Haunted Skies end of February 2013

Haunted Skies Blog  returns!

We are always on the look out for Illustrators who are prepared to see
their work in the books if you can help please contact us.Thank you so much
Robert Townshend for your hand painted contributions what a very pleasant man
you are,it was a pleasure to talk to you......

Volume 8 progresses towards completion 80% there!

I am sorry that I have been out of touch for the last few weeks; this was 

due to the sheer intentsity of work load involved in writing up the Rendlesham 

Forest incident for the end of December 1980, for Volume 8 (1980)!

                                    Hi from Rendlesham Forest !

 

                              

This has without doubt been the hardest task that I have come across so far mainly

 because it is so demanding, having to ensure that the many photographs match the 

script, but I now  anticipate that this chapter (page 217 to page 350 )will come to an 

end within the next fortnight.

Aunt Betty has been in touch pointing out there are some typoografical  herrors 
in the Blog, sorry about this but Betty but you will appreciate that we are preety 
snowed under here with publishing writing, investigating etc.... I know that you
are a hard working person, so will consider your very kind invitation and thank you
so much for all of your assistance with rasing the profile of what we are trying to do

 Us in the Alvechurch Village Magazine on line all over the World 

next time you come to see us there will be an extra  helping of custard!
If the book goes to 300 pages the cost should be the same i.e £14.99, but I will advise accordingly,bearing in mind that at the end of the day I  have to make something,

rather than run at a loss.

The Sun & Metro Newspapers –UFO over Birmingham

I see that the Sun  and Metro newspaper covered the sighting by the Police dog handler, in their usual tongue in cheek fashion judging by the banner grabbing headline! This was the same newspaper that asked for Volume 1 a couple of years ago and promised to publish an article about us, the silence is deafening,!

To add insult to injury I came across a reference to this case on UFO Data website while trying to get in touch with Russell Callaghan. Oddly there were only two sightings on this web page; one was the Birmingham UFO sighting. There was no indication of who put this material on this web page, although it was originally the domain of Russell Callaghan, if anyone can put me in touch that would be much appreciated. If Nick Pope had said this 
(which I doubt) surely this is imagination run riot. For a start no aircraft were scambled to my knowledge!    
I have no idea where this illustration has come from the Officer saw a light not a spaceship!

 

A police officer claimed that he had seen a UFO moving at super sonic speeds when he was off duty driving near the Birmingham airport. The officer reported that he had seen a ‘light with a bluish tinge’ that ‘pulsed rhythmically’ and zoomed off. A colleague then called the air traffic control and they said that nothing had been seen on their systems. The unnamed officer had this to say: ‘I noticed a light in the sky which was pulsing rhythmically. It was very bright and had a bluish tinge to it,’ the website reported the officer as saying.’ I thought at first that it was a plane. Then I realized, as it was only a single light, this was not likely to be the case.’ Besides, I had never seen an aircraft in that part of the sky.’ UFO expert Nick Pope, said: ‘This could be the real thing – a UFO in our airspace and military aircraft scrambled to intercept.’     

    Richard D Hall came to interview us for Vol-5-6-7

Letter sent to newspaper recently-
              Preserving the British UFO Social History How it all began

As a retired Police Officer who spent nearly 30years in the West Midlands Police force, I would like to say that if while on duty or otherwise some one had come up to me and reported having seen aliens or flying saucers. I would have believed they were either suffering from alcoholic intoxication or mentally unbalanced!

However my attitude was to change when my son Chris then a serving P.C. with the same force was asked to interview a Doctor who had seen something unusual flying through the sky over Moseley Birmingham in January 1995.Following that interview he and his colleague witnessed a saucer shaped object hovering above a tree in a suburb a short distance away. 

 My first response was to wonder if my son was playing practical joke but as he seemed serious I decided to conduct my own research wondering if such things existed. Over the space of some months I contacted a number of people who had witnessed a similar phenomenon at about the same time. Although the local newspapers had suggested it was a meteorite, I felt it highly unlikely this was to be the case and decided as time went by and other witnesses contacted me about their strange sightings to write a book, along with my partner Dawn Marina Holloway.

We decided the best course of action was to accumulate as much evidence as we could find and form our own conclusions based on direct interviews rather than second hand information. Obviously  as the years passed away this wasn’t always possible, but we persevered feeling that  this was valuable English social history, and  should be preserved .It shouldn’t be ignored or treated in the main with tongue in cheek comments, by the Nationals  which in the main has always been their attitude(apart from the local newspapers)       We have now published Seven Volumes cataloguing the events from 1940-179, which should give an indication of how prolific the sightings have been during those years.  Volume 7 is on Amazon .com (2013) and we invite you to have a look inside the book as there is a facility for the reader to do this.   At the moment we are working on Volume 8 which covers just 12months of British UFO history this will include our write up of the incident at Rendlesham Forest Suffolk in December 1980.

When Volume 1 was published we sent copies  of the book to various National newspapers including the Daily Telegraph ,who asked for them unfortunately we have never had one article published on us which seems rather odd, bearing in mind that we have been promised much but have been given little.

If there is one thing we have done it is to preserve the history of the British UFO phenomena but the silence is deafening, will this email change the things I doubt it, but one this is assured the books will continue to be published as we feel this is important evidence based on eyewitness testimonials from, senior RAF officers, Police Officers and  members of scientific based community who have never stated they saw aliens or spaceships, just that this is what we saw -make of what you will.

Haunted Skies Journal 2.2.2013

Haunted Skies Journal 2nd February 2013

   

 UFOs the ongoing story! 420 Pages covering a mere

 

              2years of British UFO Activity!

We have now arranged for a look inside facility to be

placed onto Amazon so that people can read selected parts of the book. By the way we are pleased about the sales of this book, it appears to have outstripped all of the other put together!

                            Volume 8 (1980)

Currently we are working on the final month of Volume 8, which covers the period from Janaury 1980-December 1980. The first 11months wer'nt so bad, but sorting out the hundreds of images for December 1980 has without doubt been the hardest job we have ever taken on, never mind the 60 pages of script!  Hence the fact that we have not blogged much, sorry to everyone 

out there, who have supported us so far.

          This is a rare photograph of Sarah Falkland the Midlands News reader.
          She has had one of our books and found it fascinating! Sadly as you
          all know the Nationals have refused to publicise any of our work,
          never mind the local TV. One thing we thrive on is adversity!
          Here are some images you may like,first of all my beautiful daughter 
          Vicky who loves to take photos of her dad and then stick them on 
          facebook- pay back time Vixen!
         

                    Signs in our fire! 1921?   Vicky and Abbey!             

 (c) David Martin a Futoro Home one of these was parked in Todmored during the 1970's but was not the explaantion for what Alan Godfrey encounterd in November 1980

Alvechurch Village Magazine

This is a copy of the text sent to Richard Peach for inclusion in the next Magazine which is on line and goes all round the World.

It seemed the right opportunity to check out the on going series of Books entitled Haunted Skies which are being written and now published right in the heart of our Village.

The reader may remember that we published an article about retired police officer John Hanson and his partner Dawn Holloway endeavours to record the history of  UFO/strange phenomena in our July/August 2011 issue.

Volume 7 which is the couples latest offering  was published by John himself owing to the fact that after over two years the couple were finding the constant trips back and forwards to their  Devon based publisher sometimes twice a month arduous and very costly.

John” This Volume covers the events which took place between 1978 and 1979, and shows through its astonishing number of pages(420 in total) that activity was rife in and around the skies of the UK.

We didn’t intend to make this a large book but balanced the cost of the extra postage incurred against our policy not to leave anything out, as this forms part of our very important British Social UFO History. In addition to this just when we had thought we had completed it, a London based UFO researcher from the 1970’s sent us over 100 previously unpublished files from their study group”

I asked John if he had any personal views or opinions as to the source of the many hundreds if not thousands of sighting reports documented in the now published Volumes- 3 (1966-1967)  Volume 4 (1968-1971) Volume 5 (1972-1974) and the Jubilee Volume 6 (1975-1977) a copy of which was dedicated to Her Royal Majesty and sent to Buckingham Palace.

“UFO reports go back many thousands of years in our opinion. Currently we are in the process of completing Volume 8 which covers 1980. This will include a scrapbook section and also an update on other cases brought too our attention in colour! We are still looking for Illustrators that may be prepared to help us and are hoping to get Volume 7 onto Kindle very soon!”

John told me about  Hans a German soldier who was serving on the Russian front  in 1944 when thousands of German and Russian troops saw a silver cigar shaped object appear in the sky. This matter was reported to Berlin and presumably Adolf Hitler himself. Rather anecdotally the German soldiers knew the war was going badly for them after they captured a convoy of American trucks containing tons of chocolate!  On a more sober note Hans returned to the regiment after being wounded and found only one comrade remained alive from the ongoing conflict.

Another strange report found in Volume 1 came from Lesley Grant a British Serviceman, who was driving a captured German tank at Arnhem, in 1944 when he was warned by an officer not to go any further. Curiosity got the better of him when he had look he saw a landed grey saucer shaped object. When he tried to approach it he found himself being stopped by what felt like an invisible cushion.

John,” We came across a similar story involving milkman John Payne who was having a break at Winkleigh Airfield Devon when he saw what looked like a submarine shaped object with fins lying on the runway. He too was prevented from getting any closer by what he described as an invisible cushion, that you could actually lean on. He wasn’t

the only one a journalist from a Reading Newspaper tried to get close to a landed UFO during 1967. Unfortunately this was around the time when a number of bleeping flying saucers’ were discovered at various locations around the UK. When the Police opened them they found they had been filled with fertilizer: - part of a students rag day’ prank!  So the journalist never published what she had seen, but the story was known at the time to her colleagues who had been with her at the time

 

Recently as a result of an appeal in a Police Magazine John and Dawn were contacted by anumber of officers from Superintendent down to PC who brought

 to their attention the following incidents,

1- A report of ball lightning, by a cadet on lollipop patrol in the 1960’s,

2- A Special Constable from Kent who was with two other officers when they saw three black disc shaped object moving over  the sky in formation at Minnis Bay, Birchington -on –Sea, way back in the 1950’s.

3-A retired PC from the Nottinghamshire Constabulary told of an object that had landed in 1976.

4- A retired London Police Sergeant was on duty at the Police Station when a family came in to report having seen a mysterious green globe land in nearby marshes. A search was carried out but nothing was found. When the Sergeant contacted Fylingdales in Yorkshire they told him to send a motorcycle officer up the next morning with the report.

5- A report from a retired Superintendent, of nine lights seen 

moving in formation over Gillingham Kent  in 1966. 

6- A retired Detective Inspector from Oxfordshire was on patrol during the early hours of the morning when his Police car struck an invisible object and ended up pointing the wrong way at Kidlington in 1978. This may sound quite humorous and impossible to believe but the car’s roof was squashed down 18inches from whatever it collided with

totally inexplicable.

But what’s behind all of this I asked John, “The million dollar question, the simple answer is we don’t know and are not prepared to speculate. But surely at the end of the day matters such as these are not only worth investigating but recording. They form part of our social history”

I can be contacted on johndawn1@sky.com  or by telephone 0121.445.0340 John Hanson retired Police Officer West Midlands and Dawn Holloway.