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.

Haunted Skies.Trip to Wiltshire.

    Haunted Skies Update January 14^th 2013
 

Today Monday the 14^th I went to the Post Office and posted signed copies of Haunted Skies books to various people that had ordered them from me. The 2^nd class postage for the earlier Volumes is now costing me £1.90 for 320 pages.

Volume 7 is now classed as a ‘packet’ appropriate bearing in mind its costs us a packet of £3.50 to send the book, which I am well aware of but we didn’t have much of a choice; the work is far too important not to publish. Under the circumstances if anyone wants a copy of Volume 7 signed and sent to them I would ask them if they were prepared to help us by contributing £1.50 towards the postage for Volume 7 and £1 for any of the earlier Volumes. This is more than fair as for the last 2 and half years I have have been paying the postage on every book out of my own pocket, not forgetting Volume 7 has 100 extra pages of information!

Volume 8 (1980) is still being worked on, and will be in colour which is quite exciting, although we haven’t settled on a front cover yet. 
Trip to gloomy Wiltshire

On Saturday last my son Alex and his girlfriend Sonja accompanied by her young son ‘Ollie’ decided to visit the delights of Wiltshire, taking in the sights of West Kennet 

Longbarrow, 
 
    Alex and Sonja freezing their butts off!

West kennet Longbarrow a dark and brooding day!

Silbury Hill, in its magnificence!
Adams Grave, Avebury, and the delightful ‘Barge pub’ now ran by Amanda and her partner. The first photo was where the ladeis toilet was before alterations. They are in the process of re turfing the strip of land that was the seating area and have placed a sarsen stone in the middle.

Haunted Skies Volume 8 & The real Heroes!

           Haunted Skies 8^th January 2013

                      Volume 8

                                 IN Colour! 

                        These are the real Heroes!

                  Wing Commander Eric Cox and his

                   UFO sighting! 1967

                  copyright to his son Eric

                       Budd Hopkins and Peter Robbins thanks 

                                 Peter for the photo!

 Two wonderful ladies that we had the pleasure of  talking  to, 

 rest in peace Betty and Freda!

                       

Currently we are submitting October 1980 to the

typesetter Bob Tibbitts for inclusion in the current

work.This is sample of what that month contains:-

       Chapter 10 October 1980 

Strange orange glow over East Lothian

On the 3^rd of October 1980 Peter Douglas (11) and three friends were out playing on the Muirpark adventure playground near their homes in Tranent East Lothian. When at 7.15pm they saw an orange light covering about half of the sky towards the North West direction.  It then vanished but reappeared a few minutes later as a fuzzy oval shape visible for a few seconds on each occasion it was seen. (Source: BUFORA) Insert letter from Arthur Shuttlewood here dated 3 .10.80

Flying Saucer over Anglesley 

In October 1980 Schoolboys -David Prytherch & Gerald Kellahan, from Syr Thomas Jones School, Amlwch, sighted: “A brightly lit saucer shaped object, full of coloured lights, which made a swishing noise as passed overhead.  It looked like a crab underneath, as it passed directly above our heads, at around 8.00 pm., before heading on towards Parys Mountain, joined, shortly afterwards, by a bigger version of the first.”

David’s father, Ken Prytherch, Postmaster at Penysarn, described his son’s agitated condition and that, after being told what happened, invited him to illustrate what he had seen - identical to that drawn by Gerald. Apparently, the boys weren’t the only ones to sight the UFO.  Members of the McGuire family, from Tyn Ffynnon, claimed to have seen ‘lights’ which seemed to land on the mountain, after darting about in the sky.(Source: The North Wales Chronicle’, 16.10.80 – ‘UFO lands on Parys Mountain’)

UFO over Emley Moor

Russell Callaghan was working as a bus conductor, in Bradford, during October 1980. “We finished early on that day and had little time to spare, so we parked on Odsal Top, looking outwards over Emley Moor.  It was about 3.45 pm.  The sun had gone in. It wasn’t quite dark.  We were shocked to see a silver spinning ‘disc’ in the sky at about a thousand feet off the ground.  Within eight seconds it had gone.”   Russell one of the leading UFO Researchers in the country, was very much involved in UFO Magazine before its demise, after the death of Graham Birdsall.    Insert photo of Russell and Graham

Each and every sighting has to be the subject of much scrutiny, before the completed product goes off to be

set into the In Design PDF. This of course means considerable work. Only recently we drove to Dinmore Hill Herefordshire which was the scene of a mysterious

incident involving three people, and interviewed a local farmer  who sighted a UFO hovering over the Clee Hill area. We have sightings over the top of the transmission mast there from the 1990’s, but will have to wait until we come up to the appropriate time/book before we can even start shaping up that Volume.

Spoke to David Sankey and his partner Erica, today they have been the ‘rock’ of what these books have been about, and I apologise if I have mixed up his work with someone elses! 

The problem is that we are a 'one man band' and having taken on the Publishers role demands time which is in short supply.

Colonel Halt has been assisting us with the information contained in Volume 8, but we will be saving his comments for December 1980. he has fully supported our work and  we are grateful to him.

 Megalithic Tours Mysterious Earth Conference 2013

Grimsargh Village Hall Preston Road, Grimsargh, Preston, Lancashire, PR2 5JS

From Neil McDonald  Hi AllThe fifth yearly Megalithic Tours 'Mysterious Earth Conference' will be held over the weekend of the 13th & 14th April 2013.  We will have eight fascinating speakers from across Britain, a range of stalls and catering.  As always the conference will be a great opportunity to meet old friends and like minded people.  Their will also be a four day follow up tour to the 'Mystical Isle of Man', running from the Monday morning.  I have attached a PDF 'information and Booking Sheet' that also covers the 'Post-Conference Tour' and very much hope to see you at the conference.All the bestNeil

---

 

Haunted Skies wishes Happy New Year 1.1.2013

  Rendition of event at Rendlesham Forest  December 1980 by Wayne Mason(c) 2012  

  Haunted Skies 1st Janaury 2013 

Happy New Year to you all from John and Dawn

Volume 8 is under way this covers the period 1980!

Here are some extracts from the forthcoming Volume 8 (The cover has been completed) but wil be under wraps for some time yet

But first does anyone know the whereabouts of Mark Brown & Philip Barnet UFO researchers? 

Aswe would like to speak to them about some old cases?

             

            VOLUME 8 will be in colour!

We are pleased that the opportunity to show some of the images in glorious colour has finally arrived. We are delighted to be able to show the reader some ‘UFO sketches’ from the possession of UFO researcher Derek Samson from Shirley, West Midlands. Derek was a keen gardener and artist and spent much of his life recording for posterity reported UFO activity, brought to his attention from all over the World. 

Invisible Barriers or force fields encountered

In addition to the sightings of UFOs and their occasional occupants, we have now included reports of mysterious interactions between human beings and what some may refer to as invisible force fields of barriers, which prevent access to something or someone, whose identity still remains unknown. Examples of which have already been published in Haunted Skies. They include the report by British Soldier Leslie Grant who saw a domed object on three legs resting on the ground near Arnhem in 1944. When he approached the object he was stopped by doing so by what he described as “like pushing against rubber” (See Page 38, Volume 1)   In May 1957, Mr. John  Payne encountered an object described as resembling a submarine with two fins at the end object on Winkleigh Airfield Devon. When he tried to get closer he found his way blocked by what he described as an “invisible air cushion, that you could actually lean on”

(See Page 210, Volume 1)  In Reading Berkshire on the 4^th of September 1967, Jane a reporter from the Reading Evening News attempted to approach a landed UFO next to the Royal Ordnance factory, but was prevented by “What felt like an invisible force field preventing us getting any closer” (See Page 184, Volume 3) We were to come across many such examples over the years. Many of them took place in Brazil, USA, USSR, and New Zealand but due to lack of space are prevented from reproducing these accounts here; we are forced to confine our interest to what took place in the UK.

Encounter with UFO

Two days later, on 27^th August 1980, Gateshead waitress - Marjorie Stainthorpe - was driving towards Winlaton, at 3.00am, near Shibdon Bank, when she became aware of a blue and green coloured ‘ball of light’ following behind the vehicle.” I was terrified. When I arrived home, I found myself shaking with fear. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t any aircraft.” Enquiries with the local coastguards revealed a blue/green ‘flash of light’ was sighted over Marsden Rock, on the same evening, which was explained away as a shooting star.  (Source: personal interview)

              

               Flying Saucer’ seen near Temple Meads Bristol

William McQuaid of Knowle Bristol telephoned us in 2007 wishing to bring our attention to something that he witnessed around the 1980 period.    “At the time I was employed as a catering steward for British Rail. One morning we were on our way to Cardiff and had just left Temple Mead Station Bristol. I happened to look out of the window and see a sight that shocked me to the core. A spinning silver saucer shaped object showing a completely smooth outer surface, with no sign of any rivets joins or windows, showing a dome at the top and bottom, hovering in the air about 6ft away from where I was.   I estimated it was about 3ft in length and 2ft wide, my first thoughts were that it was radio controlled. There was a man asleep in a nearby carriage, but for some inexplicable reason I didn’t try and awake him”.

From Volume 6 the Jubilee edition 1975-1977

Close Encounter with UFO

Actress Freda Driver, the sister of Betty Driver - more familiar for her role as evergreen Barmaid, Betty Turpin, of ‘Coronation Street’ fame - spoke to us about a strange incident she and her sister witnessed, during the 1970s.Freda:  “I was sitting in the lounge at the farmhouse where we lived at the time, one stormy evening, and happened to glance through the window, when I saw this large circular yellow ‘ball of light’ hovering above some trees, apparently unaffected by the gale force wind blowing outside. I watched it, noting it had a slightly misty halo around it, and thought to myself it’s watching me as well!

After about 15 minutes, I decided to summon up the courage and venture outside, asking my sister, Betty, to come with me. When we opened the door, accompanied by the three boxer dogs, the wind was so strong we had trouble standing.  As soon as the dogs saw the UFO they ran back inside and hid under the table, at which stage we began to feel frightened and went back inside the house.

After 5 minutes or so, it shot up into the sky and disappeared, followed by the wind dropping dramatically. We found out that others had also seen this UFO, which was explained away as a weather balloon!”

Freda described another incident which took place, while home with her sister, Freda, one evening, approximately ten miles from Ellesmere Port, when they noticed a curious ‘ball of light’ travelling in tandem with their vehicle, about a hundred yards away. Freda:  “I stopped the car to have a closer look at this object, and was surprised to see it had also stopped motionless in the air, as if somehow watching us.

 Unsure of what to do, we got back into the car and continued on our journey, noting, with fright, it was still following us - always at the same distance away from us, irrespective of whatever speed we were doing. It stayed with us for about 20 miles and was clearly seen by other motorists, some of whom stopped their cars. To our relief, when we entered a built-up area, it shot off upwards into the sky and disappeared.”

A few days after the incident, Freda was not surprised to learn, from reading a local Newspaper, that the UFO had been seen by other drivers on the road, one of whom launched an appeal, asking for any other witnesses to contact him.   Needless to say, Freda and Betty decided to keep quiet, fearing ridicule.   (Source: personal interview)

Don Ramkin who has been a valuable supporter of the Haunted Skies project is off to Rendlesham Forest tonight to celebrate the New year with Terry and Brenda Butler. Our best wishes to all of you hope you have a great night.

Don -Well here are three photos of the latest kittens. We've named the black tabby Tabatha , the black n white is called fur ball as its a podgy thing , and the beige & white we called Charlie .Happy New year.

 

   We would also like to thank Steve Franklin, David Bryant and Jason Chapman for their help with illustrations. If any budding artists wish to assist of any age ! All contributions are welcome here! please contact us on 0121.445.0340

Once again Happy New Year from John and Dawn.