It Was "Something"

 I often state that we have lost so many encounter cases and I think this one is a perfect example.

2^nd August, 1967 Warwickshire

Derek Samson, NICAP GB

John Hanson Haunted Skies vol. 3 p 159

As there is a similarity to the Winterfold case and another at Epping Forest I have included this though the sparsity of details does note take it beyond worth noting.

“Birmingham couple –Terry Sproson, and girlfriend, Christine Arkles – at 10.15 pm on 2^nd August 1967, while parked in the Rubery area, a few miles from Frankly Beeches Reservoir.

Terry said:

“Something, or someone, came close to the car in which we were parked. It appeared to be looking in at the rear window on the driver’s side and glided to the front side window. When I attempted to lock the car door, it moved back”.

This appears to be all NICAP GB gives us.

The Stanford, Kentucky UFO & alien abduction mystery, Jan 6 1976 (update...

“Out of Range: The Aldershof Encounter” | Paranormal Stories

Sadly, this 'case' is probably going to be repeated and copy and pasted all over the internet and shoved into UFO books galore.  I saw the source and so purchased a copy of the book. It is what we used to call "trash pulp" or a spinner rack paperback that people pick up to read on long journeys.

Each story -and I say "story" for a good reason- concludes with a generic witness name. There is never an exact date or any information to check on. Some of the stories seem to come almost directly from TV paranormal shows.  They are, in my opinion, all complete fiction.  No photos or anything else that might give the accounts credibility and I think it safe to say that the X-Files inspired Aldershof Encounter is just that. Pure fiction.

1978 Deanne Kearns Encounter

Left: Deanne Kearns at Ord High School in 1981

Bob Gribble, founder of the National UFO Reporting Centre, wrote that: "Ten years ago  - October 1978: Deanne Kearns had a close encounter near Ord, Nebraska on the morning of the 9th. She observed a grey, metallic disc hovering 200 to 300 feet off the ground and, as she watched, a beam of light shot downward from the disc to the ground and two "things" floated down to the ground in the beam. 

They were five to six feet tall, looked around, took some samples of shrubs and soil, and then ascended back into the disc in the beam of light. The tenth grade student described the two "things" as being blackish-brown in color, their heads were blob-like, and they had tentacles on their sides. After about ten minutes or so, the disc shot straight up into the sky and was out of sight in a few seconds.

Kearns is described as a 10th Grade student so 15-16 years of age. Sadly the sources quoted present problems:

Webb, David, HUMCAT: Catalogue of Humanoid Reports;  1978 reports are as yet not online but I am contacting CUFOS to see if they have any more information.

International UFO Reporter, International UFO Reporter, CUFOS; I have gone through a lot of the online back issues but without an issue number at least it is a hard task.

Eberhart, George M., A Geo-Bibliography of Anomalies, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1980, ISBN:0-313-21337-2;  I cannot even find a reference to this online but if anyone has a copy and can check...please?

Hall, Richard H., The UFO Evidence, Volume II: A Thirty-Year Report, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, 2000, ISBN:0-8103-3881-8.  -this is now unobtainable (ie; I do not have £200/$200+ to buy a copy so if anyone can search the source if they have it -I believe CE3Ks start around p. 451

The NICAP Chronology, unsurprisingly, does not mention the report.

If anyone has read my books they will know that black entities are reported by rarely and were quite obscure until I stumbled on a number of cases so this one interests me a lot.

It is now 0200hrs and my eyes need rest!

Just The Normal Daily Drive Home From Work

Note that I am currently looking into this report in more detail and this should be viewed as an information dump prior to a full report.

Lumières Dans La Nuit (Lights in the Night) is a French UFO publication that has been around for decades and is certainly far more reputable than Flying Saucer Review.  LDLN presented the investigation report by Serge Sorinas for France Ufologie in 1995 and this account is based on that.

The witness in this case is a married woman having asked for anonymity, she is a mother of 4 children and employee in a company (not named per confidentiality).  At 2330hrs on the 3rd June, 1992,  the sky was perfectly clear and starry and the temperature was fine. The witness was driving home in her Citroen BX car after working all day. The journey from work to her home being 30 kilometer and this was a journey she had undertaken for many years. 

The witness was in her car in Mélesse, 12 kilometers to the north of Rennes, at the location "Le Cormier" on the communal way 107 at 1 kilometer to the north-north-east of the borough. This communal way is between the secondary road D26 which joins Saint-Germain-sur-Ille to Mélesse, which is roughly in the East-West. It is bordered in the south by a large pasture, defined by a row of  large trees, which is lot 486 of the land register and which belongs to the farm Le Cormier which is in its South-Eastern angle.  Approaching the crossroads of D26 and VC 107, her attention was caught by a strong red light. It was hovering above the row of tree separating lot 485 and lot 486.

She was somewhat surprised but supposed that it was nothing more than the airplane warning light of some crane, and she continued driving by the communal way skirting the lot.  As the witness looked more closely she noted that the powerful light came from two "headlights" of a stationary craft hovering at this place, and that this craft also had a white light at the back. Out of curiosity, she slowed down and stopped her car a hundred meters further along the road for a better view.

The investigator quotes the witness as saying that when she pulled off the road the craft was already there, stationary above a farm, and that it gave her the impression of being on  watch. Then, after a few moments, the object began to move in her direction, gently, rather high at the start, and that when it came down, she was able to see the interior.  The object had descended to a few meters from the ground and a distance that she estimated as 15 meters from her.

Fig. 1By approaching the crossroads between D26 and VC 107, the witness sees the red light being just above the tree the top of which was found to be dead the next day.

The object was made entirely of transparent material, it did not have any structure or support and it should be noted that this type of object has been noted before but in quite obscure reports. She could quite clearly see what she described as a dashboard with white and green lights on it.  Behind this dashboard the witness could see a bald person with a grey one piece outfit with a collar. Asked for more precise details of the entity she stated that she did not pay too much attention but that he was approximately 1.10m tall with yellow skin, a head without hair and some kind of breathing device.and that she thought of military operations because the outfit made her think of the army and thought that it must be a helicopter but rejected this idea since she always drove with the window and so should have heard the noise one makes. In fact to make sure that the object was not making any noise she even  turned the car radio off  and remember that her car was stopped at this time so any noise would be quite clearly heard.

The witness had by this time become slightly worried since she could find no obvious explanation for what the object was and so, calmly, she started to drive off. The object  followed for some metres before,  suddenly,  it was no longer there; she looked in her rear view mirror and saw neither the object nor any light.

Fig, 2: When the witness started on the VC 107, the two "headlights" became discernible

The witness continued on her journey and arrived on the Rennes road, at the D82, which she travelled along for 2 kilometres towards the South at which point she then again saw the object, in the form of a red light.  This light moved away and was "already far, very far" at the tower of Cesson. She found it unthinkable that this craft could carry out a trip of such a distance in such a short amount of time, estimated at 2 minutes approximately.

The investigator points out that the witness could not have confused the Cesson transmitter tower light for the unknown object since she had seen the light of tower separately from the light of the object. Two distinct light sources.

On her way to work the next day at 1400hrs., the witness drove past the location and noted that the top of a tree where the object had been hovering had completely died and looked like it was "cooked".  The witness was quite adamant that she had not noticed the tree looking like that before the incident and so the investigator questioned the owners of the farm and they found the state of the tree odd and, as the witness stated, had not noticed it like that before. It was noted that the remainder of the tree was in perfect health. 

fig. 3 The place where the witness stopped her car for better observing.

On the same day as having spotted the tree damage the witness had contacted the Gendarmerie at Hédé by telephone with the aim of obtaining information on what she had seen. Her statement was not filed so presumably someone either did not take it too seriously or  adopted a "nothing we can do about it" attitude.

The investigator was very clear that the witness seemed to him to be a balanced, rational, person, with a very marked sense of observation and that her eyesight appears excellent; she does not need spectacles and that she sees very well in the distance. These facts he managed to note during a visit to the locations of the sighting. Her estimates of the distances also were confirmed by the use of  maps.

It was also noted that the witness's knowledge of the subject of UFOs was very limited, coming mainly from reports she heard about and TV shows. She insisted that her anonymity should be preserved and in fact only agreed to talk to the investigator because one of her colleagues at work was an acquaintance his so vouched for him.

As included here (the best copies I could get) the investigation report is illustrated with photographs of the location of the observation and two maps indicating the travel of the witness, the various spots of observation.

There is no mention of missing time which is what I thought the sudden disappearance of the object meant. However, there is no indication of this therefore it appears that the light vanished/went out or the object moved away at speed so fast the witness thought it vanished. It is interesting to note that the witness was not thinking UFO but more army helicopter or something similar hence contacting the police and expecting to be told what she had seen. I stated that it was unusual that her report was not officially filed but taking it from the standpoint that the witness did not want anything but to remain anonymous it is likely that she decided against making it an official report.

At the peak of the whole Hopkins "missing time" and "Greys" one might have thought that this would be expected as the norm -it seems to have been in the United States- but no; we have a classic example of an object briefly observed and an entity within it. I know that this will disappoint a few people but abductions -and in many cases I do not think that we are even dealing with abductions- or on board experiences are rare compared to the number of UFO (craft-like) sightings.  Even Patrick Gross on URECAT (normally a very sceptical fellow) states that:

"When I opened the file, with the primary source not available, I noted:

"The story is highly interesting, unfortunately its origin is not specified. As it stands, it may have been some anonymous reader's letter to the ufology magazine, with no follow-up investigation, no credibility."

"Taking into consideration source (Serge Sorinas and Lumières Dans La Nuit -THS) I later received, these comments have no grounds anymore, and we are left with a really more interesting, and investigated, case."

The conclusion given by him on URECAT: "Extraterrestrial visitors"

Has Anyone Photographed an Alien?

 That is a good question.  It is possible that there are genuine photographs of UFOBs (seemingly constructed objects) as well as UNP (a natural phenomena not yet studied by science).  However, seeing the reaction on the internet and social media to photographs and videos of UFOs as well as the insulting remarks would someone not out to make money bother posting images/clips?  Some may just send copies to the military and that is it.

When it comes to entities there are so many fakes (about 100% of what you see online) and, again, the nastiness, etc., would be evident if someone who took such a photo/clip made a cursory check online. Would they want that knowing also that confidentiality is something Ufologists tend not to believe in?   

Someone unseen during a UFO landing with a camera or phone-cam might take a photo. Not perfect composition but the situation would not be one where you can get the light right, every thing in frame perfectly and so on. A landing near a secluded farm -similar situation and who would the footage/images be sent to? Remember people are being filled with constant lies about secret government agencies out to threaten and silence witnesses so anyone with photos has no real choice about who to contact.    

Let's assume someone does get photos or footage what would I do if contacted? Firstly I would make it clear that as far as I am concerned the identity(ies) of those involved is not for publication. I do not do press or media deals. I will ask for details of how the photos/clip were taken and gather as much information as possible to assess whether the people involved are genuine. My final assessment report would go top those people and be filed away unless they gave permission to publish along with the photos/video clip but still maintaining their anonymity.

"Hey, can you tell me how to sell my alien photos?" is not going to get much of a response! I am interested in gathering information and to present as possible evidence. In almost 50 years I have never broken confidentiality and I do not intend to start to do so.  I am not going to dismiss someone without viewing the evidence and I have looked at UFO and other photographs, video footage and cell phone footage over 50 years and fakes are easy to identify today.

You listen to what the person says and ask any questions and look at the evidence submitted. You investigate and then determine the possibility of it being genuine, misidentification or a hoax. 

I really hope that one day while I am still around someone does get photos or footage!

John Hanson

 Forgetting to keep adding profiles of Ufologists who have carried out legitimate investigations and especially regarding AE/CE3K cases I completely forgot that John Hanson of The Haunted Skies Project needed including.

John has not only met and chatted to Jennie Roestenberg but many others who have had CE3Ks.  He has interviewed some many years after rather bare reporting by others and I have a complete set (I bought them) of the Haunted Skies books and it is not often that I get surprised but John turned up some new and unique cases that I had never heard of before!

Above: John Hanson with Lt Col Charles Halt at Rendelsham Forest -John wrote two books on the subject with the main one being The Halt Perspective. (c)2024 J. Hanson

This is from John's Haunted Skies web page https://www.hauntedskies.co.uk/

"It was in January 1995 that John's curiosity in UFOs began, after a colleague telephoned him to tell him about a massive saucer-shaped object he and his officer partner had seen in the Stirchley area of Birmingham, and for the next two to three years John began to gather information of other sightings that had been witnessed on that same evening.

"John's former partner Dawn visited a college where John was giving a lecture and he propositioned her into helping him write a book about UFOs, which she thought was only going to last 12 months, but which has - in fact - taken 15 years! John & Dawn have met some very interesting people in researching the books including pilots, police officers, and general members of the public who have been most helpful and have had a lot of fascinating accounts to recall. John & Dawn have visited the length and breadth of the country collecting various UFO reports and has chronologically written these up in various volumes of Haunted Skies. It has been a very challenging task, but one which has helped to satisfy the curiosity of the general public. Their research has seen them investigating crop circles, WWII foo fighters, strange lights in the sky as well as on the ground, together with flying objects in the skies from Scotland to Cornwall, and they have built up a comprehensive and detailed log which spreads over several volumes.

Above: John at his British UFO Archives (c)2024 J. Hanson

John's Own Words...

'My ‘working ‘journey through life began working as a Chef at the Moorend Park Hotel in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire which I enjoyed but then started work with an outside catering firm R Sills, which enabled me to see how the other half lived serving food to the gentry at Hunt Balls and on one occasion seeing the Queen Mum briefly as she walked past one of the tents. This all changed after seeing the look on my father face after somebody pinched his car, motivated me to join the Birmingham City Police,-where I served nearly 30 years half in uniform, then in CID.

"If I could do it all again I would join the force -but would think twice before getting involved in the UFO Business, no disrespect intended towards the fantastic people I met over the years as this is not for the faint hearted. I was foolish to believe that I could deal with anything !

"I thought that having personally risked my life, by being involved in dangerous confrontations, with criminals –such as seeing a machete slice through the air and miss my head. Suffice to say if it had killed me then I wouldn’t be talking to you tonight.

"On another occasion I fought off a violent burglar who tried to stab me with a line prop in the back garden on a house in Sparkhill Birmingham at 3am - not as funny as you might think when you are on the receiving end!

"Another incident involved chasing safe breakers for over an hour into the open countryside, culminating in their car crashing I handcuffed the driver and set out to arrest the passenger. It wouldn’t even enter my mind that I was at a risk…arrogance of being a cop I suppose you think you’re immortal.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever get involved in a subject which I had not the slightest interest in –after all Flying Saucers ghosts and other phenomena have no place in our technological world, boy was I in for a shock! "

Above: John Hanson on a busman's holiday! (c)2024 J. Hanson

The Haunted Skies Face Book page

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066375915937

Håkan Blomqvis 1952-

 From Blomqvist's blog:

"I was born 1952 in the beautiful Swedish city Karlstad – the City of the Sun, according to local tradition. Endowed with an inquisitive mind I have always been fascinated by literature and the mysteries of life. 

"University studies at Stockholm University: History of religion, Philosophy and Ethnology. Retired 2016 as librarian from Norrköping Public Library. My family consists om my wife Margaretha and our two cats Donna and Samson. I have been active in UFO research since 1970 and also for many years a student of the Theosophical/Esoteric Tradition and literature. 

"I am the author of ”UFO – i myt och verklighet” (UFO – in myth and reality, 1993), ”Främlingar på vår jord. UFO-kontakter i Sverige” (Aliens on Earth. UFO Contacts in Sweden, 2009), ”En resa i tiden. UFO-Sveriges historia 1970-2010” (A Travel in Time. The History of UFO-Sweden 1970-2010, 2010). Gudarna återvänder. UFO och den esoteriska traditionen (Return of the Gods. UFOs and the Esoteric Tradition, (2013), Esotericism and UFO Research (2017)."

Sven Schalin 1925-2017

 

Above and below: Sven Schalin (left) and Ingeborg Kjellin interviewing the CE3K hoaxers Stig Rydberg and Hans Gustafsson (c)2024 Respective copyright owner

 

There is a very good brief bio on Schalin on Håkan Blomqvist's blog

 https://ufoarchives.blogspot.com/2018/11/sven-schalin-1925-2017.html

Very interesting post on Schalin after he died. Rather than realise that there were two distinct phenomena -the UFOBs (seeming constructed craft) and a form of uninvestigated natural phenomenon (UNP)- as I did after a week of sifting reports in the late 1970s he leapt to the conclusion that UNP were spiritual and therefore all UFOs were. 

I never understand how someone can study UFOs for 10-30 years and not realise what is going on....or it might just be me?

Schalin in 2014 (c)2024 respective copyright owner

Do NOT Dismiss Seemingly Genuine CE3Ks Just Because They Do Not Involve 'Greys'

 Swedish UFO researcher Sven Schalin (1925-2017)  was adamant that reports of UFO associated alien entities or what became known as CE3K reports should not be ignored or swept under the carpet by those in Ufology.  He realised that objects flying around the skies and landing must have someone controlling or operating them and that meant some biological(?) form of life.  I use the question mark as some speculate that what are encountered may be robots, androids,  etc., rather than biological beings. In some cases the descriptions given are of obvious (to our conceptions) robotic types.

Above: Sven Schalin (c) 2024 respective copyright owner

Below: Air Chief Marshal Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, GCB, GCVO, CMG (24 April 1882 – 15 February 1970) (c)2024 Paul Crickmore

Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding also felt that the accounts needed to be looked into. 

In fact, one of the first things I asked when I joined the British Flying Saucer Bureau c1975 was "Who is thought to pilot these objects?" and that got a chuckle as I was told "Well, Mr Adamski tells us that...."  yeah -Venusians, Martians and the usual crowd of "space brothers". You see, Adamski was a good con artist and people were willing to believe anything in the early days of the flying saucers.

When I asked about the Hill case and others there were "tuts" and head nodding because -obviously- those were all hoaxes and delusional people.  Again, because Mr. Adamski had made it very clear that the entities were our space brothers.  It took me a week of research to realise Adamski was a fraud but most of the original BFSB members took faith in his 'truthful' accounts to their graves.,

According to Wikipedia: Elliot Budd Hopkins (June 15, 1931 – August 21, 2011) was an American artist, author, and ufologist. He was a prominent figure in alien abduction phenomena and related UFO research.  It does not mention that he outrightly lied and tampered with the 'evidence' to make it fit with what he was pushing or that he knew for a fact that the main subject of one of his books (Witnessed) Linda Cortille was lying and evidence proved this. In fact Witnessed  I had to double check on as I thought it was a novel based on alien abduction accounts because only the outright gullible could fall for the trash Hopkins wrote.

But here is my question, that I doubt I will ever get an answer to; 1975 and the North Hudson Park UFO landing and repair case was one that got Hopkins his name as a Ufologist while many forget the involvement of the Grandfather of CE3K reports, Ted Bloecher. Bloecher has a solid reputation for honesty and straight forward reporting and I do look into Ufologists to see if they are trustworthy or not.  Bloecher avoided fame and money and wanted to get to the truth and that was it.  It is clear that had Bloecher found any hint of things being "off" in Hopkins' report he would have said so. Which leads to my question; at what point did Hopkins "turn to the dark side"?

We have choices here; Hopkins was always morally corrupt and saw UFOs as a way to make money and get fame. Which is slightly unlikely because he was a noted artist and that earned him money and recognition so at the outset corrupt? No.

Did he truly believe that he could break through the mental blocks in a person claiming missing time?  He undoubtedly looked at the Hill case and saw how Dr Leo Sprinkle was using hypnosis to recover missing memory (although later Dr Sprinkle felt that there might be some form of telepathy between subject and himself that put ideas into their minds). Certainly he would have been aware of the leading researchers in the field of "Occupant" reports -James and Coral Lorenzen and their use of hypnosis as well as ...scopolamine which, in my opinion was a major mistake. Therefore he probably thought that he could recover hidden memory.

In fact, his early work seemed to be making some progress even if you have to be careful with hypnosis recovered memory. Then he decided that a deer seen was a screen memory to deceive the percipient's memory and he dug his heels in and...it was a screen image.Then he dug deeper into that and found what would eventually morph into the "Greys" (take your pick on which type).  From there he dug into what he thought were other percipients' "screen memories".

I can recall listening to tapes of his talks and lectures sent to me by Travis Whitehurst and thinking it was all very interesting. Privately (because anonymity was requested) some people sent him money to carry out tests he needed to have done -there were alien probe devices in some abductees. We waited and others who put up money waited. Well, wouldn't you know it; the aliens "must have" removed the devices the night before X-rays/cat-scans. Every time.  That beggared the logical question of how, without their probe inside the abductee these Greys were able to still track them down even to basements of buildings they had never visited before?  "Their technology is so far ahead of our understanding-"

At this point I decided to stop publicly supporting Hopkins because it smelt almost as though a huge heap of bovine excreta had been dumped nearby.

However, as with Dr Jacobs, I kept Hopkins up-to-date on things from the UK and all seemed settled.  The late British Ufologist Eric Morris at one point provided symbols from alleged abduction cases he was looking into and asked that I forward them to Hopkins and Dr Jacobs. Of course, Morris was a hoaxer and even declared openly that he faked reports (but was still welcome to UFO events). Jacobs told me none of the symbols matched those he had which was good because that would have raised questions. Peter Robbins fielded calls to Hopkins and as soon as he did any sort of conversation with Hopkins was gone.  He promised to make sure Hopkins saw the symbols I had sent over but that was it. After a month I tried emailing only to find that was a pointless exercise as there was never a response. Nor were there responses to letters.

Above: Hopkins and Cortille screenshot taken from a video by (c)2024 Carol Rainey

To me this all signified that things had taken a very wrong term somewhere and pretty soon I heard about Hopkins holding abductee get togethers and creating the Intruders Foundation and I was also told symbols allegedly seen were discussed and some drew these at group meetings.  I sat up and literally asked out loud "What the hell are you doing?" as Hopkins was breaching every research and investigation safeguard and was contaminating evidence. 

Did Hopkins develop, or have, such a big ego that he thought he could sort out anything that cropped up while getting to what he perceived as the truth? And his claims got wilder and he would shrug off criticism with what I call a "I know it all and you just do not know what I do" chuckle or smile.  Had the money and fame from his abduction books and all the interviews and bowing acolytes warped his sense of reality and he believed everything he was spouting?

There are video clips -you will find them on this blog- of Hopkins tampering and altering alleged alien symbols to make them match. There is a clip in which he openly states that the phone call he just received from Cortille's relative who witnessed an event is Cortille pretending to be that relative.  Even material sent was analysed and proven to be from Cortille under another name. None of this revealed at events or in books -some of the events with Cortille at his side.

There are glimpses in Carol Rainey's videos where Hopkins almost looks at what he claims to be evidence such as symbols, etc., as if he is trying to justify what he is doing and yet he openly explains how he traces over alleged alien symbols and makes them look like they match.  

All of this was known before his death and yet he was still lauded, after over thirty years of deception, as the man who discovered the v"UFO truth" rather than a fraud. There are also the discussions at events where he and his colleague Dr Jacobs discussed abductions and what they had found out and basically came up with ludicrous claims including how "many millions" have been abducted by aliens -pre birth and in previous lives. It all gets very murky and quite honestly when I found out that "peer review" of Hopkins material was him chatting to Jacobs and Jacobs peer review was the same it sealed everything.

There very well could have been genuine CE3K cases that became so distorted and corrupted by Hopkins who has not a professional psychologist and was dabbling in hypnosis.

Was it the world-wide fame and financial rewards of the whole abduction -I will not call it research- mess that corrupted Hopkins?  Or was he really that self deluded in believing what he thought he had discovered that he was willing to "pick-and-mix" to even deceive himself -how else could he stand up in front of rooms full of people and state what he did?  

We will never know but a great many people have been led to believe that things happened to them that did not and Ufology quite literally dropped its collective pants because Hopkins drew TV  attention and brought in paying members or attendees at events. Ufology was thrown into over three decades of promoting one man's self deception or confidence trick and took the money so that really does make it genuine "Ufology" as it began and became corrupted by money making, con men and...