Surprising message from UFO conference speaker

Jul 3 2011 by Mike Kelly, Sunday Sun

A UFO sighting in London this week had the unexplained in the headlines once again. But is there really somebody out there? Mike Kelly reports.

A UFO conference held in the North East yesterday boasted an impressive list of speakers and some had a surprising message.

The general public perception of these ‘Uflogists’ is that they are nutters with too much time on their hands. However those at the BUFORA conference in Newcastle - BUFORA stands for British UFO Research Association - take the subject seriously and display a level of cynicism and scientific analysis that might surprise those who choose to dismiss them out of hand.

There is no slavish belief in little green men with oversized heads descending on this planet in saucer-shaped ships. While they believe there is something out there, the vast majority of the sightings are just in the mind of those who have witnessed them. And one of the reasons, according to speaker Andy Roberts, is fear.

Although sightings of disc shaped objects date back to the Middle Ages, it was in the post Second World War period they became a worldwide obsession.

It was following the first highly publicized sighting in June 1947 that the term flying saucer was coined based on quotes by witness Kenneth Arnold describing the shape of the objects he saw as like a “saucer”, “disc”, or “pie-plate”

The timing of the sighting and the reaction to it, according to Tony, was not coincidental. With the trauma of the war fresh in their minds and the age of the Atomic Bomb having recently begun, fear was a big factor.

“People were looking for other beings to either save them or destroy them,” said Tony.

Interestingly while there have been some highly publicised hoaxes over the decades, surveys reveal only a very small percentage of sightings are actually made up. People are convinced they saw something.

More often than not the sighting can be explained by natural phenomena like lenticular (lens shaped) clouds, balloons, military aircraft - a common occurrence in the North East because of test flights over the North Sea - and, of late, Chinese lanterns.

“There has been a craze for letting off Chinese Lanterns to celebrate birthdays and weddings,” said. Andy.

The rice paper lanterns, with a candle inside, can float for miles on the wind. And when the candle goes out, it results in an optical illusion that the object has raced away at incredible speed.

Then there are ‘Earth lights’ believed to be produced by tectonic strain in minor fault lines, so that they are literally generated by the earth. They appear in many colours, shapes, and sizes, though the basketball-sized globular orange variety seems most common. Most sightings occur at night, when some lights can be seen from miles around. They’re reported to be able to move against the wind and reach extraordinary speeds.

Their terrestrial nature means that though many sightings are sporadic, there are some locations where they appear relatively often, for example in the Pennines in England.

However all can not be explained away. Andy’s book, UFO Down, investigates the alleged crash of an alien spacecraft in the Berwyn Mountains of North Wales.

“It’s said to be the British Roswell,” explained Andy. In July 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, it was alleged a space ship crashed to earth and its alien occupants were captured making the word Roswell synonymous with UFOs.