranormal investigating on a more professional level. I can now be found as a team leader/crew/medium in a Kent-based paranormal team called Haunted Places Paranormal Investigations where I've been for just over 5 years now, and with the team have investigated some pretty cool locations (check out http://hppi.spruz.com/ ). I've also sat in closed circle over 5 years now and am very controlled with my spirit links and my guides. I also regularly attend spiritualist churches; in fact I most definitely class myself as a spiritualist, but I've never stopped believing that we are not alone in our universe and that extra terrestrials have been visiting us for centuries. They have walked amongst us and both the British and U.S Governments are guilty of massive cover-ups and mis-information, but the truth needs to come out, so who is it who is afraid of the truth? Certainly not the public!"

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ACCORDING TO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS UFOS... and that was fifty five years ago

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SOME ARCHIVE MATERIAL FROM THE RAF TOPCLIFFE CASE, 1952

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George Filer, UFOs and CFZ Doggy.

We introduce retired Unites States Air Force Major George A. Filer, currently Eastern Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network), and Vice President of Sky-watch International. He states in his weekly blog of up to date stories about UFOs etc., that:

"I personally became interested in UFOs when London Control ordered me to intercept one over England while flying for the US Air Force.* Under Project Blue Book, the US Air Force investigated UFOs for more than twenty years; and we continue this research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFOs are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers."

This was his sighting:

Major Filer: “I was stationed at the 420th RAF Air-refuelling Squadron Base, at RAF Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. In February 1962 I was in orbit over the North Sea in a six engine K5-50 Tanker Aircraft when we received a call over the radio from London Control, who excitedly asked us to have a look at an unidentified flying object, which had been picked up on radar, hovering between Oxford and Stonehenge. After being given the intercept heading, the aircraft headed in towards the target, with further transmissions from London Control informing us that all commercial aircraft had been cleared from our path, in order that we could intercept safely.

"We realised we were exceeding our maximum speed and had great trouble slowing the aircraft down. At about 30 miles, my APS-23 radar seemed to pick up on the hovering UFO, directly ahead of us. It was an exceptionally large radar return, reminding me of a huge bridge, or a ship, such as a Destroyer, bigger than anything I had seen on radar in the air before. The return was sharp and solid, as compared to the fuzziness of a rain cloud. My impression was that this UFO must have been made of something substantive, like metal or steel.

"As we approached to now ten miles from the target, at a speed of around 425 miles per hour, it apparently sensed us because we could now see a series of dim lights, directly ahead of us, on what was a dark night. At five miles from intercept, the UFO seemed to come alive. The lights brightened and the object accelerated in a launch similar to the Space Shuttle, at night. Within a few seconds, it moved vertically upwards and was gone from sight.

"We asked London Air Traffic Control if they had any rocket launches in the area. They replied in the negative and told us we were now clear to return to our mission. The incident was recorded in my navigator’s log and mentioned the next day, on Operations, but no intelligence briefings ever took place.”

Any connection with this report?

Our thoughts:

We believe that UFOs have been here for a long time on this Planet. For all we know their continued presence may be vital to Man's existence. Is it possible that they have more claim to being the rightful residents of this Planet, and that we are the interlopers? It is sobering to think that 'they' may find our existence as weird and wonderful and irrational as we do theirs! We dont believe they are visiting us in ever increasing numbers, as they are likely to be indigenous.Is it not sad that, without doubt, this is the best kept secret from the public, and will continue to be that way? We have experienced great difficulty in getting any newspapers interested in reviewing Haunted Skies, despite their promises to do so.









Illustration by David Sankey of UFO over Tramore Ireland circa 1963

The police asked the witness if 'she had been drinking' .


* "The purpose of these files is to report the UFO eyewitness and photo/video evidence that occurs on a daily basis around the world and in space. These files assume that extraterrestrial intelligent life not only exists, but my hypothesis is that over a thousand UFOs reported each month represent technologically advanced spacecraft conducting surveillance of Earth."

And finally a hello to Prudence, the CFZ Doggy who keeps us going on our visits to the wizard publisher and his beautiful wife.

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film taken at Rendlesham Forest Suffolk

UFO captured on film over Rendlesham Forest Suffolk

At 8.29pm 27^th December 2000 a group of people, including Brend Butler and Jack Solomon (head of the Norwich UFO Group), and members of the Essex UFO Branch, were standing talking on an elevated section of the forest, near to the end of Track 10, opposite to the field nominated by Larry Warren (coincidently visiting the forest that night) as being the one where he saw the UFO land 20 years ago

A ball of silver light was seen approximately half a mile away travelling `slowly, just above the horizon followed by a number of others apparently rotating our impression being that it may have been over the forest although we believe it was more likely to have four to five miles away possibly over towards the direction of Orford Ness,.

We cannot prove this was any ‘Alien Craft’ all we can say is that we have never seen any strange lights like this either over the Forest or in the sky before, at this particular location. Fortunately we managed to video the effect,( by using a Sony Handy cam Video Camera, with night light 72Xdigital zoom) Was it a hoax? Could it have been a balloon filled with gas and ignited? – Unlikely in our opinion.

Interviewed by Look East

The following day we were interviewed by the local TV Station Look East and Suffolk Advertiser Newspaper, but it wasn’t till many months later that we discovered we were not the only ones to have witnessed something unusual occurring at that time in the forest, one of whom was Mark Doulton and members of the South end UFO Group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlH8MrPC-RY
Nb:The still shows summer time on the Video and were an hour out.
Oddly we also came across a very interesting photograph taken during a visit to Rendlesham Forest some years ago which shows a peculiar 'flying sacuer' shaped
object the first small photo is enhanced from the larger, the other was put through a filter.

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Prince Charles, the chicken walk @Shagbats! & a UFO sighting

My ex -Father in Law CPO Ted West who served aboard HMS Kelly.

Ted West was my ex-father-in-law; I knew him until he passed away in the early 1970s.

I look back with pride at this period in my life when I had the privilege of knowing a man who had served on HMS Kelly, during ^nd World War Two.

He was very much a man's man, and liked nothing better than reminiscing about his Royal Navy days suitably accompanied by dubious-looking bottles of brown homemade beer, which had one hell of a kick; on more than one occasion I staggered out of his house in Selly Oak Road, Birmingham, on the point of imminent collapse!

I remember with great pride that occasion when during one of the Kelly reunions, held in London on HMS President. I met Prince Charles and Lord Louis Mountbatten, who had been the captain of the Kelly.

I have been meaning to publish his diary of events; one day I will! I remember him telling me of being on duty at shore leave. I think it was Hong Kong circa 1939. When he was in the habit of striking the posteriors of the 'ladies that favoured the attentions of the seaman on the duty.' Hhmmm; not the done thing, now, Ted!

Extract from his diary:

I was sixteen years of age when I left Birmingham to join the Royal Navy. The first ship in which I served was the coal burning Battleship Emperor of India. After serving a number of years abroad in the America & amp; West Indies, I returned to Chatham. Following which I enrolled in a course of gunnery.

In March 1939 I was posted to HMS Cornwall for duties during its commission at the China Station, at this time Japan was at War with China. At 01130, on the morning of the 23^rd of March, we left Portsmouth Harbour behind as we started on our long journey, carrying out practice drill on the .4” and .8” gun.

Before being mustered on deck where we were addressed by the Captain who told us that German submarines had been spotted, following which lookouts were then posted, and depth charges made ready, you can imagine the excitement this created, heightened by the ship now beginning to move a zig zag course.

The next day, the ship was turned round and we headed back to Portsmouth,Apparently one of the Marine sergeants had been taken very ill where we arrived. At 1530hours, to allow the patient to be taken off the ship, once again I had to endure the same pangs of homesickness when I saw the familiar places pass by..

The weather was much improved today, and after the usual Sunday division,The Captain spoke to us about the coming crisis, and fighting efficiency of the Ship, the rest of the day was taken up with sunbathing in the forecastle.

Monday 27^th March 1939

Today the ship altered course to the West, during the day we closed up for more drill arriving at Gibraltar at 1200 landing ratings ashore. At 1600hours I played my first game of tombola and walked a ‘talkie’ in the ships cinema

Wednesday 29^th March 1939

The Captain spoke to the ship he told us that there had been a change in plan and that instead of staying at our port of call we were going to Hong Kong, to fuel up and make our way to Penang expecting to arrive their at 0730hours,

I was then ordered together with other members of the crew to make ready the Walrus Aircraft, which was going to be catapulted off the deck the following morning. I must admit that we all felt a sneaking admiration for the pilots of these Aircraft commonly referred to as shagbats.

On the morning of the, the 30^th of March 1939 the plane was launched as we approached Malta harbour, followedby the launching of a second aircraft – after this excitement we settled down to more mundane duties such as painting the ship's hangar.

Then when canteen leave was given I, I made my way to the Ships Cinema where I watched the ‘ Emperors candlesticks', upon my return I discovered that one of the stokers had thrown up over the Officer of the Watch! Everybody thought it was one huge joke apart from the poor stoker himself!

The next few days passed uneventfully, I spent some time on the side of the ship painting it, accompanied by other hands, I remember a bit of fuss which took place when one of the ratings refused to go up to the top yards, after feeling shaky after having spent a heavy night on the beer, to be fair the officer concerned didn’t order the man up.

Chapter 2: Through the Suez Canal to the Red sea.

At 0900 on the 3^rd of April 1939 HMS Cornwall we left Malta Harbour and headed out to sea, the weather had turned for the worse with a Gale blowing causing the bow to dip into the sea, I clenched my teeth and fought to control my stomach, trying to recover from a previous evening ‘binge’ I was glad to turn in later. The following morning was spent at general drill; we closed up at action stations using the .4”gun to fire at a smoke burst, along with the ‘pom-pom’.

The next day we entered Port Said Harbour arriving there at 0630hours taking on fresh water and provisions, before commencing our journey through the Suez Canal which I found a pleasant experience"

Christine Smith his daughter now living in the States is shown on the far left next to her is Ann Wilkins whose husband 'Rocky' served with Ted. She told me that she did the 'chicken dance' with Prince Charles, what this entails I can only hazard a guess.

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Triangular UFO over Woolsery 2010

An Unidentified ‘triangular’ flying object, evidence of a big cat seen in the woods and a visit from a famous explorer were all highlights of the Weird Weekend held at Woolsery Sports and Community Hall in sunny Devon during 2010, by the Woolsery-based Centre for Fortean Zoology, (CFZ)
John Hanson:
“This was the first time we had been at the venue. After finding the hall a mere stone's throw away from Jon and Corrina’s house we spoke to world-famous author and UFO celebrity Andy Roberts, who had arrived is his camper van.

We found him a charming man who was a pleasure to talk to. We hope he will make an appearance at the next event when we will hopefully have the opportunity to share a glass of ‘falling down water’ as we say in the Midlands. Hope to see you soon Andy!”

We met up with David Curtis, 43, a care worker looking after autistic children in Durham, who was driving back to the hall from his bed and breakfast lodgings at around 10.55pm on Friday night, when he spotted a triangular object floating above the telegraph wires on the road between Bucks Cross and Woolsery.

"It was as big as a bus and wider than the road I was travelling on, and had a bright white light in the centre and red lights at each corner. It was making a whooshing noise, just like the sound you hear when you're standing near a wind turbine and was travelling at about 40mph. I only saw it for a few seconds and there was no sign of it when I looked in the fields next to the road. I'd like to know if anyone else saw the object.”

We went to the location and parked up but never saw any sign of the object that had made its appearance earlier. The illustration provided by David has many similarities with other UFOs commonly labelled as ‘Triangular UFOs’ which allegedly made their appearance during the early 1980s. But in fact we have sightings of such objects going back many years. Triangular or Christmas-tree-shaped objects were even reported by pilots while flying over Germany in 1944.

Nick Pope:

"The period 1982-1986 saw a massive wave of UFO sightings in the Hudson Valley in America, where many of the reports involved sightings of large triangular craft. It was in the Eighties too that reports of triangular craft became more common in the UK.

Typically, the UFOs were described as large, black, slow-moving (though capable of accelerating away to the horizon at incredible speed) and silent. The Ministry of Defence’s case files contain numerous reports of such craft and while some sceptics believe these may be early sightings of stealth aircraft, various factors – most particularly the lack of sound – rule out this theory"

We include a favourite photo of Maude to complete the captain's log - sorry Blog - for today, Saturday morning, with a host of things to do. Dawn has been labouring on getting Volume 3 right; I have been working on Volumes 4, 5 and 6 (6A) (Rendlesham) and am going to paint fences and hopefully put the carpet down on the stairs, a job thats been waiting for about 6 months!

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Lionel, Albert and Jon Downes

Our friend Lionel Beer rang us yesterday (2nd from the left) to tell us he is collecting four copies of Volume 2 during a personal vist to Chez Hanson in May.
This will allow us the opportunity to congratulate him for having had his long-term title of Life President of BUFORA reinstated. Also, Happy Easter to Jon Downes, our esteemed long-suffering publisher on the left.

Happy Easter, everybody. This is a friend of ours, Albert Rosales, who runs a website cataloguing all manner of inexplicable flying objects seen worldwide.

"Hello John & Dawn. Happy Easter! Good to hear from you. I am enclosing items and info."

Albert

"I am 51 years of age, almost retired from a Govt job. I was born in the town of Santa Clara, central Cuba in 1961. As a child I experienced several strange events which perhaps led me to my interest in everything anomalous and paranormal (have to find that file). I lived in Spain with the family in 1967, then moved to NY in '68, and finally to Miami in late '68. After graduating High School I did a four year tour of the Navy which included two European 'cruises' onboard the destroyer tender USS Yosemite (now retired) as a radioman with a top secret clearance. I even participated in a NATO exercise which included British ships (those chaps have liquor onboard!) and other countries, including Turkey.

"After the Navy I worked with my dad until he became ill. It was sometime after my first marriage in '87 when suddenly my passion for the unexplained re-emerged (to the chagrin of my wives) and I started collecting cases and investigating local events and have done since then. I have amassed over 14,000 cases (summaries) as of 2011."

Sincerely,
Albert

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Edgar Mitchell and his views

The aliens are coming and starting with Kerrang! Jul 28 2008

An interview on a Birmingham radio station reverberated around the world’s media when a respected astronaut told listeners aliens were real and had been in contact.

Dr Edgar Mitchell – the sixth man on the moon – told Kerrang! Radio last Tuesday he had been “briefed” on UFO phenomenon and governments had covered it up for 60 years.

He told stunned host Nick Margerrison on The Night Before show: “I’ve been very privileged to be in on the fact we have been visited and that UFO phenomenon is real, although its been covered up by governments for quite a long time.”

The story was quickly picked up by national newspapers and TV stations in the UK and abroad, including Fox News and CNN.

Kerrang said its website, which normally averages about 10,000 page views a day, increased to 37,000 on Thursday when the story went worldwide.

One YouTube video alone containing the audio from the interview received over 50,000 views in just one day.

Nick Margerrison said: “I was as shocked as I’ve ever been in my life when he said it.

“He has hinted about this kind of thing before but we weren’t talking about that initially, we were talking about walking on the moon.

“The response we’ve had has been incredible – it’s gone viral."

Read More http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/creative-industries-news/2008/07/28/the-aliens-are-coming-and-starting-with-kerrang-65233-21415579/#ixzz1KEhQMSNQ

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UFO captured on Film from the Haunted Skies archives

We learnt of a UFO captured on film by Peter Saxon, the licensee of The Swan public house at Alderton, a small village near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

We decided to visit him in order to learn more about what had happened at 2am on the 26^th of October 2004. In the meantime we received a telephone call from a young lady who told us she was a representative of a well known UFO organisation and wished to meet up with our friend Brenda Butler. We agreed to take her down – little did we know what was in store for us!

We travelled down and met Peter, and found him to be a genial host - a pleasant, friendly man with an enquiring mind and still keenly interested in the extraordinary events that had taken place, now nearly 2 years ago.

He told us: “I was awoken by shouting coming from outside, and after getting dressed, went into the back car park where I saw what I initially thought was a helicopter, hovering in the sky over the houses opposite to the Swan. I soon realised this could not be the case as the ‘light’ began to move erratically over the sky, at which point I could see it had a jet black dome with a long rectangular bar underneath with a group of lights at each end. I could see it ‘shaking from side to side and moving up and down.

I rushed into the pub and picked up my Sony camcorder hi-8 video camera and rushed out expecting to see that there was nothing there, but looking upwards into the sky I spotted it once again - but now much higher, surrounded by a luminous blue field; I then took a short clip of film lasting a few minutes long before losing sight of it.”

We introduced him to our lady companion, who recovered the film and promised that it would be examined at a later date. After returning to the West Midlands, we dropped the 'rep' off who found herself in the same position at the end of the journey as she was at the beginning - in dire straits and penniless.

We should have known better! She caused us a lot of grief and told Mr Saxon the film was rubbish! We felt very angry that we had allowed ourselves to be manipulated by this lady, so the moral in the story is be careful who you invite into your house! We are now very guarded to say the least! We drove down to see Pete, who was very upset, and examined the film for ourselves.

As a result of the incident Peter contacted the Evening Star, which published an article on the 26^th of November 2004: 'Were bright lights over Village a UFO? X-file is opened by residents’. The article also contained details of another witness, Rick Thompson, who also saw the phenomenon, and we spoke to him later.

He said: “I was awoken by my six month old baby; I looked out of the window wand saw a bright light, stationary in the sky it was to bright to be a helicopter , and too big, and was completely silent. Then it began to move erratically in the sky making these peculiar up and down backwards and forwards motions, I found it quite frightening”.

Unfortunately, by the time we were in a position to examine the film taken by Peter - 2 years later - time had taken its toll, and a good portion of the film (some 9 minutes) towards the end of the clip had been inadvertently erased, leaving us with a total footage of approximately 65 seconds.

We felt there was sufficient information contained within the footage to extract some images, rather than being faced with the impossible task of trying to obtain stills from film of a UFO taken at maximum distance to the observer on the ground.

Of that 65 seconds, the first five seconds showed a brightly lit object darting about in the sky, big enough without the apparent application of a zoom lens, to show something fairly substantial, viewed at an angle of approximately 90 degrees off the horizon. It was possibly 5-10 miles away and likely to have been over the sea, but - of course - there were difficulties trying to establish distances and sizes without any other frames of references, bearing in mind this clip of film was taken after the object rose upwards in the sky.

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Our trip to Rachel in 2007

We arrived in Rachel, Nevada, during the early hours of the morning, with our friends Pauline and Pete, and were surprised to find that instead of a bustling town full of UFO enthusiasts, it was a small complex of mobile homes surmounted by the now world-famous Little A'Le'Inn. After checking out the room and looking under the bed to make sure there weren’t any other house guests, we then proceeded to make effective repairs to the ball cock, which had come off its screw-fitting on the toilet!

We then met up with two UFO researchers and had ten minutes watching the sky, while sipping a hot rum and coke.

We had hoped that we would meet up with Glenn Campbell, who moved to Rachel in 1992, where he first worked out of the Little Alien shop before opening his own store. Unfortunately, he had already moved to Las Vegas, leaving the management of the store to locals and others.

The Little A'Le'Inn was purchased by Joe and Pat Travis in 1988, and is the only place for a meal within 50 miles. It is a combination of restaurant, bar, UFO museum and gift shop. We tried the Alien Burger, which is a hamburger served on a French roll, and were pleasantly surprised.

Sadly, Joe Travis died in September of 2003 after a long illness. But Pat, with help from family and friends, is still keeping it running.

If you’ve never been there it’s well worth a visit if only to look out on the desert road that appears to stretch to infinity, making one realise just how tiny us humans are!

Not a magic mushroom! (a blog of nature today)

Dawn Holloway, who is as versatile in the garden as she is sitting in front of the desktop, would like to bring the readers' attention to a mushroom that has taken up residence in our back garden in not-so-rural Alvechurch, Worcestershire.

Is it a highly edible member of the Morel family, which grows in early spring - generally on wasteland, gardens, along roadsides and in woodland glades that are typically not overgrown - and can be identified by its dark, black ridges, which run vertically on the cap. The cap is often pointed, and its cap is cell-like. The cap can also be described as 'honeycomb'; the flesh is white and cream.

Dawn wonders if our illustrious publisher and now firm friend - Jon Downes - could confirm that this is an edible mushroom. If so, we look forward to adding this little morsel onto our toast, or maybe in a nice omelette, accompanied by a dash of red wine!

Sadly the best laid plans of mice, men, and plants came to nothing. A look at the mushroom revealed it had been partially consumed; one of the offenders is shown caught in the act!

This is our somewhat laid-back blog today...meantime Dawn is busy proof-reading the manuscript for Volume 3 of Haunted Skies, which has started to shape up nicely.

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Zogger from Planet Bloggers

Clive, who lives in Wales, and whose spectacular UFO sighting in 1967 is contained in Volume 3, 1966-1969, emailed me: 'Dear John, I hope the attached article will be of interest. It was printed in the Wales On Sunday paper last Sunday. Note the PC address given with the piece, still enjoying your 2nd book. Cheers Clive.'

The cutting tells its own sad story with inane comments from people who refer to Planet Zogg. (I can almost hear my publisher's thoughts on this but I promised him that I wouldn't use profanity in CFZ blogs). However, the mind boggles with this sort of unadulterated silliness when a senior lecturer at Glamorgan University tells the public: "It's not somebody visiting from Planet Zogg".

A quick butcher's at the worldwide web reveals that Planet Zogg is a Sheffield-based website, and - I quote: 'Planet Zogg welcomes everyone on its journey through hyperdelia. Our events are home to clubbers and dreads, cyber ravers and hippies, disco dollies and punk...anyone who's up for a party .. and remember .. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!'

Well it’s nice to see that nothing changes with the UFO scene!

And now from the foolishness of a belief system that believes inherently that 99% of UFO sightings can be explained, we present a colour photo of now retired RAF auxiliary officer, Flt. James Salandin, MBE, who was stationed at RAF North Weald, Essex, near Epping (then attached to 604 County of Middlesex Squadron).

He was on an air test, climbing towards Southend, Essex, on 14^th October, 1954. "I took off at about 4.15 pm. Flying conditions were perfect. When at a height of some 16,000 feet, I noticed a number of contrails in the sky, approximately 30-40,000 feet, over North Foreland.

"Through the middle of these trails I could see three objects, which at first I took to be aircraft, although there was no sign of any vapour trail that one would associate with the movement of an aircraft in high atmosphere.

When they got within a certain distance, two of them went off to my port side; one was gold in colour, the other silver. The third object headed towards me and closed to within a few hundred yards, almost filling the middle of the aircraft (windscreen before departing towards my port side. I tried to turn and follow, but it had disappeared from view.

The object I saw through the front cockpit of my Meteor 8 Jet Aircraft was saucer shaped, with a ‘bun’ on top and underneath. I didn’t see any portholes, windows, or other exterior extrusions that one would associate with the passage of an aircraft through the air. There weren’t even any flames coming from the objects.”

If I had a pound for every UFO sighting report that involved the description of three separate objects or UFOs I would be a wealthy man. Why three? Anybody care to offer an explanation? I do have my own ideas on this.

How it all began

A picnic with a difference –the roots of The Haunted Skies Project

Having survived the ordeal of driving back from our beloved publisher on Sunday night, after wrestling with the script of the 3rd volume, I found myself reflecting on the events that took place tonight when my son Christopher completed the marathon in London, followed by a different kind of marathon involving the considerable consumption of vast amounts of alcohol. Well done to Chris.

Chris was actually the catalyst for creating my interest in UFO investigation following his UFO sighting in 1995. Prior to that I did not have the faintest idea that such things existed! Here he is having taken part in a 7-mile run at a local prison. (No; he wasn’t one of the inmates!)

Last week my son Alex organised a family picnic outing to Symonds Yat, near Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, which is a place I last visited about 30 years ago. Suffice to say I can tell you that we have no plans to visit the said locality for the next 30years!

If there is one thing that makes us cringe about places like this, it is the amusement arcades situated a mere few feet away from the river, the tacky ghost train, and the unwarranted attention of young kids who have smelt the jam doughnuts, or is it the cold bottled beer?

This was Derek's (Chris' dog) first swimming lesson.

The tackiness of the local shops clustered around the muddy banks of the Severn, and the general hubbub of modern-day life with young boy racers trying to out-vie each other racing up and down on the opposite side of the bank fades away.

When we see the local famer standing in the next field with a worried expression on his face, as he watches a sheep keel over and lie on its side. The poor sheep lies there in obvious distress and opens it mouth in pain but no sound is heard. Within a short space of time the baby lamb is born, head last - the famer rushes over and tenderly massages the new born baby and it is alive! What a magnificent experience. We are all reduced to tears. We didn’t have a camera but the sheer delight of what we saw stays with us…forever….